Most Americans Think Public School Teachers Are Underappreciated And Underpaid:

Most Americans Think Public School Teachers Are Underappreciated And Underpaid

Most Americans agree that public school teachers should get paid more money and treated with more respect, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll.

In light of National Teacher Appreciation Week this week, The Huffington Post, in collaboration with YouGov, conducted a nationally representative poll on the topic of teacher appreciation. The survey results suggest most Americans think teachers deserve a week dedicated to appreciating them, if only because this group does not get enough respect the other 51 weeks of the year.

Most of the 1,000 survey participants indicated that they feel positively about the public school teachers in their community. This held true no matter the respondents' age, income or region.

Most survey participants also said they think teachers are underpaid. Participants who identified as black, were Democrats or had household incomes over $80,000 were more likely to say teachers are underpaid. Republicans and those living in the northeast were less likely to say so.

Finally, most respondents said they think teachers are underappreciated by society at large.

We also asked our own Twitter followers whether they think teachers are shown enough appreciation. While some teachers said they feel appreciated by the students and parents in their community, they said they felt less valued by society.

Let us know what you think with the hashtag #HPHeartsTeachers. Below are some of the responses we received.

The HuffPost/YouGov poll consisted of 1,000 completed interviews conducted April 28-30 among U.S. adults using a sample selected from YouGov's opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population.

The Huffington Post has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls. You can learn more about this project and take part in YouGov's nationally representative opinion polling. Data from all HuffPost/YouGov polls can be foundhere. More details on the poll's methodology are available here.

Most surveys report a margin of error that represents some, but not all, potential survey errors. YouGov's reports include a model-based margin of error, which rests on a specific set of statistical assumptions about the selected sample, rather than the standard methodology for random probability sampling. If these assumptions are wrong, the model-based margin of error may also be inaccurate. Click here for a more detailed explanation of the model-based margin of error.

Most Americans Think Public School Teachers Are Underappreciated And Underpaid:

A.F.T. head: Cuomo agenda ignores inequity | Capital New York

A.F.T. head: Cuomo agenda ignores inequity | Capital New York:

A.F.T. head: Cuomo agenda ignores inequity

BUFFALO—By blaming teachers for some students’ poor academic performance, Governor Andrew Cuomo has ignored the troubling racial segregation and socioeconomic inequity in New York’s public schools, a national teachers’ union president argued on Saturday.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers and former president of New York City’s United Federation of Teachers, said Cuomo has ignored the other factors that impact student performance.

“He is peddling a theory that basically says there is a direct correlation between the effort of a teacher and the outcome of a student, and that direct correlation can be measured by an English or math test score, and that all you need to do is shake teachers up in order to make that work,” Weingarten said during a speech at a New York State United Teachers convention in Buffalo.

“So what the governor has done is, he’s actually taken everybody else off the hook,” she said. “He’s actually said, the only thing that matters is shaking teachers up … not poverty, not parents, not the kids themselves, not what the government should be doing in terms of equity. And that is what is most wrong about what he's done.

“What that does is, it allows the state of New York to have the largest funding gap between rich and poor kids in these United States of America,” she said. “It allows the state of New York to have the most segregated school system in these United States. And that is unconscionable for the Empire State. That, my friends, is what we are fighting.”

Echoing NYSUT president Karen Magee’s remarks earlier in the convention, Weingarten argued that the union has been strengthened by members mobilizing against Cuomo’s education reform agenda.

“We face big fights, and we come through them tougher and stronger and more united,” she said. “Thanks to our union and your passion, we will come through this bigger fight even tougher, even stronger and even more united than ever before.”

Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for the governor, responded in a statement to Weingarten's comments: “Our reforms are about helping New York's children, not placating special interests.”A.F.T. head: Cuomo agenda ignores inequity | Capital New York:

State board again to pursue waiver from No Child Left Behind | EdSource

State board again to pursue waiver from No Child Left Behind | EdSource:

State board again to pursue waiver from No Child Left Behind

The State Board of Education isn’t giving up on the hope that U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan might grant California at least a partial waiver from the No Child Left Behind law that he has given to 43 other states.

At its meeting on Thursday, the state board will consider asking the U.S. Department of Education to give school districts more authority to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in Title I funding for poor children on after-school or summer programs in math and English language arts. Districts currently must use that money – equal to 15 percent of their Title I funding for low-income students – on private tutoring companies over which districts have no control. Districts also must notify parents in low-performing schools of their right to transfer their children to better schools and must allocate 5 percent of Title I dollars to bus children to the new schools. Under the draft waiver proposal, districts could put unused transportation money toward district-run after-school and summer programs. The state is planning to seek a four-year waiver, starting this fall.

“The use of private providers is not necessarily the best way to provide supplemental services (tutoring),” state board President Mike Kirst said Monday. After-school and summer programs would be better aligned to what’s being taught in the classroom. “I believe districts would be more effective with flexibility” in raising student achievement, he said.

Duncan started giving state waivers to NCLB in 2011, after a deeply divided Congress could not agree on changes to reauthorize the law. That remains the case, and so the law, formally known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, limps along as written in 2002 with flaws that both Republicans and Democrats agree should be fixed, although they disagree over how to do so. It’s unclear whether a bipartisan majority will come together to rewrite it before President Barack Obama leaves office.

Meanwhile, Duncan has given Title I flexibility and waivers from some of NCLB’s penalties to all but seven states. California last sought a waiver three years ago, but Duncan denied it because Gov. Jerry Brown and the state board refused to agree to several conditions, including a requirement that school districts include standardized test scores as a significant component in evaluating teachers. That would have required the Legislature to amend state law to mandate using test scores, which Brown and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson opposed.

Since then, eight California school districts, which formed the California Office to Reform Education, or CORE, did agree to the conditions and received the nation’s only waiver given specifically to school districts. The districts (now six after Sacramento City Unified dropped out and Sanger Unified is not reapplying) include some of the state’s largest unified districts: Los Angeles, Long Beach, Fresno, Santa Ana, San Francisco and Oakland. CORE’s application to continue the waiver is now pending.

States with a waiver no longer have to meet the demands of Annual Yearly Progress, the law’s requirement that all students, with few exceptions, score at grade level in English language arts and math on state tests. Schools with less than 100 percent of students scoring at proficiency are designated “schools in need of improvement” and must notify parents of that status and allow them to send their children to better-performing schools. They also must commit 15 percent of Title I funding for students to receive tutoring from a list of providers approved by the state Department of Education.

The department cited a federal audit that found cases of fraud and corruption by tutoring providers and noted that it also received unspecified complaints of “inappropriate practices” of providers.

The state board is asking only for a narrowly tailored waiver from the Title I private tutoring and school choice requirements. Districts would State board again to pursue waiver from No Child Left Behind | EdSource:

Read more about SES Failures Here:

Big Education Ape: Where is Education Secretary Duncan’s Head? 

Found it!

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Charter School Love #CharterSchoolsWeek

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Charter School Love:

Charter School Love

Have you heard? It's National Charter School Week. It's a time to "spread charter school love" and enter the Charter School Week Essay Contest. I think you get one of these ties if you win. Here's my entry. 



It's the time of year I start getting emails from Riya V. Anandwala from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, complaining that the cities aren't building charters fast enough to meet all the pent up demand. She may be right. Charter school ad-men, using public funds and with massive help from Arne Duncan's Dept. of Ed, have created a vibrant market.

Of course, creating a market and serving the public good are not the same thing. Take Apple Corp. for example. They have created quite a market for the Apple Watch, an $84, defectiveplastic bauble that they're selling to a willing public for up to $17,000 (Sport Edition) and can't make them fast enough.



It's hard to argue against choice. Right? In our wonderful country, everyone has the choice to buy the Sport Edition (or not), chunky/smooth, or to stay at the Drake on Boul Mich or sleep on a bench in the park across the street.



The problem is, that when the bill comes due, supposedly "public" charter schools can be taken away, repossessed if you will, and the occupants thrown out in the street, if the "owners" don't get their check in the mail. That's exactly what owner UNO, the largest charter operator in Chicago, is threatening if THEIR charters don't come across with more than $3 million in "management fees" to the parent company. They say they will evict thousands of Latino students and parents for non-payment. I suppose that will create an even greater market.



Chicago is not alone. The same kind of thing is going on in D.C. where privatization and unbridled charter expansion became a thing under former Supt. Michelle Rhee.



Here's the latest:

Charter school founder Kent Amos and his management company have agreed to pay $3 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged he used the company to divert taxpayer funds from the school for his personal gain.

Last summer, the D.C. attorney general alleged that millions of dollars had been diverted from the school for personal gain, contrary to the school’s nonprofit status. Amos and his attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.

Since 2004, the school paid more than $14 million to the company, according to court records. Management fees rose while costs Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Charter School Love:

Happy Thank A Teacher Day! - Lily's Blackboard

Happy Thank A Teacher Day! - Lily's Blackboard:

Happy Thank A Teacher Day!

 If you’re a teacher, it’s Christmas today. This is National Teacher Day, celebrated every year on the first Tuesday in the merry month of May since the fine year of our Lord 1953, when Lady Eleanor Roosevelt convinced a wise and happy Congress to proclaim it throughout the land.

Ok.

Maybe it was started during some Camelot fantasy of better times, but nonetheless, it’s a special day and a time to celebrate the incredible work that incredible people all over this country do every day.

Of course, most of us were motivated to become teachers with the hopes of becoming billionaires by thirty and wielding world-wide power through corporate oligarchies by age forty-five, but some of us understood that world domination could be achieved by making the world a little bit better for someone else’s child. And we do it every day.

This year we are so proud to partner with our beloved friends at the National PTA and their awesome president, the mighty Otha Thornton. We are both asking everyone within the sound of our voices to do something special from their own social media.

So if you’re one of the cool kids with a Twitter or Facebook or whatever, put up a picture of a teacher who meant something to you. If you don’t have a picture, just put up a picture of yourself holding a piece of paper with a short message to a teacher you want to thank and use the hashtag: #ThankATeacher.

We’ll follow social media for the hashtag and select 10 random participants to receive a $100 VISA gift card so you can present it to one of your favorite teachers to help him or her purchase something for the classroom (yes, we still have the only job where you steal things from home and bring them to work. We appreciate donations so we don’t have to spend as much out of our own pockets).

For more information on how you can spend this whole week honoring our nation’s teachers, go tonea.org/thankateacher

Go forth and do good things throughout the land. Send some love to a teacher today.

And tomorrow would be nice, too. Happy Thank A Teacher Day! - Lily's Blackboard:

A Gay 6-Year-Old's Thank You To His First Grade Teacher, 20 Years Later | Marcos Saldivar

A Gay 6-Year-Old's Thank You To His First Grade Teacher, 20 Years Later | Marcos Saldivar:

A Gay 6-Year-Old's Thank You To His First Grade Teacher, 20 Years Later

 I rejoiced at the news that my first-grade teacher was named Teacher of the Year in Huntington Beach, CA, because no one deserves it more than Mrs. Wood Maloney. So, when she asked if I would write a letter of recommendation as she competed for Orange County's Teacher of the Year, I immediately said "Yes!" And in doing so, I knew I had to launch the #HPHeartsTeachers campaign.

I did this because we often hear stories about violence, dysfunction and everything that is wrong with our education system. While it's important to expose negative stories in order to effect change, it's equally important to recognize the unsung heroes who are already working to effect positive change in our education system. So, in honor of National Teacher Appreciation Day, this campaign is for all the Mrs. Wood Maloney's in our country.

To The Orange County Teacher of the Year Selection Committee:

Isaac Newton's First Law of Motion is that "an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted on by an external force." This law of nature holds just as strongly when it comes to the immense influence that our public educators can have in guiding disadvantaged students in the right direction. This is why I am very pleased to highly recommend Lisa Wood Moloney for Orange County's Teacher of the Year.

My name is Marcos Saldivar and I am a first-generation college student and graduate of the University of Southern California. I am currently working in New York City as an Associate Editor to Arianna Huffington, President and Editor-in-Chief of The Huffington Post. In this capacity, I routinely encounter very lucky people with elite backgrounds and educations. I know that in this environment, I am the exception, not the rule. I think that Lisa was one of the external forces that pushed me onto this trajectory.

I first met Lisa -- I knew her as Ms. Wood -- when I was a 6-year-old first grader at Kettler Elementary School in Huntington Beach. I was part of an atypical bilingual class, taught by a woman who hailed from England, and designed for native Spanish-speaking students in first, second and third grade. Though I was one of the younger students and did not have the highest level of proficiency in English, Lisa will attest that I kept up with my older classmates. When Lisa reconnected with me on Facebook 15 years later, she still remembered me -- the "happy, but determined, tiny little first grader." Lisa was one of the first people to recognize my hard work and devotion to my education.

My parents spoke limited English, and Lisa's ability to communicate with them in Spanish was integral in helping them stay involved in my education in the best way they could given that neither of them had the opportunity to finish middle school. I firmly believe that without Lisa, the negative education statistics that plague Latino communities would have become my sobering reality. Instead, Lisa was one of the first people who recognized my potential and instilled in me a passion for learning -- whether history, language arts, science, math, music or art -- and she did it in ways that enhanced how I thought creatively, analytically and practically. Her passion for education and for her students extended beyond the confines of her classroom.

One of the greatest qualities that makes Lisa stand out to me is her love for her students. I suffered from bullying as a child, so this compassion benefitted me greatly. Some of the most vivid and traumatizing memories that I have as a child are of being attacked for being effeminate and -- unbeknownst to me at the time -- a gay boy. Being called a joto, or fag, was a common occurrence for me. On one day in particular, I recall a whole mob joined in yelling this slur at me. Lisa's immediate response when I cried to her was to comfort me and instill in me the knowledge that this wasn't my fault, that I was special and that I had nothing to apologize for. Although some of these boys were my classmates, Lisa saw to it that I was never again attacked by them at school -- and most certainly not in her class. She always made sure that her classroom was premised on respect for all students so that it could foster learning and creativity.

I think that very few adults would be able to recount so vividly the influence of their first-grade teacher. Her lesson and her example have followed me up to the present day. I recommend Lisa to you without reservation because her skills as an educator and mentor are exceptional and exactly what our education system needs to effect positive change. If you have any further questions concerning my experience with Lisa, I would be delighted to speak with you.

Warmly,

Marcos J. Saldivar

Become part of the conversation and tell us about your own favorite teacher using the hashtag #HPHeartsTeachers on Twitter and Facebook.A Gay 6-Year-Old's Thank You To His First Grade Teacher, 20 Years Later | Marcos Saldivar:

Here's What Americans Get Wrong About Cinco de Mayo

Here's What Americans Get Wrong About Cinco de Mayo:

Here's What Americans Get Wrong About Cinco de Mayo

 For most Americans, Cinco de Mayo means an excuse to drink tequila, eat Mexican food, and party hard.

Turns out in Mexico, though, the holiday isn’t nearly as big a cause for celebration.

In the US, Cinco de Mayo festivities can be found in a multitude of cities with large Mexican-American populations, such as Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, and Chicago.

The celebrations in Mexico are not nearly as widespread.

Before you toss back your margarita, make sure you’re not guilty of any of the common misconceptions many Americans have about Cinco de Mayo.

Cinco de Mayo is not a celebration of Mexican independence.

According to History.com, the Mexicans celebrate their independence from Spain on September 16th. This is the day priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla declared war against the Spanish government in 1810 with his call to arms that is known as the “Grito de Dolores” or “Cry of Dolores.”

Cinco de Mayo commemorates a relatively small battle.

The 5th of May is the anniversary of the Battle of Puebla, a battle which resulted in the unlikely victory of Mexico over France in 1862, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

In 1861, Mexico defaulted on a number of foreign debts that it owed to England, Spain, and France. All three countries invaded Mexico, but England and Spain retreated by the next year. France however, stayed in hopes of creating a monarchy in Mexico led by the Archduke of Austria, Maximilian.

When General Charles Latrille de Lorencez’s 6,000 troops of French soliders met General Ignacio Zaragoza’s far fewer — and poorly trained — Mexican troops, Zaragoza’s forces ended up triumphing. Close to 500 French soldiers were killed in the battle fought at Puebla, while the Mexicans hadn’t even lost 100 men.

Cinco de Mayo celebrates this victory. Although it was small, it lent support to Mexico’s resistance against the French (they withdrew from Mexico six years later).

(Puebla, Mexico. Credit: Shutterstock / Alberto Loyo)

Not all of Mexico celebrates the holiday.

Because Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Battle of Puebla, the holiday is mainly celebrated in Puebla, and only in a few other places in the country. Peñón de los Baños in Mexico City for example, holds reenactments of the battle, but the people who participate in the celebrations originally come from Puebla. Cinco de Mayo festivities in Mexico also include military parades.Here's What Americans Get Wrong About Cinco de Mayo:

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Pennsylvania charter school reform hinges on 'accountability' - Watchdog.org

Pennsylvania charter school reform hinges on 'accountability' - Watchdog.org:

Pennsylvania charter school reform hinges on ‘accountability’

 School choice advocates and charter school critics both want stronger laws for greater oversight and accountability in the charter sector. So why is it so difficult to effect any real change in Harrisburg?

It comes down to exactly what accountability means. The varying definitions of that word held by education reformers on all sides of the issue make overhauling Pennsylvania charter school regulations a challenge in perpetuity.

“Accountability is a word that everybody says, ‘Yeah, that sounds good.’ Nobody can really disagree with that in concept,” Bob Fayfich, director of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, told Watchdog. “But let’s look at what you mean when you say that.”

Fayfich and other charter supporters have been calling for charter school reform that would expand the number of high-quality authorizers in the state that would have the power to create new charters through a rigorous application process, and also crack down on existing mismanaged schools.

Progressive charter school opponents are also calling for more accountability and tighter oversight. An updated report, “The Tip of the Iceberg: Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud, And Abuse” covers more than $200 million in alleged or confirmed financial fraud, waste and abuse in charter schools.

According to the report, government at all levels has failed to implement systems that proactively monitor charter schools for mismanagement.

“Like other sectors that receive public tax dollars, there are a few bad actors involved that give everyone a bad reputation,” said Tim Eller, director of the Keystone Alliance for Public Charter Schools. “Virtually all of Pennsylvania’s brick-and-mortar charter schools are focused on educating their students and preparing them for post-high school success.”

Last year, Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale called for the formation of a charter oversight board, which is consistent with what state education reformers have been asking for. Earlier this year, the School District of Philadelphia turned over jurisdiction of corruption investigations to the city Inspector General rather than handle them in-house.

“Public brick-and-mortar charter schools are subject to the same fiscal checks-and-balances that govern public schools, including audits by the state Auditor General, submission of annual financial reports and third-party audits,” Eller said.

Rep. James Roebuck, D-Philadelphia, chairman of the House Education Committee, said he will soon introduce stronger charter school legislation.

“House Democrats will continue to stand for greater accountability and transparency in these privately run, publicly funded schools,” Roebuck said.“Fortunately, the Senate and Gov. Tom Wolf still have the opportunity to do better, and the governor’s budget proposes serious reforms for charter schools.”

Wolf’s proposals include two controversial measures that allow local districts to seize charter finances and slash online cyber charter spending, which are heavily opposed by school choice advocates, whose idea of accountability is not as intrusive.

“The devil’s in the details,” Fayfich said.

Or it’s in the definition of accountability.Pennsylvania charter school reform hinges on 'accountability' - Watchdog.org:

School Reform, New Orleans Style - K-12 Schools: Beyond the Rhetoric - Education Week

School Reform, New Orleans Style - K-12 Schools: Beyond the Rhetoric - Education Week:

School Reform, New Orleans Style

 In this post, Jack Schneider and Mercedes Schneider (no relation) discuss school reform efforts in New Orleans, with particular focus on the work of the Recovery School District.

Jack Schneider: New Orleans has been a hotbed of educational reform efforts for the past decade. Particularly with regard to the nature of school governance. Although the traditional school district still exists, it controls a tiny minority of schools. And the statewide Recovery School District, which was set up in the wake of Katrina, oversees several dozen charter schools—all of which operate independently.

Supporters of this shift argue that schools now have the autonomy they need to succeed, and that parents are no longer bound to send their children to possibly failing local schools. They argue that the New Orleans schools have been "jolted from a decades-long coma."

You're a critic of this reform movement. Maybe you can tell me your top gripe with what has transpired in New Orleans over the past ten years.

Mercedes Schneider: Narrowing my criticisms of the New Orleans Recovery School District (RSD) to a "top gripe" presents an undeniable challenge.

I had to choose among a number of serious concerns. But if I must choose one, here it is: RSD is being marketed nationwide as a successful alternative to traditional, board-run, community-centered school districts. Yet Louisiana superintendent John White must be sued—and sued again—to get data on those "superior" charters into the hands of researchers unlikely to shape a success narrative of RSD based on ideological (or other) grounds.

From 2005 to 2009, LDOE supplied de-identified student data on RSD to Louisiana-based Research on Reforms (ROR). ROR is critical of RSD "superiority" and has produced a number of research reports that contradict the LDOE success narrative for RSD.

So, as of 2010, LDOE refused to provide ROR with RSD data—but it still provided the Stanford University-based Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) with RSD data.

This is the data that ROR sued for and in March 2015 gained access to on appeal.

If state-run RSD (now all charter) is superior to traditional public schools, then there should be no qualms about openly offering decoded RSD data for analysis by interested research entities. The data should speak for itself.

Unless John White and LDOE are trying to create a hologram of RSD success.

Holograms do not do well under scrutiny. The lack of substance is obvious.

John White will hide data if the outcomes reflect poorly on the "charter school superiority" narrative. For example, White refused to release the Class of 2014 ACT scores in 2014. I wrote about his withholding this information from the public, and a contact in higher education who has access to the ACT information system forwarded the scores to me for RSD and also for the entire state of Louisiana.

I verified firsthand that the scores came from the ACT information system.

In January 2015, I released all Class of 2014 ACT score composites for all Louisiana high schools to the public.

New Orleans RSD Class of 2014 ACT composite was 15.7.

An ACT composite of 15.7 eight years after Hurricane Katrina is not a selling point for marketing state-run New Orleans RSD.

Four days after I released the Class of 2014 ACT composite scores for RSD, John White released his version: an overall New Orleans RSD composite of 16.4.

That was the best he could do, and the most damning issue was that his score release did not happen until mine did.

If state-run RSD were superior to traditional, board-run community school, there would be no hiding of ACT scores from the public. However, RSD is not superior, and in order to continue to sell it as such to unsuspecting districts nationwide, White and LDOE must hide data.

That is my "top gripe."

Jack Schneider: There are three comments I'd like to respond to here, and I'll begin with the least complicated: ACT scores. The ACT is increasingly aligned with the Common Core standards. But even if we assume perfect alignment, it's still just a test. Additionally, unless we know the scores of non RSD students, as well as the demographic backgrounds of RSD and non-RSD students, the data doesn't tell us a tremendous amount.

Next, there's an implication in your discussion that board-run school districts are a superior model. But as much as I'm in favor of democracy and elections, there isn't much evidence—at least that I'm aware of—that they function any more effectively than, say, mayoral control districts. Now, maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe the fundamental value of public control is enough. Still, I have questions about the capacity of elected school boards.

Finally, you seem to be arguing in favor of total data transparency. But I wonder about that. How much data should be out there? All of it? Even if we aren't sure of its value? Even if the public may not have the tools and support to process it?

Mercedes Schneider: I agree that test scores do not tell one much. However, the takeover of schools is based on test scores. The state set the rules, so let the state live by its own rules. The state is selling the message that privatization is superior to board-run schools. Let them release the test scores to prove it.

Mayoral control places too much control in the hands of one person. If that person is bent on privatizing a district with no thought to implementing an accountability system for charters, then the public money will be siphoned away to a system that values good test-takers over other students.

I have seen no evidence to support mayoral control over board-run schools.

The advantage of board-run education is that it is not profit-driven. Also, school districts based on residency prevent the pushing-out of some students in favor of others, which some RSD principals admitted doing in a study just released by Education Research Alliance (ERA) of New Orleans.

As to data transparency, if the state boasts that charters outperform traditional schools, they not only need to provide the data for analysis, but they also need to do so without trying to filter out research agencies not sympathetic to the privatization agenda.

The public is a sitting duck when the state (that has its own vested interest in privatizing public education) gets to decide what research organizations have access to the data.

Jack Schneider: I want to pick up the "privatization" argument in our next conversation. But before we shift to that, I want to make two points.

The first is that you're right—research does not identify mayoral control as a better form of governance than school board control. But the research cuts both ways. There's no reason to think that school boards are any better at governance. Additionally, while elected school boards aretheoretically more democratic, anemic turnout for elections means that school boards don't really end up realizing whatever greater potential there is for representation.

The second point is about the danger of mayors privatizing schools. Yes, if a mayor is hell-bent on School Reform, New Orleans Style - K-12 Schools: Beyond the Rhetoric - Education Week:

Despite Challenges, Most K-12 Teachers Would Recommend the Profession -- THE Journal

Despite Challenges, Most K-12 Teachers Would Recommend the Profession -- THE Journal:

Despite Challenges, Most K-12 Teachers Would Recommend the Profession

Standardized testing and policies originating from those outside the profession were cited by teachers as their greatest professional frustrations.

 Why do K-12 teachers stay in the profession despite its many challenges and notoriously limited financial rewards? According to a recent survey of just over a thousand elementary, middle, and high school teachers around the country, the answer is: job satisfaction.

"We all know what a challenging profession teaching can be," said Pamela Roggeman, Ed.D., academic dean for the University of Phoenix College of Education. "Our goal with this survey is to understand what it is that keeps them coming back to it, year after year."

The survey was conducted online in the U.S. by polling and market research firmHarris on behalf of the University of Phoenix between April 14 and 27. In total, 1,002 full-time K-12 teachers responded to the survey, explained Tanya Burden, director of public relations at Apollo Education Group, of which the University of Phoenix is a subsidiary. All respondents had earned at least an undergraduate degree, she said.

A majority (88 percent) of survey respondents cited job satisfaction as the primary reason they continue to pursue the teaching profession. Many (71 percent) said that seeing students grow is what they most enjoy about the job. And more than half (68 percent) of those who entered the field in the last 10 years said they would recommend the profession to others.

Among the other factors that keep them in the profession, respondents cited:

• The ability to affect students' lives (68 percent);
• Lifelong learning opportunities (43 percent);
• Variety — no two days are alike (41 percent);
• Job benefits (19 percent);
• Collaboration in schools today (16 percent);
• Technology in the classroom (15 percent); and
• Professional development opportunities (15 percent).

And 69 percent of respondents said they became teachers because they enjoy working with children; 65 percent had a desire to make a difference in children's lives; and 30 percent said they wanted to inspire change in education.

Their list of most vexing frustrations included: policy development by those outside the profession (78 percent); standardized testing (67 percent); and students' lack of respect for authority (60 percent).

Survey respondents were also asked for their recommendations for improving teacher retention.

Tuition reimbursement programs topped that list (56 percent), followed by mentorship programs that support teachers in their first few critical years of teaching (53 percent), relevant professional development opportunities driven by school needs (49 percent) and teacher preparation and continuing education aligned with classroom dynamics, merging theory and practice (48 percent).

"It's important to keep in mind that K-12 is a different place from what it was 10 years ago, in terms of leadership opportunities for teachers," Roggeman said. "It used to be that you were either a teacher or an administrator. But today, savvy district leaders are recognizing that you've got to tap into the talent pool of your teachers for creative problem solving."

This is the second such annual survey conducted by the for-profit school, and the responses remained relatively consistent, Burden said. The teacher retention questions were new to this year's survey. "We've been hearing a lot about this looming teacher and substitute teacher shortage around the country," she said. "So it made sense to focus on that a little bit more this year."

Burden's favorite finding from the survey: Nearly half (47 percent) of respondents reported that they were inspired to join the profession by a teacher they had when they were students. "That number was very similar year over year," she said.

Almost all (97 percent) survey respondents agreed that parents should play an essential role in the learning process. And yet, more than half (56 percent) said that they believe fewer than 25 percent of parents are actually involved in their classrooms.

Among the ways that parents could become more involved, the teachers suggested:

• Ask about areas for improvement with their child (63 percent);
• Communicate regularly with the teachers (63 percent);
• Do not wait until there is an issue to connect with teachers (62 percent);
• Donate supplies (54 percent); and
• Volunteer in the classroom (34 percent).

The release of the survey results were timed to correspond with Teacher Appreciation Week, Burden said, which is sponsored by the National Parent Teacher Association.

Despite Challenges, Most K-12 Teachers Would Recommend the Profession -- THE Journal: