In the Future, All the Seats Will Be High Performing | EduShyster

In the Future, All the Seats Will Be High Performing | EduShyster:

In the Future, All the Seats Will Be High Performing

I talk to Andy Smarick about the urban school system of the future…

EduShyster: Let’s talk about the future. In your vision, urban parents will choose between their choice of high-performing charter schools. But one can’t help but observe that the cities that seem to be hurtling towards the future at the greatest velocity don’t seem to have all that much choice about where they’re headed.

Andy Smarick: I don’t agree with that at all. I believe that the systems that are going in that direction are places where families, communities and organizations have the most say. They’re places that have the longest charter school wait lists, or in some cities they have the longest scholarship or tax credit wait lists. What I do agree with you about is that in these systems where there are more and more autonomous schools, we don’t have a system yet for ensuring that there is democratic control of the entire system. I think these cities are showing us that parents desperately want a different kind of system, they want choices, they want to be able to exercise their options. But now it’s up to us to ensure that there is democratic control as well. 

EduShyster: Let me ask what is essentially the exact same question but using different words. Other than the power to get on a waiting list or *vote with their feet* if they don’t like the charter choice they’ve chosen, what power do parents actually have in your vision? It doesn’t feel like a lot of power to me.

Smarick: I think it’s the ultimate control. We had the illusion of democratic control in places like New York City or Chicago. If you have an elected member of a school board who represents hundreds of thousands of citizens, yes, technically there is democratic control, but how responsive is that system to the needs of families and to neighborhoods? I think that where you have neighborhood charter schools and independent boards and a wide array of options for families, that’s actually the way that you can exercise control. 

EduShyster: Since you *went there,* let’s talk about democratic control. In recent elections, voters in both Chicago and Philadelphia basically shouted that they want more say over their schools.  Is it just me, or does it seem like if you give voters a vote over whether they want an In the Future, All the Seats Will Be High Performing | EduShyster:

Hillary Clinton Sounds Off On Education Issues: 'We've Gotten Off Track In What We Test'

Hillary Clinton Sounds Off On Education Issues: 'We've Gotten Off Track In What We Test':

Hillary Clinton Sounds Off On Education Issues: 'We've Gotten Off Track In What We Test'

In her recent meetings with the nation's top two teachers unions, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton positioned herself as a standardized-testing skeptic who believes deeply in the value of teachers.

On Monday, Clinton met with Lily Eskelsen García, president of the National Education Association, the largest teachers union in the country. García interviewed Clinton as part of the NEA's candidate endorsement process for the 2016 election. In the interview, Clinton expressed skepticism about contemporary standardized tests.

“Are tests important? Yes. Do we need accountability? Yes. But we’ve gotten off track in what we test and what we test for that we sacrifice so much else in the curriculum, in the school day and school year," said Clinton in an interview excerpt released by the NEA.

“So many of our poorer schools have cut off all the extracurricular activities. We’ve taken away band, in so many places we’ve taken away a lot of the sports. We’ve taken away arts classes. We’ve taken away school productions," Clinton said in another excerpt. “I would like to see us get back to looking at individual children, looking at age appropriate learning experiences, looking at enriching the classroom experience.”

In March, the NEA formally began considering who it would endorse in the 2016 presidential election. To jump-start this process, it sent all viable candidates from both major parties questionnaires about prominent education issues and hired organizers for states with early voting.

The interview comes a week after Clinton, along with fellow Democratic presidential candidates Gov. Martin O' Malley of Maryland and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), attended the executive council meeting of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation's other major teachers union.

During that meeting, Clinton emphasized her appreciation for teachers, saying, "It is Hillary Clinton Sounds Off On Education Issues: 'We've Gotten Off Track In What We Test':

BIG EDUCATION APE RANT: Arne Duncan is so full of **IT that his eyes are brown

Unveiling Student Debt Relief, Duncan Hits For-Profit College Industry and Its Friends in Congress | David Halperin:

BIG EDUCATION APE RANT: Arne Duncan is so full of **IT that his eyes are brown. He blames members of Congress who have blocked reforms to hold the for-profit education industry accountable. At the same time he continues to push for privatization of Public Schools and the same policies that led to fraud and corruption in the For-Profit College Industry. He promised to "beef up efforts to protect students and taxpayers from waste and fraud," to "hold colleges, not taxpayers, accountable for fraudulent acts," and to "work across the administration to make sure the full weight of the law is brought to bear" against abuses. BULLSH** He has said nothing and done nothing to end the fraud, corruption and abuse running rampant in the Charter School industry.  $4 billion dollar price tag to bail out his for-profit buddies and hedge fund managers will be dwarfed by the cost of the fraud, waste and corruption in charter schools. 

