DeVos Ally, New Leader of For-Profit K12 Inc. Promises to Clean Up Its Shoddy Record | Diane Ravitch's blog

DeVos Ally, New Leader of For-Profit K12 Inc. Promises to Clean Up Its Shoddy Record | Diane Ravitch's blog

DeVos Ally, New Leader of For-Profit K12 Inc. Promises to Clean Up Its Shoddy Record

Over the years, it has become obvious that virtual charter schools are a sham. ECOT in Ohio was a spectacular failure, which made millions for its for-profit owner (“the ECOT man”) but cost taxpayers over a billion dollars that should have gone to public schools. The founder of the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School is now in jail, convicted of stealing millions of dollars, but convicted only of tax evasion, not embezzlement. June Brown, who operated K12 Inc. schools in Pennsylvania, avoided conviction because of her advanced age (she kept the money).

K12 Inc. is perhaps the biggest of the shams because it has the most students. It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It makes handsome profits, but its students drop out at a high rate and get low test scores on state tests. The NCAA stripped 24 of the virtual K12 Inc. schools of accreditation a few years back after it discovered that students were often taking the K12 Inc. tests without bothering to first sit for instruction. NCAA officials saw tests that included “true-false” questions, and observed that students could take the test again if they failed. Any number of K12 Inc. virtual schools have been engaged in fraudulent practices that led to fines or even jail sentences for their operators.

K12 Inc. has been repeatedly criticized for the poor performance of its students. They start behind and they don’t catch up. See here. See here. See here. See here.

K12 Inc. originated with Ron Packard, who was paid $5 million a year to Continue reading: DeVos Ally, New Leader of For-Profit K12 Inc. Promises to Clean Up Its Shoddy Record | Diane Ravitch's blog

Maker Movements Should NOT Endanger School Libraries, Librarians, and Reading

Maker Movements Should NOT Endanger School Libraries, Librarians, and Reading

Maker Movements Should NOT Endanger School Libraries, Librarians, and Reading

To call yourself a librarian, you need to have that training and to be certified. If you replace a certified librarian with someone who’s just an expert in technology, you’re losing half of the role that school libraries are supposed to be serving.

You still need someone who is a champion of reading.

~Leslie Preddy, president of the American Association of School Librarians discussing Makerspaces. Kansas City Star. June 26, 2016,

School libraries are where students have access to books. Librarians assist students with reading, research, and a variety of language and reading activities. Children learning to read can find a book on any topic in the library.

We know that schools with excellent libraries have students that do better than those with insufficient or no libraries. From Phi Delta Kappan:

Data from more than 34 statewide studies suggest that students tend to earn better standardized test scores in schools that have strong library programs. Further, when administrators, teachers, and librarians themselves rated the importance and frequency of various library practices associated with student learning, their ratings Continue reading: Maker Movements Should NOT Endanger School Libraries, Librarians, and Reading

How Can School Choice Destroy the Public Schools in Your Community? | janresseger

How Can School Choice Destroy the Public Schools in Your Community? | janresseger

How Can School Choice Destroy the Public Schools in Your Community?

In his column last week for the Education Opportunity Network, Jeff Bryant examines a scary question: Can school choice create the conditions that entirely shut down a community’s public school system?  Bryant reports on Michigan where school choice laws permitting inter-district open enrollment and unregulated expansion of charter schools conspire with the state’s school finance system to undermine the stability of the state’s public school districts.

“In Michigan, the intense competition for students is taking bigger bites out of student enrollments in some of the state’s largest districts.  In Flint, where there are 14,325 public-school students living in the district, 39 percent attend charters and 32 percent are enrolled in another district—meaning the district loses 71 percent of its students.  In Pontiac, with 10,985 public-school students living in the district, 36 percent attend charters and 29 percent travel to other districts, leaving local schools with only 35 percent of the community’s students.  In Detroit, the state’s largest school district with nearly 104,000 students, 58 percent of them leave the district schools to attend charters (48 percent) or cross district borders (10 percent) to attend schools elsewhere.  How low can student enrollments go before a school district becomes financially unsustainable?”

Bryant explains the thinking of school choice promoters: “The thinking behind a market-based approach to education is that when the funding follows the student, school districts vying across district lines to get their enrollments high for ‘count day,’ feel more intense pressure to provide services with greater financial efficiency.  Adding charter schools, which in Michigan are allowed to start up wherever they want, without regard to the financial impact on district schools, brings into the mix an unregulated agent that can introduce even more financial efficiency into the system, the theory goes.” (Emphasis is mine.)  Then Bryant interviews Continue reading: How Can School Choice Destroy the Public Schools in Your Community? | janresseger

American Academy of Pediatrics Suggests “Prescriptions for Play” for Children Ages Two Years and Younger | deutsch29

American Academy of Pediatrics Suggests “Prescriptions for Play” for Children Ages Two Years and Younger | deutsch29

American Academy of Pediatrics Suggests “Prescriptions for Play” for Children Ages Two Years and Younger

In August 2018, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published a paper that includes a “prescription for play” for children ages 2 years and younger.

For those who are unsure what “play” might be, AAP offers the following general definition:

The definition of play is elusive. However, there is a growing consensus that it is an activity that is intrinsically motivated, entails active engagement, and results in joyful discovery. Play is voluntary and often has no extrinsic goals; it is fun and often spontaneous. Children are often seen actively engaged in and passionately engrossed in play; this builds executive functioning skills and contributes to school readiness (bored children will not learn well). Play often creates an imaginative private reality, contains elements of make believe, and is nonliteral.

The paper, entitled, “The Power of Play: A Pediatric Role in Enhancing Development in Young Children,” actually includes the suggestion for pediatricians to defend play by formally prescribing it as part of the child’s wellness visit:

Just as pediatricians support Reach Out and Read, encourage playful learning for parents and infants by writing a “prescription for play” at every well-child visit in the first 2 years of life.

Below is a summary of the takeaways from the paper, which is not restricted to children two years and younger, including confronting “more digital distractions,” and “facilitating the child’s intrinsic motivation through play rather than extrinsic motivations, such as test scores”:

Conclusions

• Cultural shifts, including less parent engagement because of parents working full-time, fewer safe places to play, and more digital Continue reading:American Academy of Pediatrics Suggests “Prescriptions for Play” for Children Ages Two Years and Younger | deutsch29