Lewd Photos, Harassment And Retaliation Allegations: Inside The Meltdown At LAUSD's Powerful Watchdog Agency: LAist #Unite4SACKids #WeAreSCTA #WeAreCTA #strikeready #REDFORED #SCTA #CTA #UTLAStrong #Unite4OaklandKids #WeAreOEA

Lewd Photos, Harassment And Retaliation Allegations: Inside The Meltdown At LAUSD's Powerful Watchdog Agency: LAist

Lewd Photos, Harassment And Retaliation Allegations: Inside The Meltdown At LAUSD's Powerful Watchdog Agency

The Office of the Inspector General at the Los Angeles Unified School District is the type of government agency that any taxpayer — not just those with kids in school — would want working well.

Hunting for signs of waste, fraud and misconduct, the OIG monitors $9.6 billion dollars in spending by the nation's second-largest school system each year — roughly the amount of money the state pays into the California State University system every year.

For the last year, though, the office tasked with inspecting LAUSD's internal workings has been roiled by internal controversy of its own.

Last spring, the OIG's second-in-command resigned amid allegations of misconduct, and the boss lost his shot at renewal of his long-term contract. By late fall, a third high-ranking official who complained about them both was put on leave, charged with sexual harassment and ultimately fired.

Now, as the new boss settles in at the OIG, a KPCC/LAist investigation reveals new details about the turmoil that roiled the department over the last year, and raises the question: Who's holding whom accountable in the L.A. Unified School District?

THE ALLEGATIONS

Between late 2017 and mid-2018, at least four OIG employees filed formal complaints with either LAUSD's Equal Opportunity Section or with California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

Their complaints targeted either then-Inspector General Ken Bramlett or his top deputy, Frank Cabibi, alleging a hostile workplace culture, sexual harassment and racial discrimination; two of the employees who complained also requested whistleblower protection from LAUSD or a state agency.

KPCC/LAist has obtained copies of these four formal complaints against Cabibi and Bramlett, along with other government records that describe the allegations, including contemporaneous notes, memos and written statements submitted to higher authorities or district officials as part of the complaint process; these records add greater detail to the allegations employees leveled against Bramlett and Cabibi.

In addition to this trove of government records, some of the allegations are described in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed in December by Walt Finnigan, a former OIG investigator and supervisor, who also spoke to KPCC/LAist on the record. (The question of why he was fired is a story all its own, with its own ties back to Bramlett and Cabibi. We'll get to that later.)

Here are the claims:

• Two OIG employees' complaints alleged Cabibi — their direct boss, and the organization's second-in-command — made discriminatory remarks about Latinos and gays.
• Two complaints alleged that Cabibi told an OIG employee she "needed to get laid" to "knock the cobwebs out of there."
• According to Finnigan and memos by three other OIG employees, OIG investigator Donald "Rusty" McMillen allegedly showed lewd images from confiscated computers and cell phones not only to Cabibi, but to other investigators who had no work-related need to see them. One of the photos McMillen and Cabibi are alleged to have described was a sensitive image of another OIG employee.

Some complaints named Inspector General Bramlett (Cabibi's boss) as being at the root of a troubled working environment. According to the complaints and other records, some employees CONTINUE READING: Lewd Photos, Harassment And Retaliation Allegations: Inside The Meltdown At LAUSD's Powerful Watchdog Agency: LAist

Layoff notices will go to hundreds of Oakland school workers to trim budget - SFChronicle.com #Unite4SACKids #WeAreSCTA #WeAreCTA #strikeready #REDFORED #SCTA #CTA #UTLAStrong #Unite4OaklandKids #WeAreOEA

Layoff notices will go to hundreds of Oakland school workers to trim budget - SFChronicle.com

Layoff notices will go to hundreds of Oakland school workers to trim budget

Hundreds of Oakland school clerks, library workers and other staff will receive layoff notices in coming weeks as the school district grapples with the expense of the contract concessions that settled the seven-day teachers strike this month, the school board has decided.

The layoffs of 257 “full-time equivalent” positions are part of a $22 million cut from next year’s budget.

“We don’t want to lose anybody, but we have to make choices and deal with the current financial situation,” school district spokesman John Sasaki said Saturday.

Exactly how many people will lose jobs is unclear. School districts in California often send layoff notices to employees as a legal requirement while drawing up budget plans, and many of those employees wind up being retained when the final budgets are approved.

