CURMUDGUCATION: Can SEL Learn From Common Core

CURMUDGUCATION: Can SEL Learn From Common Core

Can SEL Learn From Common Core 

At the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Michael McShane (EdChoice) recently took a look at what the nascent social-emotional learning movement for education could learn from studying the checkered history of the Common Core. It's an interesting paper both for what it says about SEL and for what it gleans from the story of the Common Core, operating as it does from the reliably free-market loving reformy point of view of AEI. Plus it includes one of my new most favorite Arne Duncan quotes.

The paper opens with a history of the Core and then goes on to draw four lessons. Let's take a look.

Common Core History

McShane takes a good, honest look at the downward trajectory of the Core's popularity with everyone, and notes "It's fair to say that the implementation of Common Core did not live up to advocates' expectations." He notes the phenomenon of how Race to the Top "turbocharged" adoption of the standards, in some cases before they were even finished (he does not talk about how Bill Gates helped drive the whole process). He notes also that the standards came hand in hand with the Big Standardized Tests, and reminds us all of some of the grotesque over-promising that Duncan offered up regarding the BS Tests. McShane takes us back to Duncan's speech announcing the grants for the PARCC and SBA tests:

In that same  speech, he set a pretty high bar for these two tests. He said they would "be an absolute game-changer in public education ," "make widespread use of smart technology," and "provide students with realistic, complex performance tasks, immediate feedback, computer adptive testing, and incorporate accommodations for a range of students." He harped on new testing technology that would allow students "to design products or experiments, to manipulate parameters, run tests and record data." He  said tests would be able to "incorporate audio and video" and situate problems "in real world environments, where students perform tasks or include CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Can SEL Learn From Common Core

Attempting 78 Miles on a Bike to Celebrate My Birthday | The Merrow Report

Attempting 78 Miles on a Bike to Celebrate My Birthday | The Merrow Report

Attempting 78 Miles on a Bike to Celebrate My Birthday

Well, last Friday was so beautiful that, even though it wasn’t literally my birth anniversary, I decided to go for it.  My daughter Elise and I hit the trail at precisely 7AM. While we were the only humans around, we certainly were not alone.

The snapping turtle, one of two, was intent on laying her eggs, and the goslings were protected by at least a half dozen aggressively vigilant Canada Geese.  The adult deer could have been the yearling I encountered on the path a year ago.  During the day we probably saw three or four times as many chipmunks as people!

The first half went well, and we stopped for lunch (energizing smoothies) at the 44-mile mark in Yorktown, New York.

My daughter kept an eye on me, making certain that I was hydrating properly. What’s more, Elise was riding a folding bike!  This is the cycling equivalent of the CONTINUE READING: Attempting 78 Miles on a Bike to Celebrate My Birthday | The Merrow Report

Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Education Policy Blunders | Teacher in a strange land

Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Education Policy Blunders | Teacher in a strange land

Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Education Policy Blunders

Here’s my theory of how Democrats can win the next election.

It doesn’t have anything to do with electability, because one man’s ‘electable’ is another woman’s ‘no thanks, old white dude.’ It also doesn’t have anything to do with one specific issue—because there are a dozen bona fide Hot! Burning! Critical! issues right now (the destruction of the planet, for starters) and nobody seems to be paying much attention to the one candidate who puts that at the top of his list.

We got troubles, right here in River City.

Fortunately for us, we also have at least a dozen pretty good candidates, probably more. And we have months of opportunity to hear lots more from each of them, to actually use the primary debates as a thoughtful winnowing, an in-depth national conversation on the full range of issues. We can not only pick a candidate, we can audition candidates for other Congressional roles, as potential cabinet members, judges and future political stars.

Unless Donald Trump doesn’t make it to the finish line— and even if the plug gets pulled mid-campaign— we are surely looking two old conservative white men as Republican opponents. While it may seem shallow and obvious to focus on demographics, Democrats can run a ticket that represents women, people of color and younger voters. If you put together women, POC and progressive youth as a voting bloc, that’s a considerably bigger cohort than 50%.  The trick is to get them excited about actually voting.

Which is why I was so disappointed to see educators—teachers! — going after Elizabeth Warren.

Not because she’s my top candidate. I don’t have a top candidate. In fact, I mistrust anyone who’s settled on The One. Because what that means is that you’ll start aggressively looking for flaws in the other candidates and focus entirely on your CONTINUE READING: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Education Policy Blunders | Teacher in a strange land

School Field Trip Turns Into a Tour of Our Nation’s Unhealed Scars | gadflyonthewallblog

School Field Trip Turns Into a Tour of Our Nation’s Unhealed Scars | gadflyonthewallblog

School Field Trip Turns Into a Tour of Our Nation’s Unhealed Scars

You’ve got to be a little crazy to take a bunch of teenagers on a field trip – especially overnight and out of town.

But that’s what I did, and – yeah – guilty as charged.

For the second time in my more than 15-year career as a public school teacher, I volunteered along with a group of parents and other teachers to escort my classes of 8th graders to Washington, DC, and surrounding sights.

And I never regretted it. Not for a moment.

Not when Jason bombed the bathroom in the back of the bus after eating a burrito for lunch.

Not when Isaac gulped down dairy creamers for dessert and threw up all over himself.

Not when a trio of teenage girls accidentally locked themselves in their hotel room and we needed a crowbar to get them out.

But as I stood in Manassas, Virginia, looking at a statue of Stonewall Jackson, the CONTINUE READING: School Field Trip Turns Into a Tour of Our Nation’s Unhealed Scars | gadflyonthewallblog

Charter school task force echoes calls for tighter charter school regs, more local control | CALmatters

Charter school task force echoes calls for tighter charter school regs, more local control | CALmatters

Charter school task force echoes calls for tighter charter school regs, more local control

A highly anticipated state report on charter school reforms was made public Friday, recommending that California school districts be financially buffered from the loss of students to charters and get more flexibility in deciding whether to approve any more of the privately run, publicly financed and mostly non-union schools.

Commissioned by Gov. Gavin Newsom and led by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, who both overcame opposition from charter supporters on their way to election, the report, drawn up by a special state task force, stopped short of calling for some of the more sweeping regulations now under legislative consideration.

But it also pointedly noted that a majority, if not a full consensus, of the 11-member panel—an even mix of labor and charter advocates, plus Thurmond—supported some of the key rule changes state lawmakers have been mulling at the urging of teachers unions.

Among them: provisions that would let districts include the financial impact on traditional schools in their criteria for determining whether to authorize charters and that would make charter school denials harder to appeal.

Months in the making, the report has been on the minds of legislators as they have weighed a cluster of hotly debated charter regulations against the backdrop of urban teacher strikes. The charter issue has pitted two powerful constituencies—organized labor and wealthy proponents of school choice—against each other, and was a campaign flashpoint in the 2018 races for governor and state schools chief. Union opposition to charters has been particularly vocal in big urban districts such as Oakland and Los Angeles.

Convening the task force was one of Newsom’s first acts as governor, after striking teachers in the state’s largest school Charter school task force echoes calls for tighter charter school regs, more local control | CALmatters

NHTA Ratifies Tentative Agreement with 60% Vote Ending Historic 14-Day Strike | New Haven Teachers Association

NHTA Ratifies Tentative Agreement with 60% Vote Ending Historic 14-Day Strike | New Haven Teachers Association

NHTA Ratifies Tentative Agreement with 60% Vote Ending Historic 14-Day Strike

This is the beginning, not the end – New Haven Teachers Will Continue to Make Students/Teachers/Classroom Needs a Budget Priority

UNION CITY – With a 60% yes vote (302 yes, 200 no), members of the New Haven Teachers Association ratified the tentative agreement with the New Haven Unified School District, officially ending the historic 14-day strike. Members met today at the Portuguese Hall in Union City, and voting closed at 7 p.m.

The vote should put the school board and new superintendent on notice that this is just the beginning and not the end, NHTA President Joe Ku’e Angeles said. “Our unity with each other on the picket lines was an incredible display of power that resulted in some real gains for our union. The strike brought us together and made us stronger as a union to fight for our students, connected us with parents in a way we have never seen before in Union City, and expanded the spotlight of the underfunding of public education across California. We have made history together.”

Angeles noted the agreement wasn’t everything teachers wanted, but it did force NHUSD managers to prioritize attracting and retaining teachers in the budget, and built strong parent coalitions to work on lowering class size and increasing student supports. Members say their yes votes were in support of their union and the no votes were aimed at the district management’s bad behavior.

While NHTA members are encouraged  to rest up over the summer, Angeles outlined the union’s agenda to continue the fight for students:

• Participating with parents in collecting signatures on the school board recall petition.
• Meeting regularly, weekly even, with the new superintendent to ensure students and teachers are a priority in the budget.
• Continuing conversations with school board members and monitoring board actions.
• Actively engaging in NHUSD budget review and development.
• Lowering class size and increasing student services and supports (mental health services, librarians, counselors) are major priorities in the next full bargaining session (the negotiations process starts again in the fall).
• Helping drive professional development. In the past, NHUSD has received millions in grants for professional development and instead of utilizing the expertise from within the New Haven teaching ranks, the district spent it on consultants and trainings.  

Going back to the classroom Monday, moving forward and mending relationships will be tough, Angeles CONTINUE READING: NHTA Ratifies Tentative Agreement with 60% Vote Ending Historic 14-Day Strike | New Haven Teachers Association

Jeff Bryant: The charter school ‘dumpster fire’ in Pennsylvania provides an important lesson for 2020 Democratic candidates – Raw Story

The charter school ‘dumpster fire’ in Pennsylvania provides an important lesson for 2020 Democratic candidates – Raw Story

The charter school ‘dumpster fire’ in Pennsylvania provides an important lesson for 2020 Democratic candidates

Charter schools have finally broken into the national political dialogue, with presidential candidates in the Democratic Party proclaiming their stances on these schools. But a national debate about charters and “school choice” will be an exercise in empty rhetoric unless the candidates’ views are grounded in the real consequences of how charter schools and school choice affect communities.

Although much of the debate is stuck to a bumper sticker message about the need for families to have a choice to attend charter schools, few if any candidates seem willing to acknowledge providing families with an option to choose charters can come with considerable costs to everyone else in the community.

To understand those costs, consider Pennsylvania, where the costs of charter schools are most blatantly apparent but nevertheless representative of the cost of charters everywhere.

A ‘Perfect Storm’ Crushing the Middle Class

Across the state, charter schools are part of what Dan Doubet tells me is “a perfect storm of economic factors crushing down on middle- and working-class families.” Doubet is executive director of Keystone Progress, a Pennsylvania-based activist group focused on progressive issues and community organizing.

Pennsylvania passed its charter school law in 1997 and now has 179 CONTINUE READING: 

Teachers Should Not Feel Guilty About Taking The Summer Off - Teacher Habits

Teachers Should Not Feel Guilty About Taking The Summer Off - Teacher Habits

Teachers Should Not Feel Guilty About Taking The Summer Off

It’s that time of year once again. The time of year when teachers try to convince people who don’t teach that they really don’t have summers off.

Teacher Nicholas Ferroni, who enjoys a large Twitter following of mostly fellow teachers (it might have something to do with his looks, though his pandering to teachers probably doesn’t hurt), got an early jump this year when he asked teachers to share with him all the work they’ll be doing this summer.

He’s calling it #NoSummersOff and he’s been sharing videos of teachers explaining how many humps they’ll be busting between this year’s final bell and next year’s welcome-back-to-school-time-wasting-PD-day.

Nicholas Ferroni

✔@NicholasFerroni

THIS

Teachers have summers off, right?

Well, I asked educators from all over the country what they will be doing off this summer and this is what they said.

What will YOU be doing this summer and share this w/ anyone who thinks you do have off. #NoSummersOff pic.twitter.com/dFOlgohg0D

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7:31 AM - Jun 1, 2019

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Ferroni explained that the campaign is “not intended for sympathy or to complain, but to crush the myth that only NON-educators believe: teachers have summers off.”

But why do teachers feel the need to crush this myth instead of CONTINUE READING: Teachers Should Not Feel Guilty About Taking The Summer Off - Teacher Habits

Checklist: Media Coverage of the “Science of Reading” | radical eyes for equity

Checklist: Media Coverage of the “Science of Reading” | radical eyes for equity

Checklist: Media Coverage of the “Science of Reading”

Several years ago while preparing the first edition (2013) of De-testing and De-grading Schools: Authentic Alternatives to Accountability and Standardization, I came to know Peter DeWitt as a highly praised principal who wrote in that volume about no testing week at his school.

His work and career have shifted since then, but I have remained in contact through his public writing. Coinciding with a mostly fruitless Twitter debate about how the media continues to misrepresent the challenges and realities of teaching reading, then, I was strongly drawn to DeWitt’s 3 Reasons I Do Not Engage In Twitter Debates.

Much of his examination of the paradox that is social media is extremely compelling to me; his three reasons, in fact, resonate powerfully: They’re rarely about common understanding, they make you look really crazy to onlookers, and he’s not good at them.

When I find myself crossing (foolishly) DeWitt’s pointed line, I try to justify the effort by this (mostly idealistic and probably misguided) justification: Making a nuanced and detailed case, even through the limitations of Twitter, will likely not persuade the Twitter thread members, but can provide a platform for learning to those observing the discussion.

However, I find DeWitt’s conclusions hold fast, and thus, offering here the details and the nuance has a better, although also limited, potential for changing the dialogue and reaching more understanding.

Instead of providing yet another discrediting of yet another media misrepresentation of the “science of reading” (see some of that work listed CONTINUE READING: Checklist: Media Coverage of the “Science of Reading” | radical eyes for equity

When We’re The Packages: UPS, Annie E. Casey Foundation & Impact Investing – Wrench in the Gears

When We’re The Packages: UPS, Annie E. Casey Foundation & Impact Investing – Wrench in the Gears

When We’re The Packages: UPS, Annie E. Casey Foundation & Impact Investing

The Annie E. Casey Foundation, the United Way, and the Aspen Institute are in the process of rolling out a “two-generation,” coordinated program of data exploitation designed to enmesh poor families in ongoing systems of digital monitoring. In order to secure their most basic needs for survival, families in need will be expected to demonstrate compliance with boot-strap, neoliberal interventions grounded in behavioral economics.

Not only will intrusive personal information be fed into cloud-based dashboard systems by social service providers (educators, healthcare providers, therapists, social workers), increasingly wearable technology and Internet of Things enabled devices will be deployed to extract data in real time. Such “solutions” place the burden on individuals to “fix” themselves within systems that have, in fact, been designed to oppress them. As the poor attempt to navigate rigged, “pay for success” social “welfare” interventions, their digital exhaust will be harnessed and used to fuel hedge fund speculation. Predatory investors are now aggregating portfolios of “evidence-based” “solutions” through vehicles like the Green Light Fund (more here).

It is a brutal enterprise suited to our current moment, one in which the purchasing power of the masses is no longer sufficient to maintain global capital flows and innovative systems of finance linked to digital technologies  are on the rise. The “two-generation” strategy being advanced by the Annie E. Casey Foundation in coordination with the United Way and the Aspen Institute will vastly increase the amount of data collected, imposing family-level surveillance via “soft” (social welfare agencies) and “hard” (law enforcement) systems of policing. As befitting CONTINUE READING: When We’re The Packages: UPS, Annie E. Casey Foundation & Impact Investing – Wrench in the Gears


What About Alice? The United Way, Collective Impact & Libertarian “Charity”

It seems the United Way is planning for a future inhabited by a mass underclass of precarious labor. In fact, this “future” may already be here, it’s just not evenly distributed as the quote attributed to William Gibson suggests. For the past few years United Way chapters nationwide have been mobilizing awareness campaigns around ALICE. The acronym stands for Assets Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. ALICE does not signify just female and female-identifying adults, but instead the masses of the working poor and their families. ALICE is the raw material that will be fed into the United Way’s “collective impact” machine. ALICEs may be pregnant teens, foster youth, single parents, indebted students, veterans, the disabled, the chronically ill, the elderly, the addicted, or families holding down multiple jobs who still cannot make ends meet.

Stephanie Hoopes, who earned a PhD in government and international relations from the London School of Economics, developed the ALICE campaign, which is housed within the United Way, and has served as its director since 2015. She taught in the UK early in her career, then became the treasurer of the New Jersey public television network. She also taught at Columbia and Rutgers where she served as director for the Rutgers-Newark New Jersey Databank. Social impact investing runs on data, especially interoperable data.

This January, Hoopes participated as a panelist in a “Prosperity   CONTINUE READING: What About Alice? The United Way, Collective Impact & Libertarian “Charity”

Don’t Blame Trump, DeVos, or Unions for Growing Opposition to Charter Schools | Dissident Voice

Don’t Blame Trump, DeVos, or Unions for Growing Opposition to Charter Schools | Dissident Voice

Don’t Blame Trump, DeVos, or Unions for Growing Opposition to Charter Schools

While billionaires Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos can take some of the “blame” for an uptick in broad opposition to the nation’s 7,000 non-profit and for-profit charter schools, resistance to privately-operated charter schools has been building for nearly three decades.

Opposition to segregated, test-obsessed, and unaccountable charter schools that fleece the public treasury is not new. Many defenders of public education and the public interest have been consistently exposing and criticizing charter schools for a long time.

If anything, billionaires Trump and DeVos have served mainly as catalysts for simmering resistance to deregulated charter schools that transfer publicwealth to private interests. It was just a matter of time before this opposition took hold and became more visible and powerful.

Neoliberals and privatizers are unable and unwilling to comprehend all of this because, objectively, they can only see phenomena from a narrow capital-centered view. Looking at phenomena from the perspective of the public interest does not make sense to them.

In short, stiff and more discernable resistance to charter schools was inevitable, with or without Trump and DeVos.

Mounting opposition to charter schools stems mainly from the stubborn fact that charter schools are plagued by and cause many endless problems that are profound and impossible to cover up. No amount of disinformation, lies, CONTINUE READING: Don’t Blame Trump, DeVos, or Unions for Growing Opposition to Charter Schools | Dissident Voice

Reboot Foundation research questions the use of educational technology

Reboot Foundation research questions the use of educational technology

Research shows lower test scores for fourth graders who use tablets in schools
Reboot Foundation questions the use of technology in education

A mounting body of evidence indicates that technology in schools isn’t boosting student achievement as its proponents had hoped it would. The latest research comes from the Reboot Foundation, which released a study in June 2019 that shows a negative connection between a nation’s performance on international assessments and 15-year-olds’ self-reported use of technology in school. The more students used technology in schools, the lower the nation ranked in educational achievement.

In the United States, the results were more complicated. For younger school children, the study found a negative tie between the use of tablets in school and fourth-grade reading scores. Fourth-grade students who reported using tablets in “all or almost all” classes scored 14 points lower on the reading portion of a test administered by the federal government than students who reported “never” using classroom tablets. That’s the equivalent of a year of education or an entire grade level. Meanwhile, some types of computer usage among older students could be beneficial. Eighth graders who reported using computers to conduct research for projects had higher reading test scores than those who didn’t use computers for research.

“We see a lot of spending everywhere on tablets, computers, counting the ratio of computers per student,” said Helen Lee Bouygues, who founded the Reboot Foundation in 2018. Bouygues wants schools to pay more attention to how they are using technology.

“Technology is not bad in general,” she said, “although I would argue for younger children, it’s questionable whether it has benefits.”

Reboot aims to increase the teaching of critical thinking in schools and by parents at home. Bouygues said she started the foundation in reaction to the rapid spread of fake news on the internet and the inability of citizens to distinguish reliable sources from propaganda. She said she wanted to learn if technology was a problem for younger CONTINUE READING: Reboot Foundation research questions the use of educational technology

California moves toward new limits on charter schools - Los Angeles Times

California moves toward new limits on charter schools - Los Angeles Times

California moves toward new limits on charter schools 

When Los Angeles teachers went on strike in January, a major issue was charter schools: Union leaders talked about halting the growth of these privately operated campuses and exerting more local control over where and how these schools operate.

California took a step in that direction last week with the release of a much-awaited report by a task force set up in the wake of the six-day walkout.

The report supports new restrictions on charters and is expected to shape statewide policy.

One of the most important recommendations was to give a school district more authority when a charter seeks to open within its boundaries. Under current law, a school district must approve the opening of any charter that meets basic requirements.

The idea was to spark competition and give parents high-quality options for their children — and thousands of parents have responded enthusiastically. Charters enroll nearly one in five students in the nation’s second-largest school system.

But one result has been a proliferation of charters in some neighborhoods. Because state funding is based on enrollment, charters as well as district schools have been hard-pressed to attract enough students to remain financially viable, making it difficult to provide a stable academic program.

To address that situation, the task force recommends allowing a school district to forbid the opening of a new charter based on “saturation.” Charter critics say saturation already has become a problem in Boyle Heights and parts of South Los Angeles.

The recommendation on saturation received endorsement from the entire panel, which includes representatives of charter schools.

A smaller bloc, but still a panel majority, would go further. It recommended that school districts be able to deny a proposed charter based on financial harm to the host school district.

The panel did not release details on how individual members voted, but charter groups have vehemently opposed such a restriction. They have argued it could be used to deny any charter petition.

“There are elements that are deeply concerning and require more work ahead,” said Myrna Castrejón, president of the California Charter Schools Assn. “But ultimately, these efforts will play a pivotal role in charting a path forward for California’s students.”

State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond put together the task force at the request of Gov. Gavin Newsom. Teachers union leaders hailed the governor’s willingness to convene the task force as a victory. CONTINUE READING: California moves toward new limits on charter schools - Los Angeles Times