What Will It Take to Get Equitable School Funding in Pennsylvania – a Statewide Teachers Strike!? | gadflyonthewallblog

What Will It Take to Get Equitable School Funding in Pennsylvania – a Statewide Teachers Strike!? | gadflyonthewallblog

What Will It Take to Get Equitable School Funding in Pennsylvania – a Statewide Teachers Strike!?

What if every public school teacher in Pennsylvania refused to come to work on Monday?

What if instead they took to the streets with signs and placards, bullhorns and chanted slogans.

Maybe:

“Hey! HEY! Ho! HO! This Unfair Funding Has to Go!”
Or:

“What do we want!? FAIR FUNDING! When do we want it? YESTERDAY!”

The problem is that from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia and all places in between, the Keystone state has the most unequal school funding system in the country. And no one in Harrisburg seems able and/or willing to do a damn thing about it.

Nor is anyone going to do much again this year.

Gov. Tom Wolf didn’t mention it once last week during the Democrat’s first budget speech to the legislature after being re-elected.

Don’t get me wrong. He’s not exactly ignoring the issue. His newly proposed budget asks for a $200 million increase in education funding.

But that’s far from what’s needed to heal the billions of dollars schools lost during the massive budget cuts of Tom Corbett, the former Republican governor, nor does it  CONTINUE READING: What Will It Take to Get Equitable School Funding in Pennsylvania – a Statewide Teachers Strike!? | gadflyonthewallblog

Boston: Charter Schools Are Pushing Public Education to the Breaking Point | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Boston: Charter Schools Are Pushing Public Education to the Breaking Point | Schott Foundation for Public Education
Boston: Charter Schools Are Pushing Public Education to the Breaking Point

When striking Los Angeles teachers won their demand to call for a halt to charter school expansions in California, they set off a domino effect, and now teachers in other large urban districts are making the same demand.

Unchecked charter school growth is also bleeding into 2020 election campaigns. Recently, New York magazine columnist Jonathan Chait berated Democratic Massachusetts Senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren for having opposed a ballot initiative in her home state in 2016 that would have raised a cap on the number of charter schools. “There may be no state in America that can more clearly showcase the clear success of charter schools than [Massachusetts],” declared Chait.

But while Chait and other charter school fans claim Massachusetts as a charter school model, the deeper reality is that charters are driving Boston’s public education system to the financial brink.

As the Boston Globe recently reported, the city is experiencing an economic boom, but its schools resemble “an economically depressed industrial center.” The state’s unfair funding formula is part of the problem, but an ever-expanding charter school industry also imposes a huge financial drain.

Charter school money suck

“Two decades ago, state educational aid covered almost a third of Boston’s school expenses,” writes Globe reporter James Vaznis. Today, “city officials anticipate that in just a few years every penny from the state will instead go toward charter-school costs of Boston students. Boston is slated to receive $220 million in state education aid; about $167 million will cover charter-school tuition for 10,000 students, leaving a little more than $50 million for the 55,000 students in the city school system.”

As charter schools suck students and their per-pupil funding from the public system, the impact on Boston’s schools are glaring: “Decades-old buildings plagued by leaks. Drinking fountains shut because of lead pipe contamination. Persistent shortages of guidance counselors, nurses, psychologists, textbooks — even soap in the bathrooms. All the while, many Boston schools are under state pressure to increase their standardized test scores and graduation rates.”

As funds for Boston schools dwindle due to the drain from charter schools, the district’s alternatives are painful any way you CONTINUE READING: Boston: Charter Schools Are Pushing Public Education to the Breaking Point | Schott Foundation for Public Education

New York City Public Schools Should Be Evaluated Based on Diversity, Not Just Tests, Panel Says - The New York Times

New York City Public Schools Should Be Evaluated Based on Diversity, Not Just Tests, Panel Says - The New York Times

New York City Public Schools Should Be Evaluated Based on Diversity, Not Just Tests, Panel Says

A high-level panel commissioned by Mayor Bill de Blasio called on the city to adopt a sweeping measure to address entrenched segregation in education: create diversity targets for all 1,800 schools so that their population reflects the racial and economic makeup of the surrounding areas.

Over the next five years, the panel recommended, elementary and middle schools should reflect the racial makeup of their local school district, and high schools should look as much like their local borough as possible, in terms of race, income level, disability and proficiency in English.

New York’s schools have become increasingly divided along racial lines over the last two decades, and the city is currently home to one of the most segregated urban public school systems in America.

Mr. de. Blasio, now in his second term, ran on a promise to reduce inequality in all aspects of city life. But, when it comes to school segregation, he has been stymied by the same quandary that previous mayors faced: How to redistribute resources so that black and Hispanic students have more access to high-quality schools without alienating middle class, white families. CONTINUE READING: New York City Public Schools Should Be Evaluated Based on Diversity, Not Just Tests, Panel Says - The New York Times

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: The Death of Cyber Charters (Maybe, Finally)

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: The Death of Cyber Charters (Maybe, Finally)

PA: The Death of Cyber Charters (Maybe, Finally)

In the entire education ocean, cyber charters continue to be a festering garbage patch, and a recently proposed bill could clean them out of Pennsylvania.

It is not that cyber charters could not be useful for a select group of students with special needs. But in the whole panoply of failed reform ideas, none have failed harder and more thoroughly than cyber charters. In fact, they have failed so hard that among their opponents you will find many supporters of bricks and mortar charters. CREDO, the clearing house for choice friendly research, found them hugely ineffective. Their problems are legion. Even The 74, a generally pro-choice site, recently took a hard swing at cybers. In at least five states, cybers are being shut down.

But in Pennsylvania, it's still cyber-Christmas. Pennsylvania has one of the largest cyber-sectors in the country, and provides no oversight or accountability? How little? No PA cybers have yet "passed" a single year of school accountability scores. One of the biggest fraudsters had to be caught by the feds. And perhaps most astonishing, we learned last month that ten of the fifteen Pennsylvania cyber charters are operating without a current charter agreement! In one case the charter expired in 2012.

PA cybers are huge money makers; they are reimbursed at the full per-pupil formula, but spend far less. So a cyber collects generally from $10,000 to $25,000 for each student, and spends a fraction of that on each student, pocketing the rest.

Several lawmakers in Harrisburg would like to put a stop to that.

Senate Bill 34's prime sponsor is Judith Schwank of Berks County, a former dean at Delaware Valley CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: PA: The Death of Cyber Charters (Maybe, Finally)

Inequity Enablers: Politicians Who Support Charter Schools

Inequity Enablers: Politicians Who Support Charter Schools

Inequity Enablers: Politicians Who Support Charter Schools

Politicians who support charter schools are inequity enablers. 

The proliferation of charter schools is indicative of a toxic environment due to our nation’s planned neglect of public schools and the intentional failure to mediate inequity.  Politicians who have advocated for and abetted the rise of charter schools are complicit in a ploy in which an experiment with competition among a few students for entry into privately governed schools is substituted for a systemic effort to improve the education of all students.

I am a science educator, so of course, I have an affinity for science experiments that try to make sense of how the natural world works.  What we learn may help us solve human problems. My disposition toward social science experiments is far more wary.  These often begin with contentious, values-driven, “I wonder if…?” questions. But too often, the policies that align with hypotheses get implemented with a much wider audience before the results of the smaller experiment are analyzed and sometimes even when the findings are negative.  That is the case with the current national experiment with charter schools.

To paraphrase, in 1988 Albert Shankar, former American Federation of Teachers president, famously asked, “I wonder if we remove bureaucratic and administrative restrictions, whether it could unleash often squelched teacher-led innovation and creativity?” Shankar wanted to empower teachers’ voices. Needless to say, anti-union folks and those who did not want to give up administrative prerogatives were not thrilled. The result of that short-lived experiment was creativity in some places. In others, different people made familiar decisions: Old wine in new bottles, just with CONTINUE READING: Inequity Enablers: Politicians Who Support Charter Schools

Bill Aims to Fix Hollow 'College Promise' Aid Program | Capital & Main @BillRaden #Unite4OaklandKids #WeAreOEA #WeAreCTA #strikeready #REDFORED #SCTA #CTA

Bill Aims to Fix Hollow 'College Promise' Aid Program | Capital & Main

Bill Aims to Fix Hollow ‘College Promise’ Aid Program
Also this week: Governor Gavin Newsom chooses a new state education board president, Oakland teachers move closer to a strike and the money continues to flow in an L.A. school board race.

Learning Curves” is a weekly roundup of news items, profiles and dish about the intersection of education and inequality. Send tips, feedback and announcements of upcoming events to  braden@capitalandmain.com, @BillRaden.

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Governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday filled the state’s most powerful unelected education post, appointing Stanford University professor emeritus Linda Darling-Hammond as president of California’s State Board of Education. In his State of the State address, Newsom said that the nationally renowned K-12 education researcher would work alongside new schools superintendent Tony Thurmond to confront problems plaguing California’s public schools.

Darling-Hammond, who currently chairs the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing and is president of the Learning Policy Institute, a Palo Alto education think tank, is the first African-American woman to head the 11-member board. The acclaimed expert in teacher preparation and educational equity has more recently come under fire for a report on school choice she co-authored that embraced portfolio districts but ignored the negative impact that charter schools have on the viability of neighborhood public schools.

Oakland high school students staged a one-day sickout Friday in support of Oakland Unified teachers, who have been working without a contract for two years. Four days earlier, the Oakland Education Association overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike. Defying a prerecorded call and email sent on Thursday by the district that urged parents to keep their kids in class, hundreds of students from across Oakland took to the streets, marching down Broadway from Oakland Tech High School to a rally in front of Oakland Unified’s downtown CONTINUE READING: Bill Aims to Fix Hollow 'College Promise' Aid Program | Capital & Main

Why Two Moms Support Jackie Goldberg for School Board - LA Progressive #ILoveJackieBecause #TeamJackie #WeLovePublicEducation @Jackie4LAUSD #UTLAStrong #WeAreLA #REDFORED

Why Two Moms Support Jackie Goldberg for School Board  - LA Progressive

Why Two Moms Support Jackie Goldberg for School Board 

jackiegoldberg.org

As parents, we are committed to keeping our neighborhood schools thriving. For us, that means doing everything we can to make Dorris Place and Elysian Heights Elementary, local public schools here in the diverse communities along the L.A. River, into the very best environments we can for sustained learning for all of our kids.

We were very impressed that Jackie Goldberg literally walked the walk with us, braving the downpour and holding a sign stating “Our Students Deserve Fully Funded Schools.”

Now, in the March 5 special election for our District 5 seat on the L.A. School Board, we have a chance to elect someone who will support our neighborhood schools as much as we do: Jackie Goldberg.

We give many volunteer hours, help raise needed funds for student projects and classroom materials, and recently stood in the rain with our teachers and fed them at our homes while they were on strike to support the fight for public education. We were very impressed that Jackie Goldberg literally walked the walk with us, braving the downpour and holding a sign stating “Our Students Deserve Fully Funded Schools.”

Public schools in our communities in Board District 5 suffered greatly under former board member Ref Rodriguez, who operated under a cloud of suspicion amid evidence of fraud and money laundering from his 2015 campaign for the board. For more than three years in office, this undercut not only his credibility, but also his function on the board, as he often ducked out of meetings and skipped community gatherings CONTINUE READING: Why Two Moms Support Jackie Goldberg for School Board  - LA Progressive

jackiegoldberg.org

jackiegoldberg.org

jackiegoldberg.org

Teachers’ Strikes Are Rattling Washington. This Hearing in the U.S. House Is Proof.

Teachers’ Strikes Are Rattling Washington. This Hearing in the U.S. House Is Proof.

Teachers’ Strikes Are Rattling Washington. This Hearing in the U.S. House Is Proof.

As Denver public school teachers head back to school, ending their first labor stoppage in 25 years, it’s hard to dismiss the impact the nation-wide teacher strikes have had on American politics. As Democratic presidential candidates rush to voice support for the Colorado educators, Denver’s strike marks the ninth major teacher uprising in the last twelve months, with the anniversary of the very first—West Virginia’s—coming up next week.

Survey after survey has shown the striking teachers have gotten their message across: The majority of Americans agree teacher pay is a real problem. The annual PDK poll reported in September that two-thirds of people say teacher salaries are too low — a new high in its data since the poll started in 1969. Another national poll released in April found 78 percent of adults think schools don’t pay teachers enough, and 52 percent supported those going on strike over wages.

As further evidence of how the teacher protests have shaped the national conversation, the House education committee convened this week for its first hearing on K-12 schools in the new Congress, and the topic of teacher pay was front and center. Republicans and Democrats both agreed that teacher salaries were simply too low.

The House Education and Labor Committee hearing, chaired by Democratic Representative Bobby Scott of Virginia, lasted three and a half hours, and was entitled, “Underpaid Teachers and Crumbling Schools: How Underfunding Public Education Shortchanges America’s Students.” Topics explored throughout the convening included more than just teacher compensation and school infrastructure. Legislators and witnesses also discussed adequate funding for students with CONTINUE READING: Teachers’ Strikes Are Rattling Washington. This Hearing in the U.S. House Is Proof.

Teacher Bonuses Make So Much Sense. Why Don’t They Work? - Bloomberg

Teacher Bonuses Make So Much Sense. Why Don’t They Work? - Bloomberg

Bonuses Seem Sensible, But They Haven’t Improved Teaching
The latest evidence against incentive pay: Denver teachers on strike.

Fourteen years ago, Denver public schools embarked on what was hailed as “the most ambitious teacher compensation plan ever attempted.” It was thoughtfully planned, following a years-long pilot program. It won approval from teachers, businesses, local philanthropies and voters.

Yet, somewhat prophetically, a 2005 study of the pilot program on which the Denver incentive-compensation model was based declared that it “demonstrates why, even with thoughtful pilot leadership and broad support, a strict pay for performance system — where performance is defined as student achievement — is an inappropriate model for education.”

Now Denver teachers are on strike, and the merit-based compensation system is the key reason. It has evolved since that original pilot and now rewards far more than student performance; a chief target of striking teachers, for example, is the bonuses given to staff in high-needs schools.

Indeed, the union charges that the compensation system is overly complicated and unpredictable. At the same time, base pay in Denver, which averaged about $57,000 this year, has failed to keep up with inflation and is “among the lowest in the country when adjusted for cost of living,” according to Paul Teske, the dean of public affairs at the University of Colorado Denver.

As states scramble to placate teachers who have staged a wave of walkoutsand strikes during the past year, and to fend off an exodus of teachers from the classroom, they are confronting the need to raise wages, which in most states remain stuck below 2008 levels. For many states, incentive compensation has the appeal of promising pay for performance without substantial increases in spending.

In Texas, for example, where cities were trying to lure striking teachers from neighboring states with offers of a $52,000 starting salary, Texas Governor Greg Abbott called the need to raise teacher pay an “emergency”last week. But Abbott is also promoting a merit pay plan modeled on one in CONTINUE READING: Teacher Bonuses Make So Much Sense. Why Don’t They Work? - Bloomberg

Bruce Baker and Mark Weber: The Big Lies About Charter Schools in Newark | Diane Ravitch's blog @dianeravitch

Bruce Baker and Mark Weber: The Big Lies About Charter Schools in Newark | Diane Ravitch's blog

Bruce Baker and Mark Weber: The Big Lies About Charter Schools in Newark

Now that Cory Booker is running for the Democratic nomination for president, expect to hear a Big Lies about the transformation of the Newark’s hoops when Booker was Mayor.

This study by Bruce Baker and Mark Weber of Rutgers University is a useful antidote.

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all - https://wp.me/2odLa via @dianeravitch

Are Charter Schools Losing their Cachet? Is the Narrative Shifting? | janresseger

Are Charter Schools Losing their Cachet? Is the Narrative Shifting? | janresseger

Are Charter Schools Losing their Cachet? Is the Narrative Shifting?

There is a swell of reaction against “corporate school reform.” It can’t be called a tsunami, but the wave is significant enough that people are paying attention.  Thanks to a year of strikes by public schoolteachers, for example, people seem suddenly more aware that the expansion of charter schools has left urban school districts with all sorts of collateral damage.

Earlier this week, the Washington Post‘s Valerie Strauss noted: “This country is nearly 30 years into an experiment with charter schools, which are publicly financed but privately operated, sometimes by for-profit companies. Supporters first described charters as competitive vehicles to push traditional public schools to reform. Over time, that narrative changed and charters were wrapped into the zeitgeist of ‘choice’ for families whose children wanted alternatives to troubled district schools.”

Strauss continues: “Today, about 6 percent of America’s schoolchildren attend charter schools, with 44 states plus the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico having passed laws permitting them.  Some states have only a few charters while some cities are saturated.  In Los Angeles, 20 percent of children attend charters.  In New York, it’s 10 percent.  Charter backers say the movement is an important and sustainable feature of America’s educational landscape and any problems it faces are expected growing pains. Yet the movement, which has enjoyed Republican and Democratic support—including hundreds of millions of dollars from the Obama administration—seems to be at an inflection point as supporters and detractors recognize that charters are not the panacea backers had long suggested… What looks like a backlash against charters has been several years in the making.”

Recently, as part of the agreement to end the strike by 30,000 Los Angeles teachers, not only did the district agree to smaller classes and more support staff, but it also agreed to another demand: that the district’s school board pass a resolution pressing the state legislature for an CONTINUE READING: Are Charter Schools Losing their Cachet? Is the Narrative Shifting? | janresseger

Teach for America Features Alumni Who Overwhelmingly Exit the Classroom | deutsch29

Teach for America Features Alumni Who Overwhelmingly Exit the Classroom | deutsch29
Teach for America Features Alumni Who Overwhelmingly Exit the Classroom

On its website, teacher-temp org, Teach for America (TFA), states that “many” of its alumni (those who complete two years in the classroom) “continue teaching”:

Teach For America recruits outstanding and diverse leaders to become TFA “corps members.” Corps members commit to teaching for two years in a low-income community, where they’re employed by local schools and confront both the challenges and joys of expanding opportunities for kids.

After two years, they become part of the TFA alumni network. Informed and inspired by their students, many continue teaching; others pursue other leadership roles in schools and school systems or launch careers in other fields that shape educational access and opportunity.

The 2019 version of TFA’s “many stay in the classroom” statement has been toned down over the years, ostensibly to deflect attention from the fact that “many” is not most, which means that employing TFAers leads to endless teacher churn. Consider this September 2015 version of TFA’s “many” message– and note that TFA has since dropped any hint of lack of commitment that produces instability in schools via the “others leave” point:

Our people– diverse and passionate– start in low-income classrooms, where the stakes are highest. We help them become teachers who can dramatically expand students’ opportunities. But our teachers don’t just teach students, they learn from them.

They gain a better understanding of the problems and the opportunities in our education system and use those lessons to define their paths forward. Many stay in the classroom. Others leave. Both paths matter CONTINUE READING: Teach for America Features Alumni Who Overwhelmingly Exit the Classroom | deutsch29

Teaching at MetWest (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Teaching at MetWest (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Teaching at MetWest (Part 2)

A 27 year veteran of teaching in the Oakland Unified District (OUSD), Shannon Carey greets me at the door when I arrive at 8:30 on Friday, February 1st. She is wearing a UC Berkeley shirt (teachers that day wore clothes that advertised where they attended college) over jeans and dark ankle boots. The classroom furniture is arranged in a horseshoe with tables seating two tenth graders each facing one another across the open space in the middle of the horseshoe. There are two large couches in rear of room. The walls of the large classroom hold whiteboards in the front of the room with nearby easels showing assignments and homework.  Posters adorn other walls.

The schedule for this period is listed on the front white board:

Friday, February 1, 2019

I can reflect deeply on my strengths and weaknesses [Shannon mentions later in the lesson that this is the objective of the lesson]

8:30 Independent Reading

8:50-9:40 Non-Cognitive Variables: Self-Assessment and Interviews

Circles Today

HW [homework]

Gateway Project

–self assessment

–interview w/adult

–interview w/peer

Due Friday

As I scan the room at 8:45, everyone is reading a book or article—no devices or online reading that I see. Three students are sitting on the well-cushioned couches in the rear of the room. A sampling of what students are reading around CONTINUE READING: Teaching at MetWest (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice