New Report Shines A Light Into The Charter School Black Box

12/10/2015 – New Report Shines A Light Into The Charter School Black Box:

New Report Shines A Light Into The Charter School Black Box

THIS WEEK: Becoming California … High-Poverty Kids Get Substitutes … Education Doesn’t Fix Poverty … Poor Pay For Pre-K Teachers … Unions Improve Teacher Quality

TOP STORY

New Report Shines A Light Into The Charter School Black Box

By Jeff Bryant

“Charter schools are now the most rapidly growing form of schools in the nation’s education system … So little is known about how charter schools are organized and operated that they’re often referred to as a ‘black box’ … A new policy brief from the National Education Policy Center pries at the lid of the charter school black box to shine a light into these institutions and reveal how charter schools blur the line from what it means to be a ‘public school’ and, by their very design, expand opportunities to profiteer from public tax dollars and privatize public assets.”
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NEWS AND VIEWS

No Child Left Behind Replacement Would Give Other States The Freedom California Has Already Claimed

Los Angeles Times

“With No Child Left Behind one step closer to being a thing of the past, the governance of schools in other states is poised to look a lot more like California’s … California is already in the process of changing its school accountability system … a new system that includes factors such as attendance, how quickly students who don’t speak English are learning the language, college readiness, dropout rates and suspensions … California has a strong recent history of bucking federal dictates on education.”
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High-Poverty Schools Often Staffed By Rotating Cast Of Substitutes

The Washington Post

“In the troubled schools that serve some of the nation’s neediest children, it is not uncommon for classrooms to churn with substitutes as teachers leave in large numbers each June, or quit midyear, and principals struggle to fill the positions … The frequent use of substitutes with varying levels of skill and commitment effectively steal learning time from students who can least afford it … Just 27 states require substitutes to be certified teachers … The problem appears to be growing as teacher shortages intensify nationwide, leaving school systems struggling to fill vacancies.”
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Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty

Demos

Matt Bruenig writes, “Since 1991 … we steadily reduced the share of adults in the ‘less than high school’ and ‘high school’ … By 2014 … the share of adults with an Associate degree went up 3.9 points, the share with a Bachelor’s degree went up 8.3 points, and the share with a post-Bachelor’s degree went up 4.8 points… The poverty rate for each educational [level] went up over this time and overall poverty didn’t decline at all. In fact it went up … Handing out more high school and college diplomas doesn’t magically create more good-paying jobs … The big things that cause poverty for adults over the age of 25 in a low-welfare capitalist society … do not go away just because you have a better degree.”
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The Teachers Who Educate Our Youngest Kids Are Struggling To Make Ends Meet

The Huffington Post

“A new report … shows that a majority of voters think early childhood educators deserve more pay … Early childhood educators earn notoriously little money. A 2014 report … found that preschool teachers typically only make six dollars more an hour than fast-food workers … though early childhood educators are often required to have a bachelor’s or associate’s degree … Over 50% of early childhood educators said that finding a job with sufficient salary and benefits was a major obstacle. 84 % of preschool teachers said that low pay is a big challenge facing their profession.”
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Study Finds Unions Improve Teacher Quality, Lead To Lower Dropout Rates

Campaign For America’s Future

“A recent report … uses empirical data analysis to correct the record on the effects of unions … Teachers in districts where collective bargaining is allowed are more likely to remain in teaching than teachers in districts where bargaining is prohibited … Higher salaries that unions demand through collective bargaining encourages school districts to carefully evaluate new teachers’ performances during probationary periods and weed out ineffective teachers, in order to avoid paying the even higher wages once these teachers receive tenure … In districts where teachers are legally able to negotiate salaries and benefits … high school dropout rates decline.”
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12/10/2015 – New Report Shines A Light Into The Charter School Black Box: