Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 7/28/15

SPECIAL NITE CAP 

CORPORATE ED REFORM

Shame on the Ohio House for pushing off action on critical charter school reform bill:

Shame on the Ohio House for pushing off till September action on critical charter school reform bill: editorial | cleveland.com: Shame on the Ohio House for pushing off till September action on critical charter school reform bill: editorialThe Ohio House shamelessly blew it last month when it failed to act on Substitute House Bill 2, a landmark charter reform bill aimed at ensuring that Ohio's cha

by mike simpson / 43min 

As Mayor Johnson's Scandals Grow, Was Obama Admin Wrong to Fire Inspector General? | The Weekly Standard

As Mayor Johnson's Scandals Grow, Was Obama Admin Wrong to Fire Inspector General? | The Weekly Standard: As Mayor Johnson's Scandals Grow, Was Obama Admin Wrong to Fire Inspector General?Despite little national coverage, scandals surrounding former NBA star and Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson have been intensifying over past few months. Monday's report at Deadspin is a good place to start -- thing

by mike simpson / 49min 

Why rich kids do better than smarter, less advantaged kids: 'opportunity hoarding' | OregonLive.com

Why rich kids do better than smarter, less advantaged kids: 'opportunity hoarding' | OregonLive.com: Why rich kids do better than smarter, less advantaged kids: 'opportunity hoarding'Would you rather be born rich and average or poor and smart?We like to think that in a free society a lot of the smart, disadvantaged kids will find a way to become successful, but a new report from Great Britain sugg

by mike simpson / 3h 

TeachingCenter - the latest developments in the exciting world of pro teaching | Comedy Central

TeachingCenter - Key & Peele Video Clip | Comedy Central: TeachingCenter - the latest developments in the exciting world of pro teaching | Comedy CentralKey and PeeleGet More: Comedy Central,Funny Videos,Funny TV ShowsBoyd Maxwell and Perry Schmidt report on the latest developments in the exciting world of pro teaching.

by mike simpson / 3h 

The Child Left Behind - The Crucial VoiceThe Crucial Voice

The Child Left Behind - The Crucial VoiceThe Crucial Voice: The Child Left BehindThe child left behind isn’t always obvious.The obviously educationally deprived children have been well documented—repeatedly. They are represented by the demographic categories (disaggregated data) of No Child Left Behind in an attempt to bring attention and resources to those groups to correct their education defici

by mike simpson / 4h 

Hedge funds tell Puerto Rico: lay off teachers and close schools to pay us back | World news | The Guardian

Hedge funds tell Puerto Rico: lay off teachers and close schools to pay us back | World news | The Guardian: Hedge funds tell Puerto Rico: lay off teachers and close schools to pay us backBillionaire hedge fund managers have called on Puerto Rico to lay off teachers and close schools so that the island can pay them back the billions it owes.The hedge funds called for Puerto Rico to avoid financial

by mike simpson / 4h 

Mindfulness Training—Help or Cover-up in Education-Reform Affected Schools?

Mindfulness Training—Help or Cover-up in Education-Reform Affected Schools?: Mindfulness Training—Help or Cover-up in Education-Reform Affected Schools?There’s mindfulness for teachers and mindfulness for students. There’s mindfulness in the UK and mindfulness in the USA. You can find groups that will train teachers and students about mindfulness around the world. But is mindfulness being used to

by mike simpson / 5h 

ESEA Conference: Accountability vs. Portability – The Network For Public Education

ESEA Conference: Accountability vs. Portability – The Network For Public Education: ESEA Conference: Accountability vs. PortabilityAs Senate and House leaders begin the process of merging their respective bills into a single piece of coherent legislation that can be signed into law by President Obama, there are some crucial issues for public education supporters to consider. Not only are there key

by mike simpson / 6h 

This Week In Education: Thompson: Chris Barbic's Resignation & the Failure of School "Reform"

This Week In Education: Thompson: Chris Barbic's Resignation & the Failure of School "Reform": Thompson: Chris Barbic's Resignation & the Failure of School "Reform"In 2009 and 2010, the contemporary school reform movement became the dog that caught the bus it was chasing. The Obama administration funded the entire corporate reform agenda. The wish list of market-driven

by mike simpson / 6h 

Marie Corfield: My Review of the documentary 'Heal Our Schools'

Marie Corfield: My Review of the documentary 'Heal Our Schools': My Review of the documentary 'Heal Our Schools'Pick up a newspaper or turn on the television and reporters and other talking heads describe the grand experiment that is corporate education 'reform' with buzz words like 'accountability', 'data', 'innovation', 'testing', 'rigor', 'choice' and 'transformation'. A few words you won't hea

by mike simpson / 7h 

Continued failure to fund K-12 education, McCleary plaintiffs argue | Crosscut

Continued failure to fund K-12 education, McCleary plaintiffs argue | Crosscut: Continued failure to fund K-12 education, McCleary plaintiffs argueThe McCleary plaintiffs argue that the Washington legislature is still dragging its feet on its constitutional duty to adequately fund basic education, and that Washington Supreme Court needs to take action this year against that body.That sums up Monda

by mike simpson / 7h 

Linda Darling-Hammond, State credentialing leader: system ‘challenged’ not broke :: SI&A Cabinet Report

State credentialing leader: system ‘challenged’ not broke :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet: State credentialing leader: system ‘challenged’ not broke(Calif.) Just as Mark Twain famously corrected reports of his death, the head of California’s teaching certification and professional standards agency rejects the notion that the state’s once vau

by mike simpson / 7h 

Eleven civil rights groups urge Obama to drop test-based K-12 ‘accountability’ system - The Washington Post

Eleven civil rights groups urge Obama to drop test-based K-12 ‘accountability’ system - The Washington Post: Eleven civil rights groups urge Obama to drop test-based K-12 ‘accountability’ systemEleven national civil rights groups sent a letter Tuesday to President Obama, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and congressional leaders saying that the current standardized test-based “accountability system

by mike simpson / 7h 

Teach for America Seeks Help Promoting Itself on Capitol Hill | deutsch29

Teach for America Seeks Help Promoting Itself on Capitol Hill | deutsch29: Teach for America Seeks Help Promoting Itself on Capitol HillTeach for America (TFA) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1991 by Princeton graduate and noneducator, Wendy Kopp. TFA was granted nonprofit status in June 1993. According to its 2013 990, TFA’s end-of-year total assets were $494 million, with $73.5 million of

by mike simpson / 7h 

Even If NCLB Is Reauthorized, States Push On with Punitive School Policies and Privatization | janresseger

Even If NCLB Is Reauthorized, States Push On with Punitive School Policies and Privatization | janresseger: Even If NCLB Is Reauthorized, States Push On with Punitive School Policies and PrivatizationIn an important piece last week for the Education Opportunity Network, Jeff Bryant looks at the way the dynamics are shifting in punitive education “reform.”  Even if Congress reauthorizes the Element

by mike simpson / 8h 

Is There A Pension Crisis? | Shanker Institute

Is There A Pension Crisis? | Shanker Institute: Is There A Pension Crisis?Our guest author today is David Cay Johnston, a distinguished visiting lecturer at the Syracuse University College of Law and a former Pulitzer prize-winning financial reporter at The New York Times. This article is adapted from his remarks to an ASI-sponsored conversation on the topic in March, which also included remarks f

by mike simpson / 8h 

More on the Importance of the Teacher Supply - Paul Bruno

More on the Importance of the Teacher Supply - Paul Bruno: More on the Importance of the Teacher SupplyLast week the Brookings Institution’s Chalkboard blog published a piece of mine on the importance of the teacher supply to education reform. It’s really an elaboration of a point I’ve made at various times in the past, with California as an illustrative example:[M]any teacher evaluation reform ef

by mike simpson / 8h 

‘Parent trigger’ campaigns can continue despite lack of new test scores | EdSource

‘Parent trigger’ campaigns can continue despite lack of new test scores | EdSource: ‘Parent trigger’ campaigns can continue despite lack of new test scoresWhile California’s testing and accountability system is in flux, parents are allowed to attempt to force major changes at schools considered failing based on tests that are at least two years old and that measure material that’s no longer being

by mike simpson / 8h 

Beyond the headlines: NCLB reform's lesser-known provisions | MinnPost

Beyond the headlines: NCLB reform's lesser-known provisions | MinnPost: MinnPost's education reporting is made possible by a grant from the Bush Foundation.Beyond the headlines: NCLB reform's lesser-known provisionsWhen Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in April of 1965, it opened a major front in Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty.Earlier this month the U.S. House of Represe

by mike simpson / 8h 

Jersey Jazzman: State Standards, Mapping the NAEP, & Student Performance: Who's the "Liar"? Part II

Jersey Jazzman: State Standards, Mapping the NAEP, & Student Performance: Who's the "Liar"? Part II: State Standards, Mapping the NAEP, & Student Performance: Who's the "Liar"? Last time, I challenged the reformy notion that higher standards a priori lead to better test-based performance. The basis for my challenge is a new report from the National Center for Education

by mike simpson / 8h 

To get support for education bill, senators conjure lost art: Compromise - The Washington Post

To get support for education bill, senators conjure lost art: Compromise - The Washington Post: To get support for education bill, senators conjure lost art: CompromiseSen. Lamar Alexander walked into Sen. Patty Murray’s office and closed the door.Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee, had just taken control of the education committee in the new GOP-led Senate and was determined to rewrite No Chi

by mike simpson / 8h 

Teacher-Turned-Congressman: Rep. Mark Takano's Take on ESEA Rewrite - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Teacher-Turned-Congressman: Rep. Mark Takano's Take on ESEA Rewrite - Politics K-12 - Education Week: Teacher-Turned-Congressman: Rep. Mark Takano's Take on ESEA RewriteMeet Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., a two-term congressman who, prior to his election in 2012, spent more than two decades teaching middle and high school.Takano represents some of California's valley communities in and around Riversi

by mike simpson / 9h 

Why Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog is wrong about teacher evaluation - The Washington Post

Why Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog is wrong about teacher evaluation - The Washington Post: Why Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog is wrong about teacher evaluationFiveThirtyEight is a blog created by Nate Silver, a famous statistician who developed a system for forecasting player performance in Major League Baseball and accurately predicted the winner of 49 out of 50 states in the 2008 presid

by mike simpson / 9h 

With A Brooklyn Accent: Summer School Nightmare- Turning Up the Head on "Student Achievement"

With A Brooklyn Accent: Summer School Nightmare- Turning Up the Head on "Student Achievement": Summer School Nightmare- Turning Up the Head on "Student Achievement"NOTE: This was written by a teacher in a high poverty district somewhere in the Midwest. Child and Teacher Abuse in full effect A time to maintain achievement, right? To prevent the "summer slide" and keep

by mike simpson / 10h 

YESTERDAY

Sacramento News & Review - ‘Segregation' will happen if the city of Sacramento ditches inclusionary housing - Bites - Opinions - July 23, 2015

Sacramento News & Review - ‘Segregation' will happen if the city of Sacramento ditches inclusionary housing - Bites - Opinions - July 23, 2015: ‘Segregation' will happen if the city of Sacramento ditches inclusionary housingPresident Barack Obama’s Department of Housing and Urban Development this month announced a new initiative to fight housing segregation in U.S. cities. The policy requires

by mike simpson / 19h 

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 7/27/15

SPECIAL NITE CAP CORPORATE ED REFORMTest & Punish & Civil Rights | The ProgressiveTest & Punish & Civil Rights | The Progressive: Test & Punish & Civil RightsThe Murphy Amendment (Premise: the worst parts of NCLB are actually the best parts; let's give them steroids) was one more manifestation of the Civil Rights Argument for Test and Punish. Amendment proposer Chris Murphy

by mike simpson / 1d 

Shame on the Ohio House for pushing off action on critical charter school reform bill:

Shame on the Ohio House for pushing off till September action on critical charter school reform bill: editorial | cleveland.com:

Shame on the Ohio House for pushing off till September action on critical charter school reform bill: editorial

The Ohio House shamelessly blew it last month when it failed to act on Substitute House Bill 2, a landmark charter reform bill aimed at ensuring that Ohio's charter schools are no longer a national joke. Too many of these schools  waste taxpayers' money, escape proper oversight and cruelly fail poorer children and their parents -- making reform an urgent priority, one that Gov. John Kasich also has embraced.

Ohio House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger should correct this "mistake" – and show the Republican-dominated House isn't in thrall to big-dollar political contributions executives of for-profit charter firms have made to the GOP -- by calling the House back into session so it can vote on the bill. The House doesn't officially return from its recess until September.

Ohio Sen. Peggy Lehner, a Republican from Kettering who admirably has led the way in the effort to improve Ohio's weak charter school laws, has added teeth to a deficient House bill. 

Reform is overdue. The current system has been blasted by a national charter organization as the "Wild, Wild West" of charter schools because there are too many sponsors who sit on their hands and don't manage their schools or prevent abuses by rapacious insiders.

HB 2 could greatly improve charter schools by holding the sponsors -- agencies that open these schools -- far more accountable. The bill requires sponsors to provide monitoring, oversight and technical assistance to each school and to have a plan in place if the school's performance suffers, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Service Commission.

In addition, the bill would require more financial transparency, as pressed for by Ohio Auditor Dave Yost, and end sponsor-hopping, so that failing schools can't shop for a new sponsor.

House members do not need more time to study this bill. The Senate's changes aren't state secrets.  Many of the proposals have been talked about for months and some were stripped out of the original HB 2 last spring. 

Co-sponsor Kristina Roegner, a Republican from Hudson, apparently has no problem with the changes. "The Senate improved the bill and I don't say that often about the Senate," said Roegner recently.

House members should swiftly approve Substitute House Bill 2 to help ensure that Ohio's charter school system is effective and strong.Shame on the Ohio House for pushing off till September action on critical charter school reform bill: editorial | cleveland.com:

As Mayor Johnson's Scandals Grow, Was Obama Admin Wrong to Fire Inspector General? | The Weekly Standard

As Mayor Johnson's Scandals Grow, Was Obama Admin Wrong to Fire Inspector General? | The Weekly Standard:

As Mayor Johnson's Scandals Grow, Was Obama Admin Wrong to Fire Inspector General?

Despite little national coverage, scandals surrounding former NBA star and Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson have been intensifying over past few months. Monday's report at Deadspin is a good place to start -- things have gotten so bad that Johnson's allies are accusing a local paper that's done a lot of damning reporting on Johnson of racism.

As Deadspin notes, there's "a variety of sexual, financial, and ethical improprieties" swirling around Johnson. Among other things, the mayor is suing -- and being sued -- by the National Conference of Black Mayors. And Johnson is also accused of using public money and resources for his own personal benefit involving work done for the National Basketball Players Association.

That last scandal is particulary interesting, because it mirrors accusations made against him in 2009, when he was accused of misusing federal grants meant for the Americorps program by Gerald Walpin, the inspector general of the Corporation for National and Community Service:

The most significant issue appeared to be Mr. Walpin’s actions in connection with St. Hope Academy of California, which was run by Mr. Johnson and Dana Gonzalez. St. Hope Academy received federal money from 2004 to 2007 from AmeriCorps. Mr. Walpin said a large amount of the money was spent improperly, some of it on personal expenses.

Mr. Walpin made a referral to the United States prosecutor in Sacramento, recommending that Mr. Johnson and Mr. Gonzalez face criminal charges and be banned from future contracts.

According to Walpin, the chairman of the board of Corporation for National and Community Service, Alan Solomont, was a major Democratic fundraiser and was unhappy with his reports pointing out the misuse of federal money. Johnson was also said to be close to the Obamas, and shortly afterward the president abruptly fired Walpin from his job. The firing set off a flurry of inquiries from a bipartisan group of senators concerned that Walpin's firing had been been politically motivated. There were also allegations that the U.S. attorney in Sacramento, Lawrence Brown, filed an ethics complaint against Walpin to help lift a ban on Johnson receiving federal funds as well as curry favor with the White House. Brown was seeking a presidential appointment to become United States attorney for the Eastern District of California.

Now Johnson remains mired in scandal six years later and is being accused of allegations of As Mayor Johnson's Scandals Grow, Was Obama Admin Wrong to Fire Inspector General? | The Weekly Standard:

The Child Left Behind - The Crucial VoiceThe Crucial Voice

The Child Left Behind - The Crucial VoiceThe Crucial Voice:

The Child Left Behind

The child left behind isn’t always obvious.

The obviously educationally deprived children have been well documented—repeatedly. They are represented by the demographic categories (disaggregated data) of No Child Left Behind in an attempt to bring attention and resources to those groups to correct their education deficit. But in this plan, have we stopped to observe what we have created, to assess what is happening and ask, who is the child left behind and why should I care?

History, experiences, research, and common sense tell us that well-educated people are better able to resist political oppression, live longer and healthier lives, and are less likely to be incarcerated or require long-term social services.

• We obviously believe health care is an issue worthy of our attention.
• We all have heard that our country throws more people in jail on a per capita basis that most others.
• We talk about the importance of an educated, informed electorate.

We seem to comprehend educations’ importance to issues important to us. Yet on the subject of our education system, we fail to be up in arms when we most definitely should be.

2007 is when No Child Left Behind should have been updated or trashed. That date came and went with people across the country complaining —but no wide-spread action was taken en-mass. Our inaction spoke volumes. It told the Powers-That-Be to do with this law what they will. They did nothing.

And worse still, they continued to use a very narrow set of statistics to decide the fate of children across this country. But what if yours wasn’t or isn’t “statistically significant”?

The child left behind is the child that falls through the cracks. And during the Great The Child Left Behind - The Crucial VoiceThe Crucial Voice:

Hedge funds tell Puerto Rico: lay off teachers and close schools to pay us back | World news | The Guardian

Hedge funds tell Puerto Rico: lay off teachers and close schools to pay us back | World news | The Guardian:

Hedge funds tell Puerto Rico: lay off teachers and close schools to pay us back

Billionaire hedge fund managers have called on Puerto Rico to lay off teachers and close schools so that the island can pay them back the billions it owes.

The hedge funds called for Puerto Rico to avoid financial default – and repay its debts – by collecting more taxes, selling $4bn worth of public buildings and drastically cutting public spending, particularly on education.

The group of 34 hedge funds hired former International Monetary Fund (IMF) economists to come up with a solution to Puerto Rico’s debt crisis after the island’s governor declared its $72bn debt “unpayable” – paving the way for bankruptcy.

The funds are “distressed debt” specialists, also known as vulture funds, and several have also sought to make money out of crises in Greece and Argentina, the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the near collapse of Co-op Bank in the UK.

The report, entitled For Puerto Rico, There is a Better Way, said Puerto Rico could save itself from default if it improves tax collection and drastically cuts back on public spending.

It accused the island, where 56% of children live in poverty, of spending too much on education even though the government has already closed down almost 100 schools so far this year.

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 Graph about the economy of Puerto Rico and education expenditures – taken from a report prepared by Centennial Group International. Photograph: Centennial Group International

The report, by Jose Fajgenbaum, Jorge Guzmán and Claudio Loser – all former IMF economists who now work for Centennial Group, said Puerto Rico had increased education spending by $1.4bn over the past decade while enrolment had declined by about 25% as hundreds of thousands of families fled to the US Hedge funds tell Puerto Rico: lay off teachers and close schools to pay us back | World news | The Guardian:

Mindfulness Training—Help or Cover-up in Education-Reform Affected Schools?

Mindfulness Training—Help or Cover-up in Education-Reform Affected Schools?:

Mindfulness Training—Help or Cover-up in Education-Reform Affected Schools?

There’s mindfulness for teachers and mindfulness for students. There’s mindfulness in the UK and mindfulness in the USA. You can find groups that will train teachers and students about mindfulness around the world. But is mindfulness being used to push students and teachers to be robotic? Is it meant to cover up the problems in schools due to harmful reforms?

In 1992, the #1 bestseller was Relaxation Response: A Simple Meditative Technique that has Helped Millions Cope with Fatigue, Anxiety and Stress by Herbert Benson, M.D. and Miriam Z. Klipper. Mindfulness training emerged from Eastern and Western meditation and has secular physical and mental calming benefits.

Mindfulness exercises can keep a person centered and calm in an anxious world. It has proven health benefits.

But I worry about the current push for mindfulness in schools, not because I don’t think it wouldn’t help students drown out noise and help them to focus better, but because I wonder if it distracts from the serious problems that currently plague schools.

For example:

• Using mindfulness to teach young children to respect one another is mostly useless if you never let them play and socialize.
• It makes no sense to steal a child’s recess and then teach them self-control.
• Will mindfulness make a retained 3rd grader feel better, when we know retention is wrong and the student should never have originally been retained?
• Teaching mindfulness to push children to learn material beyond their developmental ability is not only unhelpful, it is evil.
• Teaching mindfulness to get students to focus more on high-stakes testing material that is not always in their best interest is also evil.
• Removing a balanced curriculum—denying students the arts and electives and then teaching them mindfulness training is disingenuous.
• Creating march-in-a-straight-line, continuously Mindfulness Training—Help or Cover-up in Education-Reform Affected Schools?:

ESEA Conference: Accountability vs. Portability – The Network For Public Education

ESEA Conference: Accountability vs. Portability – The Network For Public Education:

ESEA Conference: Accountability vs. Portability

As Senate and House leaders begin the process of merging their respective bills into a single piece of coherent legislation that can be signed into law by President Obama, there are some crucial issues for public education supporters to consider. Not only are there key differences between the two bills, there are competing agendas between the two parties.

But first, let’s start at the beginning.

How we got here

The Senate bill, the Every Child Achieves Act (ECAA), has been touted as bipartisan, thanks to the collaboration of the bill’s co-authors, Senate education committee chair Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and the committee’s ranking member, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA). ECAA was passed out of committee unanimously on April 16th, and was passed by the full Senate three months later on July 16th, with a bipartisan vote of 81-17.

The House bill, The Student Success Act (SSA), is unmistakably partisan. The House’s education committee chairman, Rep. John Kline (R-MN), is the bill’s author. SSA passed out of committee along party-lines on February 11th, with a 21-16 vote. The House bill faced a longer road, taking almost 4 months to gain passage by a narrow 218-213 vote on July 8th.

Now that both bills have passed their respective houses, the next step is to head to conference, where leaders from the Senate and the House come together to hammer out a final bill. For a full description of the conference procedure, please read Mercedes’ Schneider’s excellent blog poston the subject. Don’t look for much action in the near future however, as Congress will break for summer on July 30th, not returning until September. It has been reported that congressional leaders hope to have a finished bill for the president’s signature by this fall.

What’s in the Bills

There are many similarities between the two bills, which will likely remain in the final version. Perhaps most importantly, both maintain the federal mandate for annual testing, although both do away with the Secretary of Education’s ability to prescribe accountability measures based on those tests, instead leaving those decisions to the states. NPE board member Julian Vasquez Helig eloquently noted that, “One of the challenges of the current bill is that it just reduces the federal role. It doesn’t change the paradigm. It doesn’t change the status quo.”

States with reform minded governors and legislatures that subscribe to the test and punish model will likely not depart from such policies simply because they are no longer federally mandated. While this shift may at least bring battles against test and punish policies back to the state and local level, they will be battles that are not easily won.

It’s important to note that both bills also contain language regarding a parent’s right to opt their children out of federally mandated testing. You can read more about opt out language in both bills in another helpful post from Mercedes Schneider. Mercedes’ conclusion is that both bills ensure that states will no longer have to fear falling below the 95% participation threshold and the associated threats of loss of Title I funding if more than 5% of students are opted out of testing in a particular school or district.

Both bills also ensure that the Secretary of Education cannot coerce states into adopting or maintaining the Common Core or any other standards. While the diminution of the Secretary’s powers is welcome by Common Core critics on both the left and the right, there is much concern over the emphasis in both bills to provide increased funding for charter school expansion and authorization.

Portability vs. Accountability

Perhaps the most troubling and striking difference between the bills is the inclusion of Title I portability in the House bill. There was no portability provision in the original Senate bill, and Senate Democrats voted down a portability amendment.

In essence, Title I portability would establish federally sanctioned vouchers, allowing Title I funds to follow low-income students to the private school of their choice. This is a key issue for Republican lawmakers and is sure to be part of future negotiations during conference. As the House and Senate come together to merge the bills into a single piece of legislation, this is a must watch issue.

It has been noted that even though Title I portability has been a “non-starter” for Democrats, “the issue could prove a bargaining chip for stricter accountability provisions.”

The demand for accountability is coming from national civil rights organizations, prominent Democrats, and the president. But just as Democrats voted down amendments related to ESEA Conference: Accountability vs. Portability – The Network For Public Education:

This Week In Education: Thompson: Chris Barbic's Resignation & the Failure of School "Reform"

This Week In Education: Thompson: Chris Barbic's Resignation & the Failure of School "Reform":

Thompson: Chris Barbic's Resignation & the Failure of School "Reform"

In 2009 and 2010, the contemporary school reform movement became the dog that caught the bus it was chasing. The Obama administration funded the entire corporate reform agenda. The wish list of market-driven reformers, test-driven reformers, and even the most ideological anti-union, teacher-bashers, became the law (in part or in totality) in 3/4ths of the states. Due to the Race to the Top, School Improvement Grants, and other innovations, competition-driven reformers, and corporate reform think tanks were granted the contracts that they claimed would reverse the effects of poverty. 

Now, ideology-driven reformers are supposed to be announcing the increases in student performance that their gold-plated reforms promised. Instead, across the nation, outcome-driven reformers are delivering excuses about their experiments’ disappointing results. Some are completely contradicting themselves, as they announce gains in graduation rates that are attributable to more counselors and student supports. Accountability hawks conveniently forget that they previously derided those old-fashioned, input-driven programs as artifacts of the education “status quo,” and its “low expectations.”

Some defeated reformers, like Michelle Rhee and Cami Anderson, remain blunt in blaming teachers and persons who disagree with them for the failure of schools that accept every student who walks in the door to produce significant gains. Others, like Kaya Henderson and the true believers in the New Orleans portfolio model, predict that early education and wraparound services will turn the toughest schools around. In doing so, these reformers forget how they previously condemned advocates of those policies as the problem.

Perhaps the most interesting spin was issued by Chris Barbic  when he resigned as the superintendent of the Tennessee Achievement School District (ASD). Chalkbeat Tennessee’s Daarel Burnette, in Chris Barbic, Founding Superintendent of State-Run Achievement School District, to Exit, explains that “Tennessee used more than 10 percent of its $500 million windfall in federal education funds to launch the ASD. Those funds, which arrived through the Race to the Top competition to spur education policy changes, have now disappeared.” Moreover, the legislature has made a number This Week In Education: Thompson: Chris Barbic's Resignation & the Failure of School "Reform":

Marie Corfield: My Review of the documentary 'Heal Our Schools'

Marie Corfield: My Review of the documentary 'Heal Our Schools':

My Review of the documentary 'Heal Our Schools'

Pick up a newspaper or turn on the television and reporters and other talking heads describe the grand experiment that is corporate education 'reform' with buzz words like 'accountability', 'data', 'innovation', 'testing', 'rigor', 'choice' and 'transformation'. A few words you won't hear too often are 'research', 'proof', 'access', 'stress', 'burnout' and 'anxiety'. That's because those words don't fit into the reformy one-size-fits-all plan of education. Education 'reform'—like climate and vaccine denial—is a faith-based movement in that they believe in their cause rather than rely on empirical studies and peer-reviewed research by actual educators, and they have the money to make you believe it, too. See, facts are messy. They point straight to poverty, and you can't make a profit fighting poverty the way you can by flipping a school to a charter and firing veteran teachers.  

Those who are leading the 'reform' movement are some of the richest and most powerful people in the world. Since they control the message, educator voices go largely unheard.As a result, we have taken to social media, book publishing and documentary film making—places where we cannot be censored—in order to challenge the giant corporate interests that have lied to the American public about the state of our public schools. In the past few years, the number of educator-driven blogs, Facebook pages, websites, Twitter accounts and published books has exploded. Diane Ravitch's site alone can command over 1 million hits a day, and her latest book, Reign of Error, debuted at number ten on the NY Times best seller list. The documentary, Standardized, is drawing crowds of parents at pop-up viewings all across the country, and has fueled the opt-out Marie Corfield: My Review of the documentary 'Heal Our Schools':

Continued failure to fund K-12 education, McCleary plaintiffs argue | Crosscut

Continued failure to fund K-12 education, McCleary plaintiffs argue | Crosscut:

Continued failure to fund K-12 education, McCleary plaintiffs argue

The McCleary plaintiffs argue that the Washington legislature is still dragging its feet on its constitutional duty to adequately fund basic education, and that Washington Supreme Court needs to take action this year against that body.

That sums up Monday’s filing by the McCleary plaintiffs’ attorney Thomas Ahearne as the state and plaintiffs sent theirreports to the court. “McCleary” is the name of one of the plaintiff families and is the name given to the 2012 court ruling that the state has failed to meet meet its constitutional obligations to fund K-12 education.

The Supreme Court has threatened yet-to-be-determined sanctions against the Legislature if it did not come up with an adequate catch-up plan by this month. So far, no one knows how the court will view the Legislature’s 2015 efforts. Ahearne’s filing contended that the Legislature is putting off serious planning and appropriations until the the 2017-2018 school year, one year prior to the final compliance deadline.

“The 2015-2017 budget’s silence leaves a simple de facto plan for full compliance by the 2017-2018 school year: do everything the last year,” Ahearne wrote.

In its just-finished 2015 session, the Legislature allocated $1.3 billion in its main budget to specifically comply with the 2012 court ruling, plus another $811 million to build new classrooms to the extra teachers in 2015-2017.

The 2012 court ruling also called for the Legislature to improve how education funding is handled, to ensure that an overhaul’s effects are permanent and provide equity of funding for students statewide. In June, Sen. Bruce Dammeier, R-Puyallup, introduced a bipartisan bill aimed to tackle the mandate for equity.

In broad strokes, Dammeier’s bill would start a four-year, $3.5 billion shift in 2018 from local school districts’ tab for paying for basic education to the responsibility of the state government. That is meant to end the inequity of richer school districts spending more for teachers and smaller class sizes than poorer districts can. The GOP and Democratic Senate bill writers want to collect feedback on the proposed legislation over the next few months and then tackle passing it in 2016.

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Ahearne argued that the levy overhaul proposal merely shifts funding sources without adding to the overall money going to basic education.

He also argued the Legislature dodged its duty to drastically reduce teacher-student ratios in grades 4-12 as required by a 2014 public initiative. The Legislature opted to delay implementing that initiative by four years because there is no source for the $2 billion needed in each budget biennium to put it into action.

“The time has come for this Court to make what some would call a ‘fish or cut bait’ decision,” Ahearne wrote. “Either stand up and enforce Washington schoolchildren’s positive constitutional right to an amply funded education, or sit down and confess it was only kidding when it assured Washington schoolchildren that this Court would vigilantly protect them from the government’s violation of their constitutional rights.”

While the court has not yet said what it would do if it decides the state is lagged too long on fulfilling its McCleary obligations, Ahearne suggested that it consider several possible avenues.

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These include fining elected officials; prohibiting state spending on specific other matters until the Legislature complies; order the Legislature to make specific appropriations  or take specific measures; or order the sale of state property to meet the financial obligations.

Other suggestions included invalidating all tax exemptions which would make the Legislature reinstall all or most of the state’s 650 tax breaks one by one after the McCleary obligations are met.  Or the court could order the Legislature to resolve all the McCleary issues before it tackles any other legislation. And the Continued failure to fund K-12 education, McCleary plaintiffs argue | Crosscut: