New Study: Faculty Diversity Gains in U.S. Colleges and Universities Largely Minimal | Cloaking Inequity

New Study: Faculty Diversity Gains in U.S. Colleges and Universities Largely Minimal | Cloaking Inequity

NEW STUDY: FACULTY DIVERSITY GAINS IN U.S. COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES LARGELY MINIMAL

We are honored to announce a NEW article entitled Considering the Ethnoracial and Gender Diversity of Faculty in US College and University Intellectual Communities about faculty diversity in the The Hispanic Journal of Law and Policy (THJLP). THJLP is a law journal at South Texas College of Law Houston. Its purpose is to inform and significantly impact the Hispanic legal community in Texas and across the nation.

Diversity, equity and inclusion should be widely promoted across disciplines, colleges, and a university’s intellectual community to positively impact educational practices and outcomes. It is important that our nation’s college and universities centrally value gender and ethnoracial diversity that fits within the framework of the law in the admissions processes and the recruitment and employment of faculty, two areas uniquely separate and distinct in their legal analyses. Notably, propositions, legislation and judicial decisions have challenged policies crafted to increase diversity in education in some states, particularly, in the context of admissions in higher education, while the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed race to be considered as a “plus” factor. Considering the legal context surrounding higher education admissions, it is important for leaders and administrators in higher education to understand whether universities and colleges have advanced greater diversity among faculty given this legal environment. Our discussion focuses on what higher education leaders are facing with respect to faculty diversity given the legal context surrounding affirmative action and admissions processes. We note differences in gender and ethnoracial diversity by institution type (Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral). We also find that in recent years, gains in faculty diversity in U.S. college and university intellectual communities were largely minimal.

Please read and share this new piece widely. Our academic leaders and scholarly communities need to make more progress in diversifying our nation’s faculty.

Vasquez Heilig. J., Flores, I., Souza, A., Barry, J., & Barcelo Monroy, S. (2019). Considering the Ethnoracial and Gender Diversity of Faculty in US College and University Intellectual Communities. Hispanic Journal of Law and Policy, 2(1), 1-31.

Please Facebook Like, Tweet, etc below and/or reblog to share this discussion with others.

For more published and peer reviewed research check out and follow my Academia.edu channel here.

Twitter: @ProfessorJVH

Click here for Vitae.

New Study: Faculty Diversity Gains in U.S. Colleges and Universities Largely Minimal | Cloaking Inequity

NYC Public School Parents: Our annual Skinny dinner honoring AG Tish James and NYC Kids PAC was a success!

NYC Public School Parents: Our annual Skinny dinner honoring AG Tish James and NYC Kids PAC was a success!

Our annual Skinny dinner honoring AG Tish James and NYC Kids PAC was a success!

On Wednesday night, Class Size Matters held our annual Skinny award dinner at Casa La Femme in Greenwich Village.  This year we honored NY Attorney General Tish James and NYC Kids PAC for giving us the real "Skinny" on NYC schools and supporting and amplifying the voices of  public school parents and students.

The food was great and the company sublime.  The Attorney General, Diane Ravitch and Chancellor Rosa all delivered wonderful speeches and it was great fun to share experiences and catch up with allies, friends and colleagues from the past year.

There are lots more photos on the Class Size Matters Facebook page and a few below.

Brooke Parker, Shino Tanikawa,  and Fatima Geidi receiving the Skinny award on behalf of NYC Kids PAC.










Diane Ravitch, education historian and activist, Susan Ochshorn of ECE Policy Works and Carol Burris, executive director of Network for Public Education.

Two of last year's Skinny winners: Fred Smith, testing expert and critic, with Norm Scott, retired teacher, blogger, reporter for The Wave and all-round education activist.

Anita Coley, principal of PS 25 in Bed Stuy with AG Tish James and educators Audrey and Gerri Baker, alumnae of PS 25.








CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Our annual Skinny dinner honoring AG Tish James and NYC Kids PAC was a success!

Report: California’s charter school appeals process disempowers local communities – In the Public Interest

Report: California’s charter school appeals process disempowers local communities – In the Public Interest

Report: California’s charter school appeals process disempowers local communities

In 1992, California’s legislature passed a bill allowing for the creation of charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately managed. Almost three decades later, the state has the country’s largest charter school sector, with more than 1,300 charter schools serving around 10 percent of California’s student body, some 630,000 students.

One reason for this immense growth is the state’s charter appeals process, which has helped allow charter schools to rapidly increase in number in many local school districts.

The California Charter Schools Act currently enables prospective charter school operators to appeal a local school district’s decision to deny a charter application. Operators first appeal to the local county board of education and then to the State Board of Education (SBE). If either grants the appeal, they become the charter school’s authorizer.

This report summarizes a number of instances when a charter school closed after being granted an appeal by a county board or the SBE. Its aim is to shed light on the students, families, educators, and school staff harmed by an appeals process that takes decision-making power away from local communities.

Click here to download a one-page summary of the report.

Report: California’s charter school appeals process disempowers local communities – In the Public Interest

This unusual feature of California charter school law disempowers local communities - https://medium.com/in-the-public-interest/this-unusual-feature-of-california-charter-school-law-disempowers-local-communities-d3e9eb8e01b6 by @FutureDebris on @Medium

Sacramento City Unified School District approves budget | The Sacramento Bee

Sacramento City Unified School District approves budget | The Sacramento Bee

Sacramento City Unified approves budget that relies on reserves – and faces county rejection

The Sacramento City Unified School District on Thursday night approved adoption of its budget for the upcoming school year – despite concern that the district is still spending more than $12 million in reserves to balance its books, which officials say is not fiscally sustainable.

The budget will be rejected when it is submitted to the Sacramento County Office of Education, according to the district’s contracted budget consultant, Jacquie Canfield.

The county has already disapproved Sacramento City Unified’s budget twice since August, and the district has been under threat of a state takeover as it expected to run out of cash this fall. But officials say the budget plan lets the district avoid seeking an emergency state loan until fall 2020 – buying time to achieve permanent savings through negotiations with its teachers union.

“We will take some time to carefully review this budget after you approve it,” said Sacramento County Superintendent of Schools David Gordon. “It’s crucial that you and your labor partners collaborate and look through the entire budget ... to run the district effectively.”

Earlier this month, Canfield had identified more than $5 million in savings after combing through the budget. And in May, the district said it had corrected an enrollment error in which more than 700 Sacramento City Unified students in five schools were not accounted for. Because school funding is based on student enrollment, the error caused the district to underestimate its revenue by millions of dollars.

In her budget report at the board meeting Thursday – the district’s last for this school year – Canfield said enrollment continues to decline. In the last two years, about 200 students left the district, according to a report by the company DecisionInsite. Its projections indicate a steady decline in future years.

But the Sacramento City Teachers Association said DecisionInsite’s report included many errors. For example, the union said the district continues to exclude enrollment numbers from some independent programs, and projects enrollment declines at competitive schools such as Crocker CONTINUE READING: Sacramento City Unified School District approves budget | The Sacramento Bee

Big Education Ape: Sacramento City Unified’s budget will be disapproved | The Sacramento Bee - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/06/sacramento-city-unifieds-budget-will-be.html

Big Education Ape: Sac Schools Cut ‘Hope Closet’ Coordinator, Threatening Aid To Disadvantaged Students Amid Push To Lower Administrative Costs - capradio.org - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/06/sac-schools-cut-hope-closet-coordinator.html

Big Education Ape: Insolvency Avoided, New Budget Is Fixable - Sacramento City Teachers Association - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/05/insolvency-avoided-new-budget-is.html

Karen Francisco: Indiana’s School Choice Frauds | Diane Ravitch's blog

Karen Francisco: Indiana’s School Choice Frauds | Diane Ravitch's blog

Karen Francisco: Indiana’s School Choice Frauds

Karen Francisco, editorial page editor of the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, is a great defender of democracy, honesty, and public schools. She is a keen observer of the school choice hustle in Indiana, where grifters and entrepreneurs are welcome to rip off the public. Thanks, Former Governor’s Mitch Daniels and Mike Pence, and compliant legislators.

In this editorial, she explains how charter schools and voucher schools evade accountability. One neat gimmick is to change the name of a failing choice School, and the clock gets reset. Presto, Change-O.

She begins:

When Horizon Christian Academy produced some of the lowest standardized test scores in the state in 2015, a spokeswoman for the Institute for Quality Education defended the Fort Wayne school’s poor performance by claiming accountability for Indiana voucher schools is greater than for public schools.

“Traditional public schools as well as public charter schools can receive an F for four consecutive years before the state can intervene,” Erin Sweitzer told The Journal Gazette. “Private voucher schools, however, are required to stop accepting new voucher students after two consecutive years of receiving a D or F.”

What Sweitzer and other voucher proponents don’t CONTINUE READING: Karen Francisco: Indiana’s School Choice Frauds | Diane Ravitch's blog

Students need properly resourced schools, not gimmicks like charters – Daily News

Students need properly resourced schools, not gimmicks like charters – Daily News

Students need properly resourced schools, not gimmicks like charters 

From reading the Southern California News Group publications, one might think that California teachers unions’ charter school policy initiatives were a search and destroy mission motivated by malice, self-interest, and envy. In reality, union policies –including recent, high-profile legislative battles in Sacramento–are a reasoned and long overdue response to charter school abuses and charter schools’ abuse of public education.

Charter backers oppose union efforts to control charter expansion and the havoc it wreaks on traditional schools, asserting that charter schools outperform public schools. What the studies and data they point to actually show is this: if the higher-performing students in a set of schools get the opportunity to leave and go to a school with similarly higher-performing students, the students at that school might outperform the students who did not choose to go to that school. That’s hardly news.

University of Colorado education professor Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center, explains, “the greatest determinants of [a school’s] success are the raw materials – the students who enroll.” Welner identified a dozen methods charters use to get the “raw material” they want–and avoid or discard what they don’t.

One method Welner identified is that charters push parents of struggling students to remove their children from school. Repeated meetings between parents, administrators, and teachers are often enough for mom and dad to get the hint. If not, explaining that if the student stays he will be retained in grade, or will have to go elsewhere to graduate on time, is even more effective. Welner notes that grade retention is used “extensively” at KIPP charter network. KIPP operates 15 charter schools in Los Angeles and over 200 nationwide.

Related to this are the harsh discipline policies many charters employ. One recent study found LAUSD charters suspend students at twice the rate of non-charters. According to Capital & Main, this includes suspending black students at almost three times and students with disabilities at nearly four times the rate of traditional schools. Suspensions often push parents towards withdrawing their children.

It’s easier, however, to never enroll such students in the first place. According to journalist Stephanie Simon, a Reuters study found “charters aggressively screen student applicants, assessing their academic records, parental support, disciplinary history, motivation, special needs and even their citizenship.” Some of the barriers Reuters found include: CONTINUE READING: Students need properly resourced schools, not gimmicks like charters – Daily News

Stephen Suitts: The Racist History of “School Choice” | Diane Ravitch's blog

Stephen Suitts: The Racist History of “School Choice” | Diane Ravitch's blog

Stephen Suitts: The Racist History of “School Choice”

Stephen Suitts is an adjunct professor at Emory University’s Institute for the Liberal Arts. He is the author of Hugo Black of Alabama: How His Roots and Early Career Shaped the Great Champion of the Constitution. Earlier in his career, Suitts served as the executive director of the Southern Regional Council, vice president of the Southern Education Foundation, and executive producer and writer of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” a thirteen-hour public radio series that received a Peabody Award for its history of the civil rights movement in five Deep South cities.

In this illuminating and important article, he examines the roots of the “school choice” movement, which began as an integral part of the segregationist opposition to the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown decision. Contrary to the rhetoric of Betsy DeVos, Mitt Romney, Donald Trump and even some Democrats, school choice is NOT the “civil rights issue of our time.” School choice was born as a way to maintain segregation of the races. Read this article in full. It is a brilliant and necessary history of the fight to block desegregation of the schools in the South (and other regions), and it is a fight that is ongoing. Next time you hear Betsy DeVos lecture about “educational freedom,” bear in mind that she is echoing dozens of CONTINUE READING: Stephen Suitts: The Racist History of “School Choice” | Diane Ravitch's blog

Backing Gov. Tony Evers’ Education Budget Priorities, Wisconsin Protesters Will Walk 60 Miles to Madison | janresseger

Backing Gov. Tony Evers’ Education Budget Priorities, Wisconsin Protesters Will Walk 60 Miles to Madison | janresseger

Backing Gov. Tony Evers’ Education Budget Priorities, Wisconsin Protesters Will Walk 60 Miles to Madison

Parents, teachers, and concerned citizens from all over Wisconsin will walk 60 miles to Madison beginning tomorrow. They’ll be demonstrating all weekend to protest the Republican-dominated Wisconsin Legislature’s state education budget and to support Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ effort to overcome years of Scott Walker’s budget cuts to the state’s public schools.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Annysa Johnson reports: “Public school advocates from across the state will embark on a 60-mile march to Madison… hoping to persuade Republican lawmakers to boost funding for K-12 education…. The goal, organizers say, is for the lawmakers to reinstate key components of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ education budget, particularly his nearly $600 million boost to cover special education costs, $58 million more for mental health services, and $40 million more for bilingual-bicultural programs.”

Gov. Evers, formerly Wisconsin’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, knows about the needs of public schools.  After the Legislature—still dominated by Walker’s kind of small government Republicans—rejected his budget proposal and countered with less investment in what Evers believes are necessary programs, the new Governor has repeated his demands for more money, particularly to help school districts serve disabled children in special education and support school districts serving concentration of children living in poverty.

In late May, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel‘s Molly Beck reported: “The Legislature’s budget-CONTINUE READING: Backing Gov. Tony Evers’ Education Budget Priorities, Wisconsin Protesters Will Walk 60 Miles to Madison | janresseger

Schools Matter: Continuing Comments on "A Former KIPP Teacher Shares Her Story"

Schools Matter: Continuing Comments on "A Former KIPP Teacher Shares Her Story"

Continuing Comments on "A Former KIPP Teacher Shares Her Story"

Published in 2012, "A Former KIPP Teacher Shares Her Story" has been viewed over 111,000 times.  Here are the two most recent comments, especially worth noting now 7 years after the piece was posted… (SEE BELOW)

Alex M10:01 PM

As the wife of a current KIPP teacher I am pleased, yet saddened to read this as I've watched my husband, a 10 year social studies teacher who previously taught at a school ranked as one of the top in the country by US News & World Report, struggle mightily in his first year. He came to KIPP with such optimism and a strong desire to make a difference in urban ed. All he's been met with is constant criticism, but zero resources and actual lies from his admin. He teaches two grade levels, 7th and 8th, and even though the school has been open 8 years, there was no curriculum. Literally no materials to work with. He has created everything from lesson plans to assessments to state test questions on his own. His 8th graders only have text books, because he secured a donation from his prior school district. Even after all this, he has been told he doesn't seem vested and that his teaching style isn't a fit for succeeding on the rubric. We now completely understand why they've never had a social studies teacher last longer than a year and the last 2 were gone in the middle of the year. I definitely believe there are students benefiting greatly from KIPP's work, but there must be some way to actually support teachers and build a work place suitable for a career. Currently it seems they only want to deal with fresh grads who are easily manipulated. They can suck the life out of them for a couple of years and start over again.

Reply

Replies

Anonymous1:11 PM

I was a long-term sub at a KIPP school in California. Although they had positions open and I was encouraged to apply, I never did. The school could be best described as a shabbily run prison. The principal was far too young and inexperienced to be running anything of such vital importance, and this was reflected in how he CONTINUE READING: Schools Matter: Continuing Comments on "A Former KIPP Teacher Shares Her Story"

Schools Matter: A Former KIPP Teacher Shares Her Story: 

A Former KIPP Teacher Shares Her Story

by Jim Horn

A Former KIPP Teacher Shares Her Story

Jim Horn

Ever since KIPP students were recruited to do a skit at the National Republican Convention in 2000, KIPP has been the darling of venture philanthropists, Wall Street hedge funds, corporate donors like the Fisher family (of Gap fame), and corporate foundations, including the Gates and Walton Foundations.  Hundreds of millions of dollars have poured in to the KIPP home office in San Francisco, and tens of millions more are raised each year to support a charter chain that claims to have found the solution to urban schooling, a solution that entirely ignores the exploded lives and oppressive conditions of the people living in 

New York Principals Fight Continues

Jim Horn at Schools Matter - 13 hours ago

From Sean Feeney and Carol Burris: We thank you for your support and would like to provide you with an update on activities since the end of the 2011-12 school year. As always, the most recent version of the APPR Position paper (with all signatures) is available at: http://www.newyorkprincipals.org/appr-paper. Given that the paper with signatures is over 140 pages long, we have also created a separate link for the four-page paper alone. As of the beginning of this new school year, over 1500 New York State principals have signed the letter: that's nearly one-third of all principals i... more »

Weingarten Patrolling the Web to Urge Patience for Obama/Gates Agenda

Jim Horn at Schools Matter - 1 day ago

This morning Mark Naison posted a thoughtful response to the President's corporate kowtowing and hope-turned-hype speechifying, and who else besides AFT's own CEO, Randi Weingarten, quickly responded with this: Mark- I normally agree w/ you-and as you know even in our endorsement of the President we specifically raised our concerns w/ the national policy's fixation with testing. What I don't get is when the President and the party promotes a platform that at least sounds like they are listening, why not give him the benefit of the doubt. You are so right ant teachers being demoralize... more »

More Tests Don't Make Children Better Prepared for Life or College

Jim Horn at Schools Matter - 1 day ago

From the Chalkface, by Tim Slekar September 6, 2012 by slekar Today, in the *Morning Call *(A newspaper in the Lehigh Valley) an article ran detailing the roll out of the new Keystone exams that 11th graders will be required to take in Pennsylvania this academic year. Students will be required to take Keystones (High Stakes Standardized Tests) in Algebra, Literature, and Biology. Great. New tests to replace the old tests. And why has Pennsylvania decided to get new high stakes tests? According to the spokesman for the Pennsylvania DOE Tim Eller, “We have heard from the higher ed... more »

Bloggers Beware: The Online Bedbugs Want to Hitch a Ride

Jim Horn at Schools Matter - 2 days ago

The fat bedbugs that run the online diploma mill business are unrelenting. They write lengthy friendly comments to blog posts, and just underneath some of the verbiage, they attach their swollen transparent red blood-filled carcasses in hopes that some unsuspecting reader will take their links home. That is how their blood-sucking infestations spread, and once victims have given them an opening, it is too late. Another trick they use on bloggers is to write emails inviting themselves to write articles for your blog on, who knows, how to be happy when covered with bedbugs, or ho... more »

A Child-Centered Nation (Hint: Not the U.S.)

P. L. Thomas at Schools Matter - 2 days ago

Those of us who are decades into our careers as educators and educational scholars/historians are likely more than exhausted by and deeply skeptical of (if not cynical about) international comparisons. More often than not, international comparisons connected to U.S. public education are oversimplified at best and unforgivably misleading at worst, but our exhaustion, skepticism, and cynicism must be tempered when international comparisons offer authentic and complex evidence of how entire nations are committed to child well-being through their social and educational commitments—espec... more »

Orlando Sentinel reporter responds to a letter I submitted about Pre-K testing but that wasn’t published. I answer back.

skrashen at Schools Matter - 2 days ago

On the Orlando Sentinel Education blog, Sentinel reporter Leslie Postal responded to a letter to the editor of the Sentinel that I submitted but that wasn’t published, at least not yet. Her post is below and also at: http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_education_edblog/2012/09/fls-new-pre-k-test-set-to-debut-amid-some-complaints.html/comment-page-1#comment-5344 Since Postal did not provide readers with a link to my letter, here it is: Stop treating 4 and 5 year olds like children Sent to the Orlando Sentinel, Sept. 5 Pre-K testing is a step in the right direction (“Time for another ... more »

Rehire Professor Mandeloni

Jim Horn at Schools Matter - 2 days ago

From UOO: On June 7th, 2012, we posted the following: This week United Opt Out National stands in solidarity with the UMass teacher educators and the sixty-sevenstudent teachers at UMass Amherst School of Education who together chose toboycott the Teacher Performance Assessment field test via Pearson. Barbara Madeloni, lecturer at UMass and one of the teacher educators who joined the boycott, has recently been told that her contract will not be renewed. Today we share an interview with Barbara Madeloni as she shares her views on the TPA, Common Core and education activism. *The res... more »

Stop treating 4 and 5 year olds like children

skrashen at Schools Matter - 3 days ago

Sent to the Orlando Sentinel, Sept. 5 Pre-K testing is a step in the right direction (“Time for another test — this one for 180,000 pre-K children,” Sept. 3). Required (not “voluntary”) testing is what we need to toughen up pre-school, and make sure it includes a full dose of pre-phonics (phonemic awareness) and math. We should require all children to know the alphabet and be able to spell their names as a condition for entering kindergarten. And let's insist that parents properly prepare their children for pre-school. There is no hope for the US is to compete internationally if we c... more »

Stop treating 4 and 5 year olds like children

skrashen at Schools Matter - 3 days ago

Sent to the Orlando Sentinel, Sept. 5 Pre-K testing is a step in the right direction (“Time for another test — this one for 180,000 pre-K children,” Sept. 3). Required (not “voluntary”) testing is what we need to toughen up pre-school, and make sure it includes a full dose of pre-phonics (phonemic awareness) and math. We should require all children to know the alphabet and be able to spell their names as a condition for entering kindergarten. And let's insist that parents properly prepare their children for pre-school. There is no hope for the US is to compete internationally if we c... more »

Investors Seek to Profit from Privatization of Public Schools

Judy Rabin at Schools Matter - 1 week ago

From Real News Network

Jane Watson: "Doublethink" is alive and well

skrashen at Schools Matter - 1 week ago

Sent to Yakima Herald-Republic (WA) for "Saturday Soapbox" By Jane Watson August 31, 2012 “Doublethink” is alive and well. In 1948, George Orwell wrote 1984. “Big Brother is Watching You” was born. So was “doublethink,” the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously and accepting both of them. TVs watch YOU. Language is paradoxical. Less is more. War is Peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. The organization Stand For Children endorses gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna and Charter Schools. Who doesn’t want to Stand For Children? Who wants C... more »

"Who else would title it?": Scripting Students to Death

P. L. Thomas at Schools Matter - 1 week ago

While it may seem to be little more than semantics to argue about whether teachers are the most important factor in student learning or teachers are the most important *in-school* factor in student learning, there is now little room to debate that how teachers are being mandated to treat students is inexcusable. The rise of "no excuses" assumptions and practices are creating charter and public schools that provide for "other people's children" a culture of shame, but we often fail to recognize as well that the last thirty years of accountability have created schooling as an endless ... more »

Schools Matter: Continuing Comments on "A Former KIPP Teacher Shares Her Story"