Huntington Park: Tiny city becomes battleground in larger war over LA charter school expansion | 89.3 KPCC

Huntington Park: Tiny city becomes battleground in larger war over LA charter school expansion | 89.3 KPCC:

Huntington Park: Tiny city becomes battleground in larger war over LA charter school expansion

The turf war over the expansion of charter schools in the sprawling Los Angeles Unified School District has found an unlikely new battleground that measures exactly 3.1 miles square: the tiny city of Huntington Park.

On Tuesday, city council members there will vote whether to extend a temporary, city-wide moratorium on building new charter schools through early September 2017 — a “timeout" that would give city planning officials an additional 10 months and 15 days to study whether and how to allow new campuses to locate in a small city already packed with 22 schools.

The conflict’s drawing attention from beyond Huntington Park's borders. Leaders of the powerful California Charter Schools Association are promising a huge turnout of fuming parents at the council’s Tuesday meeting.

Some moratorium opponents have even raised questions about whether the association’s chief political rival, L.A's largest teachers union, is behind the ordinance.

Mayor Graciela Ortiz said the ordinance does not stem from political opposition to charter schools.

In an interview, she said Huntington Park does not have enough parks, shopping centers or healthy grocery stores, but does have enough schools — and whether they're charter or district-run, she noted public schools don't generate sales tax revenues. After city officials received "a high number of inquiries" about possible charter school development, Ortiz said the city needed to research how to move forward.

"Our kids have options," Ortiz said. "So now we need to address other quality of life Huntington Park: Tiny city becomes battleground in larger war over LA charter school expansion | 89.3 KPCC:

Schools Matter: Moral Necessity and the NAACP Charter Moratorium, Part 1

Schools Matter: Moral Necessity and the NAACP Charter Moratorium, Part 1:

Moral Necessity and the NAACP Charter Moratorium, Part 1

Get 20% Off w/code: RLEGEN16

Work Hard, Be Hard: Journeys Through "No Excuses" Teaching, By Jim Horn, 9781475825794 | Rowman & Littlefield - https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781475825794/Work-Hard-Be-Hard-Journeys-Through-%22No-Excuses%22-Teaching

Principal Jondré Pryor of KIPP South Fulton Academy (KSFA) is just one among many corporate education reform schoolers who are wringing their hands over the NAACP's 2016 decision to support a strongly-worded resolution calling for a moratorium on the spread of privately-operated charter schools (see resolution at bottom of this page).  

Rather than accepting the possibility that NAACP members have read and heard about too many child abuse cases at "no excuses" charters to remain silent any longer, Mr. Pryor claims the problem is simply a matter of NAACP delegates suffering from an overload of "misinformation.  Pryor says,

I came to understand the NAACP’s position a little better when I attended a panel on education with several of my KIPP colleagues and when I talked one-on-one with several delegates. It became clear that misinformation was the basis for their opposition. They had heard stories about a few bad charter schools, and they were using that to judge all 6,800 schools in the movement. There have been some terrible stories about charter schools, just as we’ve all read terrible stories about traditional public schools and private schools. Those are unfortunate, embarrassing, disheartening exceptions.

"Embarrassing, disheartening exceptions?"  How about Mr. Pryor's own KIPP school, where he has been principal for the past eight years?  Mr. Pryor could have mentioned in his October 9 essay published by theAtlanta Journal-Constitution that his first year at KSFA was marred by news stories of student mistreatment and abuse, which resulted in at least seven parents yanking their children from his school:Schools Matter: Moral Necessity and the NAACP Charter Moratorium, Part 1:

CURMUDGUCATION: Student$Fir$tNY Bankrolls GOP

CURMUDGUCATION: Student$Fir$tNY Bankrolls GOP:

Student$Fir$tNY Bankrolls GOP

StudentsFirstNY launched back in 2012, an Empire State spin-off of the StudentsFirst orgnization launched by former DC chancellor, She Who Will Not Be Named. She was always nominally a Democrat (check out this awesomely non-prescient article from 2012 that says she's taking over the Democratic Party), but the NY branch of StudentsFirst was formed by Jenny Sedlis, who worked with Eva Moskowitz (theoretically a Democrat) to build Success Academy, with an assist from Joel Klein (also theoretically a Democrat) for the express purpose of backing Mayor Mike Bloomberg (originally Democrat, elected as mayor as Republican, but later switched to Independent because when you're really rich, you just form your own party).

StudentsFirstNY has thrown lots of its weight behind busting the union more rigorous and punishing teacher evaluations and flexing its political muscles, as well as pursuing the Moskowitzian ideal of a world in which charter school operators don't ever have to answer to anyone about anything but can just sit on their giant pile of money, untroubled by the little people. Because the children really want to see folks get rich from education.

All of that appears to be continuing in the present election cycle, in which StudentsFirstNY has decided that what the children of NY really want is more Republicans in the legislature (who knew the children were so interested in party politics). The children of New York also wish that Bill DeBlasio wasn't mayor, and StudentsFirstNY has been working hard to speak up for all those children, putting together lots of tv spots about how DeBlasio is after your money and no Democrats should be sent to Albany to help him. So supporting GOP candidates by attacking Democrats. Because these are the CURMUDGUCATION: Student$Fir$tNY Bankrolls GOP:

BRIDGEGATE TRIAL–On Monday, Bill Baroni will have a lot of explaining to do |

BRIDGEGATE TRIAL–On Monday, Bill Baroni will have a lot of explaining to do |:

BRIDGEGATE TRIAL–On Monday, Bill Baroni will have a lot of explaining to do

Bill Baroni–WSJ Photo

Bill Baroni, a defendant in the Bridgegate trial, will testify Monday and, boy, he’d better be good because, so far, his case is depending on people like Marilyn Graber who wanted the jury to know she has three “fabulous” grandchildren and lost 135 pounds at a weight loss clinic at Duke University where she met the nicest man 21 years ago. And his name was Bill Baroni.

Ok, so it’s not nice to poke fun at eager character witnesses who, after all, only want to help out a friend in a legal jam. But, aside from Christie aide Charles McKenna–who wasn’t much help–Baroni’s defense so far has called Mrs. Graber and two other character witnesses, all of whom had to admit they didn’t have the foggiest notion of the case against their friend.

So, on Monday, according to Michael Baldassare, his lawyer, Baroni will take the stand and he sure has a lot of explaining to do.  There may be one other witness before him, says Baldassare but, unless its Pope Francis coming in with inside information about how Christie himself moved the orange cones,  the testimony from whomever it is won’t make much of a difference.

Baroni is likely to make a good witness. He’s tall and attractive and has an easy manner tinged with inclusive good humor–he doesn’t mind making jokes about himself. He is a lawyer and was a state legislator, one of the last–maybe THE last–moderate Republican to grace the Statehouse.

As Baldassare said in his opening several years ago–no, it was just four weeks–he was too moderate for the incoming Christie administration (he supported gay marriage and family leave), so he was shipped out to a six-figure job at the Port BRIDGEGATE TRIAL–On Monday, Bill Baroni will have a lot of explaining to do |:

Demand the Impossible! (excerpt # 7) | Bill Ayers

Demand the Impossible! (excerpt # 7) | Bill Ayers:

Demand the Impossible! (excerpt # 7)

Bill Ayers -- Demand the Impossible!: A Radical Manifesto | Haymarket Books -http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Demand-the-Impossible

The history of US military actions is a history of conquest and genocide from the start and chaos and catastrophe ever since: invading and occupying Vietnam and then intentionally expanding that war into neighboring Laos and Cambodia as retribution for the US defeat, a disaster that cost the lives of six thousand people every week for ten years; unleashing a massive shock-and-awe attack on Iraq in 2003 that led to the breakup of that nation and the rise of several reactionary fundamentalist and terrorist formations including ISIS; orchestrating a fifty-year campaign to destabilize and topple the Cuban government; propping up nasty regimes from medieval Saudi Arabia to apartheid South Africa; overthrowing elected presidents in Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, and Chile in 1973; instigating constant civil unrest in Venezuela for fourteen years including a successful if short-lived coup in 2002; supporting the communist purge and the genocide that followed in Indonesia in the mid-1960s; participating in the murders of the African freedom fighter Patrice Lumumba in Congo in 1961, the Moroccan anti-imperialist Mehdi Ben Barka in Paris in 1965, the internationalist Che Guevara in Bolivia 1967, and the anti-colonial leader Amílcar Cabral in Guinea-Bissau in 1973; exporting billions of dollars in arms to Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, and reactionary regimes and right-wing subversives the world around. As busy and ambitious as this looks, it’s only the tip of a menacing mega-iceberg, an emblematic list as opposed to an exhaustive survey.

In any case, the swirling vortex of ruin obscures for many North Americans a central source and seed of this overwhelming maelstrom of hostility and bloodshed: the indefensible relationship between the United States and its chief client, Israel. Israel, as everyone knows, was established in 1948 by a people who had experienced the lash of anti-Semitism for centuries, and the immediate colossal horrors of the Holocaust in Europe. What’s of- ten conveniently understated or downplayed in the US, however, is that while understandably wanting to create a refuge for them- selves, the founders of the state of Israel dislodged the indigenous inhabitants and destroyed their society, forcing them to become displaced persons and refugees or second-class citizens in their own land ever since.

With generous and unwavering support from the United States, its protector, enabler, and big brother, Israel has flouted UN resolutions and international law—including nuclear agreements, the Geneva conventions, and the “laws of war”—seized Palestinian land and zealously supported the settler movement in the occupied territories with infrastructure and violent force. Israel would stand completely alone in the world if not for the dysfunctional relationship it clings to with the United States— from which it gains billions of dollars in military aid alone.

The Palestinians have the ongoing misfortune of being the victims of the twentieth century’s most notable victims—whose exceptional suffering at the hands of the Nazis is consistently trotted out to justify Israel’s own crimes against humanity. Reactionaries who dream of a Greater Israel, a Promised Land stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, plot and organize the elimination of all Palestinians one way or another. Under the banner of agony and pain, Israel unleashes murderous military attacks and conducts massive ethnic cleansing campaigns. And yet the reality on the ground is that the Palestinians and the Israeli Jews are so intertwined that there is no separation between them except for the separation of apartheid—two populations living in one land, unequal today, but not necessarily forever.Demand the Impossible! (excerpt # 7) | Bill Ayers:

In California’s charter world, a tangled web of for-profit companies and nonprofit schools - The Washington Post

In California’s charter world, a tangled web of for-profit companies and nonprofit schools - The Washington Post:

In California’s charter world, a tangled web of for-profit companies and nonprofit schools

Charter schools are in the education news these days in a bigger way than usual.

The national board of the NAACP, which has long expressed concern about charter schools, is scheduled this weekend to vote on whether to approve a resolution — passed at the group’s convention this past summer — that calls for a moratorium on their expansion. The organization has been subject to intense lobbying by charter supporters to either withdraw the resolution or defeat it, evidence of a split in the civil rights community over charters.

The charter school sector has grown over the past few decades amid a debate about its virtues and drawbacks — and even whether the publicly funded schools are actually public. Some charters do a great job, but even some advocates (though not all) are finally admitting that too many states allowed charters to open and operate without sufficient oversight.

Ohio and Utah have vied for the distinction of having the most troubled charter sector, along with Arizona, where there are no laws against conflicts of interest and for-profit charters do not have to open their books to the public. There’s also Michigan, where 80 percent of the charters are for-profit. And Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale recently issued a report and declared his state’s charter school law the “worst” in the nation. It’s a race to the bottom.

[Why California’s charter school sector is called the Wild West]

California, called the charter Wild West, deserves special attention. I have been posting a series of four reports on the state’s charter sector. This is the third.

The state has more charter schools and charter school students than any other state in the nation. One billionaire even came up with a secret plan to “charterize” half of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Among the problems:

* A report released recently by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and In California’s charter world, a tangled web of for-profit companies and nonprofit schools - The Washington Post:

The Most Important WikiLeaks Revelation Isn’t About Hillary Clinton | New Republic

The Most Important WikiLeaks Revelation Isn’t About Hillary Clinton | New Republic:

The Most Important WikiLeaks Revelation Isn’t About Hillary Clinton

What John Podesta’s emails from 2008 reveal about the way power works in the Democratic Party.

Arne Duncan was hand picked by finance industry to be Edu Sec even before the election by DFER (read here)

The most important revelation in the WikiLeaks dump of John Podesta’s emails has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton. The messages go all the way back to 2008, when Podesta served as co-chair of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team. And a month before the election, the key staffing for that future administration was almost entirely in place, revealing that some of the most crucial decisions an administration can make occur well before a vote has been cast.

Michael Froman, who is now U.S. trade representative but at the time was an executive at Citigroup, wrote an email to Podesta on October 6, 2008, with the subject “Lists.” Froman used a Citigroup email address. He attached three documents: a list of women for top administration jobs, a list of non-white candidates, and a sample outline of 31 cabinet-level positions and who would fill them. “The lists will continue to grow,” Froman wrote to Podesta, “but these are the names to date that seem to be coming up as recommended by various sources for senior level jobs.”

The cabinet list ended up being almost entirely on the money. It correctly identified Eric Holder for the Justice Department, Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security, Robert Gates for Defense, Rahm Emanuel for chief of staff, Peter Orszag for the Office of Management and Budget, Arne Duncan for Education, Eric Shinseki for Veterans Affairs, Kathleen Sebelius for Health and Human Services, Melody Barnes for the Domestic Policy Council, and more. For the Treasury, three possibilities were on the list: Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and Timothy Geithner.

This was October 6. The election was November 4. And yet Froman, an executive at The Most Important WikiLeaks Revelation Isn’t About Hillary Clinton | New Republic:

John Thompson: Harper Academy highlights charter challenges in OKC - NonDoc

Harper Academy highlights charter challenges in OKC - NonDoc:

Harper Academy highlights charter challenges in OKC 

Harper Academy is seen Thursday in northeast Oklahoma City. (William W. Savage III)

Ben Felder of The Oklahoman reports, “Two Oklahoma City charter schools are likely to be bottom 5 percent performers when the ratings are released this month — Justice Alma Wilson SeeWorth Academy and Harper Academy.”

Felder explains that “because SeeWorth is an alternative school, it is exempt from the standard.” But, Harper’s sponsor could “be required to close the school at the end of its contract or defend its decision to keep the school open to the state Board of Education.”

Even though SeeWorth still receives the lowest rankings, it is a good school (as I learned by teaching there for a semester after retiring from the OKCPS). So, the first lesson is that accountability ratings are flawed, but they can be fairly useful in the hands of reliable state officials (as is the case with the Hofmeister administration).

The second lesson is that Oklahoma City’s charter discussion needs to be more reality-based. We were spoiled by first-generation charters; OKCPS charters have been like magnet schools, and they have done good work even if they haven’t accepted their share of high-challenge students. Charter Harper Academy highlights charter challenges in OKC - NonDoc:

Teachers are expected to remain politically neutral. These Teachers of the Year say they can’t. - The Washington Post

Teachers are expected to remain politically neutral. These Teachers of the Year say they can’t. - The Washington Post:

Teachers are expected to remain politically neutral. These Teachers of the Year say they can’t.

Teachers are often expected to remain politically neutral in class, not letting their students know which candidate they support or where they stand on controversial issues.

Part of the thinking behind this position is that students could be insulted or intimidated into expressing contrary thoughts. Some parents fear that teachers could “indoctrinate” students by expressing their own views in class. As a result, many teachers are hesitant to — and often are expected not to — reveal political views.

In the unprecedented 2016 presidential election, some teachers are casting aside their neutrality to speak their mind. They say the stakes are too high in this election to stay quiet.

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They include 10 former state and national Teachers of the Year, who have written an open letter explaining why they are taking sides — in public — in this race. Here’s the letter, and you can see who signed it at the end:

We are teachers. We teach children to become better writers, readers, scientists, mathematicians, and thinkers, so they can go on to live the lives they dream. We also help children become good human beings — to work hard, to do the right thing, and above all else, to be kind to one another.

We are teachers. We are supposed to remain politically neutral. For valid reasons, we don’t want to offend our students, colleagues or community members. But there are times when a moral imperative outweighs traditional social norms. There are times when silence is the voice of complicity. This year’s presidential election is one such time.

As teachers, we welcome all children into our classrooms, regardless of the color of their skin, how much money their parents make, or their religious beliefs. That notion of equality is at the heart of what it means to be an American.

We believe that Donald Trump is a danger to our society in general and to our students in particular. His words and actions have shown a consistent disdain for human dignity. His behavior goes against everything we teach the children in our care.

We teach children that girls are just as smart, capable, and worthy of respect as boys. Donald Trump has mocked women in myriad ways, including his post-debate tirades against Alicia Machado, his off-color innuendo about FOX host Megyn Kelly, and his predatory boasts about groping.

We teach children that the content of their character, not the color of their skin, determines their worth. Donald Trump has attacked Latinos, Muslims, and Teachers are expected to remain politically neutral. These Teachers of the Year say they can’t. - The Washington Post:

State will take charter schools away from 21 sponsors slapped with "poor" ratings | cleveland.com

State will take charter schools away from 21 sponsors slapped with "poor" ratings | cleveland.com:

State will take charter schools away from 21 sponsors slapped with "poor" ratings

These key officers of charter school oversight organizations had their groups groups rated by the state today. Clockwise from the upper left are Apryl Morin of the Educational Service Center of Lake Erie West, Peggy Young of the Buckeye Community Hope Foundation, Stephanie Klupinski of the Cleveland school district and Lenny Schafer of the Ohio Council of Community Schools. (Plain Dealer staff)

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The state today slapped ratings of "poor" on 21 charter school oversight organizations, including the Cincinnati, Lorain and Youngstown school districts, starting the process of yanking away their oversight power.

All 21 are either school districts or county "education service centers," public agencies that consolidate services for multiple school districts and who sometimes help create and monitor charters.

The Cleveland school district, which oversees charter schools as part of its "portfolio" model of offering school choices, was rated as "ineffective." That was the most common rating and one that puts the district on a three-year deadline to improve or also lose charter oversight ability.

Stephanie Klupinski, who handles oversight for the district, said she hopes to appeal part of the score, which could bumo the district up to "effective" if successful. She said the state seems to have overlooked some of the documentation she submitted.

"We might be effective if we get the errors corrected," she said.

Five oversight agencies, known as "sponsors or authorizers, were rated as "effective," but none earned the highest possible rating of "exemplary."

None of the "poor" sponsors were non-profit groups like the St. Aloysius Orphanage orBuckeye Community Hope Foundation housing agency, that some consider to be non-educators and weak links in the state charter system. Some were even rated as "effective."

And most of the "poor" sponsors oversee just one or two schools, not dozens like some of the non-profits do.

"It's the folks that dabble in this with one or two schools, more than those that do a lot," said State Sen. Peggy Lehner, chair of the Senate Education Committee. 

The oversight ratings are a key part of Ohio's plan to improve its $1 billion charter school industry that is the butt of national ridicule for low academic performance. By threatening to take away oversight power if sponsors do not do a good job, state officials hope to pressure them to improve their schools.

The sponsors are not to be confused with school leaders or management companies that can run charters - public schools that are privately-run. They are the groups that offer quality control on a school's plan and should shut down poor schools that can't improve.

"If we want a quality community (charter) school sector, we need quality sponsors," said State Superintendent Paolo Demaria.

The evaluations, he said, are an important "policy lever" to separate strong sponsors from poor ones and to help weaker ones improve. 

But Peggy Young, head of the Ohio Association of Charter School Authorizers, said the ratings are unfair. Sponsors should have the same "safe harbor" from penalties that school districts have as Ohio shifts to new learning standards and state tests, she said.

She also noted that a third of the ratings is based on how well schools and sponsors comply with state law . That portion was mishandled by the state, she said, giving sponsors too little time to complete documentation.

"Just as the (state) report cards for the 2015-2016 school year released last month do not accurately reflect the quality of educational opportunities provided to Ohio's public school students, the results of the sponsor assessment do not State will take charter schools away from 21 sponsors slapped with "poor" ratings | cleveland.com:

 

Communities of Co-Creators - Bridging Differences - Education Week

Communities of Co-Creators - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

Communities of Co-Creators

Deborah Meier continues her conversation with Harry Boyte. To read their full exchange, please visit here.

Dear Harry and friends,

Well, the one good thing about being out of service for so long—with my peculiar eye condition—is that I think a lot about what to say.

Democracy is one of those topics that can be talked about substantively and operationally for ever, and has been.

This election reminds me about the limited value of being able to vote (better than not being able to)—and shout what you think from the rooftops or social media or even a letter-to-the-editor.  It's been a long time since The New York Times has published anything I sent them.

So democracies—so-called—can range from complete frauds to pretty strong and healthy vehicles for self-governance. The latter is always a compromise, since some good ideas contradict each other—or are fuzzy. If we want those who are most affected by decisions to have the most to say that runs counter to another idea—that everyone has a right to a voice and vote even if only partially affected. Should the school custodian have a voice and vote on curricular decisions? School schedules? Classroom organization?

Without democracy liberty is a joke, but with it it's often pretty close to it—if we mean (as we mostly do) my own individual right to do what I want. Who decides when what "you want" interferes with others having what "they want"? I know of no perfect solution—but that doesn't mean I'm not always seeking a better one. 

Of course the greater the inequality—means of access of media, to hiring lobbyists and researchers to back-up one's views—the harder it is to imagine any democracy having a lot of meaning. Still we've seen even in this unequal U.S. times when the rich and powerful have been defeated. But it's rare and generally requires a division of opinion and self-interest among the powerful.

But in the sense that we use the word—it assumes the existence of a community with community self-interests that are shared, although of course arguable. It's hard today to think about a community at all—some entity outside of our immediate personal circle—whose interests we would sacrifice for—if convinced.

A more full democracy assumes some locations where people easily get a range of information and opportunities to share what they think with others who think differently. Scale, of course, makes it harder. But even in small schools we had to devote more time than we imagined to create such shared conversation, and that would not have been possible if the participants didn't usually get Communities of Co-Creators - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

Policy-to-Practice Metaphors: Chain of Command, Pasta, or Medley Relay Races? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Policy-to-Practice Metaphors: Chain of Command, Pasta, or Medley Relay Races? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Policy-to-Practice Metaphors: Chain of Command, Pasta, or Medley Relay Races?

Metaphors can get people to think about the essence of organizations and how they work.

Take the U.S. Army’s command-and-control structures, generals believe that their decisions can steer what infantry platoons do in the field. Yet the metaphor of the “fog of war” and a history of misunderstanding orders at the company and platoon levels during battles suggest that even in command-and-control structures,decisions moving down the chain of authority may turn out far differently than intended. Novels and memoirs from War and Peace to Jarhead, films from The Longest Day to Platoon, and officer and enlisted men reports make that point.

School district organizational charts resemble military organizations with structures showing authority flowing downward from the board of education to teachers. Here also, the belief that policymakers can frame problems, adopt solutions, and steer classroom practice prevails. Yet school districts are hardly command-and-control operations since new policies get interpreted and re-interpreted by different actors at each link of the supposed chain of authority as they proceed downward into classrooms.

And it is in classrooms where teachers make decisions about what the policy is and which parts, if any, get implemented. What was intended by policymakers may well turn out to be something quite different. The metaphor of a linked chain for putting educational policies into practice is inapt. A better image than links in a chain is pasta to represent the policy-to-practice journey. Consider the following two examples.

Mrs. O., a veteran California second grade teacher in the late-1980s had embraced a new math curriculum aimed at replacing students’ rote memorization with mathematical understanding. A researcher observed Mrs. O teach and interviewed her many times. She saw herself as a success story, a teacher who had revolutionized her mathematics teaching. But classroom observations revealed Policy-to-Practice Metaphors: Chain of Command, Pasta, or Medley Relay Races? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Killing Teacher Prep During a Teacher Shortage: A Mystery? (Maybe Not)

Killing Teacher Prep During a Teacher Shortage: A Mystery? (Maybe Not):

Killing Teacher Prep During a Teacher Shortage: A Mystery? (Maybe Not)

Are you in the mood for a mystery?

Education Secretary John King recently came out with the intent to kill university teacher prep programs. His predecessor Arne Duncan, who never taught a day in his life, cheered him on.

They will do this by denying future teachers TEACH grants to go into teacher preparation programs. So even if you want to be a teacher, if you can’t afford college, you won’t be able to realize such a dream.

Isn’t this strange during a teacher shortage?

If anything, King should be canvasing the country to bring back teachers who are no longer teaching due to draconian reforms. There should be incentives aplenty for real teacher prep programs in our colleges of education.

Instead, King is yapping about how bad those old college programs are, and how they Killing Teacher Prep During a Teacher Shortage: A Mystery? (Maybe Not):

Pruning Teacher Education | The Merrow Report

Pruning Teacher Education | The Merrow Report:

Pruning Teacher Education

“If half of the 1400 places that train teachers went out of business tomorrow, we’d be better off.” The Harvard professor paused. “And, with very few exceptions, it wouldn’t matter which half.”

His is a widely held view of teacher education: too many institutions doing a lousy job. Most teachers I’ve met over the years weren’t happy with, or proud of, their training, which, they said,  didn’t prepare them for the ‘real world’ of teaching.

And so the question is, HOW to put half of the institutions out of business?  Should we trust ‘the market’ or rely on government regulations?

The federal government thinks that tighter regulation of these institutions is the answer. After all, cars that come out of an automobile plant can be monitored for quality and dependability, thus allowing judgments about the plant.  Why not monitor the teachers who graduate from particular schools of education and draw conclusions about the quality of their training programs?

That’s the heart of the new regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Educationthis week: monitor the standardized test scores of students and analyze the institutions their teachers graduated from.  Over time, the logic goes, we’ll discover that teachers from Teacher Tech or Acme State Teachers College generally don’t move the needle on test scores. Eventually, those institutions will lose access to federal money and be forced out of business. Problem solved!

Education Secretary John B. King, Jr., announced the new regulations in Los Angeles.  “As a nation, there is so much more we can do to help prepare our teachers and create a diverse educator workforce. Prospective teachers need good information to select the right program; school districts need access to the best trained professionals for every opening in every school; and preparation programs need  Pruning Teacher Education | The Merrow Report:

Relay Graduate School Indoctrination | Seattle Education

Relay Graduate School Indoctrination | Seattle Education:

Relay Graduate School Indoctrination

Editor’s note:

Recently, Seattle Schools Community Forum published a guest post about the Summit Atlas Public Forum that was held on September 29th. The Summit charter school chainset up in Seattle last year and there is one to open in West Seattle in 2017 even though there is a second charter school lawsuit pending in the courts as of this writing. I found three details about Summit’s new principal,  Kathryn Bubalo, very troubling. First, she is a Teach for America graduate and she worked as a teacher at a New Orleans charter school. Thirdly, Ms. Bubalo is a product of the Relay Graduate School.  Relay Graduate School, to me, is a red flag, so I wanted to share with our readers Peggy Robertson’s experience with this organization. -Carolyn Leith

Relay Graduate School Indoctrination

This blog post, and many future blog posts, are going to be focused on the Relay Graduate School indoctrination occurring in my school and many schools across the country this year, due to the Relay principal academy which occurred this past summer. Colorado folks should also know that Relay intends to set up a permanent campus here in Denver.  Relay Graduate School was created to support the needs of charter schools, specifically KIPP, Uncommon and Achievement First.  Many of the individuals who work with  Relay also publish books that detail scripted ways of teaching, disciplining and leading. If you start researching the leaders of Relay Graduate School you will see that they are ripe with all sorts of training and experience that ultimately does not equate to true experience within the field of education. And one cannot equate charter school experience (like KIPP for example) as teaching experience.

I’d call it school to prison pipeline training.

In an article for The Answer Sheet titled Is this any way to train teachers?, Carol Burris writes:

At the Relay Graduate School of Education (RGSE), teacher education that balances Relay Graduate School Indoctrination | Seattle Education:

 

A Quick Note About This 40 Under 40 List Thing | The Jose Vilson

A Quick Note About This 40 Under 40 List Thing | The Jose Vilson:

A Quick Note About This 40 Under 40 List Thing

You’re right: I don’t look under 40. I’m an old soul and I’ve stopped trying to correct folks en masse.Audrey and Chris decided to congratulate me for still being under 40. I have enough mileage in teaching years that I might disqualify myself.

But alas, I’m here.

And with that, I’d like to thank the Hispanic Coalition of New York for putting me on their list and for nominating me for their Rising Star of the Year Award. I’m used to just doing the work and vexing people in the process, so getting this type of recognition is cool. It’s more important because, as a classroom teacher, I recognize that I’m not just representing myself. As with anything I do outside of the classroom, I’m representing my students, current and present, and the educators who’ve come before and still walk this path.

With that said, I’m proud of the folks who’ve been nominated with me. As I looked through the roster, I was happy to see so many folks who do the work of serving others. I’m a glutton for public service. If that’s a thing.

If you’d like to vote for me, here are three ways to do such a thing:

1) Vote for me using this link to their website. (https://www.hcnewyork.com/2016-star-of-the-year.html) It’s at the bottom of the page.

2) For Facebook users, like my picture in their post here.

3) For Twitter users, copy and paste this tweet ->

“.@HispCoalitionNY #2016RisingStarOfTheYear #JoseLuis”

But please know, Margarita, William, and other members of the list are deserving of their recognition as well. Those of us who do the work know that we’ll be doing so in silence, when others aren’t watching. We might postpone the social gatherings and the networking opportunities because the people work is so necessary. Those papers won’t grade themselves. Those relationships won’t build themselves. Those houses won’t paint themselves. Those restorative policies won’t write themselves.

So please do vote. But also, recognize the power of the work itself. It’ll mean that much more.A Quick Note About This 40 Under 40 List Thing | The Jose Vilson:

Rich Reformers Reject Research - Living in Dialogue

Rich Reformers Reject Research - Living in Dialogue:

Rich Reformers Reject Research 

By John Thompson.

As test-driven, competition-driven school reform gets closer to scrap heap of history (at least in terms of improving schools), we will see more great journalists, such as Dana Goldstein, Dale Russakoff, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Paul Tough document its failures. We can expect more analyses where the contemporary reform movement’s defeats are cited, and the writer says that we have learned a lot more about cognitive science, teaching, and learning since accountability-driven reformers sought to scale up school improvement. It is not worth quibbling over such diplomatic statements. For the record, however, we now know much more about the reasons why output-driven, market-driven reform was a mistake, but that is only part of the story.

Long before corporate reformers began their technocratic quest, a huge body of social science explained why their top-down movement was unlikely to improve actual schools. One of the great things aboutLearning from the Federal Market-based Reforms: Lessons for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), edited by William Mathis and Tina Trujillo, is that it reviews that research as it also provides new understandings of why the test, sort, reward, and punish school of reform failed, and why it did so in such a predictable manner. Unfortunately, it also explains why the educational failure of corporate school reform might continue along with more short-term, political victories for market-driven, competition-driven policies.

Venture philanthropists at the Gates, Broad, and Walton foundations, and other members of the Billionaires Boys Club have made an incredible mess, but the problem isn’t inherent in education philanthropy. The Forward of Learning from the Federal Market-based Reforms is written by Jeannie Oakes, the former Director of Education and Scholarship of the Ford Foundation. She observes, “We have a long history of ignoring research when it is out of synch with ideology, parochial interests, or other preconceptions.” Oakes explains, “Researchers over the past 40 years have produced and replicated an enormous body of theory and evidence that explains the causes and consequences of educational inequality.”

Sadly, the contemporary reform movement sought shortcuts for battling poverty. It abandoned our “vision of a richer common good,” and replaced it with “market-based, test-driven reforms [that] have only reinforced Rich Reformers Reject Research - Living in Dialogue:

State report cards reveal test opt-out effects; With fewer Bend-La Pine juniors taking standardized test, scores go down

State report cards reveal test opt-out effects; With fewer Bend-La Pine juniors taking standardized test, scores go down:

State report cards reveal test opt-out effects

With fewer Bend-La Pine juniors taking standardized test, scores go down

State report cards for schools and school districts released Thursday point to the impact of Bend-La Pine high school juniors opting out of standardized tests.

They also show more Bend-La Pine students in grades three to five passed the English portion of the standardized test than last year, and the exact same percentage passed the math section as the year prior.

The Oregon Department of Education released the so-called report cards, which give information including how students’ Smarter Balanced standardized tests fared compared to state averages, as well as similar-school or similar-district averages.

While the score comparisons can be a useful tool for districts to analyze their performance, Bend-La Pine Schools takes into consideration standardized test participation rates, according to Jay Mathisen, deputy superintendent of Bend-La Pine Schools. Under a law that went into effect in January, students can opt out of the Smarter Balanced standardized tests. The opt-out rate for Bend-La Pine juniors was especially high, at 50 percent, because, as Mathisen pointed out, students at that age are often more worried about Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate tests, which can earn them college credit, and college admission tests.

Bend-La Pine Schools’ report shows while 64.2 percent of juniors met the English language arts standards in the 2014-15 school year, 50.6 percent met it in 2015-16.

Mathisen said the district found that a high percentage of the students who opted out of the 2015-16 Smarter Balanced tests had passed the year before. For that reason, the district sees the decreased rates of passing for juniors as unreliable data.

About 10 percent of students in grades six through eight opted out, Mathisen said, adding the district also sees scores for those students as not truly representative, because of the opt-out rate. But in grades three through five, where less than 5 percent of students opted out, Mathisen said, the district can use the data.

In English language arts, 64.7 percent of Bend-La Pine third-, fourth- and fifth-graders passed in 2015-16, compared to 61.5 percent the year before. At a 64.7 percent pass rate, those students did considerably better the state average, at 52.4 percent, and better than the average for similar districts, at 58.4 percent. Bend-La Pine students in grades three through five had the exact same percentage pass rate in math in 2015-16 as the school year before: 56.7. That percentage was higher than the state and similar districts’ average pass rates in 2015-16.

To boost the turnout rate for testing juniors, Bend-La Pine Schools is advocating for the state to allow the ACT, a college admissions test, to count as the standardized test at that grade level. Juniors are more likely to want to do well on the ACT than on the Smarter Balanced test, because Smarter Balanced doesn’t count toward grades, and college admissions don’t look at the results.

Plus, for about the past 10 years, Bend-La Pine Schools has paid for all juniors to take the ACT on State report cards reveal test opt-out effects; With fewer Bend-La Pine juniors taking standardized test, scores go down: