Rocketship program is a model for inequality in education opportunity | Larry Miller's Blog: Educate All Students!

Rocketship program is a model for inequality in education opportunity | Larry Miller's Blog: Educate All Students!:

Rocketship program is a model for inequality in education opportunity

By Gordon Lafer May 10, 2014 Sixty years ago this month, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in the case of Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kan. The ruling rejected the concept of separate schools for students of different races and demanded true equal opportunity in education for all students, regardless of race, ethnicity or income. Since then, Milwaukee and many

by millerlf / 5min 

Sixty years after Brown decision, a new Jim Crow doctrine is rising

By James Hall and Barbara Miner May 10, 2014 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel It is time to fulfill the promise of Brown vs. Board of Education — the most important Supreme Court decision of the 20th century. Sixty years ago, on May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Equally important, the court’s decision overturned the Jim

by millerlf / 8min hide  //  save

MPS Graduation Rates

MPS graduation rates are improving By Gregory Thornton May 10, 2014 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel MPS graduation rates are increasing; it just takes some students longer. In just a few weeks, thousands of students will begin graduating from Milwaukee Public Schools. It begins with a trickle in late May with three graduations — Reagan College Preparatory, Rufus King International and Community high

by millerlf / 13min 

REPORT: Fraudulent Charter Schools Responsible for $100M in Taxpayer Losses Across 15 States

  A new study from Integrity in Education claims “fraudulent charter operators in 15 states are responsible for losing, misusing or wasting over $100 million in taxpayer money.” The report — “Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud And Abuse” — was a combined effort of the Center for Popular Democracy and Integrity in Education, and echoes the findings of the Inspector General of the U.S. D

by millerlf / 19min 

America’s dangerous education myth: Why it isn’t the best anti-poverty program - Salon.com

America’s dangerous education myth: Why it isn’t the best anti-poverty program - Salon.com:

America’s dangerous education myth: Why it isn’t the best anti-poverty program

Here's what's behind the claim that education is the panacea to inequality -- and why it has the answer all wrong

 Arne Duncan (Credit: AP/Charles Rex Arbogast)

If you’ve followed the education reform debate in this country, the Finland story should be familiar by now. Almost as if engaged in an elaborate troll, Finland has apparently organized its educational system in exactly the opposite way as the reform movement here claims is necessary. The reformers say we need longer school days, but the Finns have short ones. The reformers say we need extensive standardized testing, but the Finns have almost none. The reformers say we need to keep a close leash on teachers, but the Finns give their teachers considerable freedom. Despite all of these pedagogical mistakes, the Finns consistently find themselves at the top of the international education scoreboard.

Normally, the suggested lesson of the Finland story is that the education reformers’ proposals are at minimum unnecessary and perhaps even counterproductive. Whether this lesson actually falls out of the Finland story is the subject of hotly contested arguments that are insufferably boring. However, flying under the radar of these Finland debates is a much less contestable and interesting lesson: Education cannot deliver economic equality.

If ever there was an opportunity to show that education can fix inequality and poverty, Finland is it. The children come into its education system with the lowest poverty rates in the world. In addition to its overall excellence, Finland’s education system is also extremely egalitarian in the way that it instructs its pupils. There are almost no private schools, college is free, and an ethos of total inclusion seems to reign. It is the closest thing to the liberal education utopia as you will probably ever find.

Despite all of this, Finnish economic inequality and poverty is still quite high, at least when you look at the market distribution of income. In 2010, Finland’s market poverty rate (defined as those with incomes below 50 percent of the median income) was 32.2 percent. By comparison, the United States’ market poverty was actually lower at 28.4 percent. When it comes to overall inequality, Finland’s Gini coefficient in 2010 was 0.479. This was only slightly lower than the America’s dangerous education myth: Why it isn’t the best anti-poverty program - Salon.com:

5-12-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum Week

Seattle Schools Community Forum:

Lost Decade

Here's something that happens when you move: you handle all of your stuff and you have to ask yourself if you should keep it, sell it, gift it, or toss it. You handle ALL of your stuff. For me, that meant a lot of handouts that I have received from Seattle Public Schools at meetings over the past fourteen years.Among these documents were a number of supposedly important decisions the District had

by Charlie Mas / 11min 

WSJ Story on RttT Outcomes

There was a story in the Wall Street Journal on May 3 about Race to the Top grants that casts them in a rather dim light. A number of grant winners did not actually move forward with the promised reforms and a number of the reforms did not actually provide any positive outcomes.Surprise, surprise, surprise.A lot of this might be just the usual government incompetence and the hit-or-miss range of r

by Charlie Mas / 6min 

5-10-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum Week

Seattle Schools Community Forum:Seattle Schools Community ForumLouis C.K. and Common CoreThe blowback from the comedian Louis C.K. and his tweets about Common Core are useful in pointing out some fundamental issues with Common Core.These are issues that ALL public school parents have a right to weigh in on both as taxpayers AND as parents investing their children into public education.  And that,

by mike simpson / 58min 

5-12-14 The Whole Child Blog — Not Worried About the EOG

Not Worried About the EOG — Whole Child Education:

THE WHOLE CHILD BLOG

Not Worried About the EOG

May 12, 2014 by Steven Weber

Across the United States, students have started test prep. Students march through test packet after test packet with the goal of increasing test scores on a standardized test. In North Carolina, all elementary schools administer the End-of-Grade (EOG) Test. The test is a standardized test which measures how well students understand grade level standards.

What are the standards?

• North Carolina Essential Standards
• Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics

A Whole Child Approach

At Hillsborough Elementary School (HES), our staff remains committed to teaching the whole child. A whole child approach to education means each staff member will focus on ensuring that each child is healthy, safe,engaged, supported, and challenged.

Our school's approach to assessment is through the use of common formative assessments. Common formative assessments are created by grade level teams or by teams of teachers from across Orange County Schools and inform teaching and learning. In order to assess skills and understandings, classroom teachers may assign a project, have a class seminar or debate, ask students to demonstrate a skill, visit the HES Nature Trail for a science experiment, ask students to complete a project in a collaborative team, or develop an online assessment. We believe in Assessment FOR Learning, which means that the teacher and the student both learn from the assessment.

Life is a matter of trial and error, not multiple choice tests. Our staff focus on creating assessments which are student-friendly and which help the student monitor his or her own growth. Parents are always welcome to speak with their child's teacher about assessment. Assessment is not viewed as a series of tests or hoops to jump through. Our state administers EOG Tests in grades 3–5, but the focus at HES is on student understanding, not on test prep. Teachers provide multiple opportunities for learning, and the instruction is aligned to the standards adopted by the North Carolina Board of Education.

Our goal is to teach for understanding and to prepare students for the next level. We view success as each student being well prepared for any assessment, not just a multiple choice test. You won't hear about a Test Not Worried About the EOG — Whole Child Education:

5-10-14 THE WHOLE WEEK @ The Whole Child Blog — Whole Child Education

The Whole Child Blog — Whole Child Education:THE WHOLE WEEK @ The Whole Child Blog Insights on Professional Learning: ReimaginedThe best teachers never stop learning. They know there's always room for improvement, and they're eager to find new ways to guide their students' learning. But the sit-and-get model of professional development in which teachers listen to an expert expound on best practice

by mike simpson / 39min 

5-12-14 LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD

LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District):

West Adams parents rally for a new charter, and it may pay off

Students and their parents rally for a new charter school Sometimes it takes a rally to get things done. Nearly 200 parents and their children from Bright Star Stella and Bright Star Secondary gathered on Saturday to campaign for a new charter school in West Adams. The families have identified an abandoned facility that they want turned into a new school that would house all of the students under

1 25min 

Where shame is policy: Inside LAUSD’s ‘teacher jail’

Via The Nation | By JoAnn Wypijewski  Iris Stevenson hurt no child, seduced no teenager, abused no student at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles. This is what her supporters say in rallying outrage that this exemplary teacher has languished for months in the gulag of administrative detention known as “teacher jail”: she doesn’t belong there. And she doesn’t. Days before being removed from her mus

2min hide  //  save

In LAT, community groups press LAUSD to help high-need students

More than 40 education and community groups signed a full-page ad that ran in today’s Los Angeles Times, urging the LA Unified school board to provide more support for high needs students in the up-coming budget. The ad appears a day before a board meeting when issues of the budget will be a large part of the conversation. In “An Open Letter to the LAUSD School Board,” the groups who form the coal

3 17min hide  //  save

Ratliff has a plan for more school custodians but fewer police

Monica Ratliff Anyone attending a recent LA Unified School Board meeting has heard Monica Ratliff talk about “providing a safe and inclusive learning environment for all students” by boosting the district’s custodial staff. Tomorrow she’ll lay out her plan for doing it. Item No. 47 on another loooooong agenda, represents Ratliff’s attempt to hire 108 new full-time custodial employees by cutting th

2 by Vanessa Romo / 47min 

Morning Read: Trial run of CA’s online exams a bumpy ride

State’s new computerized exam tryout plagued by glitches New state standardized exams, given for the first time on computers this spring, really have been a test. But not always a test of math and English. Students had trouble logging on; then many were logged off, sometimes for inactivity while they read lengthy passages. Some devices froze or didn’t save answers. Slow connections caused students

2 47min 

5-10-14 This Week in LA - School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD

LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District):LAUSD’s Marshall High School wins online decathlonJohn Marshall High School LA Unified has claimed a second victory in a major academic competition. Marshall High School won the 2014 U.S. Academic Decathlon Online competition, scoring 39,461 out of a possible 48,000 points. The win follows El Camino Real C

by mike simpson / 41min 

Conflicts of interest are the norm at some charter schools, where questionable spending has been unraveled - NY Daily News

Conflicts of interest are the norm at some charter schools, where questionable spending has been unraveled - NY Daily News:

Conflicts of interest are the norm at some charter schools, where questionable spending has been unraveled

At the Bronx Global Learning Institute for Girls, the school board in July met without informing parents and voted to hire a new business manager ... who happened to be a member of the board. Months later, the business manager was terminated 'for cause' in connection to the misuse of a school credit card.

At some New York City charter schools, conflicts of interest are a way of life.

In July, the board of trustees at the Bronx Global Learning Institute for Girls met after school shut down for the summer without informing parents and voted to hire a new business manager. The new manager was a member of the board, records show.

Within a few months, questions arose about the manager’s potential misuse of a school credit card, according to minutes of the board’s meetings obtained by the Daily News.

At a Dec. 18 meeting, board trustee Yolanda LaGuerre, who was absent when the board hired the manager, made an unsuccessful motion to refer the credit card matter to law enforcement. The board then voted to terminate the manager “for cause,” but the credit card matter remained a secret.

LaGuerre declined to discuss the matter last week. Board Chairwoman Alana Barran did not return calls. All of the school’s board meetings are listed on Bronx Global’s website except one — the July meeting where the board hired one of its own.

Some charters have a particularly cozy relationship with the company they pay to manage their schools. Sometimes employees of these firms even sit on the school boards that approve their contracts.

In the Bronx, for example, a nonprofit management firm called Lighthouse Academies runs three schools — Bronx Lighthouse, Bronx Lighthouse College Prep and Metropolitan Lighthouse.

A Lighthouse executive sits on the board of these schools, and the boards

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/conflicts-interest-brewing-charter-schools-article-1.1788466#ixzz31WMVS0oH

A glance at expenses at the Bronx Lighthouse school, where the board of trustees includes an executive from the firm that manages the school.

CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS

The Race for the Future of Newark Public Schools

The Race for the Future of Newark Public Schools:

The Race for the Future of Newark Public Schools

Monday, 12 May 2014 09:22By Owen Davis, Truthout | News Analysis

Newark mayoral candidate Ras Baraka with Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver, who endorsed his candidacy, at Essex Sports Cafe in Newark, N.J., May 7, 2014. (Photo: Christopher Gregory / The New York Times)

The forces behind free-market education reform have never preferred their revolutions quiet. By their political calculus, money trumps subtlety.

That pattern will be tested on Tuesday, as residents of Newark, New Jersey, elect a new mayor and help determine the fate of Newark Public Schools. A spate of dramatic education reforms has reconfigured the district in recent years, shifting masses of students and resources from public to privately managed schools. An intensifying mayoral race between two veteran Newark politicos will prove a referendum on those reforms.

Civil rights attorney Shavar Jeffries plays the free-market education reform candidate. A former charter school board chair, he’s benefited from nearly $1 million in campaign donations from Education Reform Now, an advocacy group composed of Wall Street executives.

In the opposite corner is Councilman Ras Baraka, a former high school principal and son of the late poet Amiri Baraka. Backed by labor unions, Baraka has advocated community-based approaches to school improvement, especially in bolstering support services. "We have the capacity to turn schools around," he told Truthout. "We don’t have to close them down. We don’t have to give up on the public schools system."

Despite Newark’s parochial politics, election watchers can’t help peering over the Hudson to New York City, where Bill de Blasio won the mayoralty, in part, by repudiating his predecessor Michael Bloomberg’s imperious tenure. Bloomberg’s pro-charter and test-heavy policies, as well as many of his former staff members, have been imported wholesale to Newark.

Baraka hopes to ride De Blasio’s progressive wave. "There’s no evidence that the things we’re doing work for anybody," he says of current reforms. Meanwhile, Jeffries has assumed the mantle of the "reform" candidate - meaning substantial continuities with the current regime.

The eventual mayor-elect will draw a tough hand, though. The district runs a deficit exceeding $50 million, stemming largely from an exodus of district students to the exploding charter school sector. The proportion of Newark students attending charters - privately managed, publicly funded schools given latitude in discipline and instruction - will rise from 25 percent to 40 percent by 2016.

Meanwhile, the most recent district reorganization plan, One Newark, would close or turn over 17 schools, while expanding the charter sector, potentially impacting thousands of students in neighborhood schools.

"It would be disastrous," Baraka says of the plan. "This is drastic and radical. It disrupts families'lives."

Reform Years

With the fifth-poorest student population in the United States, Newark has long posted unflattering test scores. But its schools showed glimmers of promise in the late 2000s. Legal battles secured equity-based funding, and grassroots initiatives were burgeoning. At Central High School, where Ras Baraka was principal, graduation rates increased from around 50 percent in 2007 to over 80 percent today.

But in 2010, Chris Christie took hold of the governorship, and with it Newark’s schools (they’ve been under state control since 1995). A subsequent $100 million donation from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, coordinated by Gov. Christie and Mayor Cory Booker, opened Newark’s gates to an army of free-market school reform The Race for the Future of Newark Public Schools:

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 5-12-14

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit:

LAUSD’s MARSHALL HIGH SCHOOL WINS ONLINE DECATHLON

by LA School Report | http://bit.ly/1slWrPW John Marshall High School Posted on May 9, 2014 2:31 pm ::   LA Unified has claimed a second victory in a major academic competition. Marshall High School won the 2014 U.S. Academic Decathlon Online competition, scoring 39,461 out of a possible 48,000 points. The win follows El Camino Real Charter High School’s victory in the 2014 U.S.Academic

by smf / 0min 

LA SCHOOLS BUDGET DISCUSSION: More teachers, custodians, health services, technology

  Annie Gilbertson | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC http://bit.ly/RAJXIU Lee LeFever/Flickr May 12th, 2014, 5:00am  ::  The Los Angeles Unified school board is scheduled to discuss Superintendent John Deasy's 2014-2015 proposed budget at its meeting Tuesday - and it promises hours of debate over long lists of competing wants. lest you missed it: Regular LAUSD Board

by smf / 1min 

STATE’S NEW COMPUTERIZED EXAM TRYOUT PLAGUED BY GLITCHES: New exams, given for the first time on computers, really have been a test. But not always of Math and English.

At Fredrick Douglass Academy High School, Principal LaKeyshua Washington banters with senior Charles Rachal, 19, in the computer lab. ICEF had been reluctant to invest in technology upgrades in the former church the group leases for Douglass. (Don Bartletti, Los Angeles Times) HOWARD BLUME | Education - Los Angeles Times http://lat.ms/1l4dCmp May 11, 2014 | 10:58  ::  Educators

by smf / 1min 

FAMILIES IN SCHOOLS TWITTER PARTY THIS AFTERNOON: Parents are worth more than spare change! + smf’s 2¢

received by e-mail -------- Original message -------- From: Families In Schools <smendoza@familiesinschools.org> Date: 05/11/2014 5:04 PM (GMT-08:00) Subject: Reminder: Twitter Party 05/12 - Parents are worth more than spare change! You are invited Join the #Yes2Parents Twitter Party! Monday, May 12th, 2014

by smf / 3min 

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 5-11-14

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: Duncan: “Achievement gaps among ethnic groups have not narrowed.”: NATIONAL REPORT CARD FOR HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS SHOWS STAGNATION IN MATH+READING + smf’s 2¢Commenting on the 2013 NAEP 'report card' for US hi12th graders, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said,''achievement gaps among ethnic groups have not narrowed.' By Amanda Paulson, Christian Science Mo

by mike simpson / 14h 

Telling the Truth About NAEP Scores | Taking Note

Telling the Truth About NAEP Scores | Taking Note:

Telling the Truth About NAEP Scores

by JOHN MERROW on 12. MAY, 2014 in 2014 BLOGS

When the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) released the 12th grade reading scores last week, the supporters of the status quo were hard pressed to come up with anything positive to say. Because reading scores have flat-lined, the best that the defenders of our ‘evolutionary’ approach to school reform could do was talk about how the new Common Core State Standards are poised to make a huge difference. For example, former West Virginia Governor Bob Wise, now the head of the Alliance for Excellent Education, cited the low scores as proof of the “desperate need for the aggressive implementation” of the standards. Keep on keeping on, he seemed to be saying, and don’t look back.

Another interpretation from establishment circles suggested the low scores are actually evidence of thesuccess of the country’s’ “Stay in School” effort; that insight came from the acting Commissioner of the US Department of Education’s statistics office, who suggested that scores were lower because kids who before the “Stay in School” push would have dropped out were now staying in school–and apparently doing badly on tests. Our success is making us look bad, he seemed to be saying.

But while the supporters of the Common Core may see the dismal results as reason to push harder in the same direction, others say we should look carefully at what the past dozen or so years of increased high stakes testing and test-based accountability (for students and teachers) have produced.[1] Perhaps it’s time to rethink what we have been doing since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001? After all, it’s now 2014, so we have a lot of data.

The left–eager to scrap NCLB and its successor, Race to the Top–is using these NAEP results to support its argument. Here’s Guy Brandenburg’s analysis. In his blog, he asks, ‘Just how flat are those 12th grade NAEP scores?’ His answer, in part: “The short answer is: those scores have essentially not changed since they began giving the tests! Not for the kids at the top of the testing heap, not for those at the bottom, not for blacks, not for whites, not for hispanics.

What Mr. Brandenburg has done is look for long-term patterns, something those in authority are not prone to do. I think it’s significant to consider what NAEP data can tell us about performance differences among racial groups (‘the achievement gap’) over time–but not just in 12th grade reading but in 4th and 8th grades as well.

NAEP generally tests a sample of 4th and 8th grade students in math and reading every few years. What I have done in the chart below is put the District of Columbia’s 2013 scores against the earliest available data for each category. (I used different years because in some years the District [2] did not have enough White kids to allow for comparisons.) What you will see is that, although the gap has grown smaller in three of the four categories, it remains the largest in the nation–by far–in all four categories:

These bad numbers may be news to you, because politicians, educators and editorial pages have notTelling the Truth About NAEP Scores | Taking Note: