Mitchell Robinson: "How will we know how our kids are doing if we don't test them?" Here's how… | Eclectablog

"How will we know how our kids are doing if we don't test them?" Here's how… | Eclectablog

“How will we know how our kids are doing if we don’t test them?” Here’s how…

Attending the recent Public Education Forum in Pittsburgh last weekend was a wonderful experience in many ways…getting a chance to hear what many of the presidential candidates had to say about public education; meeting some of my favorite education reporters bloggers, and activists; and finally seeing public education receive the attention it deserves as one of the most important issues facing our nation. All in all, it was a terrific weekend…except for one nagging question, left largely unanswered by any of the candidates, and now lingering and looming over the next several months of debates, analyses, and discussions.

This question was asked many times, and in a variety of ways, but in its most essential form it looks pretty much like this:

“How will we know how our kids are doing if we don’t test them?”

On its face this looks like a perfectly legitimate question. After all, isn’t that what “tests” are for? To determine what and how much students know? Didn’t all of us have to take tests when we were in school? We turned out ok, so what’s the big deal? Why do so many teachers have such strong feelings about testing all of the sudden? What’s going on???

Well, first–a little context.

That was then, this is now…

A lot has changed when it comes to testing, and how it’s done in our schools today as compared to CONTINUE READING: "How will we know how our kids are doing if we don't test them?" Here's how… | Eclectablog

LGBTQ Students Need Help, and Philanthropy Needs to Step Up | Schott Foundation for Public Education

LGBTQ Students Need Help, and Philanthropy Needs to Step Up | Schott Foundation for Public Education

LGBTQ Students Need Help, and Philanthropy Needs to Step Up

A new infographic highlights the challenges facing LGBTQ students and analyzes trends, gaps, and opportunities in funding for LGBTQ education issues.

Produced in partnership between Funders for LGBTQ Issues and Schott, we hope this infographic will help both those in philanthropy and LGBTQ advocates to chart a better course toward a future where all LGBTQ youth attend well-resourced, supportive and safe public schools. Schott is proud to be a longtime supporter of grassroots LGBTQ youth organizing as a crucial component of the education justice movement.

Key Findings:

• For every $100 awarded by U.S. foundations to education, only 15 cents were devoted to funding for LGBTQ education and safe schools.
• More than 6 in 10 LGBTQ students experience discriminatory policies or practices at school.
• While LGBTQ youth make up 7-9 percent of youth nationwide, they account for 20 percent of all youth in juvenile justice facilities (and 85 percent of them are youth of color).
• Funding for LGTBQ education and safe schools has fluctuated over the past five years, but has never exceeded $9 million in a given year.
• The top ten funders of LGBTQ education and safe schools issues account for nearly three-quarters of the funding.

Clearly there is much work for us to do. The infographic identifies four key opportunities:

FUND ACROSS SILOS FOR INCREASED IMPACT

Racial justice funders and those supporting boys and girls of color, criminal justice funders concerned about the school-to- CONTINUE READING: LGBTQ Students Need Help, and Philanthropy Needs to Step Up | Schott Foundation for Public Education

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers - POLITICO

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers - POLITICO

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers

How/where are you celebrating your birthday and with whom? “I am celebrating with my wife, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, and friends. We always try to do something that neither of us has done yet -- so we’re going to the new MoMA and seeing ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ -- in Yiddish!”

How did you get your start in politics? “Canvassing door to door when I was in the 11th grade at Clarkstown High School North in New City, N.Y. The school district had cut music, art, drama and other programs, and we were trying to save them. We didn’t want teachers let go or the programs we loved to be eliminated, so we joined together with students at the other high school to protest and create a ballot initiative to change the budget process. As a result, we averted some cuts. Three decades later, one of the music teachers saved by the action was at a school meeting I did as her national union president.”

What’s an interesting book/article you’re reading now or you’ve recently finished? And why? “Like my predecessor Al Shanker there are always 10 to 20 books on my desk. I’m making my way through Steve Greenhouse’s ‘Beaten Down, Worked Up,’ which explains why unions are still the best way to fight inequality in this country. Another is the amazing ‘Desk 88’ by Sherrod Brown, which shows how the pulse of economic justice runs CONTINUE READING: BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers - POLITICO

Exclusive: Betsy DeVos' family foundation funnels money to right-wing groups that boost her agenda | Salon.com

Exclusive: Betsy DeVos' family foundation funnels money to right-wing groups that boost her agenda | Salon.com

Exclusive: Betsy DeVos' family foundation funnels money to right-wing groups that boost her agenda
Trump's education secretary is "effectively funding an outside propaganda operation," says watchdog group

The family foundation of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her billionaire husband, Dick, gave more than $1 million to purportedly “independent” right-wing groups that have helped boost her assault on public education, according to a recent tax filing obtained by the government watchdog group Allied Progress and shared with Salon.

The 2018 filing shows that the couple put $5 million into the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation while doling out more than $11.6 million in contributions and pledges. As in previous years, much of the funding went to Christian charities and local initiatives in and around Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the couple’s home. But more than $1 million went to supposedly independent right-wing think tanks and groups like the American Enterprise Institute and the National Review Institute, which have heaped praise on Secretary DeVos and helped promote her agenda.

“Secretary DeVos is effectively funding an outside propaganda operation to help her bash teachers’ unions and promote private voucher schemes that undermine public education,” said Jeremy Funk, communications director for Allied Progress, a nonpartisan watchdog organization.

The DeVos Foundation contributed $500,000 to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) for public policy research last year and pledged another $250,000 in future payments to the organization, according to the filing.

AEI, whose board includes Dick DeVos, is a libertarian think tank that maintains a “close relationship with incoming Republican administrations," according to The Guardian, and assists them with “staff and readymade policies CONTINUE READING:Exclusive: Betsy DeVos' family foundation funnels money to right-wing groups that boost her agenda | Salon.com

Seven Reasons Teachers Trust Each Other More Than…Well, Anyone | Teacher in a strange land

Seven Reasons Teachers Trust Each Other More Than…Well, Anyone | Teacher in a strange land

Seven Reasons Teachers Trust Each Other More Than…Well, Anyone

When I was a relatively young and inexperienced teacher, it became obvious to me that my school (which I liked and where I wanted to continue teaching) would not ever be providing me with professional learning commensurate with my aspirations—or my intelligence. I wanted to be a better music teacher—better ideas about music literature, better tips on improving my students’ skills and understandings, better insights into classroom management. Better everything.

There were two other band teachers in my district, neither of which was a satisfactory role model. And the professional development my district offered was so generic it was useless. Or worse.

For example, all secondary teachers in the district were subjected to mandated workshops on the Canter Assertive Discipline method, wherein we were supposed to put check marks next to unruly students’ names on the blackboard and send home weekly discipline reports on check-marked outlaws.  At the time, I saw over 200 students a day, in huge classes, with one tiny blackboard already preprinted with music staves.

I was also smart enough to have figured out that I wanted kids to behave responsibly for reasons other than fear, record-keeping and retribution. Other teachers in my building hated the Canter method, too, but brought papers to grade during the CONTINUE READING: Seven Reasons Teachers Trust Each Other More Than…Well, Anyone | Teacher in a strange land

“Democracy Now” on the Public Education Forum | Diane Ravitch's blog

“Democracy Now” on the Public Education Forum | Diane Ravitch's blog

“Democracy Now” on the Public Education Forum

Amy Goodman, host of “Democracy Now,” interviews Carol Burris, Keron Blair, and Jitu Brown about the Public Education Forum and the fight for equity and justice.

We are educating the public about the importance of changing the status quo.

Ahead of the last Democratic presidential debate of the year this Thursday, seven candidates appeared Saturday at the historic Democratic Presidential Forum on Public Education in Pittsburgh, an event organized by public education organizations, unions, civil rights organizations and community groups. We play highlights from the forum and get response from Keron Blair, director of the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools in Atlanta; Jitu Brown, national director of the Journey for Justice Alliance; and Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education Action. She recently authored a report titled “Still Asleep at the Wheel: How the Federal Charter Schools Program Results in a Pileup of Fraud and Waste.”

“Democracy Now” on the Public Education Forum | Diane Ravitch's blog

Education may be pivotal in the 2020 election. Here’s what you need to know.

Education may be pivotal in the 2020 election. Here’s what you need to know.

Education may be pivotal in the 2020 election. Here’s what you need to know.
Highlights from the Brown Center Chalkboard in 2019

As 2019 winds down, all eyes will soon turn to the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The cycle promises to dominate the news throughout next year, covering everything from the ongoing impeachment proceedings to health-care reform and more. While education traditionally may not be considered a top-tier issue in national elections, as Brookings’s Doug Harris has previously noted, times have certainly changed.

Whether it’s the ongoing debate over free college, the unique politics surrounding charter schools, or the power of teacher strikes, education promises to play a vital role in determining the outcome of the Democratic primaries and the 2020 general election. To help readers understand these often-complex topics, we’ve collected relevant Chalkboard posts from the past year that discuss the big ideas in education that are likely to be prominent next year.

We’re looking ahead by looking back—with the goal of helping you make a make a more informed decision at the ballot box.

CHARTER SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL CHOICE

Charter schools have become one of the most divisive issues within the Democratic Party. Does that spell doom for them in America? Doug Harris broke down where each candidate stands on charters, writing that “the next 12 months will be very uncomfortable for charter supporters.” Despite this, he argues that charter schooling is likely to continue its steady expansion in the new decade.

The public opinion around charters is also nuanced. Support for charters among white Democrats is plummeting according to recent poll data, but many Black and Hispanic Democrats remain in favor. Brookings’s Jon Valant argued that the growing opposition to charters among white Democrats could have significant consequences for families of color.

A frequent question around charters is how they affect traditional public schools. Do charters weaken them via financial losses, or does the added competition spur traditional public schools to improve? Paul Hill dissected conflicting studies to find the answer.

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

Early childhood learning has also figured in the 2020 campaign so far. Reacting to Joe Biden’s “meandering response” on the word gap during a Democratic debate in September, Dana Suskind explained why the public discussion around the word gap needs to evolve: “All parents … must understand that a word is not simply a word; it is a building block for a child’s brain.”

Debate over the federal Head Start program continues into 2020 as well. In 2019, Congress authorized more than $10 billion on the program, and it CONTINUE READING: Education may be pivotal in the 2020 election. Here’s what you need to know.

Can changing school funding formulas help the most vulnerable students?

Can changing school funding formulas help the most vulnerable students?

“Kids who have less, need more”: The fight over school funding
A child who shows promise struggles to make it in middle school as state and national leaders debate if the country is doing enough to educate vulnerable students.

WILMINGTON, Del. — Taheem Fennell, 12, loves to ride his bike. He taught himself when he was 4 years old while visiting older cousins in Pennsylvania. He remembers running and jumping on, feeling his feet going around and testing the brakes.

“I never rode a bike with training wheels,” he says.

Taheem wants to ride his bike to the park more, but his mother worries about him venturing too far from the one-bedroom apartment in the Quaker Hill neighborhood that they share with his stepfather and four siblings, and sometimes other relatives. Earlier this year, Taheem witnessed a shooting as he was walking to school. And in the summer of 2017, Taheem’s 16-year-old sister, Naveha Gibbs, was shot and killed in a city a 20-minute drive to the north. She was with a 26-year-old man thought to be in a gang.

So Taheem spends much of his free time inside, reading. His favorite books are in the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series, about a kid who’s starting middle school. Novels help him focus his mind on something positive, his mother, Charmaine Jones, says.

He started fifth grade about a month after his sister was killed. He clutched the program from her funeral in class. He had angry outbursts. The staff at Bancroft Elementary School suggested counseling, and his mother eagerly accepted the help. Taheem learned coping strategies from a family crisis therapist at the school, whom he came to trust and rely on. She taught him how to help CONTINUE READING: Can changing school funding formulas help the most vulnerable students?

Andrea Gabor: How Schools Can Help In Getting an Accurate Census Count in 2020 | Diane Ravitch's blog

Andrea Gabor: How Schools Can Help In Getting an Accurate Census Count in 2020 | Diane Ravitch's blog

Andrea Gabor: How Schools Can Help In Getting an Accurate Census Count in 2020

Andrea Gabor writes here about the importance of an accurate Census in apportioning Congressional representatives and federal resources. She shows that California leads the way in relying on schools to make sure there is an accurate head count of those who live in the state. 

Fears are running high that the 2020 U.S. census could result in a costly undercount in a number of states and communities. Politicians and policy makers in the parts of the country with large hard-to-count immigrant and minority populations are particularly worried.

They should be. This will be the first time that the census, carried out every 10 years, is conducted online. Court battles and funding cuts have delayed the production of backup paper forms and shortened the time for testing online portals and rural surveys. Although the courts blocked the administration’s efforts to include a citizenship question, President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and orders to round up undocumented residents may discourage many from taking part in the census.

California is especially aware of these challenges. With both vast rural areas and a large immigrant population, the nation’s most populous state faces an undercount CONTINUE READING: Andrea Gabor: How Schools Can Help In Getting an Accurate Census Count in 2020 | Diane Ravitch's blog

IDEA Charter Chain Drops Plan to Lease a Private Jet for $2 Million a Year | Diane Ravitch's blog

IDEA Charter Chain Drops Plan to Lease a Private Jet for $2 Million a Year | Diane Ravitch's blog

IDEA Charter Chain Drops Plan to Lease a Private Jet for $2 Million a Year

Owning a charter chain is very lucrative, especially when it is one of Betsy DeVos’s favorites. Just this year, she gave the Texas-based IDEA chain $116 million from the federal Charter Schools Program to expand in Texas and Louisiana.*

Feeling flush, the IDEA board of directors approved a plan to lease a private jet and pilot at a cost of $160,000 a month for eight years, nearly $2 million a year, for a total of $15.3 million.

The pushback from Texas AFT, the attention from Texas newspapers, and the heavy ridicule on Twitter led to a quick reversal of the decision. IDEA’s well-compensates executives will have to fly commercial, to their great disappointment!

The Houston Chronicle reported:

Texas’ largest charter school network abruptly grounded its plan to spend millions of dollars leasing and operating a private jet Monday, hours after the Houston Chronicle and a state teachers union raised questions about the arrangement.

IDEA Public Schools officials reversed course Monday evening, saying the organization will not sign an eight-year lease on an eight-passenger aircraft, an agreement CONTINUE READING: IDEA Charter Chain Drops Plan to Lease a Private Jet for $2 Million a Year | Diane Ravitch's blog

The PISA Problem – Have You Heard

The PISA Problem – Have You Heard

The PISA Problem

The sky is falling! The sky is falling! That was the reaction when the PISA results were announced – the global ranking of 15-year-olds. But scholar Oren Pizmony-Levy tells Have You Heard that he thinks it’s time to junk the test, and that the opt-out movement in the US may point the way forward. And Have You Heard announces big plans for 2020. Full transcript of the episode here.

 The PISA Problem – Have You Heard

Some Thoughts on Math and A Culturally Relevant - Sustaining Education | The Jose Vilson

Some Thoughts on Math and A Culturally Relevant - Sustaining Education | The Jose Vilson

SOME THOUGHTS ON MATH AND A CULTURALLY RELEVANT – SUSTAINING EDUCATION

In case you missed the news, the NYC Department of Education adopted a definition of culturally responsive / sustaining education inspired by several parts scholarship, stakeholder voice, and surveys done across the city. The writers included a coalition of parents, students, educators, and other concerned citizens, including yours truly. While the media concentrated on the virulent response to the definition, which was really another anti-Richard Carranza protest, the proponents for the definition saw it as a pivotal moment in the direction of our children’s education.

Up to this point, the definition hasn’t gotten the publicity it deserves in pulling us towards a more inclusive foundation for our children.

I’ll attempt to make an argument for its proliferation through the lens of math, perhaps the most hotly contested subject area with respect to our academic core. Unlike the humanities, people love treating math as a set of absolutes, a content area apart from the human experiences we inject into the rest of our scholarship. Even though more people are starting to see how their mathematical experiences are connected to the subject area itself, we still have a way to go.

When we say “Amy can’t read,” we don’t dismiss this claim from just an academic viewpoint, but also from a moral one. Illiteracy has been treated as a scourge we ought to ostensibly destroy, even when our structures perpetuate illiteracy in our most marginalized spaces. Innumeracy rarely gets this treatment, partly because of its complexity, but also because of the narratives we tell ourselves about CONTINUE READING: Some Thoughts on Math and A Culturally Relevant - Sustaining Education | The Jose Vilson

Winners & Losers in Pittsburgh | The Merrow Report

Winners & Losers in Pittsburgh | The Merrow Report

Winners & Losers in Pittsburgh

On Saturday seven candidates for the Democratic Presidential nomination came to Pittsburgh to talk about education.  Four candidates emerged as winners, as I saw things.  Three of the names won’t surprise you: Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Joe Biden.  After all, this all-day event was organized by the two national teacher unions and other progressive groups.

Who’s the fourth–and biggest–winner? You may be thinking it’s the Mayor of South Bend, Pete Buttigeig, but you would be wrong.  To help you along, here’s the full list of the seven hopefuls: Senator Michael Bennet, Biden, Buttigieg,  Senator Amy Klobuchar, Sanders, Tom Steyer, and Warren.  (After initially declining the invitation, Senator Cory Booker changed his mind at the 11th hour but then came down with a bad cold and cancelled.)

(There was a fifth winner, but that’s not revealed until the final paragraph.)

No surprise: Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Joe Biden were the crowd favorites.

No surprise: All seven candidates favor paying teachers more and want to at least triple federal funding for Title One.  Everyone said that we test students too much.  Just about everyone claimed to have teachers in their family tree.

Slight surprise: Most spoke in favor of apprenticeships and community schools.

Big surprise: the NBC journalists did not push very hard on some questionable assertions or surprising claims, particularly Mayor Pete’s embrace of valued-added CONTINUE READING: Winners & Losers in Pittsburgh | The Merrow Report

NYC Public School Parents: Investigation into DOE's Yeshiva inquiry reveals that the release of an interim report was delayed in return for the extension of mayoral control in 2017

NYC Public School Parents: Investigation into DOE's Yeshiva inquiry reveals that the release of an interim report was delayed in return for the extension of mayoral control in 2017

Investigation into DOE's Yeshiva inquiry reveals that the release of an interim report was delayed in return for the extension of mayoral control in 2017

Update: To the Daily News,  Margaret Garnett, the commissioner of the city Department of Investigations, said that "investigators concluded that since City Hall delayed the report in pursuit of a policy goal — to retain Mayor de Blasio’s control over city schools — rather than personal gain, the maneuver didn’t violate rules about obstruction of an investigation."  What a sad statement.

The City’s Commissioner of Investigation and  Special commissioner of Investigation for schools issued a joint statement today on the results of their investigations into the DOE's inquiry into the subpar education received by students in ultra-Orthodox Yeshivas, an inquiry  that began in 2015 after the organization Yaffed and 52 Yeshiva graduates and parents, alleging that at least 39 yeshivas in New York City were failing to meet the state standards requiring a "substantially equivalent" secular education.

Much controversy has surrounded this issue, based on a suspicion that the political influence of the ultra-Orthodox on the Mayor has prevented a resolution of this issue. In their brief statement, only a few pages long, DOI and SCI reveal that political that a deal was indeed struck in 2017 in Albany between the mayor's representatives and an unnamed State Senator (most likely Simcha Felder) that the DOE would delay issuing any interim report on their investigations in return for extending Mayoral control over the public schools, and that “Following that agreement, the interim report was in fact delayed by approximately one year.”

At the same time, the DOI and Special Investigator conclude that “our investigation found that the agreement had little to no substantive effect on the progress of the Inquiry” which was hampered by other factors, including the unwillingness of the Yeshivas to cooperate.

They also conclude that there is “no evidence of any violations of relevant laws or regulations and did not identify any criminal conduct in connection with the release of DOE’s interim report”.

Most bizarrely, they add, “the evidence did not permit a conclusion as to whether the Mayor had personally authorized the offer to delay issuance of the interim report” which to my mind is so unlikely that it  puts the rest of their conclusions at doubt.

The key passage in the joint statement is here:

In June 2017, a special session of the New York State Legislature was called to vote on extension of mayoral control of New York City schools, among other things. DOI and SCI found that shortly before the vote in that special session, representatives of the Mayor’s Office agreed to delay the release of an interim report summarizing the status of the CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Investigation into DOE's Yeshiva inquiry reveals that the release of an interim report was delayed in return for the extension of mayoral control in 2017