How far apart are Democrats and Republicans on school reform? | Brookings Institution

How far apart are Democrats and Republicans on school reform? | Brookings Institution:

How far apart are Democrats and Republicans on school reform?

Americans are more polarized than at any point in recent history.  On issue after issue—abortion, the Affordable Care Act, or just about anything else— Democrats stand on one side and Republicans stand on the other. It can be difficult for leaders to build consensus around policy when the two sides each have their own base of support.  But is the public so divided over school issues?     

Last year, Education Next conducted a poll asking Americans about 17 education issues.  On eight of these issues, there is no evidence that parties differ.  Democrats are no more or less supportive than Republicans when it comes to universal vouchers, vouchers for students in failing schools, tax credits for donations to scholarship programs for private schools, higher pay for teachers in hard to staff subjects, higher pay for teachers in hard to staff schools, and awarding tenure on the basis of student performance. 

There are differences on other issues—increasing spending, raising teacher pay, government funded universal preschool, government funded preschool for low income families, charter schools, vouchers for low-income families, merit pay, tenure, and Common Core—but these differences hardly pit the parties in opposing corners of the ring.  In only one case does the majority from one party oppose the majority from the other.  Nearly three-fourths of Democrats favor more spending on public schools, and 54 percent of Republicans oppose it.         

More typically, one of the parties musters a majority while the other splits. For example, 66 percent of Republicans oppose government funded vouchers for students from low-income families, but 42 percent of Democrats oppose and 45 percent support.  For two issues, majorities of both parties are on the same side despite a gap in support. Sixty two percent of Republicans favor merit pay, but so do 54 percent of Democrats.  Seventy one percent of Democrats want to raise teacher pay; so do 52 percent of Republicans.      

Without partisan division surely the door is open for bipartisan school reform?  Not exactly.  The lack of polarization on school issues probably has more to do with confusion than consensus. 

The opinions that most Americans express on school issues are not well-informed, not organized in any coherent way, and not consistent over time.  The 2014 survey contained factual questions about Common Core.  Nearly two-thirds of respondents had either never heard of the standards or answered “don’t know” to the factual questions.  In 2013 another survey asked Americans factual questions about charter schools.  Half of the respondents said they did not know the answers while another 20 to 30 percent gave the wrong answers.  Other past surveys have shown that Americans consistently underestimate per-pupil spending and teacher salaries.           

If a coherent belief system underlay the opinions expressed on the 2014 survey, we could expect that a person would take similar positions on similar issues.  They do not. Knowing where someone stands on charter schools does not reveal much about where they stand on vouchers or merit pay, much less tenure, testing, or spending.  Responses across these How far apart are Democrats and Republicans on school reform? | Brookings Institution:

Nashville Stands Up to Powerful Charter Industry, Sets New Accountability Standards - NEA Today

Nashville Stands Up to Powerful Charter Industry, Sets New Accountability Standards - NEA Today:

Nashville Stands Up to Powerful Charter Industry, Sets New Accountability Standards

Since he was first elected to the Nashville Board of Education in 2012, Will Pinkston has been a vocal and tenacious advocate against the proliferation of charter schools. According to the operators who have rolled into the city over the past couple of years and their allies in local government, he is unapologetically “anti-charter.”

Not so, Pinkston insists.

“I’m not anti-charter. I have voted to approve some charter schools,” he says. “Now, what I am against is these new schools chewing up every dime of available new revenue at the expense of traditional public schools, their students and their teachers – especially when they are not held to basic, common sense standards of accountability.”

Pinkston attracts a fair amount of local press for his outspoken and often blunt criticism of the way charters do business in Nashville, but he is hardly alone in sounding the alarm over the consequences of unabated charter growth. His colleague on the board, Amy Frogge, has worked tirelessly to spotlight what she calls“charter school games” that obscure shoddy fiscal and academic records. And a thriving movement of educators, parents and other members of the community are standing up to demand a greater level of charter school accountability.

“Charters aren’t going away,” says Amanda Kail, a teacher at Margaret Allen Middle School. “But we need to do everything we can to help make them the best schools.So the public needs to bear in mind that many of these schools are not working for students and are wasting taxpayer money and we need to figure out ways to make them better.”

This past spring, Kail testified before the school board to urge adoption ofaccountability standards created by Brown University’s Annenberg Institute for School Reform. Under each of the seven Annenberg standards is a set of concrete policy and practical recommendations applicable to state legislatures, charter authorizers, and communities. The target is the waste, fraud and abuse in the charter sector. The goal is greater transparency, equity and other forms of Nashville Stands Up to Powerful Charter Industry, Sets New Accountability Standards - NEA Today:

Julian will go to a neighborhood school–but what about all the other Newark children? | Bob Braun's Ledger

Julian will go to a neighborhood school–but what about all the other Newark children? | Bob Braun's Ledger:

Julian will go to a neighborhood school–but what about all the other Newark children?

Julian Ferreira will attend the Oliver Street School.

Julian Ferreira will get to go the school behind his house–and his mother Sara deserves a lot of credit for standing up to the administration of Newark public schools run by Christopher Cerf, Gov. Chris Christie’s agent in the state’s largest school district. But there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other children in Newark who will not be allowed to attend the schools nearest their homes. Their struggle goes on.

“I wasn’t going to give up this time,” said Sara Ferreira. She tried and failed last year to enroll Julian in the pre-school at Oliver Street School, a school that abuts the Ferreira family property on Pacific Street.

She tried again this year but was again denied–twice. Sara Ferreira, herself a graduate of he Oliver Street School, wouldn’t stop pushing, however. She reached out to the parent organization, #ParentPower,  head  by Frankie Adao as well as local and state elected officials. Sara also agreed to tell her story here.

Her willingness to go public brought provoke extensive reaction, including complaints from other parents whose efforts to enroll their children in nearby schools was frustrated by the state’s insistence on pushing the so-called “One Newark” plan. That plan, originally devised by Cerf himself, seeks to close neighborhood public schools and launch new charter schools.

On Friday, one of Cerf’s bureaucrats called Sara Ferreira and said the school had somehow found room for Julian. It has been typical of the state’s reaction to try to resolve small crises before they erupt into larger ones.

Cerf headed a private consulting firm, Global Education Advisers. The firm was paid $500,000 to come up with an enrollment plan for Newark–but Cerf denied ever receiving the money. He was working  on the plan when Christie named him state education commissioner. The plan’s general outlines were included in “One Newark” and are followed today.

Cerf named his protégé, Cami Anderson, to be the Newark superintendent. Then Julian will go to a neighborhood school–but what about all the other Newark children? | Bob Braun's Ledger:

My Vision for Urban Education (Guest Post by Mark Naison) | Cooperative Catalyst

My Vision for Urban Education (Guest Post by Mark Naison) | Cooperative Catalyst:

My Vision for Urban Education (Guest Post by Mark Naison)

Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham’s Urban Studies Program. He is the author of three books and over 100 articles on African-American History, urban history, and the history of sports. His most recent book White Boy: A Memoir, published in the Spring of 2002, was reviewed in the New York Times, the Nation and the Chronicle of Higher Education and was the subject of feature stories on Black Entertainment Television, New York One News and the Tavis Smiley show on National Public Radio. One of his most popular courses at Fordham, “From Rock and Roll to Hip Hop: Urban Youth Cultures in Post War America” has also received media attention, becoming the subject of stories on National Public Radio, Bronx Net, and WFUV. His most recent course, “Feeling the Funk: Research Seminar on Music of the African Diaspora” focuses on Latin and Caribbean traditions on American Popular Music.

I am extremely critical of current trends in education policy which involve deluging schools with standardized tests and rating teachers, administrators and whole institutions based on test result. Such policies result in school disengagement on the part of students, destroy teacher morale, and magnify health problems in poor and working class communities by crowding out exercise and the arts.

Given my criticism of existing policies, skeptics have a right to ask-“What do you want to see urban schools doing that they are not doing now.” So let me take the time to lay out my own vision of what kind of things urban schools should be doing that will promote student engagement, parent involvement, teacher excitement, and transform schools into centers of community empowerment

Portions of what I am talking about are already being done by schools all over the country. I invite you to see what Professor Henry Taylor and his colleagues are doing to embed schools on the East Side of Buffalo into a larger program of community development; to visit Urban Academy on the East Side of Manhattan, an innovative multiracial high school that is project based rather than test based, and PS 140 in the South Bronx a school which has developed a museum devoted to community history; but it would be difficult to broadly implement what I recommend unless Federal and state educational policies give schools far more freedom to experiment, and reverse the current emphasis on high stakes testing.

Basically, I would like to see urban schools emphasize community involvement, artistic expression, and physical and emotional health on the part of their students. We have to end the pretense that poverty- reflected in homelessness and housing overcrowding, poor nutrition, high levels of violence and stress- are not factors shaping students academic engagement and performance. Schools should be places where young people know they are going to be fed, nurtured, protected, loved and have their confidence built up in many spheres of life and where parents and community members can go to discuss and solve broader community problems.

This means in the first instant, that schools be open from the crack of dawn till 9 or ten in the evening and open to community groups for public meetings, as well as for concerts, festivals and recreational activities.

But it also means that we should emphasize activities now deemed “expendable” in test driven . To that end, I would like the following.

1. That at least an hour of every school day be devoted to recreation and physical activity, whether it be recess, physical education classes or school sports.
2. That at least an hour of every school day be devoted to the arts, be it music, theater, visual arts, poetry and creative writing.
3. That urban agriculture and health education be made an integral part of schools curricula, fueling My Vision for Urban Education (Guest Post by Mark Naison) | Cooperative Catalyst:

Russ on Reading: Hey, Governor Christie, Punch My Face!

Russ on Reading: Hey, Governor Christie, Punch My Face!:

Hey, Governor Christie, Punch My Face!

In case you missed it, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, erstwhile presidential candidate, declared on CNN Sunday that teachers unions need a “punch in the face.” Faced with declining numbers in the polls and with being out bullied by Donald Trump, Christie has decided to come out swinging – at teachers.

Of course the teachers union has no literal face and the leaders of both major teachers unions, Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers and Lily Eskelson Garcia of the National Education Association are women. I don’t think even a Republican candidate for president could get away with punching a woman in the face. Belittling them, yes. Berating them, yes. Taking away the choice of what they do with their bodies, yes. But not striking a woman, especially with a Hillary running on the Democratic side.

So, taking all this into consideration, I would like to step up and offer Christie my face to punch.

I am well qualified for the job. I have been a public school teacher and administrator for 45 years. I have been the president and the chief negotiator of my local teachers union. I have been sharply critical of Christie’s education policies on my blog. I deserve that punch in the face. I have earned it. Not only that, I live just a stone’s throw from the statehouse in Trenton, so I could meet the Governor there at any time, if he ever happens to get back to New Jersey.

I am sure it would give Christie a boost in the polls and solidify his standing as a violent, bullying looney worthy of Republican voter support. It might even be enough to get him on the stage at one of the primary debates where he could punch Wolf Blitzer in the face and garner even more support.

Better yet, forget the debate and let Trump and Christie duke it out in a steel cage wrestling match. I would certainly pay money to see Christie and Russ on Reading: Hey, Governor Christie, Punch My Face!:

With A Brooklyn Accent: How the Community Schools Concept Was Implemented in Holyoke, Mass- A Critique. Guest Post by Gus Morales

With A Brooklyn Accent: How the Community Schools Concept Was Implemented in Holyoke, Mass- A Critique. Guest Post by Gus Morales:

How the Community Schools Concept Was Implemented in Holyoke, Mass- A Critique. Guest Post by Gus Morales

Gus Morales

FSCSs in Holyoke: A Panacea for our Schools?

Prior to state receivership, the Holyoke Public Schools (HPS) implemented a large number of programs and worked with an assortment of contracted consultants and organizations on school turnaround efforts.  Commissioner Chester provided the most recent brief summary in December of 2014, listing America’s Choice and the District Management Council as the most recent partners, each with particular focus and approach (http://www.doe.mass.edu/boe/docs/2015-03/item7-Timeline.pdf).  We agree with the assessment that these programs and partners did not produce the intended results, even if these results were narrowly defined as improved standardized scores.  Significantly, teachers have been overwhelmed by the quick switches from one program and one partner to the next. Teachers have not been meaningfully consulted about the various approaches based on our expertise and knowledge of our students.  These new initiatives have garnered additional resources, often without a public accounting, and a general lack of rigorous outside evaluation.  It is in this context that we approach the topic of family and community engagement today, focusing on the Full Service Community School model (FSCS), the District strategy for family and community involvement being implemented at four of our schools so far.

Full Service Community Schools (FSCSs) developed as a strategy of service coordination intended to break down silos and allow for collaboration between agencies serving children at their schools, thus facilitating providing all of the support services children need in one location. Inspired by the success of the Harlem Children’s Zone, championed by the Coalition of Community Schools, and embraced by federal and state education leaders seeking to meet the needs of low-income children, the approach was an attractive one for reform-minded school administrators and their community partners in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

The Harlem Children’s Zone approach has been difficult to replicate in other locations around the country because it was an intensive one that involved working with children before they entered school.  The approach began by engaging the parents or caretakers in the home and obtaining support services for families very early in the children’s lives, and most distinctly, by delineating a specific concentrated geographic area for concentrated delivery of coordinated services.  Children 0-3 and their parents participated in Baby College; children from 3 to 5 years of age in the Path to Promise program, and only children winning With A Brooklyn Accent: How the Community Schools Concept Was Implemented in Holyoke, Mass- A Critique. Guest Post by Gus Morales:

Thompson: Project Fatherhood - This Week In Education:

This Week In Education: Thompson: Project Fatherhood:

Thompson: Project Fatherhood

When writing her excellent Project Fatherhood, the UCLA gang expert Jorja Leap exposed herself to a daunting risk. Leap accepted a degree of physical danger but it was the professional risk that could have been intimidating. Leap defied academic convention and spoke honestly about race, family, child-rearing, domestic abuse and, even, the “P-stuff” or post-traumatic shock.

Much of the credit for Project Fatherhood’s open and candid discussion of some of the 3^rd rails of social policy must go to “Big Mike” Cummings, who guided her and the quest they shared with felons and fathers in Watts. Big Mike was exceptionally astute in coaxing the project’s participants into an honest appraisal of the causes and the effects of domestic abuse, as well as fathers not holding up their share of family responsibilities.

Scholars and educators often shy away from the issues tackled by Leap and Big Mike, and correctly argue that it is not just fathers - of whatever backgrounds - who have failed our kids. The horrific conditions of the inner city are a legacy of history, of economic exploitation and oppression, and of abusive political and criminal justice systems.  It is often feared that a conversation about child-rearing will be seen as “blaming the victim” or excuse-making.

We cannot improve inner city schools without building trusting relationships, however, and neither can we establish those bonds with students and patrons without dialogues about fatherhood. As Leap writes, “These men – who routinely used guns and dealt drugs and brutalized women and went to prison and had no clue how to father their own children – needed first to be fathered themselves.”

One of the first things that an inner city teacher seeking to build relationships should learn is that students will test them. It should be clear that much of the chronic disorder of urban classrooms is due to high-risk kids acting out their pain. A crucial reason is less obvious, however, and it is made much more understandable by the chapter entitled “Are You Gonna Leave Us, Too?” Teachers aren’t being tested to see if we are tough enough; students, like their fathers before them, want to see whether mentors are “for real.” These fathers also doubt whether outsiders, who may seek to do good, will care enough to stick it out when the going gets rough.

The key lesson of the chapter “Big Mama” should be equally apparent to teachers and social workers, but the way that Big Mike and Leap drew out the fathers produced an incredibly nuanced explanation of why the fathers pass on contradictory attitudes towards the women in their lives. On one hand, the normative mentality was illuminated by the father who observed, “My daddy hit my mama, and my stepdaddy hit my mama, I guess I was used to it.”

But, men (and male students) who perpetuate a cycle of violence towards women have very different feelings about their mothers. Project Fatherhood explains how and why “no one utters a negative word about his mother.” The universal commitment to each person’s own mother is the “protected territory of the hearts, demilitarized zone in lives of conflict.” But, this attitude also helps pass down a simplistic mentality among people in the hood that is the mirror image of the quick fix mentality of too many education and social policy advocates.  “What’s really wrong with Watts,” it is maintained, “is we don’t have any more big mamas and grannies to take care of our kids.”

After decades of wrestling with the challenges of the inner city, I still can’t completely understand why sincere education reformers and social activists have been so allergic to open communication about the deep wounds produced by families cracking under the stresses of poverty, racism, and inequality. Teens certainly want to discuss these issues that frighten adults. As Father Greg Boyle This Week In Education: Thompson: Project Fatherhood:

A Remarkable Piece of Journalism on Post-Katrina New Orleans School “Reform” Community Disenfranchisement | deutsch29

A Remarkable Piece of Journalism on Post-Katrina New Orleans School “Reform” Community Disenfranchisement | deutsch29:

A Remarkable Piece of Journalism on Post-Katrina New Orleans School “Reform” Community Disenfranchisement

Jennifer Berkshire

I do believe I just read the best piece of journalism to date regarding the stunning community disenfranchisement brought about by test-driven school reform in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Published on August 03, 2015, in Salon, the article is entitled, “Reform” makes Broken New Orleans Schools Worse: Race, Charters, testing, and the Real Story After Katrina,”  and it is written by my very capable colleague, Jennifer Berkshire.

What one discovers is what is common sense tho those not vested in marketing the marvels of test-score-driven corporate reform:

No fabricated or real test score gains can cleanse (much less heal) the festering sore that is the disenfranchised New Orleans community.

One might as well put expensive band-aids on a cancer and call it “problem solved” as to believe the narrative that It’s Ten Years After Katrina and New Orleans Is Making Progress.

In her Salon article, Berkshire illustrates as much remarkably well.

I am pleased to offer readers an excerpt and to encourage continued reading via a link at the end:

Here is all you need to know about the New Orleans schools before Hurricane Katrina hit, 10 years ago this summer: They were awful. The schools were awful, the school board was awful, the central office was awful—all of them were awful. At a recent conference held to tout the progress made by the schools here since Katrina, Scott Cowan, an early proponent of the all-charter-school model that exists here now, described New Orleans’ pre-storm schools as mired in “unprecedented dysfunction.” In other words, they were awful.

The problem with a story like this isn’t just that it leaves out anything that doesn’t fit but that it can be hard to contain once it gets going. Before long, this “awfulizing narrative,” as it was described to me more than once during the 10 days I recently spent in New Orleans, spread past the school yards and central offices, sweeping up in its wake parents, children, indeed the whole hot mess that is New Orleans. The awful story was at the root of the decision to fire 7,000 teachers after the storm, the majority of whom were black New Orleanians and the backbone of the city’s middle class. It is the reason why so few locals can be found among the ranks of education reform groups here. And it is a rarely acknowledged justification for the long school day favored by charters here—10, even 12 hours when you factor in the cross-city bus trips that a choice landscape necessitates.

“When you start from the point of view that the communities these kids come from are broken, then the goal becomes to keep kids away from them as 

A Remarkable Piece of Journalism on Post-Katrina New Orleans School “Reform” Community Disenfranchisement | deutsch29:

SCUSD Board Vote on Re-Opening Washington Elementary | The Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education

SCUSD Board Vote on Re-Opening Washington Elementary | The Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education:

SCUSD Board Vote on Re-Opening Washington Elementary

The Sacramento City Unified School Board will be voting on the authorization to reopen Washington Elementary School this Thursday August 6th. The meeting begins at 6:30 PM and the item is scheduled for 8:03 PM. If you can't be at the meeting, please use the link on the Coalition website to contact the SCUSD board and let them know you support reopening the school.

Below is a link to the agenda item information.

http://www.scusd.edu/sites/main/files/file-attachments/10.2-2.pdf

SCUSD Board Vote on Re-Opening Washington Elementary | The Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education:

Chris Christie wants to punch the teachers union in the face. But he isn’t the only candidate attacking educators. - The Washington Post

Chris Christie wants to punch the teachers union in the face. But he isn’t the only candidate attacking educators. - The Washington Post:

Chris Christie wants to punch the teachers union in the face. But he isn’t the only candidate attacking educators.

Leave it to Chris Christie to come up with a new way to court voters in his sagging quest to win the 2016 Republican presidential nomination: directly suggest violence against teachers, or, to be specific, a teachers union that endorsed Hillary Clinton. (One wonders what he might have said if the union had endorsed him.)

In any case, while he is getting a lot of attention for his bellicose rhetoric, a look at the Republican field shows that he is hardly the only candidate antagonistic toward teachers and their unions — and others have been more damaging to the teaching profession, at least so far.

The New Jersey governor was on CNN on Sunday, where host Jake Tapper asked, “At the national level, who deserves a punch in the face?” (Why would Christie get that question? Because he has made it known he likes to deal with bullies by punching them in the face, an approach that would work well in the Oval Office, no?) According to this story by my Post colleague Lyndsey Layton, Christie did not hesitate with a response: “Oh the national teachers union, who has already endorsed Hillary Clinton 16, 17 months before the election.”

Christie meant the American Federation of Teachers, the country’s second largest teachers union, which announced in July its endorsement of Clinton. AFT president Randi Weingarten has long been close with Clinton, and though some AFT members are unhappy with the early endorsement, the move could hardly have been a surprise. She was, naturally, not pleased with Christie, tweeting:

This is just disgusting. The culture of violence and hate aimed at educators is just out of control http://t.co/Fx86WMhAA8

— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) August 2, 2015

She followed up on Monday with this statement:

“Chris Christie has issues—from reneging on his promise to fix pensions to his state’s fiscal standing facing near junk bond status. But the biggest issue is he’s a bully and has anger management problems. That he would threaten to punch teachers in the face—mostly women seeking to help children meet their potential and achieve their dreams—promotes a culture of violence and underscores why he lacks the temperament and emotional skills to be president, or serve in any leadership capacity. It’s a sad day in the life of our nation to see a candidate threaten violence to gain political favor.”

Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association, the largest union in the country, wasn’t pleased either:

Children learn from educators not to be bullies. Bully @chrischristie says he wants to punch educators in the face http://t.co/S0cRIspvKx

— Lily Eskelsen García (@Lily_NEA) August 3, 2015

And some other reaction:

We live in a world where threatening to punch teachers in the face is a way to court voters.

 

@VanJones68 #UniteBIue pic.twitter.com/ZDETGY5OIx

— Steven Singer (@StevenSinger3) August 3, 2015

Christie’s antagonism toward teachers is legendary. Back in 2013, when a teacher named Melissa Tomlinson asked him at a rally, “Why do you continue to spread the myth that our schools and teachers are failing?” he yelled at her.

“Because they are!”

He also said:

“I am tired of you people. What do you want?”

And the rally ends, inevitably, with Christie arguing with a teacher pic.twitter.com/YyLsoJVTWQ

— daveweigel (@daveweigel) November 2, 2013

(Twitter picture above used with permission)

.@GovChristie says he wants to punch teachers' union in the face. @NJEAWendell says Christie an embarrassment to NJ. http://t.co/fmDFuHURQe

— NJEA (@NJEA) August 2, 2015

To be fair to Christie, New Jersey unions haven’t always pulled their punches about him. They have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat him at Chris Christie wants to punch the teachers union in the face. But he isn’t the only candidate attacking educators. - The Washington Post:

Teach For America Counter-narratives: Two Alumni Books Reframe the Discourse - Living in Dialogue

Teach For America Counter-narratives: Two Alumni Books Reframe the Discourse - Living in Dialogue:

Teach For America Counter-narratives: Two Alumni Books Reframe the Discourse - Living in Dialogue

By Jameson Brewer and Sarah Matsui.

What are counter-narratives? And why are they significant in the conversation?     Counter-narratives are essentially “little stories” of individuals and groups of people whose knowledge and histories have been excluded from the telling of official narratives (Giroux, 1996, p.2). These localized “little stories” have the power to interrupt the grandiosity of the metanarrative, advocate for a fuller, more truthful representation of reality, and encourage new practices to emerge. Because “narratives, storytelling, and counter-narratives can be transformative and empowering for educators, students, and community members (Fernández, 2002, p. 60),” it is vitally important that TFA’s oversimplified, whitewashed version of corps member narratives be offset by what may be more honest descriptions of what it means to be a teacher – specifically a TFA teacher. If for nothing else, the existence and accessibility of counter-narratives provides a much-needed balance to the decades old single-sided rhetoric of education reform.

Two approaches

Both books – while centering on providing counter-narratives to TFA’s dominant narrative – approach the work in different ways. Brewer and deMarrais’ text, “Teach For America Counter-Narratives: Alumnis Speak Up and Speak Out,”  provides a broad collection of voices from diverse alumni. Matsui’s text, “Learning from Counter Narratives in TFA: Moving from Idealism to Hope,” focuses specifically on Corps members (CMs) from TFA Greater Philadelphia’s 2011 and 2012 cohorts to explore patterns within a particular region, the impacts of TFA’s narrative on its own CMs, and the implications of the gap between TFA’s dominant narrative and these omitted counter-narratives.

*********************

            Teaching has long been an embattled profession (Goldstein, 2014), and perhaps, has never really asserted itself as an actual profession (Harness, 2012). Not too disjointed from that, the discourse of schooling in the U.S. has largely been that of failure – a reality heightened since the Regan administration’s A Nation at Risk in the 80s. Then, and now, our society has largely bought into the idea of the failed school and has fit teachers squarely in the crosshairs of blame for that failure. As a result, and partnered with the growing narrative of the neoliberal imaginary that seeks to replace government-run entities with market-based reforms, many have called for the deregulation of teacher education, de-unionization of teaching, and harsher accountability measures to weed out so-called ‘bad’ teachers. And while TFA is certainty not credited with the genesis of pushing for the deregulation of teacher education or other accountancy measures, the organization has clearly capitalized on the idea. And therein lies TFA’s Teach For America Counter-narratives: Two Alumni Books Reframe the Discourse - Living in Dialogue:

Stop starving public education - journalreview.com: Opinion

Stop starving public education - journalreview.com: Opinion:

Stop starving public education

I had not intended to rebut my friend Michael Gleeson’s column on school vouchers. But I have received several requests from public school educator friends who, for reasons of their own, do not wish to appear in print.

No one disputes that there is a place for the private school as an educational choice. What is in dispute is whether public tax money should be allowed to flow into private pockets, and whether that money should be allowed to inculcate religion by way of the public purse. It is no secret that the greatest beneficiaries of the state voucher program are the parochial private schools run by the Roman Catholic Church.

Before taking up this issue, let me say that no one is happier than I that Mike’s son is doing well in his studies. But while the University of Rochester is a private school, the University of Connecticut is a public land grant school. What is relevant however is that the success of any one student is dependent on many factors: genetics, social position, parental encouragement and others, as well as prior education. There is no evidence that private schools do any better job of educating all students than do the public schools. One might want to look up the article in the Indianapolis Star on “The Case for Eliminating Charter Schools.” And Thomas Jefferson did mean what he said about the mixing of religion and secular government.

The idea that Jefferson was in any way an orthodox Christian is laughable. For example he wrote: “Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on Man.” Jefferson was certainly for the right to the free exercise of every person’s religious convictions, but he did want a solid “wall of separation between church and state.”

Also, “In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.” And again, “The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.” But the most telling use of Jefferson’s concept comes in a letter to the Virginia Baptists in 1808. “Because religious belief, or non belief, is such an important part of every person’s life, freedom of religion affects every individual. Religious institutions that use government power and force their views on persons of other faiths, or no faith, undermines our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the ‘wall of separation between church and state,’ (Jefferson is quoting himself in an earlier letter) therefore is absolutely essential in a free society.

“We have solved by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquires.”

The above statement has been used by the Supreme Court on several occasions to bolster their opinions on this subject. In addition Jefferson edited out all the miracles and references to Jesus being the son of God. He then published a book, “The life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.” The book survives along with two of the Bibles that Jefferson cut up, and it may be read. Please let us be clear. Jefferson was “anti-Christian and pro Jesus. He was anti-religion and pro God” (Waldman). So to assume that Jefferson of all people would approve of any tax money going to religious sponsored schools is ludicrous.

The simple facts are these. Charter schools and especially the voucher system contribute to the Balkanization of elementary and secondary education. The power to tax is a use of government power that is benefiting schools that inculcate religion by means of the voucher system. The public schools are charged with educating each and every child up to the age of 16. That charge includes every bright child, those of average intelligence and those of the most limited ability. They need the resources to do so. Every tax dollar that is used for these “Choice Systems” further starves the public schools of the necessary resources to give the finest education to all students. If one wants to enroll children in a private school, by all means do so. But no public money should flow into any school that is not required to educate all students and certainly not to any school that promotes any one faith over another.

Lastly, the current climate is hostile to teachers in particular. Again, according to the Indianapolis Star, teacher applications are beginning to fall precipitously. We have a climate where state funding constraints, testing pressures and “blame the teacher” mentality are causing students to stay away from teaching as a career. Enrollment at Ball State teacher education has fallen 45 percent. According to state teacher licensing authorities, applications for first time teacher licenses has fallen 63 percent. Many school leaders say the teacher shortage will only get worse (The Indianapolis Star July 13, 2015). We will face a crisis in teacher shortages. We must be careful and much more far thinking in our approach to education than assuming vouchers and charters are a panacea for all our educational problems.

Dan Booher of Crawfordsville contributed this guest column.Stop starving public education - journalreview.com: Opinion:

Malloy and the Democratic State Central Committee - In plain English it’s called obstructing Justice - Wait What?

Malloy and the Democratic State Central Committee - In plain English it’s called obstructing Justice - Wait What?:

Malloy and the Democratic State Central Committee – In plain English it’s called obstructing Justice

Connecticut’s MUST READ news article of the weekend, in case you missed it, was Jon Lender’s “Delay In Enforcing Subpoena Of Democratic Party Records Raises Questions.”

As Wait, What? readers will recall, in the fall of 2013, it became increasingly apparent that Governor Dannel Malloy and his political operatives were intent on undermining Connecticut’s campaign finance law.  The issues began to surface in an October 31, 2013 post entitled, “Malloy/Democrats make mockery of Connecticut’s once prominent role in campaign finance reform.”

That article was followed by many more…. (See partial list below)

The inappropriate tactics engaged by Malloy and Connecticut’s Democratic State Central Committee generated multiple campaign finance complaints and a major investigation by the State Election Enforcement Commission.

In a virtually unprecedented step the Connecticut’s State Elections Enforcement Commission issued a subpoena for records and documents related to Malloy’s campaign.

As Jon Lender explained,

The SEEC’s May 29 (2015) subpoena sought records that might shed light on the GOP’s claim that Democrats illegally circumvented the state’s ban on contractor contributions last year by collecting state contractors’ money in a “federal account” and using it to pay for mass mailings on behalf of Malloy.

However, instead of complying with the subpoena, the lawyer representing Malloy’s political refused to hand over the required documents and they have done everything they could to delay, derail and prevent a fair, open and thorough investigation.

The Governor who will become the head of the Democratic Governors Association in January 2015 is engaged in a blatant effort to obstruct justice.

Jon Lender writes

“The State Elections Enforcement Commission voted June 25 to go to court to enforce a subpoena that the state Democratic Party has defied rather than hand over the party’s records of communications between Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and top aides about allegedly illegal spending in his 2014 re-election campaign.

The SEEC’s extraordinary action generated a flurry of news reports. But now, more than a month later, all the noise has died down and no such action has been filed in state Superior Court.

What’s going on?

Government Watch addressed that question a few days ago to the office of state Attorney General George Jepsen, which has the responsibility of filing any court action in behalf of the SEEC. A Jepsen spokeswoman responded 

Malloy and the Democratic State Central Committee - In plain English it’s called obstructing Justice - Wait What?:

It's time to reconsider the parent trigger - LA Times

It's time to reconsider the parent trigger - LA Times:

It's time to reconsider the parent trigger

Five years after California's parent-trigger law was passed, it has not had the dramatic effect on public schools that its proponents hoped it would. Yet it is already at a crossroads in its young life.

The law, passed in haste in 2010 in an effort to empower parents at lower-performing schools, lets them force dramatic change if half or more of them sign a petition. They might demand the replacement of some or most of the staff or vote to turn their school over to a charter operator. They might even close the school altogether. Under the law, the parent trigger is an option only at schools whose scores on the state Academic Performance Index fell below the proficiency mark of 800 and that failed to meet their federal improvement requirements, called Adequate Yearly Progress, for several years in a row. The law limited the trigger option to 75 schools on a first-come-first-served basis to see how it played out; at the time, officials expected the number to be quickly met and expanded.

But that hasn't happened. There have been only four schools in which parents filed petitions that succeeded in forcing a change. Parents at five more schools used the petition process as leverage to negotiate changes, a much less disruptive process, without ever filing an actual petition.



It is hard to know whether these changes have resulted in improved academic performance because the state has for the moment stopped reporting test scores during the switch to new standardized exams. Yet it's encouraging to see that parents have some clout, especially low-income parents who felt their children were stuck at problematic schools. That was the original idea: to give deeply frustrated families a chance to take action when educators ignored them.

That's why this page supported a limited rollout of the parent trigger, despite concerns about the sloppily written law on which it was based — and why we continue to support it in principle despite misgivings both conceptual and pragmatic.

The trigger law raises questions as basic as: Who owns the schools? Do they belong to the parents whose children attend them or to the district voters and taxpayers who fund them and elect the school board? If taxpayers and voters are adamantly opposed to a change that parents support, who ought to get their way? Should a bare majority of parents — not all of whom are citizens, by the way — have enough power to close a taxpayer-funded school, forcing the minority of parents to send their children farther from home? This option has never been exercised, but it remains a possibility.



There are also concerns about whether petition drives are being held in an open, transparent manner, so that all parents have the information they need to participate, and whether the law allows too many fairly good and improving schools to be targeted.

The law remains the subject of dispute. In July, a judge ruled in favor of parents at Palm Lane Elementary School in Anaheim who were trying to use it. The Anaheim City School District had fought back, claiming that because California has suspended the reporting of its tests to the federal government, and isn't publishing its API scores, there were no grounds under the law for a trigger petition. The judge was right. Parents should be able to use the most recent data available for petitions.

But there are permanent changes afoot that could require a rewrite of the law. Not only will the API soon be replaced by something that looks far different, but, at the same time, legislation to reauthorize the federal No Child Left Behind Act would, as currently worded, do away with the federal AYP measurement completely. The parent trigger law is specifically tied to those two measurements.

A new trigger law should create stricter guidelines to target truly low-performing schools, and should prohibit school closures through petition. Trigger petitions must be made public, with all parents informed, and the larger community given a chance to be involved. When a petition prevails and parents are considering proposals for changing management of the school, all parents should have a voice and a vote in the decision, not just those who signed the petition.

The parent trigger remains an intriguing if so-far-unproven idea, but the time has come to start imagining a more thoughtful version.

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 It's time to reconsider the parent trigger - LA Times: