Food Trucks Are Making Healthy School Lunches a Little More Appealing - The Atlantic

Food Trucks Are Making Healthy School Lunches a Little More Appealing - The Atlantic:

How Food Trucks Are Making School Lunch Cool

The same fruits and veggies, coming from a food truck, just seems to be a little more appealing.

Getting high-school students to embrace healthy eating is an age-old battle. And when it comes to lunch, many eschew their school cafeteria in favor of eating off-campus, where healthy choices don’t always abound.

Now school districts are starting to lure their students into eating better—by getting their own food trucks up and running on campus.

“Food trucks are a great addition to school food service—both from a way to engage the older kids and a way to engage the community,” says Ann Cooper, the director of food services at Colorado’s Boulder Valley School District. “It’s part of a great overall marketing strategy.”

Last year, Boulder Valley became one of the first districts in the U.S. to startserving school lunches at a food truck during the academic year. The vehicle, which has been attractively styled as a cross between a rustic farmhouse and a milk truck, was funded by a $75,000 grant from Whole Foods Market.

Cooper says that though the truck mostly serves the same food as the cafeteria and the prices are identical, the students find the truck food more appealing.

“It’s meeting the kids where they are to provide a cool environment,” Cooper says. “There’s a different vibe to it, with music playing.”

In addition to rotating among local high schools during the week, the truck also comes to the district’s elementary schools for special events.

“Cafeteria participation has been up and so is the number of kids eating at the food truck,” she says. “So we’re getting a demographic that never [ate at] the cafeteria before … Kids who walked off campus are now eating at the food truck.”

This spring, the Minneapolis School District will start serving daily school lunch from its food trucks, which have successfully been feeding students at field trips and special events for three years. Like Boulder Valley, the truck will rotate among its high-school campuses.

“Principals have been begging us to get the truck out there,” says Bertrand Weber, the director of food services. “The main challenge is that we can’t keep up with the demand.”

Weber worked with chefs at local restaurants to develop recipes for the truck’s brown rice-based carnitas bowl, orange chicken bowl, and curry chicken bowl. They’re part of the district’s partnership with chefs to develop healthy recipes(such as beet hummus) made with local food.

“In just the first three weeks of this school year alone, we served 28,000 pounds Food Trucks Are Making Healthy School Lunches a Little More Appealing - The Atlantic:

Teachers Respond: Veteran Teachers Cry In Their Cars Too : NPR Ed : NPR

Teachers Respond: Veteran Teachers Cry In Their Cars Too : NPR Ed : NPR:

Teachers Respond: Veteran Teachers Cry In Their Cars Too

One in 10 teachers will quit by the end of their first year — getting through October and November: especially tough. Having someone to support you along the way can help.

Turns out there's a toolkit to help — as we wrote about this week. Thousands chimed in on Facebook, Twitter and in the comments section. Here are some takeaways from the discussion.

The "disillusionment phase" goes by another name:

"They may call it the "Disillusionment Phase" in this article ... it's actually DEVOLSON (dark evil vortex of late September, October, and November). It doesn't only hit first year teachers." - Jill Gorman Turner, on Facebook

Struggling as a new teacher is common:

"I can remember wishing several times that first year, 'maybe no one will show up today!' " - Kodyo, on npr.org

"I am a first year teacher and I have been struggling. This article really resonated with me and reading these comments makes me feel like I'm not totally alone. I feel like I am drowning most days and I often cry in my car ... I just feel so overwhelmed sometimes. It will get better, It will get better, It will get better." - Melissa Ivins, on npr.org

And experienced teachers can be right there with them:

"Hey, veteran teachers, it's still okay to cry in your car. Hopefully it happens less often, but if you're still crying it means you're still caring and that's a good thing." - Hilary Schardein, on Facebook

"Sometimes veteran teachers cry in their cars too. After 31 years of kids, parents and meetings a good cry (and a glass of wine) can help you gain perspective and try again the next day." - Lauren Schwab, on Facebook

But many veterans did say it gets better:

"There is such a huge learning curve your first 3 yrs. You are not going to be awesome until you are at least 3-5 years in. Hang in there. You'll get better." - Jackie Doerner, on Facebook

Some readers chimed in with solutions, ranging from systemic:

"I love working in education but - we need a national movement to improve pay, class sizes , performance assessment , and professional development." - Jeff Bockert, on Teachers Respond: Veteran Teachers Cry In Their Cars Too : NPR Ed : NPR:

The Billionaires Bought BESE in 2015, But They Didn’t Buy Edwards | deutsch29

The Billionaires Bought BESE in 2015, But They Didn’t Buy Edwards | deutsch29:

The Billionaires Bought BESE in 2015, But They Didn’t Buy Edwards

The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) race has been bought again.

Here are the results:

District 1: James Garvey (71%); Lee Barrios (29%)

District 2: Kira Orange-Jones (69%); Kara Washington (31%)

District 3: Sandy Holloway (61%); Lottie Beebe (39%)

District 4: Runoff between Mary Harris (43%) and Tony Davis (37%)

District 5: Gary Jones (62%); Johnny Fatheree (38%)

District 6: Runoff between Kathy Edmonston (47%) and Jason Engen (19%)

District 7: Holly Boffy (53%); Mike Kreamer (47%)

District 8: Jada Lewis (52%); Carolyn Hill (48%).

Based upon the above results, the only decidedly-non-corporate-reform voice who might still be elected to BESE is Mary Harris.

According to Danielle Dreilinger of nola.com, at least $3.5 million has been spent on this 2015 BESE race:

Major education activist groups are again spending big on Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education races. More than $3.5 million has already come in to political action committees that support the Common Core standards and innovations such as charter schools and publicly funded vouchers.

It’s an astounding amount of money for a relatively obscure board. And the sum has already exceeded the 2011 BESE race — itself unprecedentedly expensive — even though it doesn’t count contributions made directly to candidates, nor most October spending.

The obscene amount of money pouring in from out-of-state billionaires (which, by the way, counts as “in state” money once it is funneled through a Louisiana PAC) is designed to keep corporate reform alive and well in Louisiana.

But this is not 2011. It looks like Democrat John Bel Edwards will become Louisiana’s next governor. He is in a November 21, 2015, runoff with Republican Senator David Vitter, who only garnered 24 percent of the vote to Edwards’ 40 percent.

Let us consider a possible (probable?) Edwards win in November.

In 2011, Louisiana superintendent John White was Governor Bobby Jindal’s golden boy.

This is 2015, and White holds no favor with Edwards. In fact, Edwards has publicly expressed his intent to get rid of White– and his words about White’s time as The Billionaires Bought BESE in 2015, But They Didn’t Buy Edwards | deutsch29:

Teaching Democracy: A Hands-On Exercise (Tara Kini) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Teaching Democracy: A Hands-On Exercise (Tara Kini) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Teaching Democracy: A Hands-On Exercise (Tara Kini)

This post is by Tara Kini, senior policy analyst at the Learning Policy Institute. It appeared in Education Week September 28, 2015.*

I had the privilege of teaching history and civics to 61 8th graders in San Francisco this past year. Our school is a segregated one: 75 percent of students are Latino, 60 percent low-income, and half are learning English. My teaching materials were limited–the district-issued U.S. history textbook was published in 2005; California has not adopted any new textbooks since adopting the Common Core State Standards in 2010 in any subject.

Learning about our system of government by reading about it in a textbook and listening to me talk about it had not felt terribly successful last year. A recentCalifornia Task Force on K-12 Civic Learning noted that nationally, fewer than half of eligible young people ages 18-24 voted in the 2012 elections, and that the U.S. recently ranked 139th in voter participation of 172 democracies around the world. I was worried that my standard approach to teaching civics was failing to prepare my students for their future roles as voters, jurors, and civic leaders.

Gaining the skills to meaningfully participate in our democracy is especially critical for low-income students, both because our current weak campaign finance laws allow those with money to speak louder in our democracy and because too many students from low-income families have parents who cannot vote due to their immigration status or criminal records. In California, voters must be prepared to read a 100+ page ballot pamphlet and decide whether to vote yes or no on dozens of state and local referendums on Election Day. Jurors may be called upon to listen to complex arguments about topics like trademark infringement and medical negligence. The ability to listen to the news, engage in civic debate within their communities, and make their voices heard to elected officials are just a few of the skills Americans are called upon to use when navigating a 21st century democracy.

So this year, I tried an approach to teaching civics that would get my students participating in government rather than just reading about it. Partnering withGeneration Citizen, each of my classes picked an issue in our community that the students wanted to address. Over a ten week period last fall, we went through a process of choosing an issue, studying it, identifying a goal for how to address itTeaching Democracy: A Hands-On Exercise (Tara Kini) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

With A Brooklyn Accent: Why Teachers are Fair Game for Ruthless Politicians and School Officials

With A Brooklyn Accent: Why Teachers are Fair Game for Ruthless Politicians and School Officials:

Why Teachers are Fair Game for Ruthless Politicians and School Officials

I just had an epiphany. The reason school administrators have license to, and indeed can be ordered, to abuse teachers beyond acceptable limits is..... because they can!

The economy has so few jobs that provide decent incomes, job security, and humane treatment, that if teachers quit, they are unlikely to find other jobs which provide the income needed to meet their responsibilities. much less the respect that has been taken from them

Teachers are basically trapped. Many are single parents. Others have spouses or partners who have irregular incomes. More than a few could lose their homes if their family incomes dropped.

Plus, and this is also important, younger teachers have huge student loans to pay off.

If the rest of the economy provided real alternatives, teachers could tell their supervisors that they will leave rather than commit professional malpractice or accept daily humiliation.

But since most jobs in the nation are now part time and without benefits and since 51% of jobs pay $30,000 year or less, teachers can't just pack up and leave.

And since teachers unions seem to have lost the will and power to fight back, teachers are being crushed psychologically, physically and morally by heartless public officials who take advantage of their economic vulnerabilityWith A Brooklyn Accent: Why Teachers are Fair Game for Ruthless Politicians and School Officials:

In Newark, charter schools beef up for political fight | Moran | NJ.com

In Newark, charter schools beef up for political fight | Moran | NJ.com:

In Newark, charter schools beef up for political fight | Moran

The failure of urban schools, we are often told, can be traced to the apathy of urban parents when it comes to their children's success in the classroom.

It seems that in Newark, no one got that memo.

Because about 400 parents and their children crammed into the city council's hearing room Monday night, filling the seats and balconies, and overflowing into hallways where they strained to hear.

What drove that kind of passion? A bid by North Star charter schools to build a new K-12 building on an old parking lot in the Central Ward.

"We outnumbered the teachers union by 10-1, and that tells you where the mood of this city is," says Barbara Martinez, a spokeswoman for North Star.

Are charters “sucking the life” out of traditional schools?

This is something entirely new. Until now, the charters have paid little attention to politics. They have served as the city's political punching bag, like the passive kid on the playground who never hits back.

But lately, the charters have been taking vitamins and doing lots of push-ups. With nearly 1 in 3 Newark kids in charter schools now, they have a reserve army of parents, one that grows every year.

And they recently hired a professional political operative, Muhammed Akil, who has built a staff of 20 local people and intends to hire more.

"The growing number does affects the politics," Akil says. "And we intend to weigh in heavily."

This could change Newark's political landscape, just as the state prepares to yield control of the city schools sometime in the next few years.

One impact could be on school elections. The charter schools could finally outmuscle the city's teachers' union, as they did Monday night. North Star's new building was approved by a vote of 8-1.

But the bigger question concerns the charter schools' collision course with Mayor Ras Baraka, who made charter schools a chief target during his election last year and vowsnow to block any further expansion.

Baraka grudgingly concedes that many charters are doing remarkable work. But he says their success comes at the expense of the traditional schools, which lose state aid every time a student moves to a charter.

"It's about 60 percent of the kids we are ignoring because we are so enthralled with these schools," he says. "I have to worry about the kids from every school. I have to make sure one is not sucking the life out of the other.

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MORE TOM MORAN COLUMNS

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Let's look at that argument, first the merits, and then the politics.

Are charters "sucking the life" out of traditional schools? When a child moves to a charter school, state law provides that up to 90 percent of the money follows. The 10 percent is supposed to help the district cover its fixed costs, like buildings.

Baraka says that's not enough, and blames that formula for the cuts at district schools in recent years, which he saw first-hand as a high school principal.

"Ultimately, it's still about resources," he says. "We cut chorus. Then you go to athletic programs. You go into the clubs and newspapers. And after a while, you cut an English teacher, a math teacher, a technology coach."

But are charters really driving that? Trenton has frozen aid to schools across the state, despite built-in cost increases for things like health care and teacher salaries. And the state' makes no allowance for the growing number of students in Newark, which has mushroomed by 10 percent in the last three years.

"That is the core challenge, and it is independent of charter schools," says In Newark, charter schools beef up for political fight | Moran | NJ.com:

Alan J. Borsuk - 25 years into Milwaukee's voucher schools, lessons for Wisconsin

Alan J. Borsuk - 25 years into Milwaukee's voucher schools, lessons for Wisconsin:

25 years into Milwaukee's voucher schools, lessons for Wisconsin

Literally hundreds of schools.

Those are four important words, because they come from Jim Bender, president of School Choice Wisconsin, the advocacy group for programs that offer publicly funded vouchers to students to attend private schools in Wisconsin.

"We have talked to literally hundreds of schools that are considering getting into the statewide program in coming years," Bender said when we talked about the 25th anniversary of the launch of Milwaukee's voucher program.

It was the fall of 1990 when the national precedent-setting Milwaukee Parental Choice Program came to life, with participation of seven nonreligious private schools and 337 low-income students. There were a lot of limitations on who could take part. Total public spending in the first year: $733,800.

It's a vastly different picture now.

Many of the limitations are gone; an estimated 26,900 students who live in the city of Milwaukee are using vouchers to attend 117 private schools, the vast majority of them religious. Public spending for the current school year will exceed $190million.

And that's just Milwaukee. Vouchers became available in Racine four years ago, with a capped enrollment under 250.

The cap is gone now, and voucher enrollment is about 2,200, according to state estimates. That's about 10% of the Racine public school enrollment.

Then there's the statewide program. Now in its third year, the caps initially placed on it have been weakened and will fade in coming years.

This fall, outside Milwaukee and Racine, about 3,000 students are using vouchers to attend 79 private schools (out of a total of more than 650 private schools).

In total, that's about 32,000 voucher students, between 3% and 4% of Wisconsin public school enrollment. This year, kindergarten through eighth-grade students generally bring $7,214 each to their private schools; high school students bring $7,860.

Bender said he sees a lot of parallels between the statewide program now and the Milwaukee program in its early years.

And the long-term Milwaukee story has been one of changing rules to expand the program and who can take part.

Whether you like or hate the prospect of this happening statewide, you have to be naive not to think a similar track may occur in Wisconsin if pro-voucher Republicans remain in the governor's office and in majorities in the Legislature.

Support of vouchers among Democratic elected officials is around zero.

Lessons learned

What has been learned in the 25 years of Milwaukee vouchers?

A few thoughts:

■ Public opinion is fairly closely divided overall on vouchers, but whenever they've been made available, there has been demand for them.

No one ever has been required to use a voucher. How big is the potential demand?

Milwaukee might be nearing a point where the demand for religious schools levels off.

But statewide, there's big potential long-term.

■ Parental choice alone doesn't drive quality. This is the No. 1 lesson from Milwaukee, in my book.

In earlier days, quality control on schools was nearly nonexistent.

The idea was that if parents chose schools, that alone would drive quality. That's probably applicable to a lot of parents, but certainly not for a lot of others.

Uncontrolled quality in Milwaukee resulted in the existence of some schools that were scandalously bad.

Repair, in the form of financial and educational oversight, has taken years and is still not strong enough. Just look at some of the schools that still exist.

■ With such a small middle class remaining in Milwaukee, it is hard to picture private schools surviving on Alan J. Borsuk - 25 years into Milwaukee's voucher schools, lessons for Wisconsin:

Related Coverage

• Wisconsin's graduation rate gap widens to largest in U.S.

About voucher schools

Voucher schools are private schools that receive taxpayer money in the form of tuition payments for qualifying students. All voucher schools are private schools, and most teach religion. As of the 2014-’15 school year, 26,930 students in Milwaukee were using vouchers to attend one of 113 private schools.

The Milwaukee voucher program, officially known as the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, was started in 1990 and is the longest-running urban school voucher program in the country. Students have to come from low-income or moderate-income families to qualify for a voucher. Once enrolled, they bring the participating school a voucher payment of between $7,000 and $8,000 annually.

The state Legislature created a Racine voucher program in 2011 and a statewide voucher program in 2013.

Hillary Clinton Endorses Obama's Reductions In School Testing Wrought By No Child Left Behind, Education Law She Voted For

Hillary Clinton Endorses Obama's Reductions In School Testing Wrought By No Child Left Behind, Education Law She Voted For:

Hillary Clinton Endorses Obama's Reductions In School Testing Wrought By No Child Left Behind, Education Law She Voted For

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said Saturday she supports the Obama administration's efforts to reduce unnecessary standardized testing in schools, despite a shifting record on the controversial law No Child Left Behind, of which testing was a centerpiece. Above, Clinton speaks during a campaign rally with her husband former President Bill Clinton in Des Moines, Iowa, Oct. 24, 2015. Reuters/Scott Morgan

Schools should stop testing children excessively, Hillary Clinton said in a statement released Saturday in response to the White House's announcement of an action plan to reduce unnecessary standardized testing in schools. But Clinton's own stance on education has varied over the years, with the current Democratic presidential contender sometimes critical and at other times in favor of the very law thatimplemented these rigorous testing regimes. 

"While testing can provide communities with full information about how our students are doing and help us determine whether we have achievement gaps, we can and must do better," Clinton said in her statement Saturday. "We should be ruthless in looking at tests and eliminating them if they do not actually help us move our kids forward," she added. 

In 2001, as a U.S. senator, Clinton voted for No Child Left Behind, George W.Bush's wildly unpopulareducation reform law at the core of which was testing. Although it expired in 2007, many of those elements, including the testing that many critics describe as excessive, remain. Now, the Obama administration has said it wants to solve that particular problem, unveiling a "Testing Action Plan" Saturday it said would "ensure that tests are fair, are of high quality, take up the minimum necessary time, and reflect the expectation that students will be prepared for success in college and careers."

Clinton said Saturday she supports those efforts. "I embrace the principles laid out today by the Obama administration because they move us in the right direction. Standardized tests must be worth taking, high quality, time-limited, fair, fully transparent to students and parents, just one of multiple measures, and tied to improving learning," she said. 

It was not the first time Clinton has excoriated excessive testing in U.S. school -- or appeared inconsistent on the issue. In August 2007 during a Democratic primary forum, during her first campaign for president, she said, "No Child Left Behind has been a terrible imposition on teachers and school districts and families and students." A month later, when asked how she felt about "the testing mania forced upon our children" by the law, she did not critique testing specifically, saying, "I believe in accountability," and, "There is a place for testing." Still, she admitted, "We've gone overboard."

On her campaign website, Clinton has called for "the right balance" between assessing how children are doing in school and spending too much time on test preparation. The nation needs a conversation about a "robust and engaging curriculum that engages students in the love of learning rather than narrowing our schools to focus primarily on test preparation," the platform reads. Hillary Clinton Endorses Obama's Reductions In School Testing Wrought By No Child Left Behind, Education Law She Voted For:

Commentary on Mathematica’s “First Study of Its Kind” of PARCC | deutsch29

Commentary on Mathematica’s “First Study of Its Kind” of PARCC | deutsch29:

Commentary on Mathematica’s “First Study of Its Kind” of PARCC

On October 05, 2015, Mathematica published a study comparing the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) to the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.

In this post, I comment on a number of details related to the Mathematica study, which does not support the “next generation” hype associated with supposedly Common-Core-aligned PARCC.

The study is entitled, “Predictive Validity of MCAS and PARCC: Comparing 10th Grade MCAS Tests to PARCC Integrated Math II, Algebra II, and 10th Grade English Language Arts Test.”

Even the title is problematic, for it implies that the study is predictive– that 10th-grade students completed MCAS and PARCC and were tracked across years to see the degree to which these two tests predict the success of these 10th graders once they reach college. Later in the study, the researchers admit that they were only able to measure “concurrent validity.”

Not so.  As it turns out, Mathematica administered these 10th-grade tests to current college freshman. So, there is no prediction. At best, the study can assess the degree to which college freshman who do well on 10th-grade MCAS and 10th/11th-grade PARCC have college grades that the researchers deem to indicate “college Commentary on Mathematica’s “First Study of Its Kind” of PARCC | deutsch29:

Schools Matter: Beware the Corporate Media Spin on the Obama Adminstration's Change of Course on Standardized Testing

Schools Matter: Beware the Corporate Media Spin on the Obama Adminstration's Change of Course on Standardized Testing:

Beware the Corporate Media Spin on the Obama Adminstration's Change of Course on Standardized Testing

On October 24, 2015 the Obama administration announced a shift of its education policy when it announced a change in the Department of Education’s position on standardized testing. As reported by Kate Zernike in The New York Times, 

“Specifically, the administration called for a cap on assessment so that no child would spend more than 2 percent of classroom instruction time taking tests. It called on Congress to “reduce over-testing” as it reauthorizes the federal legislation governing the nation’s public elementary and secondary schools.”

2% of classroom instruction is 20 hours of testing annually.

This is being promoted in the corporate media as a dramatic shift in the Obama administrations support for standardized testing. It should be greeted with a high degree of skepticism and caution, however. The over two-decade siege on public education codified into education policy by No Child Left Behind followed by Race to the Top is not going to suddenly be scaled down in one day. There are too many corporate interests such as Pearson and the Gates Foundation, which have made standardized testing the center of their method of privatizing public education, for the corporate agenda to be given up.

According to The New York Times article, the change in policy was prompted by a new survey from the Council of Great City Schools. The Council is made up of 68 large school districts with enrollment of over 35,000 students.

In its press release, Student Assessments in Public Schools Not Strategic, Often Redundant, The Council says,

“The average student in America’s big-city public schools will take roughly 112 mandatory standardized tests between pre-kindergarten and high school graduation, a new study shows.

The average of roughly eight standardized tests per year consumes between 20 and 25 hours each school year and Schools Matter: Beware the Corporate Media Spin on the Obama Adminstration's Change of Course on Standardized Testing:

Department of Education SorryNotSorry About High Stakes Testing | gadflyonthewallblog

Department of Education SorryNotSorry About High Stakes Testing | gadflyonthewallblog:

Department of Education SorryNotSorry About High Stakes Testing

The Obama Administration must think the nation’s parents, teachers and students are pretty darn dumb.

President Barack Obama and his hand-picked Department of Education are solely responsible for the knuckle dragging academic policies strangling our public schools day in, day out. Yet instead of doing anything to reverse course to proven methods that might actually help kids learn, the department trudges out its annual apology.

It goes something like this:

Hey, Everybody! So sorry about all those high stakes tests, Common Core Standards and Value-Added teaching evaluations. We know they’re bad and we’re going to stop.

Then whatever functionary drew the shortest straw toddles back into the building and for the rest of the year things continue on exactly the same as they always have.

Let’s just pause for a moment and imagine how incredibly stupid they must think we are. I’m surprised they don’t issue public service announcements reminding us to exhale, multi-colored pamphlets on the benefits of blinking, and puppet shows instructing us how to use the potty.

The Obama Administration has had 7 years to fix this mess, and the only things they’ve done are to make it worse. Most of us voted for this so-called progressive because we thought he’d improve upon George W. Bush’s astoundingly wrongheaded school policies. But instead he doubled down on them! We hired a competent janitor Department of Education SorryNotSorry About High Stakes Testing | gadflyonthewallblog:

144 Schools ON ELIA'S HIT LIST _ New York State Education Department

New York State Education Department:

Commissioner Elia Identifies 144 Struggling and Persistently Struggling Schools to Begin Implementation of School Receivership in New York State

State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia announced today that the Department has identified 144 schools in 17 school districts as Struggling Schools or Persistently Struggling Schools.  Of the schools identified, 124 were identified as Struggling Schools and 20 were identified as Persistently Struggling Schools.

“In those schools designated as Persistently Struggling, there will be an unprecedented infusion of resources to support school turnaround efforts,” said Board of Regents Chancellor, Merryl H. Tisch.  “This is an opportunity that communities must seize to come together to fundamentally rethink how these schools carry out their obligations to students and families.”

“In these schools, whole generations of students have been left behind,” said Commissioner Elia.  “As a former school superintendent, I know how important it will be for superintendents to use their new authority to develop robust plans to improve student performance.  Superintendents have an obligation to act on conditions that have persisted for too long in these schools.”

In April 2015, the legislature and governor created a new section of State Education Law pertaining to school receivership.  In June, the Board of Regents approved new regulations to implement the provisions of the law.

Struggling Schools are defined as schools that have been identified since 2012-13 as Priority Schools (i.e., among the lowest performing five percent of schools in the state).  Priority Schools that have been in the most severe accountability status since the 2006-07 school year have been identified as Persistently Struggling Schools.

Under the receivership law, a school receiver is granted new authority to, among other things, develop a school intervention plan; convert schools to community schools providing wrap-around services; expand the school day or school year; and remove staff and/or require staff to reapply for their jobs in collaboration with a staffing committee.

In the 20 schools identified as Persistently Struggling, the superintendent first serves as the receiver and is given an initial one-year period to use the enhanced authority of a receiver to make demonstrable improvement on annual goals established by the Commissioner, including student performance.  Absent demonstrable improvement, the Commissioner will direct the school board to appoint an independent receiver within 60 days.  The Commissioner will work closely with the school board to ensure that the most qualified individual is identified and the appointment of all independent receivers must be approved by the Commissioner.  Additionally, the school will be eligible for a portion of $75 million in state aid to support and implement its turnaround efforts over a two-year period. 

Struggling Schools will be given two years under a “superintendent receiver” to make demonstrable improvement or the district will be required to appoint an independent receiver and submit the appointment for approval by the Commissioner.  Independent receivers, who can be an individual, a not-for-profit organization, or another school district, have sole responsibility to manage and operate the school and have all of the enhanced authority of a school receiver.  Independent receivers are appointed for up to three school years and serve under contract with the Commissioner.

As with Persistently Struggling Schools, the independent receiver appointed by the district must be approved by the Commissioner, and the Commissioner will make the appointment if an acceptable receiver is not selected by the district. 

The table below shows the distribution of Struggling Schools and Persistently Struggling schools by district.New York State Education Department:

4LAKids - LAUSD INDEPENDENT FINANCIAL REVIEW PANEL: The Board Informative and Meeting Materials

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: LAUSD INDEPENDENT FINANCIAL REVIEW PANEL: The Board Informative and Meeting Materials:

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit http://bit.ly/1MiBlld

LAUSD INDEPENDENT FINANCIAL REVIEW PANEL: The Board Informative and Meeting Materials

LAUSD Independent Financial Review Panel - Meeting Materials as of 23 Oct 2015

(260 pages) 

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: LAUSD INDEPENDENT FINANCIAL REVIEW PANEL: The Board Informative and Meeting Materials:

We Are Being Played (So Fight On!) | Save Maine Schools

We Are Being Played (So Fight On!) | Save Maine Schools:

We Are Being Played (So Fight On!)

Really, really hate to be a Negative Nancy.

Hopefully, in a few months time, anyone who likes will able to say, “Look, Emily, you were wrong about all this testing stuff,” and I will gladly – gladly – eat my words.

But… I think we are being played.

I think that what we heard from the White House today about limiting testing is but a bone we have been thrown as we are ushered into an era of next-gen ed reform, where testing is all formative, all the time.

For those not familiar with eduspeak, “formative” assessment refers to the tests students take on their way to the end-of-year test.  When they are crafted and analyzed thoughtfully, and made by the teacher who knows the child, they are a normal part of every day schooling.  You took formative tests when you were a kid.  They were called quizzes.

In the brave new world of next-gen ed reform, however, formative tests are corporate-designed and digital, and are part of a system of schooling called “competency-based,” (also “proficiency-based,” “mastery,” “customized,” etc.), in which students take “on-demand” tests to demonstrate mastery before being allowed to move on to the next skill in a sequence.

I’ve written about this at length on this blog.  It’s not new, and it’s a concept that’s no different than the one that lies at the heart of this quote that I’ve pulled from an article written in 1977:

“The materials will be standardized, the lessons will be standardized,” Guines said. “We’re taking the play out. We’re taking the guesswork out. We’re putting in a precise predicted treatment that leads to a predicted response.”

Guines said the new curriculum is based on the work in behavorial psychology of Harvard University’s B. F. Skinner, who developed teaching machines and even trained pigeons during World War II to carry bombs and detonate them.

The basic idea, Guines said, is to break down complicated learning into a sequence of clear simple skills that virtually everyone can master, although at different rates of speed.

As Morna McDermott writes in this blog post found on the National Education Policy Center website, the current shift to competency-based (personalized) education has been over a decade in the making.  Investors have been pouring billions into online and digital learning companies, while  policy has been carefully crafted behind the scenes to support the shift to “personalized” (digital) learning.

As Tom Vander Ark (former executive at the Gates Foundation and now partner at Learn Capital which manages a giant portfolio of online and digital learning companies) writes in this article, the shift from the big-test to many mini-tests is part of this transformation.

Go here for a blog post I wrote several months ago, just after Maine pulled out We Are Being Played (So Fight On!) | Save Maine Schools: