What’s the Point? | EduShyster

What’s the Point? | EduShyster:

What’s the Point?

  

Even as the debate over charter schools in Massachusetts heats up, the ultimate goal of the experiment is increasingly unclear…

It’s time for a field trip, reader, and today we’re headed to a little place I like to call *an alternate reality,* otherwise known as Malden, Massachusetts. Shall I summon forth the scene?

A special meeting of the Board of Education is underway. Members have convened to discuss the single most successful school turnaround in state history: once failing Brockton High School, which 15 years ago under went a teacher-led transformation. Board chair Paul Sagan has allotted extra time to hear from teachers who helped lead the acclaimed literacy initiative, subject of national accolades (although, weirdly, mostly ignored in Massachusetts). Secretary of Education James Peyser has a question. Is it true that a third of each graduating class or some 300+ kids per year, at a school where 63% of students are considered *high needs* and 20% are still learning English, routinely qualifies for the state’s Adams scholarship, guaranteeing four years of funding to any public university in the state? Peyser does the math on his phone, then checks it on his other phone. He strokes his chin, musing aloud that this number dwarfs the combined total of grads from Boston’s charter schools, and seems to include not just girls but boys too. Another question, this one from state Commissioner Mitchell Chester: this teacher-led concept sounds promising. Since every school has teachers is it replicable? At which point Board members pause to check their calendars to schedule a visit so that they can see for themselves what lasting, teacher-led transformation looks like.

OK—so that’s not exactly how things went down. Instead, the Board voted to gift Brockton with a new regional charter high school that will compete against Brockton High by offering less—Look Ma, no art or music!—all the while draining an estimated 5% of the city’s total education budget per year. 

Is it just me?
Any questions? You—the agitated woman in the second row who keeps making weird faces at Secretary Peyser. Why that would be me, and as it happens, I do happen to have a question. Several of them, as a matter of fact. Is it just me or is there no longer even basic agreement—even amongst the edu-crat officials who are supposedly running the show—about the point of the great Massachusetts charter school experiment? Remember that bit about laboratories of innovation? If the repository set up by the state’s Office of Charter Schools is any indication, that particular dream has died. I couldn’t find any *best practices* more What’s the Point? | EduShyster:

Join the PAA Book Club! | Parents Across America

Join the PAA Book Club! | Parents Across America:

Join the PAA Book Club! 

PAA Book Club For some time, PAA has been having our own discussions about poverty, race and educational opportunity. We’ve gathered a lot of very important facts and research, created some useful materials, and shared them in webinars and workshops. We’d like more people to join us in this important conversation, and we thought that an online book club would be a good way to do that. Much of the information we’ve been collecting has come from Dr. P. L. Thomas, a professor at Fordham University whose work was first brought to our attention by PAA Board member Nate Harris in a workshop Nate presented at our 2013 annual meeting. Dr. Thomas is a well-respected, prolific blogger and author on topics of schools and social justice. Since then, Dr. Thomas has become a mentor to PAA, helping us define the impact of poverty, race and cultural bias on students’ education opportunity. Diane Ravitch calls P. L. Thomas “the conscience of American education. He is our North Star.” So, of course, the first book we’ve selected for our book club is Dr. Thomas’ newest book, “Beware the Roadbuilders: Literature as Resistance.” Dr. Thomas will be joining us for this session. First book club date: Tuesday, March 29 at 8 pm ET Register here!  We’re going to use Eventbrite for book club registration and the Zoom meeting program for the book club itself. Once you register for this session via Eventbrite, we will send you the log-in information for the Zoom meeting. You will need to download the free Zoom program at zoom.us. Buy the book! You can try your local library for a free copy or you can just buy the book. All Garn Press ebooks are 50% off this month, and that includes “Roadbuilders,” which is going for $4.95 on Kindle. If you don’t have a Kindle, you can get a free app from Amazon to read a Kindle book on your phone or tablet. About the book Beware the Roadbuilders: Literature as Resistance was born out of blogging as an act of social justice. Over a period of about two years, many posts built the case against market-based education reform and for a critical re-imagining of public education. This book presents a coordinated series of essays based on that work, using a wide range of written and visual texts to call for the universal public education we have failed to achieve. The central image and warning of the book—“beware the roadbuilders”—is drawn from Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. The book presents a compelling argument that billionaires, politicians, and self-professed education reformers are doing more harm than good—despite their public messages. The public and our students are being crushed beneath their reforms. In the wake of Ferguson and the growing list of sacrificed young black men—Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner—the essays in this book gain an even wider resonance, seeking to examine both the larger world of inequity as well as the continued failure of educational inequity. While each chapter stands as a separate reading, the book as a whole produces a cohesive theme and argument about the power of critical literacy to read and re-read the world, and to write and re-rewrite the world (Paulo Freire). Supporting that larger message are several key ideas and questions: What are the confrontational texts we should be inviting students to read, that anyone should read? Instead of reducing texts to the narrow expectations of New Criticism or “close reading,” how do we expand those texts into how they inform living in a free society and engaging in activism? How do traditional assumptions about what texts matter and what texts reveal support the status quo of power? And how can texts of all types assist in the ongoing pursuit of equity among free people? Hope you can join us on the journey.

- See more at: http://parentsacrossamerica.org/join-paa-book-club/#sthash.imwDfixx.dpuf

Ruling Raises Objections to Release of Personal Student Data - ABC News

Ruling Raises Objections to Release of Personal Student Data - ABC News:

Ruling Raises Objections to Release of Personal Student Data

A recent federal court ruling ordering the release of personal data on more than 10 million California students highlights the growing amount of information schools now collect — and the loopholes that allow it to be released.

The order involves a lawsuit filed in 2011 in which plaintiffs are requesting data kept by the California Department of Education to determine whether the state is fulfilling its federal obligations for disabled students.

Judge Kimberly Mueller issued the order in late January directing state officials to release student information stored in Department of Education databases. The data includes everything from grades, test scores and specialized education plans for disabled students to more personal information such as names, Social Security numbers, addresses, and health records.

The data can only be viewed by the plaintiffs and must be destroyed or returned at the end of the lawsuit. Nonetheless, parents across the state are expressing concern and filing objections to stop their child's information from being released.

"Some of the things they are asking for are very personal and can be very detrimental in the wrong hands," said Justine Fischer, president of the California State Parent Teacher Association.

The federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act was created in 1974 to protect the privacy of student records, but it was written at a time when test scores and addresses were kept on paper and locked in a filing cabinet. The law also includes specific exemptions allowing student data to be released, including when mandated by court order.

Schools now collect significantly more information on students — a result of recent pushes to track and improve individual student performance using data, new federal reporting requirements, and apps and devices in classrooms. More than 35 states have passed bills in the past three years to protect student privacy, but updates to federal law have lagged.

Most of the federal law's exemptions involve sharing information for educational purposes, such as when a student transfers schools or applies for financial aid. The law also allows schools, without a student's permission, to release data to organizations conducting studies and "directory" information like names and addresses.

"The ability to collect information and store information and analyze it has greatly improved," said Matt Johnson, an associate with the Cooley firm in Washington, D.C. "There's a lot of good that can be done with that. But it can get to a point where you get past that and people can get uncomfortable. "

As a result of the court order in California, three state Assembly members are drafting a bill that would prohibit school districts from gathering Social Security numbers and other sensitive information unless required by federal law. California already has one of the nation's more conservative student data privacy laws, which prohibits online services and apps from selling student information.

"As a mom, I've seen my kids' schools over the years request Social Security numbers, medical information and other private information they don't need or have a right to," Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, said in a statement.

Keric Ashley, a deputy superintendent with the California Department of Education, said 90 Ruling Raises Objections to Release of Personal Student Data - ABC News:

Obama nominee to get 'prompt and fair' hearing Thursday | OregonLive.com

Obama nominee to get 'prompt and fair' hearing Thursday | OregonLive.com:

Obama nominee to get 'prompt and fair' hearing Thursday

A surprise nominee by President Barack Obama will get a hearing by a Republican-led Senate committee Thursday and has a good shot at being approved.

This has nothing to do with the Supreme Court, however. The nominee in question is John King Jr., whom Obama has formally nominated to become Secretary of Education, succeeding Arne Duncan.

Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the Republican chairman of the Senate Education Committee, has scheduled the hearing for 11 a.m. Pacific Time. Hepledged to give King "a prompt and fair hearing."

King, who was New York state commissioner of education for 3 1/2 years before coming to the federal education department as a top deputy to Duncan in January 2015, has been serving as acting education secretary since Duncan returned to his native Chicago at the end of December.

Duncan's confirmation sailed through Congress without a hitch. But Republicans in Congress subsequently grew upset with Obama's pick, after he used waivers to wield greater federal power over state education policy than ever before, including pushing some states to adopt the Common Core State Standards.

As a result, King is expected to face tough questioning about how he would operate, now that Congress has rewritten federal education law to veer away from the strong federal mandates under No Child Left Behind.

-- Betsy Hammond

betsyhammond@oregonian.com Obama nominee to get 'prompt and fair' hearing Thursday | OregonLive.com:

 

John King Quizzed on Charters, Teachers, Spending at House Budget Hearing - Politics K-12 - Education Week

John King Quizzed on Charters, Teachers, Spending at House Budget Hearing - Politics K-12 - Education Week:

John King Quizzed on Charters, Teachers, Spending at House Budget Hearing

Acting Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. got asked about a variety of issues during the House Education and the Workforce Committee's Wednesday hearing on the U.S. Department of Education's budget request for fiscal 2017, from charter schools to open educational resources.

King, whose own confirmation hearing will take place in the Senate education commitee on Thursday, was also quizzed about ways his department wants to improve the teaching profession and increase the diversity of the teaching workforce through its requested budget. And he was put on the hot seat by Republicans on the committee who expressed concerns about the new programs in the department's request. 

Unveiled earlier this month, the proposed fiscal 2017 budget for the Education Departmentprioritizes racial integration efforts, but would flat-fund several programs such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. (It does request $450 million in new Title I funds for disadvantaged students, but it's not truly "new" money, as my co-blogger Alyson Klein has explained.) It would also seek to significantly expand preschool and scale up promising educational practices at the local level. 

Overall, the request seeks $69.4 billion in discretionary funding, or a 1.9 percent increase. Generally speaking, President Barack Obama's budget request faces very long odds in Congress.

King told lawmakers that the budget puts a priority on equity, the teaching profession, and completion rates in higher education. Citing record-high graduation rates and falling dropout rates, King also told lawmakers that the budget "builds on that progress in important ways."

But several GOP representatives, including Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the committee chairman, were unimpressed by key aspects of the budget. Kline, for example, said he was unhappy that the request does not focus more attention on traditional funding streams like the IDEA

"My concern is that the budget is full of new programs," Kline told King. 

Hot Seat on Spending

Rep. Todd Rokita, R-Ind., the chairman of the committee's K-12 subcommittee, also aggressively questioned King about the wisdom of the spending proposal, which he said would contribute to the long-term rise in budget deficits.

Rokita, who attributed $127 billion in new mandatory spending in the request to the "Preschool for All" initiative and "America's College Promise," pointedly asked King if had actually been involved with developing the spending request, given his recent elevation to acting secretary. King replied that he had been involved.

"We were careful to stay within the constraints of the budget caps that were agreed to last year," King said earlier in the hearing.

And Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., the committee's ranking Democrat, took King's side when it came to the budget request's overall size, stating it was proof that, "We can increase the amount we spend on education in a responsible way without running higher deficits."

King was in more of a comfort zone when discussing teacher policy with Rep. Susan Davis, D-Calif., who said she was concerned about the diversity of the teaching workforce as well as the way the teaching profession is perceived.

When Davis cited, for example, teachers' concerns that leadership or advancement programs might take them out of their classrooms, King highlighted the $1 billion "RESPECT: Best Job in the World" competitive-grant program proposed earlier this month, which would fund teacher-advancement opportunities, efforts to improve teaching conditions, and make teacher professional development more flexibile, among other initiatives. (The "RESPECT" proposal is part of the department's fiscal 2017 budget request.)

"I am very worried about the ways in which the [tone of conversations] around teaching in the last decade has led folks to feel blamed or attacked," King told Davis.

He also noted his concern that only 2 percent of the teaching workforce is comprised of black men, and told Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson of Florida that attracting more diverse leaders into education is a "hugely important" issue. And speaking of the budget request's "Stronger Together" school integration initiative, King said, "We want our schools to be places where students experience the kind of diversity that they will experience in the workforce."

However, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., expressed general skepticism about competitive-grant programs, stating that in many cases they put smaller districts at a disadvantage when it comes to generating grant proposals.

Charter Accountability Highlighted

The acting secretary got several questions related to charters. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., asked King how the department planned to step up accountability measures for charters. 

King said his department was mainly focused on ensuring charter school authorizers were more vigorous in their oversight efforts, telling Grijalva, "There are places where authorizers should be doing a much better job." But he also noted that several issues around authorizers and accountability are ultimately a matter of state law.

The budget request seeks a $17 million increase for the department's charter school program, bringing it up to $350 million—there have been problems regarding charter accountability in states like Ohio, as Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge of Ohio also noted during the hearing. And last September, the Education Department awarded Ohio new charter school grant money despite recent evidence that charter students there, on average, learned less in a year than their peers in traditional public schools. 

King took the time to stress that while he views charter schools as a key part of promoting innovation in education, ultimately they were also responsible for contributing to strong academic outcomes for students. 

But King got a charter school-related shout-out from Rep. Luke Messer, R-Ind., who praised the department's response to concerns he and Rokita raised last year about the distribution of Title I funds to charters in the Hoosier State. King told Messer that his department was continuing conversations about the issue with the Indiana education department.

Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., is a fan of charters, but instead focused his attention on open educational resources. King said in response, "We think there's a huge opportunity for savings and sharing" in K-12 and higher education. In fact , the new Every Student Succeeds Act provides significant support to open educational resources by allowing block grant funding to be used on such resources. 

Several members also asked about career and technical education. King highlighted the budget's inclusion of $80 million for the "next generation" high school program that focuses on technology as a way to flesh out CTE programs. (This high school program has been included in past budgets, but hasn't made it across the finish line.)

"We see the next generation high school program as an opportunity to spur that innovation," King said.

Photo: Acting U.S. Secretary of Education John King, center standing, speaks during a roundtable discussion with lawmakers and local leaders in January in El Paso, Texas.--Victor Calzada /The El Paso Times via AP-File

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Former OKC teacher: Low-income children of color hurt most by choice-driven reforms | News OK - Linkis.com

Former OKC teacher: Low-income children of color hurt most by choice-driven reforms | News OK - Linkis.com:

Former OKC teacher: Low-income children of color hurt most by choice-driven reforms

 John Thompson 

I've never opposed locally controlled charter schools, but the soundbites repeated during the annual “Charter School Week” are hard to take. For instance, Texas charter advocates still claim that there are 100,000 students on their waiting lists. In fact, 30 percent of Texas charter capacity is underused. Their charters have 108,000 empty seats!

While I respect Oklahoma City's KIPP, the hard fact is that the market for “no excuses” charters maxed out years ago. Some students feel comfortable with their behaviorist pedagogy that works in a few high-poverty charters. But if Oklahoma City followed the lead of Memphis, Tenn., and New Orleans in expanding “no excuses” charters, we would recreate the tragedy of the 1980s economic bust when crowds of erstwhile students wandered our streets throughout the school day. Memphis is No. 1 and New Orleans is No. 3 in the percentage of kids out of school without jobs.

I'm particularly annoyed by advocates who pretend that KIPP serves the “same kids” as high-poverty neighborhood schools. Some even claim that KIPP serves the same children as those who attended Moon Middle School.

Nobody denies that Moon was very troubled. It was mentioned in the “Harper's Index” after suspending 80 percent of its sixth-graders students due to a lunchroom food fight. Back then, when mentoring Moon students, I repeatedly heard that it was “the alternative school to the Former OKC teacher: Low-income children of color hurt most by choice-driven reforms | News OK - Linkis.com:

Read Across America 2016 Ready to Take Flight - NEA Today

Read Across America 2016 Ready to Take Flight - NEA Today:

Read Across America 2016 Ready to Take Flight

 Set your sights to the sky! The National Education Association is taking flight with Southwest Airlines for this year’s annual Read Across America reading program.Millions of students nationwide will pick up a book and set Seuss on the loose in honor of NEA’s 19th Read Across America Day reading celebration and Dr. Seuss’s birthday on March 2.

Once again co-sponsored by Dr. Seuss Enterprises, Read Across America engages an estimated 45 million educators, parents, and students nationwide with school and community celebrations from coast to coast. These events are designed to pay homage to the beloved children’s book author and get young people excited about reading.

A six-city reading tour will kick-off Read Across America 2016.

“Every year on NEA’s Read Across America Day, the imaginations of children across the country are ignited when they open up a good book,” said NEA President Lily Eskelsen García. “While we take a fun and lighthearted approach to our Read Across America celebrations, we do so with a serious purpose in mind: to encourage a love of reading.”

The Read Across America reading tour will board Southwest Airlines and make stops in:

• Dallas, Tex. on February 26
• Nashville, Tenn. on February 29
• Phoenix, Ariz. on March 1
• San Diego, Calif. on March 2
• Denver, Colo. on March 3
• Atlanta, Ga. on March 4

This year’s featured book is Dr. Seuss’ recently released What Pet Should I Get, which will be presented at the San Diego Humane Society on March 2nd. The party will feature activity stations that highlight pet adoption and the importance of pet responsibility.

The entire tour promises to be a fun-filled reading extravaganza, with surprise visits by the Cat in the Hat (the Read Across America mascot) and his friends, Thing 1 and Thing 2!

“This national celebration is not just about one hour or one day of reading, it is about cultivating a lifetime of good reading habits that will translate into academic success,” added Eskelsen García. “NEA’s Read Across America brings students, parents, educators, and the entire community together to share the joy of reading.”

Photo: Brett Flashnick/NEARead Across America 2016 Ready to Take Flight - NEA Today:

Tennessee’s Trout/Taylor Value-Added Lawsuit Dismissed | VAMboozled!

Tennessee’s Trout/Taylor Value-Added Lawsuit Dismissed | VAMboozled!:

Tennessee’s Trout/Taylor Value-Added Lawsuit Dismissed

As you may recall, one of 15 important lawsuits pertaining to teacher value-added estimates across the nation (Florida n=2, Louisiana n=1, Nevada n=1, New Mexico n=4, New York n=3, Tennessee n=3, and Texas n=1 – see more information here) was situated in Knox County, Tennessee.

Filed in February of 2015, with legal support provided by the Tennessee Education Association (TEA), Knox County teacher Lisa Trout and Mark Taylor charged that they were denied monetary bonuses after their Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS — the original Education Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS)) teacher-level value-added scores were miscalculated. This lawsuit was also to contest the reasonableness, rationality, and arbitrariness of the TVAAS system, as per its intended and actual uses in this case, but also in Tennessee writ large. On this case, Jesse Rothstein (University of California – Berkeley) and I were serving as the Plaintiffs’ expert witnesses.

Unfortunately, however, last week (February 17, 2016) the Plaintiffs’ team received aCourt order written by U.S. District Judge Harry S. Mattice Jr. dismissing their claims. While the Court had substantial questions about the reliability and validity of the TVAAS, the Court determined that the State satisfied the very low threshold of the “rational basis test,” at legal issue. I should note here, however, that all of the evidence that the lawyers for the Plaintiffs collected via their “extensive discovery,” including the affidavits both Jesse and I submitted on Plaintiffs’ behalves, were unfortunately not considered in Judge Mattice’s motion to dismiss. This, perhaps, makes sense given some of the assertions made by the Court, forthcoming.

Ultimately, the Court found that the TVAAS-based, teacher-level value-added policy at Tennessee’s Trout/Taylor Value-Added Lawsuit Dismissed | VAMboozled!: