Bill de Blasio Allies Call Charter School Ad ‘Racist’ | Observer

Bill de Blasio Allies Call Charter School Ad ‘Racist’ | Observer:

‘Racist to the Core’: Bill de Blasio Allies Blast New Charter Schools Ad

A couple of Democrats close to Mayor Bill de Blasio blasted a new pro-charter schools television ad today, calling the spot “racist to the core.”

The slickly-produced ad attacks Mr. de Blasio, a liberal Democrat, for dooming minority schoolchildren to lousy public schools.

“They’re racist to the core. They know they are,” Bertha Lewis, the founder of the Black Institute, a civil rights nonprofit, told the Observer. “What the mayor needs to do, and I would stand right beside him, is call them out for the racists that they are. He needs to be able to do that. He needs to fight back.”

Families for Excellent Schools, a powerful pro-charter group which has relentlessly criticized Mr. de Blasio for failing to advocate for charters, released the 30-second spot. Produced by Jimmy Siegel, a noted political adman, the ad cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and comes as charter operators are set to hold a large rally on September 30, according to Politico New York.

The ad, entitled “Tale of Two Boys,” features two young boys, one white and one black.

“Because he lives in a wealthy neighborhood, this 6-year-old will attend a good school,” the ad’s narrator says as the young white boy is walked to school by a white parent.

When the black boy appears on the screen, the narrator says, “Because he lives in a poor neighborhood, this 6-year-old will be forced in a failing school.” The two boys pass each other on the street as the narrator claims that the white child will likely go to college, while the black boy has little chance of ever attaining a college degree.

“Mayor de Blasio, stop forcing kids into failing schools,” the narrator says. “Half a million children need new schools, now.”

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, a Democrat, said in a statement that charter operators are “diverting money, resources, and space from our public schools.”

“The rhetoric of this ad, and the people and money behind it, are part of the problem,” she said.

Luis Garden Acosta, the founder of El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice and the father of a child who attended a charter school, said FES was “race-baiting.”

“‘Race baiting’ like ‘red baiting’, exploiting the values and legitimate concerns of our city’s communities of color, for whatever political purpose, is abhorrent and posits a dangerous and expanding wedge in a city all to segregated by class, color and community,” Mr. Acosta stated, noting that Roberto Perez, a City Hall staffer, encouraged him to speak out. “It is abhorrent that a movement that emerged as a demand to tell the truth is used to obfuscate, divide and attempt to denigrate New York City’s progressive agenda”.

While Mr. de Blasio is enlisting surrogates to fight back on his behalf, his office was a bit less hostile, though it called the ad “crass.” “Our students and our families need solutions, not another crass political ad. That’s why Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Farina are focused on ensuring that every child, in every classroom, has a future that isn’t limited by their ZIP code,” said Wiley Norvell, a spokesman for the mayor.

Since failing last year to halt the expansion of Success Academy Charter Schools, run by his old political foe Eva Moskowitz, Mr. de Blasio has softened his rhetoric toward charter schools, even as Bill de Blasio Allies Call Charter School Ad ‘Racist’ | Observer:

Her son began hating school. What happened when she found out why. - The Washington Post

Her son began hating school. What happened when she found out why. - The Washington Post:

Her son began hating school. What happened when she found out why.

The movement among parents to refuse to allow their children to take Common Core-aligned standardized tests has been growing for several years in states around the country, with some 20 percent of eligible students refusing to take them this past spring in New York and tens of thousands more sitting out the exams in other states as well. Here’s why and how one mother began the opt-out movement in New York.

This was written by Carol Burris, the executive director of the nonprofitNetwork for Public Education Fund. Burris retired in June as an award-winning principal at a New York high school, and she is the author of numerous articles, books and blog posts (including on The Answer Sheet) about the botched school reform efforts in her state. She was named New York’s 2013 High School Principal of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York and the National Association of Secondary School Principals. In 2010, she was selected as the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State.

By Carol Burris

Jeanette Deutermann did not intend to become the leader of the most effective testing opt-out organization in the United States. She was a suburban mom trying to figure out why her son no longer wanted to go to school.

The year that Long Island Opt Out began, Tyler Deutermann was an unhappy fourth grader with school anxiety that was increasing every day. During February 2012, Jeanette Deutermann began investigating why her son who once loved school so much now hated it.

“I saw it emerge a little bit during testing season in third grade,” Deutermann said. “But then the test anxiety became constant in fourth grade. After speaking with teachers and parents, I knew it was the testing.”

The 2011-12 school year was the first year that teachers in New York State were to be evaluated by the test scores of their students. Anxiety across the board was running high. She read a letter signed by over one-third of New York’s principals that explained why evaluating teachers by test scores would have unintended negative consequences on students. Jeanette began to connect the dots, and she realized that high-stakes testing was the reason that her child and his education were falling apart.

“I had to speak out and let other parents know. I felt like a whistleblower—I did not have a choice,” she explained.

Tyler, she decided, would not take the test. In order  to organize other like-minded parents, she began a Facebook group—Long Island Opt-Out. It started out small—the first year, 1,000 students on Long Island refused the test. Membership in the group ballooned to over 16,000 in year two. Today, Long Island Opt Out has over 23,000 members.

Opt Out has spread across the state of New York like wildfire. In the spring of 2014, between 55,000 and 65,000 students refused to take the Grades 3-8 Common Core tests, with about half of those numbers coming from Long Island. In 2015, the number was in excess of 200,000 test refusals—which meant that 20 percent of all possible test takers’ parents said, “not my child.”

New York is not alone in test resistance. Opt out in Florida began when teacher Ceresta Smith, joined five others from Florida, Colorado, Maryland, Her son began hating school. What happened when she found out why. - The Washington Post:

In this school, children will grow up believing bathrooms have no gender - Quartz

In this school, children will grow up believing bathrooms have no gender - Quartz:

In this school, children will grow up believing bathrooms have no gender

On her first day of Pre-K, my four-year-old daughter used a bathroom that was simply labeled “bathroom.” She will, I hope, grow up in a world where bathrooms—like people—no longer exist along a simple gender binary. If only every school could be this enlightened.

In a recent NPR interview, Anna Allanbrook, principal of the Brooklyn New School where my children attend, stated that because society has evolved to such a place where children should be allowed to use the bathroom of the gender that they identify with. This is a rather radical albeit simple way of looking at gender identity.

The issue came to a head in Brooklyn after a transgender New School student requested to use the boys’ bathroom. The New York City Department of Education actually already has its own transgender guidelines, guidelines that support the rights of student to use the bathroom of his or her choice. “I went to a meeting this summer where they were actually discussing this at a pretty high level in The Department of Education,” Allanbrook told Quartz. “I think it’s become an issue across the grades in the public schools in general, not just in the Brooklyn New School.”

Q, as the student is known, is now in the fourth grade, but he has known he was transgender for several years. Q’s mother, Francisca Montana, told Quartz that the role of the gendered bathroom has long been something of a barrier. “Since the second grade when he started transitioning, the bathroom has been a big deal,” she told Quartz. “He was wearing girls clothes, but he wanted to go to the boys bathroom, because he is a boy. But kids in the boys bathroom would say ‘what are you doing here?’ Sometimes he would pee on himself.”

Allanbrook knew that something had to be done. The school explored different options before ultimately deciding to take matters into its own hands. Allanbrook decided to change the way that incoming students were introduced to the bathrooms.

“It just made sense with our little ones [PreK and Kindergarten] from the start of the school year to just cover the sign that says boys and girls and just say bathroom,” she said. “And that’s what we did. My idea is to de-emphasize it and just say, okay these are the bathrooms.”

Already, the change has made a big difference in the life of Q, according to his mother. But as a parent of two Brooklyn New School children who do not identify as transgender, I too am grateful that my children have the opportunity to learn in such a welcoming and progressive environment. (This isn’t the case everywhere: Recently in Missouri atransgender student was met with backlash from fellow students after requesting to use the girls’ bathroom.)

Ultimately, a bathroom is a bathroom. There are stalls, which give students the privacy they need to do what they need to do. Plus, having a family bathroom in school teaches children to be respectful of one another. A child will learn that when a stall is locked they must wait their turn, regardless of the gender of the person inside it.

At the end of her first day, I asked my daughter if the class used the same bathroom. She nodded enthusiastically. “Girls and boys?” I In this school, children will grow up believing bathrooms have no gender - Quartz:

The Classrooms We’re Fighting For | The Opt Out Florida Network

The Classrooms We’re Fighting For | The Opt Out Florida Network:

The Classrooms We’re Fighting For

Parents opt out of high stakes testing for many different reasons. Among the reasons I hear most often – teaching to the test, narrowed curriculum, too much stress, developmentally inappropriate, data collection, profiteering, the high stakes of retention and remediation, Common Core, and on and on and on…

What I believe most parents are in agreement about, is that school is no longer a place where children feel emotionally safe. They don’t feel safe being curious, creative, or daring. Failing, instead of being an opportunity to learn what doesn’t work, opening a window to other possibilities, has become a label to be feared and dreaded, because there is too much at stake to allow children to fail at anything anymore. Our children don’t always feel emotionally safe just being kids in school.

In the blog, Round the Inkwell, NPE Executive Director and lifelong educator, Carol Burris writes about a question posed to teachers by Jeanette Deutermann, the founder of Long Island Opt Out.  She asks:

If you knew that nearly all of your students were opting out, what would your classrooms be like?

Teachers’ responses included:

– I would re-engage my creative talents to tailor this year’s goals in the most appropriate manner for each of my students … and to once again make school a place of adventure, warmth and consistency.

– Listen longer to the children and let them tell their stories of life.

– I will do more hands on projects they will really remember when they get older!

– I would do more music, poetry and plays.

– Get back to creative teaching and allowing my students to enjoy learning!

The teachers’ responses are poignant and, I believe, are the heart of why so many parents fight so hard in the opt out movement. We grieve this version of school as a critical loss for our children, especially if we remember loving school and loving learning. We know that, for the most part, the way our children experience school, is but a shadow of what teachers imagine here, or of what we remember fondly.

I read this post with my eleven-year-old daughter. She is now in the sixth grade – a middle school student, with all that that implies. She is a typical tween – sweet, moody, sensitive, sour, dour.  Yet, having been exposed to and engaged in my activism for years, she is also not your typical tween. She is mature, strong, strong-minded,  informed and she has always taken her education very seriously. In our family, we ask hard questions, and we listen to each other.

Our family has recently moved from one school district to another, where the testing culture, although a part of public education as we know it, is tempered with more compassion for children and where the district leadership seems to be more willing to listen and respond to the concerns of parents. It isn’t perfect, and there is still much work to be done, but for us, school is better than it has been for years.

My daughter had this to say about Carol Burris’ blogpost,

“I agree with all of that. School isn’t like that for me, but I wish it were. 

School was great until third grade.  But when I was in grades three, four and five, I felt like when we went over material, we were supposed to understand it right away – even if we didn’t. I never felt like I could ask The Classrooms We’re Fighting For | The Opt Out Florida Network:

USC Poll: Californians Don’t Know Much About Common Core

SCVNews.com | USC Poll: Californians Don’t Know Much About Common Core | 09-27-2015:

USC Poll: Californians Don’t Know Much About Common Core

As Californians get their first look at new test results since 2013, a new poll shows state voters have mixed views on the Common Core State Standards, and their views shift with the way questions about the standards are posed.

Levels of support for the Common Core are generally higher — and levels of opposition are lower — in California than in the rest of the nation. The PACE/USC Rossier School of Education Poll shows a strong majority still know little or nothing about the new standards, however, and many voters are misinformed about the details. More than one in four California voters (26 percent) had not heard of the Common Core State Standards, the poll showed.

The PACE/USC Rossier Poll randomly asked voters several differently worded questions about Common Core support, reflecting the different questions included in other national and California polls. The results of the poll showed the wording of the question can dramatically affect responses.

Approve or disapprove?

When asked simply to what extent they approve or disapprove of the Common Core, 26 percent of California voters said they approve, while 31 percent said they disapprove and 17 percent had no opinion. Opposition among parents was higher: 38 percent said they disapprove of Common Core, while 31 percent said they approve and 16 percent had no opinion.

When the poll asked voters whether they support or oppose “having the teachers in your community use the Common Core State Standards to guide what they teach,” as the recent PDK/Gallup Poll posed the question, the percentage who support Common Core fell to 24 percent. The percentage that opposed the new standards also fell, to 27 percent.

When the question presented more information about the Common Core, however, support for the new standards was much higher. Support for the new standards rose to 52 percent when California voters were asked the following question, which was included in a recent Education Next poll:

As you may know, over the past few years states have been deciding whether or not to implement the Common Core State Standards, which are national standards for reading, writing and math. In the states that have these standards, they will be used to hold public schools accountable for their performance. To what extent do you support or oppose the use of the Common Core Standards in California?

“Even after four years of implementation and a great deal of political controversy, most Californians simply don’t know or don’t care much about Common Core,” said Morgan Polikoff, assistant professor of education at USC Rossier and an expert on Common Core standards. “Their views depend to a surprising extent on the questions they are asked about the new standards.”

Knowledge of the standards

The PACE/USC Rossier Poll also found that nearly six in 10 voters (59 percent) said they knew “a little” or “nothing” about the Common Core State Standards, with 41 percent of voters who said they knew “some” or “a lot” about them.

Reported knowledge of the standards was greater among parents, 54 percent of whom said they knew “a lot” or “some” and 46 percent of whom said they knew “a little” or nothing, according to the poll.

A plurality of voters also had misconceptions about several tenets of the standards: 34 percent of voters said Common Core requires more testing than California’s previous standards (17 percent said this was false and 49 percent were unsure); 25 percent said the federal government required California to adopt the Common Core (20 percent said this was false, 54 percent were unsure); and 30 percent said the statement that Common Core only applies to English and math is false (20 percent said this was true and 49 percent were unsure).

Parents were more likely to have misconceptions in these areas: 41 percent said Common Core requires more testing than California’s previous standards (18 percent said this was false and 42 percent were unsure); 34 percent said the federal government required California to adopt the Common Core (21 percent said this was false, 46 percent were unsure); and 35 percent said the statement that Common Core only applies to English and math is false (28 percent said this was true and 37 percent were unsure).

Voters who claim to have more knowledge of the standards are often considerably more likely to hold misconceptions about the standards than those who claim to have less knowledge. For instance, 52 percent of voters who report knowing a lot about the standards think Common Core applies in subjects other than math and English, and 57 percent believe Common Core requires more testing, both of which are incorrect.

“There remains a great deal of misinformation about the standards, and this is almost certainly driving some portion of the opposition here in California,” Polikoff said.

Key election issue?

Republicans were more likely than Democrats to be misinformed about what subjects were included in Common Core, 34 percent to 29 percent. Democrats were more likely to be wrong about whether Common Core required more testing, 38 percent to 32 percent.

But the Common Core is unlikely to be an important election issue, with a plurality (34 percent) saying they would be no more or less likely to support a presidential candidate who strongly supported Common Core. Twenty-four percent of voters said they would be less likely to support such a candidate, and 19 percent said they would be more likely to support that candidate.

“California’s policy leaders have been very deliberate in their implementation of the Common Core, which has short-circuited much of the political controversy that has emerged in other states,” said David Plank, executive director of PACE. “California’s teachers unions and other education organizations are united in their support for the state’s new standards, and the opponents of Common Core have not found a way to make it a significant statewide issue.”

Voters strongly support state testing policies

When asked to guess how long they thought California students spend taking state tests in a school year, voters on average said more than 23 hours, the poll showed.

After being told that California students spend 8 to 10 hours taking standardized tests SCVNews.com | USC Poll: Californians Don’t Know Much About Common Core | 09-27-2015:

Florida Superintendents Join the Voices of Parents & Teachers | The Opt Out Florida Network

Florida Superintendents Join the Voices of Parents & Teachers | The Opt Out Florida Network:

Florida Superintendents Join the Voices of Parents & Teachers

The Opt Out Florida Network, and its 40 Opt Out groups across the state, would like to thank the Florida Association of District School Superintendents(FADSS) for making a bold statement about the failures of our education accountability system.

Excerpt from the Superintendents’ statement:

The superintendents of Florida acknowledge the Commissioner’s role and the difficulty of the tasks set before her. Florida superintendents have consistently defended and supported accountability, the new Florida Standards, and the need to accurately measure student performance. At this time, FADSS is compelled to provide a position regarding the recent actions of the Department of Education (DOE) and the State Board of Education (SBE).

Florida district school superintendents have lost confidence in the current accountability system for the students of the State of Florida.

FADSS Recommendations:

1. Suspend any application of the results from the spring 2015 administration of the FSA to students, teachers and schools.
2. Issue an “I” (Incomplete) if necessary, to all Florida schools for 2014-2015, based upon the availability of limited and flawed data.
3. Reject the concept that the standards set for the FSA mirror the levels of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Teachers, parents and students have been experiencing this crisis first hand and are grateful that the Superintendents have added their voices to the outcry for a complete overhaul of how we test and how we use that data.

We ask that FADSS further their inquiry into the validity study and that they urge Legislators to release the burden of high stakes in their test and punish policies;  not just this year, but permanently.

To read the full statement from FADSS (September 25, 2015):
FLORIDA SUPERINTENDENTS HAVE LOST CONFIDENCE IN THE ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEM

To learn how you can become a stronger advocate for your child’s education by understanding your parental rights and options, please join us at The Opt Out Florida Network on Facebook.

To find your district Opt Out group, please click HERE.

Short Link:  bit.ly/1FyTuYZ

Actually, Boehner's Resignation Doesn't Change the Odds on ESEA - Rick Hess Straight Up - Education Week

Actually, Boehner's Resignation Doesn't Change the Odds on ESEA - Rick Hess Straight Up - Education Week:

Actually, Boehner's Resignation Doesn't Change the Odds on ESEA

On Friday, House Speaker John Boehner announced that he'll be stepping down at the end of October.  This decision concluded five long years of caucus clashes between Boehner and the House's Tea Party wing and, in edu-world, occasioned much speculation about what this means for ESEA. After all, for the first time since 2001, the House and Senate have both passed reauthorization legislation which they're now working to reconcile.  The conventional wisdom was that Boehner's announcement makes the odds of ESEA reauthorization much longer.

I see things a little differently.

First, keep in mind that 99.9% of the currents buffeting House Republicans have nothing to do with education. They have to do with more fundamental fights, some rational and some less so. Whether the outcome of these fights helps or hurts education legislation is purely incidental. Nobody knows how all the leadership shuffling or budget fights will play out, or what that'll mean for the policy agenda.  

Second, as I've noted time and again, the odds have been against reauthorization all along.  Even after the House and Senate passed their respective bills in July, the odds of getting a bill done were never higher than 25% or maybe 30%. Getting things this far is a credit to Kline, Alexander, Murray, and their staffs— but don't overestimate how close they are to the finish line. The House's Student Success Act (SSA) barely made it through on a 218-213 vote, and any House-Senate compromise is going to include Senate provisions that will alienate some House conservatives. Meanwhile, with Secretary Duncan denouncing key elements of the SSA as unacceptable, it's long been unclear whether a conference committee satisfy both House Republicans and the Obama administration.

Third, it's not clear that Boehner's departure will matter much for ESEA's chances one way or the other. The conventional wisdom was that Boehner would help bring a conference bill and persuade Republican members to vote for a compromise bill. There are a couple problems with that take. For one thing, it's not like Boehner has had a lot of success steering the caucus or that his imprimatur on a conference bill was going to be a huge plus. He's been at loggerheads with the 40 or 50 members of the House Freedom Caucus for years and his bringing a conference bill to the floor was going to be one more round in that fight. For another, the odds are that Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy will be the next Speaker— and McCarthy has a much better relationship with the Freedom Caucus than Boehner has. He might also catch a break from some members simply because he's not Boehner. (Don't misunderstand me: the schism in the House GOP is deep, real, and going to persist. But the shift from Boehner to McCarthy could make it a bit more likely that a few things happen in the short term.)

Fourth, most House Republicans didn't go to Washington to wrestle with the details of education legislation. They're focused on reducing the size of the federal government, reversing the Actually, Boehner's Resignation Doesn't Change the Odds on ESEA - Rick Hess Straight Up - Education Week:

NY Times Hypes Charter Schools - Again and Again | Alan Singer

NY Times Hypes Charter Schools - Again and Again | Alan Singer:

NY Times Hypes Charter Schools - Again and Again

A front-page article in the weekend Metropolitan section of The New York Timestakes readers "Inside the three-year effort to open an economically diverse, academically rigorous charter in Brooklyn." One big problem with the Times' campaign to hype charter schools is that this school just opened the week before with 135 kindergarten and first grade children so no one had any idea how economically diverse and academically rigorous the school would actually become. The article was purely speculative, barely more than an advertisement for charter schools.

The article, which continued to two more pages inside the section, was really about the quest of some rich guy to open and control his own "public" school. In the print edition the Times headlined the article, "Mr. Levey's Dream School."

But just who is this Mr. Levey and why should he be in charge of a quasi-public charter school? According to his Linkedin page, Matthew Levey is a former McKinseyconsultant. He worked there from 1999 to 2002 after he left a job with the United States State Department. McKinsey is the world's largest management consulting firm with a foot in nations around the world. Levey claims that at McKinsey he "worked with financial services clients to improve business unit performance in a range of different strategy engagements." Among other things, critics charge that McKinsey's main advice is often to maximize profits by laying off workers. Levey was also managing director of Kroll Inc from 2002 to 2011, a "risk-management" company that provides internal security for major corporations.

I am not sure if this is an impressive resume or not, but I did find two things very puzzling. Levey studied economics at George Washington and finance at Columbia University. According to the New York Times, Levey, who lives in the affluent Upper East Side of Manhattan "has never taught a classroom of elementary school students, never written a lesson plan, never sent anyone to the principal's office." Times editors must figure he is qualified to run a charter school because he is the father of three teenagers and his wife is a language instructor in a private school. They did not say.

The other puzzling thing is that Levey does not seem to have had a job since 2011. He has been too busy setting up his charter "dream." I would like to know how he made a living, helped support his family, and prepared to send those three teenagers to college. Where did his money come from and where did the money to set up the dream charter school come from? Surprisingly, the Times did not report this information.

But hey! Levey probably is a good guy. The Times says he served on volunteer school committees and he really believes children in the pre-k through fifth grade need to know how Sir Francis Bacon developed the scientific method in the 16th century, the importance of Aristotle about 300 BC, and whyNY Times Hypes Charter Schools - Again and Again | Alan Singer:

Pearson CEO John Fallon Wants to Win America Over. | deutsch29

Pearson CEO John Fallon Wants to Win America Over. | deutsch29:

Pearson CEO John Fallon Wants to Win America Over.

Friendly John Fallon, CEO, Pearson

In my book, Common Core Dilemma–Who Owns Schools?, I have a chapter on London-based mega-company, Pearson. The chapter includes details from Pearson’s February 2014 earnings call, which shows Pearson’s plans to rake in the bucks from Common Core and associated testing as Pearson “embeds” itself into American education like a fat tick latches onto the skin of an unsuspecting yard dog.

How’s that for a mental picture?

On September 23, 2015, Washington Post education writer Valerie Strauss featured an excerpt from the Common Core Dilemma chapter on Pearson. Readers are able to view Strauss’ post on her blog, “The Answer Sheet,” by clicking here.

Since the time of its February 2014 earnings call, the rollout of Common Core and its associated assessments has not proceeded as smoothly (and therefore, has not translated as readily into profits) as Pearson thought it would. Such is immediately apparent in the struggling and shrinking of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) consortium, one of two originally-federally-funded testing consortia that was supposed to provide Common Core-aligned tests to potentially 24 states and DC in 2011 (and perhaps more, if other states decided to join PARCC). By the time Pearson was awarded the PARCC contract in May 2014, PARCC still retained 16 states and DC.

In the months after that February 2014 earnings call, Pearson picked up the PARCC contract, then worth an estimated $240 million. It also had testing contracts in Texas (not a Common Core state) and New York.

Pearson just knew the Common Core testing profits were a-coming.

However, by July 2015, PARCC was down to 10 states and DC contracting with Pearson CEO John Fallon Wants to Win America Over. | deutsch29:

Are N.J charter schools saving more money than they need? | NJ.com

Are N.J charter schools saving more money than they need? | NJ.com:

Are N.J charter schools saving more money than they need?

Charter schools across New Jersey have built up savings so large that one school has more money saved than it needs for an entire year of operation, according to an analysis by the Newark-based Education Law Center. 

But that doesn't mean that the schools are needlessly hoarding money, said the New Jersey Charter Schools Association. 

The Education Law Center analyzed the most recently available audited school budgets of more than 80 charter schools. Nearly all of the schools had fund balances — the difference between reveneues an expenses — larger than 2 percent, according to the analysis. 

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RELATED: Test your New Jersey back-to-school IQ

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Public school districts are not allowed to have fund balances that are more than 2 percent of their budget, and The Education Law Center this week called on the state to impose the same cap on charter schools.

The money charter schools have beyond a 2 percent fund balance should be returned to the districts from which students came, said David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center. 

"The excess charter fund balance is available to provide desperately needed teachers, staff and programs for students in district schools," Sciarra said. "Since charters are public schools, they cannot be allowed to carry unlimited, excess surplus they don't need while the education of students who choose to attend district schools suffers from deep budget cuts."

The New Jersey Charter Schools Association called the Education Law Center report a "misguided assault on charter school viability." 

Unlike school districts, charter schools do not receive money directly from property taxes or from the state. Instead, when a student leaves his or her home district for a Are N.J charter schools saving more money than they need? | NJ.com:

A video interview with Jon Grant: Seattle City Council Candidate for Position 8 | Seattle Education

A video interview with Jon Grant: Seattle City Council Candidate for Position 8 | Seattle Education:

A video interview with Jon Grant: Seattle City Council Candidate for Position 8

Thanks to a donation, we now have a video camera to provide videos of interviews and events.

Our first interview is with Jon Grant, candidate for the City Council seat, Position 8. The incumbent is Council member Tim Burgess.

This is an important race in terms of where we want Seattle to go.

I interviewed Mr. Grant on September  20, 2015 and will let him describe his background, goals and vision for Seattle.

Dora Taylor

A big thanks to our readers and supporters for assisting us in being able to meet our goal of providing video interviews.

Carolyn Leith

Dora TaylorA video interview with Jon Grant: Seattle City Council Candidate for Position 8 | Seattle Education:

Call to Action – A State Budget that Restores Funding to Social Services and Public Education | Parents United for Public Education

Call to Action – A State Budget that Restores Funding to Social Services and Public Education | Parents United for Public Education:

Call to Action – A State Budget that Restores Funding to Social Services and Public Education

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to a meeting of the Philadelphia Delegation of House of Representatives. Present were 22 House Representatives, Secretary of Education Edwin Rivera, Secretary of Human Services Ted Dallas, Mayor Michael Nutter, City Council Chair Darrell Clarke, SRC members, and School District of Philadelphia Superintendent Hite, among many others. The topics were the discussion of the state budget impasse and highlighting budgetary goals. In the audience were several social service providers from City and State levels. They included services for: child care/ foster care, food equality, juvenile justice, people with disabilities and different abilities, legal support, immigrant, poverty, homelessness, and education advocates. What is important is that these organizations provide essential services for many people who depend on them.  This is an amazing group of organization led by extraordinary people who require state funding to continue to operate.

For all of the presentation, all of the difficulty with passing a realistic budget that supports public education and all of the social services, there still is been no observable progress. It has been 89 days since the budget should have been passed.  Nearly three months – for organizations that typically have barely enough funding to cover their operating budgets. Government does not and cannot attempt to do the great work at: ARC, PCCY, SHARE, Education Voters, PILCOP, Congreso, and many others.  We are now in a major crisis. Many of these organizations have drawn on credit lines to keep their services going, their employees working, and populations served. Those credit lines are dwindling. Their money is running out, fast. As the budget impasse continues, there will be higher and higher consequences which will likely include the closures similar to those during the 2009 budget impasse.

We were told of the political difficulties of moving a republican held legislature. We agree that representatives were “preaching to the choir”. We understand that it is critically important to ensure that government restore critical funding eliminated during the Corbett administration. What we did not hear was an effective Call to Action. Yes, we were told to contact our legislators… who happened to be many of the very same people in the room. We were asked to make alliances with service organizations in other counties, in the attempt to persuade their Call to Action – A State Budget that Restores Funding to Social Services and Public Education | Parents United for Public Education: