Dropout Nation » Wanted: Black Education Systems

Dropout Nation » Wanted: Black Education Systems:

Wanted: Black Education Systems

America’s traditional public education systems has failed the descendants of enslaved Africans. Only 16 percent read at grade level in middle school (and only 12 percent of male African-Americans do so). Just over half of male Black students graduate from high school in four years (as compared to more than three-quarters of male White students). 21 percent of young Black women graduate from college, but only 16 percent of young Black men (compared to 31 percent and 30 percent for White women and men, respectively). As a result of this failure of the public schools to educate Black children, lifetime earnings are reduced on average by over a million dollars, or a total of $5 trillion for this generation of the descendants of enslaved Africans as a whole.

This $1 million individual reduction in lifetime earnings is a quantifiable, continuing, harm resulting from centuries of slavery and an additional 150 years of Jim Crow and its lingering effects. As such it can be taken as one component of the calculation of the figures for restitution.

While the average per student expenditure for Black students is less than $12,000, the amount spent on White students whose families are in the upper 20 percent of incomes can easily reach $30,000. Adding to that the amounts spent by those families on education activities outside of school hours—private lessons of various kinds, tutoring, educational travel—we can estimate the annual monetary educational disadvantage of Blacks students as at least $25,000. Given k-12 Black enrollment of seven million, the total annual shortfall is on the range of $175 billion.

If this $175 billion were available for the education of Black American children, how could it be used to eliminate the educational penalty for studying while Black?

One idea would be to utilize the existing legal framework underpinning the charter school movement (whose schools have been more-successful in improving the prospects of black children) to create a national charter school network for the American descendents of enslaved Africans. I call it the Black American Public School System. We already have such a system in higher education in the form of the nation’s historically black colleges and universities, many of whom still account for the vast majority of black collegians entering professions such as law and the sciences.

These schools would be funded in each locality by the usual local, state and federal contributions, supplemented by a National Black Educational Fund, capitalized with restitution contributions. The total per student expenditure would vary by locality, but would everywhere be sufficient at a minimum for universal pre-kindergarten; all-day, literacy-oriented, kindergarten; challenging, college-preparatory curriculum with after-school, Saturday and summer classes; highly effective teachers supported by on-going subject-area and pedagogical professional development; excellent facilities.

Use of advanced technology would enable geographically neutral delivery of resources, including administration, so that Black students in a small elementary school in the rural South would have educational resources equivalent to those of Black students in Northeastern and Far Western suburban Black American Public School System schools.

Graduates of the Black American Public Schools admitted to college would be provided with full tuition and living expenses. Others would receive support for job training, including apprenticeships.

Increases in Black high school and college graduation rates would result in higher Black annual and lifetime earnings, with consequent improvements in health, family and social life and childhood well-being in the Black community and increased contributions to governmental revenue at all levels. In this way, the education system, the deficiencies of which now drive the Black poverty cycle, would instead serve as a foundation for the prosperity of the Black community.Dropout Nation » Wanted: Black Education Systems:

CURMUDGUCATION: Arizona's Teacher Desert

CURMUDGUCATION: Arizona's Teacher Desert:

Arizona's Teacher Desert

This week in the New York Times, Fernando Santos and Motoko Rich took a look at the continuing teacher shortage in Arizona, where leaders continue to demonstrate that they understand neither education nor the free market forces that they claim to love. 

Arizona's history with reformster nonsense goes way back. Bill McCallum was a professor at the University of Arizona back when he became one of the co-authors of the Common Core. Arizona has long camped out at the bottom of most education lists-- spending, test results, you name it, they've sucked at it. When reformy governor Jan Brewer backed Tea Party fave Doug Ducey all the way to the capital, that was not good news for education. 

Ducey brought in reformsters Paul Pastorek, obliterator-in-chief of New Orleans schools, and Joel Klein, who never met a public school that he didn't want to shut down. Pastorek and Klein showed up to help promote the idea of a charter-choice non-public school system where children carrying tax dollars in their backpacks travel from school to school begging to be admitted. At that same event, Ducey (previous job: CEO of Cold Stone Creamery) declared a need for more positive view of Arizona:

"I believe that too many have fallen into a doom-and-gloom cycle where everything is wrong, where the cynic is winning, telling others that nothing is right," Ducey said. "I say it's time we shed an inferiority complex inside this state."

It's funny-- I would think that an acolyte of Competition and Free Market Forces would recognize that a good way to shed an inferiority complex would be to take steps to stop being inferior.

That has not always been the Arizona way. A year ago their legislature was seriously discussing a bill to shut educators up, barring them from "distributing electronic materials to influence the outcome of an election or to advocate support for or opposition to pending or proposed legislation." (It was shouted down in the 11th hour.) Arizona has also led the country in anti-Hispanic legislation,CURMUDGUCATION: Arizona's Teacher Desert:

The Big Bad Dragon

There are those books you heard about and you thought, "Yeah, I should read that," but you were busy and didn't get around to it and after the initial publicity blast, you don't hear about it much again and so you never get back to it.

Well, I'm here to remind you about Yong Zhao's important book, Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon?The book came out last fall and was reviewed by Diane Ravitch in the New York Review of Bookslast November. Her review is excellent and insightful and will provide you with one more set of reasons that you need to grab and read this book.

Zhao was born and raised in the Sichuan Province of China, coming to the US as a visiting scholar in 1992. He's now a professor at the University of Oregon in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy and Leadership, as well as a senior fellow at the Mitchell Institute of Victoria Institute in Australia. He has also created a college English learning system widely used in China 

The Big Bad Dragon

The Transparent Testing Year

One of the dishonest things that schools do is to fold testing time into the rest of the year.

We get our "testing window" from the state and set the test prep elements of our year as we wish, and so testing appears to be going on while school is happening, suggesting that school and testing are related activities and also hiding from the public just how much time the state is using for the Big Standardized Test.

Imagine what would happen if we were honest about what is actually going on. Imagine this announcement from your state capital:

Next year, the school year will end on April 7. At that time, your local school district will issue report cards for the year. There will be a spring break, and then on April 14, students will report to school for the testing year. Schools will be given approximately two weeks to prepare for the test, and then test administration will begin. Students in non-testing grades will not need to report. At the conclusion of the testing year, students will be released for summer vacation. See you next fall!

There would be considerable advantages. For one, my high school ties itself in knots trying toaccommodate both testing and non-testing students, not to mention bouncing teachers back and 

The Transparent Testing Year

Ms. Katie's Ramblings: It's Time to Bring Charters Back Into the Public Fold

Ms. Katie's Ramblings: It's Time to Bring Charters Back Into the Public Fold:

It's Time to Bring Charters Back Into the Public Fold

Across the country, it is becoming ever clearer that the charter experiment has failed. Every glowing media story highlighting a charter "miracle" has been debunked. The so-called "success stories" are easily exposed to be examples of selectivity, school pushout, discrimination against students with significant special needs, behavioral challenges, or English Language Learners, obsessive test-prep focus, and oppressive "no excuses" discipline.

Charter school teachers in my city are organizing unions. Just this week, the teachers of the Urban Prep Charter Network voted for a union. I am so happy for my brothers and sisters who were being exploited, laboring in unacceptable working conditions, standing up for their students' right to a quality education. I applaud their courage in the face of massive pushback from slimy charter leaders. What they did was right for kids.

Charters, instead of providing quality alternatives by operating outside existing education laws and worker protections, have proven why many of those education laws and protection were passed in the first place.

The charter cheerleaders told us it was unions that were holding back innovation. Turns out, unions were all that were keeping even worse conditions from befalling our schools in the name of austerity-loving, greedy, and racist politicians and leaders. Without unions, charter teachers see how damaging having no protections can be. They work for lower pay, they have even less job security, they have no way to advocate for their students and the resources and time they need to teach well.

We were told charters would cut back on administrative costs. Instead, they duplicated and expanded useless, yet well-paid, administrators in our funding-starved system. Suddenly, instead of just one CEO in Chicago Public Schools, we have dozens, all making exorbitant Ms. Katie's Ramblings: It's Time to Bring Charters Back Into the Public Fold:

Surprise charter school loan program raises new questions

Surprise charter school loan program raises new questions:

Surprise charter school loan program raises new questions

In the final days of this year's legislative session, Republican lawmakers dropped into the massive state budget bill a provision giving charter schools access to $50 million in low-interest state loans.

The measure was a last-minute effort to appease Gov. Mike Pence, who had sought more funding for charter schools, and it received virtually no public scrutiny.

Now some critics — including the Senate's chief budget writer — are sounding an alarm about the new program, given the significant debt of many charter schools.

The main concern: Who will be on the hook if charter schools don't repay the loans?

"Some of these charter schools have some pretty enormous debt pictures right now," said Senate Appropriations Chairman Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville. "I don't think they have the ability to retire that debt. It's really a problem."

Pence dismissed the potential risk to taxpayers. He noted that the new law gives the state a security interest if charter schools use the loan money to build or purchase new facilities.

Charter school officials say the loan program is needed to put them on more equal footing with traditional public schools — and they argue that borrowing to construct new buildings is a better long-term financial deal than leasing.

But if history is any guide, Kenley has reason to worry.

In 2013, the state forgave and paid off more than $90 million in charter school loans. The move drew protests from traditional public schools whose loans were not forgiven and consequently charter schools were no longer given access to the loan money.

Kenley said Pence and House Speaker Brian Bosma plan to do the same thing again with the new loan program — an assertion that neither denied outright.

"It's always a possibility in the future," Bosma said.

Loan program part of compromise

The new program slipped into the budget during the waning hours of the legislative session in late April.

Throughout the session, Pence and Bosma had pushed for a $1,500-per-student grant for charter schools. The intent was to give them money for construction and other capital expenses that traditional public school districts receive through local property taxes.

But the proposal hit a snag in the Senate, where GOP lawmakers balked at the $20 million-a-year price tag.

Ultimately, they settled on a $500-per-student grant and the new loan program, which gives charter schools access to up to $50 million in loans from the state's common school fund.

The fund has about $170 million available — money that would normally be reserved for traditional public school loans for construction and technology purchases. Now, Surprise charter school loan program raises new questions:

Latinos criticize lack of representation on school board | Catalyst Chicago

Latinos criticize lack of representation on school board | Catalyst Chicago:

Latinos criticize lack of representation on school board

A number of prominent Latinos in Chicago are criticizing Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s decision to make an already disproportionately white school board even more ethnically lopsided by removing one of his only two Hispanic appointees.

“We are disappointed that in a school district that is 46 percent Latino -- Latinos being the largest cohort of students now, having exceeded African Americans in the district a number of years ago -- that there was not a Latino named to the school board,” says Sylvia Puente, executive director of the non-partisan Latino Policy Forum. “It feels like it’s a missed opportunity.”

There are now four white board members -- up from three -- while less than 10 percent of children in Chicago Public Schools are white. The remaining two board members are black, compared with nearly 40 percent of students.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Emanuel said his administration "has always been reflective of the citizens we serve, and he will continue to ensure that Latinos are represented in leadership and Board positions."

The statement goes on to name board member and Interim CEO Jesse Ruiz as well as the mayor's top education advisor, Arnaldo Rivera. Ruiz, an attorney and Mexican-American who formerly chaired the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), is currently not a voting school board member in his capacity as interim CEO.

Insiders tell Catalyst that at least one Latino turned down an invitation to sit on the board.

It's unclear whether politics has anything to do with the reduction in Latino representation on the board. The shuffle comes two months after all but one of the city’s Hispanic-majority wards went for Emanuel's opponent, the Mexican-born Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, a Cook County commissioner, in the mayoral elections.

U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez -- by far Emanuel's biggest campaign supporter from Chicago's Hispanic community -- says he sees no problem with the ethnic makeup of the board, given the influence of Ruiz and Rivera on the daily workings of the district.

"I'd rather have somebody be in charge of the School Board every day than to try to reach some symbolic positioning of Latinos," says Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat.

But Miguel del Valle, a former state senator who ran against Emanuel in 2011 and backed Garcia in this year's race, says the ethnic disparity on the school board just doesn't make sense.

“If you can’t find one person in the City of Chicago, given all the Latinos we have out there in different arenas, with the skills and talents and the background to be able to serve responsibly and meet the fiduciary obligations, I have to say that they didn’t try hard enough," he says.

Census data from the 2013 American Community Survey show that Latinos make up just under 30 percent of city residents.

Del Valle, who formerly chaired the Illinois P-20 Council, says he understands that it might be challenging to find someone willing to join the board “under the current circumstances.” CPS faces a $1.1 billion budget deficit next fiscal year and is in the middle of contract negotiations with a teachers union that went on strike last time around.

“Let’s face it: it’s a tough situation to walk into. But you look and you look and you look,” he says.

Reflecting ‘needs and aspirations’

Earlier this week Emanuel announced he was replacing four board members whose terms expire at the end of the month, including Carlos Azcoitia, a former educator and Cuban immigrant. He'd beennamed to the board in 2012 to fill a vacancy left when another Latino board member, Rodrigo Latinos criticize lack of representation on school board | Catalyst Chicago:

30,000 Teachers Walk Out In Protest Of Big Class Sizes | PopularResistance.Org

30,000 Teachers Walk Out In Protest Of Big Class Sizes | PopularResistance.Org:

30,000 Teachers Walk Out In Protest Of Big Class Sizes In WA State

Since late April, Washington state teachers have been striking for reduced class sizes and better funding for classroom programs. (Washington Educators Association / Facebook)

Seattle, WA – On Tuesday, May 19, thousands of demonstrators marched through downtown Seattle to support a rolling strike by public school teachers across Washington state. The teachers are protesting what they say are unacceptably high class sizes and low pay, stemming from their state legislature’s failure to fully fund public education.

Six thousand teachers and supporters from Seattle Public Schools and the nearby districts of Mercer Island and Issaquah shut down intersections for blocks in the largest coordinated action since the rolling walkout began on April 22. In total, at least 30,000 teachers in 65 striking school districts have participated in one-day strikes.

Washington Educators Association (WEA), the statewide teachers union (a National Education Association affiliate), has pointed out that the state has the sixth-highest student-teacher ratio of any state, at 19.4, according to NEA data from 2013. The union calculates that an additional 11,960 teachers would be needed to reduce the student-teacher ratio to the national average of 15.9. Class sizes are typically about nine or 10 students larger than the student-teacher ratio. Teachers say that big class sizes in Washington state result in poor working and learning conditions.

The strike is unusual in that the teachers are not pressuring their respective school districts, but rather targeting the state legislature for its unwillingness to fund education enough to decrease class sizes and increase teacher compensation. Popular signs at rallies across the state have read “Educators care for our kids every day – It’s time the legislature cared” and “On strike against legislature – stop blaming teachers – start funding schools.”

On the class size and funding issue, union members say they have both the courts and the voters on their side. In 2012, the state Supreme Court ruled in McCleary vs. Washington that the legislature had failed in its constitutional duty to “amply provide for the education of all children within its borders” and ordered it to implement adequate funding increases by 2018. Last September, the Washington Supreme Court found the legislature in contempt of court for failing “to provide the court a complete plan for fully implementing its program of basic education,” warning lawmakers that the legislature would be “sanctioned” if it did not develop a plan by the end of the legislative cycle.

Compounding this legal pressure is the binding initiative 1351 approved by voters in November 2014, which calls for a 20 percent reduction in class size and the hiring of 15,000 teachers over the next four years, according to advocates of the initiative.

While both legislatures have put forward proposals to fund class size decreases up to the third grade, none have proposed fully funding initiative 1351. Gov. Jay Inslee has called for two consecutive special sessions to address the funding issue and other budgetary matters before a July 1 deadline. If they don’t resolve the budget, legislators risk a government shutdown.

Jesse Hagopian, a history teacher at Garfield High, says that teachers’ “backs are to the wall,” necessitating collective action.

“The old strategy of supporting politicians and hoping that they will enact pro-education policies has not worked for so long that it has actually caused a state of crisis for our union as a whole,” he says. “It’s reached a level of absurdity. I think [lack of support from the legislature] made [WEA] leadership more willing to back some of our smaller locals that began this one-day strike wave in the state.”

The strikes have been primarily organized by teachers union locals, rather than by the statewide union. On the eve of the first strikes in late April, a WEA spokesperson told Washington’s News Tribune that it was up to locals to “decide how big the protest gets this year.” What began with eight districts has now swelled to 65.

The legislature’s unwillingness to go fully fund I-1351 and adhere to McCleary has 30,000 Teachers Walk Out In Protest Of Big Class Sizes | PopularResistance.Org:

Judge Rules Second Version of New York Teachers’ Exam Is Also Racially Biased - NYTimes.com

Judge Rules Second Version of New York Teachers’ Exam Is Also Racially Biased - NYTimes.com:

Judge Rules Second Version of New York Teachers’ Exam Is Also Racially Biased

A federal judge on Friday found that an exam for New York teaching candidates was racially discriminatory because it did not measure skills necessary to do the job, the latest step in a court battle over teacher qualifications that has spanned nearly 20 years.

The exam, the second incarnation of the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test, called the LAST-2, was administered from 2004 through 2012 and was designed to test an applicant’s knowledge of liberal arts and science.

But the test was found to fail minority teaching candidates at a higher rate than white candidates. According to Friday’s decision, written by Judge Kimba M. Wood of Federal District Court in Manhattan, the pass rate for African-American and Latino candidates was between 54 percent and 75 percent of the pass rate for white candidates. Once it was established that minority applicants were failing at a disproportionately high rate, the burden shifted to education officials to prove that the skills being tested were necessary to do the job; otherwise, the test would be ruled discriminatory.

In creating the test, the company, National Evaluation Systems, sent surveys to educators around New York State to determine if the test’s “content objectives” were relevant and important to teaching. The samples for both surveys were small, however, Judge Wood said.

The judge found that National Evaluation Systems, now called Evaluation Systems, part of Pearson Education, went about the process backward.

“Instead of beginning with ascertaining the job tasks of New York teachers, the two LAST examinations began with the premise that all New York teachers should be required to demonstrate an understanding of the liberal arts,” Judge Wood wrote.

Joshua Sohn, a partner at the firm Mishcon de Reya, who represents the prospective teachers in the case, echoed the that sentiment.

“They started with the conclusion, without any support, that this is what you actually needed to know to be an effective teacher,” Mr. Sohn said.

With this ruling, the LAST-2 meets the same fate of the LAST-1, an earlier version of the test, given from 1993 to 2004, that was also found to be discriminatory.

It was not immediately clear how many people would be affected by the decision or how much this might cost New York City.

So far, about 3,900 people have filed claim forms over the first version of the exam. Mr. Sohn said the compensation is still being litigated. Some of those people worked as substitutes and may now be eligible for full-time positions, while others had already been promoted because they met other hiring requirements.

Mr. Sohn said thousands of people presumably took the second exam version while it was in use, and under Title VII, the federal prohibition on employment discrimination, minority candidates who failed might be entitled to back pay. This ruling applies only to the city, but could have ramifications for the rest of the state, where the test was also used.

Nicholas Paolucci, a spokesman for the New York City Law Department, Judge Rules Second Version of New York Teachers’ Exam Is Also Racially Biased - NYTimes.com:

Jersey Jazzman: "Partially Ineffective" and "Ineffective" Are NOT the Same Teacher Rating

Jersey Jazzman: "Partially Ineffective" and "Ineffective" Are NOT the Same Teacher Rating:

"Partially Ineffective" and "Ineffective" Are NOT the Same Teacher Rating

So the first "report" came out about New Jersey's new teacher evaluation system, aka Operation Hindenburg. And guess who was on the TV talking about it?

Thanks to Briana Vannozzi for including me in her piece. There's much more to say, but I want to highlight one thing Vannozzi pointed to that several reporters have glossed over; here's a graph from the report:

The report itself (and most of the media reporting that has followed) talks about the approximately 3 percent of teachers who are Ineffective or Partially Ineffective. It then compares this number to the 0.8 percent of teachers found "not acceptable" under the previous system.

First of all: I have no idea where the state got this 0.8 percent figure. There is no documentation or data source cited in the report for this figure. The state does collect this information through its data systems, but I am unaware of any auditing that occurred to determine the validity and reliability of this figure.

Let's, however, assume it's correct; there is still no evidence that "not acceptable" in the old system is equivalent to "Ineffective or Partially Effective" in the new system.

And that's a problem.

Think about the term "Partially Effective"; yes, you are only doing things right some of the time, but not all of the time. If you were a total screw up, you'd be "Ineffective," and your administrators would either be applying a very intensive intervention or, more likely, showing you the door.

One of the myths that has been perpetuated by people who don't know how schools work is that teacher evaluations before "reform" were simple fine/not fine ratings with no differentiation. But that's simply not true: good principals in well-run districts always gave their teachers more feedback than a simple binary rating. Evaluation systems always

- See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2015/06/partially-ineffective-and-ineffective.html

District Purchasing of High-Tech Devices: How Teachers Continue to Lose Out | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

District Purchasing of High-Tech Devices: How Teachers Continue to Lose Out | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

District Purchasing of High-Tech Devices: How Teachers Continue to Lose Out

When I buy a new laptop, desktop, or smart phone, I have in mind what I want to use it for and how much I can spend. I then read about the appliance and its software, listen to other users and what they say about it, and then try it out for awhile. I ask myself: does it do what I need it to do? Is the price of the device worth what I want it to do? Then I decide whether or not to invest in it. I am what academics would call a “rational actor.” Yet there is an emotional side to my decision also: how does it look? how does it feel to use? how many other people are using it? Do I really need it or have the ads influenced my decision?

That is me the individual buyer and user. It is not, however, in most instances the classroom teacher who seldom gets the chance to decide what software enter her classroom. The classroom teacher is the end user and yet, in most cases, is seldom consulted about how new instructional software can be best used with students. (I and others have written about this problem of who exactly is the customer for school high-tech and who is the end-user–a split that, in my opinion, impedes integration of high-tech devices into classroom lessons (seehere, here, here, and here)

A recent publication from a non-profit organization and for-profit vendors (Digital Promise and The Education Industry Association) makes this point of the divorce between who use the classroom software–the “consumer” (read: district administrators, directors of technology, principals)–and who is the end-user (read: teachers)  indirectly while raising directly tough issues that exist in districts when school boards buy laptops, tablets, hand-held devices and software.

In Improving Ed-Tech Purchasing, the authors, in concert with the Johns Hopkins Center for Research and Reform, surveyed over 300 “education leaders and technology executives” and conducted 50 in-depth interviews with these respondents. They were principals, superintendents, business officers, District Purchasing of High-Tech Devices: How Teachers Continue to Lose Out | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Students tell their stories: I tried cyber school ... I was going to give up school. | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Students tell their stories: I tried cyber school ... I was going to give up school. | Philadelphia Public School Notebook:

Students tell their stories: I tried cyber school ... I was going to give up school.

In researching our edition on "boosting graduation rates for all," the Notebook interviewed young people who had dropped out and were now reengaging in school. We asked why they left, why they returned, and what obstacles they face. Some described heartbreaking personal situations and herculean struggles. But all displayed hope and optimism about their futures. They were all eager to tell their stories.

Simone Gause, 19, from Frankford, did well at First Philadelphia Charter School for Literacy through 8th grade. But due to health issues, her mother decided she should try cyber education for the first two years of high school.

This derailed her. Sitting at home with a computer and communicating with teachers remotely didn’t work for her. “It was hard,” she said. "I was teaching myself."

“I was going to give up school.”

An aunt told her about YESPhilly, where she found a caring mentor in the school counselor and the focus to buckle down and graduate. She plans to attend trade school so she can fulfill her goal of becoming a cosmetologist.

“I want to own my own business someday,” she said.

Watch our interview with Simone above.Students tell their stories: I tried cyber school ... I was going to give up school. | Philadelphia Public School Notebook:

Rallies on Monday / DAMAGING changes in store for WI public schools in one list : blue cheddar

Rallies on Monday / DAMAGING changes in store for WI public schools in one list : blue cheddar:

Rallies on Monday / DAMAGING changes in store for WI public schools in one list

THE PROTESTS

Sun Prairie Monday June 8, 4-6 PM (they need volunteers)

Green Bay Monday June 8, 7:20 AM – 8:00 AM

Appleton Monday June 8 11:45 AM – 1 PM Press Conference to Support Our Schools
3:30 PM – 5:00 PM Honkin’ Good Rally for our Schools

THE LIST

This list is abbreviated* from a (PDF) letter that was recently sent to parents of children in the Rhinelander, WI public school. (doesn’t even list everything – already massive)

1. School District of Rhinelander public schools and schools across the state will have their state aid cut to allow for voucher expansion, i.e. public tax dollars used to pay for a student’s private education….

2. According to Michael Griffith, a senior policy analyst for the Education Commission of the States, this budget drives Wisconsin under the national average in per pupil spending…

3. The new law eliminates many standards for licensing teachers – no bachelor’s degree would be needed to teach our students in multiple subject areas. …

4. The tests that students are required to take will be different for the third consecutive year. … This change also makes it impossible to compare public, private, and charter schools.

5. The proposed law allows students in special education to use $12,000 in publicly funded annual vouchers to attend private and parochial schools. In these schools, students would not be guaranteed the legal rights and protections afforded to them by federal law. …

6. The new law would allow “learning portfolios” to replace up to one-half the credits needed to graduate from high school. The law would require that a diploma earned in this manner be the equivalent of a diploma earned through actual course completion. This proposal has the potential to change what high schools look and feel like across the state; including the likelihood that the rigor needed to earn a high school diploma would be significantly reduced, jeopardizing both in and out-of-state college acceptance.

7. The new law would allow home-schooled students and virtual school students to participate in any extra-curricular or athletic team that our school district offers. …

8. There is a new requirement in the law that mandates passing a civics assessment for high school graduation. This would be a 100 question test. This test is in addition to the multitude of other state mandated tests that students are already required to take. This proposal, set to become law, has had very little discussion and has no plan for implementation.

9. Our schools will be subject to a rating system based on stars. Can a star-rating system adequately portray the quality of our schools? The current school report cards indicate if schools are failing to meet, meeting, or exceeding expectations with specific feedback on areas of strength and recommendations for addressing concerns.

HOW TO CONTACT LEGISLATORS

You can visit the legis.wisconsin.gov site and enter your address on the right to find your legislators and contact them about these issues.

IT LOOKS LIKE THIS

Add any other events related to public education in a comment please. Thanks.

* Sorry I’m not copying, pasting, and reformatting this whole letter today. My neighbor downstairs was having NOISY drama at 3:00 in the morning. I’m low on sleep.Rallies on Monday / DAMAGING changes in store for WI public schools in one list : blue cheddar:

Why a simple 30-year-old chart is an ingenious teaching tool today - The Washington Post

Why a simple 30-year-old chart is an ingenious teaching tool today - The Washington Post:

Why a simple 30-year-old chart is an ingenious teaching tool today

The simple K-W-L chart

Almost three decades ago, a simple chart known as the K-W-L was born — and it has helped millions of teachers help kids think and learn ever since. What is it and why is it so powerful? Author Alfie Kohn explains, and even makes the case that this old chart should be viewed as radical in today’s learning environment.  Kohn is the author of  14 books, including “Schooling Beyond Measure….And Other Unorthdox Essays About Education,” just published by Heinemann.

By Alfie Kohn

I believe it was Dale Carnegie who first counseled public speakers to “tell the audience what you’re going to say . . . say it . . . then tell them what you’ve said.” This advice, which presumably appeared in his book “How to Lose Friends and Irritate People,” suggests a rather dim view of the audience’s capacity to comprehend or remember what they’ve heard – or, perhaps, the speaker’s capacity to come up with enough content to fill the allotted time.

Nevertheless, the general idea of sandwiching the main event between some sort of preparation and some sort of reflection actually makes a fair bit of sense when applied to learning — provided that the goal is more ambitious than mere repetition.

Consider the iconic K-W-L chart, first described by literacy expert Donna Ogle in an article published almost 30 years ago in “The Reading Teacher.”[1] Students are asked to brainstorm what they already know (K) about the subject matter of the text they’re going to read and also to anticipate the kinds of information it’s likely to contain. Then they discuss what they hope to learn (W). Finally, after reading, they consider what they actually did learn (L).

I’ll return in a moment to how this procedure illustrates what might be called sandwiching, but first let me say a word about K-W-L in its own right. Its status as one of those nifty practical ideas that teachers can pick up quickly and start using the following morning probably explains why it became so popular. But, like other teaching strategies that are deceptively radical in their implications, K-W-L is also easily corrupted – and often implemented so poorly as to undermine any meaningful benefit.

For example, rather than being given time to reflect on what, if anything, they genuinely want to know about a given subject, students may be asked to cough up questions on the spot — which results in responses that are perfunctory and inauthentic. Even when students come up with thoughtful questions, moreover, the teacher may write them down and then ignore them, teaching the unit exactly the way she had originally planned. Finally, the Why a simple 30-year-old chart is an ingenious teaching tool today - The Washington Post:

The Education of EduShyster (a Comedy) | EduShyster

The Education of EduShyster (a Comedy) | EduShyster:

The Education of EduShyster (a Comedy)

Can you believe I’ve been at this for three years???

Note: to mark the third anniversary of my blog, I’m sharing a chapter that I wrote for a book called Resisting Reform: Reclaiming Public Education Through Grassroots Activism. I recount my unlikely journey into the world of edu-blogging and reveal at long last what (or rather who) prompted me to come out as my self…

I can tell you exactly when Edushyster.com came into being. It was the summer of 2012 and I was deep in conversation with my husband. Well, maybe conversation isn’t quite the right word as it implies some sort of a back-and-forth. This was more of a one-way affair—a diatribe to be precise, and I was the one doing the dia-tribing. As he liked to point out, I’d been doing a lot of this lately. Our early morning newspaper reading sessions had become a launching pad for my many strong opinions.

THE GENTLEMAN ON THE RECEIVING END OF MY DIATRIBES.

The cause of this particular harangue was yet another column in the Boston Globe giving unquestioning support to a proposed ballot measure that would essentially eliminate tenure for teachers in Massachusetts. Authored by a writer whose beat seemed to consist alternately of teacher bashing and charter school cheerleading, the column was a familiar mélange of talking points: change-obstructing teachers union (check), overpaid teachers with guarantees of life-time employment (check), obligatory reference to the achievement gap (check).

*You know that the Globe writers have strict seniority protections,* I pronounced in the direction of my husband, who wielded a copy of the Boston Herald like a shield. *You have to admit that’s kind of a double standard.* I paused, giving him an opportunity to respond to this obvious outrage. Nothing. *At one point they had a provision in their contract that guaranteed them jobs for life.* Still nothing. *Well, don’t you think that’s outrageous?* I abandoned the Globe in order to better make my case.

*You know what I think?* he said finally, peering at me over the top of his paper. *I The Education of EduShyster (a Comedy) | EduShyster: