John Thompson: Why School Integration Matters | Diane Ravitch's blog

John Thompson: Why School Integration Matters | Diane Ravitch's blog

John Thompson: Why School Integration Matters

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, reviews an important recent book. It is ironic that the evidence for the value of integration grows at the same pace as resegregation.

Surely we can agree with Malcolm Forbes on one thing: schools should nurture “the art of thinking individually together.” Can we agree that the path to such a goal requires school integration?

Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works, by Rucker Johnson and Alexander Nazaryan, cites Forbes’ statement when presenting a powerful case for a new era of desegregation. Johnson and Nazaryan refute the widely held belief that integration and the War on Poverty failed. They offer a compelling, evidence-based vision of equality in education and the economy where diversity is a driving force.

https://gspp.berkeley.edu/research/selected-publications/children-of-the-dream-why-school-integration-works

Misconceptions about school desegregation contributed to the contemporary school “reform” movement, which was based on the false premise and glib assertion that our children can’t wait for a victory over racism and poverty, so we must seek individual levers for immediately transforming schools. This simplistic hypothesis morphed into corporate school reform which used the stress of test-driven competition to overcome the stress of poverty, and segregation by choice to overcome the legacies of Jim Crow and de facto segregation.

Reformers have thus imposed a series of disconnected CONTINUE READING: John Thompson: Why School Integration Matters | Diane Ravitch's blog

Donate to Help Us Keep DeVos in the Hot Seat in 2020 - Network For Public Education

Donate to Help Us Keep DeVos in the Hot Seat in 2020 - Network For Public Education

Donate to Help Us Keep DeVos in the Hot Seat in 2020

This holiday season please remember to give a gift to save public education by donating to NPE. We cannot do the work we do without your financial support.

Last year, we put Betsy DeVos in the hot seat when it was time to defend her budget. Our major investigative report on the federal Charter Schools Program, Asleep at the Wheel, was quoted by four House members during budget hearings. Watch the video below and listen to Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro grill Betsy DeVos based on that report.

In 2020, we will release Asleep at the Wheel Part 2. We cannot let the DeVos agenda of school privatization continue.

Your donation to the Network for Public Education supports our advocacy work– our reports, toolkits, investigations, grassroots group work, email alerts and more. Each year we host, with NPE Action, an annual conference that we heavily subsidize. All we do depends on you.

We have big plans for 2020 as the battle to privatize our public school system pushes forward in nearly every state house. We will issue new reports, promote Public Schools Week, raise public awareness, and expand and mobilize our Grassroots network. We are making great progress. But to continue the fight, we need your help. Give generously here and know that your donation will be generously matched. Your donation is tax deductible and you will receive either an email or letter receipt.

If you prefer to send a check, please send it to:

Network for Public Education

PO Box 227

New York, NY 10156


Donate to Help Us Keep DeVos in the Hot Seat in 2020 - Network For Public Education

Big Education Ape: Help save public education by giving to NPE - If You Shop at Amazon, Please Designate the Network for Public Education as Your Charity - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2018/11/help-save-public-education-by-giving-to.html

How PTA Fundraising Makes Schools Less Equal - The Atlantic

How PTA Fundraising Makes Schools Less Equal - The Atlantic

The Power of a Wealthy PTA
Thanks to parents’ donations, some public schools can afford shiny extras like coding classes, camping trips, and classroom iPads.

Parent-teacher associations, or PTAs, are generally considered quaint and charming at best, and innocuous at worst. Run by volunteers, they are known for organizing bake sales and holiday parties, and buying gifts for Teacher Appreciation Day.

But PTAs, despite their wholesome reputation, can also wield significant financial power, helping determine which programs a school can afford to offer. A PTA at a well-off school might raise a million dollars or more to pay for additional teachers’ salaries, band or orchestra instruments, a new library, iPads for classrooms, field trips, or other initiatives.

Other PTAs can’t afford things like that, which can give different schools, even those close to one another, vastly different resources. When I toured pre-K schools for my son in New York City, I was surprised by how different the offerings were at sought-after schools in our area. Some had free violin lessons, yearly camping trips, and coding classes, in addition to art, science, and music teachers. My son ended up at a school that was close to where we live and felt friendly to us, though it didn’t have many “enrichments” beyond what regular classroom teachers provide.

I later learned that most of the shiny extras (and even some full-time aides and specialty subject teachers) at the other schools were funded by PTAs with budgets in the six and seven figures. Our school’s PTA had less than a thousand dollars in the bank. New York City’s public schools get funding for their core services mostly on a per-student basis (schools where 40 percent or more of students are from low-income households get additional money under a federal provision called Title 1), but PTAs account for many differences in funding for auxiliary programs.

Read: How marginalized families are pushed out of PTAs

Other things are also responsible for disparities between many schools in the United States—notably, in some communities, higher property-tax revenues in CONTINUE READING: How PTA Fundraising Makes Schools Less Equal - The Atlantic

Andre Perry: As Republicans stress political fiction over facts, students’ math and reading scores fall

As Republicans stress political fiction over facts, students’ math and reading scores fall

As Republicans stress political fiction over facts, students’ math and reading scores fall
GOP remedy for the decline? More of the policies that may have prompted it 

Last week, the National Center for Education Statistics released the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for mathematics and reading in the fourth and eighth grades. The top-level findings of the report, also known as the Nation’s Report Card, show that academic achievement across the United States in these critical subjects has stalled. Gaps between the highest- and lowest-achieving students in most states have widened, and disparities among racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups have grown.

The report set off a heated debate about the reasons for this decline. U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos weighed in, taking the opportunity to double down on old talking points, instead of offering potential new paths for moving forward.

“It’s way past time we dispense with the idea that more money for school buildings buys better achievement for school students,” DeVos said in a speech responding to the NAEP scores. She wasn’t the only conservative to peddle shopworn reform wares. Writing in Education Next, Paul Peterson of the right-leaning think tank The Hoover Institution stated, “The shift corresponds almost exactly with the abandonment of effective enforcement of the accountability system put into place by No Child Left Behind.” Conservative analysts can’t get enough of preaching accountability — to black and CONTINUE READING: As Republicans stress political fiction over facts, students’ math and reading scores fall

CURMUDGUCATION: FL: How The State Supports Discrimination By Charters

CURMUDGUCATION: FL: How The State Supports Discrimination By Charters

FL: How The State Supports Discrimination By Charters

A Florida news station has heard from the state's department of education exactly how charter schools can discriminate against students with special needs.

Part of the charter sales pitch has always been a claim that charters offer alternatives to all students. Just look at this happy blurb from the National Alliance for Public [sic] Charter Schools:

The answer to “Can charter schools deny students?” is a beautiful-sounding “no.” Charter schools are free, public, and open to all students.

It may sound beautiful, but the reality is less lovely.

There's no surprise here. Charter schools are businesses, and no business thrives or survives without targeting certain customers for inclusion and others for exclusion. Every business has to have an answer to the question, "Which customers do we want, and which customers do we not want?" Wal-mart, McDonalds, Olive Garden, Louis Vutton-- they've all made choices and they all communicate clearly through marketing, store design, and product offerings which customers are welcome, and which are not. If you are committed to fine, upscale dining, you aren't forbidden to walk into Micky D's, but they've made it clear that they are not going to expend the money and effort involved in providing you with the kind of experience you desire.

This is normal, natural--even necessary- business behavior. And charter schools are businesses.

So charters have found ways to control their customer base. An involved application process. Just kind of ghosting applicants with special needs. Some charters just flat out deny admission  to CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: FL: How The State Supports Discrimination By Charters

Education Matters: The FLDOE admits they rig the game for charters and charters are allowed to discriminate.

Education Matters: The FLDOE admits they rig the game for charters and charters are allowed to discriminate.

The FLDOE admits they rig the game for charters and charters are allowed to discriminate.

You know it’s funny after these revelations, I thought there would be a bigger outcry. More people would be upset and maybe Tallahassee would want to do something to make the playing ground level, but thus far they have been met with a collective shrug.

In Jacksonville it was reported that an autistic boy was turned away from a charter school, because they said he wouldn’t be a good fit. You will find similar stories all across the state so where repellent it’s not that unusual, what is however is the state department of education said that was just fine. 

From Action News Jax,

It’s against the law for public schools and charter schools to turn away students because of special needs.

However, Action News Jax learned there’s a catch. 

The Florida Department of Education said it’s not discriminatory for charters to suggest a different school that would better serve a student with disabilities.

  

https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/local/some-parents-say-some-north-east-florida-schools-are-turning-away-students-with-disabilities/1005049063

Well that’s quite the catch isn’t it. I mean what parent is going to want to send their child to a school who obviously doesn’t want them. The FLDOE has given charter schools CONTINUE READING:Education Matters: The FLDOE admits they rig the game for charters and charters are allowed to discriminate.

NANCY BAILEY: The Failure of Betsy DeVos and 30 Years of Corporate Influence on Public Schools!

The Failure of Betsy DeVos and 30 Years of Corporate Influence on Public Schools!

The Failure of Betsy DeVos and 30 Years of Corporate Influence on Public Schools!

Frustrated by public schools? Look no further than the corporate education reformers and what they have done to public education.

Education Secretary DeVos and her corporate billionaire friends have been chipping away at the fabric of democratic public schools for over thirty years!

The problems we see in public schools today are largely a result of what they did to schools, the high-stakes testing and school closures, intentional defunding, ugly treatment of teachers, lack of support staff, segregated charter schools, vouchers that benefit the wealthy, Common Core State Standards, and diminishing special education services.

Big business waged a battle on teachers and their schools years ago. The drive was to create a business model to profit from tax dollars. Now they want to blame teachers for their corporate-misguided blunders! It’s part of their plan to make schools so unpleasant, parents will have no choice but to leave.

Americans used to be relatively happy with their public schools. By 2019, they were frustrated, but they still believed in teachers!

Back up to the early 1970s. Ray Budde, a teacher turned principal turned college CONTINUE READING: The Failure of Betsy DeVos and 30 Years of Corporate Influence on Public Schools!

Breaking: Did Kentucky teachers turn out Bevins? What next? – Fred Klonsky

Breaking: Did Kentucky teachers turn out Bevins? What next? – Fred Klonsky

BREAKING: DID KENTUCKY TEACHERS TURN OUT BEVINS? WHAT NEXT?

Randy Wieck is a Kentucky teacher and pension activist. He sent this special to this blog as the Kentucky vote was still being counted. 

If the election results hold for the Governor’s race in Kentucky – Democrat Andy Beshear seems to hold a 5100 vote lead, and IF incumbent Matt Bevin recognizes the result (always in doubt with autocrats – think Robert Mugabe) THEN governor-elect Beshear faces a flock of angry birds in the Republican super-majorities in both Kentucky legislative chambers – think Tippy Hedron in Hitchcock’s The Birds.

Will Beshear’s likely vetoes of draconian attempts to continue Bevin’s/Devos’s charter agenda – even in Bevin’s absence (!) – end up in the courts?

Will the Kentucky legislature attempt to push through ANOTHER pension deform law – this time squarely taking aim at the teacher portion of the Kentucky pension system?

To this observer, we teachers have plugged a hole in the dyke – but with the rising of hostile seas, and with a down-ticket Republican sweep of the other offices on the ballot – think Daniel Cameron as the new Attorney General – we must prepare for a long twilight struggle against the powerful anti-public education forces which have CONTINUE READING: Breaking: Did Kentucky teachers turn out Bevins? What next? – Fred Klonsky

EdChoice Voucher Expansion in Ohio Creates a New Kind of School Funding Inequity | janresseger

EdChoice Voucher Expansion in Ohio Creates a New Kind of School Funding Inequity | janresseger

EdChoice Voucher Expansion in Ohio Creates a New Kind of School Funding Inequity

Steve Dyer’s new Innovation Ohio report on Ohio’s FY 2020-20121 state budget begins: “When Governor Mike DeWine signed HB 166 into law, he approved a budget that lawmakers had packed full of little-noticed gifts to those who seek to erode support for traditional public schools through a proliferation of charter and private school options funded at taxpayer expense.” He continues: “This is just the latest in a series of expansions of vouchers in Ohio law. The state has been on the front lines of the private school voucher fight for two decades.”

One of the ways vouchers were expanded in this budget is that, while in the past, all students except those entering Kindergarten must have been enrolled during the previous school year in the public school district from which the student seeks to carry away a voucher to a private or religious school, the new budget bill erodes this protection for public schools. The Ohio Association of School Business Officials (OASBO) explains: “Generally, students wishing to claim a voucher under the original EdChoice voucher program must have attended a public school in the previous school year. However, HB 166 codifies in law… (that) students going into grades 9-12 need not first attend a public school. In other words, high school students already attending a private school can obtain a voucher.” This change in state law means that Ohio’s public school districts will now be subsidizing the education of many students, primarily those in religious schools, who have never intended to use the public schools.

But the implications of the new state budget voucher expansion are not merely because a new group of students will be awarded vouchers. A new white paper ( Executive Summary or Full Report), released this month by the Heights Coalition for Public Education and written by the Ohio Federation of Teachers’ Darold Johnson and the Heights Coalition’s Susan Kaeser and Ari CONTINUE READING: EdChoice Voucher Expansion in Ohio Creates a New Kind of School Funding Inequity | janresseger

NYC Educator: Another Day, Another Vilification of Teacher Tenure.

NYC Educator: Another Day, Another Vilification of Teacher Tenure.

Another Day, Another Vilification of Teacher Tenure.

Sometimes there's so much to say, I'm puzzled just how to begin. I'll say this, though, We have a President of the United States who dozens of women have accused of rape, virtually wiping his ass with the US Constitution, attacking the free press, and the New York Post is attacking teacher tenure.

Here's the argument, which I've heard a million times, from Giuliani, to Bloomberg, to Campbell Brown and who knows who else--we found a few teachers accused of outrages and not fired, and therefore no teacher should have due process, otherwise known as tenure. This is akin to suggesting that Americans ought not to have trials or due process because sometimes guilty people go free. (Except for the guy in the White House, of course, who denies everything and anything and ought not to be charged with anything, let alone tried for anything. You see, any argument against him is "fake news.")

Here's part of one of the Post's awful stories:

The alleged victim recanted, officials said, but the city feared Miller enough to bar him from the classroom forever. His pay rose to $127,333 last year.

With no case, evidently, the city was expected to fire the teacher for no reason whatsoever. Nonetheless, it's an unpardonable sin that the teacher is getting paid. The fact that there's no case against him is neither here nor there.

Here's what you won't read in the New York Post, or from Campbell Brown, or from any local paper who prints these stories--there are a whole lot of teachers brought up on charges for little or no reason. I'm personally acquainted with some of them. Usually I can't write about them, but I did here. Most people facing outlandish charges don't want publicity. They're more concerned with protecting their livelihoods.

How many people lost their jobs for no reason? I'm thinking of one right now, and I can't tell you her story, even though I wrote it years ago. She's still fighting it and doesn't CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Another Day, Another Vilification of Teacher Tenure.

With A Brooklyn Accent: Memories of Another Election Three Years Ago- And My Game Plan for Resisting the Trump Presidency

With A Brooklyn Accent: Memories of Another Election Three Years Ago- And My Game Plan for Resisting the Trump Presidency

Memories of Another Election Three Years Ago- And My Game Plan for Resisting the Trump Presidency

As I woke up this morning, I had vivid memories of this time three years ago when the country woke up to learn that Donald Trump had been elected President

The impact at Fordham, in particular, stood out in my mind. In the days following the election,white nationalist flyers were posted all over the University and the students in my 8:30 Affirmative Action Seminar, which met that Friday, were frightened and traumatized. Some were silent, some were weeping openly, terrified that Trump's election meant that they and their families would be under attack, either directly from the government, or indirectly from Trump's White Supremacist followers emboldened to take action against immigrants and people of color.

Worst of all, they felt unsafe at Fordham, so I felt I had to do something, I pulled together a multi racial group of alumni I knew to create a "Rapid Response Unit to Bias Attacks" that
any Fordham student could call if they felt in danger of being attacked. I posted a picture of the group, and some contact numbers and my students felt reassured. Unfortunately, our unit upset some people in Student Affairs who insisted that they had a rapid response unit of their own, but the point had been made. There was a dangerous climate in the nation that people needed to address and come together to protect their more vulnerable neighbors

In the days and weeks that followed, I developed a "game plan" to survive the Trump Presidency. Because I had developed a national network of friends through my education activism, particularly the creation of the Badass Teachers Association, I decided to concentrate on building local networks to resist racists CONTINUE READING: With A Brooklyn Accent: Memories of Another Election Three Years Ago- And My Game Plan for Resisting the Trump Presidency