The facts on the US children and teens killed by firearms

The facts on the US children and teens killed by firearms

The facts on the US children and teens killed by firearms

Injury is the leading cause of death for U.S. children and adolescents, accounting for over 60% of all deaths in this group.

Many of these deaths occur during fun, everyday activities, like swimming in the backyard pool or during a family car ride. But a disproportionate and disturbing number of these deaths in the U.S. occur as a result of firearms.

Firearms are the second leading cause of death among U.S. children and adolescents, after car crashes. Firearm deaths occur at a rate over three times higher than drownings.

We have dedicated our careers to understanding violence and injury prevention, including how firearm injury and deaths happen and how they can be prevented.

Causes of injury and death due to motor vehicle crashes have steadily declined over the last 20 years, but death and injury due to firearms has remained about the same over the same period.

Firearm death rates

Since 2013, fatal firearm injuries for children and teens have risen unabated.

Rates of death from firearms among ages 14 to 17 are now 22.5% higher than motor vehicle-related death rates. In the U.S., middle and high school age children are now more likely to die as the result of a firearm injury than from any other single cause of death.

For Americans between the ages of 1 and 19, a little over half of 2017 firearm-related deaths are homicides.

Another 38% of firearm-related deaths in this age group are suicides, while the rest result from unintentional injuries or undetermined causes.

What’s more, the U.S. has had 1,316 school shootings since 1970. The numbers of these tragic events have been increasing, with 18% of the total occurring in the past seven years since the Newtown school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

School shootings are a focus of media attention and raise awareness about the problem of CONTINUE READING: The facts on the US children and teens killed by firearms

How Do Teachers Teach–Then and Now | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

How Do Teachers Teach–Then and Now | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

How Do Teachers Teach–Then and Now

Most policymakers, researchers, and parents believe that good teachers and teaching are the keys to school improvement yet these very same folks know little about how teachers teach daily. And that is the rub. Good teachers and teaching are the agreed-upon policy solutions to both high- and low-performing students yet reliable knowledge of how most teachers teach and what are the best ways of teaching in either affluent or low-income, minority schools are absent among policymakers, researchers, and parents.

How do most teachers teach?

The short answer is that teachers draw from two traditions of teaching.

From the early 19th century, teacher-centered and student-centered traditions have dominated classroom instruction. The teacher-centered tradition refers to teachers controlling what is taught, when, and under what conditions. Were you to sit for a few minutes in such a classroom you would note that the furniture is usually arranged in rows of desks or chairs facing the front whiteboard, teachers talk far more than students, the entire class is most often taught as one group with occasional small groups and independent work, and students regularly use texts to guide their daily work. Scholars have traced the origins of this pedagogical tradition to the ancient Greeks and religious schools centuries ago and have called it by various names: “subject-centered,” “teaching as transmission,” and “direct instruction.”

The student-centered tradition of instruction refers to classrooms where CONTINUE READING: How Do Teachers Teach–Then and Now | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Are 85% of TFA alumni really “working in education or careers serving low-income communities”? | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Are 85% of TFA alumni really “working in education or careers serving low-income communities”? | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Are 85% of TFA alumni really “working in education or careers serving low-income communities”?

In a recent podcast on ‘Getting Smart,’ they interviewed TFA CEO Elisa Villanueva-Beard.  At the 0:56 mark the host gave this series of numbers, straight from the TFA PR department, “Of the 53,000 alumni, 85% work in education or in careers serving low-income communities. That includes 1,260 school leaders, 471 school system leaders, 500 policy and advocacy leaders and 200 social entrepreneurs.”

A major critique of TFA is that the teachers use TFA as a way to pad their resumes — that they teach for two or maybe three years and then go on to law school, medical school, or business school.  If this 85% number is accurate, it would serve as a great counter to any critique of TFA that the corps members do not commit long enough.

Six years ago in a HuffPost editorial, Elisa Villanueva-Beard said that it was 80%.  Over the last few years this has grown, at least in theory, to 85% and it is something that is now quoted on the Teach For America website in the section about their impact.

Teach For America has a 28-year track record of advancing educational excellence and equity in the United States through our network of remarkable and diverse leaders working to expand opportunity and access for all children. With nearly 60,000 alumni and corps members in 51 regions around the country, our network now includes 14,000 teachers; 3,700 school principals, assistant principals, and deans; more than 300 school system leaders; 500 policy and advocacy leaders; nearly 200 elected leaders; and almost 200 social entrepreneurs. And while only one in five Teach For America corps members had plans to teach before applying to TFA, 85% of alumni are now working in education or careers serving low-income communities.

This 85% statistic, if to be taken literally, would mean that 43,350 out of 51,000 TFA CONTINUE READING: Are 85% of TFA alumni really “working in education or careers serving low-income communities”? | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Poll: Parents Continue to Stand Beside Educators In Fight for Funding

Poll: Parents Continue to Stand Beside Educators In Fight for Funding

Poll: Parents Continue to Stand Beside Educators In Fight for Funding

Almost eighteen months after educators ignited the #RedforEd movement to call for greater investment in our public schools, parents – and the general public – are unwavering in their support.

According to the 2019 Phi Delta Kappan (PDK) Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools, 74 percent  of parents and 71 percent of all adults say they would support a strike by teachers in their community for higher pay. Furthermore, 84 percent of parents would support a strike for more school funding, and similar numbers would support a strike for greater teacher voice in a school’s academic policies.

For the eighteenth consecutive year, adults surveyed in the PDK poll named inadequate funding as the most pressing problem facing U.S. public schools.

The PDK poll has been tracking public opinion on schools since 1969. For the first time in 18 years, the poll this year includes responses from educators.

While the #RedforEd movement has scored multiple victories in communities across the country – not only securing more education funding but also changing the national conversation around the future of public education – the movement is only getting started. Politicians now recognize that teachers and education support professionals are a force to be reckoned with, one that’s getting ready to make an impact in 2020.

“Over the last several years, hundreds of thousands of NEA members and parents CONTINUE READING: Poll: Parents Continue to Stand Beside Educators In Fight for Funding

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Governor Calls Charters Private, Makes Advocacy Group Sad

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Governor Calls Charters Private, Makes Advocacy Group Sad

PA: Governor Calls Charters Private, Makes Advocacy Group Sad

When Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf trotted out his budget last month, he made it a point to note that he was raising money for public schools-- and that he had some definite ideas about which schools are public and which schools are not.

He wants to see more of those basic education dollars to school districts get distributed through the state’s fair funding formula. He also wants to address concerns related to cyber charter schools, which he referred to as “the growing cost of privatization of education in our public schools.”

And just in case that wasn't clear enough, a press release from the governor's office was even more direct:

Pennsylvania must help school districts struggling with the problem of increasing amounts of school funding siphoned by private cyber and charter schools. Funding reform would increase transparency so all schools that receive state dollars are accountable to the taxpayers.

This made Ana Meyers sad.

This lady

Meyers is the current executive director of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public [sic] Charter Schools. She has previously worked as "Director of Legislative Affairs" for LeadingAge PA (an advocacy group for aging services providers) as well as PA Field Director for Libertarian advocacy group, FreedomWorks. Before that she co-chaired the Kitchen Table Patriots, a Tea Party group in southeastern PA, and before that sales and marketing for the likes of Nickelodeon and American Airlines. Her degrees are in business. In CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Governor Calls Charters Private, Makes Advocacy Group Sad

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Equal Right to Representation In Education - Washington

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Equal Right to Representation In Education - Washington

Equal Right to Representation In Education - Washington

I know I mentioned this new Facebook group briefly but I do want to give them applause for their incredible work.  From their Facebook page:

We advocate for the necessity of a public advocacy service to guide families and help them understand regulations of special education and also support families with other issues of justice as they relate to education. 

 This is a group with intention to ask the legislators to make changes to the laws to provide appropriate supports to families, and to brainstorm how to address the inequity of the supposed right to representation. We need to address the inequity and secure Free Appropriate Public Education for all students. 

All parents/guardians have a right to representation. Having the right to representation does not give the parents the resources to do so, so often their financial situation prevents them from executing their right. District staff has been for too long taking advantage of parents not being aware or their parental rights and their student's rights. 

School Districts have been using the tax payers’ money for legal fees to rid themselves of their legally required obligation to identify and serve students with disabilities, as well as serve Twice Exceptional students (Highly Capable Students with disabilities), bullying, students with other challenges.

There is some discussion but it is very much a sharing of resources.  Things like: CONTINUE READING: Seattle Schools Community Forum: Equal Right to Representation In Education - Washington

Charter School Advocates Fume Over Final Reform Report | Capital & Main

Charter School Advocates Fume Over Final Reform Report | Capital & Main

Charter School Advocates Fume Over Final Reform Report
California’s charter lobby remains fiercely opposed to far-reaching reforms found in a state Assembly bill.

If some public schools advocates have been less than enthusiastic about Governor Gavin Newsom’s attempts to dilute charter school reform legislation, the governor shouldn’t expect any gratitude from California’s charter lobby. Despite receiving major concessions on Assembly Bill 1505, which had been written to restore robust local control to school boards over new charter school creation, the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) remains fiercely opposed to the bill. And on the pages of EdSource last week, CCSA members were still spitting mad at the man they hold ultimately responsible — state schools supe Tony Thurmond. That’s because as chair of the governor’s California Charter School Policy Task Force, Thurmond included in its final report far-reaching reforms that CCSA opposed and that found their way into AB 1505.

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“Learning Curves” is a weekly roundup of news items, profiles and dish about the intersection of education and inequality. Send tips, feedback and announcements of upcoming events to braden@capitalandmain.com, @BillRaden. Abby Kingsley contributed to this column.

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“Both camps are unhappy with what’s going on,” observed Professor of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation and University of Kentucky College of Education dean Julian Vasquez Heilig. “This isn’t an issue that lends itself to political compromise, because in the long term, more and more charters leads to the extinction of public schools and both sides know it.”

AB 1505’s sponsor, the California Teachers Association, has maintained that the legislation significantly shifts the center of gravity over all decisions regarding new charter school creation away from Sacramento and back to the locally elected leaders best equipped for the job. The bill “limits the appeals at the state board level only if there was abuse of local discretion,” CTA spokesperson Claudia Briggs told Learning Curves last month. “AB 1505 allows school districts to consider fiscal impact on other schools in the district. It also allows authorizers to deny a charter school that would substantially undermine existing district school services.”  (Disclosure: CTA is a financial supporter of this website.)

The fact that charter law reform has dominated this summer’s Sacramento legislative session can be chalked up to Reclaim Our Schools Los Angeles (ROSLA), the undersung coalition that laid the foundation for the wide-ranging political victories scored by United Teachers Los Angeles in January’s L.A. teachers strike. The charter task force itself came out of a concession won by UTLA’s strategy of bargaining for the “common good” that went far beyond the scope of a typical labor agreement. Which makes Building the Power to Reclaim Our Schools, ROSLA’s just-released, blow-by-blow case study of its community-based organizing effort, this week’s must-read for activists across the progressive spectrum as they gird for coming battles over reforms necessary to turn back the ultimate threat to public education — California’s manufactured, post-Proposition 13 austerity.

The case study’s most important takeaway? That there’s strength in numbers. “Labor groups are very powerful,” said Cesar Castrejon, a lead parent organizer with coalition member Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. “And they have a lot of resources. So when they use those resources to create spaces where they can amplify and lift up community voices, it creates this sense of unity that gives the community the ability to flex its power. That’s why we were so successful.”

The one in five female students that research says will be victimized by sexual misconduct during their college years now have someone other than Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to worry them. Namely, John Doe, an anonymous, former Michigan State student accused of sexual assault, who is bringing a prospective class-action lawsuit that CONTINUE READING: Charter School Advocates Fume Over Final Reform Report | Capital & Main

US militarizes schools, day cares as gun violence spikes to war levels - Business Insider

US militarizes schools, day cares as gun violence spikes to war levels - Business Insider

The US is militarizing its schools and day cares because its gun violence rates are comparable to failed countries and war zones

• The US ranks within the 20 countries with the highest rates of gun-related deaths per 100,000 citizens, joining El Salvador, which is one of the world's most violent places, and Afghanistan, which the Global Peace Index named 2019's least peaceful country.
• Schools, police, and other institutions are increasingly militarizing their response to mass shootings to counter attackers carrying infantry-style, high-capacity weapons who may wear body armor.
• Active-shooter drills and armed guards in schools have been the response to mass shootings in public places, particularly schools and even day cares.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Two more horrific mass shootings over the weekend again highlight the gun-related homicides plaguing the US. The problem is so severe, the data suggests, that US gun-violence rates are comparable with those in failed states and war zones.

Data compiled by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation for 2016 shows that the US ranked second in the total number of firearm-related deaths — only Brazil had more. Rounding out the top six were Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and Guatemala, all of which have been plagued by drug- and gang-related violence or serious political instability. And the US ranks within the 20 countries with the highest rates of gun-related deaths, with 10.6 deaths per 100,000 citizens, joining El Salvador, which is one of the world's most violent places, and Afghanistan, which the Global Peace Index named 2019's least peaceful country.

While the US isn't engaged in active conflict on its own soil, the type of gun violence that causes so much angst and gets so much attention in the US — mass shootings in public places — resembles violent conflict in war zones and failed states, as does the response to it. CONTINUE READING: US militarizes schools, day cares as gun violence spikes to war levels - Business Insider

The Welcome Back Letter I’d Love to Give My Students – But Can’t | gadflyonthewallblog

The Welcome Back Letter I’d Love to Give My Students – But Can’t | gadflyonthewallblog

The Welcome Back Letter I’d Love to Give My Students – But Can’t

I’m a very lucky guy.

I get to teach language arts in an amazing urban middle school in Western Pennsylvania.

I have reasonable autonomy, opportunities to collaborate with my co-workers and strong union protections.

Even so, I know there are a lot of teachers out there who don’t have those things.

Yet even after counting all my blessings, I still can’t do whatever I want. I can’t even do everything that my years of academic training and experience tells me would be best for my students.

Every year I’m told that my worth as a professional is mainly defined by student test scores – that I should use those scores to drive my entire class, that my major goal should be increasing the scores and my every waking moment should be spent examining past scores.

Every year I have to watch out for this data metric and do that much more work because my district has lost even more funding to the vampire charter school in our CONTINUE READING: The Welcome Back Letter I’d Love to Give My Students – But Can’t | gadflyonthewallblog

2020 Candidates Views on Gun Control: A Voter’s Guide - POLITICO

2020 Candidates Views on Gun Control: A Voter’s Guide - POLITICO

2020 Candidates Views on Gun Control: A Voter’s Guide

The politics of gun control have played a role in decades of presidential elections, but advocates for the movement appear poised to make their greatest gains yet should a Democrat defeat Donald Trump in 2020.

The White House hopefuls are describing recent mass shootings as indicative of an urgent, uniquely American emergency — casting subsequent inaction as among the most glaring moral failings in recent U.S. history.

And national Democrats, united in a visceral opposition toward gun lobbies such as the National Rifle Association, remain galvanized by the wave of activism still emanating from last year’s tragedy at a high school in Parkland, Florida.

Gun Control

Assault Weapons

How should the government regulate the deadliest varieties of firearms?

17 candidates have declared a position

There are three policy positions outlined so far.

Gun Control

Background Checks

How should purchasers of lethal weapons be vetted in America?

16 candidates have declared a position

There is one policy position outlined so far.

CONTINUE READING: 2020 Candidates Views on Gun Control: A Voter’s Guide - POLITICO

A Guide To Discussing Race With Your Students - Teacher Habits

A Guide To Discussing Race With Your Students - Teacher Habits

A Guide To Discussing Race With Your Students

Guest Writer: Ali Andrews

The reluctance to discuss racism in American public schools actively harms students of color. 

While structural racism shapes their lives, the topic goes largely unaddressed in schools, often by educators who simultaneously enact discriminatory policies. Opening up discussions of race in the classroom is essential for engaging with students’ realities and enabling them to understand and cope with trauma.

Students of color deal with American racism on a daily basis, living “under a survival mentality” (PDF, 277 KB) that schools fail to acknowledge and support; this is described in the First Book Social Issues Impact Survey (PDF, 277 KB). According to the report, children most often initiate discussion in school on the topics of racism, immigration policies and police enforcement, all of which teachers feel ill-equipped to address. 

Additionally, students of color face active discrimination within school, with harsher discipline and disproportionately high suspension rates. According to the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (PDF, 2.1 MB), Black students account for 16 percent of the student population; however, they make up 32–42 percent of suspended or expelled students and are suspended and expelled at a rate three times greater than White students. 

Interventions are clearly required at a macro level. Public school teachers—who, according to the United States Department of CONTINUE READING: A Guide To Discussing Race With Your Students - Teacher Habits

Gov. Tom Wolf calls charter schools ‘private,’ draws heated response from their largest advocacy group - pennlive.com

Gov. Tom Wolf calls charter schools ‘private,’ draws heated response from their largest advocacy group - pennlive.com

Gov. Tom Wolf calls charter schools ‘private,’ draws heated response from their largest advocacy group

To say Gov. Tom Wolf struck a nerve with the charter school community when he recently referred to their schools as “private” is putting it mildly, but his administration is not backing away from that description.

An organization representing those schools sent Wolf a letter on Thursday voicing their “grave concerns” about his comments as well as his perception of charters, which are public schools that operate independently of school districts.

“I am shocked that you and your staff are unaware that none of Pennsylvanian’s charter schools [brick-and-mortar or cyber] are private or for-profit institutions,” states the letter signed by Ana Meyers, executive director of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, the state’s largest organization representing charter schools.

“I would have thought that a governor who has championed public education like you have over the past four-plus years would know better. I believe that you would have a much better understanding of how charter schools operate in Pennsylvania if you took the time to visit a few of them.”

Wolf referred to charter schools as “the privatization of education in our public schools” at a July news conference celebrating historic funding increases for public schools included in the 2019-20 budget. In a news release about that event, he lamented the “increasing amounts of school funding siphoned by private cyber and charter schools” and called for increased accountability of the public funds flowing to charter schools.

According to the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials, school districts paid charter schools more than $1.8 billion last year, CONTINUE READING: Gov. Tom Wolf calls charter schools ‘private,’ draws heated response from their largest advocacy group - pennlive.com

Parents reflect on case to be reviewed by U.S. Supreme Court - Daily Inter Lake

Daily Inter Lake - Front Page Slider, Parents reflect on case to be reviewed by U.S. Supreme Court

PARENTS REFLECT ON CASE TO BE REVIEWED BY U.S. SUPREME COURT

Kalispell parents Kendra Espinoza and Jeri Anderson and Bigfork parent Jaime Schaefer are the faces of a Montana case regarding religious schools and funding that will have its day in the United States Supreme Court.

What originated as a lawsuit in December 2015 (Espinoza versus the Montana Department of Revenue) now has school choice, separation of church and state, public and private school advocates across the nation weighing in and waiting for the Supreme Court to decide whether or not invalidating a religiously neutral student-aid program violates the U.S. Constitution’s religion clauses or equal protection clause.

The parents’ involvement in the case dates back to 2015 when the Montana Legislature passed an unprecedented law providing a tax credit, up to $150, for donors supporting scholarships for private schools.

The children of Espinoza, Anderson and Schaefer receive scholarships to help cover the cost of tuition to attend Stillwater Christian School in Kalispell.

The lawsuit was filed not long after the Montana Department of Revenue issued an administrative rule restricting tax credit eligibility to donations for scholarships that supported non-religious, private schools only. Nearly 90 percent of the otherwise eligible private schools in Montana have a religious affiliation.

The state contended that allowing those tax credits to incentivize donations to religious schools would violate the Montana Constitution’s prohibitions on funding religious organizations.

In December 2018, the Montana Supreme Court reversed a Flathead District Court ruling in favor of the three parents and invalidated the entire tax-credit scholarship program.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would review the state court ruling.

About 7,000 to 8,000 cases are filed in the U.S. Supreme Court each term. The court reviews CONTINUE READING: Daily Inter Lake - Front Page Slider, Parents reflect on case to be reviewed by U.S. Supreme Court

Big Education Ape: If The Supreme Court Hears This Case, It Could Change The Face Of Public Education - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/06/if-supreme-court-hears-this-case-it.html