Inclusive School Libraries | American Libraries Magazine

Inclusive School Libraries | American Libraries Magazine:

Inclusive School Libraries

IFLA session explores tactics for accessibility and advocacy

Top row (left to right): Lesley Farmer, Gertrude C. Umunnakwe, Emmanuel U. Anyanwu, Valérie Glass, Isabel Mendinhos. Seated (left to right): Clayton Copeland, Karen Gavigan, and Elizabeth Burns.

What’s the best way to provide resources, instruction, and librarianship to both typically and differently able students?

At “Inclusionary Practices to Support School Libraries,” a Thursday morning session at the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) World Library and Information Congress, librarians from Nigeria, France, Portugal, and the United States attempted to answer this question by examining inclusionary and accessibility strategies in school libraries.

Clayton Copeland and Karen Gavigan, both instructors at the University of South Carolina School of Library and Information Science, shared findings from a middle-school classroom they observed in a rural, low-income area of the southeastern US. They spoke of Miss Sally, the librarian who cultivated a love for library time among her typically and differently able students.

“It is a well-tooled librarian who is able to create an inclusive and accessible environment,” Copeland said. “Individualize, don’t generalize,” was Copeland’s advice for inclusivity.

Copeland and Gavigan say that Miss Sally’s differently able students began to feel safe and equal in the setting she created, and her typically able students began to form relationships with them outside of the library, on field trips and at school sporting events.

Copeland and Gavigan noted that one challenge to creating such an environment is a hesitation and fear among librarians about knowing what “developmentally appropriate teaching strategies” are for students.

Valérie Glass, of the Association des Professeurs Documentalistes de l’Éducation Nationale

Valérie Glass, of the Association des Professeurs Documentalistes de l’Éducation Nationale in Paris, also studied how programs and activities in schools can reach students of different abilities and backgrounds. “There’s an inclusive dimension enshrined in most French educational acts,” said Glass.

Her research found that key to creating an inclusive environment is adopting a wide range of resources and library materials for different abilities. Glass suggested video games, manga, and magazines as items to attract differently able students.

She also emphasized the importance of tailored support and multidisciplinary work to reach all types of learners.  An example of this is a web radio class where “each student can have a role” in producing the show, Glass said.

Isabel Mendinhos, of the School Library Network in Lisbon, Portugal, found out that very little was being done in her country with regard to special needs educational services. Her Inclusive School Libraries | American Libraries Magazine:

Charter schools boost test scores, nothing else - The Boston Globe

Charter schools boost test scores, nothing else - The Boston Globe:

Charter schools boost test scores, but nothing else

Last Week Tonight: John Oliver takes on charter schools | EW.com

When it comes to helping poor and minority students get better test scores, good charter schools really do seem to make a difference.

However — and it’s a big caveat — a new study suggests that the benefits stop at the school door. Charters may boost test scores, but they don’t help students get better jobs or earn higher incomes. It’s a dramatic finding, made newly possible by the fact that the charter movement is just old enough that we can begin to trace its long-term impact.

Come November, a ballot question will give Massachusetts voters the right to decide whether the state should add more charter schools. This latest finding provides new ammunition to the anti-charter forces in what is shaping up to be one of the state’s most hard-fought ballot battles.

Charters help with tests, but not much else

This isn’t some advocate-funded study. It’s from a pair of widely respected researchers — one at Harvard, one at Princeton — whose previous research had seemed to support the promise of charter schools.

Using detailed data from schools across Texas, they’ve tried to tease out the relationship between charter school performance and success in the job market. And what they found is that the relationship is actually quite weak.

While high-quality charter schools do improve test scores, they don’t seem to help kids get better jobs or earn more money.

That’s surprising, to say the least. Generally speaking, better test scores translate into better jobs. So it was reasonable to assume the same link held for charter schools. Except that doesn’t seem to be the case — not even with the highest-performing charter schools.

Perhaps most striking were the results for the “no excuses” brand of charter schools, which combine strict behavioral rules with longer school days and extended school years.

No excuses schools have a particularly strong track record, including in Texas, where “no excuses” schools were associated with higher test scores, elevated high school graduation rates, and even some improvement in terms of college success.

Somehow, though, these benefits didn’t translate to the labor market. Kids from “no excuses” charter schools received an earnings bump so small it was within the study’s margin of error, despite the Charter schools boost test scores, nothing else - The Boston Globe:

Livermore: More than 400 students flee charter schools - EastBayTimes.com

Livermore: More than 400 students flee charter schools - EastBayTimes.com:

Livermore: More than 400 students flee charter schools

LIVERMORE -- On the first day of school, more than 500 new students swarmed into Livermore public schools, the vast majority fleeing the city's two embattled charter schools in light of a litany of accusations ranging from fiscal mismanagement to criminal wrongdoing.

The Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District got nearly double the number of new students it was expecting as parents a few weeks ago began pulling their children out of Livermore Valley Charter School and Livermore Valley Charter Preparatory.

Students at Granada High School in Livermore, Calif., mingle as they head to their next class on the first day of school on Monday, Aug. 22, 2016. The high school increased enrollment by 100 students this year, according to school officials. (Laura A. Oda/Bay Area News Group) ( Laura A. Oda )

The company that runs the charter schools, the Tri-Valley Learning Corp., is facing allegations of financial mismanagement; illegally charging foreign exchange students tuition and transferring them to a school in Stockton against their will; an investigation by the Alameda County District Attorney's Office for potential criminal charges; and, most recently, hiring a principal who made an online reference to empathizing with mass shooters.

The charges prompted state Superintendent of Education Tom Torlakson to meet privately with charter school parents and school district officials Thursday.

"It's the most serious set of allegations against a charter that I've ever seen," Torlakson said.

The District Attorney's Office is investigating potential fraud or misuse of public money, and student safety, the superintendent said. Torlakson said the parents he met with Thursday were extremely frustrated.

Charters are public schools funded by taxpayer money but run independently of school districts.

By mid-afternoon Monday, 308 new students had showed up in kindergarten through eighth grade, and about 220 new students enrolled in high school, said Chris Van Schaack, assistant superintendent for the Livermore school district. He said 80 percent of the increase came from the two charters. The district will evaluate at the end of the week if new teachers will need to be added.

Lynn Lysko, CEO for Tri-Valley Learning Corp., did not return calls for comment Monday. In an interview last week, she estimated that just 40 students left Livermore Valley Charter Preparatory for a district school. She said she expected enrollment for both schools to be 1,500, only a 2.5 percent decrease from the previous year, adding that the charter high school has a waiting list of about 400 students.

Founded in 2005, the Tri-Valley Learning Corp. operates two schools in Stockton in addition to its Livermore schools. The schools have a strong academic reputation, according to their website, with Livermore Valley Charter Preparatory ranking 366 out of more than 30,000 public high schools across the country in a recent Newsweek survey.

A tipping point for some parents could have been the hiring of the new principal for Livermore: More than 400 students flee charter schools - EastBayTimes.com:

 

Education Reformers' Core Beliefs Are Objectionable

Education Reformers' Core Beliefs Are Objectionable:

Education Reformers' Core Beliefs Are Objectionable

Truthout takes zero advertising money -- instead we rely on readers to sustain our site. Will you join the thousands of people who fund our work? Make a donation by clicking here!

America's corporate education reform movement has been a marketing success. Reformers have popularized slogans that promote a radically new public school system; one where tenure and bargaining rights are abolished or severely degraded; where CEOs and administrators, who may have backgrounds in business, politics or public relations rather than education, make hiring and firing decisions; and where data-based accountability -- necessarily driven by test scores -- perpetually imperils schools, tenure- and union-less teachers, as well as students who must conform to onerous protocols and codes of conduct under charter school contracts.  Reformers' slogans such as "demography isn't destiny" and "poverty is no excuse" have been ingrained in the minds of all who follow education issues -- and have apparently been successful in advancing their agenda. But ironically, while reformers' slogans are well known, their core ideas around such reformer bedrocks as Teach For America, charter schools, and educational expertise are so objectionably elitist that they are unutterable. 

Unutterable belief #1: Though we cannot destroy teachers' and students' rights through democracy, we can destroy them through charter school proliferation.

By definition, a charter school is a school that writes its own rules; rules which, by definition, transgress the laws and regulations that conventional public schools must follow. If a charter school didn't need to write its own laws and rules, it wouldn't need a charter, and it therefore wouldn't be a charter school at all.  It would be a regular public school.

Before charter schools existed, the only ways to build non-unionized schools in union-dense states (non-"right-to-work" states), compel teachers (and children) to work longer hours, weeks, and school years, eliminate tenure, and elevate "CEOs" who lack experience in education to positions of power, were conventionally democratic ones. You could use the referendum process, or pressure your legislators to write new laws or amend old ones. For example, you could fight a contentious battle to enact controversial "right-to-work" laws, as many states have done. But the charter-granting process provides a convenient back door to normal union-busting methods. By convincing politicians (or better yet, unelected emergency managers) to perennially authorize more and more charters, reformist politicians can cynically disempower teachers under the guise of "school choice" -- without admitting that they are doing anything to affect unions.

How does this work? Basic economics tells us that the more charter schools that exist in the public school "market," the more difficult it is for public school teachers to maintain strong unions, pensions, tenure rights, and bargaining power.  Posit a large city whose mayor announces a plan to turn 50% of public schools into charter schools. These schools may hire uncertified teachers, require twelve-hour school days and six-day weeks, and need not be unionized or offer tenure, pensions, or competitive pay for their teachers. In such a case, the infusion of charters would radically transform education for 100% of students and teachers in his city, since the 50% who would become part of the charter system would suffer hardships and insecurity in accordance with the charters' rules, and the other 50% of teachers (from public schools) would quickly lose wages, benefits, job security, and freedom as the mayor takes advantage, during bargaining, of the high demand for and scarcity of public school jobs and the effective "scab" labor force that exists within the charter schools. Public school teachers' relationship to charter teachers is thus analogous to the relationship between US auto workers and Mexican autoworkers.

It becomes clear that charter schools may only harmoniously work alongside public schools if: A) they provide parity of pay, bargaining power, working conditions, and other freedoms and benefits to teachers and students, or if: B) their numbers are Education Reformers' Core Beliefs Are Objectionable:

What I Learned from Watching a Week's Worth of Olympic Charter School Ads

What I Learned from Watching a Week's Worth of Olympic Ads:

What I Learned from Watching a Week's Worth of Olympic Charter School Ads









 It is my opinion that, if a television network is going to bring us something like the Olympics, which take place over 17 days, the network must be compelled to change the damn commercials halfway through. I love Allison Janney, but I can only see her interacting with tiny CGI squirrels so often. And while I admit that Dylan's licensing "All I Really Want To Do" for use by a chicken farm is one of the most Bob things ever, I tired even of that. Give us some relief. The airwaves belong to the people, man!

However, the constant repetition did give me a chance to study at length a couple of interesting political ads. For example, Kelly Ayotte, the Metternich of Manchester, the Talleyrand of Tuftenboro, had one in regular rotation. The following words do not appear in this ad in any combination.

"Donald Trump" and "Republican."

For all you can glean from her commercials, Kelly Ayotte might as well be running on the American Party ticket downballot from Millard Fillmore.

The other one was a commercial in favor of the referendum here in the Commonwealth (God save it!) that would lift the cap on the number of charter schools here. This, of course, was pitched by a nice suburban mom who thinks every child in Massachusetts should go to the best school they can choose. This ad was in heavier rotation than Ayotte's was, and it was sponsored partly by a little somethin'-somethin' called Education Reform Now, which is one of those nom de scams that sets off alarm bells in anyone who actually pays attention to how politics works in this era of institutionalized influence peddling.

Sure enough, thanks to the invaluable Diane Ravitch, we are directed to the research of Professor Maurice Cunningham of the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Cunningham has dropped his bathysphere deep into the depths of the dark money behind the push to life the charter cap.

Via WGBH:

SGP also helped to introduce Leadership for Educational Equity into Massachusetts in 2014. LEE is a spinoff of Teach for America and according to Education Week assists TFA alumni in seeking leadership roles in their communities, including to elective office. LEE teaches advocacy, community organizing, and assists TFA alums with their campaigns. It also provides network access to people who give to privatization candidates. American Prospect got access to a LEE site that asserted that by 2015 it aimed to have 250 members in elected office, 300 in policy or advocacy leadership roles and 1000 in active community roles. LEE is a 501(c)(4) but its form 990 tax returns are not available through the IRS website. Both of the newly funded 501(c)(4) organizations, FES and LEE, have a political focus. Educators for Excellence and OneGoal are 501(c)(3)s and should not be involved in politics, but their roles in Massachusetts bear watching as well. The contribution to Education Reform Now isn't that big, but ERN is the funder of Democrats for Education Reform, which has spent millions in dark money in Massachusetts politics.

Yes, the push for corporate education "reform" is sadly a bipartisan one. Cunningham also traces within Massachusetts a dynamic common to corporate education "reform" everywhere—namely, What I Learned from Watching a Week's Worth of Olympic Ads:

Charter Schools Increase Fraud, Corruption, Chaos, and Anarchy | Dissident Voice

Charter Schools Increase Fraud, Corruption, Chaos, and Anarchy | Dissident Voice:

Charter Schools Increase Fraud, Corruption, Chaos, and Anarchy

Every day, more than a few news items, journal articles, books, and blogs expose a range of scandals, crimes, fraud, and corruption associated with charter schools—schools that barely make up seven percent of the nation’s schools. There are arrests, fugitives, government investigations, embezzlement, lawsuits, lies, mismanagement, Enron-style accounting, shell games, nefarious links between millionaires, legal loopholes of all kinds, little accountability, and rampant arrogance, anticonsciousness, and impunity, making a reckless “Wild West” atmosphere seem civilized, stable, and virtuous in comparison.

The charter school sector has taken all the antisocial, antipublic, and antipeople practices of medieval autocrats and opportunists to new extremes. To be sure, such crimes and corruption are widespread in other sectors and institutions in society. After all, the society and its outdated economic system are decaying rapidly and dragging everything down with it. But the charter school phenomenon has introduced a new level, a new range, a new quality of criminality, secrecy, recklessness, and impunity. It has brought a new vigor to the drive to violate all civilized norms of conduct. It is breathtaking in its scope, and there appears to be no end in sight to the wrecking activity, making one wonder how much more chaotic, anarchic, and violent things will get in the charter school sector in the months and years ahead.

One only has to read Doug Martin’s Hoosier School Heist (2014) to feel irreversible internal nausea about the corruption and fraud unfolding in the education privatization movement energetically organized by major owners of capital. The many works of Kenneth Saltman, Christopher Lubienski, Alex Molnar, Danny Weil, Bruce Baker, Susan Ohanian, Diane Ravitch, Jeff Bryant, and so many others have also exposed and opposed the widespread corruption plaguing this deregulated, non-unionized, and non-transparent sector.

It is important to appreciate that this neoliberal perfidy is taking place in the context of a continually failing economy, the constant lowering of living and working standards for millions, and no sign that the ruling elite have any solutions to the worsening problems. Today, insecurity prevails broadly. The natural and social environment are being destroyed rapidly. Unemployment and under-employment remain high. The labor force participation rate is at an all-time low. Student debt is out of control. More young adults are living at home with their parents. Violence is widespread. Depression and opiate addiction are pervasive. Surveillance is increasing. Poverty and segregation are growing. Income and wealth inequality are intensifying. More wars are being planned. The entire polity is more marginalized than ever by a discredited political setup. The 2016 elections are scandalous and offensive in every respect. National chauvinism is alive and well. And chaos, anarchy, and violence are everywhere, including in new television shows and movies that take the spectacle of cruelty and anti-consciousness to new levels, desensitizing and dehumanizing more people in the process. One cannot even wake up in the morning without being traumatized by some “breaking news” about another tragedy of some sort.

It is not possible to feel normal, well-adjusted, and healthy under such Charter Schools Increase Fraud, Corruption, Chaos, and Anarchy | Dissident Voice:

 

Help is Available for Schools Damaged by Wildfires - Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education)

Help is Available for Schools Damaged by Wildfires - Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education):

State Schools Superintendent Tom Torlakson Announces Help is Available for Schools Damaged by Wildfires

SACRAMENTO – State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today announced that school districts, charter schools, and county offices of education will continue to receive state funding despite a possible loss of student attendance revenues because of wildfires.

"First let me share my deepest sympathies for the families, firefighters, first responders, communities, students, and school districts that have been affected by the wildfires," said Torlakson.

"California’s schools provide a great education, and many students also rely on their school for breakfast, lunch, and before and after school programs. The California Department of Education is available to help districts continue to receive funding for all of these crucial programs.”

School districts are funded based on the average number of students they serve each day. In an emergency, a district can request a waiver to receive funding for students displaced by fires even if the student temporarily enrolls in another district. Districts should consult the CDE Management Advisory 90-01 Web page.

Also, districts with portable classrooms that can be loaned to fire-damaged schools can notify the CDE School Facilities and Transportation Services Division. Division staff can help connect schools with spare portables and school sites that need temporary classrooms.

# # # #

Tom Torlakson — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5206, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

Last Reviewed: Monday, August 22, 2016

Help is Available for Schools Damaged by Wildfires - Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education):

John Oliver hysterically savages charter schools — and charter supporters aren’t happy - The Washington Post

John Oliver hysterically savages charter schools — and charter supporters aren’t happy - The Washington Post:

John Oliver hysterically savages charter schools — and charter supporters aren’t happy

In September 2015,  John Oliver did a hilarious segment on his HBO show “Last Week Tonight,” skewering the country’s obsession with standardized testing. He’s done it again, this time with a back-to-school segment blasting some charter schools (see transcript below).

[John Oliver’s hilarious back-to-school video. (In chemistry, ‘you probably won’t even learn how to cook meth and that’s really all anyone is in it for’)]

In his new segment broadcast Aug. 21, Oliver says that he is not going to address whether or not charters are a good idea, but takes a serious yet sadly funny look at charters that are terribly — and sometimes criminally — operated.

The overall message is that the charter school movement — backed by Democrats and Republicans alike, President Obama and former president George W. Bush — has been allowed to flourish over the last 25 years without anywhere near enough oversight and that ultimately, kids are getting hurt.

Oliver lets charter supporters talk for themselves in video clips interspersed throughout, such as when Ohio Gov. John Kasich talks about how he wants to run public schools like pizza shops. And then Oliver savages the notion that public education would improve if it were operated like a business in an unprecedented way on a popular television show.

[The education mess in Ohio under Gov. Kasich]

Kasich said:

We will improve the public schools if there’s a sense of competition. Just like a pizza shop in the town, if there’s only one and there’s not much pepperoni on it, you can call ‘til you’re blue in the face. But the best way to get more pepperoni on that pizza is to open up a second pizza shop, and that’s what’s going to improve our public schools.

Oliver commented:

Okay, okay, that doesn’t work on any level. First, no one has ever called it a pizza shop. Second, it’s a little hard to hear the man who just defunded Planned Parenthood talk about the importance of choice. Third, there’s such a thing as paying for extra pepperoni like a normal person. And finally the notion that the more pizza shops there are the better pizza becomes is effectively undercut by the two words: Papa John’s. But Ohio’s charters have had huge problems with lack of oversight. A review of one year’s state audits found charters misspent public money nearly four times more often than any other form of taxpayer-funded agency …

The problem with letting the free market decide when it comes to kids is that kids change faster than the market. And by the time it’s obvious the school is failing, futures may have been ruined.

Naturally, charter supporters were shaken by the segment — and some actually issued statements about it. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools issued a release Monday that tried to minimize the impact of Oliver’s message. It said:

“The August 21 episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver examined the critical importance of strong charter school authorizers and laws. The program began by spotlighting one of the thousands of high-performing charter schools that are opening doors of opportunity for students – especially those living in low-income communities. High-quality charter schools like these are the norm, giving families access to local, public, and effective educational options in communities where traditional district schools aren’t meeting the needs of students.

“Most of the program focused on charter schools in three states that were engaged in practices that were either questionable or unethical. These practices are unacceptable, but are not representative of charter schools nationwide. Furthermore, many of the examples featured are years-to-decades old, and fail to reflect the significant progress that the charter school movement has made in the areas of oversight and accountability.

“To be clear, anyone who is not in education for the betterment of students has no right to be in education. But these select examples should not tarnish the good work being done by dedicated charter school educators across 43 states and Washington, DC. At the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, we are strong advocates for policies and laws that both hold charter schools accountable and allow great charter schools to open and flourish. We take seriously the issues raised by Last Week Tonight, and we will continue our work to strengthen charter school oversight in areas that are falling short.”

Here’s the transcript of nearly all of the segment. I have italicized the words that come from John Oliver hysterically savages charter schools — and charter supporters aren’t happy - The Washington Post:

Mike Pence Has Pushed Hard for School Privatization With Lousy Results - BillMoyers.com

Mike Pence Has Pushed Hard for School Privatization With Lousy Results - BillMoyers.com:

Mike Pence Has Pushed Hard for School Privatization With Lousy Results

Donors love Trump's VP's conservative, ALEC-aligned rhetoric, but ignore the effects of his policies.

Public school students that received vouchers to attend private schools subsequently scored lower on reading and math tests compared to similar students that remained in public schools. The magnitudes of the negative impacts were large.

— BROOKINGS INSTITUTION REPORT ON VOUCHERS IN INDIANA AND LOUISIANA

Mike Pence is a hardcore right-winger playing the long game, especially when it comes to privatizing public schools.

It’s not just that the Republican vice-presidential nominee and Indiana governor last weekend told a roomful of deregulation-obsessed executives and lobbyists in Indianapolis, “You are the model for Washington, DC, after this election. You really are.”

MORE ON DEMOCRACY & GOVERNMENT

What You Need to Know About Mike Pence

BY KARIN KAMP | JULY 20, 2016

The nation is “at a fork in the road,” Pence said at the American Legislative Exchange Council’s annual meeting, referring not only to who would be president for the next four years but who would control the Supreme Court for the “next 40 years.”

The choice is “whether we will have justices appointed to the Supreme Court, as my partner in this endeavor is committed to doing, that reflect the brilliance and the greatness and the principles of the late justice Antonin Scalia,” he said. “So I would say to all of you, for the sake of the rule of law, for the sake of the sanctity of life, for the sake of our Second Amendment and all of our God-given liberties, we must ensure that the next president making appointments to the Supreme Court of the United States of America is President Donald Trump.”

Pence was no stranger to the stage of ALEC, a corporate-funded behemoth that drafts bills and finds right-wing lawmakers to carry them. He’s been an ALEC fixture for years, touting deregulation, privatization and extreme social conservatism. But he’s best-known for a personal focus on supplanting traditional public education, notably embracing taxpayer-funded vouchers so parents can send kids to K-12 private schools and aggressively expanding privately run charter public schools.

As is typical at ALEC, Pence praised enterprise and deregulation, and said a Trump administration would result in “empowering states with resources and flexibility.” But a closer look at his Indiana record of privatizing education, where the ALEC model has been in play, has shown it to be a brazen and failed experiment.

Charter School and Voucher Problems

A recent National Public Radio profile of Pence’s education record noted that he has been one of the leading governors pushing K-12 privatization. “Under Gov. Pence, the growth in the number of charter schools and the use of private school vouchers have exploded,” it said. “After the voucher program survived a state Supreme Court challenge in 2013, it’s grown into one of the largest in the country. Pence helped to do that by advocating to expand the program to include middle-income, not just low-income families, and also by removing the cap on how many students qualify.”

Yet this May, when WTHR, Indianapolis’ NBC-TV affiliate, looked at the charter school experiment, it  found that “nearly half of the state’s 76 charter schools are doing poorly or failing.” The scores were based on the state’s new accountability standards.

In one example, reporters quoted sources from Indiana Science Academy West who said, “Nothing is taught… nothing is learned,” and cited “unlicensed teachers,” high staff turnover Mike Pence Has Pushed Hard for School Privatization With Lousy Results - BillMoyers.com:

Hoosier School Heist TV is Doug Martin's channel featuring videos of his book tour across Indiana speaking on the corporate takeover of public education. Order Hoosier School Heist at http://hoosierschoolheist.com/.

Follow Hoosier School Heist on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HoosierSchoolHeist

Tweet with Doug Martin at: https://twitter.com/DougMartinED

CURMUDGUCATION: How Do Unions Really Affect Schools?

CURMUDGUCATION: How Do Unions Really Affect Schools?:

How Do Unions Really Affect Schools?

Back in February, Eunice Han at Wellesley College put out a paper entitled "The Myth of Unions' Overprotection of Teachers: Evidence from the District-Teacher Matched Panel Data on Teacher Turnover." Han reaches some really interesting and, perhaps for some folks, counter-intuitive findings, and they're worth a look.

But full disclosure right up front-- I can't really make sense out of her methodology. Han takes sixteen pages just to explain how she did what she did, and it includes all sorts of economist equationing and data mumbo-jumbo that is just plain beyond me. Things like this:

Han has a Ph.D. from Harvard and she has, no kidding, an impressive bucket list. And I can follow the reasoning behind her data crunching, but not the crunching itself. And if her findings seem vaguely familiar, it's because they have been covered elsewhere (check out this interview with Han from Edushyster). But there are some pieces of research that are worth re-blogging about. You say "redundant;" I say "amplifying the message."

So here are the conclusions Han reached with her data crunching.

Union Strength Affects Teacher Pay-- But So Do Other Factors

Much to nobody's surprise, districts with stronger collective bargaining units end up with higher-paid teachers. Generally that "wage premium" is paid for teachers with the most experience.

However, there are other factors that figure in. Districts with a high percentage of minority students pay their teachers more. But teachers who work in districts with a large student population, and teachers who work in districts with a large free/reduced lunch enrollment are paid CURMUDGUCATION: How Do Unions Really Affect Schools?:

AFT’s Weingarten on Calif. Supreme Court’s decision to decline to hear Vergara | American Federation of Teachers

AFT’s Weingarten on Calif. Supreme Court’s decision to decline to hear Vergara | American Federation of Teachers:

AFT’s Weingarten on Calif. Supreme Court’s decision to decline to hear Vergara  

WASHINGTON—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten on the California Supreme Court's decision to reject the plaintiffs' petition for review in Vergara v. California.

"I am relieved by the court's decision declining an appeal of the unanimous California Court of Appeal ruling upholding California educators’ due process rights. The billionaire-funded attack, from its inception, tried to pit our children against their teachers—people who make a difference in our children's lives every day—rather than understand and solve the real problems ailing public education. Now that this chapter is closed, we must embrace our shared responsibility to help disadvantaged kids by supporting them so they can reach their full potential. While that starts with teachers, it also means providing programs and services that engage students and address their well-being.

"I hope this decision closes the book on the flawed and divisive argument that links educators’ workplace protections with student disadvantage. Instead, as the expert evidence clearly showed—and the Court of Appeal carefully reasoned—it was the discretionary decisions of some administrators, rather than the statutes themselves, that contributed to the problems cited by the plaintiffs.

"It is now well past time that we move beyond damaging lawsuits like Vergara that demonize educators and begin to work with teachers to address the real issues caused by the massive underinvestment in public education in this country. The state of California, like many others, remains in the throes of a serious teacher shortage. We need to hire, support and retain the best teachers, not pit parents against educators in a pointless blame game that does nothing to help disadvantaged students pursue their dreams."

# # # #

The AFT represents 1.6 million pre-K through 12th-grade teachers; paraprofessionals and other school-related personnel; higher education faculty and professional staff; federal, state and local government employees; nurses and healthcare workers; and early childhood educators.

- See more at: http://www.aft.org/press-release/afts-weingarten-calif-supreme-courts-decision-decline-hear-vergara#sthash.ZruIIJjh.FBzny4n6.dpuf

Contact:

Andrew Crook

202-393-8637

acrook@aft.org

http://www.aft.org