Latest News and Comment from Education

Thursday, April 21, 2016

BATS: Cultural Competence in the Classroom and Beyond #NPE16NC

BATS: Cultural Competence in the Classroom and Beyond on Vimeo:

BATS: Cultural Competence in the Classroom and Beyond



 BATS: Cultural Competence in the Classroom and Beyond on Vimeo:





Schoolhouse Live’s Videos on Vimeo http://bit.ly/23QZi8f
 Vincent Precht http://bit.ly/1GwPEPv




 LIVE STREAM FOOTAGE FROM THE NETWORK FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION 
NATIONAL CONFERENCE MORE ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE TO COME!

Big Education Ape: Educators at Raleigh NPE conference condemn HB2 | News & Observer #NPE16NChttp://bit.ly/1Snl9lP
Live From Raleigh, North Carolina: NPE’s 3rd Annual National Conference Complete interactive schedule http://bit.ly/20LAehc
Big Education Ape: Video: Saturday at NPE’s 3rd Annual National Conference #NPE16NC http://bit.ly/1SnHj7f
Big Education Ape: Karran Harper Royal and Jesse Hagopian at the NPE National Conference on Vimeo http://bit.ly/1YDW2JM
Big Education Ape: Anthony Cody Interviews Mary Cathryn Ricker, AFT VP and Becky Pringle, NEA VP #NPE16NC http://bit.ly/23QZRPn
Big Education Ape: Opt-Out Conscientious Objectors #NPE16NC http://bit.ly/1MGcTuK

What’s Next in the Education Reform Wars? A Spirited Conversation between Jennifer Berkshire (EduShyster) and Peter Cunningham #NPE16NC

What’s Next in the Education Reform Wars? A Spirited Conversation between Jennifer Berkshire (EduShyster) and Peter Cunningham, on Vimeo:

What’s Next in the Education Reform Wars? A Spirited Conversation between Jennifer Berkshire (EduShyster) and Peter Cunningham,



What’s Next in the Education Reform Wars? A Spirited Conversation between Jennifer Berkshire (EduShyster) and Peter Cunningham, on Vimeo:



Schoolhouse Live’s Videos on Vimeo http://bit.ly/23QZi8f
 Vincent Precht http://bit.ly/1GwPEPv





 LIVE STREAM FOOTAGE FROM THE NETWORK FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION 
NATIONAL CONFERENCE MORE ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE TO COME!

Big Education Ape: Educators at Raleigh NPE conference condemn HB2 | News & Observer #NPE16NChttp://bit.ly/1Snl9lP
Live From Raleigh, North Carolina: NPE’s 3rd Annual National Conference Complete interactive schedule http://bit.ly/20LAehc
Big Education Ape: Video: Saturday at NPE’s 3rd Annual National Conference #NPE16NC http://bit.ly/1SnHj7f
Big Education Ape: Karran Harper Royal and Jesse Hagopian at the NPE National Conference on Vimeo http://bit.ly/1YDW2JM
Big Education Ape: Anthony Cody Interviews Mary Cathryn Ricker, AFT VP and Becky Pringle, NEA VP #NPE16NC http://bit.ly/23QZRPn
Big Education Ape: Opt-Out Conscientious Objectors #NPE16NC http://bit.ly/1MGcTuK

Teachers Talk Back: Teacher Evaluation Report #NPE16NC

Teachers Talk Back: Teacher Evaluation Report on Vimeo:

Teachers Talk Back: Teacher Evaluation Report

Teachers Talk Back: Teacher Evaluation Report on Vimeo:



Schoolhouse Live’s Videos on Vimeo http://bit.ly/23QZi8f
 Vincent Precht http://bit.ly/1GwPEPv



 LIVE STREAM FOOTAGE FROM THE NETWORK FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION 
NATIONAL CONFERENCE MORE ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE TO COME!



Big Education Ape: Educators at Raleigh NPE conference condemn HB2 | News & Observer #NPE16NChttp://bit.ly/1Snl9lP
Live From Raleigh, North Carolina: NPE’s 3rd Annual National Conference Complete interactive schedule http://bit.ly/20LAehc
Big Education Ape: Video: Saturday at NPE’s 3rd Annual National Conference #NPE16NC http://bit.ly/1SnHj7f
Big Education Ape: Karran Harper Royal and Jesse Hagopian at the NPE National Conference on Vimeo http://bit.ly/1YDW2JM
Big Education Ape: Anthony Cody Interviews Mary Cathryn Ricker, AFT VP and Becky Pringle, NEA VP #NPE16NC http://bit.ly/23QZRPn
Big Education Ape: Opt-Out Conscientious Objectors #NPE16NC http://bit.ly/1MGcTuK

Outspoken CPS principal known as Emanuel critic ousted from Lakeview school - Chicago Tribune

Outspoken CPS principal known as Emanuel critic ousted from Lakeview school - Chicago Tribune:
Outspoken CPS principal known as Emanuel critic ousted from Lakeview school

 An outspoken Chicago Public Schools principal was ousted from his Lakeview school on Wednesday, as school officials investigated unspecified "alleged acts of misconduct."
Troy LaRaviere, principal of Blaine Elementary School, has established a reputation as a frequent public critic of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the school system. LaRaviere has also opposed the controversial Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers exam — known as PARCC.
Those actions led the Chicago Board of Education to discipline LaRaviere last summer, when the board approved a "warning resolution" that censured LaRaviere and laid ground for his dismissal if he didn't change his conduct.
"CPS has removed Troy LaRaviere because of alleged acts of misconduct, including violations of a previous Warning Resolution passed by the Board of Education," district spokeswoman Emily Bittner said in a statement. "A hearing will be held to determine his employment status."
The school board's action was partly linked to LaRaviere's opposition to the standardized test, and a confrontation the principal had with former interim CPS CEO and school board Vice President Jesse Ruiz. It also came months after LaRaviere served as an education adviser and supporter of Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, who launched an unsuccessful bid to unseat Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
The district said LaRaviere has been removed from the school, and that he will receive a "pre-suspension hearing" to determine if there is basis to suspend him without pay pending a hearing with the Illinois State Board of Education.
In messages to the Tribune, LaRaviere said CPS notified him of his job status in a letter on Wednesday but that "no reason was provided" for his removal.
"I got the letter right after they attempted to shut down a meeting I was scheduled to have with principals at a (South Side) elementary school," LaRaviere told the Tribune. "They said it was 'an illegal meeting' because they thought it was regarding the privatization of engineers through an Emanuel campaign contributor."
LaRaviere referred to a recent CPS plan to respond to complaints about unclean buildings by doubling the size of a maintenance program run by a firm partly controlled by formerNBA superstar Earvin "Magic" Johnson, a financial supporter of Emanuel. The district plans to expand the maintenance program across the city, which would affect hundreds of building engineers covered by a CPS labor contract that expires in June. Read More: Outspoken CPS principal known as Emanuel critic ousted from Lakeview school - Chicago Tribune:

Students have no ‘right’ to quality education, state court rules - SFGate

Students have no ‘right’ to quality education, state court rules - SFGate:
Students have no ‘right’ to quality education, state court rules


A divided state appeals court ruled Wednesday that California’s anemic level of school funding does not violate students’ constitutional right to an education of “some quality” because no such right exists.
The 2-1 decision by the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco upheld a judge’s dismissal of a suit filed by some of the state’s major participants in public education — school boards and administrators, the California Teachers Association and State PTA, and nine school districts, including San Francisco and Alameda. The plaintiffs argued that a state that trails nearly every other state in per-pupil spending, staffing and student achievement violates California’s 1879 constitutional guarantee of a school system that encourages “the promotion of intellectual ... improvement.”
Similar suits have been filed in other states, and a majority have been successful, with courts in at least six states finding that their school finance systems violated students’ rights. Last year, the Washington state Supreme Court held its Legislature in contempt for failing to increase funding and imposed a fine of $100,000 a day, which is still in effect.
But the San Francisco court said the right to a public education, guaranteed by the California Constitution, does not include a right to any particular level of educational quality or funding.
An education of “some quality,” the standard asserted by the plaintiffs in the suit, is “good public policy,” Justice Martin Jenkins said in the majority opinion. But he said the state Constitution’s provisions “leave the difficult and policy-laden questions associated with educational adequacy and funding to the legislative branch,” not the courts.
The state Supreme Court first declared education to be a fundamental right in a 1971 ruling that struck down a statewide school financing system based on unequal local property taxes. But Jenkins, quoting that ruling, said the high court had found no constitutional requirement for the Legislature to fund schools “at some magic level to produce either an adequate-quality educational program or a high-quality educational program.”
In dissent, Justice Stuart Pollak said the constitutional mandate of a public school system “implies the need to maintain public schools at some minimum level of competence” — just like a criminal defendant’s constitutional right to a lawyer includes a right of effective legal representation. He said the courts could simply find that the current system falls short of the constitutional standard and leave the solution to lawmakers, with judicial oversight.
Pollak cited the plaintiffs’ evidence that California, in recent years, ranked 47th in the nation in per-pupil spending, 47th or lower in school staffing, and near the bottom in reading and math tests and high school graduation rates. The state, with more than 6 million public school students, plunged from the top to the bottom of national ranking after passage of the Proposition 13 property tax cut in 1978 and subsequent reductions in state spending.
The plaintiffs will ask the state Supreme Court to review the case, said attorney John Affeldt of the nonprofit Public Advocates. He said the court has already determined that the right to an education should enable students to graduate with the knowledge and skills needed to participate in the economy and democracy, and should take up the case “to enforce the right to a quality education.”
The ruling comes six days after an appellate court in Los Angeles upheld state laws on teacher tenure and seniority, overturning a judge’s ruling that found the laws saddled poor and minority students with incompetent teachers and violated the right to educational equality. The plaintiffs plan to appeal that ruling to the state Supreme Court.
Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko
View the decision at http://bit.ly/schoolsruling.

Want Your Kids to Get a Good Education? Support Their Teachers’ Workplace Rights | The Nation

Want Your Kids to Get a Good Education? Support Their Teachers’ Workplace Rights | The Nation:
Want Your Kids to Get a Good Education? Support Their Teachers’ Workplace Rights
A new lawsuit pits teachers’ rights against students’ access to quality education. That argument doesn’t hold water.


 Sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education enshrined the promise of educational equality as a constitutional right, the question of “separate but equal” in public schools has resurfaced, in a lawsuit that attempts to pit teachers’ labor rights against children’s rights to fair educational access.

When education reformers go after teachers’ labor protections, their seemingly morally unassailable line of attack is, “But what about the children?” It’s an alluring idea—don’t all children deserve a good education?—wrapped around apernicious attack on labor rights: less union protection, ergo more “meritocracy” allowed to flourish in the education workforce. Labor advocates, however, challenge the reformers’ seemingly pro-student rationale with a more expansive definition of civil rights in schools: making a school community equitable and inclusive is a democratic project, not a mere matter of supply and demand.
A California Appeals Court recently struck down the central argumentadvanced by reform advocates backing the suit, called Vergara v. California: that California’s tenure policies—which afford a high level of job protection for teachers with seniority status—are unfair and discriminatory, because theyprotect “grossly ineffective” teachers and promote the clustering of “bad” teachers in poorer schools, with disproportionate impacts on poor students and students of color.“The challenged statutes do not inevitably lead to the assignment of more inexperienced teachers to schools serving poor and minority children,” the Court ruled. While “ineffective teachers” (according to the controversial statistical modeling Students Matter applies) were a problem, the judges acknowledged, this was not solely, or even primarily, the product of tenure policies.
The California Teachers Association argues that tenure protects due process, designed not to protect “bad” teachers, but to ensure “stability” and integrity in hiring and firing decisions. Their defense challenges a neoliberal reformist mentality that champions charter schools and other private-sector “solutions” to problems ascribed to publicly controlled institutions. This framework is driving a nationwide legal attack on collective bargaining rights, giving rise to Vergara-esque litigation attacking tenure policies in Minnesota and New York, featuring mediagenic young plaintiffs backed by well-heeled reform outfitsWant Your Kids to Get a Good Education? Support Their Teachers’ Workplace Rights | The Nation: