TFA Is Shocked, Shocked To Find That It Is An ‘Arm’ Of The Charter School Movement | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

TFA Is Shocked, Shocked To Find That It Is An ‘Arm’ Of The Charter School Movement | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

TFA Is Shocked, Shocked To Find That It Is An ‘Arm’ Of The Charter School Movement

A few weeks ago an article appeared in ProPublica called ‘How Teach for America became an arm of the charter school movement’.  I found this be a very well researched article which shed light on something that public school advocates like me already knew a lot about — that TFA and the charter school movement are highly intertwined.

For people who didn’t already know about this, this would be truly eye opening.  But even for people like me who have always known about this, this article gave some new details that offered even more compelling proof including a major ‘smoking gun.’

The smoking gun is a contract that TFA signed with the Walton Foundation where TFA would receive $4,000 for each public school teacher they recruit and $6,000 for every charter school teacher they recruit.

I thought the article was great and it got a lot of attention but, for me, the most amazing thing was the reaction by TFA and by the TFA supporters.

Here is what TFA tweeted:

To which I responded: CONTINUE READING: TFA Is Shocked, Shocked To Find That It Is An ‘Arm’ Of The Charter School Movement | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Shawgi Tell: Don’t Be Charter-Fooled | Dissident Voice

Don’t Be Charter-Fooled | Dissident Voice

Don’t Be Charter-Fooled

Major problems in the charter school sector have been detailed by many researchers and writers over the years. In the last year or two, however, persistent charter school problems have been exposed with much greater depth, breadth, and regularity by more individuals and organizations.

It has become abundantly clear to more people that the charter school sector is riddled with too many serious difficulties to hide. The consequences of these problems are just too severe to deny.

In this context, some “leaders” in the fractured crisis-prone charter school sector have remained hidebound, arrogant, and dogmatic, nonchalantly ignoring endless valid criticisms and simply chugging along as if everything is hunky dory.

Others in the charter school sector have feigned concern and expressed an ostensible desire to “acknowledge problems” and “improve.” The hope is to fool the gullible by recasting the heavily tarnished image of these deregulated schools so as to prettify them and counteract growing resistance to them.

But can a charter school not be a charter school?

As a general rule, state laws deliberately and consciously establish charter schools as entities (performance-based contracts) that are destined to have all the problems that they have. Charter schools are deregulated, deunionized, and privatized by conscious design. They are not public schools, no matter how often one claims they are.

The problem is not that charter schools are not living up to their “original promise,” but that they are doing exactly what they have always been carefully set up to do: function as pay-the-rich schemes in the context of a continually failing economy and discredited political system.

Nonprofit and for-profit charter schools have always been neoliberal through CONTINUE READING: Don’t Be Charter-Fooled | Dissident Voice

Teacher credentials come in for tough grading as California rethinks charter school rules | CALmatters

Teacher credentials come in for tough grading as California rethinks charter school rules | CALmatters

Teacher credentials come in for tough grading as CA rethinks charter school rules

Heather Williams knew as a kid that she wanted to be a piano teacher. She earned her music degree with a piano emphasis from Brigham Young University and spent decades honing her craft.

Today she not only runs her own academy near Sacramento, offering private lessons with a special certification in the Suzuki Method of instruction, but also teaches in public schools, though she lacks a state teaching credential.

How? Via a loophole that lets charter schools skip some of the credentialing required of teachers in traditional public school classrooms. The exception has allowed Williams to offer music instruction to homeschool charter students and to group classes in brick-and-mortar charters such as the Sacramento-based California Montessori Project network.

Proponents say it encourages enrichment in that privately-run sector of the public school system. In recent months, however—like many state rules that apply to charters—it has drawn legislative attention. And influential lawmakers say it could be on its way out.

Whether all teachers should need a state credential to teach has long been debated. In California, the answer has been “yes” for teachers in traditional public schools.

But California law grants charter schools “flexibility” in credentialing requirements for teachers assigned to classes outside of the “core” subjects of math, reading, science and social studies, as well as “college prep” courses such as Advanced Placement.

Charter advocates and local school officials say the ability to expand limited applicant pools to include, say, professional artists, helps ensure a breadth of course offerings in areas such as dance, theater and music.

But charter school critics say the exception has been abused, and that standards need to be clarified to ensure that CONTINUE READING: Teacher credentials come in for tough grading as California rethinks charter school rules | CALmatters

Should Non-Citizen Parents Be Allowed To Vote In LAUSD School Board Elections?: LAist

Should Non-Citizen Parents Be Allowed To Vote In LAUSD School Board Elections?: LAist

Should Non-Citizen Parents Be Allowed To Vote In LAUSD School Board Elections?

Los Angeles Unified School Board members each represent thousands of constituents who have a direct stake in the success of the district's schools but who cannot currently vote: parents who are not American citizens.

In a few weeks, though, the board may take a first step toward giving all parents — including those living in the U.S. without legal authorization — a right to vote in school board elections.

LAUSD board member Kelly Gonez formally introduced a resolution last week that proposes exploring a possible measure on the 2020 ballot that would open future LAUSD board elections to "all parents, legal guardians, or caregivers of a child residing within the boundaries of Los Angeles Unified."

"Those parents and guardians have an equal stake in the education of their children," Gonez said, "and I believe they should have a say in who represents them on the school board and who votes on their behalf."

WHEN MIGHT THIS HAPPEN?

The board will take up Gonez's resolution in August. If approved after the board's summer break, the resolution directs district staff to present possible ballot language within 60 days along with "strategies for assuring the confidentiality of the right to vote and assuaging fears of retaliation due to immigration status."

Gonez said the timing of her resolution will allow board members to simultaneously consider two proposals to broaden LAUSD's voting base. The board has already moved to explore giving 16- and 17-year-olds a vote in LAUSD elections.

HOW MANY NON-CITIZENS COULD THEORETICALLY REGISTER?

It's hard to say precisely.

LAUSD — like many school districts — doesn't track the citizenship status of the roughly 570,000 children who attend public schools within its boundaries, including charter schools. The same legal cases that require public schools to educate all students no matter their immigration status also limit districts' ability to ask about it, since prying questions might discourage parents from enrolling their children in school.

Statewide estimates show more than 320,000 school-aged children in California are living in the U.S. without legal permission — the equivalent of 5% of the state's K-12 enrollment. But a larger percentage of California's students — about 1 in 8 — have at least one parent who isn't authorized to live in the U.S.

HAS ANYONE ELSE DONE THIS?

If ultimately enacted, LAUSD would join the San Francisco Unified School District in extending CONTINUE READING: Should Non-Citizen Parents Be Allowed To Vote In LAUSD School Board Elections?: LAist

Why many school districts are being set up for fiscal failure | Salon.com

Why many school districts are being set up for fiscal failure | Salon.com

Why many school districts are being set up for fiscal failure
One urban district faces an especially steep climb out of the abyss of oppressive rule

Former vice president and current presidential hopeful Joe Biden recently caught a lot of flak for saying if President Trump were to be booted out of office, politics would go back to being sane again. He then suggested that his history of being “civil” with avowed segregationists was an asset worthy of the presidency. Biden’s critics were right to point out his “nostalgia” ignores the assault on democracy that occurred during those mythical “good times” before Trump, and a more important concern is whether years of systemic corruption and intransigence toward democracy have become so ingrained that government of the people, by the people, and for the people is no longer possible.

That very concern is currently being tested in an arena long regarded as the foundation of democracy itself — the nation’s public schools. Currently, numerous urban school districts around the country are returning to local democratic control after years of authoritarian, and often corrupt, rule by their respective state governments. In New Orleans, Philadelphia, Detroit, Newark, and elsewhere, school districts that have spent

years under the thumb of state-appointed boards and managers are transitioning to public control through either democratically elected boards or boards appointed by an elected mayor.CONTINUE READING: Why many school districts are being set up for fiscal failure | Salon.com

Consent, Policing, and School Safety | radical eyes for equity

Consent, Policing, and School Safety | radical eyes for equity

Consent, Policing, and School Safety

A recent controversy at an Arizona Starbucks spurred anger across social media:

Starbucks on Sunday apologized after an employee at one of its stores in Tempe, Arizona, asked six police officers to leave or move out of a customer’s line of sight, triggering social media backlash.

The officers had visited the store on July 4 and had paid for the drinks, before one company employee approached them about a customer not feeling safe because of the police presence, the Tempe Officers Association said on Twitter.

Conservative pro-police voices called for a boycott of Starbucks, and eventually, the company issued an apology.

The outrage toward customers in Starbucks finding the presence of police officers intimidating is a uniquely American response, but not one common to all Americans.

Several months ago, I was having a late dinner at a nearby Mexican restaurant after I finished teaching an evening course at my university. Just as I was eating chips with salsa and drinking the XX I ordered, in walked four officers with the county K-9 unit.

These men were typically outfitted like militia—several visible weapons and fatigues. They were dressed for war—not to serve and protect.

I was deeply uncomfortable when they sat beside me; in fact, I always find armed police officers intimidating because they have guns.

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

For many years now, U.S. police forces have become more and more militarized, through training and acquiring equipment from the military.

The uncomfortable Starbuck’s customers are, in fact, embodiments of what research shows about heavily armed and antagonistic police forces—especially when compared to London policing, which is grounded in policing by consent from 1829:

1. To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.
2. To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their CONTINUE READING: Consent, Policing, and School Safety | radical eyes for equity

Did Jeb Bush Choose Your District’s Superintendent? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Did Jeb Bush Choose Your District’s Superintendent? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Did Jeb Bush Choose Your District’s Superintendent?

Jeb Bush created an organization called Chiefs for Change, whose original membership consisted of state superintendents who shared Jeb’s ideas: high-stakes testing, evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students, school grades of A-F, and school choice (charters and vouchers).

Chiefs for Change has now become a clearinghouse for district superintendents.

You can be sure that anyone recommended by Chiefs for Change is dedicated to disrupting and privatizing your district.

Here are some of the district superintendents that Chiefs for Change points to with pride.

Lewis Ferebee, the new Superintendent of the schools of the District of Columbia.

Susana Cordova, the new Superintendent of the Denver CONTINUE READING: Did Jeb Bush Choose Your District’s Superintendent? | Diane Ravitch's blog