The surprising source of key data in a report critical of the federal Charter School Program - The Washington Post

The surprising source of key data in a report critical of the federal Charter School Program - The Washington Post

The surprising source of key data in a report critical of U.S. Charter School Program

I recently wrote about a report by the advocacy group, the Network for Public Education, about waste in the federal Charter Schools Program (CSP). It was the second such report published in 2019 by the group, which was co-founded by historian and activist Diane Ravitch. Both of them, not surprisingly, received pushback from charter school supporters.

The first report, published last March and titled “Asleep at the Wheel,” said that the U.S. government had wasted up to $1 billion on charter schools that never opened, or opened and then closed because of mismanagement and other reasons. It also said the Education Department does not adequately monitor how its grant money is spent.

The second report, published last month, was titled “Still Asleep at the Wheel” and provided new details about waste in the Charter School Program. It noted that the state with the most charter schools that never opened was Michigan, home to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Report: Federal government wasted millions of dollars on charter schools that never opened

Ever since the second report was published, critics have been attacking it, saying that it was exaggerated and even that the authors were basing their claims on data they obtained from teachers’ unions. The lead author of the report, Carol Burris, said the critics have it wrong, and in the following post, she explains where the information came from and how the results were reached.

Critics may be surprised to learn that some of the key data came from none other than DeVos herself (although not intentionally). DeVos has often said she is no fan of federally funded education programs, though she still defended the CSP in a letter to a U.S. legislator cited below.

The Network for Public Education is an alliance of organizations that advocates for the improvement of public education. It is headed by Ravitch, a former official in the administration of President George H.W. Bush who broke with corporate-based school reform and became the titular leader of the movement opposing it.

The network opposes charter schools — which are publicly funded by privately managed — seeing them as part of a movement to privatize public education. However, its two 2019 reports are focused not on the place charters hold in American education but about how the federal government spent its money CONTINUE READING: The surprising source of key data in a report critical of the federal Charter School Program - The Washington Post

Houston: The Betrayal of the Public Schools As State Attacks Democracy | Diane Ravitch's blog

Houston: The Betrayal of the Public Schools As State Attacks Democracy | Diane Ravitch's blog

Houston: The Betrayal of the Public Schools As State Attacks Democracy

The public schools of Houston are going to be taken over by the incompetent State Education Department, which has never run a school district of any size and which has failed in its previous takeover efforts.

The Houston Chronicle hailed the pending takeover, while noting that the Houston Independent School District has been acknowledged in the recent past as the best urban school district in the nation (by the disreputable Broad Institute or Academy). Its editorial saluting the takeover by the state notes that 21 of HISD’s 280 campuses received “failing grades” from the state, and one (1) school–Wheatley High School–has a persistent record of low test scores. The failure of Wheatley–which has an even higher proportion of the neediest students than the rest of the district–triggered the state takeover.  This is a district where 80% of the students are “economically disadvantaged” and many are English learners. So, of course, the state commissioner and the editorial board of the newspaper blame low test scores on the elected school board. Apparently, they believe that democracy is the culprit, not poverty.

The citizens of Houston should rise up in protest. I am a graduate of the Houston public schools. The teachers are CONTINUE READING: Houston: The Betrayal of the Public Schools As State Attacks Democracy | Diane Ravitch's blog

California Charter Schools Had a Rough Year – and the Future Is Uncertain - Voice of San Diego

California Charter Schools Had a Rough Year – and the Future Is Uncertain - Voice of San Diego

California Charter Schools Had a Rough Year – and the Future Is Uncertain
Charter schools emerged from 2019 plenty scuffed up – but the new regulations that will govern them are far less restrictive than those proposed at the beginning of the year.

“Charter schools cheat the hangman.”

That was how Dan Walters put it in a column for CalMatters after state lawmakers brokered a compromise on sweeping new charter regulations in August.

Many lawmakers and teacher’s union backers had long sought new rules around transparency and accountability for charter schools, but for several years then-Gov. Jerry Brown managed to hold off significant reforms. 2019 – with an incoming new governor – was always going to be different.

Charter schools emerged from 2019 plenty scuffed up – but, indeed, the new regulations that will govern them are far less restrictive than those proposed at the beginning of the year.

In exchange for multiple concessions, charter advocates agreed not to oppose several key reforms: School districts will now be able to shut down poor-performing charter schools more easily. They’ll also be able to deny a new charter school’s application, if the proposed school replicates current educational programs or might damage the school district’s financial bottom line.

It’s almost certain that fewer new charters will be allowed to open under the new law. And it’s also reasonable to suspect that fewer charters – which must be re-authorized every five years in order to keep operating – will be renewed. But charter school advocates and detractors agree that the new law has created just as many questions as answers. It’s unclear how broadly CONTINUE READING: California Charter Schools Had a Rough Year – and the Future Is Uncertain - Voice of San Diego

IMANI - Today is the seventh and final day of Kwanzaa – Parenting for Liberation #P4LKWANZAA

IMANI – Parenting for Liberation

IMANI - Today is the seventh and final day of Kwanzaa

Today is the seventh and final day of Kwanzaa, a week-long celebration that honors African heritage of the Black Diaspora. 

Today, on the seventh day of Kwanzaa, we celebrate Imani (Faith) which is to believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, & the righteousness & victory of our struggle. 

After your Karamu feast yesterday (and some festive celebration to ring in the New Year), today on the first day of the year,  we focus on meditation, self-reflection, and renewal. Jan. 1 is the final day of Kwanzaa, known as Siku ya Taamuli (Day of Meditation). 

Did you know: According to the Official Kwanzaa website, in the tradition of the Akan people of Ghana and the Ivory Coast, there CONTINUE READING: IMANI – Parenting for Liberation

NewBlackMan (in Exile) TODAY

NewBlackMan (in Exile)

NewBlackMan (in Exile) TODAY

Stephanie Mills Is Honored at the Black Music Honors

by Mark Anthony Neal / 2h

' Regina Belle , Angela Winbush and Paris Bennett honor the legendary Stephanie Mills at the 3rd Annual Black Music Honors.' -- Black Music Honors

Sonic Futures: The Music of Afrofuturism with George Clinton, Nona Hendryx, Vernon Reid and Alondra Nelson

by Mark Anthony Neal / 2h

'Three musical giants who have made monumental contributions to Afrofuturism as we know it today, George Clinton , Nona Hendryx , and Vernon Reid , in conversation with world-renowned scholar and critic Alondra Nelson . The panelists discuss Afrofuturism – where it came from, where it is going, and what it has to offer us. Featuring opening remarks by Gus Casely-Hayford , Director of the Smithson

YESTERDAY

The South African Songbook: Jazz Musicians Who Stayed During Apartheid

by Mark Anthony Neal / 19h

'Twenty-five years have passed since South Africa ended the cruel social experiment of apartheid , which divided its citizens, locked up its people of color and brought decades of havoc and pain. South Africa's jazz musicians were at the center of the conflict. Jazz Night in America has already told the story of pianist Abdullah Ibrahim and trumpeter Hugh Masekela , prominent South African artist

'Your Body Being Used': Where Prisoners Who Can't Vote Fill Voting Districts

by Mark Anthony Neal / 19h

'The U.S. census counts incarcerated people as residents of where they are imprisoned. In many prison towns, that has led to voting districts made up primarily of prisoners who can't vote.' -- Morning Edition

North Carolinians Fight the $7.5 Billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline

by Mark Anthony Neal / 19h

'Eastern North Carolina is home to the environmental justice movement – and also to some of the state’s biggest threats to human and environmental health. The latest is the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.' -- Grist

NewBlackMan (in Exile)

A Book You Should Own That Explains Education Today | Diane Ravitch's blog

A Book You Should Own That Explains Education Today | Diane Ravitch's blog

A Book You Should Own That Explains Education Today

Perhaps you have been confused by the proliferation of organizations that claim to be all about fixing schools and teachers. Perhaps you can’t figure out who is who in the galaxy of billionaire-funded world of fake reformers.

Buy this reference book! It names names! It is the glossary you have been waiting for!

EDSPEAK AND DOUBLETALK: A Glossary to Decipher Hypocrisy and Save Public Schooling.

It was written by Nancy Bailey and me. It is published by Teachers College Press. Not only does it have a definitive deconstruction of reform blarney and baloney, but it will be continuously updated online as the billionaires spin out new AstroTurf groups and impose new fads and terrible ideas on the schools and the teaching profession.

Confession: Nancy and I have never met face to face. We met by reading each other’s commentaries about the fraudulent language now current in education. We emailed. I invited her to help me rewrite “Edspeak,” a now dated and obsolete glossary that I had published in 2006. She threw herself and her deep classroom experience into the task. I was the beneficiary of her wisdom and her keen eye for phoniness.

All of the royalties from the sale of the book will be donated to the Network for Public Education. Nancy and I look forward to meeting at the NPE conference in Philadelphia in late March.

NPE Action 2020 Conference: Save the Date! - Network For Public Education - https://networkforpubliceducation.org/npe-action-2020-conference-save-the-date/ via @Network4pubEd

A Book You Should Own That Explains Education Today | Diane Ravitch's blog

NYC Educator: Albany and the New Ten Commandments

NYC Educator: Albany and the New Ten Commandments

Albany and the New Ten Commandments

Forget everything you've heard and read about education. There's a new paradigm, and it's called Teaching Advanced Literacy Skills. This is revolutionary, of course, because it appears clear to the authors that no English teacher in the history of the universe has ever taught advanced literacy. Also, since no one in the world will ever go into a trade, and since everyone will spend their entire lives doing academic writing, we need to start work on this right away.

No, evidently we just do the whole phonics thing, and once students are able to sound out words, we give up on them for the next eleven years or so and hope for the best. Thank goodness these brilliant writers are here to let us know that students need to be able to identify a main idea, and that this indispensable skill is actually an amalgam of other vital skills.

Not only that, but we now know that it's important students use a variety of sources to support their arguments, as opposed to just making stuff up (like the President of the United States, for example). That's why we, as teachers, should hand them several sources on which to base their writing, as do the geniuses in Albany when they issue the NY State ELA Regents, the final word on whether or not students have advanced literacy.

Never mind that students who've passed the test with high grades don't seem to know how to read or write well. Never mind nonsense like writer voice, mentioned absolutely nowhere in the book. Never mind whether or not anyone actually wishes to read whatever writing the students produce, because that's also mentioned absolutely nowhere in the book. The important thing is that they be able to produce academic writing. Do you go out of your way to read academic writing? Neither do I.

The book is big on synthesis, that is, using multiple sources. Like the awful English Regents exam,  students are generally provided CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Albany and the New Ten Commandments

Louisiana Magnet School Principal Under Investigation | deutsch29

Louisiana Magnet School Principal Under Investigation | deutsch29

Louisiana Magnet School Principal Under Investigation

Patrick F. Taylor Science and Technology Academy is a public magnet school located in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. Enrollment is contingent upon achieving a satisfactory score on an admissions test.

The school’s website includes a proud display of its accolades:

The State of Louisiana recently implemented a new, more stringent, formula to calculate the school performance score (SPS). Taylor scored 130.2 on a 150 point scale during the 2017-2018 school year (138.2 using the old formula).With this most recent review, Taylor Academy has maintained its A rating for over a decade!  View Taylor Academy’s most recent report card

Patrick F. Taylor Science & Technology Academy has been named a National Blue Ribbon School for 2019. Taylor Academy consistently appears in the U.S. News & World Report’s annual ranking of the nation’s “Best Public High Schools.” The ranking released in April 2019 lists Taylor as first in Jefferson Parish, second in Louisiana, and #86 nationally.

“Taylor Academy has maintained its A for over a decade!”

Imagine the pressure to keep that A and to continue to deliver top-notch honors.

Not much room for the infringement of real life.

The week of December 09, 2019, Taylor Academy principal, Jaime Zapico, who was twice selected as Jefferson Parish Principal of the year, was missing from school.

News broke on Wednesday, December 11, 2019, that Zapico is under investigation, allegedly for grade fixing.

Though the December 11, 2019, nola.com report mentions a “letter” sent to CONTINUE READING: Louisiana Magnet School Principal Under Investigation | deutsch29

CURMUDGUCATION: I Have One Good New Years Story

CURMUDGUCATION: I Have One Good New Years Story

I Have One Good New Years Story

New Year's Eve is not one of my favorite holidays, and some of them have been downright unpleasant, but I have one good story. It involves the Olympic torch.

This was the route. I wasn't kidding with "circuitous."

Back on New Year's Day of 2002, the Olympic flame was on its way to Salt Lake City, and on its long circuitous route out West, the flame passed through Erie, Pennsylvania, which is just up the road from me. On New Years Eve I packed it in early and was in the car early the next day to take my turn at carrying the torch.

My leg didn't come until a little after noon, but torchbearers had an early call for training. We had received much of our info in packets well ahead of time, along with our official torchbearing outfits, which were comfy and warm and remarkably free of any commercial elements (and one of our requirements was to keep them that way). I did in fact have a corporate sponsor (Coke and Chevrolet split the torch run; I was a Coke guy).

The operation was run by twenty-somethings who had taken time off from work to run this cross-country operation; our host was a guy named Steve who had left a job he'd been at for four years CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: I Have One Good New Years Story

My top blog posts of 2019. – Fred Klonsky

My top blog posts of 2019. – Fred Klonsky

MY TOP BLOG POSTS OF 2019.

Kiss it goodbye.

Exclusive to this blog from Kentucky teacher and pension activist Randy Wieck.

Here is an update on Kentucky teacher pension: KISS IT GOOD-BYE

Kentucky public school teachers were recently told by Governor Matt Bevin, that if the Kentucky Supreme Court rejected recent Senate Bill 151, (known in Kentucky as the Sewage Bill – all mentions of sewage were replaced with wording referring to teacher pensions in order to rush the bill through the legislature in the waning hours of the previous session) the teachers “could kiss your pension good-bye.”

The Supreme Court then proceeded to kiss SB 151 good-bye on procedural grounds.

Shortly after the Supreme Court ruling, the national credit rating agency Moody’s held that the court ruling was considered a “credit negative” for the pension as there was really no indication new funding was envisioned for the pension.

And as if that were not enough, Fitch rating agency stated in the last few days (January, CONTINUE READING: My top blog posts of 2019. – Fred Klonsky

Happy New Year! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Happy New Year! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Happy New Year!

To everyone who reads this blog, I thank you and wish you a happy, healthy New Year!

Thank you being part of this wonderful community of people who care passionately about children, education, and the common good.

May you find many reasons for joy, many reasons to celebrate, many reasons to feel happiness in your work and your daily life!

Look around you and find the goodness and the beauty in one another and in nature.

Dedicate this year to supporting the common good and helping others to have a fulfilling life.

Stand up for justice, equity, and decency. Be not afraid.

Work for a world without hunger, disease, tragedy, and want.

Find the good and praise it!

Diane

Happy New Year! | Diane Ravitch's blog

CURMUDGUCATION: The Ground Level Ed Reform Decade Retrospective

CURMUDGUCATION: The Ground Level Ed Reform Decade Retrospective

The Ground Level Ed Reform Decade Retrospective

Yeah, it's time for everyone to do decade lists (including "Ten Reasons The New Decade Doesn't Start For Another Year") from the list of education faces that Alexander Russo is doing on Twitter to this absolutely-the-only-list-you-need-to-read from Audrey Watters, "The 100 Worst Ed Tech Debacles of the Decade."

I'm not going to try to sum up the decade in education. Or rather, I'm going to sum up my decade. Because while most of these lists will take a look-from-the-stratosphere view, balancing policies and historical nuance etc blah blah blah, I want to talk about what it all looked like on the ground. We can talk about the decade in policy all day, but from the perspective of a classroom teacher, it was ten years of worsening train wreck. So this is my story. It matters not because it happened to me, but because it's one example of what happened to many many classroom teachers.

By 2009, there was a feeling in the air, a sensed that the earth under our teacher feet was becoming wobbly.

First and foremost, there was No Child Left Behind and the testing regimen attached to it. For the first several years the growth requirement (average yearly progress) was almost attainable, but by decade's end we were looking at targeted gains that were insanely high, culminating in 2014, when all students were supposed to be proficient on the test. There was no question that we were all going to fail-- was this what our leaders wanted?

In 2009 I sat through a state workshop about PVAAS, the value-added model that was being implemented to judge us as teachers. I described it at the time for my local newspaper audience:

PVAAS uses a thousand points of data to project the test results for students. This is a highly complex model that three well-paid consultants could not clearly explain to seven college- CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: The Ground Level Ed Reform Decade Retrospective

2020. Pensions and the minimum wage. – Fred Klonsky

2020. Pensions and the minimum wage. – Fred Klonsky

2020. PENSIONS AND THE MINIMUM WAGE.

It’s the first day of the new decade and I wish you a peaceful year and an end to the reign of Donald Trump.

Convict him or beat him at the polls.

I’m good either way.

Illinois state retired workers will see their state pensions increase by 3% over what it was in 2019. The first check that will reflect that increase will be in February.

No thanks to Illinois legislators in Springfield, led by Democratic Party boss Michael Madigan.

If they hadn’t been stopped by the unanimous decision of the Illinois Supreme Court in 2015, retired public employees would have lost a huge part of their planned for retirement benefit that had been contractually and constitutionally guaranteed.

So, while they have been stopped from cutting current benefits, the debt remains. Seven cents on the dollar goes CONTINUE READING: 2020. Pensions and the minimum wage. – Fred Klonsky

How Have Teachers Taught: A Look Backwards | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

How Have Teachers Taught: A Look Backwards | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

How Have Teachers Taught: A Look Backwards

So much policy making aimed to improve classroom lessons is anchored deeply in myth and memory. Both morph into one another as policymakers (aka “reformers) filter their children’s tales of what occurs in classrooms festooned with iPads and Chromebooks through their recollection of what went on in their elementary and secondary classes. Oh yeah, policy makers consult with researchers and look at classroom studies, and ponder the changes that new technologies have made in how teachers teach but these results, again, are sorted through memories of writing an essay for that English teacher or the 5th grade quizzes that constricted one’s intestines. So I do not discount the power of myth and memory to shape policies aimed at getting teachers to teach better even after a decade of new technologies being tamed by teachers to become part of their instructional repertoire.

What is too often missing from the mix of data, Golly Gees over new software and remembrances are accounts by historians of education who have documented–albeit in fragmentary ways–what actually went on in classrooms over the past century. Some historians, including myself, have tried to recapture yesteryear’s classrooms (see here, here, and here). This post initially published in 2009 has been updated.

In How Teachers Taught (1984) and Hugging the Middle (2009), I collected CONTINUE READING: How Have Teachers Taught: A Look Backwards | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice