Hollywood Insiders Battle Over Charter Schools | Hollywood Reporter

Hollywood Insiders Battle Over Charter Schools | Hollywood Reporter

Hollywood Insiders Battle Over Charter Schools

 It's industry creatives vs. Reed Hastings as California bills restricting new options are up for vote: "The people backing charters [are] really problematic." 

When LAUSD board member and charter school advocate Ref Rodriguez pleaded guilty in July 2018 to a felony count of conspiracy, it seemed that Los Angeles' charter school movement had hit a critical low. Rodriguez's unraveling over campaign finance violations tipped the balance of power on the seven-member board that oversees the nation's second-largest school district, weakening its charter school block.

Tensions between proponents of public schools and of charter schools — which are started by parents, teachers or community groups and receive government funding but operate independently of state school systems — were already high. The January teachers' strike won concessions for LAUSD public schools ranging from smaller class sizes to hiring full-time nurses but was marked by heated anti-charter rhetoric. Critics of charters say they continue to drain

much-needed resources from public schools. "If LAUSD were properly funded, then I think the choice that a charter school gives would be a nice one," says writer Audrey Wauchope (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend). "Unfortunately, it often seems that going charter is now just another way for parents to leave behind their neighborhood school."

Public-school proponents contend that charters operate without sufficient oversight (proof of which came in May when California authorities arrested two men for allegedly stealing more than $50 million in state funds via a network of online charter schools). For their part, charter school CONTINUE READING: Hollywood Insiders Battle Over Charter Schools | Hollywood Reporter

Educating Voters About Jessie Ryan's Lack of Transparency - Sacramento City Teachers Association

Educating Voters About Jessie Ryan's Lack of Transparency - Sacramento City Teachers Association

Educating Voters About Jessie Ryan's Lack of Transparency

For the past several weeks, SCTA educators and other community allies have been talking to voters in School Board District, Area 7, currently represented by School Board President Jessie Ryan. The flyer being distributed is below.

Over the weekend, there were some questions raised about including the telephone number used to contact Ms. Ryan.

The number included was the one provided by Ms. Ryan to SCTA representatives on several occasions as her contact number. When this issue came up several months ago, SCTA specifically offered Ms. Ryan that an alternative number would be used if that was her preference. She did not provide an alternative.

School board members received a taxpayer-financed stipend from the District for their cell phone use.

Big Education Ape: District cuts mic on SCTA again in violation of the contract; what Jessie Ryan didn’t want to hear. - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/08/district-cuts-mic-on-scta-again-in.html

Educating Voters About Jessie Ryan's Lack of Transparency - Sacramento City Teachers Association

By teaching slavery adequately, we can overcome our history

By teaching slavery adequately, we can overcome our history

Slavery still shapes all of our lives, yet students aren’t taught its history
Glossing over America’s original sin means we can never overcome it

I had been taught, in school, through cultural osmosis, that the flag wasn’t really ours, that our history as a people began with enslavement and that we had contributed little to this great nation.”

Nikole Hannah-Jones wrote those words in her introductory essay to The 1619 Project, a special issue of The New York Times Magazine she edited that commemorates the 400-year anniversary of the arrival of 20 enslaved Africans who were sold into slavery to the shores of Virginia. Often referred to as America’s original sin, slavery is so pervasive that its residual effects can be found in everything from the stock exchange to our prison system. Slavery was instrumental in the formation of the United States. It’s crucial that we understand its inner workings and aftereffects; only then can we create a moral, economic and social roadmap to achieving our democratic ideals.

Under slavery, our ancestors were robbed of our liberty, of opportunity to gain wealth, an education, due process, and basic dignity — and all those thefts bolstered an American economy; it was built on the back of slave labor.

It’s past time all students learn why black and white Americans can expect very different life outcomes, so that they can unlearn the myths of America and the black stereotypes that bolstered those falsehoods.

Slavery may have ended 154 years ago, but its vestiges remain in our criminal justice system, in the systematic devaluation of our property, and in the harsh discipline to which we are disproportionately subjected. Even as black students stand and pledge allegiance to the flag, they know their country considers them second-class citizens. It’s past time all students learn why black and white Americans can expect very different life outcomes, so that they can unlearn the myths of America and the black stereotypes that bolstered those falsehoods.

The disconnect between students’ lived experiences and what they are taught in school is reinforced by the failure of our schools to properly teach about the institution of slavery. In a 2018 study, the anti-racist nonprofit the Southern Poverty Law Center surveyed high school seniors and social studies teachers and found that only 8 percent of the students surveyed could identify slavery as a central cause of the Civil War. Less than a quarter could identify how the U.S. Constitution gave advantages to slaveholders. And while most teachers (90 percent) claimed they were comfortable teaching about slavery, 58 percent stated their textbooks were inadequate, and 40 percent believed their respective states offered insufficient support CONTINUE READING: By teaching slavery adequately, we can overcome our history

School’s Open! Cartoons | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

School’s Open! Cartoons | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

School’s Open! Cartoons

Yep, it’s that time of year for buying school supplies, getting up early, and returning to school. Parents, children, principals, and teachers are preparing for that glorious first day of school. Here are some cartoonists’ jabs at the annual ritual of returning to school. Enjoy!

MORE CARTOONS: School’s Open! Cartoons | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Breaking the Gender Codes of Dress Codes | radical eyes for equity

Breaking the Gender Codes of Dress Codes | radical eyes for equity

Breaking the Gender Codes of Dress Codes

A popular meme in the wake of even more mass shootings makes a powerful, if somewhat hyperbolic, point:

DAVID MACK/BUZZFEED NEWS via TeenVogue

With most formal schooling restarting now, the dramatic consequences of gun violence is more likely to overshadow the more subtle negative and disproportionate impact of dress codes, especially on girls and young women as well as black and brown students.

When I raise the topic of dress code early in my foundations of education course, where students are required to tutor in a nearby school once a week, the young women invariably respond in ways that confirms what research has shown about the gender inequity of dress codes and how they are applied.

An early-career high school teacher and I were discussing her school and the new year starting with a different principal; she noted that principal is taking a different approach to the school’s dress code, specifically focusing on applying the existing code uniformly and more strictly.

She is concerned about the strictness, knowing that dress codes and their implementation tend to target girls more harshly than boys and perpetuate slut-shaming culture as well as placing the burden of “proper attire” on those girls instead of addressing toxic masculinity and sexism among the boy students. However, the consistency, she thinks, will be welcomed and much better for the students and the teachers.

Her next comment was important for me since she plans to ask the principal to re-examine the dress code next year, stressing that administrators and teachers need to explore the purposes of that dress CONTINUE READING: Breaking the Gender Codes of Dress Codes | radical eyes for equity

Jersey Jazzman: The Merit Pay Fairy Dies in Newark

Jersey Jazzman: The Merit Pay Fairy Dies in Newark

The Merit Pay Fairy Dies in Newark

Hey, youse bums -- get back to the teachin' already!

One of the long-running characters on this blog is the Merit Pay Fairy.

The Merit Pay Fairy lives in the dreams of right-wing think tanks and labor economists, who are absolutely convinced that our current teacher pay system -- based on seniority and educational attainment -- is keeping teachers from achieving their fullest potential. It matters little that even the most generous readings of the research find practically small effects* of switching to pay-for-performance systems, or that merit pay in other professions is quite rare (especially when it is based on the performance of others; teacher merit pay is, in many contexts, based on student, and not teacher, performance). 

Merit pay advocates also rarely acknowledge that adult developmental theory suggests that rewards later in life, such as higher pay, fulfill a need for older workers, or that messing with pay distributions has the potential to screw up the pool of potential teacher candidates, or that shifting pay from the bottom of the teacher "quality" distribution to the top -- and, really, that's what merit pay does -- still leaves policymakers with the problem of deciding which students get which teachers.

Issues like these, however, are at the core of any merit pay policy. Sure, pay-for-performance sounds great; it comports nicely with key concepts in economic theory. But when it comes time to implement it in an actual, real-world situation, you've got to confront a whole host of realities that theory doesn't address.

Which is what seems to have happened in Newark:

In 2012, Newark teachers agreed to a controversial new contract that linked their pay to student achievement — a stark departure from the way most teachers across the country are paid. 

The idea was to reward teachers for excellent performance, rather CONTINUE READING: Jersey Jazzman: The Merit Pay Fairy Dies in Newark

DeVos-Linked Adoption Agency Exposed Highly Sensitive Children's Medical Data - VICE

DeVos-Linked Adoption Agency Exposed Highly Sensitive Children's Medical Data - VICE

DeVos-Linked Adoption Agency Exposed Highly Sensitive Children's Medical Data
Bethany Christian Services left information about prospective adoptees' "intellectual development" as well as their medical histories and lab results online.

An adoption and foster care non-profit linked to the family of Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos exposed highly sensitive personal and medical information of dozens of children, Motherboard has learned.

The charity, called Bethany Christian Services, is one of the nation's largest adoption agencies and helps place children for adoption and foster care. It works with vulnerable children in the U.S. as well as refugees and immigrants.

"Our vision is to find a loving family for every child who needs one—that is where they thrive best," the group says on its website.

The exposed data was stored on PDFs openly available on its website. Some PDFs were called "Children Medical Examination Records" that included the names, dates of birth, the hospital or orphanage they were based in, and extremely sensitive medical information.

This includes a child's HIV status, number of teeth, lab test results, and whether the child has any physical deformities ("Spine: no deformity" "Liver: not palpable under the rib; "Anus: no abnormal findings" are examples of the data contained on the form). Other information exposed includes a "Growth Report" that explains the child's background and "motor skills and intellectual development." One notes that a child arrived "wearing yellow baby clothes and she was placed in a paper box" and that, between the age of 10 and 12 months, "she knows her name, can get biscuits, and feeds herself."

The charity has multiple connections to the DeVos family: Brian DeVos, a cousin of Betsy DeVos' husband, was a senior vice president at the CONTINUE READING: DeVos-Linked Adoption Agency Exposed Highly Sensitive Children's Medical Data - VICE

Q&A Collections: Education Policy Issues - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo - Education Week Teacher

Q&A Collections: Education Policy Issues - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo - Education Week Teacher

Q&A Collections: Education Policy Issues

During the summer, I will be sharing thematic posts bringing together responses on similar topics from the past eight years. You can see all those collections from the first seven years here.

Here are the ones I've posted so far:

This Year's Most Popular Q&A Posts

Race & Gender Challenges

Classroom-Management Advice

Best Ways to Begin the School Year

Best Ways to End the School Year

Implementing the Common Core

Student Motivation & Social-Emotional Learning

Teaching Social Studies

Cooperative & Collaborative Learning

Using Tech in the Classroom

Parent Engagement in Schools

Teaching English Language Learners

Reading Instruction

Writing Instruction

Today's theme is on Education Policy Issues. You can see the list following this excerpt from one ...CONTINUE READING: Q&A Collections: Education Policy Issues - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo - Education Week Teacher

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007 - http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/ on @Larryferlazzo

CURMUDGUCATION: KY: Starting the New Year With Threats Against Teachers

CURMUDGUCATION: KY: Starting the New Year With Threats Against Teachers

KY: Starting the New Year With Threats Against Teachers

Sadly, it's not unusual for teachers to start their new school year by being threatened, but even the worst administrators understand that it's useful to at least pretend that they think of teachers are respectable grown-up professionals. But in some districts, bosses go straight to thinly veiled warnings. And then there's those special rare occasions when teachers start the school year by being threatened by their state's governor.

Welcome to Kentucky.

All discussions of teacher upset in Kentucky have to start with one important reminder-- teachers in Kentucky will get absolutely nothing from Social Security when they retire (surprised? There are fourteen other states where that is true).

So when you mess with teacher pensions in Kentucky, you are threatening teachers' entire future.

The recurring strikes in the newly right-to-work state of Kentucky have been about issues related to the teacher pension, an always-tender subject, as it is possibly one of the worst-funded pensions in the country. So, in  2018 it was about a sneaky attempt to kneecap the pension fund. And in 2019, it was about an attempt to strip the Kentucky Education Association of its power on the pension board. This is a logical next step in a right-to-work state that is just flexing its muscles and trying to  disempower the teachers union. Some media dutifully note that KEA "only" represents 43,000 active and retired teachers, without providing the context that there are just under 43,000 teachers are working in Kentucky.

The state wants to give more power to the Kentucky Association of Professional Educators, one of CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: KY: Starting the New Year With Threats Against Teachers

New Orleans: An Amazing Feat of Spinning Poor Results! | Diane Ravitch's blog

New Orleans: An Amazing Feat of Spinning Poor Results! | Diane Ravitch's blog

New Orleans: An Amazing Feat of Spinning Poor Results!

The Education Research Alliance at Tulane University has accomplished a spectacular feat with its latest report about the “academic progress” (or lack thereof) of the all-charter district in New Orleans. The report claims that the disruption strategy of school takeovers and closures is responsible for the academic improvements in the district, but at the same time admits “The average school improved from the first to the second year after it opened, but school performance remained mostly flat afterwards. Schools starting off above the state average saw slightly declining performance in later years.” Furthermore, “quality peaked around 2013 and has either stagnated or started to decline during 2014-2016.”

So, here is the New Orleans model: Close almost all public schools. Replace them with private charters. Fire all the teachers. Replace most of the teachers with inexperienced, ill-trained TFA recruits. Close low-performing charters and replace them with other charters. Keep disrupting and churning. In the first two years, scores will go up, then stall. By year eight, “quality” will stagnate or decline. The schools will be highly stratified and racially segregated. The few high-performing schools will have selective admissions.

Here is the report, released this morning.

This report should be read in tandem with the latest state scores, which shows the all-charter district lagging far below state average scores, actually declining. Most charter schools in New Orleans, as detailed in this link prepared by a pro-charter organization, are very low-performing. The high-scoring schools have selective admissions.

New Orleans is one of the lowest performing districts in one of the lowest-performing states.It is a model of how privatization increases stratification and segregation. It should not be copied elsewhere.

But the report claims the success of the venture in school CONTINUE READING: New Orleans: An Amazing Feat of Spinning Poor Results! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Legislators ask 50-plus firms to explain how they use the 'vast amount of data’ they collect on students. (Which ones? Facebook, Google, Blackboard, etc.) - The Washington Post

Legislators ask 50-plus firms to explain how they use the 'vast amount of data’ they collect on students. (Which ones? Facebook, Google, Blackboard, etc.) - The Washington Post

Legislators ask 50-plus firms to explain how they use the 'vast amount of data’ they collect on students. (Which ones? Facebook, Google, Blackboard, etc.)

By Valerie Strauss

August 20 at 7:00 AM

A year ago, the FBI issued a warning that the rapid expansion of education technology in America’s schools and the collection of student data could “present unique exploitation opportunities for criminals.” Now, U.S. lawmakers are demanding that more than 50 education technology companies and data collectors explain what information they collect and how it is used.

Three Democratic senators — Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), Edward J. Markey (Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) — sent letters to companies such as Google, Facebook, Blackboard, the College Board, ACT, Pearson and McGraw-Hill seeking answers to questions about “the vast amount of data” being amassed on students. The information is collected through online coursework, software and electronic devices. (The College Board, which owns the SAT, and ACT are nonprofit organizations but operate like businesses.)

“We are concerned that schools, parents, and students are at risk of having significant amounts of data stolen, collected, monetized, or sold without their permission or knowledge,” said the letter that went to data analytics firms, which collect information, package it and sell it, usually without the knowledge of consumers.

“Last year, Fordham University Law School’s Center on Law and Information Policy found that data brokers make student lists based on sensitive information ranging from Grade Point Average and ethnicity to religion and affluence, among other categories, commercially available,” it said. “This data could be used for a range of malicious purposes, including discrimination and identity theft.”

The letter that was sent to education technology companies said: “Education technologies (EdTech) can be important learning tools that allow teachers to follow student progress and facilitate collaboration. However, this technology may put students, parents and educational institutions at risk of having massive amounts of personal information stolen, collected, or sold without their permission.”

Student privacy has been a growing concern among parents and privacy activists in the digital age, with online companies collecting mountains of data on users. The FBI warning about education technology said the types of data that can be collected on students include:

• personally identifiable information;
• biometric data;
• academic progress;
• behavioral, disciplinary and medical information;
• Web browsing history;
• students’ geolocation;
• IP addresses used by students;
• classroom activities.

In 2014, privacy activists waged a successful campaign to shut down a $100 million student data-collection project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and operated by a specially created nonprofit called inBloom. It was designed to be a massive student database that could make it easier to share information with CONTINUE READING: Legislators ask 50-plus firms to explain how they use the 'vast amount of data’ they collect on students. (Which ones? Facebook, Google, Blackboard, etc.) - The Washington Post