Read the "Duncan Spin" below:

 Unveiling Student Debt Relief, Duncan Hits For-Profit College Industry and Its Friends in Congress

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan just announced a debt relief package for students who attended schools run by now-bankrupt Corinthian Colleges. In doing so, Duncan sharply attacked for-profit colleges that have engaged in fraudulent acts, and he criticized members of Congress who have blocked reforms to hold the industry accountable.

Duncan said on a 2 p.m. ET Monday conference call, "You'd have to be made of stone not to feel for these students."  He said that many of the students "ended up with huge debt, worthless degrees ... if they got a degree at all."

Using some of his toughest language to date regarding predatory for-profit colleges and their defenders on Capitol Hill, Duncan offered a sharp critique of "a for-profit industry that uses its financial support to try and block change in Congress." He promised to "beef up efforts to protect students and taxpayers from waste and fraud," to "hold colleges, not taxpayers, accountable for fraudulent acts," and to "work across the administration to make sure the full weight of the law is brought to bear" against abuses.

Duncan added, "This has to be a wake-up call to Congress.... Congress has to be part of the solution, not part of the problem, and, candidly, members on both sides of the aisle have been part of the problem." He added, "This is the time for Congress to act, and act in a bipartisan way."  In particular, he raised the possibility that Congress could move to hold for-profit college companies accountable for paying back some of the student debt.

The new debt relief package directly targets some 15,000 student borrowers at closed Corinthian campuses, with collective debt of about $208 million, and an overlapping group of some 40,000 students at Corinthian's Heald College schools, where the Department already had identified specific abuses and student debt is about $650 million. But in fact, Department officials said, the new debt relief approach, including the appointment of a special master, to be named "in the coming weeks," according to the Department, to address student claims, extends to the universe of students at Corinthian and, indeed, at other for-profit colleges that have engaged in fraudulent practices.

Department officials said that relief for defrauded students was potentially available to students who had attended Corinthian schools going back well before the school's 2014-'15 collapse and included students whose campuses were acquired this year by debt-collection company ECMC. Duncan said the plans would apply beyond Corinthian.  He foresaw the collapse of other companies in the for-profit college industry: "Sadly this will likely not be the last domino to fall."

The Department pinned its authority to offer debt relief on a provision in law allowing students to make fraud by the school a "defense to repayment" of outstanding debt.  Students at any college already have the right to mount such a defense, but they have rarely done so successfully.  The importance of today's announcement is that the Department now plans to take these claims seriously in the cases of fraudulent schools rather than fight them tooth and nail in court.

Advocates for students, concerned about students having an individual burden of proof in cases where a school has engaged in systematic fraud, have urged the Department to also use its "compromise and settlement" authority to forgive debts on a broader basis.  A Department official just told me that the Department is concerned about the open-ended nature of this approach but has not completely rejected it, pending more legal review.

On today's call, Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell announced the details of the plan, which include these elements:

• Expanding eligibility for Corinthian students to apply for a closed school loan discharge, extending the window of time back to June 20, 2014, to capture students who attended the now-closed campuses after Corinthian entered into an agreement with the Department to terminate Corinthian's ownership of its schools.
• Relying on evidence established by "appropriate authorities in considering whether whole groups of students (for example, an entire academic program at a specific campus during a certain time frame) are eligible for borrower defense relief. This will simplify and expedite the relief process, reducing the burden on Unveiling Student Debt Relief, Duncan Hits For-Profit College Industry and Its Friends in Congress | David Halperin:

Broadie On The Loose In Oakland Gets The OZY Spin

Schoolhouse Rocky | Rising Stars | OZY:

Broadie On The Loose In Oakland Gets OZY Spin

Schoolhouse Rocky 

At a Tuesday evening board meeting in the Oakland Unified School District, you can barely see the stage for all the neon poster boards kids and parents alike are waving. They read Students, Not Suspects and Increase the Peace, No More Police and No More Sexist Dress Code.

People are out, and in uniform — there are so many squadrons that it’s difficult to track who is who and what each one wants. There are the special ed support staffers in purple and the Oakland Technical High School teachers in green and black. Some parents seem to have organized veritable armadas composed of middle- or high-schoolers, each group eager to speak their respective truths to power. At least three teachers shout, using anything but their inside voices, that they are ready to strike. And then there are the cops, four or five of them, pacing the perimeter of the gym. Guns in holsters.

A few feet above the war zone sits the school board, its members either smiling serenely or wearing practiced, stony-faced expressions. Each of the men and women on the stage knows just how much vitriol sits latent in the room. However, none of them face as much as Oakland Unified’s relatively new Superintendent Antwan Wilson. And him? He doesn’t even flinch. Wearing a gentle gray suit with a pastel blue shirt, he sits on the stage next to his board colleagues, all 6-foot-5 of him, fingers tented in front of his chin thoughtfully, occasionally sipping from a bottle of Coca-Cola.

But about an hour into the session, Wilson decides to spare a few words — some of his first all night — for the rabble-rousers. His is a steady voice, neither booming nor overpowering, but smooth. This comes after a mother of a disabled child heartbreakingly places her son at the mic as part of a conversation over special education cuts — the kid reads from what seems like a script, saying he is there to defend the rights of special ed students. When the heckling abates, Wilson finally says: “I will assume you have all misheard me, or misunderstood,” going on to assert that the budget is actually increasing for special ed. “The next time I hear this, I won’t assume you are mishearing. I will assume you are lying.”

The effect amounts to a parents-in-the-principal’s-office feeling. Except that parents (and angry teachers), unlike disciplined kids, don’t have to play nice. What’s he gonna do — suspend them? The angry buzzing isn’t quelled. Oakland Tech teacher Tania Kappner, a 21-year vet of the system, tells me, acerbically, “It’s simple. Antwan Wilson needs to go.”

This is what comes with the territory: Education at the district level is hyperlocal politics at its finest, most disgusting and, most sadly, childish. (“That was tame compared to what I’ve seen,” Wilson tells me later.) And in Oakland, a city fervently set on remaking itself, from principals to policing, this job is guaranteed to involve dodging spitballs. For Wilson, though, this is a breakthrough career move. At just 42, he is impressively young to have an entire district in his hands. But already he’s a veteran, having been a teacher and coach, a middle school principal and high school principal multiple times over and assistant superintendent for postsecondary readiness at Denver Public Schools. Making the jump to Oakland means tackling a big problem — or opportunity, depending on how you look at it.

That problem consists of some 48,000 students, 71 percent of whom were on free and reduced lunch programs in the 2014–2015 school year, according to the district, and nearly a third of whom were English language learners. Oakland flails on most indexes of school success: U.S. News & World Report, citing Standards of Learning exam results, marks it as below the state average. Wilson would seem equipped, as far as his resume goes, to handle these troubles. In the canon of Wilson Legend, one story is oft-repeated: that of Montbello High School in Denver, where Wilson was principal. Known as one of the worst schools in the state, it had seen a student stabbed in the cafeteria shortly before his arrival; 27 principals had passed through its doors in 30 years. Wilson saw graffitied hallways, vending machines encapsulated in cages. The bell, he recalls, was “just a suggestion.”

He held a “Come to Jesus” schoolwide assembly, where he doubtless knuckled down as in the board meeting, but that time he had the muscle to follow up. He created SWAT-team-esque groups to wander the halls and check up on people. Bell timings and the starting/ending of classes became stricter. It worked. When he began, 35 percent of students were accepted to junior and four-year-colleges. When he left three years later, Wilson says, that number was 95 percent. He was rewarded for those efforts with a six-year stint winding his way through the ranks of the Denver district, working on everything from college and career preparedness to AP courses. He instituted uniforms, not for aesthetic reasons but practical ones: “It’s hard to hide a gun when you don’t have sagging pants,” he says.

And one big thing: He actually dropped the (shh) “R-word” — race! — recalls his former chief of staff Kelli Pfaff. The fact that Wilson wanted to talk about suspension through the lens of its disproportionate effect on young Black men was “not without controversy and some pushback — especially among our more white, middle-class community,” Pfaff says.

It seemed inevitable that he’d be headed for a superintendent role, says Charles Robertson, a community leader in Denver who worked on after-school programs with Wilson. “We always thought he would move on,” Robertson says. “Other districts were going to come knocking.”

The city that knocked, though, is no easy beast. Oakland reflects national conversations over education — the Common Core debates, the legacy of No Child Left Behind; not to mention all the troubles of violence, Black males’ low academic achievement and dropout rates in urban high schools. It’s representative of much of the country, says Carlas McCauley, director of WestEd’s Center on School Turnaround, a San Francisco-based nonprofit working on education policy. He compares it to Los Angeles or Miami-Dade County, to name a few. If Wilson succeeds here, other school districts around the country may have a model — or a new prophet to turn to for guidance.

On the other hand, Oakland is terrifically unique. Northern California’s East Bay is home to schools with progressive names like Malcolm X Elementary School (in Berkeley) and Fred T. Korematsu Discovery Academy (in Oakland). Its citizens are famously strong protesters; it’s a social justice town. So it could be one of the bestSchoolhouse Rocky | Rising Stars | OZY:

Ozy has entered an increasingly crowded field of news sites fighting for readers and venture capital investments from technology billionaires and media giants. Last year, News Corporation took a 5 percent stake in Vice Media. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has backed Business Insider. Pierre M. Omidyar, the founder of eBay, is funding the start-up First Look Media.

For its part, Ozy, based in Mountain View, Calif., has received financing from Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Steve Jobs and a leading advocate for immigration and education reform; the angel investor Ron Conway; and David C. Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer. Now, with a small investment from Axel Springer — the exact amount is not being disclosed — it gains the backing of a global media giant. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/31/business/media/start-up-ozy-media-adds-axel-springer-as-a-backer.html

San Diego Schools Not Following Law on Charter Space

San Diego Schools Not Following Law on Charter Space:

San Diego Unified Says It Will Start Following the Law on Charter School Space

 School districts have to share the buildings they own with charter schools. The two compete for students, so districts may not like giving away their space. But it’s the law.

Unfortunately for charter schools in San Diego Unified, the school district hasn’t been abiding by the terms of it.

After a years-long legal battle between Los Angeles Unified and the California Charter Schools Association, the California Supreme Court ruled in April that L.A. Unified was improperly counting classrooms, which, CCSA argued, short-changed charter students. Moving forward, L.A. Unified must revamp the way it divvies up space.

San Diego Unified now needs to do the same, because it counts classrooms similar to the way Los Angeles Unified does. The end result could open up more space to charters.

That would be good news for the local charter school community. Especially in cash-strapped early years, it can be financially impossible for charters to purchase their own buildings. And without a school, it’s more difficult to attract parents, build enrollment and bring in the funding that follows students. It’s a chicken-and-egg dilemma.

Under the terms of Prop. 39, which voters passed in 2000, charters are entitled to use district facilities, even if a neighborhood school currently occupies part of that space.

Neighborhood schools actually share buildings with charters on six San Diego Unified campuses. It’s a situation known as co-location, which can create strange bedfellows. Paired schools can be at out of sync philosophically, sparking tensions typical of any roommate situation.

That would be less of an issue if schools simply had their own facilities. But there are only so many classrooms to go around, and the district is the one that doles them out.

The process by which districts allocate space to charters is complicated. But a key piece to understand is language in the law that says charter school classrooms must be “reasonably equivalent” to the ones students would have if they attended their neighborhood schools.

Reasonably equivalent, here, refers to both to the quality and the kind of resources available. If a neighborhood school has a gym, for instance, students at a comparable charter school would also have access to gym.

But more importantly, size has to be comparable. And this where we find the hang-up.

If a charter school wants to take advantage of district facilities, it sends a request to the school district. District staff looks at the number of district students planning to attend that charter, and notes which neighborhood schools they’d otherwise attend. These schools are referred to as “comparison schools.”

District staff then looks at class-size ratios at those comparison schools (the number of students divided by the number of classrooms) and finds facilities that can fit in a charter at the same class-size ratio. That’s the way it’s supposed to be done, under the terms of Prop. 39.

Instead, what San Diego has been doing – and what the state Supreme Court found to be unlawful in the case against Los Angeles Unified – is using average student-teacher ratios districtwide to determine how much room is available for charters.

The problem is that, in reality, student-teacher ratios vary by individual school. And just because one school has a low student-teacher ratio doesn’t mean charter schools will use the classrooms in the same way. This has the potential to stiff charter school students on classrooms. And it’s not how the law says it’s supposed to work.

San Diego Unified spokesperson Ursula Kroemer said the district will change the way it counts classrooms moving forward, but said the recent Supreme Court decision applies only to future San Diego Schools Not Following Law on Charter Space:

New school funding formula to get huge increase | EdSource

New school funding formula to get huge increase | EdSource:

New school funding formula to get huge increase

Proposition 98 funding for K-12 schools and community colleges has recovered dramatically since the low of $47 billion in 2011-12 to what would be a high of $68.4 billion next year. The black bar represents revised estimates of Prop. 98 revenue for three years in Gov. Brown’s May budget proposal

A projected big infusion of state revenue next year will inject much more money into the new K-12 education finance system than school districts and state officials expected at this point.

For the budget year starting July 1, Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing an additional $6.1 billion for the Local Control Funding Formula, the funding system that shifts more authority over operating budgets to local school boards. It also steers more dollars to “high-needs” students – English learners, low-income children and foster youth. The new dollars will take districts much closer, after only three years, to what the Legislature set as full funding when it passed the funding law in 2013.

The Legislature defined full funding as the end of a transition period from the old revenue distribution system, where districts were funded unequally, based often on outdated formulas and a grab bag of earmarked funds, called categoricals, to one where, with few exceptions, funding would be uniform. All districts would receive the same base funding per student, with supplemental dollars flowing to districts according to the proportion of their high-needs students.

Brown’s proposed increase will bring the total for the Local Control Funding Formula to $53.1 billion. That’s about $6 billion ahead of schedule, according to the state Department of Finance. By one measure, that equals 90 percent of full funding, currently estimated to be $60 billion. By another measure, it’s 70 percent of the way there (see graphic below for an explanation of the difference).

Of K-12 funding from Proposition 98, the main source of revenue for K-12 schools and community colleges, 79 percent will be distributed to districts through the funding formula next year, with the rest allocated for community colleges, special education, child nutrition and a few other state programs.

The top graph, by the Legislative Analyst’s Office, shows that the Local Control Funding Formula will reach about 90 percent of full funding – $60 billion – under Gov. Brown’s proposed budget. In the bottom graph, the education consulting firm School Services of California says the formula would reach 70 percent of full funding next year. School Services started at $39 billion in 2012-13, the last year under the old revenue system, and calculated the gap between it and full funding. Next year’s proposed $53.1 billion for the funding formula closes the gap by 70 percent. That is still much greater than the theoretical red trend line, consisting of steady yearly increases – which the state’s boom and bust tax system never produces.

The extra money next year for the Local Control Funding Formula would provide $1,088 more per student for the average school district, in which English learners and low-income children make up 63 percent of the students, according to School Services of California, an education consulting company that calculated various scenarios. However, amounts for individual districts would vary tremendously, based on how much they were funded under the old system and their student demographics. Some districts with a small proportion of high-needs students would get as little as $500 to $600 per student, while districts that fared poorly under the old system and all of whose students are poor or English learners could get as much as 20 percent, or $1,590 per student, more.

Some longtime education observers are cautioning districts not to waste an unprecedented spending opportunity that is not likely to come again anytime soon.

“This is the moment when districts should be placing bets on where they want to be in 2020 to do the most good for their students,” said David Plank, executive director of Policy Analysis for California Education, or PACE, a research center based at Stanford University.

The vehicle for setting priorities is the Local Control and Accountability Plan, a document that districts are required to update annually after soliciting the views of parents and the community. In an LCAP, districts list New school funding formula to get huge increase | EdSource:

Detroit teachers union chief takes on Lansing, recall bid

Detroit teachers union chief takes on Lansing, recall bid:

Detroit teachers union chief takes on Lansing, recall bid

The head of Detroit's teachers union said he's preparing for his biggest fight yet — to stop efforts to dismantle the city's public school system.

Steve Conn may also have to fight to save his job.

Five months after being elected president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, Conn is the target of a recall campaign. The 57-year-old former teacher and longtime civil rights activist said he's unfazed by critics and remains focused on improving public education in Detroit.

"We'll march, picket (and) make it absolutely clear to the governor and everyone that we're prepared to do whatever we can to defend public education," he said this week.

Read statement: Steve Conn to Detroit Federation of Teachers

DETROIT FREE PRESS

Activist Steve Conn to lead Detroit teachers union

Conn has a fiery, driven, in-your-face leadership style. During his nearly 30 years as a math teacher at Cass Tech, he was one of the most controversial figures in Detroit Public Schools. He has been arrested at protests, led strikes and been booted out of meetings for shouting.

Conn ran for president of the DFT about a dozen times before being elected in January. He beat out then executive vice president Edna Reaves by 15 votes.

Conn's supporters say he is pumping new life into a union that had become too passive. His critics describe him as reactive and even radical.

"He has strengths and weaknesses like all leaders," said Phil Fisher, a DPS teacher. "One of his strengths is that he wants to stand up for teachers. ... A weakness I see is not listening to membership, and that's huge."

Fisher is among a group of teachers that is circulating petitions in an effort to get Conn recalled. They are close to getting the 1,000 signatures needed to spark recall proceedings, he said. The union has about 4,000 members.

DETROIT FREE PRESS

Detroit Schools head announces central office reforms

One of the stickiest issues for some people is Conn's strong ties to the social justice group By Any Means Necessary. Teachers say Conn has allowed BAMN members to attend members-only union meetings — in violation of the union's constitution and bylaws, they argue. He has tapped BAMN's national chair, attorney Shanta Driver, as his legal adviser.

Some BAMN members are disruptive, combative and have even tried to cast voice-votes at meetings, Fisher said, something Conn denies.

"I submit that it's better to have a guest section (at meetings)," Conn said. "This is not Detroit teachers union chief takes on Lansing, recall bid:

High-Stakes Testing, a Podcast From Humankind - Living in Dialogue

High-Stakes Testing, a Podcast From Humankind - Living in Dialogue:

High-Stakes Testing, a Podcast From Humankind

By Bond Collard.

High-stakes standardized tests are a fact of life in the American education system. The tests were widely adopted through the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, passed under President George W. Bush.

Standardized testing in schools was supposed to provide a metric for how well children were learning. Today, there is a rapidly growing movement of families and educators opting out of standardized tests, saying they want the testing to stop and are working to develop new ways to track educational progress.

“High-Stakes Testing” is the latest episode from public radio program Humankind and is now available as a free podcast for a limited time.

In this episode, award-winning producer David Freudberg focuses on the protests against standardized testing and explores students’ experiences with alternative teaching methods through a series of interviews with educators, parents and students.

Ann Cook, the executive director of the New York Performance Standards Consortium, echoes many educators who feel that extensive testing has marginalized important academic content in the process, saying there is “a drop off in kids understanding government and society, and history.” She then adds, “there are lots of subject areas that students aren’t exposed to, lots of activities that students aren’t exposed to, and lots of approaches that don’t lend themselves to testing.”

Teachers are not alone in their disapproving stance on test-based evaluations. At Urban Academy in New York City, which does not administer tests, numerous students also speak unfavorably about their own experiences with standardized testing.

Elliot Garcia, a former Urban Academy student now studying computer science at Bard College, says that High-Stakes Testing, a Podcast From Humankind - Living in Dialogue:

As 22,000 students risk not graduating, LAUSD board eases requirements | 89.3 KPCC

As 22,000 students risk not graduating, LAUSD board eases requirements | 89.3 KPCC:

As 22,000 students risk not graduating, LAUSD board eases requirements

The Los Angeles Unified School District board unanimously agreed to ease high school graduation requirements, no longer requiring a C grade or better in college prep classes.

The school board is modifying a commitment made a decade ago to require so-called A-G courses, the classes required to become eligible for University of California and California State University entry, to earn a high school diploma.

The higher standards haven't dramatically improved student outcomes: more than 22,000 LAUSD students in the Class of 2017 risked losing out on a diploma they may have been eligible for in a neighboring district or nearby charter school.

“I am worried we are setting students up for failure because this district hasn’t gotten its act together,” said board member Tamar Galatzan.

At its meeting Tuesday, members agreed students could earn a D rather than C in the college prep courses.

Board members also asked LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines to design interventions, such as online classes to make up credits and expanded summer school, to help students who are struggling with the advanced coursework. 

Also pending before the board is a proposal to allow students to remain in school until age 22 to graduate. 

This story will be updated.

RELATED LINKS

• For LAUSD, graduating high school could get easierARTICLE
• California awards $250M to high school career prep programsINFOGRAPHIC
• Expected cost for ethnic studies graduation requirement: $73MARTICLE
• LAUSD board seeking fix for college prep requirementsARTICLE
• Why 75 percent of LAUSD 10th graders aren't expected to graduateARTICLE
• As 22,000 students risk not graduating, LAUSD board eases requirements | 89.3 KPCC:

A call to stop the spread of charter schools | districtchronicles

A call to stop the spread of charter schools | districtchronicles:

A call to stop the spread of charter schools

Empower DC’s Daniel del Pielago says that

there are solutions to public education

that do not require corporate intervention

often associated with charter schools.

Credit: aft.org

(NNPA) – The pressure is on for civic leaders to end the expansion of charter and contract schools in Black and Latino communities across the nation.

Jitu Brown, national director of the Journey for Justice Alliance, claims that the fight for public education – which suffers with the expansion of charter and contract schools – is a human and civil rights issue.

As voices from the community were increasingly drowned out by philanthropic groups seeking wholesale educational reform, corporate charters and appointed school boards have become the status quo, said Brown.

According to an article in Education Week, a magazine published by Editorial Projects in Education, more than 60 percent of philanthropic donations funneled into educating young people in the United States went to charter and contract schools in 2010. Less than 25 percent of funding went to those programs about 15 years ago.

“What would actually be revolutionary, brand new and fresh is if community wisdom was listened to and [corporations] worked with the people who are directly impacted by the institutions that they have to live with everyday,” said Brown.

Daniel del Pielago, education organizer of the grassroots group Empower DC, agrees.

Pielago asserts that when communities work together, and when they’re given the chance to put together solutions that work, they find success that doesn’t require corporate intervention.

That success is embodied by the community school model championed by groups such as the Journey for Justice Alliance.

According to the Coalition for Community Schools, community schools feature an “integrated focus on academics, health and social services, youth and community development and community engagement” that promotes “student learning, stronger families and healthier communities.”

Helen Moore, the co-chairperson of the Keep the Vote/No Takeover Coalition in Detroit, Michigan, said that the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently working its way through a Republican-led Congress still at odds with Obama, should give communities the power to control the destinies of their children.

Moore said that neither the “No Child Left Behind” Act or President Obama’s “Race to Top” fulfilled what was supposed to really happen: giving Black and Brown school systems the power and resources they needed to implement high-quality educational programs for their children. “What’s lost in the minutiae of school closures is the dismantling of good neighborhood schools,” said Brown. “There were actually solid well-performing schools in our community that were receiving schools for students that lost their schools due to closures.”

Two years later, Brown said, those schools often saw their test scores plummet, creating a cascading effect. Overcrowded classrooms make it harder for teachers to do their jobs, lowering morale and having a negative impact on an already stressful learning environment.

“One of the casualties of corporate education interventions is the removal of Black teachers, a significant part of the Black middle class. And who are they replaced by? They are replaced by newer, younger, Whiter and more transient teachers.

“We are all for teaching diversity, but we also know that that is a civil rights issue. Children have the right to look at their teachers and dream that they can be that; they should be able to see themselves,” said Brown.

Earlier this month, the Alliance hosted a conference in Newark, New Jersey in an effort to strengthen national networks and equip citizens with the tools to organize and combat myriad inequities that exist in public school systems nationwide.

They also advocate for more penalties for schools that lean too heavily on zero tolerance policies, which causes disproportionate suspension and expulsions of students of color for A call to stop the spread of charter schools | districtchronicles:

Walking to DC Jesse by Jesse Turner - GoFundMe

Walking to DC Jesse by Jesse Turner - GoFundMe:

Walking to DC Jesse

Walking to DC Jesse by Jesse Turner - GoFundMe:

Sending out an SOS, I am 2 days out from starting my walk to DC. I will walk 10 miles a day. I am hoping people might consider donating 10 for 10. I could use a little help from my friends.

Walking to DC,

Jesse

Walking to DC Jesse by Jesse Turner - GoFundMe:

Jesse The Walking Man Turner is walking from Connecticut to Washington DC this summer to protest the education malpractice that is demoralizing parents, teachers, and turning our children into human capital.

I'll start walking in June, time it to reach Washington DC for the BAT's National Congress July, (400 miles in 40 days)

I'll post my itinerary in February. I will hold Walking Man Events along the way in people's homes, libraries, coffee shops, churches, and on street corners, to gather evidence from parents, students, and teachers.

Why walk?

1. I am a Professor of literacy, I have a Ph.D in Language, Reading, and Culture. Everything I know professionally informs me what is happening to our children in the name of education reform is child abuse.

2. Because Moses walked, because the Cherokee Walked, because the Navajo walked, because Martin Walked, and because Cesar Chavez walked. Walking may just be the most potent weapon human beings have against oppression.

3. Because childhood matters.

4. Because children come first.

5.Becasue someone has to tell our nation's leaders our children, their teachers and local schools are more than test scores.

This is a grassroots campaign to connect the dots across states and bring awareness to the testing abuse that is demoralizing children and their teachers.  My estimate is the walk will cost me 6000.00. I am willing contributing 3000 of my own money to my walk. My hope is to raise 3000 dollars the other half of the cost. 

CURMUDGUCATION: Atlanta Superintendent Deeply Confused

CURMUDGUCATION: Atlanta Superintendent Deeply Confused:

Atlanta Superintendent Deeply Confused

Dr. Meria Castarphen, superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools, thinks everyone is completely misunderstanding the situation.

APS has just announced the slashing of eighteen band and orchestra teachers from the elementary school system, and possibly the funding for those programs as well (the reportage on the latter is a little fuzzy).

That news spread pretty quickly, and Dr. Castarphen took to her personal blog to offer an explanation. Kind of. 

Yes, eighteen positions were cut. That was just part of a district "right-sizing" (lordy, but I just live for the day that some boss announces "right-sizing" as an explanation for hiring more people). This right-sizing included cutting 368 positions, including a chunk from the central office. But cutting music?! No!! Well, maybe. Sort of. Yes.

In our cluster planning and our move to a new operating system, APS has given clusters and schools more freedom and flexibility to choose how they staff their schools in order to meet the specific needs of their students. This includes the decision about which arts and music instruction to offer students.

For example, if principal A observed high interest in band over orchestra in their elementary school, that principal could choose to enhance the band program and remove the orchestra program. If principal B saw a growing interest in visual arts, principal B could decide to invest more in visual arts, eliminating band and orchestra. If principal C was interested in enhancing band and orchestra programs, principal C could choose to increase school class sizes in order to offer a more robust fine arts program.

See, even if the school doesn't have a band program. It could be taught by, I don't know, pixies, or regular classroom teachers on their lunch hours, or traveling street musicians who were coaxed into the building. Because students can be taught to play instruments, particularly as beginners, by pretty much anybody.

Maybe students will get really interested in a band, which I suppose could happen despite the fact that they have no band or band teacher in the building to pique that interest-- maybe they'll read about bands in books or see some compelling band music on tv or those same instrument-teaching pixies will visit them in their sleep.

Also, please note that middle school and high school band and orchestra are not being cut. Nosirree. They will still be there, thriving despite the fact that students will arrive from the elementary school without any knowledge of playing in a music ensemble or playing an instrument. Because CURMUDGUCATION: Atlanta Superintendent Deeply Confused: