Portland Public Schools' threatening letter to parent-critic shows the real bully: Editorial Agenda 2016 | OregonLive.com

Portland Public Schools' threatening letter to parent-critic shows the real bully: Editorial Agenda 2016 | OregonLive.com:

Portland Public Schools' threatening letter to parent-critic shows the real bully: Editorial Agenda 2016

 You can't legislate Portland Polite. So Portland Public Schools is taking a novel approach: It's demanding it with a threatening letter from the district's legal counsel.

At least, that's the approach that the district took with Kim Sordyl, a parent of two PPS students whose aggressive advocacy and records requests on behalf of families has resulted in embarrassing disclosures for the district in recent years. Among the problems she's exposed: double-digit raises approved by Superintendent Carole Smith for some of her top-paid staff and the district's slipshod practices in issuing millions of dollars' worth of no-bid contracts. Sordyl, a lawyer-turned-stay-at-home-mom, also regularly helps parents navigate the district's complaint process, emails board members about problems she sees in the district's management and posts acerbic updates on PPS developments in Facebook discussion groups.

Sordyl herself concedes she can be blunt and direct. But in PPS' eyes, she's so mean and her comments are so "cruel" that it's worried employees will file workers' compensation claims.

In a November 2015 letter, the district's general counsel and human resources director warned Sordyl that if she didn't improve her behavior on social media and elsewhere, they would take "necessary measures" to protect employees from her "personal attacks and defamatory statements." The letter claims that she has made "accusatory and unwarranted statements in social media about specific PPS employees that characterize them as 'stupid,' 'unethical,' 'dishonest' and 'incompetent.'"

Editorial Agenda 2016

Get Oregon centered

Better leadership in education

Make Portland a city that works

Build Oregon prosperity

Protect and expand personal freedom

Get pot right

_______________________________

Read more about the editorial board's priorities for Oregon.

We'll get to the "defamatory statement" later. But first, considering the venom unleashed on school-related discussions lately, particularly about divisive proposals on redrawing school boundaries, "stupid" and "incompetent" are among the kinder words on social media. Second, are district employees really so fragile that they need to be shielded from any criticism?

In any event, the letter contends that her comments are distracting employees from their work and hurting the district's ability to recruit and retain staff. The district did not provide any evidence of that in a recent meeting with Sordyl and her attorney, however. The district also claims she is creating potential liability for the district if employees seek worker's compensation due to stress from Sordyl's "public attacks and ridicule." Again, no evidence that that is happening. But the letter, signed by General Counsel Jollee Patterson and Human Resources Director Sean Murray, emphasizes the district has a responsibility to protect employees from harassment in the workplace.

How Facebook postings constitute harassment in the workplace or would interfere with getting work done is not ever explained. Murray and Patterson did not explain that point in the meeting with Sordyl and her attorney. Murray did, however, complain about Sordyl's supposedly defamatory email to a small group of parents and PPS administrators which, he emphasized, was sent "on our district e-mail."

So about that email. In that November 2015 message, Sordyl referred to Sascha Perrins, a top administrator, who was included on the email chain. She said he had "engaged in a cover-up of child abuse" by a teacher in 2013 referring to his investigation of multiple complaints filed by parents alleging that a teacher routinely yelled at children in class, belittled them and verbally abused them so profoundly that some of the kids had physical ailments or needed counseling. Parents, including Sordyl, criticized the investigation as shoddy, saying that Perrins did not talk with students or with adults who witnessed the alleged harassment.

Sordyl's attorney maintains there's no defamation, saying that the underlying Portland Public Schools' threatening letter to parent-critic shows the real bully: Editorial Agenda 2016 | OregonLive.com:

It’s “That Time of Year” Again | Live Long and Prosper

It’s “That Time of Year” Again | Live Long and Prosper:

It’s “That Time of Year” Again

THE WRONG KINDS OF TESTS

While the supermajority in the Indiana legislature is busy thinking of ways to label students, further reduce collective bargaining for teachers, and divert even more taxpayer money to private schools through expansion of the nation’s most expansive voucher program, teachers in the state’s public schools are still trying to do the best they can for their students during a difficult part of the school year.

Yes, it’s “that time of year” again, and instruction time will be limited while the tool used almost exclusively for labeling, blaming, and punishing, is filled out, and shipped off for grading.

It’s time to take…

I’ve posted comments in the past from an experienced Indiana teacher who has been writing to me on and off for the last year. The last time was during last year’s testing window. The latest email came yesterday.

This year, my teacher friend commented on how developmentally inappropriate the tests are…

[Where is the data] that shows how critical thinking, problem solving, abstract thinking, etc. are developed in the brain? I’m certain there is also data that shows the impact of genetics on these areas, as well as a scale showing that these ‘aptitudes’ grow/develop in stages in a child. It would also show that these aptitudes, and the time frames by which they develop, 

It’s “That Time of Year” Again | Live Long and Prosper:

 

Education Department misled public about investigation of loan servicers, says watchdog - The Washington Post

Education Department misled public about investigation of loan servicers, says watchdog - The Washington Post:
Education Department misled public about investigation of loan servicers, says watchdog

 The Education Department conducted a deeply flawed review of its student loan servicers, the middlemen who collect and apply payments to debt, and knowingly misled the public about the findings, according to a report released Tuesday by the agency’s inspector general.

The charges being leveled against the department stem from an audit administered after the Justice Department fined student loan servicer Navient Solutions $60 million in 2014 for unlawfully charging active-duty service members high interest rates on student loans. To ensure the violations were not widespread, then-Education Secretary Arne Duncan pledged to review all loan servicers’ records and later said there was little evidence of any wrongdoing.

[Sallie Mae to pay $97 million for unlawfully charging troops on student loans]

Tuesday’s report rebuts those claims and paints the department’s investigation as shortsighted and inaccurate. The inspector general said the agency used an inadequate sample of loans to draw conclusions about whether its four largest servicers — Navient, Great Lakes, Nelnet and American Education Services — were complying with a law that caps interest rates for active-duty troops at 6 percent. Few of the borrowers requested the military benefit, and even fewer were eligible. What’s more, the department failed to remove duplicate records and exclude loans in military deferment or grace period with an interest rate of 6 percent or less.

In the case of Navient, the department said the servicer correctly granted interest-rate requests from 10 active-duty borrowers, but it turns out that three of those approvals occurred outside the scope of the review period, from 2009 to 2014. None of the four main servicers were required to review their portfolio of loans to identify and correct all potential cases of incorrect denials, according to the report.

Despite knowing the limitations of its review, the Education Department declared that less than 1 percent of the troops’ files it reviewed contained violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA). The inspector general called the May 2015 news release announcing the findings “unsupported and inaccurate.”

When the department’s findings were released, lawmakers were suspicious of the near-clean bill of health given to the loan servicers. Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Patty Murray of Washington and Richard Education Department misled public about investigation of loan servicers, says watchdog - The Washington Post:

City Auditors: Charter School in Bronx Spent More Than $135,000 Without Proper Authorization or Documentation

City Auditors: Charter School in Bronx Spent More Than $135,000 Without Proper Authorization or Documentation:

City Auditors: Charter School in Bronx Spent More Than $135,000 Without Proper Authorization or Documentation

 For the first time, the city comptroller has begun auditing charter schools, and his initial report finds a school in the South Bronx could not account for more than $100,000 in spending. NY1's Lindsey Christ filed the following report. 

$6,000 for ice cream. $16,000 for unlimited MetroCards. $7,000 so the principal could travel to Boston, Albany and Las Vegas.

"If you're going to go to Vegas, you better document it," said City Comptroller Scott Stringer.

Over a two-year period, officials at the South Bronx Charter School for International Cultures and the Arts spent more than $135,000 without the proper authorization or documentation, according to city auditors.

Monday's report is the first in a series of charter school audits by City Comptroller Scott Stringer. Charter school operators had challenged whether Stringer had the right to audit their schools, which are publicly funded but privately managed, but the comptroller said they all ended up cooperating.

"It's all part of doing business with the city and helping our children," Stringer said. "There has to be accountability. There has to be somebody watching the store. That's the job I'm supposed to do."

At the South Bronx Charter School, parents say they're surprised to hear so much spending was not properly documented.

"I did not think the principal would do such things, or at least be accused of such things," one parent said.

The school's board of trustees has pledged to review and revise financial practices in the wake of the audit.

Stringer says he's still auditing Success Academy Charter Schools, the city's highest-performing, most controversial and largest charter school network, with 11,000 students and 34 schools. Founder Eva Moskowitz makes more than $500,000 and is a former political rival of both Stringer and Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The network successfully sued in 2014 to stop the state comptroller from conducting audits. Albany lawmakers later gave the city comptroller the power to examine charters' finances. Stringer says he expects to release that audit later this year.City Auditors: Charter School in Bronx Spent More Than $135,000 Without Proper Authorization or Documentation:

Magnolia Science Academy - A Gulen Charter School: In the beginning of Gulenist Magnolia Science Academy, young and inexperienced applicants

Magnolia Science Academy - A Gulen Charter School: In the beginning of Gulenist Magnolia Science Academy, young and inexperienced applicants:

HOW TO GET A CHARTER SCHOOL WITHOUT ANY SORT OF EXPERIENCE 

In the beginning of Gulenist Magnolia Science Academy, young and inexperienced applicants

 Examining the early days of Magnolia Science Academy, you will scratch your head in bewilderment at how these schools were approved back in 2001

.

 CEO history of the Magnolia organization:

• 2002 to ~2008: Huseyin Hurmali rotated out of the Gulen education world to become chairman of the West America Turkic Council (WATC), one of the six regional NGOs under the Turkic American Alliance, the Gulen Movement's national US umbrella. By 2012, Hurmali was back in Turkey working for the Journalists and Writers Foundation, a major, and completely acknowledged to be Gulenist public relations NGO (in Turkish: Gazeticiler ve Yazarlar Vakfi, GYV). Today Hurmanli, the first CEO of Magnolia, is the vice president of GYV.
• 2009 to 2011: Suleyman Bahceci appears in the original 2000 application for the first Harmony school in TX, listed as a member of the charter school development team. Now he's executive VP for a Gulenist university in Virginia. https://www.linkedin.com/in/suleymanbahceci  
• 2012 to 2014 (late summer): Mehmet Argin (returned to Turkey and works at a Gulenist university there.http://p.mevlana.edu.tr/margin/  
• 2014 (late summer to end of year): Murat Biyik, interim CEO (now listed as a board member of the Gulen charter school in UT)
• 2015 to present: Caprice Young

2. Info about the people involved with the very first Magnolia charter school. Since I've never been able to get hold of the original MSA-Reseda petition submitted to LAUSD in 2001 (would likely list the founding team members), I looked at the board members who appear on the very first tax return for the Dialog Cultural, Scientific & Educational Magnolia Science Academy - A Gulen Charter School: In the beginning of Gulenist Magnolia Science Academy, young and inexperienced applicants:

Big Education Ape: Search results for KILLING ED http://bit.ly/1QpwNGr

Have you Heard of Willa Johnson Cofield? This is Why you Should... - Lily's Blackboard

Have you Heard of Willa Johnson Cofield? This is Why you Should... - Lily's Blackboard:

Have you Heard of Willa Johnson Cofield? This is Why you Should…

Meet Willa Johnson Cofield. More than 50 years ago, she was a teacher at the all-Black high school in Enfield, N.C., instructing her students in literature and grammar by day, leading voter-registration campaigns and petitioning to end segregation in her small town by night.

In April 1963, a group of her students, fired up by their classroom discussions, went to the Whites-only library in town knowing they’d be turned away. They were inspired to start a series of demonstrations to dismantle the status quo and even attended the March on Washington in August of that year.

For Cofield, the activism she engaged in was an expression of her belief in education and social justice. She felt they were intertwined. Her employer, however, did not. She was fired.

But the values she espoused lived on long after she left North Carolina and settled in New Jersey. Cofield at age 87 continues to talk to audiences of students and teachers about voting rights and advocating for laws that will make it easier – not more difficult – to vote. (You can take a stand on this issue by emailing your elected officials to support the Voting Rights Enhancement Act.)

Black History Month is often when we tell the familiar stories of struggle and triumph: the heroism of Rosa Parks, the vision of Martin Luther King, Jr., the boldness of Malcolm X. These activists and leaders were instrumental in our nation’s progress, and they must never be forgotten. But there are so many stories of educators who were activists. Their names may not be as familiar, but their impact was just as great. And it’s up to us to share those narratives throughout the year.

Did you know the very first institutions created by the newly freed slaves were schools? The former slaves had little money, they didn’t have strategic plans, and they couldn’t call on people with influence and resources for assistance or advice. Yet they somehow got these schools up and running only a year or two after slavery.

“They pooled their resources – which were very meager – to hire a teacher, to find a building, to build a building, to use an abandoned building, to create a school,” says historian Eric Foner. “And at these schools, everybody is going… .This is one of the critical definitions of freedom for black people: the ability to get an education.”

The freed slaves wanted for their sons and daughters what they would never have themselves. These mothers and fathers believed all children – including the children of those who had been in bondage, who were considered less than full citizens and denied full participation in society – deserved the opportunity to learn. And they were determined to provide it. Consider the founding of Talladega College in Alabama. A small group of slaves gathered Have you Heard of Willa Johnson Cofield? This is Why you Should... - Lily's Blackboard:

Convincing Arguments Made in Teacher ‘Tenure’ Appeal - NEA Today

Convincing Arguments Made in Teacher ‘Tenure’ Appeal - NEA Today:

Convincing Arguments Made in Teacher ‘Tenure’ Appeal

Fifth-grade teacher Gabby Ibarra speaks to the press prior to oral arguments for Vergara v. State of California in front of the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Los Angeles, February 25, 2016.

The deep-pocketed corporate interests who have been undermining public education across the nation had reason to celebrate on June 10, 2014, when a superior court judge in California ruled that laws governing teacher due process were unconstitutional. The court stayed the verdict in Vergara v. State of California, however, after the California Teachers Association (CTA) and the California Federation of Teachers (CFT), as well as California Governor Jerry Brown, and State Superintendent Tom Torlakson, immediately filed an appeal, denouncing the decision as “without support in law or fact.”

On February 25, Vergara headed back to court. Attorneys representing 400,000 educators asked a three-justice panel in the California Court of Appeal to overturn the meritless decision. Michael Rubin, the legal counsel representing California’s educators, emerged from the courthouse in downtown Los Angeles optimistic, telling reporters outside that he was encouraged by the focus and tenor of the justice’s questions, which zeroed in on the profoundly flawed reasoning behind the plaintiffs’ arguments. “We are confident we will prevail,” Rubin said.

The decision issued by Judge Rolf M. Treu in 2014 is riddled with judicial errors and represents an extraordinary example of judicial overreach. During the trial, the court ignored evidence demonstrating how California’s due process protections for teachers improve public schools, while pronouncing the laws to be deterrents to good teachers being hired in high poverty schools – a claim unsupported by the facts.  “There is no evidence—zero—that these statutes are the cause of any constitutional violation,” Rubin said.

Because the evidence fell so far short of establishing any link between teacher due process and educational disparities, the court had no business striking down the statute, Rubin said.

“Disputes over education policy are for the legislature to resolve, not the courts.”

Gabby Ibarra, a 5^th grade teacher at Niemes Elementary school in Cerritos, CA, told reporters outside the court that the relentless assault on teacher workplace Convincing Arguments Made in Teacher ‘Tenure’ Appeal - NEA Today:

Where Schools Are Separate and Still Unequal - The Atlantic

Where Schools Are Separate and Still Unequal - The Atlantic:

Separate and Still Unequal

In 95 of the largest 100 U.S. metros, students of color attend school with mostly poor or low-income peers

Zak Bickel / The Atlantic

In a modern-day tale of two cities, in virtually every major U.S. metropolitan area students of color are much more likely than whites to attend public schools shaped by high concentrations of poverty, an analysis of federal data has found.

In all but five of the 95 largest cities by population for which data is available, more minority than white students attend public schools where most of their classmates qualify as poor or low-income, according to the analysis of data from the National Equity Atlas. In a full three-fourths of cities, the share of minority students attending mostly poor or low-income schools is at least 20 percentage points greater than the share of white students. In 29 of the cities, the gap is at least 40 percentage points.

Across a wide range of cities, the numbers point to a massive racial imbalance in exposure to concentrated poverty. In St. Louis, 92 percent of black, but only 27 percent of white, students attend schools where most of their classmates qualify as poor or low-income. In Dallas, 38 percent of white, compared to 95 percent of black and 97 percent of Latino students, attend mostly low-income schools. In Los Angeles, the numbers are 49 percent for whites, 85 percent for African Americans, and 96 percent for Latinos.

Even in the cities experiencing the fastest economic growth since the recession, students of color predominantly remain trapped in low-income schools. Austin, Texas, is one of the fastest-growing economically vibrant communities in America, but 75 percent of black and 77 percent of Latino students there attend majority-poor schools, compared to just 12 percent of whites. And in Seattle, where the tech sector is driving the economic boom, only 15 percent of white students, and about two-thirds of black (69 percent) and Latinos (66 percent), attend a majority-poor school. In Denver, 41 percent of whites attend a majority-poverty school, though those numbers more than double for the share of black (83 percent) and Latino students (93 percent).

“Here we are, 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education and our schools are woefully separate and unequal, and in many cases we're actually going backward from where we were,” said Brad Lander, a member of the New York City Council. “I think we've been painfully blind to the problem.” The contrast between the levels of economic segregation facing white and minority students—a well-established problem—re-emerges from the analysis of data provided by the National Equity Atlas, a joint project of PolicyLink and the University of Southern Where Schools Are Separate and Still Unequal - The Atlantic:

Who’s Raking in the Big Bucks in “CharterWorld”? | The Merrow Report

Who’s Raking in the Big Bucks in “CharterWorld”? | The Merrow Report:

Who’s Raking in the Big Bucks in “CharterWorld”?

Here’s a thought: What if school administrators were paid on a per-pupil basis?  The salaries could be computed based on total enrollment, or, if you want to use VAM, a value-added measure, then the $$-per-pupil could be based on the number of students successfully completing the year.

For fun, let’s compare the pay pulled down by public school superintendents with the money paid to the CEO’s of some charter school networks.   Before you read on, write down your hunch: which school CEO/Superintendent is raking in the most on a per-student basis? And who’s the lowest paid on a per-student basis?

Let’s begin with Chicago, where the public school enrollment (including charter schools) has dipped to 392,000 students. The Chicago school leader (called the CEO) is paid $250,000.  That means he’s paid 64 cents per pupil.  Factor out the 61,000 students in charter schools, and Forrest Claypool’s wages per student go up to 76 cents per kid.

One of Chicago’s leading charter networks, the nationally recognized Noble Network of Charter Schools, paid its CEO and founder Michael Milkie a salary of $209,520 and a bonus of $20,000.  NNCS, which received the Broad Prize last year, enrolls 11,000 students, meaning that Mr. Milkie is paid $21.00 per student.

Let’s turn our attention to New York City. Chancellor Carmen Fariña presides over a school system with 1,1o0,000 students and is paid $227,727 per year.  That comes to $.20 per child.  But she also receives her retirement annuity of $208,506, so if we factor that in, she’s pulling down a whopping $.40 per child.

New York’s most prominent charter school operator is, of course, Eva Moskowitz, the Who’s Raking in the Big Bucks in “CharterWorld”? | The Merrow Report:

Dana Goldstein: Algebra II has to go.

Algebra II has to go.:

Down With Algebra II!

It drives dropout rates and is mostly useless in real life. Andrew Hacker has a plan for getting rid of it.

Algebra II, which is required by the new Common Core curriculum standards used by 47 states and territories, drives dropouts at both the high school and college levels.

angelacolac/Thinkstock

 n his new book The Math Myth: And Other STEM Delusions, political scientist Andrew Hacker proposes replacing algebra II and calculus in the high school and college curriculum with a practical course in statistics for citizenship (more on that later). Only mathematicians and some engineers actually use advanced math in their day-to-day work, Hacker argues—even the doctors, accountants, and coders of the future shouldn’t have to master abstract math that they’ll never need.

I showed the book to my husband, Andrei, a computer programmer who loved math in school. He scrunched up his face. “People don’t use Shakespeare in their jobs, but it’s still important for them to read it,” he said.

“It’s not the same,” I told him. “Reading fiction builds empathy.”

“Math helps us understand the world around us!” Andrei replied. “Like how derivatives demonstrate change over time.” He smiled, and I could tell that for him, it was all clear and beautiful.

But I had no idea what he was talking about. In high school, I found math so indecipherable that I would sometimes cry over my homework. I don’t think I ever understood what a derivative signified 15 years ago, when I was struggling my way to a low B in calculus—a class I was convinced I had to take to pad my college applications.

Hacker attacks not only algebra but the entire push for more rigorous STEM education.

So Hacker’s book is deeply comforting. I’m not alone, it tells me—lots of smart people hate math. The reason I hated math, was mediocre at it, and still managed to earn a bachelor’s degree was because I had upper-middle-class parents who paid for tutoring and eventually enrolled me in a college that doesn’t require math credits in order to graduate. For low-income students, math is often an impenetrable barrier to academic success. Algebra II, which includes polynomials and logarithms, and is required by the new Common Core curriculum standards used by 47 states and territories, drives dropouts at both the high school and college levels. The situation is most dire at public colleges, which are the mostAlgebra II has to go.:

The Hidden Agenda Behind 21st Century Learning | Psychology Today

The Hidden Agenda Behind 21st Century Learning | Psychology Today:
The Hidden Agenda Behind 21st Century Learning
Public-private partnership is strangling our education system.

 How has our public education system gotten so off track?

High-stakes testing, obsessive data collection, and lofty promises of technology’s potential to “revolutionize” education are contributing to ever-increasing amounts of school-based screen-time. The invasion is occuring with complete disregard for what it taking away from in terms of basic developmental needs, as well as for screentime's negative influence on nervous system health.  Health and development risks aside, research suggests computer use in schools drags down test scores(link is external).  

Why collect copious amounts of data if the process of data collection itself negatively impacts student performance? Or the ability to acquire real-life skills? Not surprisingly, when education policies are ineffective and impractical but continue to move forward like a freight train, what’s typically greasing the wheels is--you guessed it--money.

This month's post is by Tara Ehrcke(link is external), a high school math teacher and public education advocate in British Columbia. I highly recommend reading the more complete article foundhere(link is external), as Ms Ehrcke manages to paint a disturbing but clear picture of the complex public-private relationship that’s placing a stranglehold on public education in the US and Canada. Below are snippets of her insightful commentary:

________________________

A false narrative about our schools is spreading through the education community and the public at large. Apparently, with the turn of the clock and the dawn of a new century, our schools are suddenly inadequate. As Canadians for 21st Century Learning and Innovationarticulates the issue, “public education in Canada must be transformed to position Canadians for success in the knowledge and digital age.”1  The Partnership for 21st Century Skills puts it this way: “Every child in the U.S. needs 21st century knowledge and skills to succeed as effective citizens, workers and leaders.”2 A common turn of phrase is that we must leave behind the “factory model” of schooling and embrace the technological change of the new century.

A peek beneath the surface reveals that the drive for change and the changes sought are not new, necessary or unique, but in fact familiar — cost cutting, privatization, and restructuring public education around technology. Despite the promises, 21st Century Learning will not bring “success”. The crisis of “factory schooling” is manufactured. And The Hidden Agenda Behind 21st Century Learning | Psychology Today:

Security Guards In Compton Schools Staging Sickout With Teachers « CBS Los Angeles

Security Guards In Compton Schools Staging Sickout With Teachers « CBS Los Angeles:

Security Guards In Compton Schools Staging Sickout With Teachers

COMPTON (CBSLA.com) — Several security guards working in the Compton Unified School District called in sick Monday, joining the teachers who have been staging sickouts as they demand better pay.

For the third time since last week, teachers, custodians, security guards and anyone governed by a union contract with the school district called in sick.

A high school teacher who declined to reveal her name or appear on camera said her union has not taken a strike vote and does not plan to. The sick days are the members’ way of trying to make their point, she said.

CBS2/KCAL9’s Dave Lopez called the union for comment, but his call was not returned.

Most of the teachers in the district were in the classrooms Monday, except for one school. But the district would not say which one.

At Compton High School on Monday, there was no organized teacher sickout. But there was a sickout among the security guards at most of the schools, according to Lopez.

Superintendent Darin Brawley’s office released the following statement:

“Today several members of our classified staff called in sick at several schools necessitating temporary adjustments in staff assignments to ensure the District provides a full day of instruction. There were also several teachers that called in sick at one of our schools.

As superintendent I want to assure parents and the community that the District has taken every step to ensure all students are in class and that all the campuses are safe. For the most part, the classified staff that called in sick do not impact classroom instruction, and through temporary shuffling of staff the District’s schools are in full operation.

It continues to be regrettable that employees who are dissatisfied with the progress of their negotiations with the District decide to express their frustration with actions that can hurt and impede our children’s progress in the classroom.”

The teachers and staff are fighting for higher wage and better health benefits after being offered a 2-percent pay increase. They are also unhappy that contract negotiations have stalled.

So far, there is no word on whether teachers and staff will vote to go on strike.Security Guards In Compton Schools Staging Sickout With Teachers « CBS Los Angeles:

CURMUDGUCATION: PTA Sells Out

CURMUDGUCATION: PTA Sells Out:
PTA Sells Out

 Shannon Sevier, vice-president for advocacy of the National PTA, took to the Huffinmgton Post this week to shill for the testing industry. It was not a particularly artful defense, with Sevier parroting most of the talking points put forth by test manufacturers and their hired government guns.


Sevier starts out by reminiscing about when her children took their Big Standardized Tests, and while there was fear and trepidation, she also claims to remembers "the importance of the assessments in helping my children's teachers and school better support their success through data-driven planning and decision-making."

I'm a little fuzzy on what time frame we'd be talking about, because Sevier's LinkedIN profile seems to indicate that she was working in Europe from 2009-2014. Pre-2009 tests would be a different animal than the current crop. But even if she was commuting, or her children were here in the states, that line is a load of bull.

"Support their success through data-driven planning and decision-making" is fancy talk for "helped design more targeted test prep in order to make sure that test scores went up." No BS Tests help teachers teach. Not one of them. There is no useful educational feedback. There is no detailed educational breakdown of educational goals provided to teachers on a timely basis, and, in fact, in CURMUDGUCATION: PTA Sells Out:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rahm gives advice to Trump on race relations

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rahm gives advice to Trump on race relations:

Rahm gives advice to Trump on race relations

 As horrific as they are, Trump's stupid racist comments are a gift to Clinton Democrats like Rahm Emanuel who only have to distance themselves from Trump, Mussolini and the KKK to become the "progressive" alternative. 


From Crain's editor Tom Corfman:

Maybe Mayor Rahm Emanuel is watching too many “Star Wars” movies lately, but he accused Trump of “playing with dark forces” for not emphatically disavowing the support of white supremacist leader David Duke, the Tribune reports. The mayor also knocked Trump for retweeting a quote by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. 

“Whether it was dealing with Mussolini or David Duke, his statements or the lack of clarity around his statements, you know, you sleep in the bed you make,” he Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rahm gives advice to Trump on race relations:

GRIT YOUR TEETH | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing

GRIT YOUR TEETH | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:

GRIT YOUR TEETH

We admire people and fictional characters from all walks of life who display courage, bravery, spirit, strength of character, fortitude, resolve, determination, endurance, and spunk. All of these words are synonyms for a now “hated” word…. GRIT. Why?

I believe it is because it is another word stolen from our positive vocabulary by “reformistas” and thus has been deemed anathema to use.

That’s letting the wolf tell us what to believe!

However it seems, that even within the wolf’s lair there is a dispute about “grit” and the stupidity to try to test and measure it.

In this NYT article entitled, Testing for Joy and Grit? Schools Nationwide Push to Measure Students’ Emotional Skills, Kate Zernike interviews people on both sides of the argument about whether or not to test for the social and emotional skills educators know kids need to succeed in school and post high school.

She writes,

“A recent update to federal education law requires states to include at least GRIT YOUR TEETH | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:

Detroit Schools’ Pending Fiscal Collapse Endangers Over 45,000 Children | janresseger

Detroit Schools’ Pending Fiscal Collapse Endangers Over 45,000 Children | janresseger:

Detroit Schools’ Pending Fiscal Collapse Endangers Over 45,000 Children

 The public schools in Detroit, Michigan—a school district that serves over 45,000 students—may run out of money in April.  The mess is so complicated that it is hard to know even how to describe it.  How to address it would require strong leadership that appears to be lacking in Michigan these days.

The state is a one-party, all Republican state.  Its governor and legislature are unified in their commitment to lowering taxes through austerity budgeting.  In education they have also proven to be pro-privatization at least in the biggest and poorest cities.

One thing is certain. The kind of thing that is happening in Detroit is unlikely to affect your children personally unless you live in one of the 10 most distressed large U.S. cities profiled in the NY Times last week—Cleveland; Detroit;  Newark; Toledo; San Bernardino, Calif; Stockton, Calif.; Milwaukee; Buffalo; Memphis; and Cincinnati or a similar smaller city like Camden or Gary or Youngstown or Hartford or Flint. What is alarming is that Detroit’s public school crisis has not created any kind of urgent public sense that it must be remedied immediately.

The situation in Detroit’s schools has been a long time in the making.  A lot of deplorable choices have been made by politicians over the years.  Here are some of the major problems.

First, the school district has a staggering $3.5 billion long-term deficit.

Second, fifteen of Detroit’s schools were, several years ago, turned into a state Education Achievement Authority that has never encompassed more than this small group of the city’s Detroit Schools’ Pending Fiscal Collapse Endangers Over 45,000 Children | janresseger:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Teachers get ready. Another strike looming.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Teachers get ready. Another strike looming.:

Teachers get ready. Another strike looming.

CTU  members and supporters marched through the loop Feb. 4th.

With a strike authorization vote from the rank-and-file in their pocket and a schools CEO who won't bargain in good faith, CTU leaders are preparing the membership for a strike on April 1st.

Rahm's fixer, Forrest Claypool, hasn't been able to fix anything. The mayor with the tough-guy rep, has turned into a pussy cat when it comes to taking on his pal, Gov. ("Little Trump") Rauner, who continues to hold the school budget hostage in an attempt to force CPS into bankruptcy. 

Faced with a new round of lay-offs and with Claypool's contract-busting push to drop the teachers' pension pick-up, amounting to a 7% pay cut, a strike seems to be the only course left to the CTU.

"For them to say 'You can't go on strike, but we can make a unilateral change in terms of employment by way of a 7 percent pay cut,' that's just an outrageous violation of the way labor law works," CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey said at Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Teachers get ready. Another strike looming.: