Big Education Ape: 10/1/2015 – A Misdirected War On Mayor De Blasio

10/1/2015 – A Misdirected War On Mayor De Blasio:

Education ‘Reformers’ Wage A Misdirected War On Mayor De Blasio

By Jeff Bryant

“If you listen to advocates for ‘education reform,’ New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and his education plans are to be regarded with high suspicion, at best, or flat out rejected … Regardless of what critics of de Blasio and his education plan say, this is not an argument ‘about the kids.’ It’s about money.
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NEWS AND VIEWS

Why Is Spending On The Elderly Protected, But Spending On Children Always On The Chopping Block?

Think Progress

“The United States government will soon spend more on servicing the national debt than it does on its children … Kids will see an even smaller share of total spending in the coming years … This paltry allocation comes amid ample evidence that American kids need more help, not less … Stagnant and declining federal investment in young people is hard to understand in the context of the data about American children’s economic outlook. The trend stems in part from a structural bias in our public policymaking toward spending on adults at the expense of programs that invest in the future … Programs for the elderly, by contrast, have baked-in structural protections from political turbulence.”
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Experts Predict The Opt-Out Movement Will Get Some Of What It Wants

The Hechinger Report

“A survey conducted this month … revealed that education policy and political ‘insiders’ think that the opt-out movement will likely sway many state legislatures, but will struggle to change things in Washington… Only 47% of those surveyed … expect to see any change to federal law … 70% say they think the thousands of students refusing to take exams will force states to rethink what tests they give and how they use the results … 3% think more students will opt out next year and 62% think the opt-out movement represents a significant challenge to current systems … Many states have already set out to cut the number of tests students have to take and the number of hours students spend taking the tests.”
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Boosting Educational Attainment And Adult Earnings

Education Next

A new research study finds “compelling evidence that money does matter, and that additional school resources can meaningfully improve long-run outcomes for students … Increased spending induced by school finance reforms positively affects educational attainment and economic outcomes for low-income children … For low-income children, a 10% increase in per-pupil spending each year for all 12 years of public school is associated with roughly 0.5 additional years of completed education, 9.6% higher wages, and a 6.1-percentage-point reduction in the annual incidence of adult poverty … To put these results in perspective, the education gap between children from low-income and non-poor families is one full year. Thus, the estimated effect of a 22% increase in per-pupil spending throughout all 12 school-age years for low-income children is large enough to eliminate the education gap between children from low-income and non-poor families … these results highlight how improved access to school resources can profoundly shape the life outcomes of economically disadvantaged children and thereby reduce the intergenerational transmission of poverty.”
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Black Males Struggle In Segregated Schools

The Washington Post

“Black students who attend schools that have a majority of black students score lower on achievement tests than black students who go to school with fewer other black students. The findings held true after researchers accounted for family income, level of parent education and other factors … The overall black-white achievement gap on the NAEP 2013 math test for eighth-graders was 31 points – equivalent to three years of schooling. That gap has not changed from 2007 to 2013 … The achievement gap between average white males and black males attending a ‘high density’ black school was 25 points, compared to a gap of 17 points for black males who attended schools where blacks made up 20% or less than the student body.”
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When Schooling Meets Policing

The Atlantic

“In settings where schooling and policing intersect, the disciplining of students – often for behavior as innocuous as school-age pranks or as commonplace as temper tantrums, and in some cases including children who are so young they still have all their baby teeth – can extend beyond the purview of principals and school staff to law-enforcement … over three in four high schools and the vast majority of large schools … have armed security staff … But there is great variation based on race and class: Schools where at least half of the children are nonwhite, as well as high-poverty schools … are home to the highest percentages in the country … Police in educational institutions exaggerates how school misbehavior, much of it involving minor infractions, is interpreted … These tendencies result in arguably unnecessary arrests that increase the likelihood that a child will end up in the juvenile-justice system – and later, as a byproduct of these experiences, adult prisons.”
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