CURMUDGUCATION: Tofu Schools

CURMUDGUCATION: Tofu Schools:

Tofu Schools

The repeated claim is that charters and choice are necessary in order for students to have options and to be able to select from many different educational programs, which makes me wonder-- are public schools made out of tofu or some other featureless, uniform substance. When you slice a public school, do you uncover the same bland surface, the same unvaried material, no matter which way you slice? Is it true that the only way to find variety, choice, or selections is to set up charter schools?

I teach in a relatively rural high school, so we're not loaded with resources or money, and yet a student at my school can choose to emphasize music or the arts or attend our vocational technical school to learn welding or home health care. You can take a yearbook class to learn photography and design, or theater, or public speaking, or business technology. If you're interested in 3D printing or working in a basic-but-fun mass media lab, we can hook you up. In my department alone, we have a variety of pedagogical and personal styles; a student who passes through our building is bound to find one teacher in our department that she really clicks with.

We are most definitely built our of tofu.

In fact, I would think that our school, like most public schools, actually provides better access to variety and choice than a so-called choice system, because to switch gears ("I think I'd like to stop playing trumpet and start learning auto body repair!") doesn't require a student to withdraw, then CURMUDGUCATION: Tofu Schools:

State Board Approves California School Dashboard - Year 2017 (CA Dept of Education)

State Board Approves California School Dashboard - Year 2017 (CA Dept of Education):

State Board of Education Approves Final Elements of the New Groundbreaking Accountability System, the 
California School Dashboard

SACRAMENTO—The State Board of Education (SBE) today took the final steps in approving a landmark Accountability and Improvement System that will provide a wealth of new information to help parents, educators, and the public evaluate schools and districts, identify strengths and weaknesses, and provide targeted assistance.

Today’s actions pave the way for the system, called the California School Dashboard, to be unveiled to the public in late February or March. Next year several changes will be made to strengthen and improve the Dashboard for the 2017-18 school year when it will be fully operational.

“This completes the final pieces of a groundbreaking system to help the public better understand what is going on in our schools,” said California State Board of Education President Mike Kirst. “I look forward to the launch of the California School Dashboard later this year, but this is just the beginning. We plan to make significant improvements in future years.”

Kirst and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson thanked the California Department of Education (CDE) staff and educators throughout the state for their creativity and hard work in producing the California School Dashboard, which was years in the making.

“This ambitious system was not easy to put together,” Torlakson said. “It never would have happened without a remarkable effort by a supremely talented group of CDE staff members, help from educators throughout the state, and strong leadership from the State Board of Education.”

Torlakson said the California School Dashboard will be far more useful to parents and the public than the previous Academic Performance Index, which relied on test scores to produce one number for each school.

“This is another example of California’s national leadership,” he said. “Our students, our schools, and our districts will benefit by having so much readily available information about the performance of schools and districts in the elements needed to create a successful, positive learning environment.”

The SBE approved performance standards for the Academic Indicator, which includes student results on standardized tests for English Language Arts and mathematics, and tools to assist districts in measuring and publicly reporting their progress on two local indicators, academic standards implementation and parent engagement.

The Academic Indicator will be based on assessments of the California State Standards in English Language Arts and mathematics , which are more rigorous than the former standards and expect students to demonstrate critical thinking, analytical writing, and problem-solving skills needed to be ready for college and the 21st century job market.

For this indicator, schools and districts will be rated on how close their student test scores in English Language Arts and mathematics are to Level 3, which demonstrates that students have the knowledge and skills associated with college content readiness. To determine this, all scores will be averaged and the average will be compared to Level 3. In some cases the average will be below Level 3 and in others it will be above.

As with the other indicators, performance will be based on status, how each school or district fared last year, and change—how much they have improved or declined in the last three years. Schools will be rated based on a combination of these factors and assigned one of five performance levels. From highest to lowest: Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red.

The State Board previously approved performance standards for four state indicators: readiness for college and careers, graduation rates, progress of English learners, and suspension rates. In addition, the Board approved tools for four local indicators: basic conditions at schools, school climate, coordination of services for foster youth, and coordination of services for expelled youth.

# # # #

Tom Torlakson — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5206, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

State Board Approves California School Dashboard - Year 2017 (CA Dept of Education):

SPED Shenanigans Highlight Trouble with NOLA Charter Data - Living in Dialogue

SPED Shenanigans Highlight Trouble with NOLA Charter Data - Living in Dialogue:

SPED Shenanigans Highlight Trouble with NOLA Charter Data 

By John Thompson.

There are so many reasons why anyone interested in public education should read Marta Jewson’s latest expose of the high profile New Orleans SciTech Academy’s shenanigans when providing – and not providing – special education services. Readers should follow Jewson’s links and read The Lens’ entire series on the charter school. I’d particularly recommend her report on mid-year transfers of special education students, and ask whether it calls into question the latest research that supposedly indicates that better accountability systems can deter destructive practices of charters in New Orleans and elsewhere.

Jewson explains that the Louisiana Department of Education has found that one of NOLA’s largest charter operators, ReNEW Schools, inflated its special education needs in the 2014-15 school year, and denied students the specialized services that they deserved. The state investigation thus “found that ReNEW SciTech Academy had inflated how much extra attention it would provide to certain students, and then didn’t provide the extra help to those who really needed it.”

The state “report includes a sample of 52 education plans that were incomplete or inadequate,” and tracked down 62 kids who didn’t receive the extra instruction they needed. The state discovered that “SciTech employees planned to push as many students as they could through special-education evaluations in January 2015 ‘because school leadership had communicated that “thousands of dollars are on the line.”’”

In other words, the charter would be reimbursed for services for students who signed up by February 1, but it would not be obligated to serve those students if they then transferred. It’s no surprise that charters will enroll students before a deadline (most typically in the fall) and get paid for the entire year for students who they do not retain. However, the chronology which Jewson documents is especially important, and it should SPED Shenanigans Highlight Trouble with NOLA Charter Data - Living in Dialogue:

Teachers unions try to derail DeVos, Trump’s education pick – People's World

Teachers unions try to derail DeVos, Trump’s education pick – People's World:

Teachers unions try to derail DeVos, Trump’s education pick

Saying Republican President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee Betsy DeVos, a Michigan millionaire, hates public schools and teachers, the nation’s two big teachers unions launched a campaign to stop the Senate from confirming her to head the federal Education Department.

And the Senate’s most-prominent former teacher, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., is skeptical about DeVos, too. Murray is the top Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which will hold a Jan. 17 hearing on DeVos.

DeVos’ family became rich through Amway, a thinly veiled direct sales scheme which has been cited for paying new clients out of proceeds from old ones. She now runs other enterprises. She’s also a former chair of the Michigan GOP and a big party donor.

She’s better known in Michigan for fierce opposition to public schools, her campaign to get the GOP-run state government to eliminate teacher tenure and her advocacy of charter schools with no oversight and taxpayer-paid vouchers for parents of private school students.

That record prompted both American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, a high school history teacher from New York City, and National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen-Garcia, a pre-school teacher from Salt Lake City, to announce their unions’ strong opposition to DeVos.

Weingarten devoted much of a Jan. 9 wide-ranging speech on education policy to the DeVos nomination. Eskelsen-Garcia’s union has asked its 3.2 million members to call or e-mail their senators against DeVos. AFT has 1.6 million members.

DeVos “is the most anti-public education nominee for Secretary of Education in the history of the department and lacks the necessary qualifications and experience to be the nation’s top education official,” Weingarten said.

“DeVos hasn’t taught in a public school. She hasn’t served on a school board. She never attended public school — nor did she send her kids to one. She’s a lobbyist, not an educator.

“DeVos worked in Michigan to undermine public schools and to divide communities. And now she’s poised to swing her Michigan wrecking ball all across America.”

Besides the voucher schemes, Weingarten reminded her listeners that DeVos’ charter schools – unlike similar charter schools elsewhere – lack accountability. As a result, DeVos’ showcase charter school system, in financially troubled Detroit, produces worse education for the kids. And the Detroit system also lets failed charter schools open more schools, she said.

“What is the result of all this? Student performance has declined across Michigan. Nearly half of all its charter Teachers unions try to derail DeVos, Trump’s education pick – People's World:

Education Words to Know Ahead of the DeVos Hearing - The Atlantic

Education Words to Know Ahead of the DeVos Hearing - The Atlantic:

The DeVos Hearings: A Crib Sheet
Prepare to hear “school choice” a lot. Here’s what it actually means.

The Trump administration could bring to the fore some education terms that have been largely overlooked in recent years as it moves to dramatically change the way students learn in the United States. And officials and advocacy groups will throw around other words that are commonly heard but not always thoroughly understood. As Congress prepares to decide whether President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for education secretary, Betsy DeVos, is fit for the job, it’s worth reviewing what some of the words and phrases that will be floating around in the coming days and months actually mean:

School choice: Trump and DeVos have repeatedly said they are fans of school choice. It’s a phrase that backers of charter schools (see that definition below) often use to avoid the more contentious “charter” wording. Broadly, proponents of school choice say they want students to be able to attend whatever school they and their families decide is best, whether it’s the traditional public school down the street or a charter across town. Sometimes, people also argue that school choice means parents should be able to use taxpayer dollars to send their kids to private schools, too.

Vouchers: About that public money to pay for private school … That’s where vouchers come in. Vouchers, which Trump and DeVos have both backed and which are opposed by many Democrats, let families use government money to pay for private schools, including, sometimes, religious schools. The Trump administration has talked about creating a national voucher program, which would be unprecedented, but it already exists in various forms in several states. Understanding the variety is important. Some voucher programs are very limited—like the one in Arkansas, which is restricted to students with disabilities. The state lets families with special-needs children use public money to pay for private school, but it requires those schools to be accredited and to administer certain tests. Indiana, where Vice President-elect Mike Pence is from, has a broader voucher system that lets low-income students (in addition to students with disabilities) use public money to pay for private schools. Voucher amounts vary Education Words to Know Ahead of the DeVos Hearing - The Atlantic:

The Elephant in the Room – Fairness | VAMboozled!

The Elephant in the Room – Fairness | VAMboozled!:

The Elephant in the Room – Fairness

While VAMs have many issues pertaining, fundamentally, to their levels of reliability, validity, and bias, they are wholeheartedly unfair. This is one thing that is so very important but so rarely discussed when those external to VAM-based metrics and metrics use are debating, mainly the benefits of VAMs.

Issues of “fairness” arise when a test, or more likely its summative (i.e., summary and sometimes consequential) and formative (i.e., informative) uses, impact some more than others in unfair yet often important ways. In terms of VAMs, the main issue here is that VAM-based estimates can be produced for only approximately 30-40% of all teachers across America’s public schools. The other 60-70%, which sometimes includes entire campuses of teachers (e.g., early elementary and high school teachers), cannot altogether be evaluated or “held accountable” using teacher- or individual-level VAM data.

Put differently, what VAM-based data provide, in general, “are incredibly imprecise and inconsistent measures of supposed teacher effectiveness for only a tiny handful [30-40%] of teachers in a given school” (see reference here). But this is often entirely overlooked, not only in the debates surrounding VAM use (and abuse) but also in the discussions surrounding how many taxpayer-derived funds are still being used to support such a (purportedly) reformatory overhaul of America’s public education system. The fact of the matter is that VAMs only directly impact the large minority.

While some states and districts are rushing into adopting “multiple measures” to alleviate at least some of these issues with fairness, what state and district leaders don’t entirely understand is that this, too, is grossly misguided. Should any of these states and districts also tie serious consequences to such output (e.g., merit pay, performance plans, teacher The Elephant in the Room – Fairness | VAMboozled!:

New board takes reins at Detroit schools

New board takes reins at Detroit schools:

New board takes reins at Detroit schools

Detroit— A new era officially began Wednesday for the Detroit Public Schools Community District.

Seven new school board members took an oath to serve the state’s largest school district’s children before an auditorium of parents, students, faculty and community members.

It is the first elected body in seven years to oversee academic affairs for the 45,150-student district. The community fought hard to restore local control after being under emergency management since 2009. The reinvented district, which struggled with finances and student performance for years, received a $617 million in state aid that wiped out $467 million of the district’s debt and gave $150 million in startup money for the renamed district.

“I just think this is an incredible day in the city of Detroit and everyone should be celebrating,” interim Superintendent Alycia Meriweather said.

Meriweather described the new school board as “extremely intelligent, committed, passionate, compassionate, creative.”

The new board members include a retired hospital CEO, a former Wall Street investor, a former superintendent and the community relations director for UAW Ford, among others. They all have strong ties to the city, and most are graduates of the school district.

The board members — Iris Taylor, Angelique Peterson-Mayberry, LaMar Lemmons, Georgia Lemmons, Misha Stallworth, Sonya Mays and Deborah Hunter-Harvill — say they spent 50 hours preparing for their roles since the election.

One of the board’s first orders of business will be to select a new superintendent. Meriweather said Wednesday night that she wants the job.

The district will use a search firm to find a schools chief. Stallworth said the board also has a subcommittee working on the search.

“I feel good, I’m excited about the work,” said Stallworth, who was appointed board secretary.

Taylor, who was appointed board president, said the board needs to build trust with the community.

“Our job is to continually demonstrate that we are worth trusting and that we are accountable, we’re transparent, we have integrity, we are responsible and that we are committed to the goals to facilitate excellence,” Taylor said.

The board is working with transition teams to assess the state of the district and determine what its priorities will be, Taylor said.

Board members also will decide what changes should be made to the district to boost enrollment, she said.

This group replaces an 11-member board appointed by the state during oversight by emergency managers.

The seven new members were chosen by voters in November from a field of 63 candidates. Only one of them, Lemmons, is an incumbent.

District finances, however, will still be watched by the state through a Financial Review Commission. New board takes reins at Detroit schools:

State board chooses new way of measuring school progress on tests | EdSource

State board chooses new way of measuring school progress on tests | EdSource:

State board chooses new way of measuring school progress on tests

After hours of discussion, the State Board of Education on Wednesday settled two much debated issues that will enable state officials to move ahead this year with the state’s new school accountability system.

One decision creates a different way to measure schools’ and student groups’ progress on standardized tests in math and English. The other, more contentious issue will determine which schools and districts will require intervention or technical help because their English learners did poorly on the math and English language arts tests.

In September, the board approved a framework for the new improvement and accountability system that will give a broader view of schools’ and districts’ performance through measures that will include students’ readiness for college and careers, school climate, parent engagement and academic performance. The board set a timeline for refining the State board chooses new way of measuring school progress on tests | EdSource:

John Thompson: One-size-fits-all accountability creates destructive cycle - NonDoc

One-size-fits-all accountability creates destructive cycle - NonDoc:

One-size-fits-all accountability creates destructive cycle

A quote from Daniel Webster appears on the side of Harding Charter Prep's building Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2016. (Josh McBee)

The OKCPS board deserves great praise for conducting a roundtable discussion of charter schools in a retreat Monday that was open to the public.

The board was briefed on OKC’s complex history that resulted in creating 12 different charter schools in 20 locations. Different charter contracts were negotiated over time as the history of school choice unfolded. As a result, today’s charters provide very different academic programs to incomparably different student populations.

My only complaint about the board’s discussion: Had the exact same conversation been conducted with the exact same data to start an overview of the district’s capacity, it would have been a win-win process, but the data that the board was provided is utterly worthless for accountability or decision-making purposes.

No, the data is worse than worthless. Until we all, not just education leaders, realize that schools are forced to use primitive metrics that can barely provide apples-to-watermelon comparisons, we will continue this charade. Until a firewall is created to separate these numbers from accountability processes, high-poverty systems like the OKCPS will be in jeopardy.

In short, the OKCPS is now responsible for holding charters and traditional public schools accountable using student-performance and demographic data that is not up to the task.

Grading system for schools shared, flawed

As Superintendent Aurora Lora said during the meeting, the A-F Report Card data presented to the roundtable only gives “ballpark” indicators of performance. Even one-One-size-fits-all accountability creates destructive cycle - NonDoc:

Randi Weingarten doesn't share Jeb Bush embrace of Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary - SaintPetersBlog

Randi Weingarten doesn't share Jeb Bush embrace of Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary - SaintPetersBlog:

Randi Weingarten doesn’t share Jeb Bush embrace of Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary

Though education was rarely discussed by Donald Trump on the campaign trail, at the top of his list of priorities was to spend $20 million on school choice, which would come from “reprioritizing federal dollars.” In picking Michigan billionaire Betsy DeVos to serve as his Education Secretary, he made it clear that intended to make school choice and voucher plans for low-income families a focal point of his education agenda.

And Jeb Bush has been effusive in praising the selection every step of the way.

In November, the former Florida Governor described DeVos as an “outstanding pick” for to lead the Department of Education. In December, he said he was “so excited” when talking about her at the National Summit on Education Reform, sponsored by the Foundation for Excellence in Education, which he founded and chairs and on which DeVos serves as a board member.

Now, just before her confirmation hearing was set to take place (since postponed until next week), Bush is back again, penning a letter to the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where DeVos will appear next week. In the note, he praises her as a “champion of families, not institutions.”

“For her, local control of education decisions means local control,” he wrote. “She trusts parents to choose what is in their unique child’s best interests, and she believes in providing every parent with the resources to pursue those decisions.”

DeVos is a leader in the movement to privatize the U.S. public-education system but has quickly become a lightning rod in the education world since her nomination by the president-elect.

One of her biggest critics is Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, the one-million-member-plus union that endorsed Hillary Clinton in November’s presidential election. She says that DeVos simply doesn’t believe in public education.

“These are the schools that 90 percent of children go to,” Weingarten told FloridaPolitics on Monday afternoon. “The job of an education secretary, not a lobbyist, but an education secretary, is to strengthen and improve public schools. Her entire ideology, her zealousness, her lobbying for the last two-to-three decades has been to undermine public education.”

Weingarten said that was most evident in the past year in Michigan, where she says DeVos “fought aggressively against the consensus” that the establishment in Detroit had envisioned recreating a public school system.

One of DeVos’ various groups, the Great Lakes Education Project, supported an A-F accountability system that the state created for Detroit. But POLITICO reports that the group fought back hard against a proposed Detroit commission focused on improving both charters and traditional schools, contending it would be beholden to the city’s mayor and school district officials.

“Her antipathy towards public schools is something that she has worn proudly on her sleeve,” says Weingarten.

Bush’s embracing of DeVos isn’t just turning off officials with the teacher’s unions. As quickly became apparent on the campaign trail in early 2015, the one-time presidential candidate’s support for federal Common Core standards was a big turnoff for some conservative groups.

Jane Robbins, a senior fellow with the American Principles Project in Washington, penned a column on the Townhall website calling DeVos selection “Jeb’s Revenge.”

“Jeb Bush and his ideological compatriots, including DeVos, advance what could be called a Randi Weingarten doesn't share Jeb Bush embrace of Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary - SaintPetersBlog:

Parental Discrimination Lawsuits on the Rise - The Atlantic

Parental Discrimination Lawsuits on the Rise - The Atlantic:

The Revolt of Working Parents

Mothers—and some fathers—are increasingly suing employers for discriminating against working parents. They are succeeding.

“There is no way you can be a good mother while achieving what I aspire."

“Let’s face it. It’s a man’s world. The woman always stays home with the child.”

“It’s hard to do this job with two kids.”

These are just a few phrases working mothers reported hearing from their supervisors when discussing promotions or demotions, according to recent court filings. The subtle—and sometimes overt—perception illustrated by these statements—that mothers are less devoted to their jobs than childless workers—has been dubbed “the Maternal Wall” or “the New Glass Ceiling.” This has led to a wave of claims of gender discrimination based on parental responsibilities, which now make up a growing number of lawsuits against American employers.

In the past decade, the number of caregiver-discrimination lawsuits has tripled compared to the previous decade, according to research from the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, San Francisco. Between 2006 and 2015, researchers found that more than 3,000 such cases were decided in state and federal courts, even as overall federal job-discrimination claims were declining. This growing number of lawsuits includes claims from mothers, fathers and those who take care of ill or disabled relatives. These aren’t baseless lawsuits either, as more than half have led to compensation for victims—a higher-than-average success rate for job-discrimination claims.

In a major class-action lawsuit filed last summer, seven high-level female employees of the software developer, Qualcomm, sued the company on behalf of more than 3,000 female workers for gender discrimination, including motherhood discrimination. The women claimed that they were repeatedly passed over for advancement in favor of less-qualified male employees. They believe this explains why women make up only 5 percent of senior management positions at the San Diego-based tech firm, and only 5 percent of top engineering positions. “Qualcomm maintains an unwritten policy of disparately rewarding employees who work late into the night over employees who choose to arrive early and leave at the end of a normal work-day. This policy disparately impacts and causes the Company to undervalue caregivers of school-aged children ... These common policies stigmatize employees with caregiving responsibilities and disproportionately penalize women,” they wrote in their complaint.

One of the plaintiffs, a senior-level market analyst and working mother, said that she was passed over for promotions in favor of substantially less-qualified male Parental Discrimination Lawsuits on the Rise - The Atlantic:

Will Betsy DeVos Restart The ‘Education Wars’?

Will Betsy DeVos Restart The ‘Education Wars’?:

Will Betsy DeVos Restart The ‘Education Wars’?

Education, which was hardly ever mentioned in the recent presidential election, has suddenly been thrust to the frontline in the increasingly heated conflict over President-Elect Donald Trump’s proposed cabinet appointees. The reason for that turn of events is his choice of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. Her nomination risks “reigniting the education wars,” according to Randi Weingarten, the leader of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second largest teachers union.

Weingarten stated that warning in an address this week at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, and broadcast live on the AFT Facebook page.

The union leader joins a chorus of education leaders and activists, as well as Democratic party government officials on Capitol Hill, in calls to delay the hearing for DeVos until after government ethics officials have finished their review of DeVos’ numerous ties to financial and charitable interests. After these calls for delay, the confirmation hearing was indeed postponed for a week.

But what education wars?

During her address, Weingarten referrs to the passage of new federal education legislation in 2015, the Every Student Succeeds Act, that resolved many of the disputes over testing, teacher evaluation, and test-based “accountability” provisions that had been instigated by the previous federal law, No Child Left Behind.

Weingarten calls the consensus over ESSA “hard won” and “positive progress” in the way Republicans and Democrats could work together to govern the nation’s schools. But in Trump’s Will Betsy DeVos Restart The ‘Education Wars’?:

The Long Shadow of Poverty and School Segregation by Income | janresseger

The Long Shadow of Poverty and School Segregation by Income | janresseger:

The Long Shadow of Poverty and School Segregation by Income

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One of the serious problems posed by the likely Trump administration’s policy on public education is that it sidesteps entirely the deeply troubling challenges on the ground for children and their teachers.  While the only education idea being mentioned by the new administration is the rapid expansion of privatization—a kind of school choice which has shown itself not only to be unavailable to the poorest children but also threatening to the financial stability of the public schools in the poorest communities, there is indisputable evidence that the standardized test scores by which we now judge schools derive far more from poverty and economic segregation than the school teachers we are blaming.  Yet addressing poverty both outside the school and inside has slipped off the radar as, once again, the proposal to privatize is being prescribed as a remedy.

Last fall’s issue of the Russell Sage Journal, The Coleman Report and Educational Inequality Fifty Years Later (Vol 2, No 5) calls our attention back to the matter we need to be considering. The journal is edited by Karl Alexander, the Johns Hopkins University sociologist who authored a longitudinal study reaching back to the 1982 first grade year of a group of Baltimore’s young adults: The Long Shadow: Family Background, Disadvantaged Urban Youth, and the Transition to Adulthood. Alexander introduces the collection of articles with a short history of 50 years of research on the topics of The Coleman Report: Is It Family or School? Getting the Question Right.  His topic and the subject of all the studies in this journal is to further untangle and identify the many strands of the opportunity gap across our nation’s schools.

Alexander explains that The Coleman Report, published in 1966, has been misconstrued over the years by those who have used it to prove that “schools make no difference” and to insist that we accept a binary explanation for school achievement as driven (or held back)  by either the school or the family.

Here, according to Alexander is what may be fairly concluded from the 1966 research of James Coleman and his colleagues: Family background is of great importance for school achievement; The Long Shadow of Poverty and School Segregation by Income | janresseger:

Conflicts of DeVos – Center for American Progress #DumpDeVos

Conflicts of DeVos – Center for American Progress:

Conflicts of DeVos
Donald Trump, Betsy DeVos, and a Pay-to-Play Nomination

Billionaire activist Betsy DeVos and her family have given a massive $4 million to the Republicans who will decide whether to confirm her as Trump’s secretary of education, according to a new analysis by the authors.

DeVos’ hearing begins this Wednesday, and her family has donated a quarter of a million dollars alone to the members of the education committee who are tasked with vetting her nomination. The DeVos family has given a total of more than $950,000 to 21 senators who will have the opportunity to vote on her confirmation.

On top of those direct contributions, DeVos and her family also gave $2.25 million last fall to the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC tied to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). And the family has donated over $900,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, a fundraising group for the Senate.

Altogether, that’s a $4 million bid to buy DeVos a cabinet position. While the donation tally goes back to 1980, the DeVoses gave 80 percent of it in the 2016 election cycle and 13 percent in the 2014 cycle. To uphold the ethical standards of the Senate—and avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest—senators who have received donations from DeVos and her family should recuse themselves from considering her nomination.

Unfortunately, no member of the Senate has indicated that they might step aside. Put differently, Republicans under Trump are showing that they can be bought and sold.

For her part, DeVos, a long-time Republican megadonor, has made clear that her extensive campaign donations are meant to sway policymakers. “I have decided, however, to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence,” DeVos once remarked. “Now I simply concede the point. They are right. We do expect something in return.”

It’s an approach she shares with her potential future boss, President-elect Donald Trump, who has also bragged about the political pull of his campaign donations. “I’ve given to everybody. Because that was my job,” Trump crowed at a rally last January. “I gotta give it to them. Because when I want something, I get it. When I call, they kiss my ass.”

For this analysis, the authors compiled campaign donations from DeVos and her relatives. The bulk of the $4 million comes from her and her husband, his siblings, their spouses, and his parents. Many of these relatives bundle their giving, making contributions on the same date and often in the same amount. Details are available here.

A number of media outlets and researchers have described the hundreds of millions of dollars the DeVos family has poured into right-wing causes for many years. A few have noted their pattern of giving to members of the Senate. But none have revealed a complete and up-to-date tally of her financial sway over the Senate that will consider her nomination.

DeVos has taken this pay-for-play approach before. Just consider the impact she had in her home state of Michigan last year. As a reward for passing a no-accountability charter school law in the state, the DeVos family once gave state Republicans $1.45 million in a seven-week period. That’s about an average of $25,000 a day. “A filthy, moneyed kiss” is how the Detroit Free Press’ editorial page editor described the lobbying effort.

If Michigan was a kiss of graft, though, Congress might soon be an orgy of corruption. DeVos will have her hearings in front of five members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, or HELP, who have taken enormous checks from her and her relatives—interestingly, all in the last two election cycles.

It’s worth a closer look at the DeVos family donations to the HELP members. Sen. Tim Scott (R–SC) has received $49,200 from the DeVos family and was a keynote speaker at DeVos’ American Federation for Children annual summit in May 2016. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) has received at least $70,200 from the DeVoses. Two other HELP committee members, Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), each have received $43,200 from the family. Newly elected Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), who has joined the HELP committee, got $48,600 from the DeVos family in 2016.

Unless these senators remove themselves from the nomination process, it appears that Conflicts of DeVos – Center for American Progress:

Big Education Ape: DeVos hearing delayed: Call the HELP committee members today - Network For Public Education #DumpDeVos - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2017/01/devos-hearing-delayed-call-help.html

Friends - Please Do What You Can To Support Wait, What? - Wait What?

Friends - Please Do What You Can To Support Wait, What? - Wait What?:

Friends – Please Do What You Can To Support Wait, What?

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Jersey Jazzman: Will NJDOE Turn Charter School Teachers Into Indentured Servants?

Jersey Jazzman: Will NJDOE Turn Charter School Teachers Into Indentured Servants?:

Will NJDOE Turn Charter School Teachers Into Indentured Servants?

Last week, the New Jersey state Board of Education held hearings on regulatory changes for the state's charter schools. Probably the most significant -- and most controversial -- of the Christie administration's proposed revisions were changes to the certification requirements for charter school teachers.

Basically, the Department of Education wants to create a new certification just for charter school teachers. From what I can tell from reading the proposed regulations (available at NJ Spotlight), a prospective teacher who did not go through traditional college-based training -- what's referred to as an "alternative route" -- would follow a different path toward getting certified than would an alt-route teacher working in a public school.

A quick primer on alt-route: in New Jersey, there are a series of steps a prospective teacher has to take to be eligible for hiring. Once those are completed, she receives a Certificate of Eligibility (which can also be with Advanced Standing). She can then be hired by a district, which leads to a Provisional Certificate. While teaching, she takes courses and is mentored by a qualified teacher with a standard certification (I've been a mentor several times). If all goes well, the Provisional Certificate becomes Standard after a couple of years.

The ostensible reasons for all of this are:

1) No one gets to go into a classroom without at least meeting some very basic requirements. With the CE, a teacher has to have, for example, some college credits in French if they're going to teach French. They also have to take what's known as a "24-hour Jersey Jazzman: Will NJDOE Turn Charter School Teachers Into Indentured Servants?: