Why Inner City Schools Keep Failing

Inner City Schools:

Why Inner City Schools Keep Failing

There is an exquisitely sick irony to the fact that segregated and purposefully maintained inferior inner city public education could not be maintained at the Los Angeles Unified School District and elsewhere in this country without the administrative participation of the same minorities it keeps in their unachieving places.

Unless minority administrators were willing to turn momma’s picture to the wall and follow orders—for a six-figure salary and a place at the privatization feast at public expense—real positive change in public education could rather easily be achieved at far less expense and in a relatively short period of time.

The willingness of minority leadership to sell out the inherent intelligence of Black and Latino children to assure that they never reach their potential is both deplorable and at the same time a negation of racism.

I say ironically because the willingness of minority leadership to sell out the inherent intelligence of Black and Latino children to assure that they never reach their potential is both deplorable and at the same time a negation of racism. Why? Because irrespective of race what all human beings have shown themselves regrettably capable of is a willingness to do pretty much anything for a large enough pile of bucks and benefits.

The minority administrator’s rationale goes something like this: Better I initial play along with what I know to be a racist system of public education to get into a position of power. Then, once I have the power, I will be able to effectuate real change.

But as these minority administrators continue moving up and compromising their core values, they never seem to get to a place where they can effectuate meaningful change without jeopardizing their of careers—and that is not something that most human beings are willing to do as they continue to abdicate any individual moral imperative to change this racist system.

By cloaking themselves in being a part of some collective LAUSD leadership identity—sound familiar for all you history buffs—where no individual is ever held responsible for their individual acts as long as they continue to blindly support The District, no matter what it does, this dysfunctional system has now gone on for generations destroying the lives of inherently clever young people, who are never given the opportunity to reach their potential.

While there are people of integrity that cannot be bought, LAUSD has a system of choosing prospective administrators that filters out any “troublemakers” long before they get an administrative position, no matter what their objective qualifications might be. And for the few honest administrators who slip through this selection process, they learn to keep their mouths shut, while reciting the vacuous slogans of, “No child left behind” and “Every child is a life-long learner,” that could easily be contradicted and seen for the nonsense they are, if one bothered to actually walk into a classroom and see the chaos that continues to be allowed.

Many of the administrators of LAUSD who wind up being chosen to address the problems of this Inner City Schools:

Broad Foundation secret plan to get extremely wealthy people to invest in creating charter schools in LA - NBC Southern California

News Conference LAUSD President on the Charter Schools Controversy | NBC Southern California:

Broad Foundation secret plan to get extremely wealthy people to invest in creating charter schools in LA

( Having problem with video go here: News Conference LAUSD President on the Charter Schools Controversy | NBC Southern California  )
A big uproar was created this week when a memo was leaked to the LA Times from the Eli Broad Foundation about a secret plan to get extremely wealthy people to invest in creating charter schools in LA. NBC4's Conan Nolan talks to both sides of the issue. First up: Steve Zimmer, the president of the LAUSD.

CURMUDGUCATION: Charters Are Not Common Schools

CURMUDGUCATION: Charters Are Not Common Schools:

Charters Are Not Common Schools

Charter boosters continue trying to muster some sort of argument against the decision in Washington State that the charter laws there violate the state constitution. So far, none of the attempts really sing.

Over at Campbell Brown's PR site, the 74, Andrew Rotherham (Bellwether) and Richard Whitmire (general reformsterism) make the argument that charter opponents are "on the wrong side of history" and that charter schools are the true common schools. You will not be surprised to read that I disagree.

In truth, the ideal of the common school is one the country has never lived up to. While we romanticize the common school, people too frequently forget that those schools were at different times not open to blacks, religious minorities, or, until the 1970s, students with special needs and disabilities. 

Despite serving those groups today, the continuing trend of segregated housing  and the staggeringly uneven performance of different public schools prompts this question: What exactly is all thatcommon about the common school anyway?

First, it's important to recognize the True Parts of what they are saying-- ever since this country latched onto the idea of a common school and public education, we have struggled with living up to that ideal. This is not surprising-- as public institutions under public control, schools have reflected and expressed every twist and turn, every shameful lapse and every difficult step forward in the public life of this country. Public schools have not always delivered on their promise, and in some places, are still not delivering on it today. 

So when I oppose modern charters, I don't do so with the insistence that public schools have no CURMUDGUCATION: Charters Are Not Common Schools:

Social Justice Activism is Forming a More Perfect (And Enduring) Union - NEA Today

Social Justice Activism is Forming a More Perfect (And Enduring) Union - NEA Today:

Social Justice Activism is Forming a More Perfect (And Enduring) Union

Teachers and education support professionals are standing together in the fight for equal opportunity for all students.

Educators are driven by purpose. There’s the day-to-day purpose of helping students learn, but there’s also a higher purpose—a calling—to help improve students’lives, especially for the growing number who struggle with poverty. Educators refuse to stand by and ignore the gap between the equal opportunity America espouses and the
socioeconomic reality they see in their schools.

That’s why another generation of NEA members is fighting for equal opportunity for all students. Teachers and education support professionals are standing together to demand better for our schools and our children and for the common good of our communities.

They are NEA’s social justice activists.

“NEA members are organizing around issues that extend far beyond bread and butter concerns,” says NEA President Lily Eskelsen García. “They’re organizing and advocating for their students—from class size to adequate resources to family involvement. They are banding together to make their voices heard and demanding that the needs of all our students—including those in the most impoverished neighborhoods—be addressed.”

Social justice activism isn’t new. Rank-and-file union activists have advocated for social justice for years and it’s based on the same principles organized labor has always championed: Solidarity, equality, democracy, and justice.

But the country has entered a seminal moment, and this model of unionism could hold the key to preserving public education as a right for all Americans. As the income gap threatens to swallow the middle class, public school educators are being battered by a perfect storm of political, legal, and corporate attacks that would strip educators of their rights, ignore the needs of huge populations of students, and ultimately privatize education, further widening the income gap Social Justice Activism is Forming a More Perfect (And Enduring) Union - NEA Today:

The Education of Jesse Hagopian | I AM AN EDUCATOR

The Education of Jesse Hagopian | I AM AN EDUCATOR:

The Education of Jesse Hagopian



Erin Middlewood, writing for The Progressive magazine, flew out to Seattle just before the end of the last school year. She spent an afternoon with me in my classroom and then accompanied me that evening to our Black Student Union senior awards banquet that my students had organized to honor our graduating black leaders.

Below is the link to the essay Erin wrote, “The Education of Jesse Hagopian” about my political development and activism.  Most importantly, the essay focuses on the intersection of the opt out movement against high-stakes testing and the Black Lives Matter movement.  It is my hope that these two movements increasingly unite into a great social force that can transform public education and bring down the institutions of racism.

By Erin Middlewood

Pepper spray seared Jesse Hagopian’s face and tears streamed from his eyes. He had just given a speech at this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration, on January 19 in Seattle. In keeping with tradition, the thirty-third annual event began in the gymnasium of Garfield High School, where Hagopian himself attended school and now teaches history. He presented plaques to students who were leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement. After the ceremony, 10,000 people marched toward downtown.

See more at: http://www.progressive.org/news/2015/09/188303/education-jesse-hagopian

The Education of Jesse Hagopian | I AM AN EDUCATOR:

Libraries at the Crossroads | Pew Research Center

Libraries at the Crossroads | Pew Research Center:

Libraries at the Crossroads

The public is interested in new services and thinks libraries are important to communities

American libraries are buffeted by cross currents. Citizens believe that libraries are important community institutions and profess interest in libraries offering a range of new program possibilities. Yet, even as the public expresses interest in additional library services, there are signs that the share of Americans visiting libraries has edged downward over the past three years, although it is too soon to know whether or not this is a trend.

A new survey from Pew Research Center brings this complex situation into stark relief. Many Americans say they want public libraries to:

• support local education;
• serve special constituents such as veterans, active-duty military personnel and immigrants;
• help local businesses, job seekers and those upgrading their work skills;
• embrace new technologies such as 3-D printers and provide services to help patrons learn about high-tech gadgetry.

Additionally, two-thirds of Americans (65%) ages 16 and older say that closing their local public library would have a major impact on their community. Low-income Americans, Hispanics and African Americans are more likely than others to say that a library closing would impact their lives and communities.

At the same time, the survey finds that the share of Americans who report using a library has ebbed somewhat over the past several years, though it is too early to identify a definitive national trend. Compared with Pew Research Center surveys from recent years, the current survey finds those 16 and older a bit less likely to say they have visited a library or bookmobile in-person in the past 12 months, visited a library website or used a library’s computers and internet access.

• 46% of all Americans ages 16 and over say they visited a library or a bookmobile in-person in the prior year. This is roughly comparable with the 48% who said this in 2013, but down from 53% in 2012.
• 22% of those 16 and older have used library websites in the past year, compared with 30% who said this in 2013 and 25% in 2012.
• 27% of those who have visited a public library have used its computers, internet connection or Wi-Fi signal to go online in the past 12 months. This compares with 31% who said this in 2012.

A trend in the other direction is that mobile access to library resources has taken on more prominence. Among those who have used a public library website, 50% accessed it in the Libraries at the Crossroads | Pew Research Center:

Profit Piranha Feeding Frenzy - National, local foundations with charter school ties fund APS... | www.myajc.com

National, local foundations with charter school ties fund APS... | www.myajc.com:

National, local foundations with charter school ties fund APS work

Half a dozen local and national foundations are footing the $500,000 bill for high-powered management consultants to develop a plan to improve Atlanta schools in the face of potential state takeover.

About half of Atlanta’s 80 schools are at high risk of being eligible for state takeover if voters next year approve Gov. Nathan Deal’s proposed state takeover district.

It’s unlikely that more than a few schools throughout the state would be selected for takeover initially. Still, having so many schools at risk is one more reason Atlanta district leaders say they need to move even faster to improve some of the state’s worst schools.

“We have to get it right,” school board chairman Courtney English said. “Not just because of the threat of state takeover but because we have a moral imperative to make this right for our children.”

In November 2016, voters will weigh in on a constitutional amendment that would allow control of low-performing schools to be shifted to the appointed superintendent of a new “Opportunity School District.” That would mean decisions about how students are taught and how local tax dollars are spent would no longer be solely up to locally elected officials.

This summer, the Atlanta school district announced it would work with Boston Consulting Group, an international consulting firm that counts many Fortune 500 companies among its clients, to develop a plan for improving Atlanta’s lowest-performing schools.

The plan, which will vary by school, could include replacing principals and teachers or giving teachers more training. More controversially, it could also include closing some schools and turning others over to nonprofit charter school operators.

“We’re not taking any idea off the table at this point,” Deputy Superintendent David Jernigan told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Superintendent Meria Carstarphen will present an initial review of potential strategies at a Tuesday town hall meeting and reveal more information at her State of the District event on Oct. 8, district officials said.

The idea of bringing in nonprofit charter school operators doesn’t sit well with some.

“It would give the appearance of privatization of a public school,” Raynard Johnson, a member of a committee advising the district on school improvement plans, said.

Boston Consulting Group’s fee is being paid by the Walton Family Foundation, founded by the owners of Wal-Mart, and by family foundations with ties to Atlanta business leaders: the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, Wilbur and Hilda Glenn Family Foundation, Nonami Foundation, Kendeda Fund and the Sartain Lanier Family Foundation.

The Walton Family Foundation has given millions to support the growth of charter schools. The foundation’s other Atlanta recipients include Drew Charter School, KIPP charter schools, the Kindezi charter schools, Westside Atlanta Charter School, Christo Rey Atlanta Jesuit High School and Teach for America, Walton spokeswoman Daphne Davis Moore said. Other Georgia recipients include the Georgia Charter Schools Association and the Alliance for School Choice.National, local foundations with charter school ties fund APS... | www.myajc.com:

USED Official Admits Federal Curriculum Violation in Bush-Supported Race to the Top | Truth in American Education

USED Official Admits Federal Curriculum Violation in Bush-Supported Race to the Top | Truth in American Education:

USED Official Admits Federal Curriculum Violation in Bush-Supported Race to the Top

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore (CC-By-SA 2.0)

The arguments made by establishment proponents of Race to the Top and Common Core, including some presidential candidates continue to implode.  The well-worn chant that these were “state-led,” “voluntary,” “hijacked by the federal government,” and especially that Common Core is “only standards” and “has nothing to do with curriculum” is dissolving into thin air.  That particular claim about curriculum has been absolutely shredded in the admission by former US Department of Education (USED) official, Joanne Weiss in an essaydiscussing the “lessons learned” from the whole effort to nationalize education standards via Race to the Top (RTTT).  Weiss actually brags that RTTT, a federal government program, produced curriculum:

In addition, new curriculum materials funded through Race to the Top and released in 2014 are already in use in 20 percent of classrooms nationwide.(Emphasis added).

This is a clear violation of three federal laws that prohibit federal involvement in curriculum – The Elementary and Secondary Education Act [ESEA – 20 U.S.C. § 7907(a)], The Department of Education Organization Act [20 U.S.C. § 3403(b)], and the General Education Provisions Act USED Official Admits Federal Curriculum Violation in Bush-Supported Race to the Top | Truth in American Education:

Is the Opt Out Movement Destined to Grow? | Creative by Nature

Is the Opt Out Movement Destined to Grow? | Creative by Nature:

Is the Opt Out Movement Destined to Grow?

How (and Why) the Opt Out Movement Could Grow into the Most Powerful & Important Children’s Rights Movement in History…

HOW:

By going on the offensive- holding nation-wide teach-ins, developing coordinated actions to “take out” the corrupt and destructive forces strangling our children’s education and causing them psychological harm.

By asserting children’s legal rights– demanding changes in law to protect the most vulnerable members of society from “hostile” forces that treat them like factory products on an assembly line.

By focusing attention on the strengths of our position as compared to the weaknesses of the reformers- both research evidence and the law support our position, while their house is built on sand and deceptions.

By studying past civil rights movements that were successful, such as the ending of slavery, child labor laws, women’s right to vote and the civil rights movement of the sixties.

By focusing on education, action and creative collaboration, asking our children to Is the Opt Out Movement Destined to Grow? | Creative by Nature:

Look Out Parents – Malloy’s State Department of Education is ramping up Pro-Common Core Testing Campaign - Wait What?

Look Out Parents – Malloy’s State Department of Education is ramping up Pro-Common Core Testing Campaign - Wait What?:

Look Out Parents – Malloy’s State Department of Education is ramping up Pro-Common Core Testing Campaign

If you weren’t at the “Special” Sherman Board of Education meeting last Thursday you missed the “show.”

Big Brother is Watching and Big Brother is not Happy!

As Connecticut is swamped by yet another state budget crisis and Democrat Governor Dannel Malloy unilaterally makes deep cuts to some of State Government’s most vital services, the Governor’s Education Commissioner is finding the resources to engage in a campaign to persuade parents that the Common Core Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium SBAC testing scheme is good and they should not be opting their children out of the unfair, inappropriate and discriminatory tests.

Last week began with the Connecticut State Department of Education’s Deputy Commissioner, Ellen Cohn, telling school superintendents that “correction action plans” will be implemented in towns where too many parents opted their children out the tests and that the Malloy administration would be mobilizing to “help educate” parents and communities where parents had stood up against the SBAC testing program.

Later in the week, Malloy’s Commissioner of Education, Diane Wentzell, focused the state’s bullseye on the small town of Sherman, Connecticut with its 380 or so elementary school students.

Although Malloy and the Department of Education spent nearly two years lying and misleading Connecticut parents about their fundamental right to opt their children out of the Common Core SBAC testing madness, nearly half of the students in Sherman’s school were opted out of the SBAC testing last spring, making it the elementary school with the highest opt out rates in the state and among Connecticut’s 25 top schools when it came to the percent of students being opted out.

The notion that parents understand that Common Core SBAC testing is undermining public education was just too much for the State to handle and last Thursday, after communications that the State Department of Education has yet to release a response to a Freedom of Information request, the Sherman Board of Education held a “special meeting” to “focus solely on a presentation to the Board of Education by our superintendent, Don Look Out Parents – Malloy’s State Department of Education is ramping up Pro-Common Core Testing Campaign - Wait What?:

How Understanding of Social Differences Could Actually Help Underachieving Pupils

How Understanding of Social Differences Could Actually Help Underachieving Pupils:

How Understanding of Social Differences Could Actually Help Underachieving Pupils

While there is person variation within any lifestyle, societal trying to learn behaviours kind along continua of discovering versions. In a few civilizations building problems in public areas is a huge sociable embarrassment to remain averted in the first place rate, during many others, they may be thought about largely as fodder for more studying (no matter if nobody wants making them). Using some cultures, women and men usually favor knowing collaboratively, during other folks, there’s even more of a pinpoint the particular person. Using some countries, consumers plan to build up their wall membrane of discovering brick by brick, while in some others, the bricks get sketched in as you consider the full wall surface, or sections of it. – help essay writing

Ken and once required the Cambodian paraprofessional at his high school, whom he relied on as the social informant, about why most of the Cambodian trainees appeared so timid about asking questions or giving views about school stories regardless of whether prompted to do this possibly even if they are not in front of the overall course. The para stated that in Cambodian culture, kids are just anticipated to discover the certified awareness given to them by liable adults, undoubtedly. To acquire a Cambodian individual to question the professor something will mean certainly one of a couple of things: both they hadn’t been paying attention perfectly, which has been damaging; or they hadn’t fully understood, that may be like suggesting to the mentor, “You didn’t give an explanation of it good enough, so require another stab at it,” which may be terribly rude.

From a unique classroom, we might imagine an individual whoever trying to learn individuality is indirect before person-instructed, who has a minimal tolerance for issues, who needs to understand brick by brick, and who seems to be not proactive about posing problems (frequently for the tutor or around him- or themselves). How could that scholar turn to us inside our class? Could be for a “slow learner” who may have “english-essay-writing”?

Just about every college student, then, brings your own selections, needs and wants, a societal finding out structure, foundation understanding, and sentiments about to be a university student inside their “bag” of autobiographical recollection. In diverse options, some or several of these components can be mismatched to the instructor structure. Once we see main difference in such areas, a longer-label process of conversation and mediation is important that may help pupils gain knowledge of new ways of considering, feeling, thinking, and performing from a class room preparing.

Training Guidelines: Under pressure People and also the Social Roots of Autobiographical Memory

There are a lot of important things you can easily do today to assistance bridge and minimize the “achievement gap” connection between cultural differences in autobiographical remembrance.

Conversation All-around Intention and Definition

Once we have listed in the course of this handbook, among the significant difficulties in orienting our memories programs to educational discovering is whether or not we discover this means and importance with the item of getting to know. Simply because this is true for autobiographical storage, we should not believe all of our people discuss identical orientation to methods of planning, utilising terms, or institution habits. Our enthusiasm to inquire about and answer questions, or our skills in using descriptive words-How Understanding of Social Differences Could Actually Help Underachieving Pupils:

The Broader Meaning of Chicago’s Dyett Hunger Strike | janresseger

The Broader Meaning of Chicago’s Dyett Hunger Strike | janresseger:

The Broader Meaning of Chicago’s Dyett Hunger Strike

The website of the New Yorker magazine just published a fascinating piece by Eve Ewing, written to mark the importance of the recent 34-day hunger strike in Chicago that pressured Rahm Emanuel’s administration to preserve Dyett High School in that city’s Bronzeville neighborhood.

According to a report by WBEZ Chicago, though the hunger strikers did not achieve all of their demands, they did secure a promise that the new Dyett high school will, “have a neighborhood boundary, meaning all children in the attendance-area could attend without having to first meet minimum test-score requirements or go through a lottery (nearly all Chicago high schools opened in the past decade have had citywide boundaries and require students to apply; no one is guaranteed admission).”  “(T)he roots of the fight began years ago, when CPS shook up the local schools in the Bronzeville-Kenwood-Washington Park area by turning the high school, King, into a test-in school. Dyett became the default attendance-area high school for the area…. The school board voted in 2012 to phase Dyett out; the last class graduated in June with 13 students.”

In her New Yorker piece, Ewing sets Chicago Public Schools’ closure of Dyett High School in the context of the history and impact of Chicago’s public housing—a history of public policy reinforcing neighborhood segregation in Chicago, where poverty remains concentrated decades after African Americans came north in the Great Migration to escape just such conditions.  In the 1950s, “When C.H.A. (Chicago Housing Authority) officials appeared before the city council with proposals for new housing construction, white aldermen routinely slashed at the lists of prospective locations until those projects slated for black communities were all that remained.  What resulted was the construction of five more (in addition to the original Ida B. Wells project) high-density housing projects, bringing the total in Bronzeville to eight thousand two hundred and thirty-three units…. In 1970, the families who lived in the Robert Taylor Homes… averaged six people each—a total of six thousand two hundred and fifty adults and twenty thousand four hundred and forty children.  Children outnumbered adults by more than three to one…”

“Ida B. Wells, the Robert Taylor Homes, and other Bronzeville high-rise projects have all been torn down as part of the C.H.A.’s ‘Plan for Transformation,’ which Mayor Richard M. Daley launched in 1999… The agency declared that residents would have the right to return to the newly constructed mixed-income housing that would replace the high-rises… In 2005. Venkatesh and Isil Celimli wrote that seventy-five percent of C.H.A. residents surveyed stated a preference for returning to their old neighborhoods, but less than twenty percent would be able to do so.”  The neighborhoods south of Chicago’s Loop have gentrified. Developers of The Broader Meaning of Chicago’s Dyett Hunger Strike | janresseger:

Reimagining the U.S. High School: An Open Letter to Laurene Powell Jobs | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Reimagining the U.S. High School: An Open Letter to Laurene Powell Jobs | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Reimagining the U.S. High School: An Open Letter to Laurene Powell Jobs

Dear Mrs. Laurene Powell Jobs:

I commend you for initiating a national challenge to transform the comprehensive high school into a Super School and putting $50 million on the stump for experts, parents, practitioners, and academics to compete for in creating better high schools than exist now. Reinventing the high school should generate an enormous range of suggestions for your expert panel to consider after the national round of open meetings end in November. What you are launching is worthwhile especially if it were to spark a national conversation about the goals of tax-supported public schools in a democracy where the economy has shifted from industrial-based to an information-driven one. Whether that conversation (and debate, I hope) will occur depends greatly, I believe, on you and your associates knowing about how high schools have, indeed, changed over the past century and, of equal importance, the checkered history of efforts to “transform” the U.S. high school. That historical knowledge should be one ingredient in considering different groups’ proposals inspired by your challenge.

The most recent serious effort to alter the comprehensive high school was when the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation poured over $2 billion into creating small high schools 15 years ago, an effort that the Gates Foundation shut down in 2009. Yet “small high schools” persist–it is one of the changes in high schools that I refer to above–because they personalize instruction for many students heretofore ignored in conventional comprehensive high schools.

Knowing that public high schools have changed in small and big ways over the past century is essential in making wise funding decisions. The originalcomprehensive high school in the 1920s with its diversified curriculum catered to the broad range of student interests and aptitudes. It was an innovation that “transformed” the previous academically narrow high school of the 1890s. Since then, repeated efforts to reform the reform have occurred. In the 1950s, for example, former Harvard University president, James Bryce Conant, called for an overhaul of the high school; a decade later, attacks on the sterile comprehensive high school produced a flurry of alternative and “free” high schools. Ted Sizer launched the Coalition of Essential Schools in the late 1980s with its nine “common principles” and hundreds of those high schools exist across the nation. In the early 1990s, a privately funded venture called the New American Schools Development Corporation, later shortened to New American Schools, spread “whole school reform” models to elementary and secondary schools throughout the U.S. As one advocate put it: those seeking grants from Reimagining the U.S. High School: An Open Letter to Laurene Powell Jobs | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Struggling cities and excelling suburbs: a repeated pattern around the country - The Hechinger Report

Struggling cities and excelling suburbs: a repeated pattern around the country - The Hechinger Report:

Struggling cities and excelling suburbs: a repeated pattern around the country

Earlier this summer, we published a map of high school graduation rates by district across the United States. We’re now breaking it down and exploring trends in different states and regions.

You can see it all over our map of graduation rates by district: a pocket of low graduation rates surrounded by higher ones, indicating a city and its surrounding suburbs.

It should come as no surprise that urban districts tend to have lower graduation rates than suburban ones. They often have more disadvantaged students and fewer resources.

An analysis of 2009 graduation rates found that 60.9 percent of high-schoolers in cities graduated across the country, compared with 75.3 percent in suburbs. (Towns and rural districts were in the middle, graduating 71.7 percent and 75 percent of students, respectively.)

This week, I thought we’d take a closer look at some of the nation’s largest metro areas to see how similar –– and different –– they are.

Related: Graduation rates change by 30 percentage points over a few miles in the Northeast

First up: Philadelphia, where the divide between urban struggles and suburban successes is clear.

Philadelphia is that huge dark green district. It had a graduation rate of 70.1 percent in 2013. Right across the river in New Jersey, the neighboring dark green district is Camden, with a 53 percent graduation rate. You can see that while some nearby districts in New Jersey still don’t hit the 85 percent graduation rate mark, nearly all places surrounding these two perform better. The districts immediately west of Philadelphia perform much better.

These districts are predominantly white and wealthy, according to Marybeth Gasman, professor of higher education at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions. She attributes part of the difference to the fact that Philadelphia schools have been “starved for money” in recent years, while the suburbs have a large tax base.

“The minute you cross [the city line], you start to see a marked change,” she said. “You start to see plush lawns and really big, beautiful stone homes.”

Contrast this with Chicago, where increases in graduation rates grow somewhat gradually the farther you get from city limits.Struggling cities and excelling suburbs: a repeated pattern around the country - The Hechinger Report:

Is Kindergarten a Place of Joy or Data Gathering? » Missouri Education Watchdog

Is Kindergarten a Place of Joy or Data Gathering? » Missouri Education Watchdog:

Is Kindergarten a Place of Joy or Data Gathering?

Parents don’t need data sets to know that if a young child is not ready to learn a skill (but is pushed to do so) or if learning that skill becomes extremely stressful, that child may very well shut down.  Parents also don’t need data retrieval to know that every child has unique developmental growth.  A ‘non-proficient’ kindergartner is not doomed to being a poor reader the rest of her life unless her early experience is so dreadful she refuses to engage in that activity again.  That will teach her to ‘hate reading’ and the love of reading may be lost forever. Or, perhaps in the current educational reform environment students are experiencing, this stressful experience will determine that she needs to develop more ‘grit’ and resilience.  If she can’t deal with stress at age 5, then point her toward the social emotional goals she should strive to attain to persevere through her non-proficiency status at a young age:

If she’s developmentally not ready to read, how will she be tracked when the proficiency level is set for what all 5 year olds should be doing?   What happens to a child who understands that her abilities at age 5 are not up to par with other children?  How do children internalize the Is Kindergarten a Place of Joy or Data Gathering? » Missouri Education Watchdog:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

WEEKEND QUOTABLES



Mercedes Schneider

America needs less of Pearson. A lot less. -- Deutsch29

NEA president Lily Eskelsen Garcia

“I don’t know anyone who doesn’t think Arne is decent and honest,” says National Education Association president Lily Eskelsen Garcia, whose union has called for Duncan to resign. “But his reforms are so ridiculous, he’s uniting teachers, PTA’s, principals, everyone. We’re writing each other’s talking points!” -- Politico: Arne Duncan Wars

Rosenbaum

R.I.P Terry Rosenbaum

“My goal was to be a teacher of history in the New York City high schools. Which I did. I loved teaching.” -- NYT: Teacher Who Was Fired After Defying McCarthy, Dies at 97

Bob Quellos, one of the founders of No Games Chicago 

“They were there early, they were bulky guys, and they just didn’t fit the activist profile.” -- THE WATCHDOGS: Spy cops: Chicago police routinely spied on protesters

Rebecca Sibilia, CEO of Edbuild

“When you think of bankruptcy … this is a huge opportunity. Bankruptcy is not a problem for kids; bankruptcy is a problem for the people governing the system, right? So, when a school district goes bankrupt all of their legacy debt can be eliminated . . . Look, if we can eliminate that in an entire urban system, then we can throw all the Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

Michelle Obama Wants Your Next Selfie to Support Girls’ Education | TakePart

Michelle Obama Wants Your Next Selfie to Support Girls’ Education | TakePart:

Michelle Obama Wants Your Next Selfie to Support Girls’ Education

The First Lady’s 62 Million Girls campaign asks people to answer the question, ‘What did you learn in school?’

After Beyoncé informed tens of thousands of people that “girls run the world” at the Global Citizen Festival, First Lady Michelle Obama took to the stage to encourage the audience to take steps to ensure that girls can do just that.

“Right now 62 million girls are not in school...they deserve the same chances to get an education as my daughters and your daughters and all of our children,” Obama told the crowd at the fourth annual event aimed at ending extreme poverty by 2030. The First Lady asked the audience to speak up for those girls by tweeting photos of themselves with the hashtag #62MillionGirls, along with something they learned in school.

Obama’s new campaign is part of the Let Girls Learn initiative, which focuses on “community-led solutions to reduce barriers that prevent adolescent girls from completing their education.” Girls face more roadblocks to education than their male peers, including forced early marriage and gender-based violence. Boys’ education is often prioritized ahead of girls’ in low-income households where money for supplies and tuition is tight, with families sending their male children to school while the girls handle household duties.

Higher education leads not just to girls’ success, but also to the success of all members of society. Schooling allows girls to grow into women with higher-paying jobs and help support their families and communities.

RELATED:   Michelle Obama to Disadvantaged Schoolgirls: I Fought Your Fight

“Giving [girls] that chance is at the core of our work to end global poverty,” said Obama. She kicked off the campaign by adding what she learned in school: how to speak up for Michelle Obama Wants Your Next Selfie to Support Girls’ Education | TakePart:

Indiana schools chief Glenda Ritz seeks advice from feds on charter school cuts

Indiana schools chief Glenda Ritz seeks advice from feds on charter school cuts:

Indiana schools chief Glenda Ritz seeks advice from feds on charter school cuts

A third of charter schools in Indiana saw big cuts in Title I poverty aid but were given no explanation for why the funding decreased.

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State Superintendent Glenda Ritz announced Friday that she is seeking guidance from the U.S. Department of Education over how to handle steep funding cuts to charter schools that local policymakers say might violate federal law.

At issue is the charter schools’ share of federal poverty aid known as Title I funding. This year, a third of charter schools in the state saw large cuts in that pool of funding, throwing off budget projections and riling up school leaders who are confused about why the cuts were made, said Michelle McKeown, director of the Indiana Charter School Board.

“We just want transparency and consistency” around how the funds are doled out to schools, McKeown said.

The amount of federal poverty aid sent to school districts is largely determined by census data measurements of poverty in each county. When that data shows changes in the poverty levels, schools can get more or less aid.

“The Department is inquiring about the calculation of Title I funds for charter schools in light of an overall reduction of Title I dollars and a significant decrease in the Census Poverty Count for several charter schools,” said a news release from the Indiana Department of Education.

That doesn’t necessarily mean schools are dealing with less poverty — it might just be an issue with reporting. If families don’t complete the surveys and indicate their income, they don’t get counted.

But McKeown said the education department’s reasoning is confusing because charter schools don’t get census poverty counts.

“The U.S. Department of Education assigns a census poverty count to all (traditional public school districts),” she said. “They don’t do that for charter schools because charter schools don’t have a geographic boundary.”

Charter schools can enroll students from just about anywhere, space permitting, and their Title I funding relies on the traditional districts their kids come from, McKeown said.

For example, Avondale Meadows charter school on the city’s Eastside has 100 percent of its students coming from within IPS’ boundaries, she said. Once IPS gets its Title I funding handed down from the federal government through the Indiana Department of Education, a portion is redirected to Avondale Meadows for its students who qualify for that aid. That is generally based on the number of students whose families are eligible for free and reduced-price lunch.

But this year, the school saw a federal poverty aid drop of about $129,000, despite the fact that IPS received about $1.5 million more in federal aid, even while its enrollment dropped.

Avondale Meadows, McKeown said, had stable enrollment with between 75 and 80 percent of students coming from families that are poor enough to qualify for free and reduced-price lunch for the past two years.

Earlier this month, the Indianapolis Business Journal reported charter schools were seeing even steeper federal poverty aid cuts than their traditional public school counterparts, despite few changes to the population the schools serve.

On Monday, U.S. Reps. Luke Messer and Todd Rokita sent a letter to Ritz asking for an explanation, saying the inequality in funding violates state and federal laws that aims to stabilize district and charter school Title I poverty funding from year to year.

“According to reports, charter schools in our state saw a $2.3 million dollar decline in Title I funds in FY2016,” the letter said. “At the same time, some traditional public school systems, like Indianapolis Public Schools, for example, received an additional $1.5 million in Title I funds despite a decline in enrollment.”

The U.S. Department of Education states that any “state education agency” (in this case, the Indiana Department of Education) cannot reduce the amount of Title I funding for a “local education agency” (a school district or individual charter school) by more than a certain percentage from the prior year.

These “hold harmless” rules attempt to keep schools from seeing shocks to their budgets that could compromise the schools’ staff and day-to-day operations. McKeown said 22 of the state’s 59 charter schools saw funding cuts that were more than what the “hold harmless” rules allow.

Going to the U.S. Department of Education might hopefully resolve the questions about federal law, McKeown said.

Carey Dahncke, director of the Christel House Academies charter school network, said Indiana schools chief Glenda Ritz seeks advice from feds on charter school cuts: