Julian Vasquez Heilig named dean at University of Kentucky College of Education | Cloaking Inequity

Julian Vasquez Heilig named dean at University of Kentucky College of Education | Cloaking Inequity

JULIAN VASQUEZ HEILIG NAMED DEAN AT UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

LEXINGTON, Ky. (June 4, 2019) — Julian Vasquez Heilig has been named dean of the University of Kentucky College of Education. Vasquez Heilig, an award-winning leader, teacher and researcher, comes to UK from California State University, Sacramento, where he was a professor of educational leadership and policy studies and director of the Doctorate in Educational Leadership program.

He will join UK in August pending approval by the UK Board of Trustees and will take over for interim Dean Rosetta Sandidge.

“We are excited to welcome Julian Vasquez Heilig to the UK family,” said UK Provost David W. Blackwell. “As a thought leader in the field of education, he brings with him an exemplary scholarly record and a deep commitment to student and faculty success.”

Vasquez Heilig received his Ph.D. in educational administration and policy analysis and a master’s degree in sociology from Stanford University. He also earned a master’s in higher education and a bachelor’s degree in history and psychology from the University of Michigan.

A prolific scholar, in the last decade alone, Vasquez Heilig has been an author or co-author on nearly 50 peer-reviewed journal and/or refereed articles or law reviews as well as chapters. Topics have been diverse in range and scope, covering issues such as racial equity and teacher preparation among many others.

He has been honored with more than 30 teaching, research and service recognitions, including a Ford Foundation fellowship, the American Educational Research Journal Outstanding Reviewer award, and named as a Diversity in Education Magazine Multicultural Champion. He also served as the education chair for the California Hawaii State Conference of the NAACP.

Vasquez Heilig’s work in higher education also includes serving on the faculty and as an academic leader at the University of Texas at Austin from 2006 to 2014.

“I look forward to leading the college dialogically and innovatively to impact the educational success of students in Kentucky and beyond,” Vasquez Heilig said.

You can read more about his background here: http://www.uky.edu/PR/News/Julian_Vasquez_Heilig_CV.pdf

Julian Vasquez Heilig named dean at University of Kentucky College of Education | Cloaking Inequity

Joe Biden Supports Privately-Operated Charter Schools | Dissident Voice

Joe Biden Supports Privately-Operated Charter Schools | Dissident Voice

Joe Biden Supports Privately-Operated Charter Schools

Joe Biden is one of about two dozen 2020 democratic candidates running for President of the United States. This is not his first presidential campaign.

Biden served under President Barack Obama as Vice President for eight years. Obama became well-known for many antisocial policies in many spheres, especially education, including the aggressive promotion of privately-operated charter schools that siphon enormous sums of money from over-tested, under-funded, and constantly-demonized public schools. Obama also supported the widely-rejected Race to the Top law, the much-hated Common Core, and the heavily-loathed No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). In 2015, Obama replaced NCLB with a worse law: the Every Student Succeeds Act. The education record of Obama and Biden is terrible.

During a recent two-day swing through Texas, Biden said the following at an event with teachers: “I do not support any federal money … for for-profit charter schools — period. The bottom line is it siphons off money from public schools, which are already in enough trouble.”¹

But with the exception of millionaires, billionaires, and their retinue, who isn’t opposed to for-profit K-12 schools? Such “schools” have always been poor quality, corrupt, and immoral; they were established mainly to further enrich the wealthy few at the expense of young people.

It should be noted that for-profit charter schools actually make up a larger portion of the unstable and unaccountable charter school sector than many are reporting.

It is also important to appreciate that Biden, like Presidential democratic candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, is not addressing the fact that nonprofit charter schools are just as destructive, if not more harmful, than for-profit charter schools. The “for-profit/nonprofit” dichotomy is CONTINUE READING: Joe Biden Supports Privately-Operated Charter Schools | Dissident Voice

NYC Public School Parents: US Department of Education finds Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy repeatedly violated a child’s privacy according to FERPA

NYC Public School Parents: US Department of Education finds Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy repeatedly violated a child’s privacy according to FERPA

US Department of Education finds Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy repeatedly violated a child’s privacy according to FERPA

For immediate release: June 4, 2019

For more information contact 

Leonie Haimson, leoniehaimson@gmail.com; 917-435-9329.

US Department of Education finds Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy repeatedly violated a child’s privacy according to FERPA

On Monday, June 2, 2019, Fatima Geidi finally received a response to a FERPA complaint she filed more than three and half years ago with the US Department of Education. The Privacy Office of the Department of Education found that her FERPA complaint against Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy charter schools was justified and that they had indeed repeatedly violated her son’s privacy rights.  The official findings letter to Ms. Moskowitz, dated May 31, 2019, is here.

On October 31, 2015, Ms. Geidi filed a complaint detailing how Eva Moskowitz, CEO of Success Academy charter schools, had revealed details of her son’s disciplinary records to the media and on her website.  Ms. Moskowitz made these disclosures in order to retaliate against Ms. Geidi and her son after they had appeared on the PBS News Hour to report how he had been repeatedly suspended at one of her schools.  Her original FERPA complaint is posted here.

Yet the US Department of Education waited more than two years to even launch an investigation into her complaint.  In the meantime, Ms. Moskowitz included many of the same exaggerated charges against Ms. Geidi’s son on several pages of her memoir, The Education of Eva Moskowitz, that was published in September 2017.   When Ms. Geidi noticed these passages in a bookstore, she filed a second FERPA complaint on December 20, 2017.

Last week, the US Department of Education refused to accept the weak rationalizations offered by the Success Academy legal staff about these disclosures and found that in both cases, they were flagrant violations of FERPA.

Yet in order to address these violations, Frank Miller, Deputy Director of the Student Privacy Policy Office, wrote that Success Academy must merely ensure that  “school officials have or will receive training on the requirements of FERPA as they relate to the issues in this complaint.”  He refrained from imposing any penalties or demanding that the offending passages be deleted from Eva Moskowitz’ book – a book  that is still for sale on Amazon and in bookstores all across the United States.

As Fatima Geidi said, “While I am glad that the US Department of Education agreed that Ms. Moskowitz and Success Academy repeatedly violated my child’s privacy by disclosing trumped-up details of his education records to the media, on the Success website and in her book, I am furious that they failed to fine her, or at the very least, demand that she take the offending passages out of her book. Because the Department of Education waited over two years to respond to my initial FERPA complaint,  Eva Moskowitz illegally put the same information (false by the way) about my child in a book where it may remain forever.  This is unacceptable, and I demand that the illegal passages from the book be deleted.”

Leonie Haimson, co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, said, “Ms. Moskowitz and Success Academy have repeatedly violated FERPA in order to retaliate against parents who dare reveal how she abuses children and pushes them out of her charter schools.  These illegal disclosures happened again just last month, in the case of Lisa Vasquez and her daughter, as reported in a Chalkbeat article.  On May 9, 2019, Ms. Vasquez filed a FERPA complaint with the US Department of Education and the NY State Education Chief Privacy Officer.   Her FERPA complaint is posted on our blog, where we point to other privacy violations by Success charter schools. Simply asking for Success staff to receive privacy training  will likely prove no real deterrence to Eva Moskowitz.  Instead she and her staff will likely continue to flagrantly violate their students’ privacy with impunity in the future.” 

The  US Department of Education has provided more than $37 million in discretionary grants to Success Academy since 2010, including nearly $10 million awarded in April 2019.  Its officials should be required to explain why they chose not to withhold any federal funds from her schools, and worse, will allow the offending passages in Ms. Moskowitz’ book to remain in perpetuity. The unacceptable delay of more than three and a half years in responding to Ms. Geidi’s initial complaint and the lack of an meaningful response by the Department provides further evidence as to why parents should be able to sue for damages under FERPA when their children’s right to privacy has been violated.

NYC Public School Parents: US Department of Education finds Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy repeatedly violated a child’s privacy according to FERPA

The Learning Disability Teaching Credentials that Time Forgot

The Learning Disability Teaching Credentials that Time Forgot

The Learning Disability Teaching Credentials that Time Forgot

Whether it’s dyslexia (a specific learning disability) or writing, attention, organization, or other learning and behavioral difficulties, children who struggle in school need teachers who can help them learn.

Sometimes that help can occur in a general class setting. Other times a child might benefit from small group or individualized assistance. That’s what special education has always been about.

The National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD) and Understood.org. published a paper called “Forward Together: Helping Educators Unlock the power of Students Who Learn Differently”. I have skimmed it and will read it more completely. It’s sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The report is like similar recent reports implying that general education teachers are not prepared to teach students with learning disabilities. This raises concerns about teacher training and credentials.

Why do general education teachers feel unprepared to work with students with learning disabilities? Perhaps it’s because they were never originally expected to work CONTINUE READING: The Learning Disability Teaching Credentials that Time Forgot

Charter School Lobbyist Introduces Elizabeth Warren at Rally | gadflyonthewallblog

Charter School Lobbyist Introduces Elizabeth Warren at Rally | gadflyonthewallblog

Charter School Lobbyist Introduces Elizabeth Warren at Rally

CORRECTION:

In the first draft of this article, I called Sonya Mehta a “Charter School Lobbyist” in the title. On further examination of the facts, I realize this is unfair. She was a charter school TEACHER. I apologize to Ms. Mehta and truly regret any harm I have done her. I have changed the title to better reflect the facts. However, be advised that the text of the article, itself, has remained almost completely unchanged. Everything in the article is true to the best of my knowledge and backed up with sources that the reader can see by following the links in the text. My concern remains centered on Warren and what exactly her intentions are via education policy.

The biggest news from Elizabeth Warren’s rally in Oakland, California, on Friday wasn’t what she said.

It was who introduced her and what that says about Warren and her 2020 Presidential campaign.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “Warren was introduced by Sonya Mehta, a former Oakland schoolteacher.”

However, this characterization is inaccurate.

Mehta was not an authentic public school teacher. She taught in a non-union charter school called “Learning Without Limits.” She also was a policy fellow at GO Public Schools Oakland, which is a toxic charter promoter focused around that city.

In her introduction, Mehta didn’t explicitly advocate for school privatization. She promoted Warren’s early education and free college policies (Her speech can be seen here beginning at 57:30). But why would Warren, one of the smartest and most knowledgeable candidates in the race for the White House, let herself be associated with such a divisive and toxic legacy?

Only 6% of all U.S. students attend charter schools, yet with little accountability, CONTINUE READING: Charter School Lobbyist Introduces Elizabeth Warren at Rally | gadflyonthewallblog

Louisiana Teachers Are Getting a Raise! | deutsch29

Louisiana Teachers Are Getting a Raise! | deutsch29

Louisiana Teachers Are Getting a Raise!

In the final vote on the matter, on June 03, 2019, the Louisiana House voted 104:0 to approve the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) proposed 2019-20 Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) funding, which includes an across-the-board, $1000 pay raise for teachers and other certificated personnel, plus 26% for employer contribution to the appropriate retirement system.

Non-certificated personnel will receive a $500 raise plus 29.4% for employer contribution to the appropriate retirement system.

The base per-pupil amount has also been increased from $3,961 to $4,015, or 1.375%.

Details of the approved 2019-20 MFP are in this 31-page copy of the legislation (SCR 3).

In September 2018, Louisiana governor, John Bel Edwards, said he would advocate for the teacher pay raise in Louisiana’s 2019 legislative session.

Though Melinda Deslatte of nola.com describes “weeks of bickering behind the scenes,” the MFP was passed. In Louisiana, BESE’s MFP proposal is a “take it or leave it” piece of legislation for lawmakers; they cannot amend it, and BESE was not willing to amend it.

In the end, SCR 3 had 129 sponsors. While on June 03, 2019, the Louisiana House voted unanimously to pass SCR 3 (140:0), on May 15, 2019, the Senate approved it 37:1. Senator Conrad Appel cast the lone “no” vote.

Apparently no one else wanted to be on the wrong side of this teacher pay raise approval in an election year.

Louisiana Teachers Are Getting a Raise! | deutsch29

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Interested in scheduling Mercedes Schneider for a speaking engagement? Click here.

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Want to read about the history of charter schools and vouchers?

School Choice: The End of Public Education? 

  (Click image to enlarge)

Schneider is a southern Louisiana native, career teacher, trained researcher, and author of two other books: A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who In the Implosion of American Public Education and Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools?. You should buy these books. They’re great. No, really.

Don’t care to buy from Amazon? Purchase my books from Powell’s City of Books instead.

Louisiana Teachers Are Getting a Raise! | deutsch29

LAUSD By Some Numbers – redqueeninla

LAUSD By Some Numbers – redqueeninla

LAUSD By Some Numbers

The largest school district in America with an elected school board, LAUSD (the “District”) is vast indeed.  It is hard to get one’s head around how big. And it’s hard to understand what’s involved, never mind ubiquitously presumed, when outcome or performance metrics such as “excellence” or poverty or enrollment drain are casually discussed.

The District publishes interesting “fingertip facts” every year that attests at 710 square miles, it covers an area 41% greater than the City of Los Angeles (CoLA). Eighteen cities are partially covered by its footprint and 8 lie entirely within the District.

What Schools?

Just the simple number of schools within its footprint is astonishing.  The whole conversation surrounding “traditional district” and charter schools of either variety – “affiliated” and “independent” – begs the question of the system’s diversity, not just in the student population but in the kinds of schools operated. Beyond K-12 elementary, middle and high schools, operating as charters and “Alternative Schools of Choice” (e.g., magnet schools among others), are Special Educationprograms, Adult and Trade/Tech programs, and four kinds of schools that address specialized scholastic needs such as education for the incarcerated or otherwise academically at-risk.

Diversity of LAUSD-area school types

What Authorizers?

The one thousand+ schools listed here for 2018-19 include some public schools operating within LAUSD’s footprint, that are not also under their direct jurisdiction. There are schools operated by and also chartered by Los Angeles County, and there are schools chartered by the State of California as well.

Authorization and management of school types

The extended list is a challenge to compile accurately and completely because schools are catalogued by Local Educational Agency (LEA) not geography. All data were downloaded May, 2019 from the California Department of Education and CONTINUE READING: LAUSD By Some Numbers – redqueeninla