Latest News and Comment from Education

Sunday, January 19, 2020

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION + ICYMI: Saturday Snow Day (1/18)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Saturday Snow Day (1/18)


Saturday Snow Day (1/18)

A Saturday Snow Day is when the weather is so awful that adults are absolved of any obligation to go anywhere and get anything done. We were having one right now in NW PA, with Interstates shut down and folks huddled up home. It's not a bad thing. If you need something to read while you huddle, I've got you covered.

Why Aesha Ash Is Wandering Around Inner City Rochester In A Tutu
Let's start the week with a really cool story about a Black ballerina creating her own project to make a difference.

The Rhetorical Secretary
Okay, so much for good feelings. Here's Mark Hlavacik in The Kappan breaking down Betsy DeVos for her part in the history of the Ed Secretary as leader of a national conversation about education. This is actually from last November, but I missed it till now. It's thoughtful and worth a look. Here's a snippet, considering some of DeVos's attacks on her opponents:

Such rhetoric is not an attempt to persuade those who disagree with her. It is not even an invitation for further conversation or meaningful debate. Instead, the insults that pepper her addresses serve to exclude any part of her audience that disagrees with her and — given how many Americans disagree with her, by her own account — functionally makes the enactment of rhetorical leadership on a national scale impossible.

Two States. Eight Textbooks.
Dana Goldstein at the New York Times does some detailed comparison of history texts from Texas and California. The differences may not be surprising, but they're still concerning.

Texas School District Falls For Email Phishng Scam, Loses $2.3 Million
Reminder-- your security is only as good as the people you let get behind the keyboard. A cautionary tale.

Minneapolis Public School Stands To Lose 1/3 of Families with Redesign  
Sarah Lahm continues to provide a sharp and insightful look at what some brands of ed reform look like on the ground in Minneapolis. Not pretty.

Are You Ready to Make 2020 the Year of Early Childhood Education  
The folks at Defending the Early Years have lots of important stuff planed for this year. Here's the rundown so you can mark your calendar now.

The Misleading Rhetoric of School Choice
Jersey Jazzman digs down and looks at how the word "choice" is deployed in ways that are misleading. This is a really good piece.

The Tennessee ASD: Booted or Re-Booted?
Gary Rubinstein has been following the ill-fated Tennessee Achievement School District since Day One (the one that was use magical state takeovers and charter management to move the bottom 5% of schools to the tippy top), and now that they appear to be throwing in the towel, he takes a look back. He also, unfortunately, makes a convincing case for why folks can't heave a sigh of relief just yet.

Equitable Education Funding Isn't Happening Yet
Andre Perry at Hechinger talks about what we don't like to talk about-- that wealthy and nmiddle-class folks just don't want to pay to educate the poor.

About That Montana Choice Program
Espinoza v Montana is coming up, poised to take down the wall between church and state when it comes to school funding. But Rebecca Klein at Huffington Post took a look at the schools in that tiny choice program and found lots of explicit discrimination against LGBTQ students.

How Higher Salaries for Teachers Became a GOP Governor Thing 
Erin Einhorn at NBC news takes a look at the new sort of trend. Not sure I agree with all of this piece, but it's still an interesting overview.

Charter Schools Have No Valid Claim To Public Property
From Shawgi Tell, at Dissident Voice, an argument against handing public property like school buildings over to private companies.



CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION


OH: A Superintendent Who Gets The Problem of EdChoice

Woodridge School District is located a bit north of Akron. The district is highly rated and has escaped the current Ohio school rating system with no low ratings. Which means they didn't have to speak out against the problems being created for districts across the state by the EdChoice program. But on their website, you'll find this message from their superintendent, who offers a clear an explana
ICYMI: Saturday Snow Day (1/18)

A Saturday Snow Day is when the weather is so awful that adults are absolved of any obligation to go anywhere and get anything done. We were having one right now in NW PA, with Interstates shut down and folks huddled up home. It's not a bad thing. If you need something to read while you huddle, I've got you covered. Why Aesha Ash Is Wandering Around Inner City Rochester In A Tutu Let's start the w

YESTERDAY

Trump, Prayer and School

Donald Trump yesterday took the very Trumpian action of solving a problem that didn't actually exist until he made it up, in this case involving religion and education (two things in which he appears to have no actual interest). But hurray-- after today, students and teachers are free to pray in schools, which they were also free to do yesterday and last week and last year, etc etc etc. That's why

JAN 17

Six Stories To Watch For In 2020

I made these predictions about three weeks ago, and now that we're halfway through January, I still stand by them. It's a cheap writer's game-- we won't know if I'm right until December, and I predict that nobody will remember what I predicted. So here are my guesses wise predictions about six stories that will heat up in 2020. Ed Tech Will Try To Grow Its Market Tech companies are sure that educ

JAN 16

National Parents Union: Do You Smell Astroturf

This week Lauren Camera treated us to a warm, fuzzy piece of launch PR for the National Parents Union ; the US News editor announces right in the headline that this group is here to challenge the teachers unions, but in a totally organic grass roots kind of way. Two Latina mothers from opposite sides of the country have joined forces to form their own union to disrupt an education agenda they say

JAN 15

DeVos on Fox: Six Minute Baloney Digest (With Homelessness)

Betsy DeVos went on Fox and Friends this week , the softest of soft interview destinations form members of this administration. If you want a quick six-minute sampler of her current talking points , you could do worse, but it you don't think you can take looking at the patented smile d'smarm, here are the highlights- and there are a couple of revealing moments here. The segment is nominally titled
DeVos: Remote Work Bad, Remote School Good

Betsy DeVos has long been a fan of cyber-schooling. Her husband was an investor in K-12 , the cyber-charter behemoth, way back at beginning of the millennium (we can start saying that now, right?) Back when she was still running the American Federation for Children, she had this to sa y Families want and deserve access to all educational options, including charter schools, private schools and virt

JAN 14

Should Tax Dollars Pay For This Discrimination

From Kentucky comes the story of a fifteen-year old student expelled for wearing a rainbow t-shirt . Seriously. Kayla Kenney used to be a student at Whitefield Academy , where the mission is "to serve Christian families by providing a Christ-centered, Biblically-based education marked by academic excellence and spiritual vitality." Part of their vision is "to produce powerful and effective student

JAN 13

More Proof The Big Standardized Tests Mean Diddly-Squat

Chad Aldeman (Bellwether Education Partners) wants us to take heart. He's over at The 74 ( Campbell Brown's House of Reform Advocacy ) arguing that although reformsters are writing off the last ten years as a " lost decade " there was actually some good news-- while "educational achievement" (by which Aldeman actually means "standardized test scores") remained stagnant, college attainment has been

JAN 12



ICYMI: Unexpected Spring Edition (1/12)

It is unseasonably warm here, even as some parts of the country deal with a fresh helping of winter. Either way, we've got things to read. Remember-- if the piece strikes you as an important one, go to the original location for the post or article and share it through your social media. It's all about the amplification. Putting a Price Tag on Public Schools Wendy Lecker doesn't write enough, so th

EdAction in Congress January 19, 2020 - Education Votes

EdAction in Congress January 19, 2020 - Education Votes

EdAction in Congress January 19, 2020


House rebukes DeVos plan to protect predatory for-profit colleges

Betsy DeVos’ attempts to protect predatory for-profit colleges that have defrauded students—and to sabotage students’ ability to get debt relief from the federal government—hit a major roadblock in the U.S. House on Thursday.
By a 231 to 180 vote, the House passed a resolution to block DeVos’ efforts to gut protections for student borrowers and taxpayers in the nearly 30-year-old “borrower defense rule.”
“By passing this resolution, the House made clear that we care more about defending defrauded students than enriching predatory schools,” said U.S. Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV). “We told Betsy DeVos that we’re not going to sit on the sidelines while these institutions scam our families, our friends, our neighbors, and our veterans while they’re trying to get an education.”
The borrower defense rule dates to 1992, when Congress reauthorized the Higher Education Act. It was strengthened during the Obama administration after the abrupt collapse of the massive, for-profit Corinthian College chain in 2014, which left tens of thousands of students holding mountains of debt and worthless degrees, or no degree at all.
Essentially, “borrower defense” allows those students with federal student loans to seek federal loan forgiveness when their colleges engage in fraudulent practices. With her rewrite of the rule, DeVos would make it more difficult for students to get relief. For example, the rule would no longer provide for automatic debt relief when colleges abruptly close.
NEA strongly supports the existing protections, and has gone on record in fierce opposition to DeVos’ revisions. “Rather than safeguarding students, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is choosing to weaken the borrower defense rule and protect unscrupulous colleges,” wrote Marc Egan, director of NEA government relations, in a letter to Congress earlier this week.
Egan also pointed out that “The DeVos rule is especially cruel considering that those who are most vulnerable to targeting by these predatory institutions include veterans, older students, students of color, disabled students, and students who are the first in their families to attend college.”
With passage in the House, the resolution moves to the Senate where “Senators will now have a chance to go on the record,” said Dick Durbin (D-IL), in introducing the resolution (S.J. Res. 56). “Are you with the students or the predatory industry that defrauded them with worthless degrees and a lifetime of debt?”
Since her appointment, DeVos consistently has promoted a pro-privatization agenda that elevates the interests of for-profit institutions over students. Recently, a federal judge held her in civil contempt, and fined ED $100,000, because it has persisted in collecting on the student loans taken by 16,000 former Corinthian students—going so far as to garnish the wages of 1,800 people—in direct violation of the judge’s orders to stop.
Earlier this week, the attorneys general of 19 states, plus the District of Columbia, also wrote to Congress, saying the DeVos revisions would “be disastrous for students while providing a windfall to abusive schools.”

Share your story to build support for rebuilding schools

The new year brings a new push in Congress to modernize America’s infrastructure, including our public schools. The average public school building is 44 years old. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives the condition of America’s 100,000 public school buildings an overall grade of D+. But statistics aren’t enough to make the case for what needs to be done. To build support for rebuilding our schools, we need personal stories—your stories. Tell us about your leaky roofs, crowded classrooms, broken heating and air conditioning, lack of internet connections, contaminated drinking water, insects and vermin—whatever needs fixing in your school.

CURMUDGUCATION: OH: A Superintendent Who Gets The Problem of EdChoice

CURMUDGUCATION: OH: A Superintendent Who Gets The Problem of EdChoice

OH: A Superintendent Who Gets The Problem of EdChoice


Woodridge School District is located a bit north of Akron. The district is highly rated and has escaped the current Ohio school rating system with no low ratings. Which means they didn't have to speak out against the problems being created for districts across the state by the EdChoice program. But on their website, you'll find this message from their superintendent, who offers a clear an explanation of what's going wrong. I'm going to reprint the note in its entirety here:
A Message from Superintendent Davis:
January 15, 2020


When we become parents, we want to do whatever it takes to provide the very best for our children. We want them to have every opportunity to achieve, to realize their dreams, to be healthy and happy. As parents, we make many important decisions as our children grow, decisions that will have long, lasting impacts on them as they mature. Choosing what school(s) our children will attend is one of the most important decisions we will make as parents. In Ohio, we have many options when it comes to schooling. Some are clearly better than others. There are private schools, parochial schools, charter schools but we believe the best option for families is the local public school system in any community.

Historically, some of the school choice options in Ohio have included costs for families. If you chose a private school, a religious school or some other non-public option, you typically paid tuition to enroll. Private and parochial schools have historically been selective, admitting only those students that fit their defined profile. Public schools, supported by property taxes, however, take ALL resident CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: OH: A Superintendent Who Gets The Problem of EdChoice

Ed Notes Online: Video of Appellate court arguments in class size lawsuit - January 13, 2020

Ed Notes Online: Video of Appellate court arguments in class size lawsuit - January 13, 2020

Video of Appellate court arguments in class size lawsuit - January 13, 2020


I reported on the Class Size Lawsuit: A Trip to Albany WIth Leonie
Here is the video direct from the courtroom with Wendy Lecker's presentation and also the state and DOE response. As I pointed out - no presence from the UFT despite being asked to join the suit.
Like I said, "That's like someone who is convicted of a crime and sentenced to 5 years but goes on the lam for those years and then comes back claiming his sentence expired so he doesn't have to serve time."



Video of Appellate court arguments in our class size lawsuit including strong points made by terrific attorney @wlecker and weak claims made by city & state in response.

Really worth viewing.


http://wowza.nycourts.gov/vod/WowzaPlayer.php?source=ad3/CourtSession&video=527579

 And note:

PLEASE JOIN US TO RALLY FOR SMALLER CLASSES AT NOON ON JAN. 29 AT CITY HALL

Please join Class Size Matters and NYC Kids Pac rallying for smaller classes on Wed. January 29 in front of City Hall at noon; with City Council hearings focused on the class size issue to follow, starting at 1 PM.
The rally and hearings are an ideal opportunity for parents and teachers let the Mayor and the Council know that there can be CONTINUE READING: Ed Notes Online: Video of Appellate court arguments in class size lawsuit - January 13, 2020