Monday, December 2, 2019

'Can I get a ride?' Removing an obstacle for families using school choice | TheHill

'Can I get a ride?' Removing an obstacle for families using school choice | TheHill

'Can I get a ride?' Removing an obstacle for families using school choice

Some critics of school choice say that because not all families can take advantage of it to the same degree, it ought to be cut back. They are correct about this: Some families can’t make the most out of their available school choice options because they have trouble transporting their children to school. The solution to that inequity is not to dismantle those options, but to help needy families find their own transportation solutions. Choice should be more universal, not just the domain of those who can afford it.
For many families of means, getting their child into a better school is a matter of paying private school tuition or relocating to a new community. Those methods, however, limit school choice based on ZIP codes and bank accounts. While most states have made school choice more broadly accessible by creating more tuition-free educational options, some foes of choice want to dial back opportunity.
Progressive journalist Jennifer Berkshire has openly acknowledged she is “a little bit obsessed” with Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who favors expanding choice, and her home state of Michigan. Earlier this year, Berkshire gave a disparaging analysis of Michigan’s 20-year-old policy of inter-district choice. Among the chief complaints, she offered this: “Because there’s no transportation provided and attending school in another district often requires some significant travel, schools of choice are only an option for kids who have a way to get there.” 
Berkshire’s observation holds some weight. The vast majority of districts accepting nonresident students offer no assistance beyond maybe CONTINUE READING: 'Can I get a ride?' Removing an obstacle for families using school choice | TheHill

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2019 Medley #22 | Live Long and Prosper

2019 Medley #22 | Live Long and Prosper

2019 Medley #22



RESPECT FOR TEACHERS
Teaching isn’t, as some legislators apparently think, professional babysitting. Teachers don’t just “tell” students what they need to know, and students don’t just “remember” everything.
Teaching a class of children — whether they are 6 years old, or 16 — is not easy. To do it well takes training, experience, support, resources, and a fair amount of luck.
Most licensed teachers in Indiana have four-year degrees from accredited university teacher training programs; many have master’s degrees. Yet almost half of all new teachers leave the field within the first five years. Perhaps they didn’t realize that teaching is hard work. Perhaps the hours are too long and they thought they were just getting a 7 – 3:30 job with lots of vacation time. Perhaps the pay isn’t good enough. Perhaps they find out that they’re not cut out for teaching.
The teachers who stay, then, are those who are committed to education. One would think that, with years of training, teachers would be considered experts in their field. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
Panels of “education experts” regularly have no teachers on them. The National Reading Panel had only one middle school teacher. The Panel, which explored CONTINUE READING: 2019 Medley #22 | Live Long and Prosper

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More Kids on Medicaid to Get Health Care in School | The Pew Charitable Trusts

More Kids on Medicaid to Get Health Care in School | The Pew Charitable Trusts

More Kids on Medicaid to Get Health Care in School

A mountain of evidence proves it: Good health translates to better student performance.
Children who have high blood pressure or are obese perform worse academically than others. Children with asthma miss far more school. Students who have healthy diets, who are physically active, who abstain from alcohol and illicit drugs, get better grades.
With that in mind, more than a dozen states are finally taking advantage of a five-year-old federal policy change that would make it easier for schools to provide health care to millions of children across the country.
Before the change, the federal government barred school-based clinics and providers from billing Medicaid, the joint state-federal health care program for the poor, for care provided to children on the Medicaid rolls. The federal government reversed that policy in 2014, but only now are some states taking advantage of the shift. About 45 million children are enrolled in Medicaid.
One possible reason for the delay is that officials at the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, tend to communicate with their counterparts at state Medicaid agencies and health departments, not departments of education.
Now that they can bill Medicaid, more schools will be able to help students manage chronic conditions such as asthma, diabetes and food allergies; offer mental health and addiction treatment; and provide dental, vision, hearing and speech services. Schools that have been providing those services with their own money can now spend it on other things.


“We know kids aren’t getting the health care they need, especially vulnerable populations and children of color,” said Alexandra Mays, executive director of the Healthy Schools Campaign, a Chicago nonprofit that pushed hard for the federal policy change. “Schools are where the children are.”
Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina have received permission from CMS to bill Medicaid for health care in schools. California and Georgia are awaiting approvals, and Colorado and Oregon are preparing paperwork.
“We are very excited, and our school districts are excited as well,” said Wayne Lewis, commissioner for the Department of Education in Kentucky, which received CMS approval in CONTINUE READING: More Kids on Medicaid to Get Health Care in School | The Pew Charitable Trusts




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Texas Is Taking Over Houston’s Schools, Prompting Charges of Racism - The New York Times

Texas Is Taking Over Houston’s Schools, Prompting Charges of Racism - The New York Times

Texas Is Taking Over Houston’s Schools, Prompting Charges of Racism
A takeover of the state’s largest school district has led to lawsuits and accusations that minority voters are being ignored. At the center of it are a majority-black high school and a member of the Class of 1961.

HOUSTON — Harold V. Dutton Jr. was proud to have walked the same high school halls that Barbara Jordan, the first black woman elected to Congress from the South, did. Ms. Jordan graduated in 1951 from Houston’s Phillis Wheatley High School, a pillar for nearly a century in the Fifth Ward, one of Houston’s historic black neighborhoods.
Mr. Dutton, 74, graduated from Wheatley 10 years after Ms. Jordan and went on to become a lawyer and Democratic lawmaker in the state House of Representatives. He watched his old high school deteriorate as poverty spread through the Fifth Ward and grew increasingly frustrated by what he felt was a lack of urgency by local educators.
His solution has embroiled the city’s entire public school system in a bitter fight that has stirred legal, political and racial turmoil in the largest school district in Texas. This month, the state’s education commissioner informed the leaders of the Houston Independent School District that the state was taking it over, citing the repeated failing performance of Wheatley as one of the reasons.
Mr. Dutton opened the door to the takeover as the co-author of a law that created what education experts have called one of the harshest remedies in the country for troubled schools. Under its terms, any district that has even one school that consistently fails to meet state standards for five or more years must either shut the campus or face the possibility of a state takeover.

Though the Texas Legislature passed the law in 2015, it is only now being put to its biggest test, in Houston. The state takeover in Houston has put Mr. Dutton’s political career at risk and caused upheaval and uncertainty in one of the largest public-school CONTINUE READING: Texas Is Taking Over Houston’s Schools, Prompting Charges of Racism - The New York Times

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The Amazing Activism of the Grassroots Network of NPE Action | Diane Ravitch's blog

The Amazing Activism of the Grassroots Network of NPE Action | Diane Ravitch's blog

The Amazing Activism of the Grassroots Network of NPE Action
NPE Action is fortunate to have the leadership and energy of Marla Kilfoyle, former national director of BATS.
She has developed connections with dozens of organizations fighting to protect and improve public schools.

The report includes a call to action to protect student privacy. The deadline for taking action is December 8. Please open the link and join thousands of allies in speaking out against unwanted invasion of student privacy.
The NPE Grassroots Education Network is a network of over 145 grassroots organizations nationwide who have joined together to preserve, promote, improve, and strengthen our public schools. If you know of a group that would like to join this powerful network, please go here to sign on. 
If you have any questions about the NPE Grassroots Education Network please contact Marla Kilfoyle, NPE Grassroots Education Network Liaison at marlakilfoyle@networkforpubliceducation.org

Notes from Marla

CALL TO ACTION FOR ALL ORGANIZATIONS!
Dear NPE Grassroots Education Network – this is a specific call to action that needs to be completed BEFORE December 8th.  The Network for Public Education is sending a letter to the FTC as part of a formal public comment process in which the Commission has asked for input about the potential change in the regulations for COPPA, the Children’s Online Protection Act, originally passed by Congress in 1998. 
 We are urging the FTC NOT to weaken this important privacy law through regulation, as the law wisely provides for parent consent before the online collection of personal data directly from children younger than 13.  Instead, the FTC appears intent on allowing schools and/or teachers to consent on the part of parents when collecting student personal data directly from children. 
 Please read our (brief) letter and if you would like to sign it on behalf of your organization, please enter your contact info and that of your organization on this google form.
 The deadline for signing onto our letter is Dec. 8, as all comments are due to be submitted to the FTC no later than Dec. 9.  You are also encouraged to add your own comments online. You can do so at this link. 
 For more background on this issue, you can check out the blog post and comments submitted by the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy.
There is also pertinent information about how you can register for the national conference of the Network for Public Education Action in Philadelphia  in 2020.
You will enjoy meeting your friends and allies there.
Registration is open for the NPE Action 6th National Conference to be held in Philadelphia, March 28-29. Seats are limited this year to 500, so DO NOT delay your registration. Go hereto register and book your hotel! Please do not delay, reserve your seat today!  
And there is much, much more from our allies across the nation:

Public Schools Week will be held from February 24th-28th. Start planning NOW by doing the following:

  • Begin to ask your Governor, state and federal lawmakers, Mayor, City Council, or Board of Education to adopt a resolution in support of Public Education. Begin to do this now. You can adopt, edit, or modify this resolution from The School Superintendents Association. If you get a resolution please send it to Marla Kilfoyle at marlakilfoyle@networkforpubliceducation.org and we will forward it along.
  • National organizations please cut a three-minute video that encourages your members to participate in Public Schools Week. Here are the instructions for the video. To see sample videos please go here.  
  • Please share and ask your members to take the pledge in support of Public Schools week. You can do that here.
  • Please consider hosting an event. Starting planning NOW and register your event here  
  • To learn more about Public Schools Week, messaging for 2020 and the #PublicSchoolProud campaign please go here and the toolkit has all kinds of amazing things you can do to support the week on social media.
The Amazing Activism of the Grassroots Network of NPE Action | Diane Ravitch's blog

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CURMUDGUCATION: Noblesse Oblige And the End of Public Education

CURMUDGUCATION: Noblesse Oblige And the End of Public Education

Noblesse Oblige And the End of Public Education

 Maybe you don't usually get around to reading David Dawkins, the Forbes staff member whose beat is billionaires. But back in October he ran an interview that should send a familiar chill through those of us who follow the great education disruption debates.

Dawkins talked to Josef Stadler, the head of Ultra High Net Worst at UBS (the big Swiss bank, about why folks don't trust billionaires these days, and why they probably shouldn't. It's a conversation that echoes much of Anand Giridharadas in Winners Take All, but Stadler offers one further observation about the future.

In “the future”—Stadler pauses—“it is likely that those who benefit most—the entrepreneurs—will substitute public institutions when it comes to the big questions of our lifetime. [Only] they have the money. The public side …” by that he means governments, “will no longer have the money” needed.

Stadler predicts a future where the needs of society are met by the generosity of the brightest, best and richest “entrepreneurs” and business “leaders” of the age—the likes of Buffett, Gates, Branson and Soros.

“We’re going to see the return of something that went away at the end of the 19th century,” he pauses, “the reemergence of a benevolent aristocracy, supporting the people because the public is running out of money.”

We have, of course, seen the beginnings of this in education, most notably with Bill Gates attempt to single-handedly fund a redesign of US education. We see it also in the choice movement-- hand public education over to entrepreneurs and under the magical sway of market forces, they will CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Noblesse Oblige And the End of Public Education

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Jennifer Hall Lee: Why I Volunteer at My Local Public School | Diane Ravitch's blog

Jennifer Hall Lee: Why I Volunteer at My Local Public School | Diane Ravitch's blog

Jennifer Hall Lee: Why I Volunteer at My Local Public School

Jennifer Hall Lee lives in Pasadena, California. Her child is now enrolled in the high school, but Lee continues to volunteer and raise money for the middle school, where she is needed. In a note to me, she said that 45% of the students in Pasadena are attending private schools, charter schools, or home schooled. The public schools are suffering because of this splintering of civic energy.
The annual fund committee raises money throughout the year to help Eliot pay for teacher salaries, supplies, programs, technology and more–all of which keeps Eliot an arts magnet school. Annual funds, once the staple of private schools, are now necessary for many public CONTINUE READING: Jennifer Hall Lee: Why I Volunteer at My Local Public School | Diane Ravitch's blog

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A Harlem School That Former Students Say Is Run Like ‘A Cult’ Faces New Scrutiny | HuffPost

A Harlem School That Former Students Say Is Run Like ‘A Cult’ Faces New Scrutiny | HuffPost

A Harlem School That Former Students Say Is Run Like ‘A Cult’ Faces New Scrutiny
A HuffPost investigation has uncovered more disturbing allegations out of a New York City private school. Now, the New York City Department of Education says it’s investigating.
NEW YORK — Five years ago when Kaiya showed up for the first day of senior year at Atlah High School in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, she had barely made it in the building before an administrator told her to leave. She was told she had been expelled from the school. 
But not because she had done anything wrong. 
t turns out, she had merely offended the school’s leaders ― overseen by Superintendent James Manning, who is also the pastor of the church affiliated with the school ― by spending her summer break on a vacation with family, when school was out, instead of attending the graduation ceremony for the students a year above her.
And now, they were ready to ruin her life over it.  
A HuffPost investigation published in April revealed that Atlah World Missionary Church ― designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center ― runs a K-12 private school where kids have been psychologically abused and systematically taught to fear LGBTQ people. The story was based on interviews with 27 people connected to the church and school, many of them former students with similar stories to Kaiya who said the institution was run like “a cult.” 
HuffPost has spoken with nine more former students, former congregants and relatives of current church members. They have corroborated details of HuffPost’s initial report and contributed their own similar stories. They describe a pastor who harshly punishes students and promotes estrangement within families, at the same time running a private school that falsely bills itself as a high-tech, cutting-edge success. 
On Sunday, seven months after HuffPost first asked the New York City Department of Education about these allegations, the agency told HuffPost it is investigating it. The agency is responsible for making sure private schools within its geographic district provide instruction that is “substantially equivalent” to that offered in public schools. 
“Every student deserves a safe, high-quality education. We are investigating these CONTINUE READEING: A Harlem School That Former Students Say Is Run Like ‘A Cult’ Faces New Scrutiny | HuffPost

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Stop Ignoring the Innovation That Happens in Traditional Public Schools - Education Week

Stop Ignoring the Innovation That Happens in Traditional Public Schools - Education Week

Stop Ignoring the Innovation That Happens in Traditional Public Schools

Schools across the United States are leading change from within. Why don't we know more about them?


When students at Childersburg Middle School head to the library, there's far more to do than read a book. Two summers ago, their teachers divided the space into a cozy reading area and the "GRID," a hands-on engineering lab where students work in groups and learn through the process of design. Back in their regular classrooms, teachers guide projects that build on that learning, and that continues online at home.
Though Childersburg sounds like an independent school with lots of freedom and funding, it is actually a traditional public school in rural Alabama. What's going on there is showing how teachers and students in a variety of district public schools are embracing innovation. But we've only just recently learned about Childersburg through the Canopy project, a new effort by the Clayton Christensen Institute to identify promising practices in schools across the United States that have, to date, largely escaped notice.
As program officers at three national education foundations, we know that educators everywhere are making big changes in teaching and learning. But the education community—funders like us, along with state and federal decision-makers, district and school leaders, researchers, and advocates—has not had a ready source of detailed information about innovators outside established networks or major urban centers. As a result, only a few schools gain widespread attention, and models that are relevant to educators working in a variety of contexts remain under the radar.
"As program officers at three national education foundations, we know that educators everywhere are making big changes in teaching and learning."
That inspired our support of Canopy, which invites local educators and education experts to nominate their peers for inclusion in a detailed registry of innovation. Canopy has introduced us to schools like Stilwell High School in Oklahoma, where students combine academics with internships and career-readiness coursework, and Barrington Middle School in Rhode Island, where teachers serve as mentors and students design and complete collaborative projects. This group of 235 schools, nearly three-quarters of which had never before appeared on well-known lists or databases, is helping CONTINUE READING: Stop Ignoring the Innovation That Happens in Traditional Public Schools - Education Week

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“Almost all of the diversity of our youths was in a single school district,” says Pete Buttigieg. “I was slow to realize.” – Fred Klonsky

“Almost all of the diversity of our youths was in a single school district,” says Pete Buttigieg. “I was slow to realize.” – Fred Klonsky

“ALMOST ALL OF THE DIVERSITY OF OUR YOUTHS WAS IN A SINGLE SCHOOL DISTRICT,” SAYS PETE BUTTIGIEG. “I WAS SLOW TO REALIZE.”

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg told Reverend William Barber that he didn’t notice South Bend’s public schools were segregated.
Buttigieg is the mayor of South Bend.
“I have to confess that I was slow to realize — I worked for years under the illusion that our schools in my city were integrated… But what I slowly realized… if you looked at the county, almost all of the diversity of our youths was in a single school district,” Buttigieg said in an interview with Rev. William Barber III.
Yes. “All the diversity of our youths was in a single school district,” is a weird formulation.
But that he didn’t realize that integration was an illusion in his city?
Buttigieg is either a liar or suffers from too common a white blindspot.
In 2015, several South Bend schools showed concentrated black enrollment, inconsistent with county racial realities.
So, when did Mayor Buttigieg notice?
As the data shows, the segregation of South Bend schools have a long history and is CONTINUE EDUCATION: “Almost all of the diversity of our youths was in a single school district,” says Pete Buttigieg. “I was slow to realize.” – Fred Klonsky

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With A Brooklyn Accent: Coming To Terms With Our History of White Supremacist Violence

With A Brooklyn Accent: Coming To Terms With Our History of White Supremacist Violence

Coming To Terms With Our History of White Supremacist Violence

 If you know our history, our present reality shouldn't surprise you. Nearly 4 decades after slavery ended, the nation was the site of the creation of a system of color caste, reinforced by acts terror and intimidation that ranged from night riding and lynching to pogroms and massacres. Most of this white supremacist violence never made it into our history books, but it is painstakingly being reconstructed and commemorated today by survivors, civil rights leaders, and courageous race scholars. When the full story is told, the resurgence of white supremacist violence in the US today will seem less like an aberration that a re-emergence of powerful forces which were never fully accounted for, and whose victims were never recognized. To repeat the famous adage- those who don't know their history are destined to repeat it. The battle against white supremacy has to be fought on many fronts, one of which is the building of monuments to its victims and the creation of new historical narratives



With A Brooklyn Accent: Coming To Terms With Our History of White Supremacist Violence
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Help Send Have You Heard on the Road in 2020 – Have You Heard

Help Send Have You Heard on the Road in 2020 – Have You Heard

Help Send Have You Heard on the Road in 2020

Education will play a major role in key 2020 election contests and yet the media keeps missing the story, or worse, getting it wrong. Have You Heard wants to do something about that. We have an ambitious list of destinations we want to travel to in the months ahead. With your help we can hit the road and shine a light on stories like these:
  • According to the New York Times African-American voters feel betrayed by the Democrats’ pivot away from charter schools. But in southern states like Georgia, where school privatization comes freighted with the legacy of school segregation, the issue looks just a little more complicated…
  • Will Betsy DeVos cost Donald Trump Michigan and the election? We’re headed back to Michigan to explore how DeVos’ deep unpopularity and her extreme agenda could tip the balance in a state that Trump won by just 10,000 votes in 2016.
  • The public schools in Mayor Pete’s hometown of South Bend, Indiana are hemorrhaging students to charters and voucher schools. Have You Heard heads to the Heartland for an up-close look at the messy politics of school choice.
  • Your city/state here! Got an idea for an episode that’s relevant to our education 2020 theme? Email us or Tweet your ideas to @HaveYouHeardPod.
Here are some of the ways you can support us:
1. Become a patron of Have You Heard on Patreon. Or if you’re already a Patreon supporter, consider increasing your monthly donation. (Note: Patreon subscribers get access to extras like our extended play segment *In the Weeds* and episode-specific reading lists.)
2. Make a one-time donation via PayPal.
3. Make a tax deductible donation. Make your check payable to:
Public Education Communications Project

23 Woodward Ave.

Gloucester, MA 01930.
Thanks for your support!
Jennifer and Jack
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