Among the positions on the district’s chopping block are two dozen security officers, 22 kindergarten reading tutors, 20 “restorative justice” discipline officers and scores of clerks, receptionists, college application coaches, library technicians and others.

“In order to invest in our talent, CONTINUE READING: Layoff notices will go to hundreds of Oakland school workers to trim budget - SFChronicle.com

The Oakland Teachers’ Strike Revealed California’s Education Crisis

The Oakland Teachers’ Strike Revealed California’s Education Crisis

The Oakland Teachers’ Strike Revealed California’s Education Crisis

The struggle for fair funding goes way beyond the district. So now the teachers are taking their fight to Sacramento.

ast month, public-school teachers in Oakland, California, walked off the job for seven days; it was the longest strike since 1996. Teachers demanded a 12 percent raise retroactive to 2017, when their contract had expired; more support staff, like nurses, counselors, and librarians; a reduction in class sizes; and a halt to the proliferation of charter schools. By the second day, 96 percent of members of the Oakland Education Association union were on the strike line, joined by 4,000 members of the community. “This contract fight was not only about bread-and-butter issues, but it was a fight for the soul of public education,” said Keith Brown, president of the Oakland Education Association (OEA).

The strike ended on March 3, returning teachers to their classrooms the next day. In the agreement struck between the union and the district, teachers got an 11 percent raise over four years, and a 3 percent bonus on ratification. Nurses will see an increase in pay, and the district promised an increase in other kinds of support staff. The agreement also reduces class sizes starting in 2021 and the school-board president pledged to introduce a resolution calling for a five-month pause on school closures and a moratorium on charter schools. Brown called the strike a success, saying, “We forced the Oakland Unified school district to change the way they budget for our students and we made significant gains in each one of our core demands.” But, he added, “Because of…the years of neglect by our school district, we need much more.” Teachers evidently agreed. Only 64 percent of OEA members voted in favor of a contract for 2017–18 and just 58 voted for the 2020-2021 contract.

Alejandro Estrada, a bilingual fourth-grade teacher at the International Community School, was one of those who voted against the agreement. “Personally, [I felt] it didn’t go far enough,” he said.

Estrada has been teaching in Oakland for 23 years. “A lot of my students remind me of me growing up,” he noted. His parents were immigrants, and he too went to public school in California. “The public-school system basically gave me an opportunity to grow up to go to college and be part of the teaching profession,” he said. CONTINUE READING: The Oakland Teachers’ Strike Revealed California’s Education Crisis

CHICKENS COMING HOME TO ROOST: Troubling report on LEA fiscal solvency :: K-12 Daily :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet

Troubling report on LEA fiscal solvency :: K-12 Daily :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet

Troubling report on LEA fiscal solvency

(Calif.) The number of school districts in California reporting potentially severe fiscal challenges remains uncomfortably high, with 47 reporting a negative or qualified budget certification.

The figure is a big jump from last summer when 41 local educational agencies officially warned the state that they might be in trouble.

At first glance, the new report released this week by the California Department of Education would seem unlikely. Last year, the Proposition 98 funding guarantee reached a record $77.8 billion—a massive upswing from the $47.3 billion provided in 2011-12 at the nadir of the recession.

During that period, per-pupil funding has jumped 66 percent.

But many LEAs are also dealing with a number of challenges that have escalated costs. Pension liabilities are perhaps at the top of the list after legislation passed in 2014 increased the share of retirement costs LEAs must provide grew incrementally from 8.25 percent to 19.1 percent by 2020-21.

That was one big reason Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed giving districts $3 billion in one-time money to help with pension costs.

Another, however, is ongoing expensive of rising employee salaries and benefits.

Several districts on the warning list have had or are engaged in difficult contract negotiations with their teachers union and in some cases, had to concede to demands that they may be unable to afford—Los Angeles Unified is one of those districts, and Oakland Unified is another.

Under state law, LEAs are required to file two reports with the state on the status of their financial health. One comes out while lawmakers and the governor are beginning negotiations over the state budget and the second one comes out later in the spring.

The report found five LEAs in the negative category—meaning that based on current projects, each cannot meet all its financial obligations:

• Amador County Office of Education
• Feather Falls Union Elementary, Butte County
• Southern Kern Unified
• Sacramento City Unified
• Sweetwater Union High, San Diego County

An additional 42 LEAs reported a “qualified” certification, which means that, based on current projections, they may not meet all their financial obligations.

Click here to view the entire list.

...read more Troubling report on LEA fiscal solvency :: K-12 Daily :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet

South Carolina Education Reform: Déjà vu all over again | radical eyes for equity

South Carolina Education Reform: Déjà vu all over again | radical eyes for equity

South Carolina Education Reform: Déjà vu all over again

Imagine for a moment that in the 1970s when Philip John Landrigan, an epidemiologist and pediatrician, conducted research on the negative consequences of lead in paint, political leaders chose to ignore the source of the problem, lead in paint, and had initiated policies aimed at children instead.

Now imagine that children continued to suffer from lead paint poisoning every decade since that decision, and every few years, political leaders offered passionate rhetoric confronting the tragedy of lead poisoning in children, followed by yet new policies once again aimed at children, while ignoring entirely the presence of lead in paint.

If this sounds ridiculous, please consider that beginning in the early 1980s, this exact scenario is how South Carolina political leaders have handled public education.

I have a unique perspective on SC education since I have taught here over four decades since 1983, 18 years as a public high school English teacher and coach followed by an on-going 17 years in higher education as a teacher educator and first-year writing professor. I also bring to this conversation a doctoral program grounded significantly in the history of public education in the U.S. as I wrote an educational biography of Lou LaBrant, who taught from 1906 until 1971.

Over my career in education, I have felt a great deal of compassion for LaBrant as she lamented in her memoir having lived and worked through three back-to-basics movements. As I have, she found herself exasperated by political education reform that proved to be déjà vu all over again.

A few years ago, I advocated strongly against yet more misguided education reform in SC—the Read to Succeed Act which has proven to be as flawed as I predicted since it, as my hypothetical scenario above highlights, failed to identify the evidence-based problems with literacy and CONTINUE READING: South Carolina Education Reform: Déjà vu all over again | radical eyes for equity

The dark side of education research: widespread bias

The dark side of education research: widespread bias

The dark side of education research: widespread bias
Johns Hopkins study finds that insider research shows 70 percent more benefits to students than independent research

Critics have attacked Big Pharma for widespread biases in studies of new and potentially profitable drugs. Now, scholars are detecting the same type of biases in the education product industry — even in a federally curated collection of research that’s supposed to be of the highest quality. And that may be leaving teachers and school administrators in the dark about the full story of classroom programs and interventions they are considering buying.

An analysis of 30 years of educational research by scholars at Johns Hopkins University found that when a maker of an educational intervention conducted its own research or paid someone to do the research, the results commonly showed greater benefits for students than when the research was independent. On average, the developer research showed benefits — usually improvements in test scores —  that were 70 percent greater than what independent studies found.

“I think there are some cases of fraud, but I wouldn’t say it’s fraud across the board,” said Rebecca Wolf, an assistant professor in the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University and lead author of the draft study.  “Developers are proud of their products. They believe in them. They’ve worked hard in developing these products. They want a study that puts the best face forward.”

Biased research matters because current federal law encourages schools to buy products that are backed by science. In order to tap into federal school improvement funds, for example, low-achieving schools with disadvantaged children are required to select programs that have been rigorously tested and show positive effects.

The study, “Do Developer-Commissioned Evaluations Inflate Effect Sizes?” was presented at a March 2019 conference session of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE) in Washington, D.C.  The paper is a working paper, meaning it has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal and may still be revised.

Wolf and three of her colleagues analyzed roughly 170 studies in reading and math dating as far back as 1984 that are part of the What Works Clearinghouse. That’s an archive of research that the U.S. Department of Education launched in 2002 to help educators decide which educational products to buy. It is by no means a complete or an exhaustive collection of educational research but a group of high quality studies curated by experts. The studies track test score gains and compare students who got the intervention with those who didn’t.

Related: Education researchers don’t check for errors — dearth of replication studies

More than half, or 96, of the studies were conducted by independent researchers while 73 of them had some sort of insider connection with creating or selling the product. Wolf labeled the research a CONTINUE READING: The dark side of education research: widespread bias

iReady Magnificent Marketing Terrible Teaching | tultican

iReady Magnificent Marketing Terrible Teaching | tultican

iReady Magnificent Marketing Terrible Teaching

iReady is an economically successful software product used in public schools, by homeschoolers and in private schools. It utilizes the blended learning practices endorsed by the recently updated federal education law known as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). iReady employs competency-based education (CBE) theory which is also advocated by ESSA. The outcome is iReady drains money from classrooms, applies federally supported failed learning theories and undermines good teaching. Children hate it.

Public education in America contends with four dissimilar but not separate attacks. The school choice movement is motivated by people who want government supported religious schools, others who want segregated schools and still others who want to profit from school management and the related real estate deals. The forth big threat is from the technology industry which uses their wealth and lobbying power to not only force their products into the classroom, but to mandate “best practices” for teaching. These four streams of attack are synergistic.

Profiting from Education Law

A group of billionaires with varying motives are using their vast wealth to shape America’s education agenda to their own liking. The last rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 called ESSA was larded up with provisions like the big money for technology which is listed in Title’s I and IV. It also specifies generous grants to promote both “blended learning” and “personalized learning.” (See page 1969 of the official law.) Charter schools, vouchers and social impact bonds are promoted in ESSA. All these initiatives drain money from the classroom and none have been credibly shown to improve education outcomes.

Some of the Unelected and Untrained Billionaires Driving America’s Education Policy

iReady is marketed by Curriculum Associates (CA) of Billerica, Massachusetts. It CONTINUE READING: iReady Magnificent Marketing Terrible Teaching | tultican

“Money Follows the Student” is Voucher Funding | The Crucial Voice of the PeopleThe Crucial Voice of the People

“Money Follows the Student” is Voucher Funding | The Crucial Voice of the PeopleThe Crucial Voice of the People

“Money Follows the Student” is Voucher Funding

The concept behind Voucher Funding is being stated simply as “Money Follows the Student.” But that is a phrase — like “No Child Left Behind” — that carries with it an instant emotional appeal and creates a barrier to debate.

Think about it. Who will openly object to not leaving children behind? Why would anyone disagree with the idea that funding should focus on students? It should, but it should do so without causing harm.

Using Language to Produce Political Conformity

Across the nation funding formulas are being called “out dated” or “antiquated.” Lawmakers and taxpayers are being sold on “new” and “innovative” ideas. Sound familiar?

One reason the NAACP called for a Moratorium on Charter School Expansion.

“School Choice” has appeal. …

“People like the idea of choice,” says Reverend Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

But …

Americans hold firm against allowing public tax dollars to fund private schools. Source: Vouchers, School Privatization, and the Threat to Public Education

Americans do want to increase funding for public schools. But public tax dollars are inadvertently being used for privatization purposes through new modernized funding formulas.

“Money Follows the Student” masks the fact that enrollment based student centered funding formulas are a Voucher Funding scheme.

This is what U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has to say about the public system she openly defames while traveling the country to promote her Federal School Choice Agenda.

And now, the language of political conformity is being used to promote Voucher Funding by coupling the words “funding follows the child” with the concept of education as a CONTINUE READING: “Money Follows the Student” is Voucher Funding | The Crucial Voice of the PeopleThe Crucial Voice of the People

Jeff Bryant: ‘Tired of being unsupported and messed with’: Teachers stage a bold protest that scores national attention

‘Tired of being unsupported and messed with’: Teachers stage a bold protest that scores national attention

‘Tired of being unsupported and messed with’: Teachers stage a bold protest that scores national attention

Don’t call what Kentucky teachers just did a “wildcat” labor action, at least not when you’re speaking with Tim Hall. Hall, a classroom teacher at Shawnee High School in Louisville, answered my phone call as he was driving to the state capitol in Frankfort to protest the latest slate of education-related bills being considered in the legislature. He and hundreds of other teachers in Jefferson County Public Schools, the state’s largest school district that includes Louisville, called in sick, prompting the district to close schools for over 100,000 students.

Hundreds of those teachers joined Hall at the state capitol. It was the third time in a week and the second day in a row that enough JCPS teachers called out sick to trigger a full district shutdown. The sick-out spread to four other districts that also had to close. But neither the state teachers’ union nor the local union for Jefferson County had anything to do with organizing the action. In fact, union leaders urged teachers to show up for work, preferring instead to have districts send small teams of teachers to lobby state lawmakers.

Yet Hall bristled at using “wildcat” to describe what JCPS teachers were doing. “I don’t like that word,” he said. “I think our concerns are reflective of teachers not only in JCPS but also across the state.”

The Kentucky teachers’ actions are the latest in what has become a wave of teachers using their collective power to influence legislation in state governments, but the sick-out in Kentucky is also a sign of how teacher protests are evolving.

Teachers who once saw labor actions as effective tactical responses to CONTINUE READING: ‘Tired of being unsupported and messed with’: Teachers stage a bold protest that scores national attention

This Is a Book You Should Read: Noliwe Rooks’ “Cutting School” | Diane Ravitch's blog

This Is a Book You Should Read: Noliwe Rooks’ “Cutting School” | Diane Ravitch's blog

This Is a Book You Should Read: Noliwe Rooks’ “Cutting School”

I just finished reading Noliwe Rooks’ superb book, Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education (The New Press). Please buy a copy and read it. It is a powerful analysis of racism, segregation, poverty, the history of Black education (and miseducation), and their relationship to the current movement to privatize public education. She dissects the profitable business of segregation.

You will learn how cleverly the captains of finance and industry have managed to ignore the root causes of inequality of educational opportunity while profiting from the dire straits of poor children of color. In fact, as she shows, financiers and philanthropists have used and misused Black children throughout our history, for their own benefit and glory, not the children’s.

The book is both highly contemporary and at the same time, probably the best history of Black education that I have read. Rooks understands that the fight for equality runs through the schoolhouse door, and she documents how white elites have managed to block access, narrow access, or literally steal from Black families trying to gain access to high-quality education. She knows that charter schools and vouchers are a sorry substitute for real solutions. She understands that the rise of the profit-driven education industry has benefited the profiteers far more than the Black children they claim to be “saving.” “Saving poor kids from failing schools” turns out to be a lucrative business, though not for the kids.

Rooks invents a new term to describe the current “reform” movement: Segrenomics. In her telling, a sizable number of entrepreneurs and foundations, and organizations like Teach for America, have enriched themselves while advertising their passion for equity. Segregation and poverty have given them a purpose, multiple enterprises, career paths, and profit.

My copy of the book is covered with underlinings, stars, asterisks, and other notations, as is my way when I become enthusiastic while reading.

She bluntly states, “The road necessarily traveled to achieve freedom and equality in the United States leads directly through public education…Schools that educate the wealthy have generally had decent buildings, money for materials, a coherent curriculum, and well-trained teachers. Schools that educate poorer students and those of color too often have decrepit buildings, no funds for quality instructional materials, and little input in CONTINUE READING: This Is a Book You Should Read: Noliwe Rooks’ “Cutting School” | Diane Ravitch's blog

FBI Wiretaps Show Importance of Fake Charity and Extended Testing Time in College Admissions Scam | deutsch29

FBI Wiretaps Show Importance of Fake Charity and Extended Testing Time in College Admissions Scam | deutsch29

FBI Wiretaps Show Importance of Fake Charity and Extended Testing Time in College Admissions Scam

William Rick Singer operated The Key Worldwide (KWF), a fraudulent nonprofit, as a front for a massive college admissions scandal for the rich.

William Rick Singer

However, Singer could not state the real purpose of his nonprofit in its declared mission, so he manipulated the language as follows:

The Key Worldwide Foundation endeavors to provide education that would normally be unattainable to underprivileged students, not only attainable but realistic. With programs that are designed to assist young people in everyday situations, and educational situations, we hope to open new avenues of educational access to students that would normally have no access to these programs. Our contributions to major athletic university programs, may help to provide placement to students that may not have access under normal channels.

Compare Singer’s words above with those intercepted in a June 2018, court-approved, FBI wiretap of Singer selling his college admissions wares to a wealthy parent, New York attorney Gordon Caplan, who is now part of this 204-page affidavit in support of criminal complaint.

Gordon Caplan

(Note that Singer says he has perpetrated his scheme a whopping 761 times before):

Okay, so, who we are– what we do is we help the wealthiest families in the U.S. get their kids into school …. Every year there are– is a group of families, especially where I am right now in the Bay Area, Palo Alto, I just flew in. That they want guarantees, they want this thing done. They don’t want to be messing around with this thing. And so they want in at certain schools. So I did 761 what I would call, “side doors.” There is a front door  CONTINUE READING: FBI Wiretaps Show Importance of Fake Charity and Extended Testing Time in College Admissions Scam | deutsch29