Big Education Ape: Jan 22, 2020

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Trump Administration’s “Junk Food Loophole” is Symptomatic of School Privatization | gadflyonthewallblog

Trump Administration’s “Junk Food Loophole” is Symptomatic of School Privatization | gadflyonthewallblog

Trump Administration’s “Junk Food Loophole” is Symptomatic of School Privatization

Who wants children to eat more junk food?

Apparently the Trump administration does.

This seemed to be the Department of Agriculture’s concern when it announced plans last week to further reduce regulations for healthy meals at the nation’s public schools.

The Department’s new scheme would change the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 to include what critics call a “junk food loophole” in meals offered at public schools – usually breakfasts and lunches.

Currently, sweets and fried foods are allowed only once in a while as part of a CONTINUE READING: Trump Administration’s “Junk Food Loophole” is Symptomatic of School Privatization | gadflyonthewallblog

What Is the National Parents Union? Well… It’s Sure Not a Union.| Fatherly

What Is the National Parents Union? Looks Like a School Choice Group. | Fatherly

What Is the National Parents Union? Well… It’s Sure Not a Union.
Don't get too excited.

On January 16, 2020, veteran union organizers Keri Rodrigues and Alma Marquez hosted the inaugural summit of the National Parents Union. Their new organization’s aim? Advocating on behalf of working-class and poor parents who feel their children are excluded from what they refer to as the “education conversation.” Some 152 delegates, representing all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico, showed up to lend their support and draft bylaws.

For those versed in education policy, the so-called union founded by Rodrigues and Marquez, both moms, is confounding. While it’s true that the United States’ public education system is a tale of two cities — one wealthy and rich with educational opportunity, one not — the union does not seem designed to push policy targeting inequality. Prior to this latest gig, Marquez worked for Green Dot Public Schools, a pro-charter school organization. For her part, Rodrigues organized Massachusetts Parent’s United, which was criticized for being anti-union and vague in its goals. The National Parents Union is currently funded in part by the Walton Family Foundation, which is run by Sam and Helen Walton, who Rodrigues knows well (they gave her organization $500,000) from pro-charter school work. The union is also supported by the Eli & Edyth Broad Foundation. The Broad Foundation is considered one of the “Big Three” organizations that fund education reform and pro-charter initiatives, alongside the Walton Family Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

This is all to say that the National Parents Union seems to have been constructed rather specifically to oppose the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, millions-strong member organizations that have historically opposed charters, citing the fact that they serve a small group of students and don’t meaningfully address larger inequities in the public school system. This seems to also explain why an CONTINUE READING: What Is the National Parents Union? Looks Like a School Choice Group. | Fatherly

Teachers Union To Sue Betsy DeVos Over Student Borrower Protections : NPR

Teachers Union To Sue Betsy DeVos Over Student Borrower Protections : NPR

Teachers Union Lawsuit Claims DeVos 'Capriciously' Repealed Borrower Protections

One of the nation's largest teachers unions is expected to sue U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Wednesday. The complaint: She repealed a rule meant to protect student loan borrowers from for-profit and career-focused schools that graduate them with too much debt and limited job prospects.

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers (AFT), says the lawsuit's message is clear: "Protect the students of the United States of America — not the for-profit [schools] that are making a buck off of them."

The 2014 rule that DeVos repealed, known as "gainful employment," served as a warning to for-profit colleges and any school that offers career certificate programs: If graduates don't earn enough income to repay their student debts, schools could lose access to federal aid.

Because many of these programs derive the bulk of their revenue from federal student loans and grants, it was a potentially devastating threat. So devastating that, Weingarten says, "the rule worked. What started happening is that these places — not just the for-profits, but anyone who was covered by this — they started cleaning up their act."

"Declare victory and go home"

When the Obama administration began working on a gainful employment rule back in 2010, some for-profit institutions started to make changes, trying to head off a potential reckoning. For example, Kaplan Higher Education unveiled an introductory, tuition-free period for prospective students to take classes. In a press release, Kaplan CONTINUE READING: Teachers Union To Sue Betsy DeVos Over Student Borrower Protections : NPR

Steven Singer: The Disrupters Are Failing, The People Are Fighting Back! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Steven Singer: The Disrupters Are Failing, The People Are Fighting Back! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Steven Singer: The Disrupters Are Failing, The People Are Fighting Back!

Steven Singer reviews SLAYING GOLIATH in the pages of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

He writes:

The whole text is about the community of teachers, parents, students and concerned citizens who’ve been fighting against the corporate interests trying to destroy public education.

And let me tell you, it’s like nothing  I’ve ever read. This is a history torn from the front page. It’s a continuation of her previous two books — 2010’s “The Life and Death of the American School System,” which was a history of the decadeslong plot, and 2013’s “Reign of Error,” which was also a research-based guide to stopping the destruction. “Slaying Goliath” is a chronicle of how the movement to counter the disruptors is succeeding.

One of the things I love about it is that term — the “disruptors.” She says that it’s time we stop calling the anti-public school crowd “education reformers.” They don’t deserve that label. They aren’t trying to bring about the positive change typically associated with reform. They’re trying to disrupt our school system like a hedge fund manager or vulture capitalist would do to a business in a hostile takeover.

However, the tide has finally turned against them. After three decades, it’s become painfully clear that the snake oil they are selling just doesn’t work. Our public schools are NOT failing — they’re struggling under reduced CONTINUE READING: Steven Singer: The Disrupters Are Failing, The People Are Fighting Back! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Shawgi Tell: Seventeen Charter Schools Siphon $155 Million from Buffalo Public School System | Dissident Voice

Seventeen Charter Schools Siphon $155 Million from Buffalo Public School System | Dissident Voice

Seventeen Charter Schools Siphon $155 Million from Buffalo Public School System

To the shock of many, the Buffalo News, Buffalo’s main newspaper, recently published an article exposing serious problems with charter schools. Like Rochester’s Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News usually goes out of its way to provide biased reporting on charter schools, almost always presenting them in the most favorable light possible, while consistently ignoring well-documented problems.

The Buffalo News published “Viewpoints: Charter schools are no educational panacea”¹ by Buffalo School Board Member Larry Scott on January 18, 2020.

Several points are worth highlighting.

First, non-profit and for-profit charter schools have never been a panacea for education problems. Charter schools have solved no problems in education and society. On the contrary, they have harmed education, society, the economy, and the national interest for decades. Charter schools have multiplied problems for themselves and others. Far too many problems plague the segregated and deregulated charter school sector to claim that charter schools will solve the problems we were told for years they would solve. Thus, for example, poor academic performance, discriminatory enrollment practices, inflated administrator pay, high employee and student turnover rates, corruption, poor oversight, shady real estate deals, and closures have plagued the entire charter school sector for more than 25 years. Controversy and charter schools are fellow-travelers. Wherever charter schools pop up, scandal and questionable practices are not far behind.

Adding insult to injury, 17 charter schools in Buffalo annually siphon tens of CONTINUE READING: Seventeen Charter Schools Siphon $155 Million from Buffalo Public School System | Dissident Voice

Public School Funding: In Too Many States, It’s All about Subtracting and More Subtracting | janresseger

Public School Funding: In Too Many States, It’s All about Subtracting and More Subtracting | janresseger

Public School Funding: In Too Many States, It’s All about Subtracting and More Subtracting

Let’s review the importance of school finance. It you think this topic is too arcane to think about, consider who has been teaching us about the importance of school funding for two years now, and you’ll realize it’s not abstract or complicated at all. Really it is just an elementary school story problem: If you have a public school budget made up of local, state, and federal tax revenue, and you take away some money by cutting taxes after a recession, and then you take away some more money for charter schools, and then you take away some more money for vouchers, how much will you have left?

For two years now, striking schoolteachers have forced us all to examine what little funding will remain. They have shown us in the most concrete way the implications of school policy emphasizing test-and-punish school accountability and increased school privatization—all overlaid upon an institution whose revenue base has fallen. Public school teachers on strike in West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado, Los Angeles, Oakland, and most recently Chicago have demonstrated the untenable conditions in their schools created by collapsing revenue—children struggling in classes of 40 students, teachers pushed out of the profession when their salaries fall so low they cannot afford to rent an apartment, and schools lacking counselors, social workers, librarians, and school nurses. From state to state, teachers have repeated and reinforced the primary causes of this problem in a way that ought to help us remember: States have failed to raise enough revenue to support the public schools and then state legislatures have driven a lot of taxpayer dollars away from public schools and into privatized charter schools and vouchers for students to pay private school tuition.

In the ways they have persistently underfunded public schools and the degree to which they have created policies to drain public funds out of the public schools and into privatized charter schools and vouchers, state legislators have demonstrated their lack of commitment to the principles of adequate school funding and its equitable distribution. Most of the state CONTINUE READING: Public School Funding: In Too Many States, It’s All about Subtracting and More Subtracting | janresseger

Education Deans for Justice and Equity? | Cloaking Inequity

Education Deans for Justice and Equity? | Cloaking Inequity

EDUCATION DEANS FOR JUSTICE AND EQUITY?

I truly believe that our deans and other academic leaders can translate their community-engaged, community-relevant work that they have undertaken as researchers and teachers into higher education leadership roles. I am seeking to do that on a daily basis in my role as dean at the University of Kentucky College of Education.

As a result I was drawn to attend the Education Deans for Justice and Equity conference meeting in Los Angeles this past week.

Here are the mission and principles from their website.

Public education has, in many ways, functioned historically to sort and marginalize various groups, and so-called “reforms” often exacerbate the problems. The purposes and the promises of public education are to prepare all students to succeed and flourish in life, and we insist this cannot be done without explicitly and intentionally addressing inequities and injustices in education, particularly regarding nationality, language, race, social class, gender, sexuality, religion, ability, and other dimensions of diversity. As deans of education, we have a moral responsibility to act on the following principles, individually and collectively.

Mission Statement

Education Deans for Justice and Equity (EDJE) is a nationwide alliance of education deans that advances equity and justice in education by speaking and acting collectively and in solidarity with communities regarding policies, reform proposals, and public debates.

Guiding Principles

We believe public education is a basic human right and an essential cornerstone of a democratic society.

We believe in the importance of taking action to resist policies and practices of discrimination and exclusion.

We believe in protecting and advocating for the well-being and dignity of all children, families, and communities.

We believe that the structures of poverty and inequality, which have a profound impact on educational attainment, must be dismantled.

We believe schools and colleges of education have a moral responsibility to listen to and learn from communities that have not been well-served by public education.

We believe that this national network of deans and other educators will influence, inform, and challenge policies, reform proposals, public debates, and social movements.

I am honored to be a member of the network and look forward to ensuring that the University of Kentucky College of Education adheres to principles of equity and justice. Please encourage your academic leaders at your nearby college of education to engage in these important conversations.

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