Alabama Teacher of the Year Resigns– The Backstory, Part V | deutsch29

Alabama Teacher of the Year Resigns– The Backstory, Part V | deutsch29:

Alabama Teacher of the Year Resigns– The Backstory, Part V

On November 20, 2015, I traveled to Alabama to extensively interview 2014-15 Alabama Teacher of the Year, Ann Marie Corgill, who had resigned from her fifth grade teaching position with Birmingham City Schools on October 30, 2015.

  

Ann Marie Corgill

It is not as though Corgill decided one day, “I’m tired of this job,” and quit. The series of posts resulting from my four-hour interview with Corgill detail not only the events leading to her resignation, but also her intriguing experiences across two decades of teaching elementary and middle grades in both Alabama and New York.

My series on Corgill is comprised of five posts:

• Part I: Corgill’s resignation hits the media;
• Part II: Events leading to Corgill’s resignation;
• Part III: Corgill becomes Alabama Teacher of the Year;
• Part IV: Corgill’s years in New York.

This, my final post of the series, involves Corgill’s experiences with professional bullying. This excerpt from our interview is by far the longest, that of a book chapter. This post not only examines the virtually not-discussed issue of teacher and administrative bullying, but also offers readers the opportunity to become acquainted with Corgill in one last, generous, interview-based opportunity.

At some points, I purposely put her on the spot with my questions. As was true throughout our extensive interview, Corgill graciously provides responses to help me Alabama Teacher of the Year Resigns– The Backstory, Part V | deutsch29:

Videos 2015 Teaching, Testing, and Acountability: Poverty and Charters | Live Long and Prosper

Videos 2015 | Live Long and Prosper:

Videos 2015

Teaching, Testing, and Acountability: Poverty and Charters

Every now and then I’ll embed a video in my blog. Here I have chosen six – informative and inspiring – from 2015, comprising about 2 hours of video. I’ve added emphasis with boldface and italics.

February 1

What would happen if state and federal legislators actually listened to educators? Notice how many of the legislators in this video talk about “accountability.” The assumption is that before “reformist” type accountability (aka standardized tests used to rank students, teachers, and schools) we never knew how our children were doing in school.

So long as public education policy continues to be shaped by the interests of corporate profiteering and not the interests of our public school children we will resist these unjust testing laws.

Jia Lee…the only woman at the hearings, from a female dominated profession…tries to teach legislators about the damage done by runaway testing.

Watch her testimony in the video below and read more about the hearings in…Teachers Rally Against Standardized Testing At No Child Left Behind Hearing.

The sad thing is that, despite the fact that NCLB has been replaced, annual, high-stakes testing is still with us.

Jia Lee, a New York special education teacher, said the tests “can only measure right or wrong,” not complex questions. “I will refuse to administer a test that reduces my students to a single metric. … Teachers, students and parents find themselves in a position of whether or not to push back or leave.”

//player.vimeo.com/video/117989096?color=6a9db8&title=0&byline=0&portrait=0

Jia Lee – Senate Hearings Reauthorization of NCLB Jan 2015 from nLightn Media on Vimeo.

February 22

In February several hundred pro-public education supporters went to Indianapolis to “Rally for Ritz”…a rally in support of Indiana’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Glenda Ritz. Superintendent Ritz was continually at odds with the appointed members of the pro-charter, pro-voucher, “reformist,” school board.

Bloomington mom, and chair of the Indiana Coalition for Public Education–Monroe County and South Central Indiana, Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer’s speech to the assembled crowd was memorable, calling for, and defining legislative accountability, not just school accountability. Click here for the complete text of the speech.

My child is not “college and career ready” because HE IS A CHILD

…Accountability is representing your constituents, not your donors

…Accountability is research driven education policy. Standards don’t educate kids, teachers do.

Accountability is seeing to it that every child has a school that has enough nurses, social workers, guidance counselors, gym, art, and music teachers, librarians, small class sizes, electives, hands-on projects, science experiments, theater, and band. Every. Single. Indiana. Child.

…no six year old should be on the losing end for equal educational opportunity

Legislators and “reformers” are all for accountability…for others.

May 4

John Oliver shows us just how inane and stupid our obsessive focus on standardized testing really is – test-pep rallies, school cheers – trying to convince children that high-stakes tests are “fun.”

Yet, we all know that high-stakes tests are inappropriate for our most vulnerable students…and they make the pain of the also inappropriate test-prep-standards-based education even more painful.

Official instructions for test administrators specify what to do if a student 

Videos 2015 | Live Long and Prosper:

As Graduation Rates Rise, Experts Fear Diplomas Come Up Short - The New York Times

As Graduation Rates Rise, Experts Fear Diplomas Come Up Short - The New York Times:

As Graduation Rates Rise, Experts Fear Diplomas Come Up Short

A United States government class for seniors at Berea High School in Greenville, S.C. Graduation rates at the school, below 65 percent just four years ago, have jumped to more than 80 percent. Credit Sean Rayford for The New York Times

GREENVILLE, S.C. — A sign in a classroom here at Berea High School, northwest of downtown in the largest urban district in the state, sends this powerful message: “Failure Is Not an Option. You Will Pass. You Will Learn. You Will Succeed.”

By one measure, Berea, with more than 1,000 pupils, is helping more students succeed than ever: The graduation rate, below 65 percent just four years ago, has jumped to more than 80 percent.

But that does not necessarily mean that all of Berea’s graduates, many of whom come from poor families, are ready for college — or even for the working world. According to college entrance exams administered to every 11th grader in the state last spring, only one in 10 Berea students were ready for college-level work in reading, and about one in 14 were ready for entry-level college math. And on a separate test of skills needed to succeed in most jobs, little more than half of the students demonstrated that they could handle the math they would need.

It is a pattern repeated in other school districts across the state and country — urban, suburban and rural — where the number of students earning high school diplomas has risen to historic peaks yet measures of academic readiness for college or jobs are much lower. This has led educators to question the real value of a high school diploma and whether graduation requirements are too easy.

A calculus assignment at Berea. According to college entrance exams administered to every 11th grader in South Carolina last spring, only one in 14 of Berea’s students were ready for college-level work in math. Credit Sean Rayford for The New York Times

“Does that diploma guarantee them a hope for a life where they can support a family?” asked Melanie D. Barton, the executive director of the Education Oversight Committee in South Carolina, a legislative agency. Particularly in districts where student achievement is very low, she said, “I really don’t see it.”

Few question that in today’s economy, finishing high school is vital, given that the availability of jobs for those without a diploma has dwindled. The Obama administration has hailed the rising graduation rate, saying schools are expanding opportunities for students to succeed. Just last week, theDepartment of Education announced that the national graduation rate hit82 percent in 2013-14, the highest on record.

But “the goal is not just high school graduation,” Arne Duncan, the departing secretary of education, said in a telephone interview. “The goal is being truly college and career ready.”

The most recent evaluation of 12th graders on a national test of reading and math found that fewer than 40 percent were ready for college level work. College remediation and dropout rates remain stubbornly high, particularly at two-year institutions, where fewer than a third who enroll complete a degree even within three years.

In South Carolina, even with a statewide high school graduation rate of 80.3 percent, some business leaders worry that not enough students have the abilities they need for higher-skilled jobs at Boeing, Volvo and BMW,As Graduation Rates Rise, Experts Fear Diplomas Come Up Short - The New York Times: 

Florida Illustrates the Problem with Charter-School Capital Funding | Nonprofit Quarterly

Florida Illustrates the Problem with Charter-School Capital Funding | Nonprofit Quarterly:

Florida Illustrates the Problem with Charter-School Capital Funding

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC) recently published an important report concluding that “Public assets are being unnecessarily transferred to private hands, at public expense, risking the future provision of “public” education.” A Miami Herald/AP investigation provides ample evidence to support the NEPC’s warning:

“Charter schools, which are public schools run by private groups, have received more than $760 million from state taxpayers since 2000 according to an Associated Press analysis of state Department of Education records. Schools can use the money for construction costs, rent payments, buses and even property insurance.

More capital money has gone to charter schools in Miami-Dade than any other county: about $179 million.

Yet charter schools in 30 districts have wound up closing after receiving as much as $70 million combined in such funding, the AP’s analysis showed. In all, more than $7.5 million went to almost 20 Miami-Dade charter schools that eventually shut their doors.

Taxpayers usually can’t recover the capital money invested in those schools because most of it has been spent on rent or leasing costs. The Department of Education reported it has taken back just $133,000 in the last three years from schools that closed.”

The issue is usually just seen as a question of where capital funds for charter schools should come from. Charter-school advocates view public funding for capital needs as a way to level the playing field with traditional public schools, who can issue bonds to support facility costs. “Banks don’t usually lend to charter schools,” said Lynn Norman-Teck, executive director of the Florida Charter School Alliance. “You can’t walk into Bank of America and say, ‘I have a good idea and I may have 100 kids show up.’ This capital outlay is the lifeline for some of these charter schools, especially the small independent ones.’”

Traditional public schools can turn to the bond markets for funding, but these borrowed funds must be repaid with interest (unlike money coming from the state). But as theMiami Herald article points out, “School districts argue they are also squeezed for construction money. Their capital budgets are largely tied up in debt, state funds have dwindled and the districts have had their taxing authority reduced. The Legislature caps how much school districts can levy, and during the recession, the state gradually lowered the tax rate for capital budgets.”

This is an important debate. If charter schools are to remain part of the public school mix, they must have access to appropriate facilities and equipment. But when there is a significant failure rate in the charter sector, the public should not lose sight of where its investment ends up. We know that the assets of traditional public schools remain public property. But all too often the story with failed charter schools is very different.

The Herald goes on to report, “Schools that got money include Miami’s Liberty City Charter, set up with great fanfare by Jeb Bush shortly before he ran for governor in 1998. Liberty City closed after eight years because of severe financial problems, but not before receiving $1.1 million in state capital funds.

Today, the building stands empty in a quiet enclave of El Portal that backs up to humming Interstate 95. In its last years on the campus, Liberty City Charter paid about $165,000 a year in rent, according to school-district documents. Property records show Florida Illustrates the Problem with Charter-School Capital Funding | Nonprofit Quarterly:

A Glimpse of Possibilities – John Lennon | Creative by Nature

A Glimpse of Possibilities – John Lennon | Creative by Nature:

A Glimpse of Possibilities – John Lennon

“The thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn’t the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility.

Love is like a precious plant. You can’t just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it’s going to get on by itself. You’ve got to keep on watering it. You’ve got to really look after it and nurture it.

We live in a world where we have to hide to make love, while violence is practiced in broad daylight. Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it.

You don’t need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are! There’s nothing new under the sun. All the roads lead to Rome. And people cannot provide it for you. I can’t wake you up. You can wake you up. I can’t cure you. You can cure you.

You’re all geniuses, and you’re all beautiful. You don’t need anyone to tell you who you are. You are what you are. Get out there and get peace, think peace, and live peace and breathe peace, and you’ll get it as soon as you like.

That’s what the great masters and mistresses have been saying ever since time began. They can point the way, leave signposts and little instructions in various books that are now called holy and worshipped for the cover of the book and not for what it says, but the instructions are all there for all to see, have always been and always will be.

I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It’s just that the translations have gone wrong.

Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, A Glimpse of Possibilities – John Lennon | Creative by Nature:

What If Teachers ARE NOT the Problem? - Sharing Kindergarten

What If Teachers ARE NOT the Problem? - Sharing Kindergarten:

WHAT IF TEACHERS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM?

I recently saw this video on Facebook that touched my heart.



 I live and teach in Georgia. 

Right now, Georgia is considering an educational change that will take away 

step raises for years of experience as well as raises for advanced degrees in school.

Their proposal will change my pay to be based on specific assessments or test scores…

since that seems to be the only way the state wants to track or show student progress or growth.

I know I am not alone in GA with educational changes that seem to point the finger at teachers

as the cause and solution of low test scores and/ or student performance.

Here is a recent newspaper article from my state on the proposed changes to teacher pay.

{Click here to see the article I am referring to.} 

Decision makers want to see student growth on tests.

Scoring high on tests, in their opinion, show progress, student success, and teacher success.

The feelings of those decision makers is that being a veteran teacher

or advanced degrees doesn’t prove to provide student growth

and therefore isn’t worth paying for.

Teachers pay would be based on…

you got it…

student progress on tests.

I am watching states with drastic decreases in 

Education Majors in colleges like California and Arizona.

I am watching states with teacher shortages who can not find, hire,

 and utilize certified teachers in their classrooms.

I am watching students being tested and tested and tested.

All of these test cost money to create or buy, more money to administer, 

and even more money to score and grade.

I am watching those “tests” being deemed as important, significant, 

and a true way to show student growth.

What an illusion. 

My goal is to make self sufficient, productive members of society.

I want those people to hear me loud and clear. 

Those who are making these policies and decisions…

those who think the educational system is broken because

 students are not showing progress on test scores…

You have it all wrong.

Let me make this clear.

I teach students. I do not teach test scores.

In the world of education, the teacher holds very little control.

I do not choose how many student can be in my class.

I do not choose the specific students in my classroom.

I have to take every student given to me regardless of learning level, home life, and behavioral issues.

I strongly feel God gives me all my students and that they are a blessing… 

but my roster is my roster.

I do not choose the grade level or subjects that I teach.

I do not choose the resources provided.

I do not choose the standards or specific skills I am required to teach.

I do not choose how much money I am given for other materials for my students.

I do not choose the type of tests or assessments required.

Here is what I don’t understand…

Why would anyone {taxpayers} want to listen to ANYONE {decision makers} 

who feel test scores are more important than students?

If the state thinks students are not performing as well on standardized tests

 and assessments as the state would prefer, 

why are teachers under fire?  

We actual hold very little control.

I propose, maybe teachers are NOT the problem.

What if the real problem is the home lives of the students and 

the variables that studies have proven interferes with education?

What if the real problem is the LACK of a long recess, music education, and art classes?

What if the real problem is the policies that prevent money 

from going directly to the students who need it the most?

What if the real problem is decision makers acting like they understand the real struggles of teaching, 

when they do not?

What if the real problem is the decision makers acting like they understand the real struggle of the expectations we are putting on our students, when they do not?

What if the real problem is the tests and assessments that are given and valued?

What if the real problem is the goal of higher test scores and NOT to create well adjusted, self sufficient, functioning members of society?

What if the real problem is way we push students to answer questions on paper or on a computer, 

but not to socialize with each other?

What if the real problem is NOT the teachers?

 

Policy makers… 

What if the REAL PROBLEM is all the other policies

 you have set up and decided for us? 

What if the real problem is YOU?

What If Teachers ARE NOT the Problem? - Sharing Kindergarten:

The Common Core of Goodwill - Living in Dialogue

The Common Core of Goodwill - Living in Dialogue:

The Common Core of Goodwill

 By Michelle Gunderson.  

One of the things you learn as an elementary teacher in the Chicago Public Schools is to always have materials available and an extra desk or space for new students. You learn to expect the unexpected and that a child can show up on your doorstep at any minute of any day.

And usually it is not an easy matter. Many times children who come to us after the first weeks of school are displaced or have parents who are seeking a school that can help their troubled child.

These were the thoughts on my mind when a little boy appeared at my classroom door in the second week of school this fall, an hour after school had started, without an adult accompanying him to the class. I took a deep breath and tried to talk myself into a place of calm. There was so much on my teaching plate already, and I did not know if I was going to be able to embrace one more Herculean task.

And I was right. The child who was given into my care needed me in countless ways.

His family was experiencing housing insecurity, and he had been exposed to very little schooling. Everything was new – letters and sounds, standing in line to go to recess, putting a coat in a locker. The Chicago schools extended to a 7 hour day three years ago, and at every minute of that 7 hour day this young child was being asked to climb new mountain of learning. It was exhausting for us both, and his classmates.

One of the things 6 year olds do best is revealing transgressions throughout the day:

“So and so took my place on the rug.”

“So and so just snatched my toy.”

“So and so just chewed my hair.”

“Just chewed my hair?” That one was new to me even after 28 years of teaching. It was clear to me that I was The Common Core of Goodwill - Living in Dialogue:

Are Urban Public Boarding Schools the Answer to Serving Students Who Suffer From Childhood Trauma? - The Atlantic

Are Urban Public Boarding Schools the Answer to Serving Students Who Suffer From Childhood Trauma? - The Atlantic:

The Rise of Urban Public Boarding Schools

They’re designed to provide extra attention to students who suffer from trauma. But are they worth all the extra taxpayer dollars?

WASHINGTON—The founding Monument Academy teachers and staff knew that running a 24-hour school for children who’ve survived trauma and violence would be difficult.

They just didn’t know how difficult.

“It was chaotic,” said Emily Bloomfield, the school’s founder and CEO, recalling the first few weeks of class last summer. “There was a lot of fighting ... a lot of cursing, a lot of running around.”

The 40 fifth-graders who started in August at this unusual new charter school in northeast Washington include children in foster care or at risk of entering the foster-care system. Some live in homeless shelters. Some have seen or experienced domestic violence or abuse. Some have grieved painful losses. And some have changed schools or been suspended or expelled so many times that they’re significantly behind their peers, both academically and emotionally.

That means students as old as 12 are reading at a kindergarten or first-grade level or exhibiting behaviors like thumb-sucking that are typically seen in much younger children.

When the students moved into their new “home,” their fragile emotions collided, staffers said.

“They fed off each other,” Bloomfield recalled. “There were a couple of kids who were really in crisis and when you have a child in crisis, and by that I mean, really, totally unregulated, melting down, behaving very dangerously, it’s a trigger for many other kids and their anxiety level goes up and their behavior goes up.”

Furniture went flying. Fights broke out. Police were called and ambulances were summoned to take kids to psychiatric hospitals. One child who had been accustomed to roaming the streets alone at night brought a fake gun to school for protection. And some staffers started to wonder if they would find a way to make it work.

But Monument’s founders had designed a secondary school that will eventually educate fifth- through 12th-graders using every tool they could find that’s been proven to work for kids who’ve experienced trauma. They scheduled yoga and meditation classes in the daily curriculum. They hired as many therapists as Are Urban Public Boarding Schools the Answer to Serving Students Who Suffer From Childhood Trauma? - The Atlantic:

BBB’s Christmas Party. | Fred Klonsky

BBB’s Christmas Party. | Fred Klonsky:
BBB’s Christmas Party.

From today’s Chicago Sun-Times.

Rahm’s CPS CEO threw a Christmas Party in 2012

Baux sent Byrd-Bennett the proposals with recommendations: “Gary thinks the JW (Marriott) is prettier. Tom and I both like the Union League Club. Everything there is classy.”
The Dec. 21, 2012, party that Byrd-Bennett hosted for top CPS staffers, Chicago Board of Education members and the mayor’s education deputy, Beth Swanson, was cited in the 43-page federal indictment that charged her and the two men in a scheme promising her kickbacks for contracts. She has since pleaded guilty to a single charge and awaits sentencing.
Though Byrd-Bennett paid the $4,108 Union League Club tab with a personal check, federal authorities say Solomon sent her emails in December 2012 agreeing first to pay the expenses for the party and then, instead, to reimburse her for the cost after they realized she’d get a better deal if she booked as a club member.
According to CPS, no taxpayer money was spent on the party, which had servers passing out appetizers and three hours of an open bar at $7 per cocktail for Smirnoff vodka, Beefeater gin and Bacardi Rum, with an option to upgrade drinks individually. Among those, the club logged two Hendrick’s gin and tonics at $10 each. It also charged an BBB’s Christmas Party. | Fred Klonsky:

Keeping retirement weird. School Wars.

I am not a big science fiction movie fan. But my daughter and daugher-in-law are in town for the holidays. They love this stuff.  It was a no brainer that we were going to see Star Wars yesterday.

Along with everybody else.

The big cultural news is that after countless episodes of the Star Warsfranchise, there is a young woman warrior leading the struggle against the Dark Side. Her name is Rey.

This is not so earth-shaking in Chicago. We have been led by a woman warrior in School Wars, The Never-ending Sequal against the Dark Side for a number of years now. Her name is Karen.

A month ago the Chicago Teachers Union, Chicago’s version of The Resistance, took a practice vote on whether to strike. Over 90% of the Chicago Teacher Union members voted yes.

Some local news reporters got all upset and said that the members of the union didn’t know what the were voting for.

Yes, they did.

When the CTU took the official strike authorization vote a couple of weeks Keeping retirement weird. School Wars.

New Jersey School District Eases Pressure on Students, Baring an Ethnic Divide - The New York Times

New Jersey School District Eases Pressure on Students, Baring an Ethnic Divide - The New York Times:

New Jersey School District Eases Pressure on Students, Baring an Ethnic Divide

This fall, David Aderhold, the superintendent of a high-achieving school district near Princeton, N.J., sent parents an alarming 16-page letter.

The school district, he said, was facing a crisis. Its students were overburdened and stressed out, juggling too much work and too many demands.

In the previous school year, 120 middle and high school students were recommended for mental health assessments; 40 were hospitalized. And on a survey administered by the district, students wrote things like, “I hate going to school,” and “Coming out of 12 years in this district, I have learned one thing: that a grade, a percentage or even a point is to be valued over anything else.”

With his letter, Dr. Aderhold inserted West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District into a national discussion about the intense focus on achievement at elite schools, and whether it has gone too far.

At follow-up meetings, he urged parents to join him in advocating a holistic, “whole child” approach to schooling that respects “social-emotional development” and “deep and meaningful learning” over academics alone. The alternative, he suggested, was to face the prospect of becoming another Palo Alto, Calif., where outsize stress on teenage students is believed to have contributed to two clusters of suicides in the last six years.

But instead of bringing families together, Dr. Aderhold’s letter revealed a fissure in the district, which has 9,700 students, and one that broke down roughly along racial lines. On one side are white parents like Catherine Foley, a former president of the Parent Teacher Student Association at her daughter’s middle school, who has come to see the district’s increasingly pressured atmosphere as antithetical to learning.

“My son was in fourth grade and told me, ‘I’m not going to amount to anything because I have nothing to put on my résumé,’ ” Ms. Foley said.

On the other side are parents like Mike Jia, one of the thousands of Asian-American professionals who have moved to the district in the past decade, who said Dr. Aderhold’s reforms would amount to a “dumbing down” of his children’s education.

“What is happening here reflects a national anti-intellectual trend that will not prepare our children for the future,” Mr. Jia said.

About 10 minutes from Princeton and an hour and a half from New York City, West Windsor and Plainsboro have become popular bedroom communities for technology entrepreneurs, pharmaceutical researchers and engineers, drawn in large part by the public schools. From the last three graduating classes, 16 seniors were admitted to M.I.T. It churns out Science Olympiad winners, classically trained musicians and students with perfect SAT scores.

The district has become increasingly popular with immigrant families from China, India and Korea. This year, 65 percent of its students are Asian-American, compared with 44 percent in 2007. Many of them are the first in their families born in the United States.

They have had a growing influence on the district. Asian-American parents are enthusiastic supporters of the competitive instrumental music program. They have been huge supporters of the district’s advanced mathematics program, which once began in the fourth grade but will now start in the sixth. The change to the program, in which 90 percent of the participating students are Asian-American, is one of Dr. Aderhold’s reforms.

Asian-American students have been avid participants in a state program that permits them to take summer classes off campus for high school New Jersey School District Eases Pressure on Students, Baring an Ethnic Divide - The New York Times:

Legislature lets tragic failure in Detroit schools go on

Legislature lets tragic failure in Detroit schools go on:

Legislature lets tragic failure in Detroit schools go on

It is outrageous that our state Legislature  could deliver year-end  partisan holiday goodies like ending straight-ticket voting, and finding new ways for money to win elections while failing to deliver  what is most needed in Detroit — a real plan to help Detroit school children learn once again.

Detroit kids aren’t getting the most important thing they need to make it in life, a great education. Years of exodus of students from the Detroit Public School system have left diminished resources and teachers to support those students with arguably the greatest needs. DPS is the lowest academically performing large urban district in the country.

But the proliferation of choice and new charters hasn’t led to better outcomes for most of the families seeking something else. And the proliferation of new schools, willy-nilly, over the years — with the charter lobby and Republican legislative allies rejecting quality control on who gets to  sell education — has led to financial chaos and academic decline.

Detroit has an educational marketplace where all public schools, including DPS and the good charter schools that do exist, can’t fill their classrooms, are under-resourced, and underperforming.

That’s why a coalition of Detroiters led by the Skillman Foundation's Tonya Allen, and Walbridge’s John Rakolta joined together last year and formed a plan to end the madness. The State Board of Education supported the coalition’s recommendationsto end state control, give decision-making back to Detroiters and bring financial Legislature lets tragic failure in Detroit schools go on:

ESSA to support schools may help reduce health barriers to learning | TheHill

Legislation to support schools may help reduce health barriers to learning | TheHill:

ESSA to support schools may help reduce health barriers to learning

Amidst the intense media coverage of terrorism, mass shootings and presidential primary hoopla, a glimmer of domestic good news emerged earlier this month when President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act – or, ESSA. This is worth noting because the new act reauthorizes what was once called No Child Left Behind, but makes a series of adjustments and updates that address some of the problems and controversies (like Common Core and over- testing) that emerged following the original bill signed by President George W. Bush in 2001.

Generally speaking, ESSA provides resources, guidelines and assistance to communities across the U.S. that are struggling to upgrade low performing schools and improve educational opportunities for children, especially kids in economically disadvantaged families.  

But there’s something more. The new legislation also encourages improving academic performance by increased focus on measures that have little to do with the school itself or the quality of teaching.

ESSA, while necessarily heavily focused on schools and education per se, also provides for potential expansion of access to health care services for children already struggling with social, economic and academic challenges.  Though it isn’t a mandate, states and school districts now have much more latitude in directing ESSA funds to support essential health care for children in need.

Why is this important? And why use education-focused dollars to support healthcare?

The answer is primarily because medical problems with educational consequences are far more common than most educators and parents likely realize.  Health screenings by Children’s Health Fund, for instance, have shown that more than one in five elementary students in three low-performing New York City schools failed their vision screening.  Without glasses, these children can have difficulty seeing the board or reading homework assignments, thus severely undermining their performance in school.

Some 10 percent of students in these same schools failed hearing screening.  Another 23 percent of students have an asthma diagnosis, which is more than two times the prevalence in the general population.  Among those students, many have asthma that is under treated, leading to nighttime coughing, lost sleep, inattention in class, and chronic absences. And some insufficiently treated asthmatic kids actually experience serious wheezing crises in class, often requiring a 911 call and a trip to the hospital emergency department.  Such attacks are dangerous for the child and highly disruptive for the rest of the class.

Certain behavioral problems, persistent dental pain and recurrent hunger can also erode a child’s ability to concentrate and learn.  What’s more, persistent untreated health concerns like these lead to excessive rates of absenteeism, even further exacerbating educational challenges for children, especially those already facing economic and social adversities.

Not every medical problem has a direct impact on learning – but some are devastating challenges in the classroom. We call these conditions “Health Barriers to Learning” (HBLs).

Some 20 percent of public high school children in the U.S. do not graduate from high school on time, a terribly high number, though it has dramatically improved over the past decade. But in some communities where poverty is rampant, where schools are in trouble and where access to health care are on-going challenges, more than half of the youth population may fail to graduate.

Many complex factors underlie low graduation rates.  Our strong suspicion, however, is that for Legislation to support schools may help reduce health barriers to learning | TheHill: