CCSSO & NGA: Whom do they Serve?

CCSSO & NGA: Whom do they Serve?
The Council of Chief State School Officers and National Governors Association:
Whom do they serve?

Introduction

The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association (NGA) are member associations headquartered in Washington, DC. They are also co-owners of the Common Core Standards—the controversial educational content standards that most US states have incorporated, in whole or in part, into their K–12 education programs.[1]

Yet, despite what their names might suggest, they are not government entities, even though most of their members are elected or appointed state government officials. Peter Wood explains[2]

The standards were developed by the National Governors Association (NGA) in collaboration with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). These are private, non-governmental bodies—in effect, education trade organizations. The National Governors Association, despite its name, isn't just a group of sitting governors. It includes many ex-governors and current or former gubernatorial staff members. The deliberations of the NGA and the CCSSO are not open to the public and the work that these bodies did to develop the Common Core State Standards remains for the most part unavailable to outsiders. Neither body, being private, is subject to Freedom of Information requests. The standards themselves are copyrighted by the NGA and the CCSSO.

The impact these organizations have on US schools via the Common Core Initiative deserves our attention and scrutiny. Also important to consider, however, is the impact their intimate association with the Common Core Initiative has had on them. Do these organizations any longer serve their members' needs on education issues? Do governors and state superintendents receive unbiased information and a full range of evidence and policy options from the association staff they pay with their member dues?

A Note on Data Sources

This report lifts most of its facts from CCSSO and NGA filings with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)[3] and the CCSSO and NGA websites. Other sources are referenced as appropriate.

Financial accounts appeal as a source of organizational information, in part, because one expects them to be accurate and complete. They are typically filed by professionals who both have legally binding fiduciary responsibilities and are desirous of preserving their reputations (and staying out of jail). Moreover, they are subject to audit by the IRS, an agency with considerable legal authority.

That doesn't mean that IRS filings are always as informative as they could be. One will not find, for example, any record in the CCSSO's filings of the contributions it has received. Since fiscal year 2004, the CCSSO has folded all its contribution (i.e., grant and donation) revenue into the "program service revenue" category, perhaps inappropriately. Program service revenue comprises fees, dues, and direct payments for services.[4]

In 2014, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded CCSSO $6,148,749. Granted, the money was awarded contingent upon the CCSSO using it for certain purposes. But, the Gates Foundation did not receive the services and materials the grant paid for. If it had, it could not have legally classified the expense as a charitable contribution.

CCSSO's own auditor reports, available from its website (with some digging), itemize grants received from the federal government, but not those from anywhere else.[5]

Suffice it to say that, even though the CCSSO may, perhaps, wish to obscure the origins of the grants it receives, those contributions are substantial and now dwarf the revenues received from membership dues and meeting registration fees.

As for the National Governors Association (NGA), financial data for its education activities remain well hidden. The Center for Best Practices—NGA's research and policy analysis division—is just one of several within the NGA. Likewise, the education group is just one of several groups within the Center for Best Practices, and one of the smaller ones at that. Publicly available financial data break down only to the level of the Center as a whole. Contributions from CONTINUE READING: CCSSO & NGA: Whom do they Serve?

Mitchell Robinson: The Top Five Worst Things Betsy DeVos has Done Since She Took Office | Eclectablog

The Top Five Worst Things Betsy DeVos has Done Since She Took Office | Eclectablog

The Top Five Worst Things Betsy DeVos has Done Since She Took Office

It wasn’t easy narrowing this list down to just 5 things, but here we go!

She Set the Predatory Lenders Free. By gutting regulations intended to protect students, many of whom are veterans, minorities, and first-generation college attendees, from being defrauded by predatory schools and colleges, Betsy has put the interests of these for-profit colleges—some of which she has personal financial interests in—ahead of students.

She Abandoned the Kids Who Need Her Most.  Betsy has dismissed civil rights complaints and ripped up guidance that urged public schools to allow transgender students to use restrooms that conform to their gender identity.

She Made Sexual Assault Great Again.  Sec. DeVos has rolled back sexual assault policies on college campuses, established a higher bar for victims reporting complaints, and is now forcing survivors to be cross-examined by their attackers in court—this one is especially egregious in that DeVos is from Michigan, where Larry Nassar sexually assaulted 332 young girls and women at MSU over 25 years.

She’s Still Trying to Get Us to Fund Private Schools With Taxpayer Dollars.  Betsy continuously calls public schools “a dead end”, and then advocates for a national private school voucher program by requesting $20 billion in the federal budget, even though all previous attempts in Michigan were humiliating failures, voted down by nearly 75% of the citizens of our state.

She Tried to Starve Her Own Department of Funding.  DeVos proposed to eliminate the federal Department of Education…and then suggested cutting the Department’s funding by $9 billion — about 13 percent of the Department’s full budget allocation. DeVos’ budget eliminated money for after-school programs for disadvantaged youth and axed a grant program that helps low-income students go to college…in favor of increased spending on school-choice initiatives and private school voucher programs. Her proposal also included cuts to the Office for Civil Rights. In a stunning rejection of her request, the GOP-controlled House returned a budget with an increase of $3.9 billion—a 13% hike in funding!

So, to all those people who say that Sec. DeVos hasn’t accomplished very much…who else could dream up public policy so craven and draconian and just plain cruel, that it actually forces the CONTINUE READING: The Top Five Worst Things Betsy DeVos has Done Since She Took Office | Eclectablog

What K-12 parents in Seattle need to know about proposed changes to Title IX rules on sexual assault, harassment

What K-12 parents in Seattle need to know about proposed changes to Title IX rules on sexual assault, harassment

What K-12 parents in Seattle need to know about proposed changes to Title IX rules on sexual assault, harassment

The U.S. Department of Education led by Secretary Betsy DeVos recently proposed new rules governing the way K-12 schools and colleges handle allegations of sexual harassment and assault.

Civil-rights advocates and survivors of sexual violence have expressed outrage, proclaiming that the new rules will dramatically limit schools’ obligations to students who file complaints of sexual harassment and violence under Title IX, the federal civil-rights statute that requires schools to investigate all reports of sexual harassment to find out if the harassment has made it harder for students to learn or stay in school.

The public has until Jan. 28, 2019, to comment on the proposed regulations before they are finalized into law.

Under the proposed changes, the current definition of sexual harassment — "unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature" — would include only behavior that is "severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive." This means that if a teacher makes sexually suggestive comments and a 12-year-old student feels uncomfortable, that isn’t necessarily harassment that the school is legally bound to investigate.

Under the new rules, only a teacher, Title IX coordinator or other high-level official can trigger an investigation. If a K-12 student told an adult school employee they trust — such as a sports coach, playground supervisor, or guidance counselor — that they had been sexually assaulted by another student, the school wouldn’t be obligated to intervene.

Schools would be required to ignore harassment that occurs outside of a school activity, including most off-campus and online harassment even if the student is forced to see the perpetrator at school every day.

If the new regulations are given the force of the law, advocates point out that representatives of the accused — often lawyers — will be allowed to cross-examine complainants at live hearings, a prospect that could discourage students from reporting incidents of sexual harassment and violence.

"DeVos's proposed rule will return us to a time when sexual assault survivors were ignored and felt they had CONTINUE READING: What K-12 parents in Seattle need to know about proposed changes to Title IX rules on sexual assault, harassment

Rhode Island School District to Use Collection Agency to Collect School Lunch Debt | deutsch29

Rhode Island School District to Use Collection Agency to Collect School Lunch Debt | deutsch29

Rhode Island School District to Use Collection Agency to Collect School Lunch Debt

I teach in southern Louisiana, and our school’s lunch policy does not include fronting meals to students who do not qualify for free lunch. (Over the years, I have on numerous occasions either loaned or given students lunch money or directly provided them with food. However, in all cases, this was my personal decision.)

So, the idea of a policy that allows for students (parents?) to accrue lunch debt is not part of my K12 experience either as a southern Louisiana teacher or former student.

If districts have a policy of fronting meals, those districts should also have in place a means of paying for those meals if students and parents/guardians do not pay. Otherwise, the resulting debt could put a district in fiscal crisis– one that might result in, well, employing a collection agency.

Such is the situation for the Cranston School District (Rhode Island).

The Cranston School District advertises this “unpaid meal policy”, which includes the following information for parents/guardians:

Student wanting a lunch and not having money to purchase a lunch will be allowed to charge a lunch with repayment within two (2) school days.

Once a student has charged five (5) meals (middle\high school $16.25 & elementary $12.50) and no payment has been received, that student will receive a lunch consisting of a sunny butter sandwich, fruit, and milk in place of a hot lunch. This meal maintains the USDA standards surrounding reimbursable meals and will be charged at full price to the student’s account.

Okay. Let’s see: No money; meal provided anyway with payment expected in two days– but that two-day payment isn’t really required because we’ll repeat fronting the meals four more times, and if still no payment, we’ll front a less CONTINUE READING: Rhode Island School District to Use Collection Agency to Collect School Lunch Debt | deutsch29

Whatever Happened to Team Teaching? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Whatever Happened to Team Teaching? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Whatever Happened to Team Teaching?

In teaching high school history and graduate university courses for many years, I have team taught with other history and English teachers and university colleagues many times. For example, Roberta Rabinoff Kaplan and I taugh together English and social studies at Cardozo High School in the mid-1960s. And in Stanford University’s teacher education program, I team taught a social studies curriculum and instruction course for a decade with Lee Swenson, then an Aragon High School history teacher. Historian David Tyack and I teamed up to teach “History of School Reform” between 1987 and 1998. Tinkering toward Utopia came out of our collaboration.

I enjoyed very much the planning together and actual teaching that I and my team-mates did. Sure there were conflicts over choice of content, who would do what and when during the lesson, and similar decisions. More often than not, we negotiated in order to collaborate and conflicts eased. In every instance of team teaching at Cardozo High School in Washington, D.C. and at Stanford University, arrangements were made informally rather than part of an organizational initiative to spread the collaboration.

Yet at one time team teaching was a “best practice” promoted by national associations, districts, and individual schools. It is hard to recapture just with words the national excitement over the innovation of team teaching introduced in the late-1950s after the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite. Team teaching then was seen as the solution to the organizational problem of stodgy, individualistic teaching in the age-graded school’s self-contained classrooms when collaboration was rare. It was considered a “best practice” of the day. Yet as a buzzword, team teaching in K-12 classrooms flew like a shooting star across CONTINUE READING: Whatever Happened to Team Teaching? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: The Tree's Up Edition (12/9)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: The Tree's Up Edition (12/9)

ICYMI: The Tree's Up Edition (12/9)

The tree is up, but we're waiting to see how the board of directors does with it before we add ornaments. Tis the season. In the meantime, here's some reading from the week. Remember to share.

Cashing in Immigrant Children

The warehousing of immigrant children has been a gold mine for one business. And guess what-- charter schooling is part of the business plan.

Dora Fisher: Down The Dark Money Hole

About one of the big dark money backers of charter schools whose name you might not know-- but you should.

What Really Should Be Happening in Kindergarten

Do I seem repetitive on this subject. I'll continue to be so until we stop screwing it up.

Lawmaker Shows How To Become a Charter Millionaire in Five Steps

Short, sweet and clear-- how an Arizona cashes in on the charter laws he helps write.

You Don't Have To Like It, But The Students Talk About Us

The Jose Wilson on a major aspect of the teacher-student relationship.

Does High Impact Teaching Cause High Impact Fatigue

Spoiler alert: yes. Read more about what that looks like.

No School Needed For Politician Overseeing Florida Schools

You probably didn't miss this, but in case you did (which is kind of the point of these Sunday roundups), here's the story of the homeschooled college dropout who will head up the Florida house education committee. Oh, Florida.

Six Questions We Should Be Asking About Personalized Learning 

Ed Week is right on the money this time, with some questions we should be asking about ed reforms Next Big Thing

Don't Teach Kids Coding

Slate piece from a computer programmer who says he will not teach his kids to code, and you shouldn't either.

100 Christmas Songs Ranked

Not about education, but this ranking by Alexandra Petri is hilarious and well worth your time. Tis the season.

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: The Tree's Up Edition (12/9)

TODAY

ICYMI: The Tree's Up Edition (12/9)

2by Peter Greene / 1h

The tree is up, but we're waiting to see how the board of directors does with it before we add ornaments. Tis the season. In the meantime, here's some reading from the week. Remember to share. Cashing in Immigrant Children The warehousing of immigrant children has been a gold mine for one business. And guess what-- charter schooling is part of the business plan. Dora Fisher: Down The Dark Money Ho

YESTERDAY

KY: Setting More Bad Goals for 2019

46by Peter Greene / 20h

Oh, Kentucky. A state slowly being beaten down by the usual gang of mediocre businessmen masquerading as public servants. Big data , charter entrepreneurs , voucher fans , pension vultures , testocrats -- they've all taken a shot at grabbing tax dollars from Kentucky taxpayers with a great deal of patience and varying degrees of success, even if Kentucky's teachers did raise a fuss (prompting Gove

Inducing ADHD

100+by Peter Greene / 21h

"Maybe you should consider testing him. You know. For ADD." That was my son's kindergarten teacher. His mother and I were in for yet another conference because he was "a problem." The nature of the problem? Well, because of my schedule, he arrived 15-20 minutes before school officially started. His teacher's expectation was that he would sit at his desk, still and quiet, while she finished getting

DEC 07

MI: Baldfaced Power Grab

34by Peter Greene / 2d

Lansing is witnessing one of the most extraordinary power grabs ever attempted, and one of the targets of these lame duck Republicans is the state board of education. Several actions are being attempted by the legislature, and they include an attempt to complete supplant the constitutionally established and democratically elected state board of education . The move to overturn the democratic proce

DEC 06

The Disordered Order of Competencies

41by Peter Greene / 2d

Competency Based Education (or Proficiency Based Learning, or Outcome Based Education, or Mastery Learning, or whatever new name appears next week) is the up-and-coming flavor of the week in education, even though it is neither new nor well-defined by the people who promote it (or the people who are implementing it in name only). But the basic principle is simple and, really, fairly common sensic

Guest Post: Why Tests Are Boring

17by Peter Greene / 3d

It's Guest Post day here, and my guest is William Bryant . Bryant is currently an edupreneur with a company focused on helping students get ready for college, but he spent a decade working in test development for the folks at ACT. He has some interesting insights to offer about why tests end up the way they do; important to understand not just because of the tests themselves, but because of the t

DEC 05

Real Stupid Artificial Intelligence (Personalized Learning's Missing Link)

44by Peter Greene / 3d

Good lord in heaven. Intel would like a piece of the hot new world of Personalized [sic] Learning, and they think they have an awesome AI to help. And they have concocted a deliberately misleading video to promote it. In the video, we see a live human teacher in a classroom full of live humans, all of whom are being monitored by some machine algorithms "that detect student emotions and behaviors"

Education, Bad Leadership, and Harvard

100+by Peter Greene / 4d

We have a problem with bad management, pretending to be leadership, in this country. And it has infected education. Even in a small area like mine, the symptoms have been plain to see. A major local oil business was put under the leadership of a man who had previously run a soap company and a toy company. He was not good for the company. In my town, the mining machinery company that employed both

FL: What Competition Gets You

12by Peter Greene / 4d

Florida is supposed to be the Great Exemplar of ed reform. Charters, vouchers, ESAs-- every brand of reform under the sun runs free and unfettered under the bright Florida sun. There may be no state that has more effectively set loose the Invisible Hand or market forces and competition. And what does that get you? Well, it gets you unqualified scam artists like Eagle Arts Academy charter school ho

DEC 04

Children's Insurance Headed the Wrong Way

4by Peter Greene / 4d

From the file of Things That Are Going To Affect Education Indirectly, we get this : Roughly 276,000 more children were uninsured in 2017 than the year before, bringing the total to more than 3.9 million, according to a report released Thursday by Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families. We are far short of the disastrous high in numbers of uninsured children back in 2008, but the

College Board: Help Us Market Our Product

35by Peter Greene / 5d

Right down to its name, which sounds like some sort of non-profit official education oversight panel, the College Board has a history of marketing its product while trying not to look like a company whose life depends on its ability to sell a products. In recent years, the market has tightened up, what with the ACT competing effectively and some schools dropping the SAT as an entrance requirement

DEC 03

Florida Contemplates Putting Fox In Charge of Hen House

12by Peter Greene / 5d

As a legislator in Florida (Motto: Why sell swampland when you can just rob schools), Richard Corcoran was determined to make sure that public tax dollars were directed to enriching private school operators at public school expense. Sorry about your future, kid Corcoran pushed the Schools of Hope program , a program that allows charters to prey directly on public schools. And after asking charter

DEC 02

ICYMI: Here's December Edition (12/2)

4by Peter Greene / 7d

Oh, that month again. Here's some reading from the week. Remember to pass along what speaks to you. Common Core Creator Slammed Reading Teachers for Having a Research Gap-- How Ironic Nancy Bailey sounds the irony alert on a critique of