Wealthy philanthropists shouldn't impose their idea of common good on us | Joanne Barkan | Opinion | The Guardian

Wealthy philanthropists shouldn't impose their idea of common good on us | Joanne Barkan | Opinion | The Guardian:

Wealthy philanthropists shouldn't impose their idea of common good on us

Almost all multibillionaire philanthropists in the United States set up tax-exempt, grant-making, private foundations when they want to make the world a better place. Not Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan. They plan to give away their fortune gradually over the course of their lifetimes, but they’ll do so through a for-profit corporation.

There’s a simple explanation why: private foundations in the US cannot engage in political activity; they cannot campaign for or contribute to candidates for public office or lobby legislators; with limited exceptions, they cannot fund for-profit organizations. By funding their philanthropic work outside the confines of foundation law, Chan and Zuckerberg reserve the right to do all of these. According to their Facebook post: “The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will pursue its mission by funding non-profit organizations, making private investments and participating in policy debates”.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is structured as a for-profit business just like Facebook, Microsoft or any other limited liability corporation. In addition to avoiding the restrictions that apply to foundations, they gain other advantages.As described in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, they will have fewer disclosure requirements and can “engage in activities that stretch the definition of charity”. And unlike foundations, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative won’t have to make the annual “payout” in grants – about 5% of a foundation’s endowment –which prevents foundations from hoarding their wealth.

Non-profit regulations in the US have enough loopholes and ambiguities that mega foundations manage to do almost everything except overt political work – including “educating” lawmakers while not lobbying them. Still, Chan and Zuckerberg seem to prefer dissolving the already porous barrier between charitable activities and the market. The model fits not only Zuckerberg’s business experience, but also his growing up in an age that celebrates the free market in all domains.

For anyone worried about growing plutocracy in the US, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has one positive feature: it will pay taxes – unless accountants discover new loopholes for this hybrid entity.

In the tax-exempt world of American charity, the mega rich increasingly use their foundations and their celebrity as philanthropists to mold public policy to an extent not possible for other citizens. Tax-exempt foundations exert their inordinate influence without public input or accountability, but they are publicly subsidized: a substantial portion of every foundation’s wealth – 39.6% according to the 2015 tax rates – is diverted every year from the public treasury where voters would have determined its use.

There’s a strong argument to be made that the private tax-exempt foundation doesn’t fit well in a functioning democracy. As the eminent US jurist Richard Posner wrote: “A perpetual charitable foundation, however, is a completely irresponsible institution, answerable to nobody. It competes neither in capital markets nor in product markets … and, unlike a hereditary monarch whom such a foundation otherwise resembles, it is subject to no political controls either.Wealthy philanthropists shouldn't impose their idea of common good on us | Joanne Barkan | Opinion | The Guardian:

Philly Schools Sacrificed on the Altar of Pennsylvania Budget Compromise | gadflyonthewallblog

Philly Schools Sacrificed on the Altar of Pennsylvania Budget Compromise | gadflyonthewallblog:

Philly Schools Sacrificed on the Altar of Pennsylvania Budget Compromise

Pennsylvania lawmakers are ready to help all students across the Commonwealth – if only they can abuse, mistreat and trample some of them.

Which ones? The poor black and brown kids. Of course!

That seems to be the lesson of a school code bill passed with bipartisan support by the state Senate Thursday.

The legislation would require the Commonwealth to pick as many as 5 “underperforming” Philadelphia schools a year to close, charterize or just fire the principal and half the staff. It would also allow non-medically trained personnel to take an on-line course before working in the district to treat diabetic school children. And it would – of course – open the floodgates to more charter schools!

It’s a dumb provision, full of unsubstantiated facts, faulty logic and corporate education reform kickbacks. But that’s only the half of it!

The bill is part of a budget framework agreed to by Governor Tom Wolf and the Republican-controlled legislature necessary to finally pass a state-wide spending plan. The financial proposal has been held hostage for almost half a year!

The major sticking point has been school funding. Democrats like Wolf demand an increase. Republicans refuse. And the worst part is that the increase would only begin to heal the cuts the GOP made over the last four years.

Republicans just won’t clean up their own mess.

They slashed public school budgets by almost $1 billion per year for the last four years with disastrous consequences. Voters who could make little headway against a Philly Schools Sacrificed on the Altar of Pennsylvania Budget Compromise | gadflyonthewallblog:

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Budget Fluffernuttery Threatens Schools

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Budget Fluffernuttery Threatens Schools:

PA: Budget Fluffernuttery Threatens Schools

We have a budget problem in Pennsylvania. You could call it a budget "crisis," but that makes it sound like it just sort of happened, like a hurricane or male pattern baldness. You could call it a budget "impasse," but that suggests two grown up sides that can't find a compromise. Perhaps budget "screwup" or budget "failure so stupid it is raising the collective blood pressure of the entire state."

If it seems like we've been budget fiasco for a long time, that's because we have. Today is Day 168 of the ongoing budget not-done-on-time event.

There was a time when I would have agreed with a bi-partisan assessment. In the early stages, the GOP controlled PA House and Senate wanted to act as if the previous GOP governor had not been decisively kicked to the curb. Newly-elected Governor Tom Wolf, whose previous work experience is running a successful family business, did not initially seem to grasp that he is not a CEO who can order the legislature around as if they are his minions.

But many of the parties got on a learning curve and seemed to make progress.

At first it seemed like a manageable catastrophe. After all, we're used to this-- we've had five late budgets in ten years.

True, there was fallout. You may remember that the Chester Upland school district, underfunded by the state and sucked dry by charters, had to ask its teachers to work for free when the state missed CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Budget Fluffernuttery Threatens Schools:

Congress makes school attendance a national priority :: SI&A Cabinet Report

Congress makes school attendance a national priority :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:

Congress makes school attendance a national priority

(District of Columbia) Increasing the emphasis on getting more of the nation’s K-12 students to show up for class, the newly-approved federal education law will require Title I schools to report chronic absenteeism broken down by subgroup.

The Every Student Succeeds Act, signed by President Barack Obama last week, does away with the most onerous accountability mandate on schools – adequate yearly progress – while giving states new flexibility to design and implement their own systems for measuring student performance.

But Congress retained some key requirements such as annual assessments in grades three through eight and once in high school for math and English language arts, as well as the need to continue to identify persistently underperforming schools.

ESSA calls on states to create accountability systems that use multiple measures to gauge student outcome. The bill requires that states receiving Title I money must also collect and report “measures of school quality, climate and safety…”

Among the metrics listed that must be broken down by subgroup is chronic absenteeism – both excused and unexcused.

“It is good news that chronic absence data is included in the ESSA reauthorization for Title I schools because it moves us closer to the day when all districts will be using chronic absence data and acting on it,” said David Kopperud, an education programs consultant with the California Department of Education who helps oversee statewide attendance issues.

Long overlooked as a vehicle for improving public education, attendance is increasingly viewed as a fundamental first step in boosting student performance – especially among early learners.

According to a study from Johns Hopkins University, chronic absenteeism in kindergarten was associated with lower academic performance in first through third grade. Johns Hopkins researchers Congress makes school attendance a national priority :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:

Closing Schools: Privatization Disguised as 'Accountability' - NEA Today

Closing Schools: Privatization Disguised as 'Accountability' - NEA Today:

Closing Schools: Privatization Disguised as ‘Accountability’

Closing public schools not only has a negative impact on student performance but also creates hardship for communities already struggling with disinvestment, according to Linda Darling-Hammond, who moderated one of two panels for a Congressional forum held on Dec. 10 at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C.

“If your only recourse for school challenges is closing schools then you are not figuring out strategies and building on what succeeds,” said Darling-Hammond, a faculty director at the Stanford University Center for Opportunity Policy in Education. “School closures seem to be the primary remedy for any sign of failure in a school.”

At the forum, “Closed for Learning: The Impact of School Closures on Students and Communities,” Darling-Hammond said mass closures reflect shortsighted policies rooted in punitive reform models such as the recently rewritten federal K-12 education law, No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

“NCLB has contributed to widespread school closings across the country because it required schools to be ranked by test scores,” Darling-Hammond said. “We need a new approach to accountability that uses assessment for improvements to build professionalism and capacity.”

Federal and state policy decisions increasingly emphasize closings as an accountability measure for schools where standardized test results are low.

But public schools are much more than that, panelists said.

Aside from an academic setting, school buildings are hosts to a variety of education, social, business, and civic activities. Shutting them down has a ripple effect that can lead to a systematic disinvestment of other community institutions such as public housing units, recreational facilities, and small businesses.

“When they close schools, they are closing hospitals, grocery stores, and police stations,” said Jitu Brown, national director of the Journey for Justice Alliance (J4JL), an organization of community, youth and parent-led groups based in more than 20 cities. “There is something wrong with a system that blames children.”

Brown said that an inordinately high (90 percent in some areas) percentage of school closings impact predominately African-American and low-income communities.

“This is a human rights issue,” he said. “It’s about equity.”

The worsening inequality across the nation indicates that access to academically sound schools is often dependent on a student’s ZIP code. Policies that promote residential mobility while also reinvesting in racially segregated and high-poverty neighborhoods are critical to reducing inequality, Brown added.

Julian Vasquez Heilig discusses the impact of school closures on students and communities at a recent Capitol Hill forum.

“A society that doesn’t take care of its children is a morally bankrupt society,” said Judith Browne-Dianis, co-director ofAdvancement Project (AP), a civil rights organization. “School closings are not isolated incidents but rather a movement toward privatization.”

Analyses by J4JL and AP reveal that since about 2000, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has closed, phased-out, or consolidated about 160 schools and adopted policies that have promoted a proliferation of charter and contract schools in the West and South Closing Schools: Privatization Disguised as 'Accountability' - NEA Today:

Things Are Not Going So Well for the Privatizers | Diane Ravitch's blog

Things Are Not Going So Well for the Privatizers | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Things Are Not Going So Well for the Privatizers

It is true that they have a lot of money–Gates, Broad, Walton, Dell, Wasserman, Arnold, Helmsley, and about two dozen other foundations. Maybe more. And they have the U.S. Department of Education. But none of their big ideas is working. Study after study shows that charters on average do not produce higher test scores than public schools; many are far worse than even the lowest-performing public schools. New Orleans is just so much hype and spin. The Tennessee “Achievement School District” is far from reaching its ambitious goals; it may never meet them. More hype and spin. Vouchers put kids into religious schools without certified teachers, where they will learn the religious version of history and science. Does anyone think that moving more students into religious schools to study creationism is a winning strategy for the 21st century? The latest study from CREDO shows that online charters are a disaster and kids actually make no progress at all in math in a year of “instruction.”

Then there is the big bet on teacher evaluation by test scores. It has fallen flat everywhere. No one can say with assurance that the test scores weed out bad teachers and identify the best. Mostly, the test scores identify who is in the class. Gates showered hundreds of millions of dollars on a handful of districts to prove his pet theory, but thus far there is no proof. One of the Gates’ favored districts, where he pledged $100 million to try out his pet ideas, Hillsborough County in Florida (Tampa), abandoned the project after realizing that it was draining the district’s reserves with nothing to show for it (Gates eventually put up $80 million, but the evaluation plan cost about $250 million). The American Statistical Association warned against the use of value-added scores to rate individual teachers, as did the American Educational Research Association. VAM is dead man walking.

The Common Core standards were supposed to be the mechanism to standardize all of American education: The standards were supposed to align curriculum, instruction, assessment, teacher education, professional development, technology, and textbooks. Bill Gates boldly proclaimed that common standards were like a common electrical system, but children are not toasters, and teachers are not robots. States are backing out of the testing, and a few have rebranded the Common Core because the “brand” is toxic. However the Common Core shakes out, it will not be the basis for national standards and national tests. It will not create a single marketplace for vendors of products, as its sponsors hoped. Some will use it, some won’t. No one knows what part of this Grand Experiment will survive. The big gamble on stitching U.S. education into a seamless garment that was standardized from sea to sea has already failed. Some states will continue to use the Common Core standards, others will not. Most states have dropped out of the two federally-funded tests, PARCC and Smarter Balanced.

And oh my goodness! Where are all those reformer stars of yesteryear? The debut year of 2010, when they launched with “Waiting for Superman” to a breathless media, seems long, long ago.

Michelle Rhee has stepped away from the national stage, into apparent obscurity, even though her organization continues to fund rightwing anti-public school state-level candidates (and her book bombed).

Wendy Kopp has gone into seclusion, running TFA international, while her  heirs continue to manage TFA here. As more and more ex-TFA go public with their critiques, the bloom is off the rose. TFA recruitment has fallen by 25-30%, because all that teacher-bashing unleashed by the reformers hurt TFA as well as every legitimate teacher preparatory institution. Is there anyone who still believes that children need inexperienced teachers who will be gone in a little while?

Joel Klein went to work for Rupert Murdoch, selling technology for schools; his division, called Amplify, accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, because its tablets and chargers melt or break (his book bombed, too). After Amplify had lost over $500 million, Murdoch sold it to the highest bidder (Joel Klein and friends). The bid may have been $1.

Geoffrey Canada, the superman of the privatization movement, retired from the Harlem Children’s Zone and now apparently spends his time lecturing about the glories of privately managed charters, although few have or ever will have the resources of HCZ or two billionaires on the board to make sure that every class is no larger than 15 with two teachers, that every student gets personal tutoring, that every student gets free medical care, and that prizes for performance include trips to Disneyland and even the Galapagos. Other charters–and public schools–can only dream about that kind of financial largesse.

Tony Bennett, the state superintendent in Indiana, once acclaimed by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute as the reformiest of all the reformers, was beaten in 2012 by Glenda Ritz; Bennett then became state chief in Florida, where he quickly resigned when news broke about a grade-Things Are Not Going So Well for the Privatizers | Diane Ravitch's blog:

THE DEFORMERS

In Their Bubble They Refused To Hear Teachers Students and Parents !

A Call for More Black Men to Become Teachers - The Atlantic

A Call for More Black Men to Become Teachers - The Atlantic:

Training More Black Men to Become Teachers

African American males account for only 2 percent of the teaching force.

NEW ORLEANS—During his high-school days, no football game could start without Louis Blackmon III: the team’s center. Each play began with his snap.

Though Blackmon was renowned for his hustle on the field, he didn’t put the same effort into the classroom. “In school, I was just an average guy,” Blackmon said. Typically, he pulled Cs, with a few Ds, at McDonogh 35 High School in New Orleans.

That led to heartbreak his senior year, when his ACT scores came back a few points below college-entrance standards. Almost overnight, he lost the attention of college scouts, who had told him he was a prime candidate for an athletic scholarship.

Yet today, Blackmon, now 21, is a standout student at Southern University at New Orleans, in the Honoré Center for Undergraduate Achievement, an intensive new program that gives full scholarships to young African American men who show promise despite unremarkable transcripts.

All of the program’s participants, known as “Honoré Men,” study to become teachers—because the program’s founders believe that promising young men who grew up in tough circumstances are uniquely equipped to connect in classrooms with youth facing similar challenges.

The Honoré Center is one of a small but growing number of specialized programs aimed at boosting the number of black male schoolteachers, who make up roughly 2 percent of the nation’s teaching force.A Call for More Black Men to Become Teachers - The Atlantic:

Ten reasons why the feds shouldn’t be trusted to help Newark children. Ok, eleven. | Bob Braun's Ledger

Ten reasons why the feds shouldn’t be trusted to help Newark children. Ok, eleven. | Bob Braun's Ledger:

Ten reasons why the feds shouldn’t be trusted to help Newark children. Ok, eleven.

Later this morning, PULSE–a Newark grass roots organization–will be holding a press conference to discuss what appears to be a rare victory in the struggle of city parents to retake their public schools from pro-privatization reformers. PULSE members—it stands for Parents Unified for Local School Education–are elated at the outcome, but the “voluntary agreement” reached between the US Department of Education and the state-run Newark schools leaves far too many questions to allow unalloyed joy.

Here are just a few:

1. Nowhere in either the document outlining what the Christie Administration must do–generally assessing the damage to children from its “reforms” and correcting it–nor in the transmittal letter from the federal government is the state administration of the Newark schools criticized. Nowhere does the state admit responsibility. I defy any reporter to come up with a sentence that quotes the fed as critical of the state-run schools.

2. Okay–but the district is now required, under federal supervision, to find students who may have been harmed, assess the “adverse effects” and then remedy them. So the state administration must have done something wrong, right? You would think so, but it’s not there in black and white.

3. And who will be doing the assessing? Organizations like PULSE with deep roots in the community? NOPE.  The very state administrators–starting with Christopher Cerf who was Gov. Chris Christie’s state education commissioner when these alleged violations began–that’s who.  People like Peter Turnamian and Vanessa Rodriguez and Valerie Wilson and Charlotte Hitchcock, who signed the agreement for the state. Does anyone really trust Cerf and his high-priced assistants  to find evidence that he and his creature, former state superintendent Cami Anderson, pursued policies that hurt children? I don’t think so.

4. That is, after all, what the feds were supposed to do in response to PULSE’s civil rights complaint. They were supposed to investigate and find out whether children were harmed. They didn’t and now they won’t. The feds are leaving it up to the local district–which is to say, they are asking Cerf and company to investigate themselves. Good luck with that.

5. Indeed, PULSE is all but out of the picture now. It’s a great organization and it has quietly done work no one else has done to remedy the harm caused by charter schools and other Christie-backed “reforms.” The feds settled with Christie without input from the local organization. While that is permitted by federal regulations, it leaves a big whole in enforcement–the very people who know about the damage to children are excluded from playing a role in making sure that damage is remedied.

6. The deadlines imposed by the feds are absurd. Today, according to the Ten reasons why the feds shouldn’t be trusted to help Newark children. Ok, eleven. | Bob Braun's Ledger:

The Every Student Succeeds Act includes some new ideas on how train better teachers - The Hechinger Report

The Every Student Succeeds Act includes some new ideas on how train better teachers - The Hechinger Report:

The Every Student Succeeds Act includes some new ideas on how train better teachers

But are they good ideas?

e new federal education law known as the Every Student Succeeds Act could introduce new ways to prepare teachers for the classroom that bypass traditional programs.

The bill, signed by President Obama on Dec. 10, includes provisions that would allow states to set up new degree-granting academies for teachers outside of traditional higher education systems and would also encourage the creation of residency programs, in which teacher recruits are paired with veterans for a year of in-classroom training in addition to their coursework.

Alternative programs like these are already becoming more popular, especially in states with looming teacher shortages, such as California. But the new law might spur an even faster expansion, experts said.

And that expansion is likely to be controversial, Stephen Sawchuk ofEducation Week pointed out in a story first reporting the new programs.

“The idea is a bit like the ‘charterization’ of ed. schools,” he wrote, referring to publicly funded but privately run charter schools. “It’s the brainchild of folks at the New Schools Venture Fund, and it has in its mind’s eye programs like the Relay Graduate School of Education, the Match Teacher Residency, and Urban Teachers.”

Related: Alternative routes to teaching become more popular despite lack of evidence

In particular, the proposal for new state teacher academies has raised concerns.

“Some people are very worried that it’s a lowering of a standard in an enterprise where people try and raise standards,” said Linda Darling-Hammond, president and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute, a think tank, and a professor emeritus of education at Stanford University.

“The way the language is couched, you read it, it sounds so fabulous for prospective teachers and education generally. And then you stop and think, ‘Wait a minute. We’re talking about using money to support teacher preparation programs that aren’t accountable,’” said Pamela Carroll, dean of the University of Central Florida College of Education and Human Performance.

“It’s worrying not so much because we fear losing prospective students to quicker, easier routes, but because we do what we do because we really are committed to preparing the very best teachers we can,” she added. “It’s worrying that there would be programs The Every Student Succeeds Act includes some new ideas on how train better teachers - The Hechinger Report:

With A Brooklyn Accent: A Fordham Alum Comments on How the University has Changed Since the 1970's

With A Brooklyn Accent: A Fordham Alum Comments on How the University has Changed Since the 1970's:

A Fordham Alum Comments on How the University has Changed Since the 1970's

In the 1970s and ’80s, Cammarosano (center) led a campaign for the re-greening of Fordham, helping to restore Edwards Parade to glory.

Being asked to describe the difference between the Fordham of 1975 to the Fordham of 2015 ,to those in a position to make significant change , was unexpectedly an emotional one. As I answered tough questions which required specific detailed examples, I had to walk through my experience and relationships with not only fellow students,friends and faculty, but the community which Fordham had created for us on and off campus. I lived on campus, worked on campus, participated in social events on and off campus, as we felt as though we were one big family with mutual respect .

As a Biology major,I recall my professors, having an open door policy and were interested in not only your grade,but who you were as a person.My job working with students in local high schools as tutor counselor was because of a program on Fordhams campus,The first Physician assistant I ever met, practiced at an office on the Grand Concourse, where I worked on
Saturdays .I went on to gain invaluable experience about this profession and made friends with the late Dr Milton Reisch and his wife a PA , until his death a few years ago . My challenging Biology degree was reinforced by everything Fordham introduced, exposed and taught us on and off campus . Our education was rich as a result of all of the components which With A Brooklyn Accent: A Fordham Alum Comments on How the University has Changed Since the 1970's:

A Shifting Education Model in China Moves Away From Its Sole Emphasis on Test Scores - The Atlantic

A Shifting Education Model in China Moves Away From Its Sole Emphasis on Test Scores - The Atlantic:

A Shifting Education Model in China

An emphasis on success beyond test results takes cues from the U.S. but is only part of the plan to reshape the country’s approach to learning.

Just as President Obama steps back from student testing and governors coast to coast retreat from high-stakes accountability in schools, China’s leaders are pushing to enrich their national exams and nudge teachers away from rote instruction, aiming to nurture cognitively nimble and socially committed graduates.

No Child Left Behind—for all its blemishes and endless rules—did signal stiffer expectations for America’s schools, setting ambitious standards that they needed to meet in order to dodge sanctions. But the policy pendulum now swings back toward a lenient approach, enabling states to forge their own accountability tools, defining their own learning goals and tests.

New York eased expectations for students last month, as state officials revealed plans to simplify its math test, because pupil scores had fallen too low. Massachusetts, once setting the highest bar for pupil proficiency, has reversed its support for standards. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles school board has proclaimedthat homework should not exceed 30 minutes of effort each night for high-school students.

China has now reshaped its national exam to focus on a broader range of topics and cognitive skills and, in turn, move away from teacher-dominated lecturing. The new test requires that students employ complex analytical skills, mixed with broader knowledge across various subjects. Performance in high-school courses—classes that are chosen by the student—will count in college admissions for the first time, beyond achievement on math, Mandarin, and English assessments. And top universities, sifting through applications, must take into account service to one’s local community.

Already nipping at the nation’s economic heels, schools in the People’s Republic aspire to outshine their American counterparts, ironically pulling from the West’s progressive playbook. Indeed, China’s widening education agenda, while just as demanding as before, draws from a blend of educational ideals, ranging from those of John Dewey to Mao Zedong.

​* * *

China’s national exams, known as gaokao, have served as the channel for getting ahead in Chinese society since the 10th century. “Exams may have no use for me,” Haiyan, a 26 year-old graduate student, told me, “but I cannot realize upward mobility” without doing well. She said she rose from a rural village of 200 families by scoring fourth in her county on the national exam and winning a coveted spot in a top Beijing university.

The intense expectations for learning woven into the age-old exams—not to mention a longstanding Confucian faith in literacy that still underlines Chinese culture—continue to produce stereotyped whiz-kids in math and graduates with extremely sharp memories, at least according to their performance on international assessments. Shanghai students contend each year with Finnish and Singaporean peers to rank at the top on international OECD education rankings (how China samples pupils remains controversial). But it’s increasingly clear that didactic teaching and regimented exams have, arguably, failed to A Shifting Education Model in China Moves Away From Its Sole Emphasis on Test Scores - The Atlantic:

Outraged physicists formally rebut Supreme Court justice's comments about racial diversity in science education - Yahoo Finance

Outraged physicists formally rebut Supreme Court justice's comments about racial diversity in science education - Yahoo Finance:

Outraged physicists formally rebut Supreme Court justice's comments about racial diversity in science education

Alexandria Suggs (L), a student at Wayne County Community College of Detroit, Michigan, wears a 'Don't Hate' sticker on her face as she attends a rally to defend affirmative action outside the U.S. Supreme Court April 1, 2003 in Washington, DCIn the wake of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's apparent endorsement of the claim that affirmative action hurts black scientists, professional physicists have written a letter to the Supreme Court denouncing the claims.

Scalia's comments were made during oral arguments in Fisher vs. University of Texas, in which a white student claimed affirmative action policies prevented her from attending the university because of her race. 

"We object to the use of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields as a paper tiger in the debate over affirmative action. We as professional scientists are in strong support of affirmative action policies," the physicists wrote in the letter, which has been signed by more than 2,000 scientists.

Furthermore, "science is not an endeavor which should depend on the credentials of the scientist," the physicists wrote. "Rather, a good scientist is one who does good science."

A discredited theory

During the hearing, Scalia cited a legal brief in the case that he said made the provocative claim that some black students may do better at "less-advanced" or "slower-track" schools. It's not clear which brief he was referring to, though it's possible he was talking about one filed by two opponents of affirmative action, lawyers Gail Heriot and Peter Kirsanow.

"One of the [legal] briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas," Scalia said. "They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they’re being pushed ahead in classes that are too fast for them."

In their letter, physicists rejected Scalia's claims, which are based on the so-called "mismatch theory," which suggests affirmative action harms minority students by placing them in environments for which they aren't prepared. Researchers say the theory has been widely discredited.

"Study after study tells us that whether one looks at graduation rates or future earnings, minorities admitted to more selective schools with an assist from affirmative action do at least as well as and more often better than they could have been expected to do had they gone to less selective institutions," Richard Lempert, a law professor at the University of Michigan, told the Guardian.

Why we need people of color in science

The physicists' letter also took issue with questions from Chief Justice John Roberts, who expressed impatience about affirmative action. "What unique perspective does a minority student bring to a physics class?" Roberts asked.

The scientists rejected the idea that minority students, or students of color, are there simply to enhance the experience of white students, countering with the question, what unique perspective does a white student bring? Instead, we should be asking, "Why does physics education routinely fail brilliant minority students?" they wrote.

They also stressed that affirmative action is "just one part" of a larger effort to achieve social justice in scientific fields.

NOW WATCH: A Supreme Court Justice is under fire for racial remarks he made at a hearing

Outraged physicists formally rebut Supreme Court justice's comments about racial diversity in science education - Yahoo Finance:

Gov. Snyder ‘open’ to ending EAA school reform

Gov. Snyder ‘open’ to ending EAA school reform:

Gov. Snyder ‘open’ to ending EAA school reform

Gov. Rick Snyder said Monday he’s “open” to disbanding his controversial Education Achievement Authority if it’s part of a deal with the Legislature to overhaul public education governance in Detroit.

The Republican governor started the authority three years ago to try to turn around 15 low-performing schools in the Detroit district.

“Let’s look at the comprehensive education landscape in Detroit and say: If all of the pieces need to be realigned in some fashion, (then) I’m open to that as sort of a comprehensive solution,” Snyder said Monday in an interview with The Detroit News Editorial Board.

Snyder’s comments mark the first time he has signaled being open to ending his school reform effort in Michigan’s largest city in favor of a different approach.

Democratic lawmakers have long called for the 15 EAA schools to be returned to the financially ailing Detroit Public Schools. Some Republican legislators have criticized the EAA as well amid declining enrollment and the recent indictment of a former EAA principal for taking bribery kickbacks from a contractor.

“The EAA has proven to be a failed turnaround model within the state of Michigan and within the city of Detroit,” said state Sen. David Knezek, a Dearborn Heights Democrat who represents parts of Detroit’s west side. “It’s certainly acknowledging that the community wishes to have these EAA schools returned to DPS.”

The EAA’s future has hung in the balance for months since Snyder took control of the state’s School Reform Office and laid out a plan in April to create an education commission in Detroit to oversee all public schools in the city run by Detroit Public Schools, independent charter schools or some other entity. The commission would be empowered to open and close academically failing schools — a power some charter school operators have resisted.

For months, Snyder has said the EAA’s continued role in educating children in Detroit has been under review while lawmakers consider his $715 million proposal to create a new debt-free Detroit school district.

Snyder’s plan, which may be introduced in the state Senate this week, calls for the state assuming $515 million in DPS operating debt and unpaid vendor and pension bills as well as setting aside $200 million to cover start-up costs at the new Detroit school district.

As Snyder’s Detroit schools plan has lingered without action for months, the governor’s staff has told lawmakers privately that they would agree to return the EAA to DPS after this school year as part of the legislative overhaul of the city’s public schools, said state Rep. Sherry Gay-Dagnogo, D-Detroit.

“It’s not a trade for votes,” said Gay-Dagnogo, a vociferous opponent of the EAA. “It’s getting (students) the right solution in the room.”

Democrats have long contended that the 2012 transfer of 15 Detroit schools to the authority further destabilized the cash-strapped Detroit Public Schools, which the Snyder administration now says could be insolvent by spring.

“We don’t want to start creating systems that compete with local school districts because it further widens the gap in public school funding,” Gay-Dagnogo said. “We have to look at solutions that will really realize meaningful outcomes instead of pitting community members against each other in these experimental models.”

On Monday, Snyder continued to contend that the EAA is turning around chronically Gov. Snyder ‘open’ to ending EAA school reform:

Education experts grapple with narrowing English learner achievement gap in California

Education experts grapple with narrowing English learner achievement gap in California:

Education experts grapple with narrowing English learner achievement gap in California

Lawmakers and academics met Monday at Cal State Long Beach to discuss helping English-learnerstudents in the state get a high school diploma and go on to college.

The Assembly Education Committee convened in the CSULB Student Union to learn more about roughly 1.4 million English learners who make up 22 percent of all enrolled students.

“Our schools serve nearly one in three English learners in the country,” said Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, D-Long Beach, who chairs the committee. “That’s one in three across our nation (attending) our public schools. What we do here matters, not just to the success of California’s public schools, but for our nation as a whole.”

About 43 percent of all enrolled students come from homes in which a language other than English is spoken. That’s roughly 2.6 million, according to Patricia Gandara, research professor and co-director ofThe Civil Rights Project at UCLA.

“We really do not want to leave those students behind,” Gandara said.

More than 83 percent of English learners speak Spanish, Gandara said. The number of English learners peaked in 2003-04 at about 1.6 million, then fell to fewer than 1.35 million in 2013 but is on the upswing again, according to figures provided to the committee on Monday.

In 2014-15, about 180,000 or 35.2 percent of the state’s English learners were in kindergarten, with the smallest amount found in 12th grade, at fewer than 60,000 or about 11.3 percent. That reflects the demands of school becoming more stringent as students advance, Gandara said.

In statewide test scores tied to Common Core, 27 percent of English learners in third grade were proficient in language arts, compared to 38 percent of all third-grade students in 2015. Just 8 percent of English learners were proficient in 11th grade, compared to 44 percent of their peers.

Twenty-two percent of English learners in third grade were proficient in math, compared to 40 percent Education experts grapple with narrowing English learner achievement gap in California: