With A Brooklyn Accent: Exposing Young People to Beauty Is Giving them Hope:

With A Brooklyn Accent: Exposing Young People to Beauty Is Giving them Hope::

Exposing Young People to Beauty Is Giving them Hope:

I was driving in from Eastern Long Island this morning listening to James Taylor and Carol King and when "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" and "Up On the Roof" came on, I felt tears coming into my eyes.

And it got me to thinking. Rock and Roll songs like those, with their dense and uplifting harmonies, represented my first exposure to real beauty and gave me something to aspire to and guide myself by when maneuvering a rough Brooklyn childhood.

See, there wasn't all that much beauty in my surroundings. My family life was tense, with demanding parents constantly pushing me to my limits, and neighborhood "friends" who were constantly mocking me and provoking me into fights because I did well in school. I was a tough kid with a high pain tolerance, and a good enough athlete so that everyone wanted me on their team, but I basically had concluded, by the time I was 10 , that life was hard, and I was going to have to kick everyone's ass to get by

But then rock and roll hit my neighborhood when i was an 11 year old fifth grader, and it gave me a new sense of possibilities as well as a new sonic universe. Song's like "Why Do Fools Fall in Love' "All I Have to Do Is Dream" :Maybe" and "Teenager in Love" brought harmony into my world along with the possibility of love, at a time when neither seemed within reach. More importantly it made me think that people just like me could actually create beautiful music, because the people singing With A Brooklyn Accent: Exposing Young People to Beauty Is Giving them Hope::

Transitional Kindergarten Data - Student & School Data Files (Downloadable) (CA Dept of Education)

Transitional Kindergarten Data - Student & School Data Files (Downloadable) (CA Dept of Education):

Transitional Kindergarten Data

Downloadable data files for school-level transitional kindergarten program participation data racial/ethnic designation and subgroup (i.e., gender, English learner, migrant, and socio-economically disadvantaged status).

Files include state, county, district, and school level data. Please refer to the file structure for details on what data are contained in the file. For more information about the TK program, refer to the Transitional Kindergarten Frequently Asked Questions page.

Year of Data	File Name	File Structure
2014–15	tkdata14 (TXT; 19MB; Posted 16-Dec-2015)	File Structure: School Enrollment (2013–15)
2013–14	tkdata13 (TXT; 19MB; Posted 16-Dec-2015)	File Structure: School Enrollment (2013–15)

To use a file, click on the file name you wish to download and save the file to your computer. To view the file, open the file in a database or spreadsheet program. For further instructions, choose a link below or contact our office for assistance.

Special instructions for Excel and Access users

*For details on specific file modifications, refer to the File Modifications Web page.

Questions: Data Reporting Office | dro@cde.ca.gov | 916-327-5927 

Last Reviewed: Wednesday, December 16, 2015

The Important Education Issue Leaders Are Still Ignoring

The Important Education Issue Leaders Are Still Ignoring:

The Important Education Issue Leaders Are Still Ignoring

One of the more telling combinations of news stories from the past week found education policy insiders in Washington, DC rejoicing over the passage of a new law rewriting federal education policy while at the same time a new report revealed how political leadership is continuing to fail America’ public schools.

This is not to say that revising federal education policy wasn’t a worthwhile goal. For sure, the new law, dubbed the Every Student Succeeds Act, has corrected some harmful aspects of federal education policy. Many good commentaries have pointed out significant problemswith the new law too. But such is the nature of legislating. You don’t always get everything you want.

However, despite all the celebration surrounding ESSA, the issue that remains mostly unaddressed in education policy is the massive under-funding that most states continue to inflict on public schools. The ugly truth about how political leaders continue to underfund local schools was exposed in a new report from the Center for Budget and Policy Priority.

Schools Aren’t Getting The Money They Need

The new CBPP report finds, “Most states provide less support per student for elementary and secondary schools – in some cases, much less – than before the Great Recession.” This is an issue that should be front-and-center in education discussion, not something burbling in the background while education policy leaders congratulate each other over a job well done.

As the commentary from CBPP on its report explains, state funding is a key factor in any assessment of the health and well being of the nation’s public schools. K-12 schools generally rely on their respective state government to supply about 46 percent of their funding. Local governments provide another 45 percent, and the federal government chips in only 9 percent on average.

The significance of funding sources varies considerably from state to state, given state funding formulas and the demographics of a specific districts (schools with large populations of low-income, nonwhite students receive extra federal funds through a provision called Title I). But “because schools rely so heavily on state aid,” CBPP explains, “cuts to state funding (especially formula funding) generally force local school districts to scale back educational services, raise more revenue to cover the gap, or both.”

Also, the severity of these funding cuts varies considerably from state to The Important Education Issue Leaders Are Still Ignoring:

NEWS AND VIEWS

How Washington Created Some Of The Worst Schools In America

Politico

“The network of schools for Native American children run by an obscure agency of the Interior Department remains arguably the worst school system in the United States, a disgrace the government has known about for eight decades and never successfully reformed … No Child Left Behind program, which aimed to bring accountability to schools, was especially hard to implement at BIE. Administrators struggle to comply with local tests and standards in 23 different states … During the Obama administration’s first term … school construction budgets for schools dwindled under competing administration priorities and twice the administration didn’t propose any money for new BIE schools. Meanwhile, a parade of directors – three in four years – gave the agency inconsistent oversight.”
Read more …

The Successor To No Child Left Behind Has, It Turns Out, Big Problems Of Its Own

The Washington Post

Valerie Strauss writes, “Anybody expecting the Every Student Succeeds Act to be a fix-all will be disappointed … Use of federal funds for ‘Pay for Success’ programs allow wealthy investors to make profits from education investments … States will be required to fund ‘equitable services’ for children in private and religious schools who are deemed eligible … Provisions in the legislation for the establishment of teacher preparation academies are written to primarily support non-traditional, non-university programs … ESSA is a compromise bill.”
Read more …

K-12 Funding Cuts Persist

Center On Budget And Policy Priorities

“Most states provide less support per student for elementary and secondary schools … than before the Great Recession … 31 states provided less state funding per student in the 2014 school year … than in the 2008 school year … In at least 18 states, local government funding per student fell over the same period … This year … 12 states imposed new cuts, even as the national economy continues to improve.”
Read more …

L.A. School Communities Resist Take Over By Charter Schools’ ‘Hurricane Eli’

The Progressive

Los Angeles public school parent Cynthia Liu writes, “In September of 2015, the LA Times broke the story that Eli Broad’s foundation planned to spend $490 million over approximately eight years to push its plan to convert half of the schools in the district to charter schools run by private operators … Broad’s leaked plan exposes the top-down nature of the charter sector. Never before has it been so glaringly evident how a single wealthy benefactor can rearrange a public school district according to his own ambitions. Families who previously viewed charter schools as a life raft for their children now must confront the sweeping nature of Broad’s plan: is it still “school choice” if a Broad-sponsored charter wave is the tsunami that eventually removes any other kind of school? … The immediate revelation of the top-down, high-handed Broad plan sparked outrage and protest by UTLA and various community groups. Teachers, parents, and community members pushed back.”
Read more …

Textbooks Out Of Step With Scientists On Climate Change, Study Says

Education Week

“Researchers looked at four 6th grade science textbooks that were published nearly a decade ago and are still being used in some California schools. In those texts, ‘the causes of climate change were shrouded in uncertainty’ … he texts often refer to what climate scientists ‘believe’ and “think,’ using verbs that convey uncertainty, rather than discussing what they’ve done such as collecting data … Materials adoptions in California, which serves more than 6 million public school students, have historically had a hefty impact on the textbook market nationally … The study points to 2011 research saying that only about half of U.S. teens believe climate change is occurring. And it says that teachers are reliant on textbooks to guide their instruction.”
Read more …

Happy Holidays

Next week EON is taking a holiday break from publishing. Best wishes for the season and the New Year.

A Teachable Moment: Frustrated California Online Charter Teachers Educate Shareholders of Controversial K12 Inc

A Teachable Moment: Frustrated California Online Charter Teachers Educate Shareholders of Controversial K12 Inc. at Annual Washington, D.C. Meeting Today - California Teachers Association:

A Teachable Moment: Frustrated California Online Charter Teachers Educate Shareholders of Controversial K12 Inc. at Annual Washington, D.C. Meeting Today

To Protect Their 15,000 Students, Teachers Deliver Report Card of Straight Fs to Criticize K12 and Statewide California School 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Frustrated educators from troubled Simi Valley-based California Virtual Academies (CAVA) – California’s largest online charter school – delivered a report card with straight F grades at today’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C. of shareholders of K12 Inc., which profits from the management services and school materials it provides to CAVA.

Concerned CAVA teachers like Jason Spadaro of Thousand Oaks, Calif., who traveled to the event here outside a law office on 11^th Street, have been calling for improvements at their 15,000-student statewide school for years.

“CAVA and K12 are out of touch with the problems online teachers are facing at our school. I decided to travel to Washington, D.C. to speak directly to K12 about the poor and shortsighted leadership and lack of accountability contributing to these problems,” said Spadaro, who teaches 11^th-grade U.S. history. “Just like public school employees, CAVA and K12 need to be held accountable for our school’s performance. As long as K12’s revenues come from public tax dollars, they owe it to taxpayers and students to account for the job they have done.”

In March 2015, CAVA teachers shared their experiences in an in-depth study of CAVA released by the “In the Public Interest” group that called for better oversight of the school. In June they filed complaints with school districts that authorized CAVA charters throughout California in an effort to protect students. Recently, new research from Stanford University and the University of Washington came out reinforcing many of the concerns CAVA teachers have voiced.

And according to recent press reports, the California Attorney General’s Office has launched an investigation of Virginia-based K12 Inc., a for-profit education company that is part of a probe of the nation’s virtual charter industry. Also, the National Education Policy Center in Colorado concludes in a separate new national study of charter operators in general that current state policies “promote privatization and profiteering.”

“There are a lot of students for whom the traditional brick and mortar school is just not appropriate, and an online virtual education provides an alternative that allows them to succeed,” said Mark Holtebeck of Hayward in the Bay Area, a high school special education teacher who attended the D.C. event today. “However, CAVA and K12 are damaging our students’ education. They treat educators as disposable commodities, and they are cheapening our work by profiting off the public trust. We need this to change, and that’s why I came here today.”

Holtebeck and his 750 colleagues at the statewide CAVA school are trying to get to the bargaining table in California to improve conditions for students and teachers. They are seeking a stronger voice in improving working conditions and student learning. The California Public Employment Relations Board’s historic recent decision declaring the California Teachers Association as the exclusive bargaining agent comes at a critical time and promises to provide momentum for the teachers’ ongoing efforts to make their online school more responsive to the needs of their students.

California state officials are calling on CAVA and K12 to honor the ruling and start negotiating, instead A Teachable Moment: Frustrated California Online Charter Teachers Educate Shareholders of 

Bid to Spike Federal Teacher-Preparation Regs Fails - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Bid to Spike Federal Teacher-Preparation Regs Fails - Teacher Beat - Education Week:

Bid to Spike Federal Teacher-Preparation Regs Fails

UPDATED

An attempt by advocates to stop the U.S. Department of Education's proposed teacher-preparation regulations from going into effect seems to have failed, for now.

Groups like the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education had lobbied hard for the federal spending bill to include language preventing the department from trying to "promulgate, implement, administer, or enforce the proposed rule establishing a teacher preparation program accountability system." 

If you couldn't already tell from that, the AACTE and most teacher-preparation programs really,really don't like the proposed regulations, which would require states to classify programs into categories, from "low performing" to "exceptional," based on measures including student test scores and surveys of candidates and districts.

The rider prohibiting the regs was included in draft spending bills crafted by both the House and Senate education committees. But the final omnibus bill unveiled today doesn't include it.(Omnibus is a fancy term that just means that all the spending is smooshed into one big bill, rather than in the 12 smaller bills that are supposed to fund federal agencies.)

The measure has already passed the House and is expected to clear the Senate in short order without many changes.

Overall, all this gives the Education Department the green light to release its regs. They are supposed to drop this month, although the department hasn't given many hints about when. (My guess is two days before Christmas, since the last major movement on these regulations was two days before Thanksgiving last year. Grab the eggnog!)

It's hard to tell, of course, what was on Congress' mind in pulling this out of the omnibus. For one, the prohibition on these regs was wrapped up in other compliated policy riders affecting higher ed., like the gainful-employment rules. Or perhaps Congress is merely waiting to take up the Higher Education Act—the law that gives the department the power to regulate this area at all—to address teacher-preparation issues. We'll have to stay tuned.

UPDATE, 12/16: Here's a statement from the AACTE on the omnibus bill: "AACTE is disappointed that the policy rider addressing the Department's proposed teacher preparation program regulations was not included in the omnibus; however, we are pleased to see the Teacher Quality Partnerships—the only federal dollars to reform teacher preparation—received a $3 million increase. We now will turn our attention to improving the Higher Education Act through reauthorization next year."Bid to Spike Federal Teacher-Preparation Regs Fails - Teacher Beat - Education Week:

All in the Family | EduShyster

All in the Family | EduShyster:

All in the Family

Has Massachusetts Secretary of Education Jim Peyser been lobbying himself?

Reader: having now corresponded from the wilds of education reform land for some three years now (!), I’ve grown more or less inured to the conflicts of interest that seem to bloom like algae wherever homo reformus sets up shop. But when a tipster contacted me, asking if I was aware that Massachusetts Secretary of Education Jim Peyser sits on the board of a charter school advocacy group, but also directs its lobbying arm, even I was agog. So I followed the trail of breadcrumbs that the tipster helpfully provided to the Secretary of State’s corporations division where I typed in Peyser’s name, and voila, there Peyser was, or rather is…

Lobby Hobby
Now conflicts of interest are nothing new in the clubby, chummy circles ofMassachusetts education policy. Consider, for example, the many hats of our own Commissioner of College and Career Readiness, Mitchell D. Chester. But even these overlapping lids seem like not-such-a-big deal when compared to the case that is before us today. As the Secretary of Education, Jim Peyser sets education policy for the state and also votes on said policy. And as a director for the charter school advocacy group Families for Excellent Schools, and its 501 (c) (4) lobbying arm, Peyser is seeking to influence the very state policy that he is then voting upon. In other words, he is lobbying himself.

All in the Family
But who is this Family of which the Massachusetts Secretary of Education appears to All in the Family | EduShyster:

CURMUDGUCATION: Homework and Flipping

CURMUDGUCATION: Homework and Flipping:

Homework and Flipping

It was an odd juxtaposition. There on my twitter feed, side by side, a link to an article arguing against homework, and a link to an argument favoring the flipped classroom.

The arguments against homework are many-- as many as there are different types of homework. Students don't really benefit from it. Students don't really do it. And those are just educator arguments-- my students will also argue that after they leave the school building, that time is their time, for work, for family, for whatever pursuits they choose to pursue. That's the point of view that leads commenters to say that homework is bad for the whole child.

And yet what is a flipped classroom except a classroom that runs on huge amounts of homework.

I have no strong feelings about the flipped classroom-- I've been doing it my whole career, only instead of saying "Go home and watch this video," I've been saying "Go home and read this book." I don't do a lot of traditional homework beyond some occasionally "Go forth and practice this skill on your own." But my honors students in particular are expected to do the readings and write the papers primarily on their own time.

I read teachers who have success flipping, and I have encountered the following conversation among students many times as well:

Chris: Did you watch that video last night?

Pat: Nah. He's just going to have to explain it all in class anyway. 

I have found technology useful for extending the classroom. Back when my school district still used Moodle, I could run entire units as on-line segments, which made a nice way to compensate for the CURMUDGUCATION: Homework and Flipping:

Don't grade us like school districts, charter school sponsors say; state might do it anyway | cleveland.com

Don't grade us like school districts, charter school sponsors say; state might do it anyway | cleveland.com:

Don't grade us like school districts, charter school sponsors say; state might do it anyway

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Charter school supporters want the state to kill a proposal that would grade their "sponsors" just like school districts.

But they haven't won over the Ohio Department of Education, at least not yet.

And the outside panel that proposed the new rating system is as adamant as ever that sponsors -- the agencies that monitor and help create charter schools -- be graded the same way school districts are on state report cards.

"I understand this is scary for some sponsors," panel member Thomas Hosler told the state school board Tuesday.

But Hosler, superintendent of the Perrysburg school district near Toledo, said that he objects to sponsors, known as authorizers in most states, not taking responsibility for whether the schools they start and oversee ever educate children well.

By grading sponsors just like a school district, sponsors will have to be "in the cockpit" with their schools to guide them to improve.

"I don't think that sponsors can be silent partners anymore," Hosler said.

State Superintendent Richard Ross will make the final decision before he retires on Dec. 31. Ross told the board Tuesday that he expects to finalize a plan in a few days.

The proposal would take effect for sponsor ratings to be done after this current school year. 

Ross said he is not sure yet how the state can handle the first set of ratings that is already overdue. He told the school board he is looking at using the panel's  proposed system, with previous state test results, now. But he added, "That might not be fair to sponsors that didn't know" the ratings system would be used.

Meanwhile, sponsors and charter supporters are asking the department to drop the plan. In letters to the department and testimony Monday to the board, they said schools in poor, urban areas have little chance of earning enough good grades for a sponsor to be well-rated.

They instead want to be rated in comparison to big-city school districts -- districts that almost always have low grades and which charters consider as "peers" -- and not against all schools in Ohio.

They also suggested counting student improvement scores more than report cards do. They say that a sponsor is very different from a district and should not be judged the same way.

Chad Aldis of the Fordham Institute, sponsor of some schools near Dayton but Don't grade us like school districts, charter school sponsors say; state might do it anyway | cleveland.com:

THE DEBATE OVER CHARTER SCHOOLS

• Don't grade us like school districts, charter school sponsors say; state might do it anyway
• New bill would ban charter schools from paying for ads with tax dollars
• State won't share Superintendent Ross' "voluminous" e-mail, despite saying he "doesn't use it very often"
• Charter schools start last-minute radio campaign to avoid bad grades for report cards and sponsor evaluations
• State contradicts itself over Supt. Richard Ross' e-mails, still isn't sharing them
• Online schools are losing support, creating divisions in the national charter school movement
• Illegal charter school ratings have a proposed replacement
• Ohio charter schools may be 'reeling' from attacks, but now is a time to shine, national experts say
• Cleveland and Dayton are national leaders in charter school enrollment
• Ohio school boards want to ban ads for bad charter schools

Report finds school segregation not simply a result of housing | POLITICO

Report finds school segregation not simply a result of housing | POLITICO:

Report finds school segregation not simply a result of housing

New York Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña, center, visits a class in Brooklyn. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

New York City's public school system is not the most segregated in the nation simply because of housing segregation, since many high-poverty elementary schools that serve mostly minority students are located in economically mixed neighborhoods, according to research released Wednesday by the New School's Center for New York City Affairs.

The research cuts against a commonly accepted notion that New York City's school segregation crisis is purely the result of the city's well-documented residential segregation.

"The city's schools are even more economically and racially segregated than the neighborhoods [they are in], and for economically disadvantaged students, that usually translates to inferior education," the report's authors, Clara Hemphill and Nicole Mader, wrote.

According to the New School report, 124 of the city's 734 elementary schools are much poorer than the neighborhoods in which they are located. The average household income of the school zones for those 124 schools is at least 20 percent higher than the average income of the students enrolled in those schools, the report found.

At PS 125 in Harlem, for example, the estimated household income of students is about half that of households in that school zone, District 5. And while black and Latino students make up 84 percent of PS 125's enrollment, the zone itself is just 37 percent black or Latino. At the same time, PS 287 in downtown Brooklyn has an 89-percent minority enrollment but its zone, District 13, is just 43 percent black or Latino. The report notes both schools are extreme examples; PS 125, for example, is very close to Columbia University and therefore unique in terms of demographics. 

The report explains the overall discrepancy between housing and school segregation by noting many parents sent their children to gifted and talented schools or to charter schools for elementary grades because of the poor quality of many traditional zoned schools.

"The key is to improve these schools to motivate more middle class parents who live in economically mixed neighborhoods (or white and Asian parents living in racially mixed Report finds school segregation not simply a result of housing | POLITICO:

With A Brooklyn Accent: The Hidden Costs of Gentrification and Rising Rents on Educational Opportunity

With A Brooklyn Accent: The Hidden Costs of Gentrification and Rising Rents on Educational Opportunity:

The Hidden Costs of Gentrification and Rising Rents on Educational Opportunity

It is tempting to think with the crack epidemic having passed and violence levels down in most, but not all, inner city and poor communities, we have a precious moment of opportunity to rebuild public schools in those areas, but there is another kind of destabilization taking place, less dramatic, but almost as devastating, in the form of gentrification and rising rents, As investors have discovered neighborhoods they once avoided, hundreds of thousands of families are finding themselves priced out of rental units, forced to double and triple up with other families, take in boarders, or move out of the city entirely. Children living in communities where rent rises far exceed incomes not only have to move on multiple occasions, they are often tense, sleep deprived, and/or fearful of physical or sexual violence that can come from living in crowded conditions with strangers.

The impact on schools is enormous. Not only are there thousands of students who move from school to school or have irregular attendance, there are countless others who come to school tense, fearful, needy and unable to concentrate.

So widespread is this problem that one group of school leaders- largely, but not entirely concentrated in charter schools- has decided that mass suspensions and expulsions of students who create problems is the only way to create a positive atmosphere for learning. But that approach only destabilizes schools which With A Brooklyn Accent: The Hidden Costs of Gentrification and Rising Rents on Educational Opportunity:

 The Cold Reality Facing Public School Parents

This is the cold reality every public school parent must face.

You love your children. They- and I mean those shaping education policy- don't

They see your children as profit centers, subjects of experiments with software and technology, providers of data points necessary to shape national policy, malleable objects for the pursuit of political ambitions and the shaping of careers in educational consulting and school management..

And that is only now.

In the future, they see your children as the labor force necessary to assure that their children, who almost all attend private school, will not find their elite status challenged or management prerogatives challenged.

Find me a policy maker who loves and cares about your children the way you do.

That is why you are in a war to create and in some cases to defend schools that will treat your children the way you would want them to be treated.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Debating Rahm's viability

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Debating Rahm's viability:

Debating Rahm's viability

Asked the next day about when he first learned of the McDonald case and who informed him, the mayor responded, “Probably read it in the paper. Uhm and some of the staff, uhm could have informed me. --NBC5 News

Even among my friends (across the political spectrum) there's widely varying estimates about Rahm Emanuel's continuing viability as mayor of Chicago. They range from -- resignation is imminent -- to -- this too will pass -- and he'll be able to hang in there until the next election.

Rahm's now polling at around 18%. Former Mayor Richie Daley decided to hang it up when his ratings dropped to 31%.

The fact that, when/if Rahm will resign has become the most hotly-debated question in political circles far and wide, is testimony to the depths of the crisis in Chicago following the street execution of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke and the ensuing political cover-up.

The relentlessness of the Black Lives Matter movement, combined with the threat of another teachers strike, could put enough pressure on the national Democratic Party leadership (Hillary has enough to worry about without having to carry Rahm's baggage into 2016) and on Rahm's Chicago patrons, to have them pull the Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Debating Rahm's viability:

Politics In The Classroom: How Much Is Too Much? : NPR Ed : NPR

Politics In The Classroom: How Much Is Too Much? : NPR Ed : NPR:

Politics In The Classroom: How Much Is Too Much?

Gun control. Climate change. Donald Trump. Affirmative action.

The first presidential primaries are just weeks away and with all these debates and issues in the headlines, there's no question that students are going to want to talk about them.

But how should teachers handle these discussions?

Do politics belong in the classroom at all, or should schools be safe havens from partisan battles? Can teachers use controversial issues as learning opportunities, and, if so, to teach what? And then, the really sticky question: Should teachers share with students their own political views and opinions?

In their book, The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education,Diana E. Hess and Paula McAvoy offer guidelines to these and other questions, using a study they conducted from 2005 to 2009. It involved 21 teachers in 35 schools and their 1,001 students. Hess is the dean of the school of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and McAvoy is the program director at UW-Madison's Center for Ethics and Education.

Schools, they conclude, are and ought to be political places — but not partisan ones. I talked with them recently about how, in today's highly polarized society, teachers can walk that very fine line.

The Political Classroom

Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education

by Diana E. Hess and Paula Mcavoy

Paperback, 247 pages

purchase

Sometimes it seems there's a belief that schools should be political ... sort of. With students taking on issues — like smoking — that are political but not too political. Did you find that in your study?

Hess: You're absolutely right, there are a number of schools that encourage students to get involved in political campaigns, but they tend to be political campaigns that really aren't very controversial. They'll encourage kids to form a campaign about something that everyone agrees should be done. For example, that we should clean up the litter that's around our school, or that it's important for people to eat healthy food. ...

We have evidence that kids learn a lot from doing that. It's not necessarily a terrible thing. My view is that if you're going to have students involved in authentic politics, then it's really important to make sure you have issues for which there are multiple and competing views, and you don't give students the impression that there's a political view that they should be working toward.

McAvoy: How political do we want students to be? That's really a question that a lot of communities struggle with and a lot of teachers struggle with. And the point of the book is to say that, in general, to be able to talk about politics is a skill that people need to learn. And it would be great if it were learned in school because these are great moments in which you bring a group of young people together who are forming their Politics In The Classroom: How Much Is Too Much? : NPR Ed : NPR:

Success Academy Network to Shorten Its School Day Next Year - The New York Times

Success Academy Network to Shorten Its School Day Next Year - The New York Times:

Success Academy Network to Shorten Its School Day Next Year

Success Academy, the high-achieving charter school network, told employees this week that it would shorten its school day next year, altering a feature that has distinguished the network from New York City’s regular public schools but has also made it hard to retain teachers.

The school day for most students at Success’ elementary schools will go from lasting eight hours 45 minutes to eight hours, with students being dismissed at 3:45 p.m. instead of at 4:30, according to an email from Success’ founder, Eva S. Moskowitz, that was sent to employees on Tuesday.

At Success’ middle schools, the length of the day will go from nine hours 15 minutes to seven and a half hours, with students arriving an hour later, at 9 a.m., and leaving 45 minutes earlier, at 4:30 p.m.

On Wednesdays, Success students have half-days, so that teachers can have professional development.

In the email, Ms. Moskowitz said the change, which was reported by Politico New York on Tuesday, was meant to address the concerns of teachers and families.

“We have found that the length of our current school day is difficult for both scholars and teachers, and it doesn’t leave enough time for clubs, sports programs, and the tutoring and extra support that some scholars need,” Ms. Moskowitz wrote. “It is also challenging for staff to find enough personal time to recharge and be at their professional best.”

“This schedule change will allow for more personal time on workdays,” she Success Academy Network to Shorten Its School Day Next Year - The New York Times: