CURMUDGUCATION: Finn And Hess Accidentally Argue For Teacher Tenure

CURMUDGUCATION: Finn And Hess Accidentally Argue For Teacher Tenure

Finn And Hess Accidentally Argue For Teacher Tenure

Chester Finn (honcho emeritus, Fordham Institute) and Rick Hess (AEI education guy) are concerned about the threat of rampant wokeness, particularly in the reformster universe. And they are not afraid to exercise some strenuous prose in service of the point:

School reformers have long seen themselves as plucky champions of change. Today, however, as funders and advocacy groups chant from a common hymnal of wokeness, the rules have changed and courage is hard to find. In its place we see cravenness and appeasement from reformers desperate to avoid the all-seeing eye of the progressive mob.

Hess has been particularly alarmed by the ousting of Steven Wilson from the helm of Ascend charter network. Wilson (who is white) has impeccable reformy credentials-- Harvard grad, years with Edison education, Pioneer Institute-- ran into some trouble over a blog post, and in "the progressive-driven culture war that has consumed charter schooling" a petition was raised and Wilson was canned.

Finn, only mostly retired

Hess and Finn list some other areas where the rising tide of progressive wokeness has threatened the charter world. The ultimate effect is "self-styled reformers biting their tongues for fear of alienating funders, angering advocates, or becoming targets themselves."

I'm not here to comment on the issue of wokeness in the reform movement. The break in the social justice- free market partnership that fueled the movement for years has been discussed at length for about three years, and it is as sad as any divorce. They grew apart. They want different things (in fact, have always wanted different things). Now they keep fighting about how to bring up the kids properly. Not news.

But I can't help noticing something else. Here they are, worried that some people are being driven out of schools, or even keeping silent because they are afraid that if they express their political or social beliefs it might cost them their jobs, and I'm thinking if only there were some sort of policy or law that protected educators from that sort of firing. But of course there is-- the CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Finn And Hess Accidentally Argue For Teacher Tenure

Louisiana Educator: School Discipline Needs Enforcement!

Louisiana Educator: School Discipline Needs Enforcement!

School Discipline Needs Enforcement!

Here is a youtube video featuring an Ohio teacher placed on Facebook by Lee Barrios, decrying the lack of support for teachers in maintaining discipline in the classroom. We have exactly the same problem in Louisiana! The big difference is that while the Ohio teacher proposes that there needs to be a written policy specifying effective consequences for student misbehavior, Louisiana has exactly such a policy in state law and in the Teacher Bill of Rights. The problem is that the pressure from our Louisiana Department of Education acts to discourage local school systems from enforcing the law and supporting teachers in maintaining classroom discipline.

Teachers in St. Tammany led by longtime teacher advocate Lee Barrios, are speaking out about the need for the school system to enforce the law on discipline. But the problem is that the non-educator administrators in the LDOE have erected obstacles to discipline enforcement, especially if it results in student suspensions. The fact is that most school systems provide more that sufficient alternatives to suspension. The problem is that if a school administrator assigns a disruptive or disrespectful student to after school detention, and the student does not show up, out-of-school suspension often becomes the only remaining option. The school should not be down rated on the LDOE website for taking necessary action to back up teachers in maintaining order.

Let me be clear: I agree with the teacher in the video. If one student is depriving the rest of the class of their instruction time, then that one disruptive student needs to go. In addition, I would suggest that in serious or repeated cases of violation of discipline policy, the parents should be required to take appropriate action to get the student to behave properly if the student is to be CONTINUE READING: Louisiana Educator: School Discipline Needs Enforcement!

Giving Thanks for Red for Ed — Teachers Striking for Justice in Public Schools | janresseger

Giving Thanks for Red for Ed — Teachers Striking for Justice in Public Schools | janresseger

Giving Thanks for Red for Ed — Teachers Striking for Justice in Public Schools

This blog will take a week long holiday break.  Look for a new post on Friday, December 6.

In their agreement at midnight on Halloween to end a ten day strike, Chicago’s teachers secured not only a salary increase, but also the promise that the school district will spend $35 million annually to reduce what have become in many schools outrageous class sizes. Teachers also won the guarantee of a full time nurse and social worker in every school by July of 2023.

A lagging recovery from the 2008 recession, compounded in many states by revenue shortages due to tax cutting and the expansion of school privatization at public expense, has left desperate conditions in traditional public schools across many states.  In response, the Chicago Teachers Union, like Red for Ed counterparts in West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arizona, Los Angeles, and Oakland, went on strike to expose primary staffing inadequacy in public schools where such conditions are pretty much invisible to the general public.  After all, most of us do not have the opportunity to go into schools and look around to see what’s happening there.

Red for Ed teachers’ strikes have also challenged statewide policies that have come to define our public schools during the corporate school reform era. The Los Angeles and Oakland strikes, for example, surfaced evidence that charter schools—over which California’s public school boards of education have had little control—steal essential dollars that should be spent on the majority of children and adolescents who attend the public schools.  In Arizona, the teachers’ strike helped put the spotlight on the alarming danger to public schools of a pending 2018 ballot initiative (which ultimately was voted down) to expand the state’s already expensive Education Savings Account neo-vouchers. Chicago’s teachers were able to expose untenable aspects of the 1995 Illinois state law that imposed mayoral governance on Chicago’s public schools—an appointed school board and punitive restrictions to disempower the Chicago Teachers Union itself. The strike also helped shine a light on problems with student-based budgeting and school closures, both of which have been at the center of Chicago’s portfolio school reform under former mayor Rahm Emanuel. While the final contract CONTINUE READING: Giving Thanks for Red for Ed — Teachers Striking for Justice in Public Schools | janresseger

NYC Educator: Bloomberg's Stump Speech

NYC Educator: Bloomberg's Stump Speech

Bloomberg's Stump Speech

Hiya everyone. It's me, your old pal Mike Bloomberg. You remember me. I used to be mayor of New York. I'm the guy who brought Joel Klein in to run the city schools. You remember him? He's the guy you saw in all those photos with Eva Moskowitz, hanging around, having big fun, and helping me close as many public schools as I could get my big old paws on. That's right, I have big paws, not like that other guy, you know who, whose name I don't mention in my ads. I'm too dignified for that.

You know what else I'm too dignified for? Debating my opponents. I'm not getting on some stage somewhere and defending my record against a bunch of poor people. That's for those second-tier candidates who haven't got unlimited cash on hand. That's the beauty thing. I'm independent. I'm beholden to no one whatsoever. I don't have to compromise to please anyone. The only person I will have to please is myself. In fact, I won't even take the 400K salary. Even if I drop a billion on this thing I still have 51 more, so what the hell do I care?

And hey, you won't have to worry about whether or not I'm a billionaire, like that other guy whose name I won't mention. I'm a real billionaire. Believe me, we're an endangered species. People are always picking on us because we horde all the resources that could be used to, oh, make roads, give health care to Americans, provide a living wage to working people, offer affordable college and all that other crazy left-wing hippie socialist crap my CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Bloomberg's Stump Speech

“How The Other Half Learns”: A Review (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

“How The Other Half Learns”: A Review (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

“How The Other Half Learns”: A Review (Part 1)

Robert Pondiscio’s recent book about a New York City elementary school is an uncommon example of research and writing on school reform.

Why uncommon?

Few former teachers, journalists, and academic researchers have done what he did in spending a year at Bronx 1, part of the network of Success Academies in New York City that former city official Eva Moskowitz founded in 2006. Now a charter network of 47 schools in New York City enrolling 17,000 low-income children of color, Success Academies are both extolled and criticized (especially in the media). There is precious little middle ground when it comes to reformers, parents, teachers, and others when it comes to judging the network’s worth. Writing in 2014, a few years before Pondiscio became embedded in one Success Academy school, he wrote an op-ed in a New York newspaper asking: “Is Eva Moskowitz the Michael Jordan of Education Reform, or is she the Mark McGuire? (p. 10)”. One athlete, the finest of all basketball players in the 20th century and the other a disgraced steroid-filled home run hitter. He wasn’t sure. But two years later he wanted to find out.

Surprisingly, Moskowitz agreed to let Pondiscio to spend a year at Bronx 1 observing classes and teacher meetings, shadowing the principal and staff members, interviewing parents, teachers and administrators, meeting with children–“scholars” as they are called–in and out of school. He also attended CONTINUE READING: “How The Other Half Learns”: A Review (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Former TX SPED Director, Laurie Kash, Wins Wrongful Termination Lawsuit; TN “Wins” Penny Schwinn (?) | deutsch29

Former TX SPED Director, Laurie Kash, Wins Wrongful Termination Lawsuit; TN “Wins” Penny Schwinn (?) | deutsch29

Former TX SPED Director, Laurie Kash, Wins Wrongful Termination Lawsuit; TN “Wins” Penny Schwinn (?)

On November 21, 2017, then-Texas special education director, Laurie Kash, blew the whistle on the Texas Education Agency’s (TEA) entering into a $4.4M no-bid contract with a special education data collecting company, SPEDx; she filed a report with the US Department of Education (USDOE) Office of Inspector General (OIG).

The following day– November 22, 2017– Kash was abruptly fired via email. (For these details and more, see my March 19, 2018, post.)

She sued for wrongful termination, and on November 22, 2019– two years to the day following Kash’s termination– the USDOE Office of Hearings and Appeals ruled in Kash’s favor. From the ruling:

The OIG report found that Kash’s communications with OIG and TEA’s internal audit office were a contributing factor in TEA’s decision to terminate her employment. Although TEA asserted other reasons for firing Kash, the OIG report found TEA did not provide clear and convincing evidence that it would have taken the same the personnel action without Kash’s disclosure.

Kash was awarded $135K “for proper back pay”; $67K in attorneys’ fees, and $800 for “additional costs,” for a total of just under $203K. However, Kash’s ordeal is not over; TEA is expected to withholding payment pending appeal.

Blowing whistles ceraintly is not easy.

And its not just SPED contracts that are at issue in Texas. It’s special education in general. From the March 2019 Texas Tribune:

Preparing to ask the federal government for $1 billion in special education grants, Texas education officials have indicated they do not expect to be able to adequately educate kids with disabilities until June 2020.

Texas is in the middle of a federally mandated overhaul of special education after a federal investigation found the state had for years been CONTINUE READING: Former TX SPED Director, Laurie Kash, Wins Wrongful Termination Lawsuit; TN “Wins” Penny Schwinn (?) | deutsch29

Mike Klonsky's Blog: 14 years after Katrina, half of the schools in New Orleans all-charter district are considered "failing".

Mike Klonsky's Blog: 14 years after Katrina, half of the schools in New Orleans all-charter district are considered "failing".

14 years after Katrina, half of the schools in New Orleans all-charter district are considered "failing".

"Hurricane Katrina gave a great American city a rebirth." -- Kristen McQueary, Chicago Tribune

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina decimated much of the Gulf Coast, including the city of New Orleans. The hurricane triggered a chain reaction which led to the near-total abandonment of the city and its public school system. Over 1,200 died in the storm and nearly half the evacuees never returned.

For some conservative ideologues like Univ. of Chicago economist Milton Friedman and other neo-liberal reformers, the storm's devastation wasn't as much a disaster as it was an opportunity to replace the city's highly segregated, predominantly African-American public school system with privately-run, publicly-financed charter schools.

Former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called Katrina “the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans,” because it gave the city a chance to rebuild and improve its "failing public schools."

Former Chicago and Philly schools chief Paul Vallas got hired to lead the city's educational reconstruction project, which included firing the largely-black teaching force, busting the CONTINUE READING: Mike Klonsky's Blog: 14 years after Katrina, half of the schools in New Orleans all-charter district are considered "failing".

Education Department puts hold on 5-day suspension of employee who provided The Post with budget information - The Washington Post

Education Department puts hold on 5-day suspension of employee who provided The Post with budget information - The Washington Post

Education Department puts hold on 5-day suspension of employee who provided The Post with budget information

The Education Department has placed an indefinite hold on the five-day suspension of a budget analyst who provided information to The Washington Post about the Trump administration’s 2018 budget proposal before it was released, her attorney said. The agency accused the employee of “conduct unbecoming a federal employee,” but her attorney described her as a whistleblower whose efforts to expose mismanagement are protected by federal law.

Rebecca Delaney, an analyst in the Education Department’s Office of Finance and Operations since 2016, received a letter dated Nov. 15 from an agency official saying the suspension would be delayed “until further notice."

Delaney and her attorney, Cathy Harris, had sought a stay of the suspension while the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency, reviews the case at their request. A letter to that office from Harris said Delaney provided the information to The Post “because she reasonably believed that the information in the budget was inaccurate, misleading and constituted gross mismanagement.”

The special counsel’s office agreed to investigate the case and asked the Education Department to issue a hold on the suspension, which was granted the work day before it was to begin, Harris said.

Delaney learned in an Aug. 30 letter from the director of the Education Department’s budget office that she was being punished for “conduct unbecoming a federal employee and lack of candor.” The letter said Delaney knew the data was “subject to an embargo” and that it is “uncouth or unprofessional” to violate the embargo. It also said that the leak of information had “a ripple effect throughout the agency” and that the “reputation of [the budget office] and its trustworthiness was tarnished.” And it said that Delaney suggested when initially asked that the information may have been leaked from her computer. Her “lack of candor was intentional … to protect yourself from ostracization,” the letter said.

Harris said the department “never should have decided to suspend” Delaney, but that she and Delaney are “gratified” the department placed a hold on the suspension. “We are thankful to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, who sought the stay while it continues to investigate our whistleblower retaliation CONTINUE READING: Education Department puts hold on 5-day suspension of employee who provided The Post with budget information - The Washington Post

Rethinking Thanksgiving, Part 1 - SF PUBLIC SCHOOL MOM

Rethinking Thanksgiving, Part 1 - SF PUBLIC SCHOOL MOM

Rethinking Thanksgiving, Part 1

As we begin the holiday break, many of us take time to reflect on all that we are thankful for. During this time, we can also reflect on the true history of our country, and the ongoing legacy of settler-colonialism on Native peoples and the land we have come to call America.

It’s complicated.

Thanksgiving is an American traditional holiday that is based on a mythical origin story. Our country’s true origin story didn’t start with Columbus (he never set foot on the continental United States) or Plymouth Rock (there was no rock). Similarly, Thanksgiving celebrations didn’t start with “Pilgrims and Indians” breaking bread at a cross-cultural potluck.

Many of us know that what we were taught in school isn’t true. Nonetheless, myths about the holiday are everywhere. As this article in the New York Times points out:

“Thanksgiving facts and Thanksgiving myths have blended together for years like so much gravy and mashed potatoes, and separating them is just as complicated.”

Maya Salam — New York Times

To be fair, Thanksgiving’s history is complicated because it seems to be based on more than one event. Harvest celebrations are prevalent all over the world and predate European contact with North America. Giving thanks is a daily practice in many Native cultures. English colonizers who landed on New England’s’ shores also celebrated days of thanksgiving, marked by religious services. During colonial times “thanksgiving” feasts also occurred after successful military attacks, including those against Indigenous nations.

Even official records tell a confusing story about Thanksgiving:

• On October 3, 1789, President George Washington issued CONTINUE READING: Rethinking Thanksgiving, Part 1 - SF PUBLIC SCHOOL MOM

How to Teach Diversity in an Inclusive Classroom - Teacher Habits

How to Teach Diversity in an Inclusive Classroom - Teacher Habits

How to Teach Diversity in an Inclusive Classroom

By Aimee Laurence

More and more schools, colleges, and universities are committing themselves to promoting inclusion and diversity issue awareness to both students and faculty members. Regardless of the subject of the course being taught, there are certain things that teachers can do to the classroom and their approach to be more welcoming and inclusive to their students. Here is a basic guide to start taking necessary steps to creating an inclusive classroom and teaching diversity. 

• What is diversity?

Diversity means a lot of different things. In the classroom, diversity means understanding that each student has a different experience, ideas and strengths, and respecting and encouraging those viewpoints. The differences stem from dimensions of sexual orientation, gender, race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, socio-economic status, age, ability, or political beliefs. Diversity is understanding these differences, exploring them with respect, and incorporating them into the classroom to have a richer learning experience. 

• Why does it matter in the classroom?

Students go to school with varied experiences and backgrounds. Educators and teachers are responsible for making sure that students can work in diverse workplaces and collaborate and respect others that have different and new perspectives. When these are CONTINUE READING: How to Teach Diversity in an Inclusive Classroom - Teacher Habits

Why teacher morale appears to be dropping

Why teacher morale appears to be dropping

Why teacher morale appears to be dropping
Salary increases can boost job satisfaction, but operational funds must also rise, administrators say

Teachers feel less optimistic about their profession than they did a year ago, according Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s annual “Educator Confidence Report.”

In a survey of more than 1,300 educators, 34% of teachers expressed optimism, compared with 50% in 2018, according the report. Teacher confidence declined in many areas, such as building students’ critical thinking skills, using data to inform instruction and applying instruction to the real world.

Also, nearly all administrators and teachers surveyed said students need more social and emotional support. Teachers told Houghton Mifflin Harcourt that they want their schools’ SEL initiatives to focus on self-discipline, self-motivation and self-regulation.

However, more teachers are feeling confident in their abilities to use ed tech, according the report.

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More from DA: How evidence-based PD yields dividends

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The drop in morale is being noticed in districts’ central offices. When interim Superintendent Kristen McNeill took the lead role at Washoe County School District this summer, she said boosting teacher morale would be a priority, the Reno Gazette Journal reported.

McNeill told the newspaper that workload, pay and benefits are teachers’ top concerns.

Oklahoma’s minimum $5,000 pay increase for teachers, enacted in 2018, has improved morale in many districts, the Tulsa World reported. But Broken Arrow Public Schools Superintendent Janet Dunlop told the newspaper that operational funding also has to increase to sustain morale in the long term.

“The teacher pay raises were fantastic,” Dunlop told the newspaper. “But I don’t want anyone to be misled in thinking they take the place of also having some additional operational funding, CONTINUE READING: Why teacher morale appears to be dropping

DID YOU MISS DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG TODAY? | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

DID YOU MISS DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG TODAY? 

A site to discuss better education for all

Reader Defines “Grit”

by dianeravitch / 4min

Reader C.H. Rubinstein eases into the debate about GRIT. Oy, where have we heard this song & dance before? Grit is something your mom used to yell about, such as when you were playing outside, “Wipe your feet before you come in the house, or take your shoes off! Don’t get that grit all over my kitchen floor!” Or, as my sister would presently yell, “Who got the sink all grit-ty?! Clean it up NOW!!

Paul Waldman Remembers When Republicans Thought Trump Was a Charlatan and a Kook

by dianeravitch / 1h

Paul Waldman of the Washington Post went down memory lane with prominent Republicans who called out Trump as a phony before he was elected. On Friday, the president of the United States called in to the daily festival of idiocy that is “Fox & Friends,” where he blathered and rambled for an entire hour. He slandered people, repeated ludicrous conspiracy theories, told numerous lies, and devolved i

Audrey Watters: No Plan in Place to Protect Our Democracy

by dianeravitch / 2h

Audrey Watters begins each of her posts at HEWN with a description of a bird. Then she gets into the story, the story in this one being an “epistemic crisis,” a society where truth itself is doubted, experts are dismissed, and everyone is entitled to not only their own opinions but their own facts. I particularly recommend her links. I enjoyed the one about Mr. Rogers. It compels to think about o

Jan Resseger: The Tragedy of “Portfolio Districts”

by dianeravitch / 3h

Jan Resseger writes here about the damage that “portfolio districts” do to students, schools, and communities. The original concept for “portfolio districts” was developed by Paul Hill of the Gates-funded Center for Reinventing Public Educatuon at the University of Washington. The fundamental idea was that the school board would act like a stock portfolio manager, closing low-performing schools,

News: Big REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) Exits the Charter Real Estate Sector

by dianeravitch / 4h

Carol Burris writes about the latest news from the charter industry. This is the same company that Valerie Strauss wrote about, called “Entertainment Properties Trust.” It’s CEO, Dennis Brain, told an interviewer that charter schools were a sound investment, had long waiting lists, and were guaranteed government revenues. But that rosy picture has dimmed. The long waiting lists are fictional. Cha

YESTERDAY

Tennessee: “Achievement School District” Continues to Show Very Low Test Scores

55by dianeravitch / 23h

Back in 2012, Tennessee introduced its “Achievement School District” and hired YES Prep charter founder Chris Barbic to run it. The ASD was funded with $100 million from the state’s Race to the Top grant. Barbic said he would take the state’s lowest-performing public schools, hand them off to charter operators, and catapult them into the top 25% in the state within five years. Year after year, th

Steven Singer: White Billionaires Should Not Buy the Charter Debate

200+by dianeravitch / 1d

Teacher Steven Singer writes here about the protest at an Elizabeth Warren debate in Atlanta. He notes that a reporter for The Intercept, Ryan Grim, attended the rally and wrote that the protestors were funded by the Waltons, who have never shown any support for civil rights issues and are actively hostile to unions, which lift low-income workers out of poverty. He also quotes Intercept journalis

The Curious Case of The Century Foundation and Its Charter Advocacy

22by dianeravitch / 1d

The Century Foundation is supposed to be a liberal foundation. I had numerous contacts with it when it was previously known as The Twentieth Century Fund. My most memorable experience involved my membership on a task force in 1983 or so, which prepared a critique of American education and the need for reform. For that era, our task force report was fairly run-of-the-mill. What was remarkable was

Dana Milbank on the Irony of the Impeachment Hearings

by dianeravitch / 1d

This story is probably behind a paywall . If it is not, you will enjoy reading it in full. Dana Milbank is one of my favorite opinion writers. He begins: But his emails! Gordon Sondland, Trump donor and Trump-picked U.S. ambassador to the European Union, apologized to impeachment investigators this week for failing to provide a more complete account of the president’s quids and quos with Ukraine:

California Democratic Party: Charters Should Have Elected Boards

by dianeravitch / 1d

Here is an excellent idea from the California Democratic Party: Charter schools should be governed by elected boards, just like real public schools. California is a bellwether for the nation. This strong stance shows that teachers are reclaiming their profession from billionaires and hedge fund managers. Edsource reports: Taking aim at the majority of charter schools in the state, the California

“Grit” and “Resilience” Are Buzzwords that Blame the Victim for Not Pulling Him/Herself by Bootstraps

34by dianeravitch / 1d

The Boston Globe published this opinion piece questioning the validity of concepts like grit and resilience. Author Alissa Quart interviews Christine White, a woman who grew up in extreme poverty yet managed to build a successful career helping people who struggled as she did. But not by coaching them to 

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all