LGBTQ History Comes out of the Shadows, into K-12 Classrooms | San Jose Inside

LGBTQ History Comes out of the Shadows, into K-12 Classrooms | San Jose Inside:

LGBTQ History Comes out of the Shadows, into K-12 Classrooms

Forest Stuart didn’t have many resources to learn about LGBTQ history in high school, but future students will. (Photo by Jessica Perez)

 Certain topics were off limits when Forest Stuart attended high school. Civil rights were covered, but rarely did classes take a deep dive into the contributions of minority communities. Stuart first learned about the LGBTQ community from Tumblr. One teacher, however, a field hockey coach at Monta Vista High School, encouraged Stuart to learn about the group’s history and other topics deemed too risque.

“She was always really great at bringing in the history of minority groups that are usually lost or not discussed in class,” Stuart says. “The other teachers covered little to nothing.”

Stuart identifies as trans, non-binary and queer. Family was supportive from the start, beginning when they—Stuart uses “they/them” pronouns to identify as both masculine and feminine—started to question gender and sexuality in middle school and high school, all the way through coming out last year.

“[My family has] been really receptive in me teaching them and bringing them up to speed on all the terms,” Stuart says.

Not everyone has been so supportive, though. Stuart faced harassment from some classmates on social media after becoming heavily involved in the Gender Sexuality Alliance (GSA).

“The general school population who was vocal was really accepting and excited for me, and that was nice,” Stuart says. “Being pretty out there and outspoken meant that whenever people could voice their opinions anonymously they did take that chance.”

Not long after this time, Stuart found the LGBTQ Youth Space, a resource center for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning youth and young adults ages 13 to 25. A staff member from the Youth Space was the first non-binary adult Stuart had met.

“The power and importance of queer and LGBTQ people coming together and providing for our own is huge, creating a space that is so vibrant and energetic where people can thrive and learn about themselves,” Stuart says.

Other than learning about Bayard Rustin in U.S. history junior year, Stuart has no recollection of classroom lessons about other LGBTQ leaders. Rustin, a civil rights leader and advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr., practiced non-violent protests and worked to advance rights for the African American and LGBTQ communities.

“Being a queer person in a school, anything that is said [about LGBT figures] really stands out,” Stuart says. “It’s so different having these subjects in a classroom setting.”

Stuart will soon attend West Valley College to study in the Women and Gender Studies program. College has often been the first place students begin to learn about sexuality and LGBTQ issues, but that’s about to change.

In 2010, state Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) introduced Senate Bill 48, also known LGBTQ History Comes out of the Shadows, into K-12 Classrooms | San Jose Inside:

Mississippi Parents Demand an Answer: Are Charter Schools Constitutional? | Common Dreams

Mississippi Parents Demand an Answer: Are Charter Schools Constitutional? | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:

Mississippi Parents Demand an Answer: Are Charter Schools Constitutional?
Plaintiffs say privately-run, publicly-funded, corporate institutions do not qualify as "free" schools and shouldn't get taxpayer money

 Mississippi parents are challenging the public funding of charter schools on the grounds that it's not constitutional.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an advocacy group, filed a motion for a summary judgment this week on behalf of the parents, for a speedy answer to this question.

The only debate in the case is that of constitutionality, which makes it prime for answering, SPLC told Hinds County Chancery Judge Dewayne Thomas. The SPLC in July backed the lawsuit by several parents against Governor Phil Bryant, the Mississippi Department of Education, and the Jackson Public School District that challenged the funding of state charter schools.

Plaintiffs say that because the privately-run, publicly-funded, corporate institutions are not overseen by the state or local superintendents, they do not qualify as "free" schools and therefore shouldn't be eligible for taxpayer money. Three charter schools in Jackson are currently slated to receive $4 million in public funds this year.

According to the Jackson Free Press, about a third of that will come from taxes on property, vehicles, and equipment.

The Free Press reports:

The challengers say charter schools are barred from getting state money because they are not overseen by the state superintendent or a local school superintendent, and thus under previous state Supreme Court decisions, don't qualify as "free schools." The state Constitution says only "free schools" can get public money. That part of the constitution is in a section banning public money for religious schools.

The plaintiffs also say a 2007 Supreme Court decision bars the transfer of property tax collections from one school district to another. Each charter school is technically set up as separate district in Mississippi, meaning the three schools now operating in Jackson are not part of that district.

 As taxpayers in Jackson, we expect our property taxes to support public schools in Jackson," plaintiff Charles Araujo said. "I believe that in order for children to receive a quality education in Jackson public schools, Jackson public schools must have sufficient funding."

Araujo, a retired social worker, said he feared that if funding continues to get redirected from public schools to charter schools, the public institutions will be forced to cut programs for gifted students, special education for students with needs, and other services like buses and counseling.

As Louisiana educator and researcher Mercedes Schneider explained in July, the state's Mississippi Parents Demand an Answer: Are Charter Schools Constitutional? | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:

How John Oliver and Charter Schools Show Education Reform Lost Its Mojo | US News Opinion

How John Oliver and Charter Schools Show Education Reform Lost Its Mojo | US News Opinion:

How Education Reform Lost Its Mojo
Today's reformers don't know how or when to fight.

It's been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad summer for education reform. After many years of bipartisan support, key elements of the reform agenda – higher standards, better teachers, test-based accountability, parental choice – are starved for oxygen in both the Republican and Democratic party platforms. Earlier this month, the NAACP further upset the reform apple cart with a call for a moratorium on new charter schools. Not to be outdone, a "platform" released by the Movement for Black Lives, a group of organizations organized by Black Lives Matter, issued a scorched earth condemnation of every aspect of the ed-reform agenda, which it characterized as "a systematic attack … coordinated by an international education privatization agenda, bankrolled by billionaire philanthropists … and aided by the departments of education at the federal, state, and local level."

Response to this series of stunning attacks and political reversals has overall been mild to muted. The usual groups have told journalists where and how they disagree with the antis, but there's been no outcry of support for the agenda items under attack, and certainly not from any political leaders, prominent columnists, etc.

This week, however, by marked contrast, the atmosphere inside the edu-bubble was set alight by – wait for it – John Oliver. Yes, that John Oliver, British comedian and host of a faux HBO news show, who did a "takedown" of charter schools that was quickly and correctly dismissed by Nick Gillespie of Reason as "clever, glib and uninformed." From the reactions of education reformers, however, you'd think Oliver was Edward R. Murrow, and that the expose had appeared on "60 Minutes," not a late-night comedy show.

The National Alliance of Public Charter schools issued a defensive statement contending the Oliver's piece was "not representative of charter schools nationwide." The ed reform news site The 74 ran pieces bemoaning that the selective anecdotes in Oliver's negative spiel ignored "the vast majority of charter teachers and administrators go to work each morning prepared and determined to do right by their students." On social media, the gnashing of teeth and rending of flesh threatened to reach apocalyptic levels. The American Enterprise Institute's Rick Hess spoke for nearly no one when he tweeted that "It's hard to convey how little I worry about Oliver's views."

I'm with Hess. Armchair psychology is a dangerous game, but my best hunch is that a kind of moral panic has set in among reformers (on both sides of the aisle but particularly on the left) who have suffered – and suffered mostly in silence – a series of stinging rebukes from those, particularly in the civil rights community, who ought to be their most stalwart champions, yet who cannot be comfortably challenged. It's deeply odd, if you think about it: reform, long marked by a pugnacious, crusading rhetorical style may be losing both its will to fight and its ability to differentiate between genuine threats and mere irritants.

As my Fordham colleague Chester Finn recently observed, longstanding bipartisan support for the education reform agenda has collapsed: "As Democrats pander to teachers' unions and minority grievances and Republicans focus on social issues and culture wars, little energy remains for school reform." The Wall Street Journal recently noted that Hillary Clinton "used to support charters. Now she's for the union agenda." Left-leaning reformers are clearly reluctant to defend their agenda or push back against their standard bearer, let alone throw a bone to the lifeless campaign of Donald Trump, who for all his manifold faults, did give a speech last week that argued for "school choice, merit pay for teachers, and to end the tenure policies that hurt good teachers and reward bad teachers."

Thoughtful arguments can be made about the efficacy of these and other elements of the reform agenda over the last several decades. But if there's one clear, unambiguous victory that reformers can rightly claim, it's urban charter schools, which, in the main, have served How John Oliver and Charter Schools Show Education Reform Lost Its Mojo | US News Opinion:

1950's Back To School

1950's Back To School

When Learning Was Funny

CURMUDGUCATION: 13 Deadly Sins of PD

CURMUDGUCATION: 13 Deadly Sins of PD:

13 Deadly Sins of PD

In my neck of the woods, this is the magical week in which teachers go back to balance their time between finishing room preparation and sitting through year-launching professional development sessions. Some sessions can address useful topics, and some are unfortunate choices (my wife's district decided to welcome their teachers back for the year by starting their first day with a session about suicide).



If you have to sit through PD, then you know the drill. But if you are PD presenter, here are the Thirteen  Deadly Sins to avoid:

1) Don't Read Us The Power Point

Frankly, if there's power point at all, I'm not that excited. But if you are just going to read us the power point slides, do us all a favor-- put those slides in an email attachment, send it out, and let us all sit in front of our own computer and read the presentation to ourselves. Seriously-- what is reading it out loud supposed to do for us? You're going to unlock new levels of meaning by the use of your vocal inflections? You want to give us a chance to close our eyes without missing anything? You're one of those edumalpracticioners who not only believes in scripting, but thinks scripting is more effective when your students can see the script you're reading? Or this isn't actually your presentation and you have no idea what the hell you're talking about, so you'll just read what's there and hope that gets you through the hour?

There is no good reason to read power point slides to an audience over the age of five. Stop it. Stop it right now.

2) Don't Wave Around Sort-of-Teacher Credentials

Introducing yourself is a legit good idea, but just be honest. Especially don't try to fake us out by trying to connect with us professionally. Here are honest introductions that we never hear at PD sessions.

I was a classroom teacher up until about five years ago when I decided that I'd rather get into something easier and cushy like textbook repping. I have some vague memory of what teaching was like, but frankly, I scrubbed that out of my brain as soon as I took my first ride in my sweet company car.

I taught for about two years and realized I couldn't hack it, but there I was with an education degree, and what the hell else was I going to do. Thank God there were consulting jobs opening up.

Oh, yeah! I was absolutely a teacher, by which I mean I did two years with Teach for America, trying to make up for all the terrible work you so-called professionals were doing. But that let me CURMUDGUCATION: 13 Deadly Sins of PD:

Federal Suit Filed Against State On Restrictions To Magnet, Charter School Development - Hartford Courant

Federal Suit Filed Against State On Restrictions To Magnet, Charter School Development - Hartford Courant:

Federal Suit Filed Against State On Restrictions To Magnet, Charter School Development

 A California-based educational-advocacy group has filed a federal lawsuit charging that Connecticut's restrictions on magnet and charter schools harm city children and violate the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Students Matter, a group best known for bringing an unsuccessful lawsuit seeking to eliminate teacher tenure in California, filed a 71-page complaint Tuesday charging that "inexcusable educational inequity" in Connecticut was primarily the result of state laws "that prevent inner-city students from accessing even minimally acceptable public-school options."

The group is taking aim at laws that have put a moratorium on new magnet schools, limit the expansion of charter schools, and set per-student funding levels for districts participating in the Open Choice program in which city students attend suburban schools.

A statement from Students Matter said, "Year after year, these parents have tried to avoid sending their children to failing public schools by trying to enroll them in magnet schools, charter public schools or other adequate public school alternatives."

However, the group contends that children have been "forced to remain in failing schools" because laws prevent magnets and charters from "scaling and meeting the need for high-quality schools demanded by Connecticut's population."Federal Suit Filed Against State On Restrictions To Magnet, Charter School Development - Hartford Courant:

Beware of AstroTurf Ed Reformers 

Astroturf lobbying refers to political organizations or campaigns that appear to be made up of grassroots activists but are actually organized and run by corporate interests seeking to further their own agendas. Such groups are often typified by innocent-sounding names that have been chosen specifically to disguise the group's true backers

Big Education Ape: Group Created By Silicon Valley Millionaire Targets Teacher Evaluations In California - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2015/07/group-created-by-silicon-valley.html

Will Indy adopt central enrollment system for schools?

Will Indy adopt central enrollment system for schools?:

Will Indy adopt central enrollment system for schools?

A group is developing a one-stop enrollment system for Indianapolis schools but will the city’s largest education provider take part?

Indianapolis Public Schools leaders are weighing whether to join Enroll Indy, a nonprofit with plans to launch a unified enrollment process for IPS schools and charter schools within the district’s boundaries by next year.

The goal: Help parents find a school for their children in a city with growing options that feature charter schools, innovation network schools, magnet programs and more.

So far, IPS hasn’t made any commitments, though moving toward such a system is among the district’s priorities, IPS Superintendent Lewis Ferebee said.

“Whether Enroll Indy is the best fit for IPS to go down that path is to be determined,” Ferebee told IndyStar. “The concept itself could definitely benefit our families.”

Advocates for a central enrollment system say the way parents now shop for schools is disorganized. To find the best fit, parents must juggle different application deadlines and know what programs are out there, a daunting task with the city now playing host to more than 40 charter schools.

Wealthier families can find the process easier to navigate, placing lower-income families at a disadvantage, organizers say.

“If we’re going to say we have choice,” said Caitlin Hannon, Enroll Indy’s founder, “everybody should have equitable access to that choice.”

Hannon, a former IPS School Board member, said the group is hoping to launch its first application process next fall for the 2018-19 school year. But first it needs buy-in from the city’s schools, and Hannon started making her pitch to IPS this month.

A 2015 report by the Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice found that the city’s schools are in “intense competition to enroll students.”

“There is no incentive for IPS, for example, to tell parents about charter schools. Or for Ball State University to ensure families understand the IPS magnet school application,” according to the report. “In both cases, doing so would not be in their best self-interest. For families, though the distinction between authorizers is less important. Parents are looking for the best school for their child, regardless of who runs it. For them, not having the information in one easy-to-access place doesn’t make sense.”

Families would apply through Enroll Indy to any participating school, where they’d rank their school preferences and be matched with a program.

Hannon said families would be asked their priorities, such as location and where siblings attend. Students are then matched to the school “they want the most that they can get into, based on those priorities,” Hannon said.

“I like to explain it as all schools lotteries happening at the same moment…,” she said.

An analysis of a similar system run in Denver Public Schools found not enough seats existed in high-performing schools to serve demand. That meant students often were assigned to lower-performing schools than initially requested.

But the system would come with perks, Hannon said. Parents would no longer have Will Indy adopt central enrollment system for schools?:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: 27 children shot in Chicago. But no pics going viral.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: 27 children shot in Chicago. But no pics going viral.:

27 children shot in Chicago. But no pics going viral.

Photo of Syrian child, victim of bombings, has gone viral. 

The number of Chicago shooting victims this year is approaching 2,700 after 57 were shot over the weekend. Twenty-seven of the victims have been children, all of them children of color. Since the beginning of June, Chicago has averaged about one child shot each week. So far, no iconic photos of any of them to capture hearts and minds. Why not? 

CTU members are marching out in the rain this morning, ahead of school board meeting where the district's $5.4 billion budget will be voted on.

.@CTULocal1 members protest ahead of school board meeting. Budget expected to go up for a vote today pic.twitter.com/8w6iT0bXyT

— Progress Illinois (@progressIL) August 24, 2016

The proposed budget, with massive program cuts, is laden with property tax increases and largely reliant on heavy borrowing against future property tax revenue, as opposed to taxing the wealthy or finding other new sources of revenue.

All this while Gov. Rauner continues to hold the state's school budget hostage.

Also protesting is Access Living, a disability rights group, upset about the new way the Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: 27 children shot in Chicago. But no pics going viral.:

Statewide Student Test Results Released - Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education)

Statewide Student Test Results Released - Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education):

Schools Chief Torlakson Reports Across-the-Board Progress Toward Career and College Readiness in CAASPP Results

 SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced today that California students made significant progress in the second year of the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) online tests, with the percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards increasing at every grade and in every student group.

Nearly half the students tested met or exceeded standards in English language arts, and nearly four in ten met or exceeded standards in mathematics (see Table 1). These online tests, based on California’s challenging academic standards, ask students to write clearly, think critically, and solve complex problems, just as they will need to do in college and on the job.

“The higher test scores show that the dedication, hard work, and patience of California’s teachers, parents, school employees, and administrators are paying off. Together we are making progress towards upgrading our education system to prepare all students for careers and college in the 21st century,” Torlakson said.

“Of course there’s more work to do, but our system has momentum. I am confident that business, political and community leaders will join parents and educators to help continue supporting increased standards and resources for schools.”

More than 3.2 million students took part in CAASPP, which includes a number of different assessments. The most widely tested are the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments in mathematics and English language arts/literacy, which are given in grades three through eight and grade 11.

Preliminary figures indicate that less than 1 percent of eligible California students did not take part in the assessment due to a parental exemption, a figure far lower than in many other states (see Table 2).

“This low rate of parental exemption indicates that our parents and students see the value of measuring the skills of all students against the same standards the same way, using one common yardstick, and one shared goal: learning,” Torlakson said.

In addition, he said, it shows a strong commitment to the state’s comprehensive program of transforming our schools with higher academic standards, more local control over spending, more funding for those with the greatest needs, and a new system of evaluating schools and districts.

“These positive results are based on a new college and career readiness assessment that is online, and expects students to demonstrate critical thinking and problem solving skills unlike the old, multiple choice tests they replace,” said State Board of Education President Mike Kirst.

Smarter Balanced tests consist of two parts. First, students take a computer adaptive assessment, which bases follow-up questions on a student’s answers in real time and gives a more accurate picture of a student’s progress than the paper and pencil test.

Here’s how it works: If a student answers a question correctly, she gets a more difficult question. If she answers it incorrectly, she gets an easier question.

Students also complete a performance task that challenges their ability to apply their knowledge and skills to problems in a real-world setting. The two parts measure depth of understanding, writing, research and problem-solving skills more thoroughly than the multiple-choice, paper-based tests they replaced.

Scores on the assessments fall into one of four achievement levels: standard exceeded, standard met, standard nearly met, and standard not met. The state also computes the average scores of all tested students, called mean scale scores, which reflects the progress of all students rather than only those who changed achievement levels from one year to the next.

This year average scale scores rose statewide. Statewide in all tested grades, 49 percent of students met or exceeded the English language arts/literacy standard, an increase of 5 percentage points from last year. In mathematics, 37 percent of students met or exceeded standards, also an increase of 4 percentage points from last year.

In English language arts/literacy, the percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards increased by at least 4 percentage points in all grades except grades eight and eleven, which increased by 3 points (see Table 3).

In mathematics, the largest gains were seen among third-graders, with 46 percent meeting or exceeding standards, an increase of 6 points from last year. Other grades posted gains of 2 or 3 percentage points (see Table 4).

California State Universities and many community colleges consider high marks on these tests among 11th-grade students a reliable sign of readiness for college-level work. This year’s results indicate 59 percent of grade eleven students are ready or conditionally ready for college work in English language arts, with 33 percent ready or conditionally ready for college work in mathematics.

Torlakson said a number of factors may have helped scores rise this year, including an extra year of teaching the California state standards in English and math, more familiarity with taking an online test, continued improvements in technology, and the use of interim tests, he said.

Torlakson noted that schools are still working to make the transition to new standards and assessments, and said patience and persistence will contribute to the ongoing effort to improve California’s schools.

One concern remains with the continuing achievement gap, with significantly lower scores among students from low-income families, English learners and some ethnic groups compared to other students.

Statewide scores for all student groups rose in both subjects tested (see Table 5 and Table 6). For example, average scores for Latino students in English language arts increased 5 percent, while scores for African Americans and Whites rose 3 percent.

But the achievement gap continues with just 37 percent of Latinos and 31 percent of African American students meeting or exceeding standards in English language arts compared with 64 percent of White students.

“The achievement gap is pernicious and persistent and we all need to work together to find solutions that help all groups rise, while narrowing the gap,” said Torlakson, who has proposed an office within the California Department of Education devoted to coordinating and promoting efforts to address the achievement gap.

Individual student scores are reported to parents by mail. In addition, California provides a dedicated CAASPP Results Web site, where parents and the public can view and compare aggregated results among schools, districts, and counties along with statewide results.

The California Department of Education provides a wide range of tools to help parents, teachers and schools understand and use CAASPP results.

These resources include a new understanding student CAASPP scores Web site  that provides parents with grade-by-grade, subject-by-subject information at all levels of achievement; detailed online guides for parents and teachers to use in analyzing results; and practice tests at every grade level in English.

California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress—2016 Annual Release Summary Results Tables of the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments for English Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics

Table 1: 2014–15 and 2015–16 Smarter Balanced Number and Percentage Point Change of All California Students Who Exceeded or Met Standards for English Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics1

Content Area	Number of Students Tested with Scores 20152	Number of Students Tested with Scores 20162	Percent Students who Met or Exceeded Standards 2015	Percent Students who Met or Exceeded Standards 2016	Percentage Point Change of Students who Met or Exceeded Standards 2015–2016
English Language Arts/Literacy3	3,173,079	3,188,014	44	49	+5
Mathematics	3,179,246	3,196,382	33	37	+4

1 Results for other achievement levels including 2015 are located on the CDE CAASPP Results Web site.
2 The number of valid scores includes count of students statewide who were enrolled and responded to enough questions on both the Performance Task and the Computer Adaptive portions of the test to generate a score.
3  Recently arrived English Learners who are in his or her first 12 months of attending a school in the United States are exempted from taking the assessment in English language arts.

Table 2: 2015–16 Number and Percentage of Students Receiving Statewide Student Test Results Released - Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education):

Op-ed: Why privatizing education must be stopped

Op-ed: Why privatizing education must be stopped:

Op-ed: Why privatizing education must be stopped

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest” — Elie Wiesel.

Three recent news worthy items deserve our attention. The first is a recent study in the American Educational Research Journal. The study concluded that rising income inequality in the U.S. is a primary cause of the growing economic segregation of schools. As the gap grows between rich and poor, affluent families are more likely to segregate themselves into enclaves where there are few poor children in the public schools.

The second is a report issued by the Indiana Department of Education that calculated the net increased cost for the state’s education voucher program to be $53.2 million. Some 52 percent of voucher students now have no record of attending a public school.

The final report is one completed by the National Conference of State Legislatures addressing educational reform. The report acknowledges there are no silver bullets and the present efforts at reform have failed. The report recognizes the importance of having all stakeholders be a part of the process of improving our schools.

Why does any of this matter? All of these reports can be tied to the effort to privatize education.

In his book, “Justice,” Michael Sandell makes the observation that during the past 30 years we have moved from being a market economy to a market society where increasingly everything is being turned into a commodity and is for sale to the highest bidder. Sandell contends that when dealing with material goods, a market economy is a valuable and productive tool, but we should not trust markets with our civic lives. He observes that economists assume markets are inert and do not touch or taint the goods they exchange. This assumption may be true of material goods, but may not be true for non-material goods and social practices related to education, health care, politics, law and civic life.

Should educational opportunities be made available based upon the ability to pay? Should we pay children to read books or get good grades? Should people receive health care on the basis of their ability to pay? Should access to politicians and the political system be governed by those who have more money? Should legal representation be impacted by one’s financial circumstances? Should you be able to pay someone else to take your place in serving your country? Should citizenship be for sale?

Sandell asserts markets may in fact undermine or crowd out non-market attitudes and values worth caring about and change the character of some goods and social practices. He writes that the most corrosive effect of markets is the loss of our commonality – “we’re all in it together.”

The American public school system has been where students of different economic classes, religious backgrounds and ethnic communities come together to develop a sense of community and a commitment to the common good.

Because of income inequality, we are increasingly leading separate lives. Sandell asserts, “Democracy doesn’t demand absolute equality, but does require people to share a common life.”

Sandell concludes that ultimately this is “… not an economic question. The question is how do we want to live together? Do we want a society where everything is up for sale or are there certain moral and civic goods that markets do not honor and money cannot buy?”

That is why all of this matters, why we should oppose privatizing our schools and why we should elect people who support our public schools. I may be powerless to prevent it, but the privatization of education is an injustice, and I must protest.

Eiler is former superintendent of Lafayette School Corp.Op-ed: Why privatizing education must be stopped:

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

Parents’ digital learning opt out form to share | Parents Across America

Parents’ digital learning opt out form to share | Parents Across America:

Parents’ digital learning opt out form to share

We reached out to Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, author of the just-released book, “Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction is Hijacking our Kids — and How to Break the Trance,” and received his permission to share the excellent sample digital learning opt out letter that is included in the book (see below).

Dr. .Kardaras says, “Parents and schools have been misled by tech companies into believing that educational technology leads to better school outcomes; but the research just doesn’t bear that out. What we essentially have is a $60 billion dollar scam where digital Trojan horses filled with the potential for clinical disorders have been allowed into our kids’ classrooms under the pretense of being ‘educational’. Unfortunately, we have been conducting a massive experiment using our kids as guinea pigs without vetting any of these developmentally inappropriate marvels of the digital age.”

Please also see PAA’s recommendations for sensible use of technology, and questions to ask at your child’s school, as well as our full list of reports.

School Technology Opt-Out Letter

Dear Teacher and/or School Administrator,

I would like to respectfully request that all of my child’s education and educational content be presented without the use of electronic devices. This includes the use of tablets, chrome books, lap tops or desk top computers.

We wish to help nurture and support our child’s educational, social, psychological and emotional development as much as possible and have become increasingly concerned with the potential detrimental aspects of screen technologies on young children.

We understand that you, as the school, have a responsibility to present our child with state approved educational content and curriculum. We are in full agreement with that. But it is within our right as parents to ensure that the medium by which our children’s education is being presented is safe and not problematic clinically nor developmentally.

There has been a plethora of research indicating the adverse effect of electronic screens on children’s attentional, cognitive and social development if they are exposed at too young of an age. Please feel free to refer to the Website www.Glowkids.com for a full list of that peer-reviewed research.

Sincerely,

___________________________________________

The Parent(s) of: __________________________________________

 Parents’ digital learning opt out form to share | Parents Across America: