Detroit parents ask court to bar uncertified teachers

Detroit parents ask court to bar uncertified teachers:

Detroit parents ask court to bar uncertified teachers

Detroit — A group of Detroit parents are suing the new school district’s emergency manager and interim superintendent to prevent the possible hiring of uncertified teachers, saying a state law allowing the use of such instructors would treat their children like “second class citizens.”

A civil suit, filed Tuesday in Wayne County Circuit Court on behalf of six parents and their minor children, contends certain sections of the six tie-bar bills creating the new Detroit Public Schools Community District, including a provision allowing the use of uncertified teachers, are “onerous and unconstitutional.”

The parents — Aliya Moore, Dorothea Nicholson, Sherry Lawrence, Yolanda Peoples, Dawn Pauling and Eileene Gordon-King — want the court to take action that would ensure emergency manager Steven Rhodes and interim superintendent Alycia Meriweather won’t use uncertified teachers.

Rhodes and Meriweather are managing the district until a new school board takes office Jan. 1. That board will then operate the district, with oversight from a financial review commission.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs say the $617 million legislative package that bailed out the debt-ridden Detroit Public Schools includes language making the city’s new district the only one in Michigan that can hire uncertified teachers.

That provision, they contend, “treats every minor child of the old Detroit Public Schools as well as every other child who will attend the new Community Schools District, as a second class citizen.”

But Chrystal Wilson, a district spokeswoman, stressed Wednesday that Rhodes and Meriweather have “said on numerous occasions that they will not hire uncertified teachers.” Wilson declined to address the lawsuit, saying the district cannot comment on pending litigation.

Nevertheless, the plaintiffs argue if the laws go unchallenged, it will enable an “unequal and separate education system” for the city’s public schools, violating due process and equal protection rights under the federal and state constitutions.

Under state law, school districts can employ full- or part-time noncertificated, nonendorsed teachers with appropriate degrees and experience for designated courses in grades 9-12, including science and foreign language classes.

The parents are asking the court to find the provision unlawful and grant an injunction that would prevent the district from hiring noncertified teachers now or under future Detroit parents ask court to bar uncertified teachers:

Pa. seeks better results, oversight with new charter school division

Pa. seeks better results, oversight with new charter school division:

Pa. seeks better results, oversight with new charter school division

In the latest sign of increased scrutiny of charter schools, Gov. Wolf announced Wednesday the creation of a division within the state Department of Education dedicated to assisting and improving such schools.

Establishing the Division of Charter Schools "will allow us to maximize our resources to not only ensure charters are being properly supported, but that they are being held accountable to taxpayers," the governor said in a statement.

Privately managed but publicly funded, charter schools have exploded in the commonwealth. During the 2014-15 school year, 176 charter schools with 132,531 students operated statewide. The model has stirred advocates and critics.

A report last week by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association said that charter school administrative expenditures were nearly double those of conventional public schools, and that their highest-ranking officials are paid far more. It also said such schools spend less on instruction than traditional school districts, and more on support services and facilities.

This month, the state's auditor general renewed his concerns about a lack of accounting for reimbursements paid by the state to such schools.

Charter school funding also became a sticking point in this year's state budget negotiations. At issue was a House bill that would, among other changes, create a commission that would recommend a formula for funding charters, and establish a state-level board to authorize charter schools.

Public school advocates believed the bill would strip local districts of their authority to cap the number of students enrolled in charters. Legislators also were split on the bill. The measure didn't get enough traction, but legislators said they would try to revive it in the fall.

Wolf's office said the new division would assist charter schools in setting goals for student achievement, increasing parent and community involvement, and ensuring academic and financial responsibility.

Wolf spokesman Jeff Sheridan said the office will have four employees, including a chief, who has not been hired yet. In addition to technical support, the office will provide increased site visits to charter schools, post annual charter reports online, and evaluate student achievement data, among other things.

Tim Eller, a spokesman for the Keystone Alliance of Public Charter Schools, said he was happy the state wants to partner with charters to help improve them, but said many of the functions that the new office will perform - such as technical support, school improvement plans, and working with educators - were already being done by the Department of Education.

"It's a duplication of services," he said.

kboccella@phillynews.com

610-313-8232      @Kathy_Boccella

Staff writer Angela Couloumbis contributed to this article.Pa. seeks better results, oversight with new charter school division:

After three years of fighting charges, PA Cyber founder admits tax fraud | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

After three years of fighting charges, PA Cyber founder admits tax fraud | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

After three years of fighting charges, PA Cyber founder admits tax fraud

Nicholas Trombetta, founder of the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School in Beaver County, became a federal felon on Wednesday after pleading guilty to a tax conspiracy charge related to the siphoning of $8 million from the school to a network of other entities he created.

After a contentious hearing in which he agreed to plead and then appeared to back out, he finally admitted to U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti that he defrauded the U.S. “by shifting income, your honor, yes” to hide it from the IRS.

Judge Conti will sentence him Dec. 20. He remains free until then.

Mr. Trombetta, 61, and his lawyer, Adam Hoffinger, declined to comment as they walked down a courthouse hallway to the federal probation office.

U.S. Attorney David Hickton said the case highlights the dedication of his office to protect against fraud in education at all levels. Taxpayers, he said, have a right to expect school leaders, whether in traditional buildings or running cyberschools, to invest in children and “not condos and airplanes.”

Mr. Trombetta, regarded at one time as a savior in Midland, where he founded PA Cyber in 2000, faces up to five years behind bars. Mr. Hickton would not comment on what he might actually get, saying that’s up to the judge.

The plea was in doubt for much of the day because Mr. Trombetta initially refused to agree with the government’s detailed summary of the evidence against him.

The judge began the hearing in the morning but then took a break until the afternoon while the parties haggled. At one point Mr. Hoffinger objected to Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Kaufman’s recitation of the facts, saying it read like a “press release” rather than a description of the tax offense to which his client was pleading. But Mr. Kaufman said he was merely reading from the indictment to establish some basis for the tax charge, because the case involves a complex maze of companies and nonprofits.

When Judge Conti finally asked Mr. Trombetta how he pleaded, he paused momentarily and said, “Guilty.”

Mr. Trombetta was indicted in 2013 on 11 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud and tax offenses.

He pleaded to tax conspiracy from 2006 to 2013 in diverting some $8 million to his sister and four straw owners of a related company he created, Avanti Management Group, to conceal his true income.

A co-defendant in the case, accountant Neal Prence, is still scheduled to go to trial. He asked for a delay because of the Trombetta plea, but the judge denied it.

Mr. Trombetta’s critics have been waiting years for the conviction. One of them, Karen Beyer, a former state legislator from Lehigh County, said she raised concerns about cyberschools years ago After three years of fighting charges, PA Cyber founder admits tax fraud | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

 

Breakfast on the Floor. Poof. Gone. | BustED Pencils

Breakfast on the Floor. Poof. Gone. | BustED Pencils:

Breakfast on the Floor. Poof. Gone.

On August 10th I posted a blog detailing the breakfast situation at my former school, Jewell Elementary. Feel free to read to catch up.

Within less than 24 hours of posting the blog the breakfast policy was changed. Poof. Gone.  Social media is very useful in exposing bad policies, which then require people to acknowledge the policy, and make a shift – quickly.  As you recall, the options for breakfast were for teachers to give up planning time to allow students to come in early to eat in the classroom or NOT give up planning time and allow them to eat on the hallway floor outside the classroom.

The next morning, August 11th, a  “stand up” meeting was called for the staff. A “stand up” meeting is an impromptu meeting that is called unexpectedly and typically creates quite a few nervous jitters because there is no knowledge of the purpose of the meeting.  This particular meeting was called to announce a change in the breakfast policy. No longer would there be any option of children eating on the hallway floor. The teachers were tasked with discussing how to go about organizing eating in the classroom in the mornings. The teachers were told that the monthly average of planning time being taken from them, for other purposes than planning (data meetings, prof. dev.), was indeed, within the allowable minutes.  Therefore, it was okay and supposedly “contractually legal” to require teachers to give up ten minutes of planning every morning for breakfast.

I have a lot of questions about this idea of a monthly average of minutes that are “allowable.”  Why are we averaging allowable minutes over a month? What happened to consistent and daily planning? Does this mean that if teachers were to lose almost all their planning for one week (which does happen), and then get buckets of minutes the next week for planning, that this is okay? What happens to the week with no planning? Do teachers just wing it that week? Or do they stay up until midnight on their own time, while being required to ignore their family and their own personal needs?

Considering that these teachers are already losing planning time for required data meetings, loss of one day of specials, and more, I find this monthly averaging to be bogus.  How can this be contractually legal? But teachers are expected to just nod, smile, and say, okay. Then they go home and work their asses off planning in the evenings and on the weekends. Workhorses. And eventually, more Lucys.

Teaching requires a continual cycle of gathering information about our children and then Breakfast on the Floor. Poof. Gone. | BustED Pencils:

Restorative Discipline Makes Huge Impact in Texas Schools

Restorative Discipline Makes Huge Impact in Texas Schools:

Restorative Discipline Makes Huge Impact in Texas Elementary and Middle Schools

Theft is a major offense — in or out of school — and students caught stealing usually face suspension or other tough discipline measures. But when a theft occurs in a school that has adopted restorative discipline practices, the outcome looks very different.

Consider this scenario from a Dallas, Texas, middle school.

A mobile phone goes missing during an all-female dance class. The owner of the phone reports the theft to her teacher, saying she suspects it was stolen in the locker room while the girls were changing. The teacher must then report the theft to administrators, but what happens next is what distinguishes restorative discipline from resorting to more severe consequences.

Rather than searching out the suspect, assigning blame, and doling out a punishment, the teacher and an administrator gather all the girls in a circle to discuss what happened. Each girl speaks about how she felt sitting in a circle with a student who would steal from someone in their class. They shared what they’d like to say to that student, and what they thought the consequence should be if that person decided to return the phone.

At the end of the circle discussion, the girl whose phone was stolen was asked if she’d like to add anything. She said she needed the phone because her parents work late and she meets her younger sister after school every day to walk home together. If anything goes wrong, the phone is the only way she has to reach her parents.

The next day, the phone turns up in the principal’s office. No one is suspended or otherwise severely disciplined and the phone is returned to its owner.

This effort has focused on students building relationships with teachers in the hopes that in these relationships, problems can be addressed and solved before they become bigger issues” – David Griffin

“This practice is called ‘classroom circling’ and it’s a key element to restorative practice,” says William Jay Sheets, Restorative Practices Coordinator for the Dallas Independent School District. “The foundation is being proactive in the classroom, investing time into your students and really listening to them.”

Dallas-NEA, the Dallas affiliate of the Texas State Teachers Association, collaborated with Dallas Independent School District to pilot restorative discipline programs in six Dallas elementary and middle schools – Caillet Elementary, Dunbar Learning Center, and Medrano, Gaston, Hood and Boude Storey middle schools. A grant from the National Education Association helped fund teacher training in the practice.

The results speak for themselves: Last year, in-school suspensions at the piloted schools dropped by 70%. Out-of-school suspensions dropped by 77%. The number of students sent to alternative school was cut in half.

“This effort has focused on students building relationships with teachers in the hopes that in these relationships, problems can be addressed and solved before they become bigger issues,” says David Griffin, teacher leader with Dallas ISD and a member of the NEA-Dallas board of directors.

Cutting Off the School-to-Prison Pipeline

Like many urban districts, Dallas has a history of harshly disciplining young black Restorative Discipline Makes Huge Impact in Texas Schools:

The Idiocy of AYP Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association:

The Idiocy of AYP

By:  Dr. Mitchell Robinson, Member BATs Blogging/Research Team

Originally published on his blog here http://www.mitchellrobinson.net/2016/08/24/the-idiocy-of-ayp/

 AYP, or "Adequate Yearly Progress", is one of those seemingly benign terms that pops up in the educational lexicon every few years. AYP sounds...friendly. Unassuming. Who could argue with a reform initiative based on kids, teachers, or schools making "adequate yearly progress"? What are we, communists? Of course we want our schools to make progress...and insisting it be "adequate" doesn't sound too demanding, does it? I mean, how hard could it be to make "adequate" progress? Cmon...


And yet the truth is much harsher. AYP has become an albatross around the neck of school districts rich and poor. It requires that schools demonstrate inexorable, upward rates of progress, no matter their actual measures of success. While AYP may have been intended to exert pressure on "low performing schools," in practice it has created unreasonable pressures and stresses on all kinds of schools, students, teachers, and administrators, and is the policy lever behind much of the cheating that has characterized the worst of the "accountability era" in American education.

At the core of AYP is the notion of accountability--another seemingly benign concept that has taken on draconian undertones when applied to public education. But the blade of accountability seems to only be targeted on those with the least amount of power in the educational equation: children and teachers. How are education policy decision makers, who dream up increasingly punitive measures, held accountable? How are our political leaders, who pass the legislation recommended by these policy makers, held accountable?

Why is the idea of Adequate Yearly Progress only aimed at the recipients of these policies, Badass Teachers Association:

Lawsuit Revisits the Question of Education As a Fundamental Right Under the U.S. Constitution, But Is There More To It Than That?

Education Law Prof Blog:

Lawsuit Revisits the Question of Education As a Fundamental Right Under the U.S. Constitution, But Is There More To It Than That?

Plaintiffs in Connecticut have filed a new lawsuit against the state challenging the "inexcusable educational inequity and inadequacy" in its school "that prevent inner-city students from
accessing even minimally acceptable public-school options."  The complaint argues that these problems are a result of:

First, Connecticut has instituted a moratorium on new magnet schools (Conn.
Gen. Stat. § 10-264l(b)(1); Public Act No. 09-6, § 22 (Spec. Sess.); Public Act No. 15-177, § 1), despite the fact that a large majority of Connecticut’s magnet schools consistently outperform inner-city traditional district schools.

Second, Connecticut’s arcane and dysfunctional laws governing public charter
schools (Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 10-66ee(c)-(d), 10-66bb(a), 10-66bb(g)) prevent high-performing charter schools from opening or expanding in the State, despite the fact that Connecticut’s few charter schools consistently outperform inner-city traditional district schools.

Third, Connecticut’s inter-district Open Choice enrollment program (Conn. Gen.
Stat. §§ 10-266aa(c), 10-266aa(e), 10-266aa(f), 10-266aa(g), 10-266aa(h)) penalizes school districts that accept students from inner-city school districts, thus dooming the viability of the very program ostensibly designed to provide Connecticut’s students with quality public-school options.

As a remedy, plaintiffs ask:

for a simple declaration that would have immeasurable benefits for many thousands of children: By forcing Plaintiffs and thousands of other students to attend public schools that it knows are failing, while impeding the availability of viable public educational alternatives through the Anti-Opportunity Laws, Connecticut is violating students’ federal due process and equal protection rights. Connecticut should be required to take any and all steps necessary to ensure that neither Plaintiffs nor any other students within its borders are forced to attend a failing public school.

The case is a hard one to pigeonhole.  On the one hand, it attempts what I and others have long advocated for: a reconsideration and overturn of San Antonio v. Rodriguez.  As the Connecticut Mirror reports, 

Forty-three years have passed since the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly ruled in the landmark San Antonio v. Rodriguez school-funding case that education was not a constitutional right and that the disparate spending on education for students from low-income neighborhoods was not a violation of the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.

"The time has come for the federal courts to recognize a federal constitutional right to some minimal, adequate level of education. We felt Connecticut was a very good place to bring it," said Theodore J. Boutrous, one of the attorneys representing the seven student plaintiffs from low-income families.

Boutrous told reporters during a Wednesday conference call that the Rodriguez decision "left open the possibility that a claim like ours could succeed" since that case focused on school funding disparities while this lawsuit focuses on the limited options students have to leave failing schools.

. . .

Experts observing this case say a lot is at stake.

On the other hand, the case takes a factual angle in making out this claim that sounds a lot like free market thinking in education.  Moreover, Students Matter, the group that has lead the constitutional challenge to teacher tenure, is backing the case.  As a factual matter, the case would appear to be about student choice.  It holds up the interdistrict magnet schools created as a result of the Sheff v. O'Neill litigation, which are designed to further integration, as important models for improving educational opportunities for minority student, but argues those type of magnets are not the only viable option.  More charter schools, it argues, could create similar options to escape currently unconstitutional traditional public schools.  In this respect, the plaintiffs are trying to, in effect, piggy back off of the success of Sheff.  

My initial response is that there is a big gaping hole in this use of Sheff magnets.  Sheff magnets are an integrative cure to a segregative injury.  It is not clear that charters are a proportional or analogous remedy to anything, nor Education Law Prof Blog:

A Math Teacher Remembers Her Students (Education Realist) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

A Math Teacher Remembers Her Students (Education Realist) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

A Math Teacher Remembers Her Students (Education Realist)

This abridged post comes from the blog Education Realist. The teacher who writes this blog prefers to remain anonymous. I have observed this teacher teach math and social studies lessons; we have also met and had lunch discussing many issues in public schools.

In the fall of 2012, I began my first year at this school. I met a group of 29 freshmen in their first high school math class: geometry.  From the beginning, we all clicked. A new school didn’t seem quite so intimidating because every day of that first semester started with camaraderie and good times–and some learning, too.

Of the 26 who stayed the whole year, all but one passed. Nearly half Asians (from every part of the continent), over half the rest Hispanic, and seven whites, and one African American. Ten athletes, including two who turned their ability into scholarships. The eventual senior prom queen. All those who passed made it through trigonometry, at least. Most made it to pre-calculus. Only a few made it to Calculus or Advancement Placement Statistics.  They reflected the school’s population writ large: diverse, athletic, not overly focused on academics, but smart enough to get it done.

A few others were never in one of my classes again, but I saw them frequently; they’d always shout a greeting across the quad, identifying themselves because they know I never wear my glasses.

The remaining saw me in at least one subsequent math class. None seemed to mind.

When we talked, as we did often, we’d regularly refer to “that first geometry class”.  Our touchstone memory, kept alive through four years of their education.

One of my “three-timers”, a sweet, tentative young man who never had another math teacher until pre-calc, stopped by with his yearbook. As we thumbed through the senior pages, calling out familiar faces, he suddenly said, “Man, I bet you’ve taught most of the seniors at least once.”

We counted it together—of the 93 rows of four students each, I’d taught 288 of them, or roughly 75%. Many more than once.

In the face of that percentage, I decided it was time to work around my dislike of crowds, speeches, and heat in order to represent on their big night. So at 4:30, I showed up at the stadium to help assemble them for the procession.

At first, the seniors were gathered in informal groups outside the staging area, taking pictures, talking, dancing about impatiently. Many called me over or waved, shouting out their names.

As they moved into the cafeteria for the staging, I wandered around, touching base, asking about plans, saying goodbye. As I’d expected, they needed teachers to organize the alphabetized lines for the procession, so I took a list of twenty. Rounded them up, hollered them into line, while the fourteen students I’d taught A Math Teacher Remembers Her Students (Education Realist) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

John Oliver Slams Charter Schools And His Critics Totally Miss The Point

8/25/2016 – John Oliver Slams Charter Schools And His Critics Totally Miss The Point:

John Oliver Slams Charter Schools And His Critics Totally Miss The Point

 August 25, 2016, 2016 Subscribe

THIS WEEK: How Schools Ruin Testing … Teachers Win Tenure Case … Head Start Works … Threats To Schools Increase … Secret Procharter Money

TOP STORY

John Oliver Slams Charter Schools And His Critics Totally Miss The Point

By Jeff Bryant

“British comedian John Oliver devoted a ‘Back to School’ segment on his HBO program Last Week Tonight to examining the rapidly growing charter school industry and what these schools are doing with our tax dollars … None of Oliver’s critics seriously refuted the crux of his argument that there might be something fundamentally wrong by design, rather than by implementation or intent, with the idea that a ‘free market’ of privately operated and essentially unregulated schools is a surefire way to improve education opportunities for all students.”
Read more …

NEWS AND VIEWS

How Schools That Obsess About Standardized Tests Ruin Them As Measures Of Success

Vox

“A look at the data combined with some basic principles of social science suggests that the practices of no-excuses charters are undermining the very foundation of data-based education reform … A test that overshadows the ultimate outcomes it is intended to measure turns into an invalid test … Many charter schools, under pressure to deliver unrealistic gains in test scores, are contorting themselves to get the numbers they’ve promised. They’re being rewarded for doing so.”
Read more …

In A Major Win For Teachers Unions, California Supreme Court Lets Teacher Tenure Ruling Stand

Los Angeles Times

“A landmark California case challenging tenure and other traditional job protections for teachers … let stand an appeals court ruling that preserved an array of employment rights … The assault on these protections is part of a broader approach to reforming education that would make schools more like the private sector, which relies on competition, measurable results and performance incentives … The Legislature remains the most logical place to determine such employment rules, some advocates on both sides said.”
Read more …

Research On Tulsa’s Head Start Program Finds Lasting Gains

NPR

“Children who attended Head Start had higher test scores on state math tests [by eighth grade]. They were less likely to be retained and less likely to display chronic absenteeism. These are highly consequential outcomes that we know are predictive of high school graduation, college enrollment, even earnings … The Head Start model, with its strong family support component and comprehensive services for children, can give children a strong pathway through school and hopefully out of poverty in their adult lives.”
Read more …

When Schools Are Threatened, Untold Learning Time Is Lost

Associated Press

“Violent or disruptive threats are increasing nationwide … blamed sometimes on local students and sometimes on outsiders … cause disruptions or a big emergency response … There’s no formal accounting of the collective costs … but the learning time lost to evacuations and cancellations adds up … The number of school bomb threats the last academic year alone, based on media reports, was at least 1,267, roughly twice as many as in 2012-13.”
Read more …

Donors Behind Charter Push Keep To The Shadows

Boston Globe

“A new $2.3 million ad boosting the expansion of charter schools in Massachusetts lists the campaign’s top five donors on screen … Four of the five donors to the procharter committee are nonprofit groups that do not, under state law, have to disclose their funders … The cloak of secrecy surrounding the financing of what could be the most expensive ballot campaign in state history has frustrated election officials and underscored the proliferation of untraceable money in political races across the country … The ballot campaign known as Question 2 – which would allow for the creation or expansion of up to 12 charter schools per year in low-performing districts.
Read more …

8/25/2016 – John Oliver Slams Charter Schools And His Critics Totally Miss The Point:

Opt Out - California Teachers Association

Opt Out - California Teachers Association:

Opt Out 

As standardized testing is under way or about to begin in schools across California, many parents are reaching out to teachers with questions about these tests and asking if they can opt out of the testing for their child. California is one of handful of states that has a law allowing all parents to opt out of state-mandated standardized testing. At the same time there are also California regulations governing what educators can say to parents and families. CTA has put together a number of resources to help educators have these conversations.

Opt Out Resources

For educators:
School Employees’ Rights Regarding Opting Out of Testing
Must Read: Cut & Share

For parents:
You can Opt Out - Parents Know your Rights - English (abbreviated version to come)
- Arabic
- Armenian- Cambodian
- Chinese
- Hmong- Korean
- Russian
- Spanish
- Thai
- Vietnamese

Sample Parent Letter - English

Join the Movement

Sign the NEA Petition to End High Stakes Testing
Fair Test (Just Say No to the Test)
Parents Across America
United Opt Out
Citizens for Public Schools
Sample School Board Resolution (San Diego Education Association)

Related News Stories

NEA Today Survey of Educators
Parents, Educators Stand Together Against Test Stress
Is Education Being Measured to Death?

CTA weighs in

Letter to Gov. Jerry Brown
Letter to Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson

 Opt Out - California Teachers Association:

Kobe's China Play Is No Slam Dunk - Bloomberg Gadfly

Kobe's China Play Is No Slam Dunk - Bloomberg Gadfly:

Kobe's China Play Is No Slam Dunk

By Tim Culpan

 American venture capitalist Kobe Bryant may soon learn that a drive to the basket doesn't always end with two points.

Bryant, an 18-time NBA All-Star and co-founder of venture capital firm Bryant Stibel, this week announced he's investing some of his firm's cash in Chinese education-technology company VIPKID. The move comes weeks after Sequioa Capital and Jack Ma's Yunfeng Capital led a $100 million round of funding.

Like New Oriental, VIPKID is focused on the increasingly crowded market for foreign-language (read, English) learning in China. As Bryant Stibel says:

VIPKID is bringing the North American elementary school experience to Chinese children.

At first glance, the market potential looks to be there. China has a huge population with a hunger to get ahead. Jack Ma, himself a former English teacher, is the poster child for a simple kid who became a billionaire through education and hard work. 

“It’s a no-brainer for me," Bryant, who holds the record for the most seasons with the same team, told the Los Angeles Times. "We have to look for companies adding value to society, helping kids learn and grow.” It apparently took Bryant less than the span of a half-time break to make the decision.

But as Educated Ventures partner Todd Maurer wrote recently, a note of caution ought to be sounded on the billions of dollars pouring into China's edtech sector, given a likely peak in the number of children going to school.

World Bank data show gross primary school enrollment jumped from 92.1 percent in 2001 to 114 percent in 2009 before falling off again. It's probably no coincidence that companies such as New Oriental made their mark during this boom, leading to U.S. listings. With a lag of about six years between primary and secondary school, we can expect that later-year enrollments and the accompanying revenue have already topped out.Kobe's China Play Is No Slam Dunk - Bloomberg Gadfly:

School groups denounce potential closure of Michigan schools - KTAR.com

School groups denounce potential closure of Michigan schools - KTAR.com:

School groups denounce potential closure of Michigan schools

Ray Tellman, executive director of the Middle Cities Education Association, expresses opposition to the potential closure of low-performing Michigan public schools on Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016, at the Michigan Association of School Boards office in Delta Township, Mich. At left is Don Wotruba, executive director the school boards group. At right is Chris Wigent, executive director of the Michigan Association of School Administrators. (AP Photo/David Eggert)

DELTA TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — It would be a mistake for state officials to start closing underperforming Michigan schools for academic reasons because it would devastate communities while not improving student achievement, concerned educators said Wednesday.

Associations representing school boards, school administrators and urban districts spoke out before the impending release of a statewide list, issued annually, of the bottom 5 percent of public schools. The rankings are based on test results, students’ improvement over time, and the gap between the best and worst pupils.

The officials said that Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration told some school leaders this month that if their schools are on the list for three straight years — which will be clearer once another is made public this fall — they may be subject to closure for the 2017-18 academic year.

“There is no data that shows that moving a child from one school to another school against their choice has any positive impact on student achievement. Quite frankly, it has a negative impact on the children,” Chris Wigent, executive director of the Michigan Association of School Administrators, told reporters during a news conference near Lansing.

In March of 2015, the Republican governor took control of an office charged with turning around the lowest-performing schools by transferring its functions to an agency whose director reports to him instead of the state Board of Education. He cited unsatisfactory progress and said no schools had been placed in Michigan’s turnaround district as authorized under a 2009 law.

That law lets the state impose one of four intervention models, including closure, if a school’s “redesign” plan isn’t working.

Caleb Buhs, a spokesman for the state school reform/redesign office, said suggestions that School Reform Officer Natasha Baker threatened schools with closure in recent meetings are “absolutely 100 percent false.” He said no decisions have been made.

Buhs acknowledged, however, that closures are under consideration, saying it is “one of the few tools” to address chronically low-performing schools in addition to appointing CEOs to oversee schools or placing them in a special state district. He said it is a “tragedy” that some schools continually advance students who fall behind and ultimately are ill-prepared upon graduation.

“That’s failing our children,” said Buhs, adding that “we don’t take the power to close a school lightly and understand the ramifications that that may have.”

There have been indications that Snyder wants to more aggressively address the worst schools.

In June, he signed a Republican-backed state bailout of Detroit’s school district that also orders the closure of any traditional or independent charter school in the city that is among the lowest-achieving 5 percent of schools statewide for the preceding three years. Baker can exempt schools from being closed if she determines it would place an “unreasonable hardship” on students.

There were more than 125 schools in the bottom 5 percent for the 2013-14 academic School groups denounce potential closure of Michigan schools - KTAR.com: