Eduwonky » Disorganization? Why Short Term Unionization Wins In Charters Creates A Long-Term Union Problem

Eduwonky » Blog Archive » Disorganization? Why Short Term Unionization Wins In Charters Creates A Long-Term Union Problem:

Disorganization? Why Short Term Unionization Wins In Charters Creates A Long-Term Union Problem

The American Federation of Teachers has successfully organized another charter school, this time in Michigan so some symbolism given everything that’s been happening there.  It’s always big news when they win one of these (although the decertifications of unions in charters get less attention for some reason). Anyway, this one is interesting because it highlights a tactical/strategic tension here.  Overall, the schools that are ripe for organizing aren’t the outstanding ones – that’s why the teachers are frustrated and looking for help. Here’s the report card on these schools in MI.
At the top-performing schools the teachers generally aren’t interested and no one really sees what the value-add would be.  A few years ago Paul Hill and I hosted some meetings on this with charter school leaders and union leaders and while there is more common ground than the national debate has room for these days, there are also some key differences that can’t be papered over.  So the bottom line is that you’re left with an unusually high-performing cohort of public schools that operates very differently than most others.  Awkward.
And until the unions figure out a compelling pitch to the very best schools they’re going to keep collecting the unenviable schools while everyone celebrates the enviable ones.  That’s not to say there are not good 

what is up with red shirting - my sidewalk chalk blog - nyc school help

what is up with red shirting - my sidewalk chalk blog - nyc school help:

what is up with red shirting

by joyce

Red Shirting is the practice of holding late birthday kids back so that they benefit from being the oldest in the class. There is always heated debate about if it is really a good idea or not. My kids (girls) have late Nov. birthdays and I was clueless -and desperate to get them into free kindergarten. They started K as old fours and never looked back. In general, someone has to be the youngest, no matter what the cutoff date. It is very important that there not be too large an age spread in the k classroom. For a child who is appears to be fairly school ready, being younger isn't really an issue in my experience. The problem is that there are exceptions; very small or shy kids, or kids with other special needs who really may not be ready. I really feel for these families, who are not trying to give their kids some imaginary edge, but are really fighting for what is necessary for their children to thrive in their first academic year.
Placement at K used to be at the discretion of the principal and they would often take their cue from parents 

Modern School: Teachers Murdered in Southern Thai War for Independence

Modern School: Teachers Murdered in Southern Thai War for Independence:

Teachers Murdered in Southern Thai War for Independence

Nearly 160 teachers have been killed in Thailand’s deep south in its sectarian battle for independence, often in front of students, the Teacher Solidarity Website reports. In a recent incident, a principal and teacher were killed in front of 75 elementary school students. In December, teachers went on strike to demand better security. 

The violence is part of a decades-long struggle for independence by the Malay-Muslim population in Thailand’s south. During the 1990s there was a lull in the violence, but it picked up again in 2001, with a new twist—the deliberate targeting of Buddhist teachers in government-run schools. Since the resumption of violence, more than 5,300 people have been killed in the 

MMAC Calls for a New Orleans-style “Recovery District” for MPS Low-performing Schools « Larry Miller's Blog: Educate All Students!

MMAC Calls for a New Orleans-style “Recovery District” for MPS Low-performing Schools « Larry Miller's Blog: Educate All Students!:

MMAC Calls for a New Orleans-style “Recovery District” for MPS Low-performing Schools

by millerlf

The MMAC is calling for a New Orleans-style “recovery district” for low performing schools in MPS. This district would not be under the MPS board’s jurisdiction and would have a separate superintendent.

Following is the MMAC Legislative Update on WisEye, from January 31,2013. Here MMAC representatives describe the “recovery district”:

http://www.wiseye.org/Programming/VideoArchive/EventDetail.aspx?evhdid=7089

01.31.13 | Metro Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC) Legislative Briefing: K-12 Education

Duration: [01:19:44]

      

On January 31, 2013, MMAC VP of Government Affairs, Steve Baas, and MMAC Legislative Director, Katy Venskus, discussed accountability measures for all publicly-funded K-12 schools in the City of Milwaukee at the state level as well as an overview of the current legislative session.

Homeless families in our state « Seattle Education

Homeless families in our state « Seattle Education:

Homeless families in our state

According to the Seattle Times:

State had more than 27K homeless students last year

State education officials say the number of homeless students continues to rise.

More than 27,000 students were reported as homeless in the 2011-12 school year. That number is up about 5 percent from 2010-11 and up nearly 47 percent from the beginning of the recession.

Districts blame the still struggling job market, the closing of factories and cuts in funding for programs that prevent homelessness for the growing problem in Washington public schools

Districts also say that better reporting and more awareness have led to more accurate numbers. According to the federal law on homeless students, a student is considered 

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 2-8-13 Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch's blog:

Why We Need Public Schools!

by dianerav

Why do we have public schools? Would we be better off, as certain reformers now think, if everyone had school choice and went to a charter or used a voucher to go to a private or religious school?
Do we need public schools?
I asked Carol Burris, principal of South Side High School in Rockville Center, New York, how she would answer these questions.
How would you answer?
This is what Carol wrote:
“When I think of the purpose of public schooling I always think of Dewey’s famous phrase that is stenciled into

About This Blog

by dianerav

Thank you for reading the blog.
Thank you for joining what must surely be the liveliest discussion about education issues anywhere on the Web.
I did not know how this blog would evolve when I started it on April 26 last year. Since then, it has had more than 2.7 million page views. So I know it meets a need for a place that welcomes candid exchanges about the issues that concern us all.
This is an unusual platform. It is a place where the voices of educators, parents, and students get a full hearing. 

Jeannie Oakes Answers the Teacher’s Question about Diversity and Grouping

by dianerav

On January 20, I published a post by a teacher who asked about how to deal with the heterogeneity of the student population. She said that charters appealed to parents who wanted less heterogeneity.

Here is an excerpt:

“We complain that charters are skimming the top, we have to take all comers and we can’t cherrypick; we can’t dump the least school ready students. We wear it as a badge of honor; we’re a force for egalitarian education for all. We’re a place where all children come together to learn. Well, that’s great.”BUT… a parent who wants to 

Diane in the Evening 2-7-13 Diane Ravitch's blog

coopmike48 at Big Education Ape - 4 hours ago

Diane Ravitch's blog: Strange Bedfellows Oppose Common Core in Indiana by dianerav Glenda Ritz, the new State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Indiana, thrashed reform idol Tony Bennett last November. She received more votes than anyone else on the ballot except the Attorney General (she ran ahead of the governor). Tony Bennett, who famously supports free-market solutions to education problems, is an advocate for charters and vouchers, for evaluating teachers by test scores, and for for-profit online corporations and charters. Tony Bennett is one of the nation’s loudes... more »

New charter school report: Success or failure set by year three | Get Schooled

New charter school report: Success or failure set by year three | Get Schooled:

New charter school report: Success or failure set by year three

by Maureen Downey

Interesting study on charter school successes and failures:

A new report by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes found that charter schools, as they age or replicate into networks, are very likely to continue the patterns and performance set by their early years of operation, and that for most charter schools their ultimate success or failure can be predicted by year three of a school’s life.
“This report’s findings challenge the conventional wisdom that a young underperforming school will improve if given time. Our research shows that if you start wobbly, chances are you’ll stay wobbly,” said Dr. Margaret Raymond, CREDO’s director and the study’s lead author. “Similarly, if a school 

UPDATE: No Substitute for a Teacher | toteachornototeach

No Substitute for a Teacher | toteachornototeach:

No Substitute for a Teacher

by aristotlethewise

No Substitute for a Teacher

By June Kronholz
My son had a new degree and a nine-month unpaid gap in his training as a Marine Corps lieutenant. Please don’t fill it with a job at a liquor warehouse, I asked.
Instead, he became a substitute teacher.
In the college town where he was living, an astonishing 47 percent of the school district’s 721 teachers were

Students Arrested After Food Fight

by aristotlethewise

Students Arrested After Food Fight At Ola High School In Georgia

by Sara Gates

While food fights may be the hallmark of the quintessential cafeteria scene in many classic films, in reality, the messy brawls often result in arrests.
On Friday, at least nine Ola High School students were arrested following a colossal food fight that broke out in the Georgia school’s cafeteria. Now, parents of those involved are speaking out against the school’s strict choice of punishment, local TV station WXIA reports.
“I do not condone what Courtney did. I believe she should have been suspended for what happened, but to take her to jail and charge her with a crime, that’s just too much,” Mark Striplin, the father of one of the Ola students arrested, told WXIA.
The food fight, which ignited during the first lunch period Friday, was allegedly planned in advance. School 

Another trophy in the case for Long Beach Unified | EdSource Today

Another trophy in the case for Long Beach Unified | EdSource Today:

Another trophy in the case for Long Beach Unified

February 7th, 2013 | Add a Comment | 
By John Fensterwald

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Long Beach Unified has grabbed another award for excellence.

The state’s third-largest school district and winner of the Broad Prize for Urban Education was named Thursday  one of the five top school districts in the world by Battelle for Kids, a Columbus, Ohio-based nonprofit organization that counsels school districts on school improvement and innovation.

Long Beach was the only American district cited in Battelle’s report, The Global Education Study; the other four winners – diverse and quite different from one another – were all national or provincial systems: Finland; Singapore; Ontario, Canada; and Hong Kong.

In the announcement, Battelle said, “We define a high-performing system as one in which low-performing students perform not much differently than top-performing students, and where family socioeconomic status is not a significant driver of student performance. High-performing systems 

Educators celebrate first six months of transitional kindergarten - by Lillian Mongeau

by Lillian Mongeau

Transitional kindergarten, the new grade level for children whose fifth birthdays fall early in the school year, is 6 months old in February. At a statewide conference in Pasadena this week — the first large gathering since the program was implemented — teachers, administrators and advocates talked about best practices and cheered what they see as long-needed reform. Long Beach Unified...

Missouri Education Watchdog: Personal Data Collected and Disseminated via Common Core Standards and P20 Pipelines

Missouri Education Watchdog: Personal Data Collected and Disseminated via Common Core Standards and P20 Pipelines:

Personal Data Collected and Disseminated via Common Core Standards and P20 Pipelines

by stlgretchen

P-20 initiatives connect educational systems for increased student performance, greater efficiency, improved outcomes, and smoother pathways throughout a student's career. These factors are of critical importance in a competitive global economy. The Missouri Department of Higher Education (MDHE) is working on several fronts to help ensure that connections between early childhood, elementary and secondary education, and higher education can create a more seamless pipeline for Missouri students.  from http://www.dhe.mo.gov/p20/

A Quick Note on Student Voice [Because You Need To Hear It ... Again] | The Jose Vilson

A Quick Note on Student Voice [Because You Need To Hear It ... Again] | The Jose Vilson:

A Quick Note on Student Voice [Because You Need To Hear It ... Again]

by Jose Vilson

Everything Is Coming Up Millhouse

A couple of days back, I saw an incident with one of my student ambassadors and a teacher. Nothing to write the Post about, but tempers flared, and misunderstandings ensued. Yelling and consternation spill over to the hallway. Frankly, a huge misunderstanding only inflated by the fact that other adults who felt like pushing the buttons deeper instead of pulling them back. The only phrase that kept ringing in my mind, “He SHOULDN’T BE 

Daily Kos: Eugene Robinson on Assassination by Remote Control

Daily Kos: Eugene Robinson on Assassination by Remote Control:

Eugene Robinson on Assassination by Remote Control

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

which is the title of his Friday Washington Post column.
It begins like this:

If George W. Bush had told us that the “war on terror” gave him the right to execute a U.S. citizen overseas with a missile fired from a drone aircraft, without due process or judicial review, I’d have gone ballistic. It makes no difference that the president making this chilling claim is Barack Obama. What’s wrong is wrong.

This issue has become ever hotter given the nomination of John Brennan to head the CIA.Robinson notes that the issue of using drone attacks to kill American citizens is far from a hypothetical, given the killing both of US born cleric  Anwar al-Awlaki and two weeks later his 16 year old son.   Robinson writes of the cleric

I shed no tears for him. But as the Justice Department document admits, U.S. citizens have 

The Educated Reporter: Under the Microscope: Examining STEM Education

The Educated Reporter: Under the Microscope: Examining STEM Education:

Under the Microscope: Examining STEM Education

by Emily Richmond

I'm at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County today for EWA's seminar for journalists on STEM education. This is a front-burner issue nationally, as politicians and policymakers contend the nation's global competitiveness depends on steering more students successfully into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.

We have a jam-packed agenda, including discussion of the implementation of the new Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards, and the pipeline problem of getting students from classroom to career. I'm particularly interested to hear from Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed and Eric Robelen ofEducation Week about what reporters need to know when delving into these key issues.

I'm also going to get the opportunity to interview Jake Scott, a math teacher at Montgomery Blair High School, 

UPDATE: MAP Update + Central Region Elementary Schools + Seattle Schools Community Forum: Does the Times Want BEX to Fail?

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Does the Times Want BEX to Fail?:

MAP Update

by Melissa Westbrook

Below is a thoughtful letter one teacher at one high school sent home with 9th grade students to try to give parents an idea of what is going on with MAP testing.  It is informative and seeks to allow a conversation should parents want to have one.

Have you received such a letter?  Has your PTA weighed in at all?

I note that some in the media (see the Times) try to make this all about Garfield and while they started it and are the most visible, it is quite clear this is very widespread.  If Families & Ed dollars were not tied to middle school activities, I'd bet some of the middle schools would have joined as well.

Letter

Dear Families of 9th graders, 

Sometime in February, your 9th grader will have the opportunity to take the MAP tests in Reading and Math. You 

Central Region Elementary Schools

by Charlie Mas

I had a question today about the probable fate of the southern end of the Stevens attendance area when the District re-draws the attendance areas in a couple years. It made me realize that there are going to be some changes coming for elementary schools in the Washington Middle School service area when the District re-zones. Let's look into our crystal ball and consider what they might be.

First, the District is re-opening Meany as a middle school. That means that students from Montlake, McGilvra, Lowell, and Stevens will get a default assignment to Meany rather than Washington. Madrona may be in the Meany Attendance Area as well, but 5th graders from Madrona will get default assignment to the sixth grade at Madrona.

One of those schools will have to be the designated Spectrum school for the service area. I would guess Lowell. Why? Because despite any policies or claims to the contrary, the primary determinant in program placement is 

Friday Open Thread

by Melissa Westbrook

Director Carr has a Community meeting tomorrow from 8:30-10:00 am at Bethany Community Church (enter by playground).

Director Martin-Morris has a Community meeting tomorrow from 9:30-11:30 am at Diva Espresso at 80th and Lake City Way.

Congrats to Roosevelt, Eckstein and Hamilton for their showings at the Clark College Jazz Festival.

Roosevelt was awarded the top honor, the Sweepstakes Trophy.  They also placed first in the AAA and AAAA divisions.  Hamilton was second and Eckstein third in the middle school jazz ensemble category.  There were also individual awards to all three schools plus Garfield.

Does the Times Want BEX to Fail?

by Melissa Westbrook

Sure looks like it.

I was first aware of this with their tepid endorsement of the levies over "leadership."  It was an interesting reason because if that had been the issue, then they should have been troubled over many other levies.

Then, last Friday, on the news roundup on KUOW, I noted that they had a quick discussion of the levies (and naturally, got a lot wrong but those pundits aren't always very up-to-date on school district facts).  Eli Sanders from The Stranger came out and very stronger stated that The Stranger had endorsed them.  Joni Balter of the Times?  Not so much.  Odd, given that the Times had indeed endorsed them.

And now we have the long-awaited report from Brian Rosenthal of the Times who, even though he has been on the political beat for months, wrote this piece about BEX.

He doesn't say anything that I didn't already know, have said repeatedly but no one would listen during past BEX 

UPDATE: Stopping MA DESE from Turning Over Student and Teacher Records Schools Matter: Portland Student Unions Support Seattle's Opt Out

Schools Matter: Portland Student Unions Support Seattle's Opt Out:

Stopping MA DESE from Turning Over Student and Teacher Records to Corporations

by Jim Horn

Letter from ACLU to MA BESE:

February 5, 2013

Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education
75 Pleasant Street
Malden, MA 02148

Dear Board Members,

It has come to our attention that the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education intends to share confidential student and teacher data with the Gates Foundation, as part of its Shared Learning Collaborative, consisting of personally identifiable information including 

Portland Student Unions Support Seattle's Opt Out

by Judy Rabin

Here is the place to sign up and support Portland, Oregon students who support Seattle, WA teachers. Who will be next to stand up to the bullies selling "junk" high stakes standardized tests (HSST's) to school districts?

Can they fire all the students?Expel them, suspend them, put them in jail?

Why are so many students finally just opting out and do these students have any rights? No one knows the answer because it's not on the test.

This is important to the future of public education, to the fight for community control, for putting a stop to standardized testing, curriculum, and graduation 

NYC Educator: The Back of the Class Kid

NYC Educator: The Back of the Class Kid:

The Back of the Class Kid

by NYC Educator

 by Recovering ATR 

I have a student, let's call him Tom, who from day one of my class mastered the art of taciturnity. He's one of those teens for whom speaking is just too much to ask. Silent, back of the class all the time, barely ever cracks a smile. But he did his work and his home work and I figured I should just let him be. He also scored very high scores on all my tests, when the rest of the class was struggling to kick out 65's or 75's. Not a surprise that even though he's in a remedial class he scored very high on the January test as well. Clearly somewhere in the totally silent, introverted head of his was a brain.

Today I walked by his usual spot in the back of the