Inglewood schools lagging under state takeover, auditor says | 89.3 KPCC

Inglewood schools lagging under state takeover, auditor says | 89.3 KPCC:
Inglewood schools lagging under state takeover, auditor says

The Inglewood Unified School District's finances and operations have not significantly improved under the administration of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, officials with the California State Auditor's office told residents at a public hearing Thursday night.

“Deficit spending has continued in the three years following the state take over and the savings called for in the district’s fiscal recovery plan have not materialized,” said Deputy State Auditor Ben Belnap.

The 11,000-student school district was on the verge of bankruptcy in July, 2012, when school board members requested a $55 million bailout loan from the state. In accepting the loan, the board gave up its authority and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson appointed a state administrator to run the school district.

But there's been growing criticism of Torlakson’s oversight of Inglewood Unified, one of only nine school districts in the state that has requested a state bailout loan.

The audit found that expenditures increased from $115.3 million to $125.5 million between fiscal years 2012-13 and 2014-15. Getting the budget into the black is critical, the auditor said, because it’s a requirement for a return of local control and it’s the only way the school district will be able to repay the $29 million dollars it has spent from the loan it requested.

“The state has done a disservice, at this time, to this district,” Johnny Young, a former Inglewood Unified school board member, said as he left the hearing in the Inglewood High School auditorium.

State Asseblywoman Autumn Burke said recent reports of dilapidated and dangerous facilities should prompt Torlakson’s office to move Inglewood to the top of his priority list.

“I know you guys have a lot of schools but this one is incredibly important, this community is incredibly important, and it's going through an incredible time of change," Burke said. "It is inexcusable to allow our children to suffer the way they have."

The state auditor recommended the state administrator to come up with annual goals for the school district to address the improvements outlined by the district's fiscal crisis management team. The auditor also recommended the state administrator communicate what it’s going to take for the school district to return to local control and the progress toward that goal.

The audit was released last November but it was the first time officials spoke about it publicly in Inglewood. The hearing was organized by State Assemblyman Mike Inglewood schools lagging under state takeover, auditor says | 89.3 KPCC:

Exposing the Effects of Child Poverty Hidden in Plain Sight | janresseger

Exposing the Effects of Child Poverty Hidden in Plain Sight | janresseger:

Exposing the Effects of Child Poverty Hidden in Plain Sight

 While there is widespread agreement that family poverty is highly correlated with low achievement at school, it is a difficult issue to discuss because people immediately become defensive.  “Don’t tell me poor kids can’t learn,” people say.  Many children living in poor families do thrive at school. But life circumstances present challenges that too often interfere.  Here is long-time education researcher David Berliner explaining that, in the aggregate,poverty lowers school attainment:  “For reasons that are hard to fathom, too many people believe that in education the exceptions are the rule… These stories of triumph by individuals who were born poor, or success by educators who changed the lives of their students, are widely believed narratives…  But in fact, these are simply myths that help us feel good to be American… But the general case is that poor people stay poor and that teachers and schools serving impoverished youth do not often succeed in changing the life chances for their students.”  There is much to read this week that elucidates the kind of crisis poverty imposes on poor families and explains how families’ circumstances affect children in school.

What would it be like to raise children while living in extreme poverty? In their new book$2.00 A Day, Kathryn Edin and Luke Shaefer follow some of the 1.5 million American households (including roughly 3 million children) living without any cash income—only food stamps. (This blog covered Edin and Shaefer’s book in January when it was published.)  Too often families in extreme poverty cannot find anywhere they can afford the rent:  “Every family whose story is told in this book has doubled up with kin or friends at some point, because their earnings haven’t been sufficient to maintain a place of their own. While living with relatives sometimes offers strength and uplift, it can also prove toxic for the most vulnerable in our society, ending in sexual, physical, or verbal abuse.  The trauma from this abuse is sometimes a precipitating factor in a family’s fall into $2-a-day poverty, or the calamity that keeps them in such a state for far too long.” (p. 73)

Edin and Shaefer report that parents discover that the jobs they find—and they do work—are Exposing the Effects of Child Poverty Hidden in Plain Sight | janresseger:

School and Classroom Cultures: Easy To Describe but Tough To Create and Sustain | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

School and Classroom Cultures: Easy To Describe but Tough To Create and Sustain | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

School and Classroom Cultures: Easy To Describe but Tough To Create and Sustain

Probably the most important—and the most difficult—job of an instructional leader is to change the prevailing culture of a school. The school’s culture dictates, in no uncertain terms, ‘the way we do things around here.’ A school’s culture has far more influence on life and learning in the schoolhouse than the president of the country, the state department of education, the superintendent, the school board, or even the principal, teachers, and parents can ever have. One cannot, of course, change a school culture alone. But one can provide forms of leadership that invite others to join as observers of the old, architects of the new. The effect must be to transform what we did last September into what we would like to do next September.

Roland Barth, “The Culture Builder,” Educational Leadership, 5( 8) May 2002, p. 6

We speak of classroom and school cultures glibly. Listen to both experts and practitioners describe creating and sustaining a positive school culture for learning as if building it were as easy as a paint-by-numbers picture (see here,here, and here).

Both principals and teachers are leaders who can and do create cultures, knowingly and unknowingly, with the aid of students. Consider that teachers create from scratch a culture for learning (or not learning) in their classrooms. If they are novices, newcomers bring a clean slate although student carry into classrooms expectations and attitudes about what classroom teaching and learning should be all about. Experienced teachers in a school have already created cultures that students have heard about from brothers and sisters and other students. In even the most dismal of “dropout factories” in big cities, there will be some teachers whose classroom cultures have created islands of learning in a failing school. When that teacher leaves the school, the island disappears.

In entering elementary and secondary school classrooms, say after two months of the academic year have gone by, students and astute observers can see and feel immediately that there is “the way we do things around here.” Even if students cannot put into words what they feel about a particular teacher’s classroom, they surely sense the unwritten rules when they move from their kindergarten teacher to the first grade classroom across the hall. So do secondary school students as School and Classroom Cultures: Easy To Describe but Tough To Create and Sustain | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Now It Gets Real for Charter Law in Washington State

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Now It Gets Real for Charter Law in Washington State:

Now It Gets Real for Charter Law in Washington State

 Update: What's the torque that the Republicans are going to use to try to do this?


The levy cliff that districts face.

So let's threaten to throw 1M+ traditional school students over a levy cliff to save 1,000 former charter students.

I urge you to write your legislator or Governor Insee (his Twitter handle is@GovInslee)

Again, I know the Supreme Court is watching.  

end of update

There's a great commentary over at the Washington Policy Center over what is going on in the legislature.  I'm not the biggest fans of WPC; I don't have a problem with them taking a stand but sometimes their education voice is not factually correct and overwrought.

But boy, do they get it right in their commentary on some in the legislature trying to weasel in a charter school bill that will likely be many things, among them: unconstitutional, not vetted properly by either legal experts and lacking any public discourse or input.

Now I'm sure those legislators would say, "We are carrying out the will of voters who voted in a charter initiative"  Problem is, the voters did not vote in the bill they are pushing.  There is NO way to say that any charter bill being pushed is today anything like the original initiative.  It has now gotten to near farce and/or the breakdown of our democratic process.  

But let's read what Jason Mercier, the Executive Director at WPC, in his piece, " Do Good End Results on Bills Justify Bad Process?" (bold mine)

With the deadline to save charter schools just a week away, several "title only" bills have been introduced to serve as a "vehicle" in case a last minute deal can be reached by lawmakers. Amazingly, one of those "title only" bills, SB 6670 was actually adopted by a committee today without changes and sent to the Rules Committee as a blank bill. This means the blank bill could potentially be pulled directly to the floor if a deal is reached and voted on without any public comment on the actual details. 

Those who have followed this blog know that we're no fans of"title only" bills. But now that they are being used as a "vehicle" to possibly save charter schools which we are strong supporters of, surely the ends justify the means, right? No.

Reasonably, he understands that some might like the outcome of THIS bill but Seattle Schools Community Forum: Now It Gets Real for Charter Law in Washington State:

Calling all students! Paul Robeson’s birthday party celebration performances and art requested | Seattle Education

Calling all students! Paul Robeson’s birthday party celebration performances and art requested | Seattle Education:

Calling all students! Paul Robeson’s birthday party celebration performances and art requested

 A celebration of Paul Robeson’s April 9, 1898 birthday

April 9, 2016.

 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM

Southside Commons in Columbia City

3518 S Edmonds St., Seattle

A Seattle teacher who is committed to his students and his community is supporting this event and shared it with me recently.

The Mother’s For Police Accountability  have organized a birthday party for Paul Robeson. The intent is to energize youth to effect political action through the arts.

As an artist I come to sing, but as a citizen, I will always speak for peace, and no one can silence me in this.

According to the flyer:

In celebration of Paul Robeson’s April 9, 1898 birthday there will be an event from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM at Southside Commons in Columbia City, 3518 S Edmonds St., Seattle WA on April 9, 2016.

Youth are invited to create performance and visual art which meet the criteria of entry in the birthday celebration of Paul Robeson which will include fine arts performances, as well as, video and visual art.

The theme of the event is focused on achieving political action through the arts. For instance, the political action due to the adversity faced by an individual or groups due to their individuality, circumstances or cultural, religious, ethnic/racial association. General topic examples include: School to Prison Pipeline, Police Accountability, Hidden Genocidal Crimes, Preserving History Otherwise Dismissed in Textbooks, etc.

The categories are: Visual Art, Music/Song, Oratory, Poem/Rap/Spoken Word and Skit.

$100 will be awarded to each of the five entrants chosen for each of the categories.

Submission Rules:

1)The contestants choose a subject and category from the five listed modes of communication.

2) Record a video of the performance and send it, or a video explaining your picture/visual art work to PO Box 22886, Seattle Wa. 98122 by April 1

3) Notification of award winners will be by April 4.

4) Those selected will perform at the main event of the Paul Robeson Birthday Party on April 9

5) All other entrants will have their art exhibited in the hall throughout the event. Audio/video devices will be used to showcase all the videos submitted by all the entrants.

All entrants will be able to perform before the main event between 1 PM and 3 PM.

Graphic and video art  will be displayed before, during, and after the event.

The main program starts at 3:00 PM. The five chosen acts will be part of this program.

A video of each entrants performance must be submitted by April 1, 2016 (Please include return email and/or phone #).

Those participants chosen for the main event will be notified on Monday April 4, 2016.

Please send videos to: MFPA, PO Box 22886, Seattle WA 98122

Sponsored by Mother’s for Police Accountability and Fresh Air Educational Consulting.

Contact information (206) 351-2435

About Paul Robeson:

Paul Robeson did not believe in models and Icons, “he did not worship heroes but rather the wisdom and knowledge of the ways of men.” He drew on his inner spirit for the strength and courage to strive for excellence. His dilemma was how to best elevate the Black American culture.

In films Paul was able to eventually gain control of the scripts to fulfill his goal of “depicting the Negro as he really is, not the caricature he is always represented to be on the screen.”

Paul’s mother died in an accidental fire and he was raised by his father, the Reverend William Drew, the son of an escaped slave who became a preacher and human rights activist. It was under the tutelage of the Reverend Drew that Paul developed his determination for excellence. In the face of extreme Jim Crow hatred and racism Paul Calling all students! Paul Robeson’s birthday party celebration performances and art requested | Seattle Education:

VAMs: A Global Perspective by Tore Sørensen | VAMboozled!

VAMs: A Global Perspective by Tore Sørensen | VAMboozled!:

VAMs: A Global Perspective by Tore Sørensen

Tore Bernt Sørensen is a PhD student currently studying at the University of Bristol in England, he is an emerging global educational policy scholar, and he is a future colleague whom I am to meet this summer during an internationally-situated talk on VAMs. Just last week he released a paper published by Education International (Belgium) in which he discusses VAMs, and their use(s) globally. It is rare that I read or have the opportunities to write about what is happening with VAMs worldwide; hence, I am taking this opportunity to share with you all some of the global highlights from his article. I have also attached his article to this post here for those of you who want to give the full document a thorough read (see also the article’s full reference below).

First is that the US is “leading” the world in terms of its adoption of VAMs as an educational policy tool. While I did know this prior given my prior attempts to explore what was happening in the universe of VAMs outside of the US, as per Sørensen, our nation’s ranking in this case is still in place. In fact, “in the US the use of VAM as a policy instrument to evaluate schools and teachers has been taken exceptionally far [emphasis added] in the last 5 years, [while] most other high-income countries remain [relatively more] cautious towards the use of VAM;” this, “as reflected in OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] reports on the [VAM] policy instrument” (p. 1).

The second country most exceptionally using VAMs, so far, is England. Their national school inspection system in England, run by England’s Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (OFSTED), for example, now has VAM as its central standard and accountability indicator.

These two nations are the most invested in VAMs, thus far, primarily because they have similar histories with the school effectiveness movement that emerged in the 1970s. In addition, both countries are also both highly engaged in what Pasi Sahlberg in his 2011 book Finnish Lessons termed the Global Educational Reform Movement (GERM). GERM, in place since the 1980s, has “radically altered education sectors throughout the world with an
 agenda of evidence-based policy based on the [same] school effectiveness paradigm…[as it]…combines the centralised formulation of objectives and standards, and [the] monitoring of data, with the decentralisation to schools concerning decisions around how they seek to meet standards and maximise performance in their day-to-day running” (p. 5).

“The Chilean education system has [also recently] been subject to one of the more radical variants of GERM and there is [now] an interest [also there] in calculating VAM scores for teachers” (p. 6). In  Denmark and Sweden state authorities have begun to compare predicted versus actual performance of schools, not teachers, while taking into consideration “the contextual factors of parents’ educational background, gender, and student origin” (i.e, “context value added”) (p. 7). In Uganda and Delhi, in “partnership” with an England based, international school development company ARK, they are looking to VAMs: A Global Perspective by Tore Sørensen | VAMboozled!:

Detroit Public Schools will be completely broke by April. Here's how things got to this point. - Vox

Detroit Public Schools will be completely broke by April. Here's how things got to this point. - Vox:
Detroit Public Schools will be completely broke by April. Here's how things got to this point.

 One of Michigan's most controversial public figures had his last day as emergency manager of Detroit Public Schools this week. To replace him is another state-appointed manager: Judge Steven Rhodes, the man who oversaw Detroit's historic bankruptcy case.

This change in leadership may not be surprising after months of widespread "sickouts," teacher protests involving calling in sick to protest the horrific school conditions. Rhodes faces a public school system — one that could run out of money completely by April — crumbling in financial ruin and a community that doesn't really want someone from the state in charge of fixing it.

Some of that has to do with the last guy in charge.

You may have heard of him: Darnell Earley, who earned national scrutiny for his role in the Flint water crisis, where he also served as emergency manager. The president of Detroit's teachers union, Ivy Bailey, compared recent Detroit Public Schools closures to the lead-poisoned water in Flint.

"This is like the current situation in Flint, where the citizens’ concerns have been ignored," she said in defense of the hundreds of teachers who have called in sick to protest hazardous conditions at local public schools.

Earley said he resigned because he fulfilled his goal of a "comprehensive restructuring" ahead of his 18-month schedule. Earley, DPS's fourth emergency manager, was appointed in January 2015.

But clearly, teachers unions disagree that the situation is resolved satisfactorily. Earley is facing a lawsuit from the Detroit Federation of Teachers, the American Federation of Teachers, DFT interim president Ivy Bailey, and others.

But Rhodes, who started Tuesday, is not an emergency manager. His title is transition manager, and he says he aims to give full control of the district back to the community by August.

First, however, Rhodes says the Michigan state legislator must pass spending bills to keep the district afloat.

"This is not the time for lines in the sand," Rhodes told WXYZ Detroit. "The District has debt — over $500 million that it cannot pay while at the same time fulfilling its obligation to educate the kids."

What is happening in Detroit's public schools?

The conditions of Detroit Public Schools (DPS) have been declining for some time, and teachers are becoming increasingly fed up.

DPS has been run by a state-appointed manager since 2009. In the past decade the district has suffered from massive enrollment losses and exceedingly low levels in student achievement (in one nationwide exam, Detroit students ranked last in performance of large city schools), and has incurred more than $500 million in operating debt.

If the state and the district can't sort out this problem by April, it will run out of money, Detroit Public Schools will be completely broke by April. Here's how things got to this point. - Vox:

More Money Really Does Make Schools Better - Bloomberg View

More Money Really Does Make Schools Better - Bloomberg View:
More Money Really Does Make Schools Better

 It has become an article of faith among education reformers that throwing more money at public education doesn’t improve student performance. But a steady drumbeat of careful research studies is calling this into question. What if more money really does work?

The case against spending more on schools comes in two basic forms. One is to look at various U.S. states, and see whether the ones that spend more on education enjoy better outcomes. This has been done many times, with decidedly mixed results. Some studies show littlestate-by-state correlation between spending levels and educational performance, while others show a fairly substantial one.

The second case against increased spending comes from looking at correlations across time. If more money is better, we’d expect to see increases in school funding followed by improvements in performance. In fact, though public school spending has increased a lot in the past couple of decades, achievement hasn't really increased much.

So with mixed evidence from state-by-state analysis and discouraging evidence from the history of spending increases, many people are ready to conclude that throwing more money at education is a losing battle. Some spending opponents place their hopes in charter schools and other reform efforts, while others claim that education just doesn’t work -- that academic ability is either innate or learned from an early age.

But the discouraging evidence cited above is all about correlation, not causation. States that spend more on education might do so because people in those states value education more highly. But those states also might spend more because they need to.  That might be the case because they have a population that gets less education at home, or because local living costs are higher or because transportation is more costly. To make an analogy, if we compared spending on cancer treatments to rates of cancer, we’d undoubtedly find that regions with more cancer spend more on chemotherapy and radiation therapy. But that doesn’t mean those remedies are ineffective -- it just means people spend more because they need the treatments.

Similarly, the lack of improved national performance doesn’t mean that increased spending was ineffectual. During that period, the U.S. had a large influx of low-skilled immigrants, who are bound to rely on public schools more and parents less. There also was a large increase in single parenthood, which  probably means those kids get less education at home as well. Public schools had to fight these headwinds and without the extra money, educational outcomes might have increased less than they did or even declined.

So beware of correlations. Instead, when asking whether spending more on education boosts outcomes, it's better to look at policy experiments, such as situations where spending was suddenly increased.

One recent such study found that increased spending between 1955 and 1985 improved student performance substantially in places where courts ordered schools to spend more. But the mid-20th century might be a very different time than today. The U.S. population has changed, for one thing. Also, it might be that we wrung out all the available improvements from increased spending long ago, and that More Money Really Does Make Schools Better - Bloomberg View:

Elizabeth Warren: This report’s ‘a stunning indictment’ of the Department of Education - MarketWatch

Elizabeth Warren: This report’s ‘a stunning indictment’ of the Department of Education - MarketWatch:
Elizabeth Warren: This report’s ‘a stunning indictment’ of the Department of Education
The senator and other Dems slam feds’ oversight of student loan companies

 Active duty military members missed out on a key student loan benefit and the government failed to ensure they received it, say Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and two of her democratic colleagues.

The accusations come after a report released Tuesday by the Department of Education’s Office of the Inspector General found that the Department used a flawed study design to determine whether student loan servicers were denying active duty service members the 6% interest rate cap on their student loans to which they’re entitled, perhaps inaccurately portraying the extent to which service members were denied the benefit.

The Department published a news release on May 26, 2015 based on this analysis, which claimed that service members were incorrectly denied the interest rate cap in less than 1% of cases. That release is “unsupported and inaccurate,” the OIG report found.

“Today’s report is a stunning indictment of the Department of Education’s oversight of student loan servicers, exposing the extraordinary lengths to which the Department will go to protect these companies when they break the law,” Warren said in a statement regarding the report.

Warren and Senators Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.)wrote to the inspector general in August to ask that she investigate the Department’s review, saying it “left us with more questions than answers.” The report released Tuesday is a response to that request.

The Senators were skeptical of the review, they wrote in the August letter, because it didn’t jive with findings from the Justice Department that just one student loan servicer, Navient, improperly denied the interest rate cap to nearly 78,000 service members. The Justice Department reached a $60 million settlement with Navient in 2014 over claims the company overcharged borrowers. At the time, then-Secretary Arne Duncan vowed to conduct a review of the nation’s four largest student loan servicers over the way they treat service members that could have implications about whether they could continue to service federal student loans. That’s the analysis that the Inspector General announced Tuesday was flawed.Elizabeth Warren: This report’s ‘a stunning indictment’ of the Department of Education - MarketWatch:

Dear Republican Candidates: Children Are Listening

Dear Republican Candidates: Children Are Listening:

Dear Republican Candidates: Children Are Listening

 I've been thinking a lot lately about the dinners of my childhood.

My family was one of those nutty units that used to eat dinner together every night. The six of us crowded around that dark glass round circle and sat on the white-cushioned, dark Lucite chairs that perfectly matched both the table and the early 1980s.

The seating arrangement was set in stone. I do not remember the process by which positions were assigned to Schnecks but you would never sit anywhere other than the chair you sat in the night before and the years before that. There were no consequences to sitting in someone else's seat; it simply would never occur to you to do so.

My chair--between my mother and my oldest sister--was the best seat in the house because I could see right into the living room. And on rare occasions, when the television was left on, it was directly in my line of sight. As the youngest child who couldn't always follow the dinner conversation, those rare occasions were pure escapism, even if that escapism was always into the wonderful world of local news.

New York City NBC-affiliate anchor Sue Simmons was like a member of the family as she detailed reports of national import, local crime and whatever the Yankees and Mets were doing on any given day. My parents never had to explain a particular story as, even if it was beyond my understanding, it always felt appropriately presented.

Flashforward to 2016.

I don't have any children yet. But I have always been 100% excited at the prospect. I will often look at a situation and think, "How would I explain that to my fictitious-but-someday-real-child?" And most of the time, I figure it out.

But watching the Republican presidential candidates? I have no flipping clue how I would frame their words to my precocious-but-always-respectful child who overheard them on the local news.

To be clear, the Democrats have certainly been going after each other. But I know how to explain to a child why Bernie Sanders accuses Hillary Clinton of taking corporate money and why Hillary Clinton accuses Bernie Sanders of being a one issue candidate.

How do I explain to a child that Marco Rubio was intimating that Donald Trump has a small penis?

How do you explain to a child that Donald Trump was mimicking and mocking a reporter with a disability?

How do I explain to a child the countless occasions when candidates call each other liars and con-men and frauds and bullies and racists, all when those very same individuals are running for the position of American president that children are taught in school to revere?

As a college professor and qualitative researcher who constantly hunts for answers to define the unknown, I put together a representative focus group consisting of Dear Republican Candidates: Children Are Listening:

GOP Debate: Candidates Talk Detroit Public Schools, Common Core - Politics K-12 - Education Week

GOP Debate: Candidates Talk Detroit Public Schools, Common Core - Politics K-12 - Education Week:

GOP Debate: Candidates Talk Detroit Public Schools, Common Core

 If you've been holding your breath for seven months waiting for an education question in a GOP debate, you can let it out. 

Ohio Gov. John Kasich was asked in Thursday's debate whether the federal government should bail out Detroit's nearly bankrupt schools, like it did for the automobile industry.

Kasich likened Detroit's situation to a school district in his own state—Cleveland, which unlike Detroit is under mayoral control. 

Cleveland went through a dramatic revamp 2012, including some big changes to teacher contracts that gave the district more say over teacher tenure decisions and dismissals and a new approach to turning around low-performing schools. And so far,results have been mixed: The city has seen some gains in fourth grade reading between 2013 and 2015 on the Trial Urban District snapshot, but no improvement in eighth grade reading.

"This is not much different from what happened in Cleveland," Kasich said. "Cleveland schools are coming back because of a major overhaul. It's the same thing that has to happen in all of our urban schools."

Kasich quickly pivoted to his education plan, which calls for combining all federal education funding into four (still unspecified) block grants. "Fixing schools rests at the state and the local level and particularly at the school board level," Kasich said.

And he added that students need school choice, both vouchers and charter schools. However, under Kasich, charter schools in Ohio have been investigated by both the FBI and the state.

Kasich, who ignited the ire of teachers' unions in the Buckeye State when he tried unsuccessfully toseverely limit unions' right to collectively bargain in 2011, urged the nation to "put the politics aside" when it comes to education.

"Everyone in this room can play a role in lifting their schools and lifting the students in those schools because too much politics gets in the middle of it," he said

Kasich may not have made big news. But the question itself was something of  a big deal, in part because, well, there was an actual question on education in a Republican debate. The last time that happened was seven months ago, in the very first GOP showdown, when former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is no longer in the race, was asked about his pro-Common Core stance.

Billionaire and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump also brought up his plan to help gain control of federal spending by getting rid of the Department of Education—that's something that Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida also want to do. The moderators pointed out that axing the department wouldn't save much since its budget is less than $80 billion. (It's actually about $68 billion.)

Oh, and Trump repeated a favorite line about how he'll get rid of Common Core if he's elected. (Rubio and Cruz have made similar promises.) But that's a moot point now that the newly passed Every Student Succeeds Act bars the federal government from telling states what set of standards to use. Cruz opposed ESSA, and Rubio voted against a similar Senate verison.

For you higher education fans, there was also plenty of talk about Trump University, a for-profit real estate course that's been the subject of fraud allegations.GOP Debate: Candidates Talk Detroit Public Schools, Common Core - Politics K-12 - Education Week:

Ann Arbor teachers' union ends boycott of EMU student teachers | MLive.com

Ann Arbor teachers' union ends boycott of EMU student teachers | MLive.com:

Ann Arbor teachers' union ends boycott of EMU student teachers

 Eastern Michigan University students will once again be able to teach in all Ann Arbor Public School classrooms this fall.

The Ann Arbor Education Association (AAEA), a teachers' union representing employees of the Ann Arbor Public Schools, had been boycotting student teachers from EMU due to the school's involvement with the Education Achievement Authority (EAA).

"This had been our second year in this unfortunate boycott," AAEA president Linda Carter said. "We decided along with the rest of Washtenaw County to do this to let EMU know that we did not approve of the way teachers were being treated."

The EAA was a system created in 2011 by Governor Rick Snyder to take over failing schools. The system, which was administered by EMU, took control of 15 schools in Detroit but never became the statewide project it was meant to be.

Teachers' unions attacked the EAA, claiming that the emergency managers installed as part of the authority would rip up union contracts and take away benefits gained through collective bargaining. Unions across the state, including six in Washtenaw County, chose to boycott EMU by not letting student teachers into their classrooms.

Carter said once the Eastern Michigan Board of Regents voted to disassociate from the EAA, her union had no problem resuming the practice of bringing EMU students in as student teachers.

"The AAEA representative council voted unanimously to end the boycott at our first meeting after EMU made their announcement," she said. "We want our members to begin inviting EMU students to come visit their classrooms as soon as possible to establish relationships that can lead to student teaching positions."

EMU College of Education dean Michael Sayler said he looks forward to putting all of the animosity created by the EAA firmly in the past.

"I think the key thing for us is we're all about working together with teachers and with schools," he said. "There's some unfortunate stuff that happened that we didn't have much control over but we're very excited to move forward."

Sayler said all Eastern Michigan University students had been able to find classrooms for student teaching during the boycott, but that many of them had to travel much further away.

"We had to reach out and beat the bushes a little bit more," he said.

In 2015, EMU placed 598 student teachers, with just 180 of them finding classrooms in Washtenaw County. Students also found themselves unwelcome in districts such as Livonia, where they had traditionally been welcomed.

Carter said it's too late in this school year for student teachers from EMU to get into Ann Arbor classrooms, but they will be back by next fall.

"It was very important for us to reopen these doors," she said.Ann Arbor teachers' union ends boycott of EMU student teachers | MLive.com:

Teach Resilience, Don't Test It - NYTimes.com

Teach Resilience, Don't Test It - NYTimes.com:

Teach Resilience, Don’t Test It

 Diane Ravitch, a historian of education, is the author, most recently, of "Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools."

UPDATED MARCH 4, 2016, 9:39 AM

American education has a history of falling for silly fads. The latest is the idea that “grit” can be taught and tested. Paul Tough’s book “How Children Succeed” andAngela Duckworth’s research emphasize the importance of resilience and character. These are common-sense observations.

Teachers have always sought to encourage good citizenship and good character. But testing whether children are experiencing joy or learning 'grit' is sheer nonsense.

Teachers have always sought to encourage good citizenship and good character. We don’t send children to school just to get high scores on tests, but to learn how to act responsibly in the classroom and in society.

Teaching children to persevere, to complete their work on time, to act courteously toward others, to accept success and defeat with equanimity is part of the everyday life of teaching and learning. It is not a separate subject.

Testing whether children are experiencing joy or learning “grit” is sheer nonsense. If by “grit” we mean resilience, that is best taught informally, in the classroom, at home, on the playing fields, in the hallways, in the lunch room.

Grading schools and teachers by their students’ “grit” borders on lunacy. What tests will measure “joy”? What tests will measure “grit”? Will they be multiple-choice standardized tests? How will anyone verify that the students’ answers are aligned with their actual behavior? Will students fake it?

If the tests show that students have the right amount of joy or “grit,” who gets credit? The teacher, the parent, or the student?

If the student gets a low score, will she take home a report card informing parents that she is deficient in grit and must practice being gritty at home?

Really, some things are too silly to take seriously.

Except, in this case, the federal National Assessment of Educational Progressintends to measure “grit” in future tests, as does the international test called PISA. Maybe the whole world has gone mad.Teach Resilience, Don't Test It - NYTimes.com:

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