CURMUDGUCATION: Cheap or Excellent??

CURMUDGUCATION: Cheap or Excellent??:

Cheap or Excellent??

So I'm on twitter, "discussing" this piece by Eric Hanushek. (I air-quote "discussion" not because of any qualities of the people involved, but because nobody can wax eloquent with depth and nuance at 140 characters a shot).

The piece belongs to the genre I think of as Befuddled Mysteries of Failure, in which reformsters scratch their heads at how reformy ideas have not worked. Hanushek's meditation on the intractability of the "achievement gap" (I air-quote "achievement gap" because it's a euphemism for "standardized test score gap") ends in typical bemusement.

Vastly more jarring is that the central goal of the report—the development of an education system that provides equal educational opportunity for all groups, and especially for racial minorities—has not been attained. Achievement gaps remain nearly as large as they were when Coleman and his team put pen to paper, even when better research has suggested ways to close them and even when policies have been promulgated that supposedly are explicitly designed to eliminate them.

"When Coleman and his team put pen to paper" is fifty years ago. But I tweeted that the mystery of why we hadn't yet closed the gap -- well, here, read for yourself the exchange that followed

And a whole bunch of people just loved that response. Liked it, retweeted it. And I realized, watching the retweets pile up, how tired I am of this particular argument.

Because it always starts with talking about the achievement gap and the non-wealthy, non-white students who are being denied as good an education as the burbians get, but then it ends up with insistence that we fix this problem on the cheap.

How could it possibly be cheap? Seriously-- we're talking, particularly if we go back to pre-Civil Rights segregated Jim Crow America, about a system that has systematically and deliberately provided low socio-economic students with underfunded, understaffed, under-resourced schools. How could it possibly NOT involve lots of money to fix that?? I don't honestly know if the 4X figure is correct or not, but if it is, there's another explanation for why we've failed to close any gaps-- because 4X 1954 education spending strikes me as not nearly enough of an increase.

You have two children sitting at a table. Pat is regularly eating full healthful meals packed with nutrients and all the food groups. Chris is eating bread and water and an occasional cup of cereal. Somebody comes in and says, "Well, this is clearly wrong. Chris is starving, while Pat is doing well. Chris should get to eat just as well as Pat does."

The dining room chief comes in and says, "Yes, you're right. But we should only spend as much to CURMUDGUCATION: Cheap or Excellent??:

A family divided: Clan of Common Core critics differ on whether review process is working - The Hechinger Report

A family divided: Clan of Common Core critics differ on whether review process is working - The Hechinger Report:

A family divided: Clan of Common Core critics differ on whether review process is working

Split in what parents, teachers want underscored

CrOWLEY, La. — Carla and Carl Hebert, with two daughters and a granddaughter in tow, made the hour-long drive from their home in Lake Charles in October to watch a panel of Louisiana educators transform the controversial national Common Core standards into “Louisiana standards.”

Like many, the Heberts’ anger over the Common Core began with homework assignments. Carla remembers days when the whole family grew frustrated trying to help her granddaughter with the new, Common Core-aligned homework questions. “When you have two teachers and a dad who has four college degrees all struggling to help out with elementary school homework, something’s wrong,” she said.

The two teachers she’s referring to are her daughters, Shawna Dufrene and Tiffany Guidry. Dufrene, a fourth-grade teacher at Moss Bluff Elementary School in the Lake Charles suburb of Moss Bluff, was serving on the review panel. Meanwhile, Guidry, a former teacher and mother of three, sat in the audience with their parents. They had all come looking for big changes to the standards. But by the end of the long day, the Heberts were divided on whether the review was living up to its promise.

Their frustration speaks to a tension felt across the country; with nearly two dozen states revising the Common Core standards, policymakers are grappling with what role, if any, parents should have in tweaking those standards.  Can teams of educators in states like Louisiana improve standards that were years in the making? And A family divided: Clan of Common Core critics differ on whether review process is working - The Hechinger Report:

PAA Policy Brief: The Impact of Poverty, Race and Cultural Bias on Educational Opportunity* | Parents Across America

PAA Policy Brief: The Impact of Poverty, Race and Cultural Bias on Educational Opportunity* | Parents Across America:

PAA Policy Brief: The Impact of Poverty, Race and Cultural Bias on Educational Opportunity* 

The wrong war

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (aka No Child Left Behind or NCLB) was designed as an integral part of the War on Poverty. The law has warped into a tool to undermine and privatize public education and do away with teachers unions. This “war on public schools,” meanwhile, has failed to significantly raise student achievement or narrow achievement gaps. In fact, students made greater gains prior to NCLB. It remains to be seen if the newly- reauthorized law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, moderates NCLB’s ineffective and damaging elements.

It’s about poverty…

• For the first time in 50 years, 51% of all public school students come from low-income families.
• Low-income students – those that qualify for free or reduced lunches – consistently have the lowest scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
• Wealth and poverty are “sticky”: the rich tend to stay rich and the poor poor.

Education does NOT level the playing field

• White families are much wealthier than black and Hispanic families at every education level.
• All white families, even those at the lowest education level, have a higher median wealth than all black and Hispanic families, even those with the highest education level.
• The wealthiest high school dropouts (?)
• African-American college students are about as likely to get hired as white high school drop outs.

Other effects

• Discipline: Black students represent 16% of the US student population, but 32-42% of all students suspended or expelled, while white students make up 51% of the student population but only 31-40% of students suspended or expelled.
• Retention: African-American and Latino students are the most likely to be retained in grade, which is strongly correlated with dropping out. A recent national study of retention found a major drop in the number of students being held back, but African-American students in grades 2 through 9 were about twice as likely as white students to be retained.

*Details including data graphs and charts demonstrating each of these points can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/oplkauv.

What can we do? Recommendations for ways to address these injustices can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/pp83uoe

A downloadable pdf of this policy brief can be found here.

www.parentsacrossamerica.org info@parentsacrossamerica.org

- See more at: http://parentsacrossamerica.org/paa-policy-brief-impact-poverty-race-cultural-bias-educational-opportunity/#sthash.goT7ffVI.dpuf



PAA Policy Brief: The Impact of Poverty, Race and Cultural Bias on Educational Opportunity* | Parents Across America:

PAA has collected a set of fact sheets that vividly demonstrate the impact of poverty, race and cultural bias on educational opportunity. What these facts show is that:

• There is no “level playing field.”
• Corporate reformers and many elected officials have us fighting the wrong war – a war against public education — rather than addressing the real problems of poverty and racism. ESEA/ESSA has taken us down the wrong road
• There are programs and approaches supported by parents that address the real problems poor students and students of color face.

Read and share our policy brief.

The full fact sheets are here.

We have also presented two webinars on this topic:

March 2, 2015, with Dr. Paul Thomas

July 21, 2015, one of our PAA Week 2015 sessions

Finally here are some ideas about how to address the real challenges facing student in poverty and students of color.

- See more at: http://parentsacrossamerica.org/fact-sheets-impact-poverty-race-cultural-bias-educational-opportunity/#sthash.YtOMRkUz.dpuf

Truth for America Video Project - Network For Public Education

Truth for America Video Project - Network For Public Education:

Truth for America Video Project

Do you have a creative and critical perspective on Teach For America?

If you are an educator, TFA corps member/alum, researcher, concerned citizen, parent, or student we invite you to create a 2-3 minute videoto provide both a creative and critical perspective and/or counternarrative about TFA to further public conversation.

Videos could include your own personal experiences with TFA, interviews with individuals who have experience with TFA, or general critiques of TFA’s influence in public education. However, you have creative flexibility to create any focus on TFA that you think is important for the public to be aware of.

Guidelines:

– Your short film(s) must be less than four minutes.

– You may submit as many short films as you wish.

– Don’t use any screenshots from TFA’s website or other “internal use only” material given TFA’s track record of attempting to deflect substance and limit critique.

– Upload your unlisted (not private or public) submission to YouTube and email a video link to: truthforamerica@npeaction.org.

Timeline & Process:

– Submissions and release form must be received by February 3, 2016.

– The Truth For America videos will be judged by a cadre of progressive TFA alumni.

Winners will be announced by February 5, 2016, and the best videos will be shown at the Network for Public Education’s 3rd Annual National Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, April 16-17, 2016. (for more information on the conference visitevents.bizzabo.com/NPEConference)

Don’t let TFA and their supporters use their millions to control the public narrative. Use your voice to tell the Truth for America. Join our Video Project, and start working on your submission today!

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Truth for America Video Project Release Form

I hereby give my permission to the Truth For America film contest to use and reproduce the video footage, photographs, or voice recordings of my film for promotional purposes. I hereby waive any right that I may have to inspect or approve the finished video product that may be used in connection herein.

My electronic signature indicates my permission for the Truth For America film contest to use video footage recorded for the contest.

By signing this video release form electronically, I hereby assign, transfer, or otherwise convey, all rights, titles, and interest in and to the video created for submission to the Truth For America including, without limitation, all copyrights and other intellectual property rights therein.

This video footage may be used for the following purposes:

• Presentations in public social media 
• Educational presentations
• Video on websites and social media sites for promotional purposes
• Printed materials developed and distributed by Truth For America contest.

There is no time-limit on the validity of this release nor is there any geographic specification of where these materials may be distributed.

I represent and warrant that the video created for submission to the Truth For America competition is original and does not infringe upon the copyright, trademark, patent or other intellectual property rights of any third party. If the video created for submission to Truth For America becomes the subject of a claim, suit, or allegation of copyright, trademark, or patent infringement, Truth For America shall have the right, in its sole discretion, to reject or otherwise disqualify the submission. I agree to indemnify and hold harmless the Truth For America contest, its officers, employees, Boards and Commissions, volunteers and agents from and against any and all claims, actions, costs, judgments, or damages of any type relating to the production or distribution of the video submitted to the Truth For America contest.

I have retained a copy of this release form.

 Truth for America Video Project - Network For Public Education:

The Color of Money: The McCleary Crime Scene Coloring Contest | Seattle Education

The Color of Money: The McCleary Crime Scene Coloring Contest | Seattle Education:

The Color of Money: The McCleary Crime Scene Coloring Contest

Why a coloring contest? Because our elected officials are refusing to listen to the pleas of school board members, superintendents, principals, teachers, parents, and students. The usual political channels aren’t working. Because, in the grand tradition of political satire, we are calling out the foolish ways of our elected officials. TRAP will not sit by as a complacent accomplice, while our children are made to suffer in under resourced schools. Because we want to make sure ART ­ in all its forms ­ is on the forefront of every discussion concerning school funding.

By Teacher Retention Advocate Parents (TRAP)

WHAT: ​Parent Protest of the Legislature’s Continued Contempt of the McCleary Decision.

WHEN:​ 2016 Legislative Session

WHERE:​ On the Internet at https://www.facebook.com/events/1513200138981620/

Who are the Teacher Retention Advocate Parents (TRAP)?

In September, TRAP formed to protest district-wide staff cuts in Seattle’s public schools.

We threw a Half ­Baked Bake Sale at district headquarters to draw attention to the The Color of Money: The McCleary Crime Scene Coloring Contest | Seattle Education:

“Be Careful Brethren” – A Message About Education from Martin Luther King Jr. | Poetic Justice

“Be Careful Brethren” – A Message About Education from Martin Luther King Jr. | Poetic Justice:

“Be Careful Brethren” – A Message About Education from Martin Luther King Jr.

“The Purpose of Education,” written by Martin Luther King, Jr., was first published in the February 1947 edition of the Morehouse College Student Newspaper. King was 18 Years Old.

The Purpose of Education

Morehouse College, 1948

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As I engage in the so-called “bull sessions” around and about the school, I too often find that most college men have a misconception of the purpose of education. Most of the “brethren” think that education should equip them with the proper instruments of exploitation so that they can forever trample over the masses. Still others think that education should furnish them with noble ends rather than means to an end.

It seems to me that education has a two-fold function to perform in the life of man and in society: the one is utility and the other is culture. Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the ligitimate goals of his life.

Education must also train one for quick, resolute and effective thinking. To think incisively and to think for one’s self is very difficult. We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.

The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.

The late Eugene Talmadge, in my opinion, possessed one of the better minds of Georgia, or even America. Moreover, he wore the Phi Beta Kappa key. By all measuring rods, Mr. Talmadge could think critically and intensively; yet he “Be Careful Brethren” – A Message About Education from Martin Luther King Jr. | Poetic Justice:

CURMUDGUCATION: LA: Buying a School Board

CURMUDGUCATION: LA: Buying a School Board:

LA: Buying a School Board

Danielle Dreilinger of the Time-Picayune and NOLA.com published an incredible story last week,outlining how some businessmen worked to buy themselves some members of the Jefferson Parish School Board in the 2010 election.

The Times-Picayune/NOLA.com had to sue its way to the Louisiana Supreme Court, but the  eventual result was 285 pages of emails from the government account of Lucien Gunter, former executive director of the public Jefferson Economic Development Commission and the private Jefferson Business Council and Committee for a Better Jefferson. Those emails leave no doubt that some business interests set out to push the teachers union aside, put their own people on the board, and make sure that their elected people did as they were told.

The time lag is due in part to a suit by one of Gunter's correspondents to keep the emails from being released, a suit that resulted in emails that were released, but with many private citizen names redacted. Dreilinger does not mention it, but I'm willing to bet that the lawsuits have also resulted in some government in-service training on How Not To Use Your Government Email Illegally For Your Own Private Baloney.

Journalists have done a lot of digging through those pages, and I recommend that you read the full article for the whole ugly picture. But here are some of the uglier parts.

The coalition, which called itself the "Enough Is Enough" coalition was led and coordinated by Jim Garvey, an elected member of the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. In fact, in a "white paper" written by the business interests, he was called "the leader of their 'Strike Force'" Think about that for a second-- an elected member of the state education board conspiring with CURMUDGUCATION: LA: Buying a School Board: