How Restorative Practices Can Improve School Climate - The Atlantic

How Restorative Practices Can Improve School Climate - The Atlantic

How to Turn Schools Into Happier Places
A strong student-teacher relationship can help put a dent in school suspensions, according to a new study.

When the Trump administration’s released its school-safety report last month, it landed with a thud—and only partly because it’s a clunky 180 pages. Many of the recommendations in the report, authored by the Federal Commission for School Safety, are aimed at fostering a better school climate—how a schools feels to the students who attend it—whether that’s through improved access to counseling and mental-health services or a greater emphasis on social-emotional learning. But other recommendations were met with derision, such as a proposal to rescind an Obama-era rule urging schools to be mindful of whether they might be punishing minority students at a higher rate than white students.

Study after study has shown that black students are unevenly suspended or expelled from schools nationwide. The 2014 school-discipline guideline was the Obama administration's attempt to remedy that. The Trump commission, however, argued that deciding how students should be disciplined should not be the federal government's job, but the teachers’. Both administrations, at least, agreed that discipline was also a matter of school climate—something educational leaders have been trying desperately to improve.

A new study by the RAND Corporation, a non-partisan think tank, shows just how crucial improving the climate at school can be to helping decrease suspensions. In 2013, Pittsburgh’s public schools were trying to figure out how to remedy racial disparities in discipline. At the time, they had mandatory diversity training for staff that sought to address implicit bias and discrimination in the classroom, but they wanted to do more. Restorative practices, non-punitive ways of responding to conflicts, had been gaining momentum among school leaders as a way to help curb suspensions.

So, the district got a grant to try out restorative practices in their schools, randomly selecting 22 of them to receive the restorative treatment, while 22 others went about business as usual. The basic goal of restorative practices is to build relationships between teachers and students, so that students will be less likely to act out. Teachers start off the school year by asking students innocuous questions such as what the students did that summer. As the year goes on, the questions grow more personal and introspective, and students build trust with the adults and classmates around them. Of course, formal times for such CONTINUE READING: How Restorative Practices Can Improve School Climate - The Atlantic

NOLA IS THE NATIONAL CHARTER SCHOOL CHURN LEADER: Algiers Charter school employees must reapply for their jobs next year | The Lens

Algiers Charter school employees must reapply for their jobs next year | The Lens

Algiers Charter school employees must reapply for their jobs next year

Employees at two West Bank charter schools must reapply for their jobs at the end of the school year.

The new policy at Algiers Charter comes as the charter-school network is preparing to shrink — from four schools under its control to two by the end of this school year. Orleans Parish schools’ Superintendent Henderson Lewis Jr. did not renew the charter contractsof F-rated McDonogh 32 Charter School and William J. Fischer Academy. They will close at the end of this school year.

At its height, Algiers Charter ran nine schools and was one of the first to reopen schools after Hurricane Katrina. Now, employees at its remaining two schools — Landry-Walker High School and Martin Behrman Charter School — are unsure whether they’ll keep their jobs next year.

Algiers Charter’s two remaining schools those schools have slid academically over the past few years. In 2014, both were rated B’s by the state Department of Education. This year, Landry-Walker slid to an F and Behrman is a C.

Tammi Griffin-Major, the network’s chief of staff,  said the policy requiring employees to reapply is new this year.

“Algiers Charter is committed to academic excellence, therefore Landry-Walker and Martin Behrman employees are required to reapply for their positions for the 2019-2020 school year,” Griffin-Major said. “As we work to reinforce our commitment to academic excellence, this is the first year we have asked employees to reapply.”

Last fall, Lewis hinted that action could be taken at four schools when he halted enrollment. That included McDonogh 32 and Fischer, which moved into one campus due to declining enrollment.

Most New Orleans charter schools employ teachers on year-to-year contracts. But many send out renewal offers to current teachers CONTINUE READING: Algiers Charter school employees must reapply for their jobs next year | The Lens

CURMUDGUCATION: Not Quite Seven Reasons To Ditch Teachers Unions

CURMUDGUCATION: Not Quite Seven Reasons To Ditch Teachers Unions

Not Quite Seven Reasons To Ditch Teachers Unions

The Foundation for Economic Education may be the oldest libertarian thinky tank in the US, and they are a missionary group, set "to make the ideas of liberty familiar, credible, and compelling to the rising generation." So it comes as no surprise to find them running an article entitled "7 Reasons To Say Goodbye to the Teachers Union."

Author Daniel Buck is a bit of a mystery on line, but he lays claim to a masters in education and a teaching job in someplace that's urban/diverse; probably 9th grade English, judging from all the Romeo and Juliet tweets. And writes/edits for a site called "The Lone Conservative." From reading his tweets, I learned that he would pay to keep the union rep out of the lounge and once shook Scott Walker's hand and thanked Walker "for all he's doing to improve education in Wisconsin." He dresses up for school, appears to take a serious and conscientious approach to the work, and he's in his second year of actual teaching. If I worked next door to him, I think we'd get along and I'd probably like him. But this thing he wrote...

Preliminary disclaimers

I should say right up front that I am not knee jerk booster of the union. I've been a local president, and I've been on the phone telling my state president what he's messing up. A scan of this blog will find more than a few criticisms of the teachers unions. I know some reasons that the teachers union CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Not Quite Seven Reasons To Ditch Teachers Unions

DeVos Department of Ed Cancels Obama-Era Guidance Aimed at Reducing Racial Disparities in School Discipline | janresseger

DeVos Department of Ed Cancels Obama-Era Guidance Aimed at Reducing Racial Disparities in School Discipline | janresseger

DeVos Department of Ed Cancels Obama-Era Guidance Aimed at Reducing Racial Disparities in School Discipline

Here is some news you may have missed. On Friday, December 21, as everybody took off for the holidays, the Education and Justice Departments rescinded Obama-era school discipline guidance designed to address vast racial disparities in school discipline practices.  Particularly important was the purpose of the guidance: reducing overuse of suspension and expulsion, encouraging schools to handle discipline policies in ways that keep students in school, and developing restorative discipline programs to create a safe school climate. Officials in the Trump administration, including Betsy DeVos and her Federal Commission on School Safety, continue to endorse punitive discipline.

The Washington Post‘s Laura Meckler describes the Obama-era guidance and the recent decision to cancel it: “The guidance, which was not binding, put school systems on notice that they could be violating federal civil rights law if students of color were disciplined at higher rates than white students.  It laid out scenarios and explained how they would be viewed by federal authorities.  And it offered suggestions for alternatives to discipline that could foster positive school climates.

Why did DeVos’s Federal Commission on School Safety recommend rescinding the guidance? Meckler explains: “In its report, the school safety commission criticized the guidance as an example of federal overreach and said it had created unsafe school environments by allowing bad behavior to go unpunished.  The report also attacked the legal principle of ‘disparate impact’ that the guidance relied upon—that discrimination can be proved by examining the effects of policies, not just the intention.”

Meckler continues, quoting Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), who is the new chair of the education CONTINUE READING: DeVos Department of Ed Cancels Obama-Era Guidance Aimed at Reducing Racial Disparities in School Discipline | janresseger

Badass Teachers Association: An Open Letter about the Federal School Safety Commission Report

Badass Teachers Association: An Open Letter about the Federal School Safety Commission Report

An Open Letter about the Federal School Safety Commission Report

We, the undersigned individuals, share many concerns about the recommendations put forth in the Final Report of the Federal Commission of School Safety. We urge you to take a deeper look into these issues and create recommendations that will be proactive instead of reactive while still upholding previous legislative guidance that pushes schools to examine how students in different racial groups are punished as a result of disciplinary procedures. Disparities found in school districts still need to lead to a federal review to make a determination whether a district had violated a civil rights law.

The largest concern with these recommendations is the call to rollback the “Rethink School Discipline” guidance. With a workforce that has a higher proportion of white educators, this guidance was put into place to make sure school systems become aware of and are thinking about internal implicit biases that affects decision making when considering school discipline.

The creation of this guidance has lead to the dismantling of school discipline rules that fed into a system of institutionalized racism by negatively impacting a larger portion of youth of color. Without such guidance, schools will no longer be held accountable for maintaining an awareness of how implicit biases affect our youth. The recommendation calling for an upholding of investigations around cases of intentional discrimination to not go nearly far enough in addressing issues within our school systems and society.

Training School Personnel to Help Ensure Student Safety recommendations are another example of the reactive nature of this report and are nothing more than a nod of approval for increased guns in schools and the arming of teachers. This goes against the intent of working to provide a safe school environment. Guns are not a failsafe measure to the possibility of gun violence and we should not be subjecting students to a climate that carries a message of never-ending potential violence. This includes the increasing exposure to active shooter shooter drills that are damaging the mental health stability of students and increasing anxiety.

We maintain that the creation of a safe atmosphere for our students starts with the knowledge of brain development and an understanding of the needs of children that need to be met before education will have a positive impact. While this report circles around the creation of a safe learning environment, it does nothing to proactively make changes that will place educators in the forefront of this endeavor. Instead, as an additional measure, it calls for the placement of retired military personnel and law enforcement officers, suggesting that understanding child development and education is not a crucial component of creating safe school environments.

The framing of this report as well as the related solutions proposed because of what seems to be a “law and order” mindset operates under the premise that view students as potential criminals. Calls for an increase monitoring of social media and personal interactions put us dangerously close to a police-state existence that can potentially border on an infringement of privacy. Add to that a normalization of a reporting system for suspicious behaviors and we move a step closer to an Orwellian society.

When addressing youth mental health issues, caution needs to be exercised so that the the educational systems do not become an outlet for pharmaceutical companies to oversee youth care and push psychotropic medications on youth that are not absolutely necessary. Without a comprehensive understanding of the developing executive functioning processes and decision-making capabilities within youth, the immediate response to turn toward psychotropic medications to supplement or even replace effective positive mental health care can be concerning.

The Final Report of the School Safety Commission outlines several recommendations for policy writers and decision makers to consider. But the report itself is merely an overview of suggested recommendations - not concrete changes that are being dictated down to our states and our districts. As educators, we know what our students need, what our schools need, and what our communities need. We must stand strong to reject recommendations that instead of providing safety for our students, cause irreparable harm and move us backwards away from closing racial disparities. We urge you to uphold policies and procedures that have been established and proven to be effective in doing so. 

Please join us in signing this statement! 

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/an-open-letter-about-the-federal-school-safety-commission-report

Badass Teachers Association: An Open Letter about the Federal School Safety Commission Report

Donors Reform Schooling: Evaluating Teachers (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Donors Reform Schooling: Evaluating Teachers (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Donors Reform Schooling: Evaluating Teachers (Part 1)

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching  aimed at identifying effective teachers whose practices raised students’ test scores, giving minority and poor students access to such teachers, and creating new ways of evaluating teachers than currently exist. I offer this example to illustrate how policy elites (top public education officials, civic and business leaders including donors) influence every step of the policy process: framing the problems to be solved, proposing top-down solutions, relying (or not relying) on research, and making requisite policy changes that ripple through the entire decentralized system of U.S. schooling.

Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching

Between 2009 and 2016, three school districts (Hillsborough County, Florida; Memphis City Schools, Tennessee; Pittsburgh Public Schools, Pennsylvania) and four California-based charter networks (Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, Aspire, Green Dot, and Partnerships to Uplift Communities) spent over a half-billion dollars of which Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation contributed $213 million in creating IPET policies that would identify, recruit, train, and evaluate effective teachers while giving low-income minority children and youth access to those effective teachers. Giving children heretofore excluded from having the best teachers would offer equal opportunity to children and youth, one goal of the project. [i]

Teachers would learn how to do peer evaluations, collaborate with other teachers, receive professional development and dollar bonuses if their students scored well on tests. Finally, the project would determine whether student test Donors Reform Schooling: Evaluating Teachers (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

If You’re Wondering About Haas Hall Academy (Arkansas), Read This Post. | deutsch29

If You’re Wondering About Haas Hall Academy (Arkansas), Read This Post. | deutsch29

If You’re Wondering About Haas Hall Academy (Arkansas), Read This Post.

The following post is written by Elizabeth Lyon-Ballay, who identifies herself as a “former professional violinist and public charter school teacher” and “current stay-at-home mom and agitator for change.”

Elizabeth Lyon-Ballay

Lyon-Ballay has been exercising her right to view public records via Arkansas’ Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Her desire to understand education in Arkansas stems from her “brief, tragic stint as a teacher in an open-enrollment charter school.” In this January 02, 2019, post, she offers extensive information gleaned from public records requests related to Haas Hall Academy, a Fayetteville, Arkansas, charter school with a student body notably lacking in special education students and English language learners, and including a mere 1% of black students.

Some excerpts from Layon-Ballay’s section about what she has “learned so far” from her Haas Hall Academy FOIA requests:

• Haas Hall does not require all of their employees (who work daily with public schoolchildren) to have employment contracts or undergo background checks — even though the Arkansas Department of Education clearly requires it even for charter school staff.
• Haas Hall doesn’t keep minutes from school board meetings that show a record of who is on the school board, which board members were present at each meeting, who was absent from each meeting, and what the vote on each agenda item was. That’s required by state law, too, since school board meetings are supposed to be the public’s opportunity to participate in school governance.
• Haas Hall isn’t a sustainable public school. It’s a subsidized Potemkin village. Haas Hall has a huge slush fund in the form of a private foundation, so it doesn’t have to budget money to pay for “occupancy” expenses (its own buildings,) most of its advertising campaigns, or to reimburse its faculty/staff for their travel and lodging when they CONTINUE READING: 
If You’re Wondering About Haas Hall Academy (Arkansas), Read This Post. | deutsch29

“Choice” Has Become An Excuse For Charter And Voucher Schools To Discriminate

“Choice” Has Become An Excuse For Charter And Voucher Schools To Discriminate

“Choice” Has Become An Excuse For Charter And Voucher Schools To Discriminate

When prominent advocates for “school choice,” such as U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, talk about how a market-based approach for education works, the very stories they might cite as successes actually reveal serious shortcomings of charter schools and vouchers, especially about how they can have detrimental effects on parents, children, and communities. Take, for example, the case of Krystl Newton.

When the private Christian school Newton’s daughter attended closed, she was able to find a charter school near their home in Wake County, North Carolina, that provided a school culture similar to the private academy, with strict discipline, high academic standards, and none of the “gang stuff” (her words) she heard plagued the public schools.

Her daughter thrived in the new charter, so when Newton’s younger son reached kindergarten age, she was pleased the charter would enroll him under their family-members-first policy.

But after his kindergarten year, when he was ready to move to first grade, there was a problem.

Early in the boy’s development, Newton had observed symptoms of what she came to believe was a developmental disability resembling Tourette’s Syndrome. Although an official diagnosis of the disorder couldn’t be made until the child turned eight, Newton had already consulted specialists and gone to the trouble of developing an Individualized Education Program (IEP), a document that is developed for each public school child who CONTINUE READING: “Choice” Has Become An Excuse For Charter And Voucher Schools To Discriminate

Join the Teachers of the Year in Speaking Out Against the Detention of Children - Network For Public Education : Network For Public Education

Join the Teachers of the Year in Speaking Out Against the Detention of Children - Network For Public Education : Network For Public Education

Join the Teachers of the Year in Speaking Out Against the Detention of Children

Last year, the administration began enforcing a “zero tolerance” immigration policy. This policy resulted in about 3,000 children being separated from their parents or guardians and being detained in federal detention facilities. Currently 2,800 minors remain at the center and the number continues to grow.
Next month, educators led by many of our states’ Teacher of the Year will lead a “teach-in” outside the massive detention camp in Tornillo, Texas. The teach in, with lessons delivered by educators, will tell the nation what is happening with the children and who they are.
The coalition sponsoring the teach-in is Teachers Against Child Detention. The Network for Public Education strongly supports their efforts and asks you to go here and sign up to do a simple action in support!
https://www.teachersagainstchilddetention.org
Happy New Year and thanks for all that you do!

Join the Teachers of the Year in Speaking Out Against the Detention of Children - Network For Public Education : Network For Public Education