LAUSD board sees 'significant exposure' from FBI's iPad probe - LA School Report

LAUSD board sees 'significant exposure' from FBI's iPad probe - LA School Report:

LAUSD board sees ‘significant exposure’ from FBI’s iPad probe

Ever since the FBIseized documents in December related to LA Unified’s controversial iPad program, there have been no public updates on the case, but now it appears that the LA Unified school board and its legal department see trouble coming.

It is just a single line in the agenda for tomorrow’s closed board meeting, but it may speak volumes.

Described as “anticipated litigation,” the board will be discussing possible ramifications of the FBI probe, arising out of state law that reads, “A point has been reached where, in the opinion of the legislative body of the local agency on the advice of its legal counsel, based on existing facts and circumstances, there is a significant exposure to litigation against the local agency.”

The document seizure happened as the result of a federal grand jury subpoena looking into potential bid rigging in the district’s $1.3 billion Common Core Technology Program, which sought to get a computer tablet in the hands of every student and teacher in the district.

Due to the secrecy laws surrounding federal grand juries, little has been known about the nature of the investigation since the seizure. But the board’s closed meeting agenda is the first indication that a grand jury might have identified legal problems with how the district conducted the bid process and, as a result, that the district might face legal action. No indictments have been brought in the case, and federal law requires that details of the grand jury investigations remain sealed unless one is brought.

LA Unified’s Director of Communications Shannon Haber said under the advisement of district General Counsel David Holmquist, she cannot comment on the closed session. Laura Eimiller, spokesperson for the FBI’s Los Angeles Division, did not return a call seeking comment.

The ambitious Common Core Technology Project was the brainchild of former Superintendent John Deasy, but it came under severe scrutiny when the public release of emails last August revealed that Deasy and a key underling, Jaime Aquino, had a high level of communication with the two companies that ultimately won the bid, Apple and Pearson.

That led to questions about whether Apple and Pearson had an inside track to win the LAUSD board sees 'significant exposure' from FBI's iPad probe - LA School Report:

Thompson: Kristina Rizga Describes a Real Violation of Teacher Ethics This Week In Education:

This Week In Education: Thompson: Kristina Rizga Describes a Real Violation of Teacher Ethics:

Thompson: Kristina Rizga Describes a Real Violation of Teacher Ethics

As test-driven reformers face defeat at the hands of a grassroots Opt Out movement, they return to their tried and true tactic of challenging the integrity of their opponents. New York Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia exemplifies this scorched earth tactic by asserting that teachers who support test boycotts are unethical. But, as Mother Jones's Kristina Rizga explains in Sorry, I'm Not Taking This Test, testing has inflicted the most damage on the poor children of color who, theoretically, were supposed to be helped by it.

Besides, isn't it unethical for educators to pressure students and patrons to do something that they believe is wrong? 

Rizga describes a student, Kiana Hernandez, who on her own volition chose to follow in the path of Mahatma Gandhi and refuse to take the standardized test. In a seeming violation of ethics "one teacher told her: 'Please take [the test]. My paycheck depends on it.'"

Just as bad, an obviously decent and conscientious teacher advised her, "You should wait until you are done with high school before you try to change the world." 

At this point, I must stop and say forcefully that the criticism I make of these teachers' words is rhetorical.  Good, ethical people can utter some terrible statements when under duress. As horrible as those teachers' words were, I don't blame them. They were spoken in fear. And, they were a predictable result of reward- and punishment-driven reform. They merely reconfirm the truism, "Feed the teachers or they will eat the students." 

There is one overwhelmingly important issue today. Now that it is obvious that punitive and competition-driven reform (once known quaintly as "choice") has failed to improve the educations of poor children of color, why must stakes be attached to tests? If charters and reformers are about This Week In Education: Thompson: Kristina Rizga Describes a Real Violation of Teacher Ethics:

How everyone is getting it wrong on New Orleans school reform - The Washington Post

How everyone is getting it wrong on New Orleans school reform - The Washington Post:

How everyone is getting it wrong on New Orleans school reform

I studied the post-Katrina changes for more than a year. The lessons of school reform can't be summed up in a headline.

Before Hurricane Katrina, one of New Orleans’ most systemic ills was its dysfunctional school system. After the storm, officials did something unprecedented — they started from scratch. The state took over almost all district schools and turned them over to nonprofit charter management organizations. These new charter leaders made major changes in the teacher workforce. The district’s teachers were all fired. The collective bargaining agreement was ended. Schools hired more young teachers from outside the city, prepared in alternative preparation programs, such as Teach for America.

Did it work? On this question, the national media has been all over the map. A New York Times op-ed concluded, “it is wiser to invest in improving existing education systems than [as in New Orleans] to start from scratch,” and that New Orleans-style reforms have “hurt the most disadvantaged students.” Malcolm Gladwell wrote in the New Yorker that the New Orleans school reforms “increased test scores far less than hoped.” But an article in New York Magazine concluded that the school reform in New Orleans, “is the breakthrough in social equity liberals have been waiting for.” A similar message came from the Washington Monthly and CNN anchor Campbell Brown’s pro-reform organization.

Given the importance of the New Orleans experience, a team of 20 national researchers and I spent more than a year carrying out a dozen separate studies on New Orleans schools. From this, it is clear the national media portrayals are missing the point.

Before Katrina, the school system was corrupt and dysfunctional, running through a new superintendent every 11 months. The FBI had so many investigations going on that it opened an office within the school district. Third-party evaluations of district operations identified a litany of problems. Student test scores were among the worst in the state, and the country. Change from within an existing system might work in some cases, but the existing education system had failed in New Orleans.

In a study I conducted with Matthew Larsen, we found that the city’s test scores rose dramatically because of the post-Katrina reforms. Even the most pessimistic estimates suggest that the reforms significantly increased scores (and probably high school graduation rates and college entry) and more than alternative policies and programs would have. These achievement gains also occurred across the board. In this respect, low-income students were not hurt. They benefited academically.

That being said, some of the rhetoric of reform supporters has gone overboard. There are some real issues and questions, just not the ones that these critics have set their sights on.

For example, though disadvantaged students benefited, they seem to have benefited less than other groups. Early on, as this entirely new type of system was being put in place, there were real horror stories about how special education students and others were suspended and expelled at high rates. Under pressure from community groups, state and local leaders took several steps to address the problem, yet it remains unclear whether the problems are solved.

Critics are concerned that schools under the reforms are too focused on test scores. This is a national concern as well, but the intensity of test-based accountability in New Orleans is even stronger and may reduce focus on other important educational goals like creativity and local cultural knowledge. In the coming years, we’ll get a better sense of the real results by looking at How everyone is getting it wrong on New Orleans school reform - The Washington Post:

Choosing Democracy: How the Ruling Class Remade New Orleans and Its Schools

Choosing Democracy: How the Ruling Class Remade New Orleans and Its Schools:

How the Ruling Class Remade New Orleans and Its Schools

Much-touted education “reform” has proven unsuccessful

It’s one of those ironies that New Orleanians tend to especially appreciate. Today, on the tenth anniversary of the failure of the federally maintained levees, the keynote speaker at the annual Rising Tide Conference on the Future of New Orleans will beDeRay Mckesson [1].

Presumably, Mckesson’s invite was the result of his impressive work publicizing Black Lives Matters issues and protests across the country in the past year. But before McKesson became an activist in that movement, he was a standard-bearer for Teach For America and the New Teacher Project — education “reform” organizations that played a crucial role in aiding and abetting the destruction of New Orleans’ black middle class and propagating a pedagogical philosophy [2] that apes the worst of culture of poverty [3] rhetoric.

Such seeming incongruities are rampant this month in New Orleans, as they have been for the last ten years. Developers, urban planners, corporations, nonprofits, self-proclaimed activists, politicians, education “reformers,” hip consumers, middlebrow magazines, anarchists, urban farmers, bicycle enthusiasts, authenticity seekers, and “change agents” continually celebrate the city’s supposed rebirth, resilience, reform, rebuilding, re-whatever.

But it’s worth stepping back to consider whether such ironies are truly ironic, or rather just symptomatic of a larger condition that has plagued New Orleans — and the rest of the nation — over the past decade.

Since the levee failures, New Orleans has been ground zero for what on its face looks like a diverse cohort seeking to use the Katrina-produced “blank slate [4]” as a canvass [5] on which to enact their vision of twenty-first century reform. Black and white, gay and straight, wealthy and riddled with student debt, seventh-generation New Orleanian and recent Brooklyn-migrant, Republican and anarchist — little to nothing at the level of what the cultural studies aficionados might call positionality unites them.

Dig deeper though, and they share certain commonalities, commonalities integral to the only positionality that matters in the context of Katrina’s devastation and the resulting ten years of dislocation and upward redistribution of wealth: their political commitments and actions.

Indeed, what appears to be a motley group with every conceivable background and ascriptive subjectivity is, upon closer inspection, a class. It is a class well past the point of consolidation and one whose prerogatives have indelibly shaped the city’s rebuilding — dictating for whom New Orleans has and has not been rebuilt, all the while postulating and profiting from an ahistorical construction of authenticity, organic community, and ascriptive affinity as the basis for representation.

Mckesson is a particularly interesting case because he crystallizes these issues so well. One may ask how a dogged determination to end police violence against African Americans can be reconciled with a vision of education reform that cares nothing for questions of structural political economy, school funding, or the control of teachers over their classrooms, and instead supposes that the problem is that not enough teachers come from elite Northeastern colleges and universities; too many of them are old, lethargic, and evidently devoid of that pinnacle of neoclassical economics, “human capital”; and that poor students need to be cured of their Moynihan [6]-style tangle of pathologies.

The answer of course, is that they are not incompatible at all.

A deep and abiding commitment to dismantling a heavily militarized criminal-justice infrastructure does not necessitate that the committed individual oppose a national attack on democratic control over schools, the devaluation of teachers Choosing Democracy: How the Ruling Class Remade New Orleans and Its Schools:

ACLU and Americans United File Lawsuit to Block Voucher Program That Would Fund Religious Schools in Nevada | ACLU of Nevada

ACLU and Americans United File Lawsuit to Block Voucher Program That Would Fund Religious Schools in Nevada | ACLU of Nevada:

ACLU and Americans United File Lawsuit to Block Voucher Program That Would Fund Religious Schools in Nevada

Civil Liberties Groups say ‘Education Savings Accounts’ Plan Violates Nevada Constitution

LAS VEGAS – Three civil liberties organizations filed suit today in Nevada District Court to challenge a school voucher program signed into law last June by Gov. Brian Sandoval. The American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State sued on behalf of a group of parents, clergy, and other taxpayers who oppose the program’s effort to divert taxpayer money to private, religious schools.

“Parents have a right to send their children to religious schools, but they are not entitled to do so at taxpayers’ expense. The voucher program violates the Nevada Constitution’s robust protections against the use of public funds for religious education,” said Tod Story, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada. “This program allows public money to be spent at intuitions which operate with sectarian missions and goals and impart sectarian curricula. This is exactly what the Nevada Constitution forbids.”

Under the program, parents of students enrolled in public school for at least 100 days may transfer their children to participating private schools, including religious schools, and are eligible to receive thousands of dollars in public education funds to pay for tuition, textbooks, and other associated costs.  The funds will be disbursed through so-called “Education Savings Accounts,” and there are no restrictions on how participating schools can use the money.

The lawsuit argues that the funding scheme violates Article XI Section 10 of the Nevada Constitution, which prohibits the use of public funds for any sectarian purpose. The lawsuit also claims that the program runs afoul of Article XI, Section 2, which requires the legislature to provide for a uniform system of common schools.

“The voucher program will use taxpayer dollars for religious education and indoctrination at a number of ACLU and Americans United File Lawsuit to Block Voucher Program That Would Fund Religious Schools in Nevada | ACLU of Nevada:

Jersey Jazzman: Data Wars in New Orleans

Jersey Jazzman: Data Wars in New Orleans:

Data Wars in New Orleans

Has "reform" helped the students of New Orleans? Does the data show that school effectiveness has improved following Katrina? Is the conversion of the city's school district into a "portfolio" system a model for the rest of the nation?

If you listen to the reformsters, the answer is an unequivocal "Of course!" Not only that: anyone who questions the narrative of undeniable success in New Orleans is guilty, in the words of Campbell Brown, of "denigrat[ing] hard work & progress of LA teachers, parents & KIDS."

As if the constant droning about the "failure" of American education found at Brown's website isn't the same level of denigration. Way to elevate the conversation, Campbell...

The certainty of the reformy side in the rightness of their beliefs is, of course, a core feature of their movement. I will concede that there are those on the opposite side who rush to condemn any evidence that favors things like charter schools or merit pay or school reconstitution.

But the reformsters always seem to forget that the burden of proof is on them. That doesn't mean that every argument against reformy policies has to be rebutted beyond any doubt; it does mean, however, that reasonable critiques should be engaged beyond simple mockery.

Take Peter Cook, for example, striking back at Andrea Gabor's NY Times op-ed, which questioned the awesomeness of reform in NOLA:

While conceding that proficiency, high school graduation, and college entry rates have all risen in New Orleans over the past ten years (no small matters), Gabor attempts to diminish these accomplishments by claiming:

“But the New Orleans miracle is not all it seems. Louisiana state standards are among the lowest in the nation.”

Apparently, Professor Gabor has somehow missed the extensive national media coverage [for example, in the New York

- See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2015/08/data-wars-in-new-orleans.html#sthash.7Mnl1pPR.dpuf

New Report: School Takeovers Disenfranchise Communities of Color | National Opportunity to Learn Campaign

New Report: School Takeovers Disenfranchise Communities of Color | National Opportunity to Learn Campaign | Education Reform for Equity and Opportunity:

New Report: School Takeovers Disenfranchise Communities of Color

The Alliance to Reclaim our Schools' (AROS) new report, called Out of Control: the Systematic Disenfranchisement of African American and Latino Communities through School Takeovers, illuminates the undemocratic and unjust ways school takeovers shut these communities out of a voice in their own educational resources. When the state takes over a school district and replaces it with charter schools, they deprive parents and community members of a locally-elected school board and thus a voice in the process. Not only is this undemocratic, but it makes it almost impossible for communities to hold charter schools accountable.

School takeovers have surged in popularity over the last decade, becoming one of the preferred methods to reform "failing" schools. One of the most prominent examples is New Orleans' school district, which was almost entirely taken over by charter schools after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Ina recent conference, New Orleans educators, advocates, parents, and students warned of the damage this takeover has done to their education and communities.

AROS' reports highlights many of the most prominent cases of school takeover across the country, and discusses their long term impact on public education. As the report says:

Taken alone, the academic results and financial cost of state takeovers and achievement 

New Report: School Takeovers Disenfranchise Communities of Color | National Opportunity to Learn Campaign | Education Reform for Equity and Opportunity:

#Katrina10: Disaster, Reform and Organizing in New Orleans

New York City Makes Progress in School Discipline Reform

New Website Shares #KatrinaTruth

New Video: Health and Justice in California

New Orleans Warns Other Cities about Charter Takeover

Op-ed Gives Guidance for Progressive School Reform in NYC

MA Student Immigrant Movement Fights for In-State College Tuition

2015 KIDS COUNT Data Book Shows Both Improvements and Setbacks

NEW VIDEO: How California Organizers Won Fair School Funding

Over Testing Students

Over Testing Students:

Let’s Stop Over Testing Our Children

BY JOSE LARA

An Open Letter to Parents on Common Core Testing Results

Soon California will release the results of your child’s Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, or SBAC tests. These tests are also known as the new Common Core test that California and states across the country implemented last year.

Please know that as you review your child’s SBAC scores you may see failing marks but this does not mean that your child is not intelligent, that your child’s teacher is doing a poor job or that the school your child is attending is failing.  However, it does mean that the SBAC test is achieving intended results. You see, the SBAC test is a failure by design.

Testing companies can now sell your child’s school the “new” curriculum, test prep materials, intervention programs, textbooks, apps, technologies, and so forth to bring up test scores.

The testing company, who was hired to design the SBAC tests, with no input from educators, has purposely designed it to produce a high failure rate. This is so those same testing companies can now sell your child’s school the “new” curriculum, test prep materials, intervention programs, textbooks, apps, technologies, and so forth to bring up test scores. Not only that, they also hope to fool enough people that they start demanding “better” schools (mind you the problem is the test not the school). Corporate Charter Schools can then come in and takeover. All the while the fat cat CEO’s of these corporations make a killing off of our tax dollars.

This moves hundreds of millions of dollars from the public to the private sector where the focus is not in educating our children, but instead making a profit. After all, that is purpose of the business model.

So I write to you to encourage you to take heed of your child’s test results. The results are not a true measure of anything except that the test is working, as it was designed – to produce failure. Do not be fooled.

I write to you as a parent of two public school children and a teacher to warn you of what is coming and to tell you that, no, your child is not a failure and yes your child is more that just a test score. A test does not teach students anything, but teachers and schools do.

Lastly, if you are as upset as I am of this planned failure and the enormous about of money that is being wasted on these tests, then join me in opting out of school testing. There is a growing national movement to stop to over testing of our children and you actually have the right to opt out to have your child in a meaningful educational experience instead of testing. It is time to join this quite revolution against wrongful and over-testing of our children.

You can find more information about this movement on the website here.

Jose Lara

 Over Testing Students:

POSTED ON AUGUST 31, 2015

About Jose Lara

Jose Lara is a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Vice President of the El Rancho Unified School District. He is Coordinator for ethnicstudiesnow.com and is the recipient the National Education Association Social Justice Activist Award 2015.Over Testing Students:

Tim Slekar: Opt-out movement isn’t about testing | Commentary | host.madison.com

Tim Slekar: Opt-out movement isn’t about testing | Commentary | host.madison.com:

Tim Slekar: Opt-out movement isn’t about testing

The school testing opt-out movement is not an anti-testing phenomenon.

It has nothing to do with being for or against testing. Opting out is simply an act of civil disobedience that targets test-and-punish “accountability” scams that have 1) siphoned off billions of dollars from public schools, 2) set in motion a new wave of racial and economic segregation, and 3) denied a rich and equitable education for the least among us.

Yes, opting out is against “accountability.” Why? Because accountability was never and will never be about ensuring that the least among us get the education they deserve. Instead, test-and-punish accountability will always be used as a weapon of blame that demeans, teachers, principals and public schools for the opportunities our society fails to provide for all of our children. Accountability is a massive misdirection away from the real causes of poor educational outcomes for our most vulnerable students.

If anti-opt-out accountability hawks really cared about the education of our most vulnerable populations of children, they would simply look at their own data and see that the achievement gap between Tim Slekar: Opt-out movement isn’t about testing | Commentary | host.madison.com:

New Year, New Goals for Sac City Unified School District | FOX40

New Year, New Goals for Sac City Unified School District | FOX40:

New Year, New Goals for Sac City Unified School District

Sacramento City Unified Schools will officially start, Sept. 3., so before the kids head back we’ll sit down with superintendent Jose Banda to find out what this new school year has in store. Banda spent the first 100-days on the job visiting schools, meeting with parents and communities to discuss the needs. We’ll follow up on his first year with the district, get a progress report and find out what parents need to know this school year.New Year, New Goals for Sac City Unified School District | FOX40:

21,000 children head off to the 1st day of public school in Hartford, but not Luke Bronin’s - Wait What?

21,000 children head off to the 1st day of public school in Hartford, but not Luke Bronin’s - Wait What?:

21,000 children head off to the 1st day of public school in Hartford, but not Luke Bronin’s

Last week Hartford, Connecticut parents got their public school children packed up, ready to go and sent them off to the first day of school.

But the man who aspires to be Hartford’s next mayor, and would have the responsibility of appointing a majority of the members of the Hartford Board of Education, wasn’t one of them.

Instead, Greenwich Native Luke Bronin, who moved to Hartford and is running for Mayor, dropped his child off for their first day at the prestigious Renbrook private school in West Hartford, Connecticut where the annual tuition runs from $19,500 to $33,500 per year depending on which grade the child is enrolled in.

While the vast majority of children in the United States go to public schools, those with means have the choice to send their children to a public school or a private school.

Growing up, Luke Bronin only attended private schools.  Starting with the Greenwich Day School, where tuition starts at $33,500 for kindergarten and rises to $37,500 a year for the higher grades, Bronin then attended Phillips Exeter Academy, with a cost of $48,000 a year, although that does include the $180 a year “Linen Fee.”  Luke Bronin then spent ten years in the Halls of Yale, Oxford and the Yale Law School.

With privilege comes opportunity and while no one should ever begrudge a parent for doing everything they can to ensure that their child or children get a quality education, it is relevant when a politician who says he is ready to “turn-around” Hartford’s public schools 21,000 children head off to the 1st day of public school in Hartford, but not Luke Bronin’s - Wait What?:

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Before School Starts, Think About Student Data Privacy

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Before School Starts, Think About Student Data Privacy:

Before School Starts, Think About Student Data Privacy

Update:  here's a very good opt-out form from World Privacy Forum to use to opt your child out of some or all directory information in SPS.  Look for that FERPA form in your first-day packet and include this one as well.  (I am checking on the issue of if not allowing directory information will opt your child out of yearbooks.  I do not believe so.)

end of update.

A good article appeared in yesterday's NY Times that "the email addresses and search queries of the nation’s schoolchildren are a hot commodity."  

States are starting to get hip to this fact - with conservatives and liberals both having concerns, not to mention parents.  Unfortunately, tech companies and companies that make public education technology their business are as well and are rushing to create "Parents Bill of Rights" that basically are a lot of hot air and not much else.

I would like to get such a bill in front of the Washington Legislature but I hesitate because of McCleary.  Will anyone listen?  I know some legislators would sponsor it (on both sides of the aisle) but will anyone be willing to pay attention?  I would prefer a state law over any federal law as the feds would Seattle Schools Community Forum: Before School Starts, Think About Student Data Privacy:

Diane Ravitch - Opt Out Movement: Tests Designed To Fail Most Students | PopularResistance.Org

Opt Out Movement: Tests Designed To Fail Most Students | PopularResistance.Org:

Opt Out Movement: Tests Designed To Fail Most Students

PHOTO: Geoff Decker A protest in 2014 at P.S. 321 in Park Slope against the state English exams. The number of families at P.S. 321 who opted out of the tests increased dramatically this year.

It is important to remember a few key facts about the Opt Out Movement.

Number one: It was created and is led by parents, not by teachers or unions. In New York, where 20% of the students refused the mandated tests, the leader of the state’s teachers’ union did not endorse opt out until a few days before the testing started. The organizations promoting the opt out were grassroots, unfunded, and parent-led.

Number two: The opt out movement did not arise in opposition to the publication or implementation of the Common Core standards. It was only when parents received the results of the first round of Common Core testing that they got angry and got organized to fight the tests. Recall that 70% of the students in the state “failed” the first round of testing. Parents in districts where almost all the children graduate from high school, and where most are admitted to four-year colleges were told to their astonishment that their children were “failing.” The parent rebellion started, and State Commissioner John King could not quell it. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan referred to the protestors as “white suburban moms” who all of a sudden discovered that their child was not as “brilliant” as they thought. What an insult!

Number three: In three administrations of the Common Core tests, a majority of students has continued to “fail.”

*In English language arts 2015, only 31.3% of students reached the “proficiency” level across the state.

*Among black and Hispanic students, the “pass” rate was less than 20%.

*Students in New York City almost matched the statewide average, but in the state’s five big cities, only 11% “passed.”

*Among English language learners, only 3.9% “passed” the ELA test. Appalling!

*Among students with disabilities, only 5.7% “passed.” Appalling!

*Achievement gaps between racial groups were unchanged over three years of testing andOpt Out Movement: Tests Designed To Fail Most Students | PopularResistance.Org: 

What Every Parent Needs To Know About An IEP And A 504 Plan | Rosemont, CA Patch

What Every Parent Needs To Know About An IEP And A 504 Plan | Rosemont, CA Patch:

What Every Parent Needs To Know About An IEP And A 504 Plan

Area therapist explains the difference, and warns parents not to get talked into one when your child needs the other.

By MICHAEL RUBINO, PH.D, MFT (Open Post)

This is an update with new information to an article I published last year.

Seems like the school year has just started, and the districts are already misleading parents about IEPs. An IEP and 504 are not the same.

An IEP -- Individualized Education Program -- is legally enforceable and has legal guidelines and time frames. An IEP follows a student from school to school or state to state. A 504 is not legally enforceable and doesn’t follow a child, nor are there legal guidelines.

An IEP will not stop your child from getting a job or from getting into college. Also, educational records are confidential, therefore, no one would know your child had an IEP in school.

Many schools say your child must be two grades below in order to qualify for an IEP. If you said your child had a math or reading disability, this is true. However, if they have ADHD, bipolar, school anxiety etc., they can qualify under OTHER HEALTH IMPAIRMENTS. All your child needs is a diagnosis, such as ADHD, which interferes with their ability to fully benefit from their learning experience in the classroom. The two-grade-below-level qualification doesn’t apply to this category.

Also, if you have a child in private school and they would benefit from additional assistance, contact your child’s public school district. Even though they attend private school, the public school district is legally obligated to provide your child with services.

One more issue, never pay for outside testing before the school district tests your child. They have the right not to accept any outside testing until they test the child. If you disagree with the district’s testing, then you can request an objective testing from an outside professional and you can request that the school district pays for the testing and you can select the evaluator.

An IEP or an Individualized Education Plan is a document that outlines the specialized education services that a student will receive due to their disability. It ensures the student will receive the assistance necessary so they will receive an education.

When most parents hear disability, they usually think of a person in a wheelchair or a student wIth a learning disability. There are various condItions that can qualify as a disability: depression, bipolar disorder or even diabetes. The disability is any condition that will interfere in the student receiving the same education as other students. The students who qualify for an IEP need accommodations which meet the criteria of needing specialized education. As I stated above, there are numerous conditions which may qualify a student for an IEP.

If a student does qualify for an IEP, they also qualify for Special Education. Many parents hear this and are afraid or embarrassed. There is nothing to be afraid of What Every Parent Needs To Know About An IEP And A 504 Plan | Rosemont, CA Patch:

CURMUDGUCATION: AP Notices Common Core Failure

CURMUDGUCATION: AP Notices Common Core Failure:

AP Notices Common Core Failure

In the midst of arguing about whose poll data supports which side in the debate about public education, AP writer Christine Amario Saturday noted that "As Common Core results trickle in, initial goals unfulfilled."

What began as an effort to increase transparency and allow parents and school leaders to assess performance nationwide has largely unraveled, chiefly because states are dropping out of the two testing groups and creating their own exams.

Common Core boosters have dealt with this big slice of failure by simply ignoring it and developing selective amnesia about the goal of having every state on the same page. But Amario offers a few reminders.

For instance, she takes us back to 2010 and Arne Duncan's promise that the tests would end the practice of having "fifty goalposts." In fact, back in the Core's infancy, Core pushers were pretty straightforward about how the whole program leaned on the testing component would push schools to adopt matching-- well, they couldn't say the word "curriculum" because a federally-inflicted curriculum would be illegal. But remember-- one advantage would be that a student moving from Idaho to Arkansas would be able to make the transition without missing a beat.

Amario even manages to get someone from Brookings to say something useful.

"The whole idea of Common Core was to bring students and schools under a common definition of what success is," said Tom Loveless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "And Common Core is not going to have that. One of its fundamental arguments has been knocked out from under it."

Of course, part of the problem was that Core fans grossly underestimated the reaction to federal overreach. And while some Americans did (and still do) support the ideas behind the Core and Core CURMUDGUCATION: AP Notices Common Core Failure: