“Slave” market education reform in NOLA? #NOLAEdWarning | Cloaking Inequity

“Slave” market education reform in NOLA? #NOLAEdWarning | Cloaking Inequity:

“Slave” market education reform in NOLA? #NOLAEdWarning

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and communities across the Gulf Coast. The destruction and displacement that followed the storm created what some considered a window of opportunity for sweeping changes in New Orleans’ public education system. The state-run Recovery School District assumed control of the vast majority of public schools in Orleans Parish and turned their operation over to charter school management organizations, with the autonomy to recruit new teachers and educational leaders. Veteran teachers in New Orleans were fired en masse. Neighborhood public schools were closed and “choice” among privately managed charter schools defined the new landscape. In 2014-2015, New Orleans became the nation’s first all-charter school district and cities across the nation have begun to adopt the “New Orleans model” of urban school reform.”

The purpose of the Ten-Year Community-Centered New Orleans Education Research Conference was to prompt a national conversation among prominent urban education researchers and community members most intimately affected by such reform to illuminate effects on the ground. Does research evidence and experiential knowledge suggest the New Orleans model is a guide for cities nationally? Or do the effects on poor and working-class communities of color suggest an alternative policy future for urban public schools? Given ongoing concerns over racial and economic injustice, retrenchment of civil rights, and educational inequity, the ten-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina presents an ideal, even catalytic, moment to reflect on the progress of recent policy initiatives. Gathering scholars and community-based stakeholders from cities nationwide, this conference will enable careful and collective consideration of the evidence in charting the educational future of our children and the realization of freedom dreams that have inspired previous generations. Kristen Buras, Ph.D.

This past week I had the opportunity to gather with education stakeholders from across the nation in New Orleans at “Slave” market education reform in NOLA? #NOLAEdWarning | Cloaking Inequity:

Should high school students have to 'defend' their diploma like a Ph.D? - The Hechinger Report

Should high school students have to 'defend' their diploma like a Ph.D? - The Hechinger Report:

Should high school students have to ‘defend’ their diploma like a Ph.D?

California’s new way of ranking school performance could open the door to portfolio assessments

Seniors at Los Angeles High School of the Arts work on their graduation portfolios in Isabel Morales’s social studies class. Photo: Brenda Iasevoli

LOS ANGELES — Looking smart in a blue button-down shirt, Jorge Magana, 18, zipped through a PowerPoint presentation with the confidence of a Fortune 500 CEO.

Seated in front of Magana in a classroom at Los Angeles High School of the Arts was a panel of three judges: the school’s assistant principal, a school coordinator, and a former student. The occasion was his senior defense. Magana was trying to convince the panel that he was ready to graduate.

He had 45 minutes to present a portfolio of three “artifacts,” one academic, one artistic, and one of his own choosing. The panel grilled him: Can you describe your research process? Which obstacles did you face and how did you overcome them? How will the skills you learned help with your future plans?

Portfolio assessments like this one, which look a lot like doctoral dissertation defenses, are on the rise in California. The practice, touted by educators nationwide as a proven path to college success, has largely been squeezed out by standardized tests, the quicker, less-costly measure of student performance. But the state’s reliance on test scores to rank school performance is about to change, and educators see an opportunity.

Since 1999, California has primarily tied school rankings to test scores, using the Academic Performance Index (API). Since its repeal in July 2013, the three-digit ranking has been undergoing revision. On the new API, which will debut in the 2015-2016 school year, test scores will account for only 60 percent of a school’s ranking. The other 40 percent will factor in graduation data and “proof of readiness for college and career.” Portfolio assessment can supply this data. The tricky part is convincing skeptics that these assessments are reliable.Should high school students have to 'defend' their diploma like a Ph.D? - The Hechinger Report:

Thompson: This American Life, School Integration, & The Ultimate School Reform Excuse This Week In Education:

This Week In Education: Thompson: This American Life, School Integration, & The Ultimate School Reform Excuse:

Thompson: This American Life, School Integration, & The Ultimate School Reform Excuse

Former Pro-Publia writer Nikole Hannah-Jones, in School Segregation, the Continuing Tragedy of Ferguson, recalls of the inescapable truth that educators once acknowledged, and that we now need to remember. Children who attend the most segregated schools, Hannah-Jones reminds us, “are more likely to be poor. They are more likely to go to jail. They are less likely to graduate from high school, to go to college, and to finish if they go. They are more likely to live in segregated neighborhoods as adults.” Moreover, “their children are more likely to also attend segregated schools, repeating the cycle.”

Contributing to a continuing series by ProPublica and the New York Times on segregation, Hannah-Jones reports that “over the past 15 years …. the number of so-called apartheid schools — schools whose white population is 1 percent or less — has shot up. The achievement gap, greatly narrowed during the height of school desegregation, has widened.”

The national market-driven, test-driven school reform movement has downplayed the damage done by segregation. It’s choice-driven policies have actually increased the separation of students by race and class. And, This American Life’s The Problem We All Live With, featuring Hannah-Jones, begins with a mention of the research which explains why NCLB-type reforms have failed to improve schools serving neighborhoods with a critical mass of families from generational poverty. In doing so, it properly articulates the question that must be tackled before school improvement and other policies can promote racial justice and economic equality.

Accountability-driven reformers proclaimed their movement as the civil rights campaign of the 21^stcentury, but they haven’t found a viable path towards school improvement. Competition-driven reformers derided traditional educators, who embrace socio-economic integration, early education, and full-service community schools, for allegedly making “excuses” and shifting attention away from the supposed real issue – bad teaching. But, This American Life has it right; reformers using competition-driven policies to improve instruction within the four walls of the classroom are distracting attention from the true problem.

One of the biggest opportunity costs of the instruction-driven, competition-driven reform movement is that it shifted energy and resources away from desegregation.  Hannah-Jones reminds us that in 1983, St. Louis began “the nation’s most successful metro-wide desegregation program.” The desegregation experiment wasn’t perfect, but “test scores for 8th and 10th grade transfer students rose. The transfer students were more likely to graduate and go onto college. … In surveys, white students overwhelmingly said they’d benefited from the opportunity to be educated alongside black students.”

But, as Amy Stuart Wells documented, the plug was pulled on the program and St. Louis became “the epicenter of where people tried to grapple with race, and failed miserably.” Then, in 2009, the state This Week In Education: Thompson: This American Life, School Integration, & The Ultimate School Reform Excuse:

No Child Left Behind reauthorization - Baltimore Sun

No Child Left Behind reauthorization - Baltimore Sun:

No Child Left Behind reauthorization

 The 2002 No Child Left Behind Act doesn't have a lot of fans these days. Though it received bi-partisan support when it was proposed by former President George W. Bush, it has lost support from liberals and conservatives alike and has been gutted by a patchwork of waivers given to nearly every state, Maryland included, that allow them to avoid various elements of the law. It did not achieve its goal of ensuring that all students were performing at grade level in reading and math by 2014, and it has become enmeshed in the growing backlash against federal control of education, which has traditionally been a state and local matter.

Years after it expired, Congress finally appears interested in renewing and overhauling the law. Both the House and Senate have passed new versions, but both have real flaws. The changes may not have a drastic impact on Maryland — thanks in no small part to the efforts of Sen. Barbara Mikulski to preserve, for the time being, Title I funding — but they represent a real and worrisome step back from what was the core idea of the law in the first place, which was that all children, no matter where they live, whether they are a disadvantaged minority or disabled, should be given the same opportunity to learn. Giving states flexibility on how to achieve that is well and good, but allowing states to ignore the goal isn't.

Under either the House or Senate version of the reauthorization, some notable aspects of NCLB will stay. Students will still be required to take standardized tests in reading and math and in some grades, science, and districts will still have to report the results. But the strictly defined accountability measures of the federal law would be wiped out in either bill. NCLB was overly formulaic — it defined a "failing" school based on whether it made adequate yearly progress toward improving achievement overall and for subgroups like African-American students or those with limited English proficiency, but the results didn't always make sense in practice. Schools where test scores were improving could be labeled "failing" if they weren't meeting the law's arbitrary targets and thus subjected to drastic restructuring requirements, even though they were headed in the right direction. And some schools were deemed to be failing even though they generally performed well.

That needed to change, but both versions of the reform legislation, and particularly the House bill, go too far in the opposite direction. They not only give states flexibility to decide what to do about schools that fail to make progress, they don't require the states to do anything at all. That likely won't matter much in Maryland, where the idea of accountability was rooted long before NCLB. State officials expect to move forward with tests tied to the rigorous Common Core standards and to use the results to hold schools and, to some extent, teachers accountable. But in other states, where the Common Core has led to a backlash against federal control over education policy (the fact that Common Core was not a federal initiative notwithstanding), it's almost certain to disadvantage students who need the most help.

Of more concern is what the bills would do to federal education funding. The House version contains an alarming provision that would shift Title I money to schools that serve a smaller number of poor students through a "funding follows the student" policy. We certainly support the idea that parents should be able to No Child Left Behind reauthorization - Baltimore Sun:

‘Teach for America’ Teachers Can Join the Union | Labor Notes

‘Teach for America’ Teachers Can Join the Union | Labor Notes:

‘Teach for America’ Teachers Can Join the Union

A National Labor Relations Board hearing officer has ruled that Teach for America teachers should be included in the union at a Detroit charter school chain.

Teachers at University Prep charter schools voted May 14 on whether to unionize. UPrep relies on TFA teachers to fill about 10 percent of its classrooms, a figure that’s similar to urban charter schools in other cities.

But when some TFA teachers emerged as leaders in the union drive, Detroit 90/90, the company that manages UPrep, challenged their right to vote.

In a June hearing, the company argued that TFA teachers’ minimum two-year commitment to the school made us “temporary service workers” rather than “professional employees”—more like long-term substitutes than permanent teachers.

“It was such an obvious attempt to divide and conquer,” said Alex Moore, a Teach for America teacher and unabashed union supporter. “[The company] loved us when we were cheap, docile workers, but when we spoke up and organized, they wanted to sweep us under the rug.”

The hearing officer found on July 31 that TFA teachers are indeed professional employees—and thus have the right to be part of the teachers’ bargaining unit.

The ruling noted that TFA teachers share the same job responsibilities, evaluations, and contracts as other teachers in the district. Our minimum two-year commitment is irrelevant, given that the employer offers only one-year commitments to all its teachers.

The decision doesn’t formally set a legal precedent for other schools. Still, it’s a good sign for union drives across the country. Charter teachers are organizing in such cities as Philadelphia and Los Angeles—often in schools with sizable TFA contingents.

PRECARIOUS TEACHING

UPrep is the largest charter school district in Michigan. It consists of seven schools, 200 teachers, and more than 3,000 students. Teachers there began organizing in spring 2014.

Charter schools, which have grown rapidly in Detroit, are publicly funded, privately managed, and largely non-union.

Like charter school teachers across the country, UPrep teachers work under at-will contracts—meaning they can be fired at any time, without explanation—that are renewed every year. So they don’t know until June whether or not they’ll have a job in August.

This perpetual uncertainty, along with stolen wages and a lack of support from administrators, led teachers to reach out to American Federation of Teachers (AFT) organizers in Michigan.

“It’s hard to imagine a career for yourself in a school district when you could be fired at any time at the whim of an administrator,” said Jasmine Singleton, who taught first grade at UPrep during the campaign. “We need some stability in our work as educators, so we can focus on the children.”

UPREP FIGHT CONTINUES

Unfortunately, the union lost the election at UPrep by a few votes. Since long-term substitute teachers’ ballots were found ineligible, the TFA ballots wouldn’t have been enough to sway the outcome of this election, so they weren’t counted.

However, the NLRB is still considering a litany of unfair labor practice charges filed against Detroit 90/90 that could invalidate the election and result in a new one being scheduled.

The company ran an aggressive and well-funded anti-union campaign, beginning even before the teachers filed for election. It hired union-busting consultants, held captive-audience meetings, intimidated teachers, and ultimately threatened that if

- See more at: http://www.labornotes.org/2015/08/teach-america-teachers-can-join-union#sthash.APn8trXC.dpuf

Kasich's charter school flap | Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

John A. Tures: Kasich's charter school flap | Columbus Ledger-Enquirer:

Kasich's charter school flap

Ohio Governor John Kasich got some good news, as he made the cut for the Fox News debate. He's also been rising in the polls. But a charter school scandal in Ohio could derail the Kasich 2016 campaign.

During the 2014 election, three of Kasich's top donors were charter school operator David Brennan and his wife Ann, and Brennan's company CEO, all who donated thousands of dollars to the Ohio governor's reelection (as noted by the Columbus Dispatch), enabling him to swamp his Democratic rival in fundraising, and later, votes.

Kasich's opponent, Ed FitzGerald, claimed that the Republican had cut money from public schools to give to charter schools which were allegedly performing poorly. His ads even claimed that White Hat Management, another charter school operation, donated thousands of dollars to Kasich in 2010, and got to write the charter school law. But Kasich easily bested his opponent in a good year for Republicans across the country, and Ohio.

After his reelection, Kasich vowed to clean up charter schools, the targets of investigations for a series of corruption scandals and poor academic performance, even as he announced his support for such education institutions.

In addition, Kasich claimed he would regulate charter schools, independently run schools with taxpayer money, providing a site where viewers could compare the performance of charter schools and public schools.

Despite the concerns over the scandals and academic struggles, Kasich pushed to reward the charter schools with the prospect increased funding, to upgrade their facilities, with increases in the number of charter schools and their budgets, heading well above a billion dollars, in 2015.

A Washington Post report reveals that Kasich slashed public school funding by half a billion dollars, boosting state spending on charter schools, despite the quality concerns. In fact, Ohio now spends more per charter school pupil than it does for public school student, while costs have been passed on to local government just to keep their schools open.

Fears about the quality of charter schools in Ohio even began to unnerve even charter school advocates. Their concerns were evidently warranted.

According to the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, "David Hansen, the agency's director of school choice, resigned last month after admitting he left off poor grades for online and dropout-recovery schools on evaluations of their charter-school sponsors. His wife, Beth Hansen, is Gov. John Kasich's former chief of staff and current campaign manager for his 2016 presidential run."

Members of the State Board of Education have demanded an independent investigation ofJohn A. Tures: Kasich's charter school flap | Columbus Ledger-Enquirer:

North Carolina’s step-by-step war on public education - The Washington Post

North Carolina’s step-by-step war on public education - The Washington Post:

North Carolina’s step-by-step war on public education

Here is a piece by a veteran educator on the assault in North Carolina. It was written by James Hogan, a former teacher who is now a writer and a funderaiser at Davidson College aas well as a board member of Our Schools First, a local public education advocacy non-profit. He taught high school English for five years, including AP Language and Composition, Creative Writing, and American Lit. As a school teacher, he was also a member of NCAE (North Carolina’s version of an education advocacy group), and sometimes worked with our school system’s administration as an adviser. He is a North Carolina Teaching Fellows alumnus (a now-defunct state scholarship program that granted scholarships to college students in return for their service as teachers in-state) and 2003 graduate of Western Carolina University. A version of this appeared on his blog.

By James Hogan

I am no fan of hyperbole, but I mean it when I say this: North Carolina is waging war against public education.

The pathway that brought us here has been paved with underfunded budgets, tactical strikes against public school teachers, fundamental changes in charter school operations, the diversion of public funds to private or religious schools, and the erosion of our hallowed University of North Carolina system. Here’s what’s happened.

A Deficit of Electable Proportions

When North Carolina Republicans took control of the state government in 2012, they quickly set into motion a sweeping agenda to enact conservative social reforms and vastly change how the state spends its money. It was the first time in more than a century that Republicans enjoyed such political dominance in our state.

What brought them all to town? A good reason: in the 2011-12 budget year, North Carolina projected a multi-billion dollar deficit, enough to rank the state among the worst budget offenders in the country and bring a new slate of elected legislators to Raleigh. So Republicans, with a clear mandate to clean up the fiscal mess in November 2012, set to work righting the ship.

On what does a state like ours spend money? Public education, including higher education, consumes about a third of North Carolina’s budget. Health and Human Services, including the state’s Medicaid and unemployment programs, composes an even larger slice, about 37.5 percent.

Other state programs make up little bits and pieces: nearly 8 percent on transportation and highways, 5.5 percent on public safety, 9 percent on natural and economic resources.

In other words, if you want to make big cuts, public education is one of two really big targets.

After that landslide election in 2012, legislators began sharpening their knives.

A Fury of Budget Cuts

Among their first targets: reductions in unemployment benefits, cuts to public schools, including laying off thousands of teachers, and a massive, nearly half-billion dollar slash from the University of North Carolina system.

Two years later, in the last budget cycle, 2014-15, the legislature providedroughly $500 million less for education than schools needed.

Later in the 2013 session, though, the most radical changes in state financing fell into place. Republicans reconstructed the state’s tax code, relieving the burden on corporations and wealthy residents. They continued to take aim at other parts of the education budget, cutting More at Four program dollars and decreasing accessibility for poor families. The state lost thousands more North Carolina’s step-by-step war on public education - The Washington Post:

Why New Yorkers shouldn’t hold their breath for real education change - The Washington Post

Why New Yorkers shouldn’t hold their breath for real education change - The Washington Post:

Why New Yorkers shouldn’t hold their breath for real education change

Carol Burris is a veteran educator who was just named executive director of the nonprofit Network for Public Education’s foundation. She recently took early retirement after 15 years as principal of South Side High School in the Rockville Centre School District in New York. She was named New York’s 2013 High School Principal of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York and the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and was tapped as the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State. Burris has also written several books, numerous articles and many posts on this blog about the seriously botched implementation of school reform in her state — including the Common Core standards and the implementation of high-stakes Core-aligned exams — and about the misuse and abuse of high-stakes standardized tests.

Here is a new post by Burris about a meeting she and other public education activists just had with MaryEllen Elia, New York’s new education commission, and school reform in the state.

By Carol Burris

MaryEllen Elia, the new education commissioner of New York, is on a listening tour. She is charged with repackaging the New York Regents Reform message and delivering it with more finesse than her predecessor, John King.

Earlier this week, fellow members of the New York State Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE) and I had the opportunity to meet with Ms. Elia. Education historian and activist Diane Ravitch arranged the meeting and was also a participant in our discussion.

Ms. Elia was friendly and generous with her time. Her interest in the issues we raised appeared to be both genuine and sincere. She politely listened to every speaker. We appreciated being a stop of the tour.

Even as Elia listens, she speaks. There are patterns and sound bites that appear in newspaper accounts of her visits. She carefully sidesteps questions. Stock lines are repeated—“I think of myself as a teacher,” “Opt outs are not good for teachers and parents,” and “I am totally in favor of accountability” are a few. During our NYSAPE meeting, she focused on the change of standardized tests for students in the state, from vendors Pearson to Questar, and how exams will move from paper and pencil to computer. But discontent runs far deeper than the technicalities of the test.

Although her appointment was intended to signal change, how much real Why New Yorkers shouldn’t hold their breath for real education change - The Washington Post:

CURMUDGUCATION: Merit Pay Fallacies

CURMUDGUCATION: Merit Pay Fallacies:

Merit Pay Fallacies

Cynthia Tucker Haynes is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist who has hooked up with Campbell Brown's reformster-pushing website. She has done much distinguished work throughout her career, but last week she demonstrated that she doesn't understand teaching and especially not teacher merit pay.

The title of the piece pretty well gives us the whole picture: "Excellent Teachers, Like My Mom, Deserve Better Pay. No Matter What Their Unions Say." Yes, grammar police, the title is a punctuation abomination (suggesting, among other things, that her mother is not actually a teacher), but we're going to skip past that.

Haynes follows the standard template for this sort of piece, opening with an anecdote about a Really Awesome Teacher (who is, in this case, the writer's mom). In her opinion, her mom should have gotten bonus pay for being more awesome than other teachers, but the school district didn't offer it. And now Haynes lays out a mistaken and self-destroying argument.

Indeed, few public school districts do because the concept remains so controversial among teachers’ organizations. 

Not the whole truth. In fact, lots of school districts like the traditional teacher pay ladder because it makes budgeting for personnel costs so much easier. With a merit pay system, school districts have only two approaches available to budgeting (a process that begins over a year ahead of time in my neck of the woods).

#1) We don't know how much merit pay we'll be giving out next year yet, so we'll just leave the budget unfinished. The state should love that.

#2) We will budget a finite merit pay pool, which the teachers will then have to fight over in a zero sum teacher thunderdome. That should be great for school morale.

Haynes notes that merit-based pay systems require a means of linking teacher pay to student CURMUDGUCATION: Merit Pay Fallacies:

Special Issue of “Educational Researcher” Examines Value-Added Measures (Paper #1 of 9) | VAMboozled!

Special Issue of “Educational Researcher” Examines Value-Added Measures (Paper #1 of 9) | VAMboozled!:

Special Issue of “Educational Researcher” Examines Value-Added Measures (Paper #1 of 9)

A few months ago, the flagship journal of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) – the peer-reviewed journal titled Educational Researcher (ER) – published a “Special Issue” including nine articles examining value-added measures (VAMs) (i.e., one introduction (reviewed below), four feature articles, one essay, and three commentaries). I will review each of these pieces separately over the next few weeks or so, although if any of you want an advanced preview, do click here as AERA made each of these articles free and accessible.

In this “Special Issue” editors Douglas Harris – Associate Professor of Economics at Tulane University – and Carolyn Herrington – Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy at Florida State University – solicited “[a]rticles from leading scholars cover[ing] a range of topics, from challenges in the design and implementation of teacher evaluation systems, to the emerging use of teacher observation information by principals as an alternative to VAM data in making teacher staffing decisions.” They challenged authors “to participate in the important conversation about value-added by providing rigorous evidence, noting that successful policy implementation and design are the product of evaluation and adaption” (assuming “successful policy implementation and design” exist, but I digress).

More specifically, in the co-editors’ Introduction to the Special Issue, Harris and Herrington note that in this special issue they “pose dozens of unanswered questions [see below], not only about the net effects of these policies on measurable student outcomes, but about the numerous, often indirect ways in which [unintended] and less easily observed effects might arise.” This section is of, in my opinion, the most “added value.”

Here are some of their key assertions:

• “[T]eachers and principals trust classroom observations more than value added.”
• “Teachers—especially the better ones—want to know what exactly they are doing well and doing poorly. In this respect, value-added measures are unhelpful.”
• “[D]istrust in value-added measures may be partly due to [or confounded with] frustration with high-stakes testing generally.”
• “Support for value added also appears stronger among administrators than teachers…But principals are still somewhat skeptical.”
• “[T]he [pre-VAM] data collection process may unintentionally reduce the validity and credibility of value-added measures.”
• “[I]t seems likely that support for value added among educators will decrease as the stakes increase.”
• “[V]alue-added measures suffer from much higher missing data rates than classroom observation[s].”
• “[T]he timing of value-added measures—that they arrive only once a year and during the middle of the school year when it is hard to adjust teaching assignments—is a real concern among teachers and principals alike.”
• “[W]e cannot lose sight of the ample evidence against the traditional model [i.e., based on snapshot measures examined once per year as was done for decades past, or pre-VAM].” This does not make VAMs “better,” but with this statement most researchers agree.

Inversely, here are some points or assertions that should cause pause:

• “The issue is not whether value-added measures are valid but whether they can be used in a way that improves teaching and learning.” I would strongly argue that Special Issue of “Educational Researcher” Examines Value-Added Measures (Paper #1 of 9) | VAMboozled!:

Must Watch Pro-Public Education Movies – The Network For Public Education

Must Watch Pro-Public Education Movies – The Network For Public Education:

Must Watch Pro-Public Education Movies

There are few organizing tools as powerful as film. In 2010, Waiting for Superman was a shot of adrenaline in the arm of the reform movement. Financed by billionaire Phillip Anschutz’s Walden Media, the film glorified charter schools and disparaged traditional public schools.

But then in 2011 a group of New York City educators wrote, directed, and produced a powerful response.

The film, The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman highlights the real life experiences of public school parents and educators to show how these so-called reforms are actually hurting education. The film talks about the kinds of real reform–inside schools and in society as a whole–that we urgently need to genuinely transform education in this country.

Anschutz and Walden Media released Won’t Back Down in 2012, likely hoping to replicate the success of their previous release. Public opinion had already turned however, and Won’t Back Down was both a critical and popular flop. To date it holds the record for the worst box office performance for any film released in over 2,500 theaters.

Since 2012 a slew of pro-public education, anti-reform films have been written, produced, and directed by public education allies determined to challenge the reformster narrative. Like The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman, all have been independently financed. Without the backing of billionaires with large production companies, it becomes incumbent upon us to learn, watch, and share the important messages contained in these films.

Below you will find a synopsis of each film, and links to reviews and more information on how you can not only watch the films, but schedule screenings in your community. We have also included a movie that is still in production. Please do what you can to help ensure this film is completed and released.

The films that follow represent a tremendous body of work in support of our movement. As NPE President Diane Ravitch says, “All they have is money. We, the defenders of democracy and public education, have numbers.” If each of us shares these powerful films with our networks, we can continue to successfully counter the reformster narratives that attempt to privatize and destroy public education.

 

Standardized

Watch online on Vimeo.

Read a review.

Synopsis:

For decades, standardized testing has been a part of public education. Within the last ten years, however, education reform has promoted even more testing. Test scores, mistakenly viewed as effective assessments of student ability and teacher/school effectiveness, are anything but. STANDARDIZED sheds light on the invalid nature of these tests, the terrible consequences of high-stakes testing, and the big money that’s involved.

Education Inc.

Learn about screenings.

Read a review.

Synopsis:

Education, Inc. examines the free-market and for-profit interests that have been quietly and systematically privatizing America’s public education system under the banner of “school choice.”

Education, Inc. is told through the eyes of parent and filmmaker Brian Malone, as he travels cross-country in search of the answers and sources behind the privatizing of American public Must Watch Pro-Public Education Movies – The Network For Public Education:

Investigation of LAUSD upholds complaints that special education falling short | 89.3 KPCC

Investigation of LAUSD upholds complaints that special education falling short | 89.3 KPCC:

Investigation of LAUSD upholds complaints that special education falling short

The Office of the Independent Monitor overseeing court-ordered improvements to Los Angeles Unified’s special education services found students still aren't getting the services they need, and it ordered the district to carry out a series of improvements.

In a report released Wednesday following an investigation into complaints filed on behalf of the children, the office said parents aren’t treated as equal partners in meetings that lay out services for the district's 85,000 special education students.

The independent monitor's office also said district representatives in Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings — a key part of the  process for setting services — aren't given the authority to allocate school resources to help students as required by the federal law covering the education of children with disabilities.

“For example, a student might be needing speech services. So in some cases, the speech services personnel might be constrained by limited resources…so the provider in the meeting might feel constrained in recommending everything a child might need,” said David Rostetter, who heads the Office of Independent Monitor.

Rostetter's office called for numerous changes to the district's procedures, including more training for school officials, some of whom student advocates say lack the knowledge to properly carry out the requirements of the law.

Rostetter said in a letter accompanying the report that the school district and lawyers who represent special education students had reached a consensus on steps to fix the problems. 

An LAUSD spokeswoman said Superintendent Ramon Cortines will comment after he reads the independent monitor's findings. The students' lawyers could not be immediately reached for comment.

The report rolls out as LAUSD faces rising costs to provide services for special education students. Last year, the budget for its special education division stood at $1.4 billion, about 20 percent of the district's educational expenses.

Meanwhile, the concentration of special education students in the district is growing as the general pupil population declines and other trends take hold. Sharyn Howell, Investigation of LAUSD upholds complaints that special education falling short | 89.3 KPCC:

A Memo To States: This Is How You Create A Teacher Shortage

A Memo To States: This Is How You Create A Teacher Shortage:

A Memo To States: This Is How You Create A Teacher Shortage
A handy recipe for a teacher shortage like the one in Kansas.

It's back-to-school time in Kansas, and kids are starting to trickle back into school hallways. But when these students arrive at their classrooms, they may not find a teacher standing at the front. 

Kansas is suffering from a well-documented teacher shortage. Last year, more than 2,320 educators in the state retired, compared to 1,260 in the 2011-2012 school year, according to data from the Kansas State Department of Educaton. At the same time, 654 teachers decided to leave the state last year, compared to just 399 in 2011-2012. Over 270 open teaching and non-teaching school staff positions were listed on the Kansas Education Employment Board's website as of Thursday afternoon. 

Kansas has previously seen teacher shortages in areas like special education, as well as math and science. But this year, even typically popular jobs, such as teaching social studies classes or elementary school students, are proving hard to fill, KEEB coordinator Julie Wilson told The Huffington Post.

Those familiar with the situation say it is not surprising. A number of factors have recently converged to create a teacher shortage in the Sunflower State. Some of these factors are the result of actions taken by the state government and legislature. Over the past few years, Kansas has cut back on the job protections that give teachers due process rights, created a new school funding system that a district court panel ruled unconstitutional and cut taxes so severely that some districts lacked the revenue to stay open last school year. 

“I find it increasingly difficult to convince young people that education is a profession worth considering, and I have some veterans who think about leaving,” Tim Hallacy, superintendent of Silver Lake Schools, told HuffPost last month. “In the next three years I think we’ll have maybe the worst teacher shortage in the country -- I think most of that is self-inflicted.”

For other states looking to wind up in the same situation, here's a surefire recipe for a teacher shortage:

The How To Create A Teacher Shortage Recipe 

Ingredients:

1 cup of rhetoric against teachers

2 pounds of bills and programs that attempt to de-professionalize teaching (specifically, aproposed bill that would make it easier to jail teachers for teaching materials deemed offensive and a new program that lifts teacher licensure requirements in certain districts)

3 tablespoons of a lack of due process rights for teachers

½ cup of finely diced repeated budget cuts amid a state revenue crisis

1 stalk of a new school funding system that is currently being challenged in state court

2 grinds of growing child poverty throughout the state

3 tablespoons of low teacher pay

1/3 cup of large numbers of teacher retirements
A Memo To States: This Is How You Create A Teacher Shortage: