Seattle Schools Community Forum: Opting Out Talk is Not Dying Down

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Opting Out Talk is Not Dying Down:

Opting Out Talk is Not Dying Down

Diane Ravitch had this recording of a weekly ed reform show from Michael Petrilli at the Fordham Institute.  In the first 7 minutes of the show, he worries about the opting out going on in NY state.  It's everything from unhappy tweets to 1,000s of parents (actually hundreds of thousands) opting their kids out and hey, what does it all mean?

He and his co-host say they just can't tell exactly why parents are doing this.  They opine that it can't be because Common Core testing is costing so much the arts are being cut (surmising that "affluent" schools just can't be cutting the arts).

They fret over this "big deal now" and what if it spreads nationwide? He says:

If this goes national, this whole school reform thing is in serious trouble."

Sorry, Mike, the genie is out of the bottle.

Speaking of Ravitch, she also has news from Minneapolis via the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The newest math scores for Minneapolis South High School’s 11th-graders plunged more than 25 percentage points compared with 2013. At Southwest High School, scores dropped 22 points over the same period.

The dramatic fall off at two of Minneapolis’ best schools is not because of a crisis of academic achievement, but rather historic numbers of top students who are exercising a little-known right to opt out of standardized tests.

She gives several reasons why parents are opting out (really, it's no mystery but the corporate ed reformers make it sound like it is). 

Parents know that the absence of transparency by the test-makers in not in the interest of their children and that the tests are designed to fail the majority of students because their passing score is set unrealistically high. Some parents understand that the tests provide little or no diagnostic information about their children (most Common Core tests provide NO diagnostic information, just a score.) Some are protesting the Common Core,  some are protesting the federal takeover of their state and their local schools. Some are protesting the tests themselves.

The NY Times also has a good debate in Room for Debate between Patricia Levesque who works for Jeb Bush's "Foundation for Excellence in Education" and Kevin Welner, the director of the National Education Policy Center.

I made a comment where I call out one of Ms. Levesque's paragraphs.

 "We do this by determining what children need to know, not what we think they can learn based on their circumstances. We then measure their progress and hold adults in the system accountable for doing their job. "

And there you have it - testing's not-so-subtle backstory.

That first sentence is a backhanded way to try to make anyone who 

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Opting Out Talk is Not Dying Down:

I'm Not Running for Seattle School Board

I appreciate all the encouragement and offers of help to run for the Seattle School Board but I have concluded that it's just not the right time in my life to do so.

It's bittersweet to say no because I believe that I know this district and I care deeply about public education.  I would have worked my hardest to get elected and, if elected, would have become part of a team - the School Board - to create better academic outcomes for all students in public education.

My husband always wanted me to run.  But he was my biggest supporter, my sounding board and a shoulder to lean on and it's just too soon to do this without him.

Naturally, I will try to interview all the candidates, do my research and come up with my best recommendations.  I will try to announce all candidate forums so you can find at least one chance to meet and hear the candidates for School Board speak.  (Please let me know about any in your neighborhood - I don't want to miss any of them.) http://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/2015/05/im-not-running-for-seattle-school-board.html

Young People Matter

Young People Matter:

Young People Matter

 The city of Baltimore gave us a lot to consider last week. From Monday’s uprising to Friday’s indictments, the news outlets were kept quite busy. In the midst of it all, I found myself mostly drawn to the treatment of young people. I was acutely aware that they were called thugs with the same venom in which blacks have been called the n-word. I was shocked in the sea of people (both within and beyond the black lives matter movement) that levied a criticism about the improper way in which the youth channeled their anger (as though uprisings throughout our country’s history have not served as a catalyst to progress). Mainly, I was frustrated at the lack of awareness in how adults have influenced, by their negligence and their ill-conceived conceptions of "student achievement," a generation of disabled and impotent leaders.

Today's post illustrates this point... a point that indicts adults--- teachers and school leaders; parents and politicians; and preachers and civil rights leaders. To do this, I continue my conversation started last weekregarding the film “Selma.” While I originally wrote this piece, as part two to the first, I am amazed at how it naturally fits my thoughts surrounding Monday’s revolt and how it is a timely contribution to a needed conversation about schooling and youth leadership.

Returning to Selma
As represented by the movie Selma, key players in the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were located at the ground level. Yes, there was President Johnson who signed it into law, but it was the people most disenfranchised that served as the catalyst for change. In the movie, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC ), led by Dr. King, partnered with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC ), a field-based initiative led by students (including John Lewis), to increase the public’s awareness that black people were being denied access to voting.

Looking at Martin Luther King, Andrew Young, Ralph Abernathy, C.T. Vivian, and John Lewis, I began to reflect on the competencies needed for them to understand sociopolitical problems, for them to own their personal part in the solution, and for them to muster up the courage, the conviction, the strategy and influence to execute change. In short, what were the skills and dispositions needed to lead a movement? And, what role did their K-12 education help them to develop these skills?

Lost Treasures of a Segregated Schooling System 
Prior to the desegregation of public schools, black students were primarily taught by black teachers (and non-black teachers specifically committed to them). In this space, schooling was a community experience, where people living and experiencing life together also came together to teach and to learn. As a result, there was a distinct pedagogical approach. Milner said that black teachers during this era taught students for integration, so students could possess the capacities needed to work, live and prosper right alongside of their white counterparts. Delpit ’s discussion on power codes helps to showcase the value of the segregated era. She delineated instruction as a cultural tool of power in which those with power have established the rules of what is and what is not acceptable. Teachers in segregated schools understood these codes of power and based their instruction on empowering students with this knowledge. As stated by Ware, a teacher in segregated schools “emphasized the importance of education for political and economic success” (p. 429).

In general (and of course there are some significant exceptions to these findings), students were not limited to contemporary education standards measured by high-stakes testing. And, they were not limited to a deficit based identity due to being taught by teachers who possessed a mono-cultural lens of right and wrong. Unfortunately, however, this is the experience of many black students (as well as brown, red, and poor white and yellow students) in today’s K-12 learning environment. In the midst of a climate where everyone is championing reform, the real deal is that very few reform- driven schools are truly reformed. Why? Because many of today’s schools, in the gross decline in the number of black teachers employed, fail to see the relevant relationship that schooling has with the sociopolitical needs of disenfranchised communities, as those schools did in the segregated era. Today’s schooling climate treats minority and low-income learners as objects that need to be managed and controlled to achieve a set of outcomes that has very little to do with living, learning and leading in the 21st century (Dye, In Progress). 

Baltimore’s Youth Uprising
The young people of Baltimore, in their revolt against the death of Freddie Gray, were categorized as being immoral… as being wrong… as being ignorant. There were those such as Mayor Stephany Rawlings-Blake who said that it was idiotic to destroy one’s community (as though the place in which these young people live truly exists as a commune of safety and dignity). There were others who argued that nonviolent protests are the moral means to promote change (as though the nonviolent protests in Ferguson and New York garnished justice for Michael Brown and Eric Garner).

I am not here to condone violence but I am also not here to condemn the young people either! As adults, we have failed to equip them with the tools necessary to lead… to take a stand and have a real impact in their world. Instead, we have treated them as consumers of a set of literacies that will give them minimal capacity to address the social barriers impeding their true progress. As adults, we have treated them as objects that must comply with a set standards that has more to do with upholding the humanity of someone else than it does with upholding their own humanity. Case in point, many people publically support the parental pounding of a 17 year old on national television (calling her the “Mother of the Year”) because we believe a child’s true position is one that is inherently without voice, dignity, honor, or power.

Our current climate of schooling (and parenting) does not see the true value of young people. It is structured to produce young people who consume and comply… two conditions located nowhere near the transforming work of Dr. King and the civil rights coalition. Our schools are primarily based on a banking model where students take in and then they are rewarded on how pure and exact they give it back. Schools serving the politically disadvantaged don’t give students an opportunity to apply their knowing to real problems… to create meaningful solutions… to generate new ways of knowing.

This is what Baltimore’s children were trying to convey last Monday. To me, their actions showed that they want a way to make a difference. They want a way to matter! In the absence of having their socio-emotional intelligence utilized in their K-12 academic training, what we saw was an explosion of a bottle neck desire for change -- all without having adequate resources (such as validation, support and training) to successfully serve as change agents.

Conclusion and Considerations
Baltimore’s uprising is a cry for a different way to treat minority and low-income students. They need schools Young People Matter:

Critical Dyegest

Angela Dye's blog is part of our Purple Wisconsin project. Dye loves to ask tough questions and critically examine social-structural systems that impact individual development and individual responsibility.

A chance to end the public school era - GOPlifer

A chance to end the public school era - GOPlifer:

A chance to end the public school era

 Texas’ legislature is poised to deliver a massive gift to the state’s religious fundamentalists. The Senate has passed the boldest school privatization program in the country, a pilot program that would finally neuter the “godless” public schools. This is what happens when you place a mildly deranged radio host in a state’s most powerful elected office.

Sending public school students to private religious schools may not seem like a ticket to a well-educated citizenry prepared for 21^st century demands. That’s ok. Those are not the goals of this program. Legislators are looking for ways to further cut taxes and rescue Texas children from the godless influence of science, history, and empirical knowledge.

There’s nothing particularly revolutionary about school vouchers. Thirteen states plus DC already have programs that let students attend private institutions with public funding under some limited circumstances. What makes Texas’ proposal special is its ambitious scope and its potential to remove the last major edifice of public capital in Texas.

Texas’ privatization proposal is based on two separate bills. One bill creates a right to attend private schools funded by vouchers. The second bill creates the funding structure.

Tea Party Senator Donna Campbell is the sponsor of SB 276. That bill establishes a right for students to opt out of public schools and take with them a voucher that funds their private education. Then it starts getting weird.

Campbell’s plan will only pay 60% of what the state was spending for that student’s public education. Common sense finally triumphs here over the demands of pointy-headed accountants. Want cheaper schools? Give them less money.

Campbell’s bill also works another little bit of magic. No government money will be spent on the program. Kinda…

Her bill stipulates that “Money from the available school fund and federal funds may not be used for reimbursement under this section.” So how are these vouchers going to be funded? Students aren’t the only people who would be opting out of the public school system under this program.

Campbell’s SB 276 has a twin. Funding for this program is delivered by SB 642, sponsored by Houston’s own Senator Paul Bettencourt. His bill creates an unusual new private entity called an “Educational Assistance Organization” (EAO).

An EAO would be a private charity with a twist. Any “taxable entity” making a donation to the EAO could get a full credit for their donation against their franchise tax liability, up to 50% of their total tax liability. All funding for private school vouchers would have to come from an EAO.

Bettencourt’s bill is what makes this approach truly radical. These two bills would not merely privatize schools. They would privatize the school funding system as well, creating an entire parallel world free from the liberal horrors of a real education infrastructure. Taxpayers could simply exit the existing public school funding system in favor of their own private school funding entities which they control entirely.

Scope of the program is limited under these two bills, at least for now, in order to make this a “pilot program.” Current versions of the bills would cap the total funding for the state’s EAO’s to $100 million. EAO’s would only be allowed to grant vouchers (the bill calls them “scholarships”) to students whose families earn less than about $60,000 a year. The program would not extend into rural school districts.

EAO’s would not be able to designate which kinds of schools they would fund, but that constraint comes with a Texas-sized loophole. There are virtually no constraints or review over which students the EAO might select for scholarships. What is blocked by one hand is allowed by the other.

So, let’s review. Texas’ proposed school reform would, at least on a limited scale for now, allow taxpayers to opt out of paying taxes to public schools in order to direct their contributions to EAO’s. Those entities would decide which students to fund in private schools, with no constraints on sending students to religious academies and no oversight on which students they fund.

If expanded, this offers Texas’ religious fundamentalists a huge achievement. They could finally destroy their most hated public institution – the schools. This proposal would gradually starve the public schools of their revenue stream, further cutting the amount that the state pays after years of careful under-funding. Meanwhile it would leave the public schools trapped under their existing infrastructure and mandates, a trap that would finally finish off the beast.

Undersized vouchers would fail to deliver enough funding to support a competent private education. Affluent families would get to take the money and run, receiving a state subsidy which they could combine with their family’s own contributions to pay for a reasonably good private education. Middle income families who can’t afford to pay above the voucher value would be left in the lurch, trapped between a collapsing public school system and a collection of cheap, storefront Christian madrassas.

A new generation of young people will be spared from learning about their history or discovering anything about the natural world that might challenge their religious assumptions. They’ll be ignorant, bigoted, and reliably pious, which this legislature will see as a big fat win.

The roots of this concept are perhaps even worse than the shape of the plan itself. In response to the Supreme Court’s decision striking down racial discrimination in schools, Georgia passed a constitutional amendment in 1954 allowing their legislature to privatize the entire school system. They never took that radical step, but the law remained in place until Georgia introduced a new constitution in 1982.

One of the architects of Texas’ current plan is Arthur Laffer, a man who has manufactured a successful career out of being wrong about everything. He became famous for formulating what George Bush, Sr. famously called “voodoo economics.” Laffer most recently used his policy voodoo to rip the bottom out of Kansas’ state finances. People are still listening to this guy because results don’t matter in politics.

It isn’t clear whether the current proposals can gain enough support to pass in this session. The Senate has already approved the plan, but its future in the House is uncertain.

What is clear is that Texas’ experiment with radical Neo-Confederate government is reaching a crucially painful stage and there is no relief in sight. This disastrous and bizarre proposal may fail this year, but there is nothing to stop it from emerging again and again until it, something even worse, finally passes. Elections have consequences and there are no signs of Texas elections delivering sanity any time soon.

More links and comments are at the GOPLifer Blog.

Programs serving meals to low income families - Year 2015 (CA Dept of Education)

Programs serving meals to low income families - Year 2015 (CA Dept of Education):

State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Announces Updated List of 

Programs Serving Nutritious Meals to Low-Income Families

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced today that disadvantaged families in California can now find updated lists of child and adult care centers offering nutritious meals at low- or no-cost through the California Department of Education’s Web site.

"I encourage low-income families to take advantage of these centers to ensure their children are well-fed and have access to nutritious food," said Torlakson. "Students have to be healthy to succeed in school, and a good diet is critical to good health."

The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) is funded by the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Nearly 5,000 local child care centers and 17,000 sponsored family day care home providers in California participate in the CACFP. These facilities provide nutritious food to infants, children, and adults. All children enrolled in these day care homes receive meals at no charge. Most participating child care centers also provide meals at no charge. In centers that have a separate charge for meals, participants may receive free or reduced-price meals.

Child care centers can provide free or reduced-price meals if families of children in their care meet household income eligibility guidelines. For example, a family of four earning $31,005 a year (up from $30,615 last year) can qualify for free meals and snacks. Also, a family of four earning $44,123 a year (up from $43,568 last year) can qualify for reduced-price meals and snacks. The Income Eligibility Scales for 2014–15 for free and reduced-price meals and snacks are attached.

Child care centers or day care home providers with children in households that receive California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids, CalFresh, Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR), Kinship Guardianship Assistance Payment Program, Head Start, Early Head Start, or the Even Start Program are automatically eligible at the free rate. Adult day care centers with adults that receive CalFresh, FDPIR, Social Security Income, or Medicaid benefits are also eligible for reimbursement at the free rate. Institutions serve meals to all participants regardless of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability.*

To find day care home sponsors in your area, visit the interactive CACFP Day Care Home Sponsors Web page and search by county. For a child or adult day care center, visit the interactive 2014–15 CACFP Center Sites Web page and search by county.



* The USDA prohibits discrimination against its customers, employees, and applicants for employment on the bases of race, color, national origin, age, disability, sex, gender identity, religion, reprisal, and where applicable, political beliefs, marital status, familial or parental status, sexual orientation, or all or part of an individual’s income is derived from any public assistance program, or protected genetic information in employment or in any program or activity conducted or funded by the Department. (Not all prohibited bases will apply to all programs and/or employment activities.) If you wish to file a Civil Rights program complaint of discrimination, complete the USDA Program Discrimination Complaint Form  found online or at any USDA office, or call (866) 632-9992 to request the form. You may also write a letter containing all of the information requested in the form. Send your completed complaint form or letter by mail at U.S. Department of Agriculture, Director, Office of Adjudication, 1400 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20250-9410, by fax (202) 690-7442 or email at program.intake@usda.gov. Individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing or have speech disabilities may contact USDA through the Federal Relay Service at (800) 877-8339; or (800) 845-6136 (Spanish).

Free Eligibility Scale: Meals, Snacks, and Milk

Household Size	Annual	Monthly	Twice Per Month	Every Two Weeks	Weekly
1	$15,171	$1,265	$633	$584	$292
2	20,449	1,705	853	787	394
3	25,727	2,144	1,072	990	495
4	31,005	2,584	1,292	1,193	597
5	36,283	3,024	1,512	1,396	698
6	41,561	3,464	1,732	1,599	800
7	46,839	3,904	1,952	1,802	901
8	52,117	4,344	2,172	2,005	1,003
For each additional family member, add:	$5,278	$440	$220	$203	$102

Reduced-Price Eligibility Scale: Meals and Snacks

Household Size	Annual	Monthly	Twice Per Month	Every Two Weeks	Weekly
1	$ 21,590	$ 1,800	$ 900	$ 831	$ 416
2	29,101	2,426	1,213	1,120	560
3	36,612	3,051	1,526	1,409	705
4	44,123	3,677	1,839	1,698	849
5	51,634	4,303	2,152	1,986	993
6	59,145	4,929	2,465	2,275	1,138
7	66,656	5,555	2,778	2,564	1,282
8	74,167	6,181	3,091	2,853	1,427
For each additional family member, add:	$7,511	$626	$313	$289	$145

# # # #

Tom Torlakson — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5206, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

“Opt out now”: The Seattle NAACP revives the legacy W.E.B Du Bois, demands an end to Common Core testing | Cloaking Inequity

“Opt out now”: The Seattle NAACP revives the legacy W.E.B Du Bois, demands an end to Common Core testing | Cloaking Inequity:

“Opt out now”: The Seattle NAACP revives the legacy W.E.B Du Bois, demands an end to Common Core testing

 Some civil right organizations are planning to come out for more testing in a letter circulating in DC this very moment. We must organize locally against Pearson and the testing movement. We must have conversation with our civil rights organizations locally. More soon from the Network for Public Education.

NAACP Seattle has taken a stand against high-stakes testing in Washington (Click on the links below the teacher recruitment thread).

They are also putting the pressure on local school districts to hire more teachers of color.

NAACP Confronts Local School Board
NBC News
NAACP members accuse the leaders of ‘America’s most diverse school district,’ of not doing enough to hire teachers of color during a heated board meeting. KING’s Natalie Swaby reports.
NAACP accuses local school board of racist hiring practices
Kiro7 News
Local NAACP president Gerald Hankerson said he’s fed up and wants to see drastic change. “We have given you countless recommendations,” he said. “We have met with you on countless occasions, and you still don’t seem to get it right.”
Hankerson said the organization has been meeting with the district for months to help it diversify its teaching staff.

NAACP confronts Tukwila School Board
King5 News
NAACP President Gerald Hankerson said after months of working with the school district, diversity is still a big problem. “You are the reason they are failing. You are stunting their academic growth,” said Hankerson. “You don’t even look like the kids that go to this school. You don’t even speak their language.”

NAACP Slams Tukwila School District On Minority Hiring
KUOW
The Tukwila School District boasts one of the most diverse student bodies in the state. But the NAACP of Seattle-“Opt out now”: The Seattle NAACP revives the legacy W.E.B Du Bois, demands an end to Common Core testing | Cloaking Inequity:

To Privatize or Not to Privatize

To Privatize or Not to Privatize:

To Privatize or Not to Privatize

By Victoria M. Young, Education News | Op-Ed

Let’s put these questions on the table: What attracts so many Americans to the idea that private companies can better run the public education system? How do they see this current trend as being best for the country?

Since public education is an institution that has served us well over time, privatization is a topic worthy of further consideration, discussion, and thought before we take further actions in the name of “education reform.”

The term “privatization” goes beyond the act of using public dollars for private services. We have always done that where and when necessary public services can’t be provided any other way. But that isn’t the limit of the privatization process our public education system is undergoing. We are allowing public policy to be developed that puts private interests (money) ahead of the public good. In this case, our education reform laws are putting the education-industrial complex ahead of the needs of school children, their families, and their local communities.

Another way of putting it is “privatization is the transfer of activities, assets and responsibilities from government and public institutions and organizations to private individuals and agencies” (Belfield/Levin). In an ideal world, the part about a transfer of “responsibilities” would hold true.

Hospitals and prisons are both examples of institutions where privatization was tried and continues to be tried with mixed results. Many are probably too young to remember when almost every community had a community hospital. Slowly and without fanfare, they disappeared from small town America as larger non-profit and for-profit hospitals took over. Many Americans now do not have the luxury of having a hospital nearby and hospital costs have risen.

Attempts to privatize prisons through the idea that private providers will be more effective and efficient sounded good to lawmakers in many states but proved more costly—in dollars and human suffering. Here in Idaho, we are now taking back our prison system from private operators.

In our complex education system, there are a variety of ways it is being privatized. A few examples include accountability schemes, performance related pay, contracting out services including to the technology industry, public-private partnerships (sounding innocent enough), allowing international capital in public education through such things as the Gulen charters and philanthropic efforts of all kinds — with good and bad results.

If this is all about results and there is conclusive evidence that privatization of whole systems of education does produce more effective and efficient means of educating all children, then we should go that route. But where is that proof?

It is only because I have a niece and two nephews raised and educated in Sweden in the 90’s that the situation in that country caught my attention. In a 2007 report called Hidden Privatisation, Sweden was one of the countries these researchers looked at because of its “extensive privatisation.”

My brother’s children were taught three languages, seemed to know a great deal of American history, and each became an adult with the skills to become independent and productive citizens. Back when they were in school, my brother seemed pleased with their schooling. More recently, he is complaining about how bad the education system is getting. Anecdotal opinion? Until the “tumble” of the last decade was officially recognized. “No other country has fallen so abruptly as Sweden in math over a ten-year span.” It takes a major long-standing disturbance in a system to move trends in standardized test scores.

The Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, whose advocacy efforts focus on privatization, has been noted as a prominent force in the socialist country of Sweden.

So, how is this privatization process proceeding in the U.S.? Just like it has around the world as described in Hidden Privatisation — “camouflaged by the language of ‘educational reform’, or introduced stealthily as ‘modernization’.”

For America, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) used two very big drawing cards that profited education industry and furthered privatization— supplemental service providers and “choice.” Mandated standardized test scores, however arbitrary and meaningless in reality, were the basis for identifying the “underperformance” of students and schools thus defining “the need” for reform services and spawning parental competition for choices.

Parents choose schools based on the hope of better opportunities for their children. More and more, those opportunities depend on the integrity of non-profit and for-profit charter managers. And the supplemental services prescribed by law had no real accountability for results; that money is spent, the harm done.

The Obama administration Blueprint for Reform: The Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (NCLB) is more of the same in the name of “reform.” It promotes charter expansion, investment in data systems, new standards and tests, and promotion of “nonprofit” organizations for school turnaround, teacher and leader programs, and pushes a wide range of “granting” of our federal education dollars to the private sector industries.

In twenty years of funding these same experiments, we now have proof that these “reform” ideas are not the successes that promoters marketed to us. Costs in education have risen dramatically while improvements have been few. Given those facts, why are we pushing to further privatize our public school system?

Perhaps many do not know that growing privatization has been a result of education laws. And a growing number of ordinary Americans see or hear about problems with the public schools and have come to believe privatization is now the only way out. We have been sold on the idea that you can’t change the system and, admittedly, the system is known for its unwavering entrenchment.

I understand the frustration with the current system, but cannot answer for others when it comes to the question of why we are going this unproven route? If private companies fail, who will be responsible? Is it worth the risk especially when a better way to school improvement is known?

This article is a Truthout original.To Privatize or Not to Privatize:

Sweden Charter Schools' Epic Fail - urged to rethink parents' choice over schools after education decline | World news | The Guardian

Sweden urged to rethink parents' choice over schools after education decline | World news | The Guardian:

Sweden urged to rethink parents' choice over schools after education decline

OECD recommends comprehensive reform including revised school choice arrangements and more effective regulation

 Sweden has been urged to halt the steep decline in the international ranking of its schools by taking action to limit parents’ and pupils’ right to choose.

A report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD) recommends “a comprehensive education reform” to restore the Swedish system to its previous standards.

Andreas Schleicher, director of the OECD’s education directorate, was scathing about the country’s “disappointing” performance, saying he had once viewed Sweden as “the model for education”.

“It was in the early 2000s that the Swedish school system somehow seems to have lost its soul,” he said at a press conference in Stockholm. “Schools began to compete no longer on delivering superior quality but on offering shiny school buildings in shopping centres, and I think that’s the issue we are really seeing.”

The call for “revised school choice arrangements” will have resonance in the UK, where the coalition government’s programme to launch free schools funded by public money was in part inspired by Sweden.

Since the 1990s, Sweden has allowed privately run schools to compete with public schools for government funds. Critics on the left blame the voucher system for declining results, saying it has opened the door for schools more interested in making a profit than providing solid education. Conservatives say students have been given too much influence in the classroom, undermining the authority of teachers.

The OECD report says: “Student performance on the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) has declined dramatically, from near the OECD average in 2000 to significantly below average in 2012. No other country participating in Pisa saw a steeper decline than Sweden over that period.”

It warns that Sweden had “failed to improve its school system despite a series of reforms” and that a “more ambitious, national reform strategy is now urgently needed”.

The report calls for a range of measures including higher salaries, better training, and tougher entry requirements for the teaching profession; more centralised efforts to integrate immigrants into education; and a more active approach to improving performance from the country’s schools inspectorate.

Gustav Fridolin, Sweden’s education minister, welcomed the recommendations, saying that they would feed into Sweden’s ongoing review of education.

“We now have a good picture of the challenges,” he told Sweden’s Expressen newspaper. “The next step must be to put it in a Swedish context and set the Swedish goals which the OECD is looking for, as well as a detailed action plan to meet those goals.”

Schleicher argued that the high level of choice Swedish pupils enjoyed over which school they attended needed to be backed up by a more effective regulatory system.

“The more choices that parents have in a school system, the stronger and more robust the system needs to be,” he said.

The report blamed the system of school choice for the failure of almost half of children from immigrant backgrounds (48%) to make the grade in mathematics.

Rather than recommending rolling back Sweden’s system of free choice and competition in schools, however, it suggests that the country “revise school choice arrangements to ensure quality with equity”.

That would involve limiting the independence of free schools from local education authorities by bringing in new national guidelines to allow municipalities to “integrate independent schools in their planning, improvement and support strategies”.

The report also recommends helping disadvantaged families make better school choices, so that their children, as well as those from middle-class families, apply to the country’s more popular, better performing schools.

Finally, it suggests that municipalities restrict the ability of some parents to choose their children’s schools by introducing “controlled choice schemes that supplement parental choice to ensure a more diverse distribution of students in schools”.

Since taking office last October, Sweden’s Social Democrat-Green coalition has launched a review of Sweden’s education system, which will report next year, and pledged a major rise in teachers’ salaries in 2016.

Charter choices resegregate schools, advocates say

Charter choices resegregate schools, advocates say:

Charter choices resegregate schools, advocates say

 NEWARK, Del. -- Charter schools shouldn't be able to give enrollment preference to students who live within five miles of their campus because doing so is leading to resegregation, some lawmakers and advocates argue.

If a charter school has more applicants than seats, Delaware law currently allows charters to give preference to students who live within five miles of their building, as long as they include that preference in their charter.

The only charter that currently uses that preference is Newark Charter School, which has almost 2,000 students in grades K-10 and is expanding into a full K-12 school. Eastside Charter and the Delaware Met have approval to do so in their charter, but have not yet exercised it because they have not had more applicants than available seats.

Rep. John Kowalko, D-Newark, says Newark Charter's five-mile radius preference leads to de facto segregation because it is situated in a mostly white, more affluent area of town. Demand for seats in the school is so high — its test scores among the best in the state — that it routinely has lengthy wait-lists which, Kowalko argues, makes it all but impossible for a black, low-income student from Wilmington to get in.

"Newark Charter's a good school and it's not going anywhere," Kowalko said. "But we have to assure, because it is a school funded with public money, that there is equal access for every student."

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More than 65 percent of Newark Charter's students are white, while only about 11 percent are black, according to figures from the Department of Education. Only 7.2 percent of its students are low-income, and only 5.6 percent are special education.

Contrast that with the whole state of Delaware, in which only 46 percent of students are white and 31 percent are black, or the Christina School District, in which the school is housed, which is only 31 percent white and 39 percent black.

Statewide, 35 percent of kids are low-income, five times the percentage of Newark Charter. In Christina, 41 percent of students are low-income, almost six times as many.

Kowalko has proposed House Bill 83, which would eliminate charters' ability to give preference to nearby families. He has long criticized the five-mile radius provision, and is a frequent charter school critic.

Greg Meece, the director of Newark Charter, says he's "confused" as to why lawmakers would want to prevent charters from having a geographical preference when traditional schools have feeder patterns that are often smaller than five miles.

"The legislature listed this preference in order to keep communities together in order to encourage parent involvement in their schools and to mirror what is done in traditional schools," Meece said.

Meece argues it doesn't make sense to compare Newark Charter's student population to Christina's because the two are completely different. Christina's schools include many urban Wilmington students in addition to the Newark suburbs in which the charter is located.

"I think you look at the community our school was created to serve, we reflect that community very well," Meece said.

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The debate over the five-mile radius preference fits into a larger discussion of whether charters are "re-segregating" Delaware schools by screening out low-income and minority students.

In December, the Delaware branch of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education in which they said more than three-quarters of all charters were "racially identifiable" as either mostly white or mostly minority schools.

"My thinking is that, although I don't think the five-mile radius is the most significant problem with the charter school law that is causing resegregation, I still think this is a good idea," said Kathleen MacRae, executive director of the ACLU Delaware.

MacRae said other enrollment preferences, like admissions tests or GPA requirements, are also causing re-segregation and won't be changed by Kowalko's bill.Charter choices resegregate schools, advocates say: