Sign Petition to Endorse 2019 Black Lives Matter At School National Week of Action! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Sign Petition to Endorse 2019 Black Lives Matter At School National Week of Action! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Sign Petition to Endorse 2019 Black Lives Matter At School National Week of Action!

The national Black Lives Matter At School movement has launched a petition to seek support for its upcoming 2019 week of action from February 4-8. This is a movement that began during the 2016-2017 school year in Seattle and that same year spread to Philadelphia and Rochester, NY. Last school year was the first nationally coordinated Black Lives Matter At School week of action with thousands of educators, students, parents, and community members participating in over 20 cities around the U.S. Organizers are hoping to build on the success of last year’s action and are asking people to pledge their support for the movement in the weeks ahead of the national action. As they write in the petition:

Hate crimes have spiked severely across the United States. The school-to-prison-nexus is fueling mass incarceration. Black students are being suspended at dramatically disproportionate rates. Today, some 1.7 million students attend a school that has no school counselor but does have a police officer. Black teachers are being pushed out of classrooms around the country. Too often, classroom curriculum is whitewashed to exclude many of the struggles and contributions of Black people and other people of color. … Join this growing movement of educators working to dismantle anti-Blackness in our school.

Sign the petition, share it on social media, get the BLM At School t-shirt, download the lesson plans, and pledge your support for the Black Lives Matter At School movement!

Sign Petition to Endorse 2019 Black Lives Matter At School National Week of Action! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Teaching for Black Lives | Paperback for Sale - https://www.rethinkingschools.org/books/title/teaching-for-black-lives on @RethinkSchools

More Democrat governors, more skepticism of charter schools

More Democrat governors, more skepticism of charter schools

More Democrat governors, more skepticism of charter schools

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was not on the ballot in the Michigan governor’s race, but her legacy loomed over the campaign in her home state, which has the country’s highest concentration of for-profit charter schools.

Republican Bill Schuette, a DeVos ally and the state’s attorney general, ultimately lost to Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat and former state lawmaker who pledged on the campaign trail to “put an end to the DeVos agenda.” She has promised to stop new for-profit schools from opening and to demand more accountability from charter schools.

Michigan was one of several key states that elected new governors who are more skeptical of charter schools than their election opponents, and will replace leaders who openly supported the sector that enrolls roughly 3 million students across the U.S. in schools that are publicly funded but privately run.

The states that saw such reversals — including California, Illinois and Michigan — are home to some of the strongest charter school enrollment numbers, and the outcomes suggest the political landscape could be growing more difficult for future expansion, particularly under Democratic leadership. The winners pledged support for traditional public schools while campaigning in the shadow of a teacher protest movement that forced a national conversation about the state of public education.

As Democrats flipped seven governor seats to bolster their numbers to 23 across the country, the CONTINUE READING: More Democrat governors, more skepticism of charter schools

A crowd will face off for Ref Rodriguez's former L.A. school board seat - Los Angeles Times

A crowd will face off for Ref Rodriguez's former L.A. school board seat - Los Angeles Times

A crowd will face off for Ref Rodriguez's former L.A. school board seat

The person who wins the open Los Angeles school board seat in a March special election will serve less than two years and enter the fray during a period of budget strain and labor unrest.

The campaign might overlap with a teachers strike.

Even so, at least nine candidates have stepped up, gathering the signatures needed to qualify for the ballot. They are vying to represent the oddly shaped District 5 of Los Angeles Unified, which covers some neighborhoods north of downtown L.A. as well as the cities of southeast Los Angeles County. The seat opened up in July, when Ref Rodriguez resigned after pleading guilty to one felony and three misdemeanors for campaign-fundraising violations.

The seven-member Board of Education is closely split on key issues, including how to interact with privately operated charter schools, which compete with L.A. Unified for students.

In recent years, L.A. school board races have been marked by record spending. Charter school supporters have spent the most, followed by the teachers union.

It remains to be seen which of the candidates will win major financial support.

The leadership of United Teachers Los Angeles seems to be coalescing behind Jackie Goldberg, a longtime teacher who previously served on the school board and also was a member of the L.A. City Council and the state Assembly.

The union’s political action committee has voted overwhelmingly to back Goldberg, although there was support for Graciela Ortiz, a counselor at Marquez High School in Huntington Park. Ortiz is active in the union and is on the Huntington Park City Council. That city is part of District 5.

“It’s hard to argue against Jackie,” said Gregg Solkovits, a former union vice president who’s on the political action committee. “She’s always been there for UTLA. And she’s one of the most fabulous teachers I’ve ever seen.

The union’s ultimate endorsement decision will be made by its House of Representatives.

The charter camp so far is keeping its strategy under wraps, though one potential favorite is CONTINUE READING: A crowd will face off for Ref Rodriguez's former L.A. school board seat - Los Angeles Times

John Thompson: Oklahoma Republicans Long to Copy Florida’s Mediocrity | Diane Ravitch's blog

John Thompson: Oklahoma Republicans Long to Copy Florida’s Mediocrity | Diane Ravitch's blog

John Thompson: Oklahoma Republicans Long to Copy Florida’s Mediocrity

Betsy DeVos says that Florida is a national model.

She loves Florida because she invested millions of dollars imposing vouchers and charters, despite the provision of the State Constitution that requires a uniform system of common schools.

Actually, Florida’s performance on NAEP is mediocre. Its fourth grade scores are swell because low-scoring third-graders are not allowed to enter fourth grade. A really neat trick! Pay attention to eighth grade scores: In eighth grade math, students in Florida are well below the national average. In eighth grade reading, Florida is right at the national average. Nothing impressive about Florida, other than gaming the fourth grade scores by holding back third-graders with low scores. By eighth grade, the game is over, and the results are not impressive.

Thompson says that Oklahoma lawmakers are in love with a libertarian study claiming that spending less produces the best education! Is that why the elites spend $50,000 a year or more on tuition to get lower class sizes and experienced teachers? The only time that money doesn’t matter is if you have a lot of it.

Despite Florida being average on NAEP, Oklahoma legislators hope to be just like Florida!

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher, brings us up to date:

Oklahoma edu-politics remains in the spotlight after the 2018 election and it illustrates plenty of national issues. Despite many electoral gains, educators must worry about the state’s inexperienced governor, Kevin Continue reading: John Thompson: Oklahoma Republicans Long to Copy Florida’s Mediocrity | Diane Ravitch's blog

Here’s Why Urban Communities Of Color Are Increasingly Rejecting Charter Schools

Here’s Why Urban Communities Of Color Are Increasingly Rejecting Charter Schools

Here’s Why Urban Communities Of Color Are Increasingly Rejecting Charter Schools

At a recent school board meeting in New Orleans, more than 100 parents swamped the hearing room, requiring dozens to have to stand. Many of the parents had filled out public comment cards so they would be allowed to address the board.

What most in the crowd came prepared to talk about were their concerns about recent recommendations by the superintendent to close five schools and transfer the students to other schools in the district. Their demand was for the elected board to take a more hands-on role in improving the schools instead of closing them down.

But when Ashana Bigard, a New Orleans public school parent and advocate, realized the board had altered the agenda, and limited parents’ comment time, she decided to speak out of turn.

“How is closing the schools helping our children?” she asked the board members. She pointed out that many of the children in the schools being closed are special needs students with serious, trauma-induced learning disabilities, and now these children are being uprooted and transferred to schools that lack expertise with these problems. “These children have been experimented on for too long,” she declared.

That’s when a district staff member intervened and escorted her out of the room.

A Demand for Real Democracy

Parents’ protesting a school closing is nothing new. But for parents to demand that their local board take more control of the school, and run it directly rather than closing it down, is a twist. That’s because this is New Continue reading: Here’s Why Urban Communities Of Color Are Increasingly Rejecting Charter Schools

Chicago Teachers at 15-School Acero Charter Chain Strike: First Walkout at a Unionized Charter School Network | janresseger

Chicago Teachers at 15-School Acero Charter Chain Strike: First Walkout at a Unionized Charter School Network | janresseger

Chicago Teachers at 15-School Acero Charter Chain Strike: First Walkout at a Unionized Charter School Network

In the first walkout at a U.S. charter school network, 500 teachers at Chicago’s Acero (formerly UNO) charter school chain went on strike Tuesday.

Acero Charter Schools’ teachers are represented by the Chicago Teachers Union.  While teachers in a number of Chicago charter schools had formed their own ChiACTS union, at the end of last January, ChiACTS merged with the 28,000 member Chicago Teachers Union, an American Federation of Teachers local.

The NY Times‘ Dana Goldstein reports that Acero charter schools serve 7,000 students. “Educators at Acero earn up to $13,000 less than their counterparts at traditional public schools in Chicago…. The chief executive of Acero, Richard I. Rodriguez, earns about $260,000 annually to manage 15 schools, a similar salary to that of Janice K. Jackson, the chief executive of the Chicago Public School system, which includes over 500 schools.”

In a press release, the Chicago Teachers’ Union describes critical issues on which the school’s management team and the CTU bargaining team remain far apart: “class size, sanctuary school community language in the contract, fair compensation for paraprofessionals, and lower class sizes, which are currently set at 32 students per class—four more than what Chicago Public Schools seeks to meet at district-run schools.  CTU members have called those class sizes both outrageous and unsafe for students, particularly children in kindergarten Continue reading: Chicago Teachers at 15-School Acero Charter Chain Strike: First Walkout at a Unionized Charter School Network | janresseger

High Tech Innovations and School Reform Joined at the Hip | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

High Tech Innovations and School Reform Joined at the Hip | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

High Tech Innovations and School Reform Joined at the Hip

When asked how I got interested in the uses of technology in schools and classrooms, I answer that I was the target for a quarter-century of high-tech innovations and classroom reforms  when I taught high school history and as a district administrator in two urban school systems.

I then say that I have been trained as an historian and studied many efforts of reformers to improve schooling over the past century in U.S. classrooms, schools, and districts. I examined how teachers have taught since the 1890s. I investigated policymakers’ constant changes in curriculum since the 1880s. I analyzed the origins of the age-graded school and the spread of this innovation through the 19th century. And I parsed the Utopian dreams of reformers who believed that new machine technologies (e.g., film, radio, instructional television, desktop computer) would alter how teachers teach and students learn. I then conclude my answer by pointing out that these electronic devices are in the DNA of all classroom-driven reforms aimed at altering how teachers teach and how students learn.

What surprises me is that these questioners had not viewed high-tech innovations as having either a history in schools or as blood relations to constant efforts to improve schools. Instead, they saw (and see) innovative high-tech devices as singular, even exceptional, ways of transforming teaching and Continue reading: High Tech Innovations and School Reform Joined at the Hip | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Nation’s First Charter School Teachers Strike Heads for Day Three | deutsch29

Nation’s First Charter School Teachers Strike Heads for Day Three | deutsch29

Nation’s First Charter School Teachers Strike Heads for Day Three

Charter school teachers are not supposed to strike.

They are supposed to be at-will employees, able to be fired at the will of their employer, without due process.

Such is the dream of market-based ed reform: Power concentrated at the top, with the average worker discouraged (prevented?) from any collective negotiations.

However, those on the losing end of market ed reform’s doormatism become tired, and, well, if they are teachers– charter school teachers– they might just decide that bowing to the demands of the top dogs presents a final straw and unionize— which is what the teachers at UNO charter schools in Chicago) (now Acero by name, with the name change following such remarkable events as UNO’s defrauding bondholders in 2014).

And as of December 04, 2018, the teachers of Chicago’s Acero charter school chain (15 schools) have been on strike, for the following:

CTU (Chicago Teachers Union) said the network’s 500 teachers are demanding smaller classes, more special education staff, salary increases Continue reading: 

Nation’s First Charter School Teachers Strike Heads for Day Three | deutsch29