Pro-charter school question drawing out-of-state backers - Berkshire Eagle Online

Pro-charter school question drawing out-of-state backers - Berkshire Eagle Online:

Pro-charter school question drawing out-of-state backers
Many out-of-state donors in play over charter school cap question

BOSTON ; A ballot question aimed at expanding the number of charter schools in the state is being funded by a network of deep-pocketed backers, with much of the money coming from outside.

Nearly half of the $12 million raised to support the charter school question comes from the New York-based Families for Excellent Schools, according to an Associated Press review of records filed with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance. Other funders include independent former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and two Arizona-based heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune.

There also are strong ties between the administration of Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, a long-time charter school supporter, and groups supporting the question. Baker's hand-picked chairman of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, Paul Sagan, contributed $100,000 to a group pushing the question.

James Peyser, chosen by Baker to serve as the state's secretary of education, formerly served as a trustee for Families for Excellent Schools. Peyser resigned on Jan. 5, 2015, about two weeks after then-Gov.-elect Baker announced his appointment.

Baker has defended the Sagan donation, describing criticism of it as "a nothing-burger." He said the focus should on the 32,000 students on charter school waiting lists.

"If other people want to make this all about the adults, that's fine," Baker said Monday. "We're going to focus on the kids."

The ballot question is about letting Massachusetts add up to a dozen new or expanded charter schools each year outside of existing caps.

The biggest source of funding comes from Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy Inc., which made nearly $5.8 million in direct contributions and another $301,020 in in-kind contributions. What's unclear from the campaign finance reports is where the group's funding comes from.

In response to an email seeking more information, the group released a statement from its state director Keri Rodrigues Lorenzo, who described Families for Excellent Schools as a nonprofit organization that has operated in Massachusetts since 2014.

"Our mission is to ensure that every child attends an excellent school by building coalitions of families and their allies and running campaigns that change education policy," the statement said. "We currently organize families across the commonwealth who are desperate for a better education in their communities."

The group is a more familiar presence in New York. This year it filed a federal lawsuit arguing the state Department of Education failed to properly address violence in schools, depriving students of their right to a public education.

On the pro-charter side, Bloomberg contributed $240,000; Jim Walton, the son of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, contributed $1.1 million; and Alice Walton, the daughter of Sam Walton, contributed $704,000.

Other big contributors include Lynnfield-based Strong Economy for Growth Inc., which gave $650,000; John Douglas Arnold, a principal for Centaurus Advisors from Texas, at $250,000; Education Reform Now Advocacy, of New York, at $250,000; and Boston-based Expanding Educational Opportunities, at $250,000.

Companies including EMC Corp., Partners Healthcare, The Kraft Group and Vertex Pharmaceuticals also are backing the ballot question and gave between $50,000 and $100,000. Pro-charter school question drawing out-of-state backers - Berkshire Eagle Online:

Take Two | Do big charitable donations to education always get an A+? | 89.3 KPCC

Take Two | Do big charitable donations to education always get an A+? | 89.3 KPCC:

Do big charitable donations to education always get an A+?

Wealthy philanthropists like Laurene Powell Jobs, Eli Broad and Mark Zuckerberg have made headlines for their charitable contributions to public education.

They make sizable donations with the hope of improving schools and, therefore, improving our future work force. Educational institutions benefit from these generous donations, but some wonder what kinds of complications could also arise?

For a deeper look into big money in public education, Take Two’s Alex Cohen spoke with Dale Russakoff, the author of “The Prize: Who's in Charge of America's Schools.”

HIGHLIGHTS

Your book,“The Prize: Who's in Charge of America's Schools” looked at what happened when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg donated $100 million dollars to revitalizing schools in Newark, New Jersey. What was he trying to accomplish?

This was his very first philanthropic move. He was twenty six years old when he made the gift. His desire was to change the nature of public education. He felt that it wasn’t serving the poorest kids at all and that he felt the main thing that was needed was to have a higher quality teacher in a system at every level. He wanted to create a different system that would attract better teachers and reward them so that they would stay. He thought he could do it by taking on this one public school district and transforming it.

What was the result of Zuckerberg’s donation to the schools in Newark, New Jersey?

It was a very mixed picture. The school district has seen some improvement in just the last year or so but for the first five years, the student performance was going down not up. There was a tremendous amount of upheaval and change because so many kids were leaving for charters in part and also because they were closing district schools and moving children around and moving teachers around so that students would come back to school in the fall and they would have all different teachers and a different atmosphere. I think that churn and that change turned out to be very problematic.

The question was, were those dollars actually spent on the individual needs of the kids? Having better teachers definitely meets certain individual needs of the kids but changing a big system and how teachers are rewarded and recruited and so forth doesn’t ensure that every child is going to have a better teacher. It may create a better system but when you get to the level of the individual child, you’re not guaranteeing that you’re going to see real change in the support for that kid’s needs.

For a wealthy benefactor like Mark Zuckerberg, how is donating to education different than other kinds of contributions like medical research or helping the homeless?

I think that in education, the emergence of charter schools - and charter schools in Newark did get a big chunk of the Zuckerberg money - has very much attracted wealthy donors because they see charters as running on the same principles as business run because they’re private organizations. Most charter schools are not union and they have the flexibility to make the kinds of changes that public schools in large bureaucracies with union workers can’t make on a dime. I think also, when they give money to a charter school, with a relatively small amount of money for them, they create a school and there’s something for them to see for their investment whereas if they’re giving to an art museum or a hospital they’re perpetuating something but they’re not seeing something new and different and I think that’s very satisfying to donors. 

*Quotes edited for clarity. 

The hear the full interview, click the blue arrow above.Take Two | Do big charitable donations to education always get an A+? | 89.3 KPCC:

Schools Look to Parents and Communities To Help Reduce Student Stress

Schools Look to Parents and Communities To Help Reduce Student Stress:

Educators Look to Parents and Communities To Help Reduce Student Stress

The change Chris Boitz saw in his students was gradual but unmistakable.

“Over the course of a few years, everything was different—their expressions, their demeanor, their moods,” he recalls. “There was a loss of focus. Many of them looked pretty desperate, actually.”

Boitz blames the “fear factor.” Students were afraid they weren’t taking enough Advanced Placement (AP) courses, that they weren’t getting the best grades, that they wouldn’t get into the best colleges, and that they weren’t pleasing their parents. The result: a stress level that shouldn’t be felt by an adult, let alone a 16- or 17-year-old high school student.

Boitz is a music teacher at Saratoga High, a high-achieving school in California where students are under great pressure to perform well. But schools that don’t share Saratoga’s high-performing percentile are not immune to high-stress academic environments.

A 2014 study by the American Psychological Association found that U.S. teens are even more stressed out than adults. Thirty percent of teens reported feeling sad or depressed because of stress, and 31% felt overwhelmed. Another 36% said that stress made them tired and 23% said it made them skip meals.

Awareness of student stress, says Denise Pope of Stanford University, has moved to the forefront. Pope is co-founder of the Challenge Success project, which provides school districts with strategies to promote student wellness, and co-author of
“Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids.”

“People are finally seeing what negative stress does to the body, what that does to the psyche, and what it does to school engagement,” explains Pope. “Schools and communities know stress is a problem and they want solutions.”

School as a Pressure Cooker

Dr. Denise Pope of Stanford University

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with a little stress. That is, the kind of nervous energy or “butterflies” that can sharpen focus and increase performance during, say, a big test or a class presentation. But many students, educators and parents will tell you it’s different now: The strain has grown to crisis levels in many schools.

“The entire education system has created a pressure cooker for students and staff,” Pope explains. “Twenty years ago, when you asked teenagers about what stressed them out, you would typically first hear things like ‘my parents’ divorce,’ or ‘my Dad’s an alcoholic,’ or ‘I don’t fit in socially.’ Nowadays, it’s always about school.”Schools Look to Parents and Communities To Help Reduce Student Stress:

Closing Connecticut’s Real Achievement Gap (By Ann Cronin) - Wait What?

Closing Connecticut’s Real Achievement Gap (By Ann Cronin) - Wait What?:

Closing Connecticut’s Real Achievement Gap (By Ann Cronin)

So what is the answer to closing Connecticut’s Achievement Gap?  Educator, education advocate and fellow education blogger Ann Cronin lays out the real solutions for Connecticut’s schools in her latest article. You can read and comment on Ann Cronin’s article at: https://reallearningct.com/2016/09/15/closing-connecticuts-real-achievement-gap/

Ann Cronin writes;

There‘s a lot of talk in Connecticut about closing the achievement gap between affluent students who are predominately white and poor students who are predominately black or brown, but there have been no effective actions taken and none are on the horizon. Instead, Connecticut gave up its own well-founded state standards and adopted the narrow and inadequate Common Core Standards, called them rigorous which they are not, and gave students standardized tests to measure their achievement of those quite limited standards. Then Connecticut waited for the test scores to see if the impoverished would catch up to the affluent. They haven’t and they won’t.

The poorer the students, the lower the test scores. Standardized test scores, always and ever, are correlated with the family income of the test takers so it makes no sense to address the achievement gap by analyzing standardized test scores. The achievement gap that makes sense to address is the gap between those who succeed in their academic goals and those who do not, between those who graduate from college and those who do not.

That gap is a staggering one. For students who attended Connecticut public high schools and began college, the graduation rate is: 24.4% for black, 21.4% for Hispanic and 53.8% for white college students. Similarly, only 19% of Closing Connecticut’s Real Achievement Gap (By Ann Cronin) - Wait What?:

Ohio’s Notorious ECOT Tries to Make Its Case In Court | janresseger

Ohio’s Notorious ECOT Tries to Make Its Case In Court | janresseger:

Ohio’s Notorious ECOT Tries to Make Its Case In Court

Attorneys for the Ohio Department of Education and Ohio’s largest and most notorious online charter school, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, have been in court all this week tussling, as the Columbus Dispatch‘s Jim Siegel explains, “over ECOT’s lawsuit to block the state from using new attendance standards to impact funding….”  “As the state’s biggest online school, ECOT has taken the lead in fighting efforts by the Ohio Department of Education and Gov. John Kasich to use log-in durations to determine whether students are getting state-minimum ‘learning opportunities.’  ECOT, which has claimed the state requires it to provide 920 hours of (annual) curriculum but not prove that students are actually participating in ECOT’s education program, could lose $80 million or more based on an initial attendance audit in March, which found students were logging in for only about an hour per day.”

The problem across Ohio’s very large on-line sector is that the schools—and there are several operated by specific school districts as well as the huge ECOT and the Ohio Virtual Academy, an affiliate of K12, Inc.—have not been keeping careful records to confirm full-time participation. Ohio, which says students at e-schools ought to be online for five hours per day, pays the schools over $6,000 every year for each full-time student. In the past, the state has not pressed this matter, but last fall the legislature enacted House Bill 2, a very basic law to begin to regulate charter schools. ECOT’s lawsuit claims that the state is applying the new HB2 retroactively and without sufficient warning.

Widespread press coverage of the scandal at ECOT has put pressure on the all Republican legislature that has, in the past, been more lenient. Siegel quotes the chair of the Ohio Senate’s Education Committee, Peggy Lehner commenting on this week’s trial: “This is obviously a significant problem with online schools that we’re going to have to resolve. Clearly we have an obligation both to the students and the taxpayers that they are taking advantage of the learning opportunities for which we are paying.””

The Associated Press quotes the common sense of the attorney for the state, Douglas Cole: “Students deserve to actually receive an education, not merely be offered the possibility of one. ECOT is claiming it is entitled to a money tree that never stops growing and never stops bearing fruit.”

Plain Dealer reporter, Patrick O’Donnell describes how ECOT’s attorney, Marion Little, framed ECOT’s case to avoid oversight: “In opening arguments… lawyer Marion Little said the state rules and a 2003 contract with ODE only require the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow to Ohio’s Notorious ECOT Tries to Make Its Case In Court | janresseger:

Jersey Jazzman: Christie's New School Proposal Will Target Teachers Of Color

Jersey Jazzman: Christie's New School Proposal Will Target Teachers Of Color:

Christie's New School Proposal Will Target Teachers Of Color

What do you do if you're the governor of New Jersey and a potentially embarrassing major trial begins?

Yell: "BAD TEACHERS!"

Gov. Chris Christie is asking the state Supreme Court to reopen the landmark Abbott v. Burke case that redefined school funding and to give the state education chief power to bypass laws and bargaining agreements that protect veteran teachers, the governor's office announced Thursday. 

In a legal filing by Attorney General Christopher Porrino, the Christie administration is asking the court to freeze state aid to the former Abbott districts until a new funding system is put in place.

Christie also wants the state education commissioner to have the power to overrule labor agreements in those districts that he sees as detrimental to students, such as the "last in first out" policy for teacher layoffs. [emphasis mine]

Christie has been running around the state the past few months pushing his "Fairness Formula," a school funding plan that would allocate the same amount of state aid for every student, regardless of whether that student is in economic disadvantage, and regardless of a community's capacity to raise taxes. As I've pointed out, the plan makes absolutely no Jersey Jazzman: Christie's New School Proposal Will Target Teachers Of Color:

Grit + Technology + Eugenics = A Recipe for Profit and Control | BustED Pencils

Grit + Technology + Eugenics = A Recipe for Profit and Control | BustED Pencils:

Grit + Technology + Eugenics = A Recipe for Profit and Control

HOW RACIST IS GRIT? READ ON

The Eugenicists of the 19th and 20th centuries used “science” and ideologies of “progress” to establish, and perpetuate racist, and classicist, diagnostic practices; notably viastandardized testing. Most creators of standardized testing were members of the Eugenics movements- so it follows that as standardized testing is gradually losing steam in the 21stcentury, and is being replaced by daily, ongoing, online game-based and competency-based assessments, that these new evaluations too are founded, and driven by, the Eugenics movement. In fact. Ken Previti has noted as much recently here.

These “new” tech-driven assessments are grounded in the SAME research developed by the SAME authors who created standardized testing in the early 1900’s. Many of us know by now the narrative of “grit” promulgated by Angela Duckworth has its scholarly roots in the Eugenics movement, as is documented by Duckworth’s own reliance on the work of Sir Galton as defense for her theory. Many have exposed Galton for what he was: A Eugenicist.

In other words, “the new eugenics will make great use of the identification and prediction powers of dataveillance to cull the ‘invalids’ from the herd, perhaps even before they exhibit any “invalid” traits.”

There’s more down this rabbit hole to explore around grit, eugenics and artificial intelligence. So let’s go:

First let’s begin with Sir Galton’s role model Dr. Raymond Cattell. Duckworth cites Cattell six times in her Grit theory.

Despite his direct and profound relationship to the eugenics movement and his recognition by the Nazi Party for the birth of The Beyondists, his work is benignly promoted in scholarly circles.

“Beyondism is based on the hypothetical premise that evolution of groups, like individuals, is based on ‘survival of the fittest’ … Cattell entertains controversial speculations about natural selection based not only on the separation of groups but also the restriction of “external” assistance to “failing” groups from “successful” ones, and by arguing for “survival of the Grit + Technology + Eugenics = A Recipe for Profit and Control | BustED Pencils:

Legacy of a Lynching | One Flew East

Legacy of a Lynching | One Flew East:

LEGACY OF A LYNCHING

A lynching runs through my family, though not as I long imagined. Yes, my great-grandfather, Sheriff John Sullivan, failed to stop the lynching of Seymour Newlin. But the story is not so simple, nor is the telling of it that came down to me. The sheriff lived the rest of his life questioning his own role in it. That much I knew. The horror of it changed him. It affected his attitude toward his unborn children and, indeed, his community.

Wishful thinking changed the story. What I heard while quite young made palatable a decision that Sullivan surely regretted. What I heard was that a mob had surrounded the jail, torches flickering as though in the movieFrankenstein. To save his family—including my grandmother—living above, the sheriff gave up the prisoner.

The race of the victim was never mentioned.

No lynching, not ever, is an isolated event. Travesty resonates through the lives of everyone even tangentially involved. It resonates through friends and families and through the next generations—and beyond.

The basic facts, as I know them now: On April 15, 1894, just a few days more than a year before my great-uncle was born and four years and a few months before my grandmother’s birth, in Rushsylvania, Ohio—some eight miles from the Logan County seat, Bellefontaine—a black man was accused of attacking and raping an elderly white woman, Ann (or Eliza) Knowles. Newlin was apprehended the next day by neighbors, who incarcerated him in a “calaboose.” Before Sheriff Sullivan managed to get there, a crowd possibly as large as 2,000 people (more than inhabited the village) had surrounded the building. Even with reinforcements, the sheriff hadn’t the power to force the issue and remove the prisoner. He was warned that the jail would be dynamited, but that attempt was foiled.

After negotiating a truce to save face, getting agreement that Newlin would be kept safe until a judge arrived next morning, Sullivan retreated back to Bellefontaine, leaving local constables to guard the prisoner.

The crowd, angry and riled, did not disperse. Agitated by a small group, it eventually broke into the building, and Newlin was summarily hanged.

One of the clippings I have found, ones kept by my great-grandmother, tattered but clear, reads:

He [Newlin] effected an entrance through a window in the rear of the house, and removing his shoes, proceeded to the bedroom of Mrs. Knowles. She was aroused by his pulling at the bed clothing, and before she could utter a cry the villain clutched her by the throat, and with a threat to kill her if she made any resistance, proceeded to ravish her. Leaving his victim he escaped through an outer door.

Only a few newspapers today would publish such unverifiable details—at least, not without attribution. But this was several lifetimes ago and in an extremely different environment. Anyhow, Newlin is not “alleged” to have done anything in the article; the veracity of the unnamed sources is assumed. As if that were not enough, this follows:

After the fiend had accomplished his hellish deed and left, Mrs. Knowles made her way to the house of Mr. William Newland only a few feet away, and aroused him, when she was taken in more dead than alive. Dr. C. M. Fisher was at once summoned and gave much needed medical assistance. The shock is so serious that it may prove fatal.

Cut and dried. No room for doubt. The way many attacks are portrayed even today (including the Central Park “rapists” of 1989, who were later exonerated). Especially if the accused is black:

Seymour Newlin is a colored man of about 30 years of age who has served three terms in the State Prison for sundry crimes.

He has been accused of several attempts to outrage women, and has been an all-around tough.

He was arrested yesterday morning and taken before Mayor Taylor who had him placed in the city prison until he should hear the case, Monday at 1 o’clock.

The news soon spread through the county and people began to arrive until they numbered many hundreds. Excitement was at fever heat all day, and the Mayor became convinced that the local authorities could not control the people.

Few of the immediately subsequent words of the article are legible. Another fragment, though, looks like it belongs to the same article, only a little bit between having crumbled away. The first complete sentence, about the arrival of National Guardsmen that Sheriff Sullivan had summoned, starts:

The Company arrived at 6:50, and were marched across the mill grounds to and in the rear of the city prison, and arrived there just in time to prevent the blowing up of the prison with dynamite, capturing James Shough with six pounds of dynamite and with about three feet of fuse, all capped and ready to ignite. Shough was immediately in the rear of the prison on his knees in the act of striking a match when he was arrested. Sheriff Sullivan took charge of Shough and placed the dynamite in safe hands.

The arrival of the troops had the effect to delay proceedings, and a parlay ensued in which the interested citizens called upon all good people to allow the law to take its course; that if the sheriff would withdraw the troops they would pledge themselves to place a citizen guard around the jail and keep the prisoner safe for trial Monday.

This was accordingly done. A guard of fifteen men were chosen and the local authorities took charge, the troops withdrawing and many of the crowd dispersing.

From this, it sounds like the situation, at least when the sheriff left, was under control. That said, the sheriff obviously retreated to protect himself and his men—surely knowing that Newlin would not likely survive another day:

During the day groups of men could be seen standing here and there talking in subdued tones, and much anxiety was experienced lest the authorities should attempt to remove the prisoner to the county jail as they preferred to have him tried on the ground where the deed was committed. It was plain to be seen that while many did not want mob law to be carried out, there was an element which was only waiting for an opportunity to wreak vengeance upon the miscreant, and by 9:35 Sunday evening, the mob had gathered in such force that the guards were over-powered, the city prison, which was a small frame affair, was thrown over and broken into, and a rope placed around the neck of the villain, and he was led through the streets to the center of 

Legacy of a Lynching | One Flew East:

New science is driving Singapore—the country with the world’s best math students—to rethink high-stakes tests — Quartz

New science is driving Singapore—the country with the world’s best math students—to rethink high-stakes tests — Quartz:

New science is driving the country with the world’s best math students to rethink high-stakes tests

In 2015, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) gave 15-year-old students in every country the same math and science test. Singapore’s teens places first. The country is so good at teaching math that its methods are now being adopted everywhere from Canada and the US to Israel and the UK.

But a video recently released by the country’s Ministry of Education hardly extols the virtues of their coveted first place rank. In fact, the three-minute video—based on a true story—about a young girl struggling with science, and her teacher’s efforts to help her, will probably make you cry.

The message? All that matters is trying your best.

The video, and changes such as how primary school kids are graded on a key exam, shows the country is trying to move beyond just mastery of high-stakes tests, to also focusing on student well-being.

“There’s a great recognition at the policy level that…we need to do better on these more important skill sets without compromising the foundations,” says Manu Kapur, a professor of psychological studies at the Education University of Hong Kong, and former head of curriculum, teaching, and learning at the National Institute of Education of Singapore.

Kapur says change is being driven, partly, by emerging evidence about the shortcomings of tests, namely that they are stressful while not always producing deep learning. Witness Shirley, age 15, in the video, whose pain at failing the test not once, but twice, is palpable. No doubt Shirley is thinking of her parents when her score goes from a 10% to a 40% and she looks despairing.

But her teacher marks her second paper with a “Well done!” in spite of the failing grade. When Shirley asks why, the teacher explains it is not just about the mark, but about trying your hardest, and making progress.

Kapur’s research, and others’, show tests measure kids ability to apply what they know, but not to generate new ideas. They measure performance in a vacuum, meaning kids are not allowed to draw on critical real-life resources like computers and the internet, and feedback from peers and other people. Also, the questions do not require persistence; they basically measure a kid’s ability to provide rapid-fire responses. In other words, these tests do not encourage the skills needed to succeed in the 21st century, like creativity, inventiveness, communication, and collaboration.

But adapting these findings into policy have been slow. Kapur says there is a belief in Singapore that small evolutions, not revolutions, are the New science is driving Singapore—the country with the world’s best math students—to rethink high-stakes tests — Quartz:

Common misconceptions about teachers - Business Insider

Common misconceptions about teachers - Business Insider:

Teachers share the 12 biggest misconceptions people have about their job

With more than 4 million teachers in the US, there's a good chance you know at least one personally.

Even so, plenty of people have the wrong idea about teachers and what they do for a living.

To set the record straight, we asked teachers everywhere to weigh in on some of the most common misconceptions about teachers out there, and more than 50 teachers responded. We've (anonymously) included some of their answers here:

Teachers work from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

"In my experience, this couldn't be further from the truth. In my building, and many others, the teachers arrive around 7 a.m. and do not leave the building until after 5 p.m. Also, when I finally do leave, I almost always have something work-related to do at home."

Teachers have summers off

"It's true, there are days over the summer that I free myself of school-related responsibilities. However, the majority of my summer days are spent planning, shopping for the upcoming school year, and attending professional development meetings. Also, even though I work in a school that starts after labor day, I always head back to my classroom to start to set up by the middle of August."

Teachers get paid for the time they're 'not working'

"Correction, teachers are paid for about 180 to 185 days of work."

A teacher's only job is to teach

"Only 40% of what we do actually happens in the classroom. Lesson planning and preparation, grading papers, school paperwork, student reports, parent phone calls and emails, extra help for students, and participating in community events are all things that teachers are required and expected to do."

Teachers get into the profession just for the 'easy schedule'

"I spend my summers working more than 50 hours a week in a restaurant so I can make up for the low salary I earn as a teacher. I wouldn't be able to teach if I didn't have a supplemental income."

Teachers don't care

"We go to sleep thinking about our kids and how we can be the best for them."

Teachers hardly do anything all day

"We are taking care of 24 children, who all have academic, emotional, and social needs. We have to be teacher, parent, and friend to each of them. Put on top of that all the paperwork we have to do and constantly getting observed, not to mention the politics of a school Common misconceptions about teachers - Business Insider:

US teacher shortage: how to keep teachers from quitting - CSMonitor.com

US teacher shortage: how to keep teachers from quitting - CSMonitor.com:

US teacher shortage: how to keep teachers from quitting

For the first time since 1990, educators and policymakers are concerned about teacher shortages. One answer: support current teachers.

Everyone remembers a favorite teacher – someone who noticed potential the potential of students, challenged them, or inspired them to dream. With rising class sizes and high rates of teacher turnover, students may be finding it harder now to build such relationships. In response, a growing number of educators and policymakers are looking to address teacher shortages. 

Researchers at the Learning Policy Institute (LPI), a Palo Alto, Calif.-based think tank, concluded that most policymakers are tackling the wrong end of the problem: Don't just encourage people to join the profession, they say, find ways to keep them teaching once they get there.

Few teachers now work until retirement. Instead, many increasingly move to other professions, go into education administration, or stay home with their families.

Recommended:IN PICTURES Inside American classrooms with Monitor photographers

In the United States, 8 percent of teachers leave the classroom each year – more than double the rate in Finland or Singapore. And those numbers go up for early-career teachers and those working in high-poverty areas.

IN PICTURES Inside American classrooms with Monitor photographers

PHOTOS OF THE DAY Photos of the day 09/15

The good news? Halving the rate of attrition – which would prevent 130,000 teaching jobs from opening up each year – could almost eliminate teacher shortages.

To help schools keep their teachers, LPI surveyed educators to identify the concerns that push teachers to leave. About 55 percent cited professional frustrations, including standardized testing, administrators, or the intrusions on teaching time. A further 18 percent cited financial reasons, including poor salaries, few benefits, and job insecurity.

“If we could prepare teachers well, mentor them when they come in, and give them decent working conditions, we would be very close to the 4 percent solution,” Linda Darling-Hammond, president and chief executive of LPI and co-author of the recent report, told NPR.

The report elaborates a number of ways to achieve those goals. Salaries competitive with other professions could make people more likely to choose – and stick with – teaching. A 2015 Department of Education study found that attrition among beginning teachers was at least 10 percentage points lower in states with starting salaries over $40,000. 

Strong support for beginning teachers can reduce a teacher’s odds of leaving the profession in the first year from 41 percent to 18 percent, according to the report. That involves a combination of efforts: mentoring programs, shared planning time, strong teacher networks and resources such as a teacher’s aide.

High school career pathway programs, which pay college tuition in US teacher shortage: how to keep teachers from quitting - CSMonitor.com:

Detroit student file lawsuit against Gov. Richard Snyder - Business Insider

Detroit student file lawsuit against Gov. Richard Snyder - Business Insider:

An 8th grader had to teach a math class for a month because Detroit schools were so understaffed, lawsuit alleges

A lawsuit filed in federal court Tuesday against Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and other state education officials paints an abysmal picture of schooling within the Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD), the state's largest public-school district that serves nearly 50,000 students.

Filed on behalf of seven black and Latino students who attend five of the lowest performing schools in Detroit, the suit describes "slum-like conditions" at the schools, "lacking the most basic educational opportunities." They also serve more than 97% low-income students of color.

Because of these conditions, the suit argues, students remain "separate and unequal" and can't attain "the level of literacy necessary to function," in addition to proficiency in other subjects. As such, the suit alleges the district violates their due process and equal protection under the 14th Amendment. 

"For years, classrooms and campuses have been unable to satisfy minimal state health and safety standards, let alone deliver basic education," the suit reads.

“We are concerned with the literacy levels of all children in Michigan,” State Superintendent Brian Whiston told Business Insider in an email. “However, we have not received the lawsuit yet and cannot speak directly to its claims.”

A spokesperson from the Michigan Department of Technology, Management, and Budget said it doesn't respond to pending litigation, and the  office of the governor did not respond to Business Insider's requests for comment.

Specific allegations in the suit range from a lack of teachers and supplies to classroom temperatures that induced fainting and vermin infestations.

For instance, none of the plaintiffs can take his or her books home from school, making homework nearly impossible. Many students at the schools must also share books, often damaged beyond readability. Some books are even older than the students reading them, according to the suit.

Many schools also lack basic supplies, like paper, pencils and even toilet paper, the suit alleges. Wealthier schools in the area either donate these items, or teachers purchase them out of pocket, according to the suit.

The suit also alleges a deficiency in clean and safe classroom space to accompany the dwindling supplies. As many as 50 students sit in some classrooms, elbow-to-elbow or on the floor, according to the suit. As a result, classrooms, with either no or minimal air conditioning, can reach as hot as 90 degrees. At Hamilton Academy, a charter school attended by one of the plaintiffs, excessive temperatures caused students and teachers to vomit and faint during the first week of this school year, according to the suit. 

In one fourth-grade classroom in a school not attended by any of the plaintiffs but still within the district, a leaking hole in the ceiling created "the lake," as students and teachers refer to the area in their classroom surrounded by yellow caution tape. 

Aside from general disrepair, mice, cockroaches, and mold plague classrooms, bathrooms, and other areas of the schools, the suit alleges. At Hamilton, teachers keep Raid on their desks. Students also routinely find bullets, sex toys, and used condoms around the school, according to the suit.

Hiring and maintaining an adequate teaching staff also poses a problem for the district, according to the suit. 

Last year, the seventh- and eighth-grade math teacher at Hamilton left the school due to frustration about class size and lack of support. After a few failed attempts finding a replacement, the "highest performing" eighth-grade student took over teaching both grade levels for a month, the suit alleges.

"As a direct result of the State's failure," the suit says, proficiency rates at the plaintiff's schools hover around zero for all subjects. Students often struggle to write complete sentences, let alone essays or longer assignments. In one instance, an eleventh grader asked how to spell the word "the."

Despite recent attempts at reform, Detroit schools suffer from some of the worst test scores and graduation rates in the country, not to mention crushing financial difficulty. The new suit comes just eight months after Detroit teachers staged a massive "sickout" during President Barack Obama's visit to the city to call attention to the unsafe and unhealthy conditions across the district.

In June, Snyder, Michigan's governor, signed a $617 million bailout which split the system in two districts: one for tax collection and another for educating new students. Of the funds, $467 million went toward paying off operating debt at the former and $150 provided the start-up cost for the latter, debt-free district. 

The package, however, had its critics. 

Detroit school board president Herman Davis told The Detroit News at the time that the legislation eliminated "the rights of kids in Detroit to an equal education" and was "messing around with things like uncertified teachers and taking technology out of the classroom."

The suit against Snyder and others does allege that allowing non-certified instructors to teach inflamed the already problematic environment within DPSCD.

The plaintiffs seek relief in the form of classes focused on bringing students up to proficiency, literacy screening to prevent them from falling behind in the first place, and state monitoring of the district as well as reimbursement for costs associated with the suit. 

Editor's note: This post was updated at 9/16 at 9:18 a.m. to reflect Brian Whiston's statement. Detroit student file lawsuit against Gov. Richard Snyder - Business Insider: