Research Summarizes the Public School Advantage | janresseger

Research Summarizes the Public School Advantage | janresseger:

Research Summarizes the Public School Advantage

A book like Learning from the Federal Market-Based Reforms from the National Education Policy Center—a compendium of two decades’ of academic research on today’s public school ideology, policy, and trends—is invaluable even for a non-expert, citizen-reader who just wants to get informed. After all, most academic research is published in the paywalled academic journals, and more specialized books are unlikely to appear in smaller, regional libraries.  There is a lot that I miss, even though I do a lot of searching around in books about education.

One book that I have always felt I ought to read is The Public School Advantage, by Christopher and Sarah Lubienski, professors at the University of Illinois. Here in NEPC’s new compendium is a chapter from the Lubienskis’ book—“Reconsidering Choice, Competition, and Autonomy as the Remedy in American Education,” (pp. 365-391 in NEPC’s compendium). The Lubienskis conducted an enormous study of the practices and student achievement in public, private and privatized schools. Their finding: “Despite what many reformers, policy makers, media elites, and even parents may believe, public schools are, on average, actually providing a relatively effective educational service compared to schools in the independent sector.” The Lubienskis continue: “(O)ur analyses indicate that public schools are enjoying an advantage in academic effectiveness because they are aligned with a more professional model of teaching and learning.” One reason people turn away from the public schools, they write, is simply that many believe that if people are willing to pay for private schools, they must be the superior model.

Other reasons people desire school choice?  “Obviously, some parents will prioritize safety…. Many parents consider extracurricular options or perceived pedagogical fit…. (F)or many families, finding a school that reinforces their values may be more important (religious schools)…. Some children enroll in schools that their friends are attending or where other families look like they do.”

What about the belief that expanding charters and school vouchers is a good way to boost achievement for the children our society has left behind?  “Although marketists believe that choice will open up opportunities for disadvantaged children, the data show that private and independent schools under enroll such students… (D)isadvantaged and minority students who are in most such schools are on average, no better served then they are in public schools, diminishing hope that private sector-based strategies have much potential to reduce Research Summarizes the Public School Advantage | janresseger:

With A Brooklyn Accent: Lies My Union President Told Me- Whitewashing the AFT's History by Sean Ahearn

With A Brooklyn Accent: Lies My Union President Told Me- Whitewashing the AFT's History by Sean Ahearn:

Lies My Union President Told Me- Whitewashing the AFT's History by Sean Ahearn

 Lies My Union President Told Me

Letter to the American Educator re AFT President Randy Weingarten’s “Honoring Our Past and Inspiring Our Future” (http://www.aft.org/ae/summer2016/wws)

President Randy Weingarten’s “Honoring Our Past and Inspiring Our Future,” written on the 100^thanniversary of the founding of the AFT is an exercise in “perception management.” Weingarten claims that she has “pored over historical documents from our archives” and concluded that the AFT “has been a vehicle to fight for positive change both in public schools and in society.” Further on she states her case even more explicitly:  “For 100 years, the AFT has worked to build power and use it for good.” 

As a member of the UFT for the past 17 years, son of a UFT retiree, brother to a former UFT teacher and CSA principal, product of the NYC public school system (1959-1971) and father of three, all of whom graduated from NYC high schools, I proudly count myself as a witness to the last 50 years of UFT/AFT history.  Based on my experience and knowledge I challenge her very one-sided findings for failing to point out major examples of how the AFT has been a hindrance to “positive change both in public schools and in society.”

I do not write to honor Albert Shanker and those who followed the course he took. It is my hope that through a full review of our AFT history, rational and thoughtful working people, acting in their own class interests, will conduct an internal critique, identify the wrong turns, and bravely set a new course for our union. It is my hope that current and future generations will overcome the seemingly willful blindness that is found in Weingarten’s article.

Weingarten’s airbrushed history offers a textbook example of how to frame a narrative by omitting all evidence that contradicts her thesis.  This method is not one of historical inquiry seeking educational With A Brooklyn Accent: Lies My Union President Told Me- Whitewashing the AFT's History by Sean Ahearn:

What This Teacher Means By Self-Care | The Jose Vilson

What This Teacher Means By Self-Care | The Jose Vilson:

What This Teacher Means By Self-Care

Confession: this is the first summer I haven’t thought about my school all summer.

Not once.

It’s been amazing. I love my students and I love my job, and I also gave them almost every ounce of me. Thus, even with all the stress I’ve had making it through July, I still see the benefits of having myself at 100%. I see them on Facebook every so often, and wonder whether they’re enjoying themselves somewhere, reaping the fruits of their youth. I’m hoping that those attending summer programs are taking full advantage of the head start they’ve gotten. I’m praying for my students who stay out too long at night, past the first question asked on the 10 o’clock news.

Do I know where my children are? No? It’ll be OK.

But this also reminds me of this concept of self-care. These days, the term has become more popular in activist circles. It’s a term used to suggest that, in this work of rehumanizing each other, we must take care of ourselves. That’s applicable in any circle where any of us invest too much of our hearts and souls (as if that’s ever enough, right?) into the work we do. In the middle of caring for other What This Teacher Means By Self-Care | The Jose Vilson:

Badass Teachers Association: What Do We Do Now?

Badass Teachers Association: What Do We Do Now?:

What Do We Do Now?

Many of us looking for a change in our two party democratic system are left with hard feelings after the recent Republican and Democratic Conventions. Especially those of us that were feeling the Bern!

But now is the time to grab the spirit of the movement that was started and use the momentum that was built to create the change that we want to see. We can do this with small actions in our own communities. We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to our children.

As schools are beginning again (Hello Tennessee!) or getting ready to start (Are we really in August already?) one step that we can do to prepare is to make sure that we have a schedule of our School Board meetings already added to our busy calendars. This will prevent us from making the excuse “Oh, I already have something I need to do that night.” Make no mistake, THIS is what you need to do that night. Attend a school board meeting, whether it is in the district that you work in, or it is in the district where your children attend school; make sure that you are aware and involved.

Our Washington BATs have compiled a great file of different conversation starters to get the School Board members to really start thinking about the decisions they are making for the schools and how these decisions are affecting the students.

List of topics

1 – Early Childhood

2 – Poverty

3 – Text Levels

4 – Standardized Testing

5 – High Stakes of Standardized Testing – part 1

6 – High Stakes of Standardized Testing – part 2

7 – High Stakes of Standardized Testing – part 3

8 – High Stakes of Standardized Testing – part 4

9 – High Stakes of Standardized Testing – part 5

10 – High Stakes of Standardized Testing – part 6

Wouldn't it be great to start a reading group with the members of the board, a few teachers, administrators, and parents? Create a challenge to everyone to make a commitment to having some real conversations!

Link to all topics:  https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B5JH-HKTptJtdTdqbXNsZWl2cDg&usp=sharing

(Files are in a shared Google Drive. To download and access, save a copy to your own drive.)

Mike Pence’s claim that Indiana has the largest school voucher program - The Washington Post

Mike Pence’s claim that Indiana has the largest school voucher program - The Washington Post:

Mike Pence’s claim that Indiana has the largest school voucher program

“I’m proud to be from the state that has the largest education voucher program in America.”

— Republican vice-presidential nominee and Indiana Gov.  Mike Pence, rally in Denver, Aug. 3, 2016

“In the last four years, we passed the largest state tax cut in Indiana history, and now are home to the largest school voucher program in the United States of America.”

— Pence, speech to the American Conservative Union, July 19, 2016

This is one of Pence’s favorite talking points about his record in Indiana. But there’s actually more to the story, and voucher programs across states are difficult to compare because each program is structured differently. Here are the facts.

The Facts

Indiana’s Choice Scholarship Program was launched in 2011, under Pence’s predecessor, Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels. The voucher program survived a state Supreme Court challenge just after Pence took office in January 2013, and he dramatically expanded the program to increase eligibility for students. The program offers vouchers to low- and middle-income families to attend private schools.

There are 26 voucher programs in 15 states, according to the Friedman Foundation, a school choice organization based in Indiana. Pence’s staff pointed to research by this organization, which tracks school choice programs across the country.

In 2015-2016, the latest statistics available for Indiana, there were 32,695 studentsparticipating in the state’s program. That makes this program the single largest education voucher program in any state.

But some other states have multiple smaller voucher programs, unlike Indiana. When looking at the total number of enrollees across all programs in one state, Ohio has the largest cumulative voucher participation, with 45,459 enrollees. Wisconsin ranks just behind Indiana, but the data are not yet complete because a fourth program is now accepting enrollees. As of 2015, there were 31,295 students enrolled across three programs in Wisconsin.

“We [in Indiana] do have the largest single voucher program in the country,” Robert Enlow, chief executive of the Friedman Foundation, said. He noted that there is another way to measure this — the total number of students participating in the program.

Every voucher program is structured differently and difficult to compare across states, Enlow said. In fact, the reason Indiana’s single program has so many students is that it is designed more broadly than the programs in Mike Pence’s claim that Indiana has the largest school voucher program - The Washington Post:

Detroit schools transition manager: No EAA debt relief

Detroit schools transition manager: No EAA debt relief:
Detroit schools transition manager: No EAA debt relief

A dispute over millions of dollars owed by a state reform school district to Detroit's public school system took another twist Thursday, with the head of the Detroit district saying he's not forgiving the debt.

Steven Rhodes told labor activist Robert Davis in an e-mail that the Detroit Public Schools Community District is in "intense negotiations" with the Education Achievement Authority for a repayment agreement.

"I have no intent to forgive or waive any debt that EAA owes to DPS or DPSCD," Rhodes, the DPSCD transition manager, wrote in an e-mail Davis provided to the Free Press. "That is not in the best interest of the students of DPSCD."

EAA chancellor Veronica Conforme told the Free Press on Tuesday that Gov. Rick Snyder said the rent debt, which was $12 million as of April, had been resolved. The EAA even built its $81.9-million budget for 2016-17 on the assumption that the debt was wiped away by recent legislation.

DETROIT FREE PRESS

Is back rent part of $14.8M EAA owed Detroit schools?

In April, the state school district owed $14.8 million for outstanding rent and other services for fiscal years 2015 and 2016 to Detroit Public Schools, according to a Michigan Department of Treasury official.

Rhodes said in his e-mail to Davis that the governor's office said the EAA and DPSCD have to resolve the issue. He also said there's no evidence that the person who led the district before him, former emergency manager Darnell Earley, agreed to any debt relief.

"I have seen no evidence that my predecessor agreed to do that," Rhodes wrote. "In addition, the governor's office has assured me that they take no position on this matter, and that is strictly between EAA and us."

Rhodes told Davis he wants the matter resolved as quickly as possible. When a payment agreement is done, he said, there will be an announcement.

Rhodes' message was in response to an e-mail Davis sent him threatening to sue the EAA and the state over the debt matter. Davis wrote that any attempt by the EAA for debt relief on the back of DPSCD would be illegal.

DPSCD officials have not publicly said how much money they believe the EAA currently owes. Chrystal Wilson, spokeswoman for DPSCD, reiterated Rhodes' statement that relieving the debt would not be in the best interest of students.

In June, lawmakers passed a $617-million restructuring package for Detroit Public Schools that split the district in two: an "old" DPS district to pay down debts and the "new" debt-free DPSCD to educate kids.

EAA officials say the district's lease agreements with DPS say the EAA will pay rent as long as the Detroit district has an operating debt.

"Our stance is that legislation solved the operating debt for DPS," EAA spokesman Robert Guttersohn said in an e-mail. "Our lease agreements are 100% based on DPS carrying operating debt. It was our share of the burden of operating debt."

The controversy over the back rent erupted this week after Davis, an activist who spent time behind bars for embezzling $200,000 from Highland Park schools when he was a board member there, received and shared with reporters copies of April 2016 e-mail conversations involving then-Michigan Chief Deputy Treasurer Thomas Saxton.

Saxton wrote that Conforme had asked Earley in February to sign a lease amendment that would have forgiven the EAA's rent debt. Saxton said he cautioned Earley against signing it.

The EAA owed the Detroit school system $14.8 million for the past two years, a figure that included $12 million for rent and the rest for information technology and security services, Saxton wrote at the time.

"The governor has been clear with me that the debt was solved for all of us," Conforme said Tuesday in an e-mailed statement. " As such, we presented a budget to our board that eliminated the lease obligations to Detroit Public Schools."

It's unclear how the dispute will ultimately impact the EAA, which has 15 schools that used to be part of DPS. The EAA, which has struggled with falling enrollment, poor academic performance and other problems since its 2012 launch, will eventually be dissolved under the legislation.

Ari Adler, spokesman for Snyder, did not return messages seeking comment.

Contact Ann Zaniewski: 313-222-6594, azaniewski@freepress.com or on Twitter: @AnnZaniewskiDetroit schools transition manager: No EAA debt relief:

How Anne Holton Advocated for Virginia's Foster Youth - ABC News

How Anne Holton Advocated for Virginia's Foster Youth - ABC News:

How Anne Holton Advocated for Virginia's Foster Youth

Anne Holton, wife of Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), speaks during a campaign event, Aug. 1, 2016, in Richmond, Virginia.

While Anne Holton may have resigned from her position as Virginia’s secretary of education last month following the selection of her husband, Tim Kaine, as Hillary Clinton’s running mate, she leaves behind a legacy of service for children and foster youth in the state.

“During her tenure, Anne has been a constant and powerful voice for students, teachers and schools,” said Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe said in a statement following the announcement of her resignation. “Her lifelong dedication to serving Virginia’s young people, especially the children at the margins, has had a lasting impact in the Commonwealth.”

Tim Kaine's Wife Anne Holton Said They Were 'Laughing Hysterically' After His DNC Speech

Tim Kaine Warns Donald Trump That 'Virginia Is Not for Haters'

Kaine on Trump: 'I Absolutely Think He Is Confused'

Her lasting impact is manifest in the issues she cared about most as a former juvenile court judge, first lady of Virginia and, most recently, as the state’s secretary of education: childwelfare reform and foster care.

After graduating from Princeton University and then Harvard Law School -- where she met her husband and future governor of Virginia -- Holton, 58, served as a U.S. District Court law clerk for a year in Richmond. She later worked as an attorney for the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society and then as a substitute judge for the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court. After getting sworn in as a permanent judge in 1998, Holton remained on the bench until 2005.

It was there that Holton was exposed to the problems in Virginia’s child welfare system.

Serving as a judge “gave her the expertise for understanding some of the systemic problems that families and kids were dealing with in Virginia,” said Margaret Nimmo Holland, the executive director of Voices for Virginia’s Children, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and advocacy organization dedicated to improving child welfare and foster care in Virginia. Anne’s mother, Jinks, was one of the founders of Voices for Virginia’s Children and served on the board of directors. Holton would later follow in her mother’s footsteps by joining the board of directors in 2010.

As the first lady of Virginia from 2006 to 2010, Holton partnered with Voices for Virginia’s Children and multiple child service agencies across the state to launch the Children’s Services System Transformation campaign, which dramatically increased the number of foster children entering permanent family arrangements. She also led the “For Keeps: Families for All Virginia Teens” initiative to secure and strengthen permanent families for older foster care teenagers and young adults.

But her contributions do not stop there. “The work that she spearheaded as Virginia’s first lady How Anne Holton Advocated for Virginia's Foster Youth - ABC News:

In Charter School Fight, Who Speaks for Communities of Color? | US News

In Charter School Fight, Who Speaks for Communities of Color? | US News:

In Charter School Fight, Who Speaks for Communities of Color? 

At the NAACP's national convention last month in Cincinnati, the gathering of more than 2,000 delegates approved a resolution calling for a moratorium on charter schools, equating them with "the privatization" of the traditional public education system.

Days later, more than 50 African-American and social justice advocacy groups, including the Black Lives Matter network, unveiled a new policy agenda that also called for a moratorium on charter schools, arguing they represent a "systematic attack" on communities of color.

 Charter schools have always represented a flashpoint in the education space. But the demands from the NAACP and the Black Lives Matter-affiliated groups highlight a new wrinkle: After years benefiting from a reform-friendly K-12 agenda that allowed its schools to flourish through the elimination of caps and increased funding at the state and federal levels, the charter sector now finds itself in the crosshairs of a burgeoning and wide-scale debate over who truly holds communities of color in their best interest.

"The issue of charter schools has become a very complicated one, especially for our community, the black community," says Hiram Rivera, executive director of the Philadelphia Student Union, one of the dozens of groups that helped craft the second policy agenda.

Charter schools also have come under fire in a number of states, with Washington's teachers union – along with its chapter of the League of Women Voters and Latino advocacy group El Centro de la Raza – recently filing a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state's charter school law. In Massachusetts, the Boston City Council voted to pass a resolution opposing a November ballot question that calls for lifting a statewide cap on new charter schools in the state.

The groups associated with Black Lives Matter argue the rapid proliferation of charters is the result of billionaire philanthropists and their influential organizations – like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, among others – steamrolling poor communities of color to push a market-based education agenda without the input of teachers and parents.

Their policies, they say, make school funding more inequitable, increase segregation among students and contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline.

"Charter schools are targeted at low-income and communities of color," Rivera says. "If charter schools were all about education for all students, you would find them in poor white neighborhoods, in rural areas, in suburbs. But you don't."

As for the NAACP, the organization has been on a slow march to its proposed moratorium. In years past, it has opposed spending public money on charters, as well as adopted In Charter School Fight, Who Speaks for Communities of Color? | US News:

Teachers and Students Occupy Schools in the Shadow of Olympic Rio | The Nation

Teachers and Students Occupy Schools in the Shadow of Olympic Rio | The Nation:

Teachers and Students Occupy Schools in the Shadow of Olympic Rio

Organizing to reform teachers’ working conditions as well as standardized testing has been met with brutal police violence.

In the shadows of both the 2016 Rio Olympics and a political impeachment/coup that rocked the world, a struggle took place in Brazil with more resonance than either of these events, if people only knew that it happened. Just beyond the city’s northern borders, a five-month strike by public-school teachers ended only last month, just in time for the games to begin.

Of 166,000 teachers, 70 percent went out, confronting violent police repression in an effort to win a raise and confront unendurable working conditions that produce student-teacher ratios of 50-1.

What made this strike so remarkable was that it did not end on a picket line. Dozens of schools were occupied by teachers and students and for months, where they staged their own classes while union leaders negotiated their futures and the police knocked down their doors. I spoke to three teachers in Rio: Marilia El-Kaddoum Trajtenberg, Raphael Mota Fernandes, and Eduardo Moraes, two of whom were a part of these occupations, all involved with the union.

Their story is not only a labor battle of note. It demonstrates the ways that funding the Olympics starved parts of Rio and provoked unforeseen consequences.

These educators are clear that what made these strikes special were the occupations. Raphael said, “In total, there were 81 schools that were occupied in the state of Rio. The idea started in São Paulo, but we made it ours. There were a lot of activities that we organized. We held debates about current issues, about racism, politics. We opened the libraries, held cultural events, and the schools became what they were supposed to be; cultural centers for the community. For students in their final year, we held classes on the Vestibular, a test that is similar to the SAT, but worse: Your entire university application process rests on this test.”

As these occupations continued in schools starved of funds, the priorities of the multibillion-dollar Olympics were never far from their minds.

“Both within the occupied schools and within the teacher’s strike, we were very cognizant of it all. It was really…disturbing to see billions spent when schools don’t have proper sports equipment, don’t have materials, don’t have hot food for students. Instead, they are just investing in this big party that will be gone in a month.”

The police violence against the teachers was very intense. Eduardo told Teachers and Students Occupy Schools in the Shadow of Olympic Rio | The Nation:

Student test scores: How the sausage is made and why you should care | Brookings Institution

Student test scores: How the sausage is made and why you should care | Brookings Institution:

Student test scores: How the sausage is made and why you should care

Contrary to popular belief, modern cognitive assessments—including the new Common Core tests—produce test scores based on sophisticated statistical models rather than the simple percent of items a student answers correctly. While there are good reasons for this, it means that reported test scores depend on many decisions made by test designers, some of which have important implications for education policy. For example, all else equal, the shorter the length of the test, the greater the fraction of students placed in the top and bottom proficiency categories—an important metric for state accountability. On the other hand, some tests report “shrunken” measures of student ability, which pull particularly high- and low-scoring students closer to the average, leading one to understate the proportion of students in top and bottom proficiency categories. Shrunken test scores will also understate important policy metrics such as the black-white achievement gap—if black children score lower on average than white children, then scores of black students will be adjusted up while the opposite is true for white students.

The scaling of test scores is equally important. Despite common perceptions, a 5-point gain at the bottom of the test score distribution may not mean the same thing in terms of additional knowledge as a 5-point gain at the top of the distribution. This fact has important implications for the value-added based comparisons of teacher effectiveness as well as accountability rankings of schools. There are no easy solutions to these issues. Instead there must be greater transparency of the test creation process, and more robust discussion about the inherent tradeoffs about the creation of test scores, and more robust discussion about how different types of test scores are used for policymaking as well as research.

---

Testing is ubiquitous in education. From placement in specialized classes to college admissions, standardized exams play a large role in a child’s educational career. The introduction of the federal No Child Left Behind(NCLB) legislation in 2001, which required states to test all students in grades 3-8 in reading and math, dramatically increased the prevalence and use of test scores for education policymaking.

Contrary to popular belief, all modern cognitive assessments—including the new Common Core tests—produce test scores based on sophisticated statistical models rather than the simple percent of items a student answers correctly. There are good reasons for this, as explained below. The downside is that what we see as consumers of test scores depends on decisions made by the designers of the tests about characteristics of those models and their implementation. These details are typically hidden in dense technical Student test scores: How the sausage is made and why you should care | Brookings Institution:

Gates Foundation to ‘stay the course’ as it seeks to help shape state education policies - The Washington Post

Gates Foundation to ‘stay the course’ as it seeks to help shape state education policies - The Washington Post:

Gates Foundation to ‘stay the course’ as it seeks to help shape state education policies

CHICAGO — Melinda Gates said she and her husband, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, learned an important lesson from the fierce pushback against the Common Core State Standards in recent years. Not that they made the wrong bet when they poured hundreds of millions of dollars into supporting the education standards, but that such a massive initiative would not be successful unless teachers and parents believe in it.

“Community buy-in is huge,” Gates said in an interview here on Wednesday, adding that cultivating such support for big cultural shifts in education takes time. “It means that in some ways, you have to go more slowly.”

That doesn’t mean the foundation has any plans to back off the Common Core or its other priorities, including its long-held belief that improving teacher quality is the key to transforming public education. “I would say stay the course. We’re not even close to finished,” Gates said.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has helped shape the nation’s education policies during the past decade with philanthropic donations that have supported digital learning and charter schools and helped accelerate shifts not only to the new, common academic standards, but to new teacher evaluations that incorporate student test scores.

Melinda Gates accompanied President Barack Obama on a visit to classrooms at TechBoston Academy in Boston in 2011. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

[How Bill Gates pulled off the swift Common Core revolution]

The Obama administration shared and promoted many of the foundation’s priorities, arguing that they were necessary to push the nation's schools forward and close yawning achievement gaps. Now that a new federal education law has returned authority over public education to the states, the foundation is following suit, seeking to become involved in the debates about the direction of public schools that are heating up in state capitals across the country.

Speaking here at a meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures, Melinda Gates told lawmakers Wednesday that the new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, gives them a chance to grapple with whether “we are doing everything in our power to ensure Gates Foundation to ‘stay the course’ as it seeks to help shape state education policies - The Washington Post:

Seattle Schools Community Forum: The fallacies of Corporate Education Reform

Seattle Schools Community Forum: The fallacies of Corporate Education Reform:

The fallacies of Corporate Education Reform

Corporate Education Reformers may have a lot of business expertise, but that knowledge and skill does not translate to public education. They don’t seem to realize that almost nothing they have learned from the private sector is applicable in the public sector.

• Competition doesn’t work the way they think it does.
• They don’t seem to understand that schools have finite capacity.
• They don’t seem to understand what it takes to start a school.
• They don’t know what drives academic achievement.
• They don’t seem to understand the needs of students.
• Their focus on productivity is misplaced.
• They don’t recognize teachers as professionals.
• They don’t seem to understand that all teachers need the union to protect their jobs.
• They don’t seem to understand which school costs are fixed and which are variable

Their first and fundamental mistake is that they have trouble understanding is that the profit motive, which is the force that drives everything in the private sector, is absent from the public sector. All of the rules, practices, models, and incentives that they know and espouse are predicated on the presence of the profit motive, and are therefore invalid because the profit motive just isn’t there.

“Competition makes things better. Schools will improve when they have to compete.”

The absence of the profit motive negates the benefits they expect from competition. Charter schools, vouchers, and school choice are all supposed to improve schools through competition. And yet they don’t. They don’t because school choice doesn’t create competition among schools for students; it creates competition among students for schools. So long as school attendance is compulsory, every student must find a seat at a school somewhere. And so long the capacity of the school system is about equal to the Seattle Schools Community Forum: The fallacies of Corporate Education Reform:

Schools Matter: Facebook Bamboozles the New York Times Again About What Goes On In Schools

Schools Matter: Facebook Bamboozles the New York Times Again About What Goes On In Schools:

Facebook Bamboozles the New York Times Again About What Goes On In Schools

 NOTE: Following Stephen Krashen's injunction that Somewhere/Sometime Someone at the New York Times reads the letters we send, and that's why we must keep sending them, I sent a very much shortened version of this piece. Long or short, I know that few people can grasp what student choice means in the classroom.

 by Susan Ohanian

What passes for student choice in this  Facebook- Summit charter school set-up (Facebook HelpsDevelop Software That Puts Students in Charge of Their Lesson Plans) described in the New York Times illustrates how easily some people are bamboozled by technological pizazz. Offering a 12-year-old the option of spending three days  on a lesson module on the Roman Empire  instead of one day or six-- before he slogs on to the required study of medieval Europe, then Islam, the Aztecs, Reformation, Renaissance, and the Scientific Revolution--is serving up refried E. D. Hirsch imperatives, not choice. Because New York Times education coverage is devoted to tidiness, the reporters fail to notice that the  power of technology is being trivially used just to help children rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic.

To embrace student choice is to embrace messiness.

For those interested in actual student choice for the long haul and not just small options for tomorrow's output, once again  I offer Jack, the most obnoxious kid in an alternative public high school filled with obnoxious kids kicked out of the regular high school. When I showed Jack  an article in Harper's about Scrabble hustlers in New York City, he noted that serious players preferred the Funk and Wagnall's Dictionary. I insisted that  our American Heritage Dictionary would surely be adequate for launching his Scrabble career,  but Jack pestered until I ordered Funk and Wagnall's.  Admittedly, I felt pretty good about telling my supervisor that a student had requested a dictionary recommended in Harper's.

Jack took the Scrabble board and the new dictionary to a back corner of the room and he stayed there all day, every day, for six months. Drawing my teacher savvy from psycholinguist Frank Smith's observation that when a student persists at the same irregular activity, doing it over and over, he isn't wasting time, isn't trying to get out of real work;  he persists at that activity Schools Matter: Facebook Bamboozles the New York Times Again About What Goes On In Schools:

Class Privilege 101 – EduShyster

Class Privilege 101 – EduShyster:

Class Privilege 101

College forces middle-class culture onto students. Former poor-kid-in-college Rita Rathbone says that’s a problem.

By Rita RathboneI was really intrigued by the recent discussion about college and disadvantaged students. Research is showing us that those who come from poverty still earn less in their lifetime even with a college degree than those from more affluent backgrounds. And those are the students who actually finish.  Far too many low-income students rack up large amounts of debt, but fail to graduate. In the long run, they are worse off. These are profoundly important facts to inform our discussions around education policy. This matters to me because I am a public school teacher and education scholar. It matters even more to me because I once was a poor kid in college.

I was born and raised in Southern Appalachia in one of the many lingering pockets of extreme rural poverty in America. Not only was my family and most of my community impoverished, we were culturally and physically isolated. Violence and alcoholism were common fixtures. My mother was a product of the foster care system, my father struggled with an undiagnosed learning disability, and I had a special needs sibling. I graduated in the top 5% of my class with a 4.65 GPA despite working 35-40 hours per week, starting the week of my 16th birthday. I was a first generation college student. I am sure I would have been a dream come true for an Ivy League admissions officer in search of a scholarship recipient. I didn’t apply to any Ivy League schools, though. I attended the closest public university to me, 30 miles away. And I only did that instead of going to the local community college because I was offered a scholarship to become a teacher, something that I was passionate about.

I also tried to quit three separate times. By quit, I mean car-packed-up-and-driving-away-in-the-middle-of-the-semester quit. This would have been a disaster for me as Class Privilege 101 – EduShyster:

Webinar: Strategies for Lifting All Children Up | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Webinar: Strategies for Lifting All Children Up | Schott Foundation for Public Education:

Webinar: Strategies for Lifting All Children Up

What will it take to ensure that all children have an opportunity to learn, regardless of their background or which school they attend? This is the question we discussed during our latest webinar, “Strategies for Lifting All Children Up," part of Schott Foundation’s Grassroots Education Series on July 28.

During the webinar, Executive Director Kevin Welner of the National Education Policy Center and Executive Director Taryn Ishida of Californians for Justice discussed the importance of systemic reforms, not just school-centric reforms, when working to close the opportunity gap — and both are urgently needed.

Welner addressed the fact that kids who live in low income areas usually face “twin disadvantages” – fewer resources within and outside of schools – and urged that “responsible policy makers cannot avoid the reality that closing the achievement gap means seriously addressing these multiple obstacles.” He emphasized that there are no quick fixes and that a deep sustained reform is needed. In moving forward, Welner proposed that we stop destabilizing the system, recognize the hurdles, and engage in the deep sustained reform that is necessary to address the wide array of pressing issues, from poverty to racism.

Taryn agreed that one doesn’t work without the other when it comes to school-centric reforms and systemic reforms. She explained that Californians for Justice’s framework is to look through the eyes of their young people, and she highlighted the value of ensuring that the people who are most impacted by these problems (youth, parents, families, and teachers) are leading the solutions.

Both Kevin and Taryn suggested that we prioritize working with others in order to maximize effectiveness. Kevin explained that by stepping outside our issue-based silos we can gain a better understanding of the whole range of lived experiences in underserved communities. Taryn urged organizations to find coalitions of people working in a different issue area in order to team up and work in broad coalitions toward shared goals.

As legendary feminist and civil rights icon Audre Lorde put it, "There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives." The power of communities and advocates coming together to organize for systemic, cross-issue social change is key to keep in mind as we work to close the opportunity gap.

View the entire webinar here:

 Webinar: Strategies for Lifting All Children Up | Schott Foundation for Public Education: