Bill Ayers Asks: What Will Happen If We Consider Education a Human Right, Not a Mere Product | janresseger

Bill Ayers Asks: What Will Happen If We Consider Education a Human Right, Not a Mere Product | janresseger:

Bill Ayers Asks: What Will Happen If We Consider Education a Human Right, Not a Mere Product

Bill Ayers -- Demand the Impossible!: A Radical Manifesto | Haymarket Books -http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Demand-the-Impossible

It was great to escape the deplorable, scary election news to spend Friday evening in conversation with Bill Ayers, on a tour to promote his new book, Demand the Impossible: A Radical Manifesto.  Ayers is best known for his activity during the turbulent 1960s in the Weather Underground.  He spent an entire career after that as distinguished professor in the Department of Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago.  On Friday, Ayers said while he thinks many activists on the left are good at explaining what’s wrong, we need to be better at declaring our deepest values and asking: “What if?” Ayers’ new book makes a plea for re-framing and mobilization across myriad issues, but on Friday he talked some about public education, and one of his new chapters examines ideas about bringing people together to support the great American institution of public schools.

Asked on Friday night how we can go about making a radical turn away from corporate school reform—8 years under Bush—8 years under Obama—and the years that led up to our current catastrophe —Ayers explained what he calls three pillars of corporate school reform—measurement by the single metric of standardized test scores—destruction of the collective voice of teachers, not only their unions but also their voices as professionals—and the privatization of our nation’s great public system of education.  In the book he defines the wave of privatization—“The eclipse of the public, the frantic pace of privatization and the fire sale of the public square—the public schools and public housing, prisons and the military, and in Chicago, the bridges and parking meters—all of which represent the triumph of corporate power and a kind of fatal entangling of corporations with the state, leading to a thieves’ paradise in government with the arid ideology of capital and the ‘market’ promoted as the truest expression of authentic participatory democracy.” (p. 11)

To challenge corporate school reform, Ayers suggests, begin with a simple question: “Is education a product to be sold in the market or is it human right?”  Some other questions follow. What if we define education as a right for every child? How would that change things? “In what ways is education liberating, and in what ways can schooling be entangling and Bill Ayers Asks: What Will Happen If We Consider Education a Human Right, Not a Mere Product | janresseger:

The Fallacy of Charter School Oversight in L.A.

The Fallacy of Charter School Oversight in L.A.:

The Fallacy of Charter School Oversight in L.A.

The October staff recommendations represent a fundamental and drastic departure from the Charter School Division’s expressed values of consistency and transparency, and the District’s historic focus on student outcomes as an authorizer.”

-California Charter Schools Association (CCSA)

Both El Camino Real Charter High School (ECRCHS) and Granada Hills Charter High School (GHCHS) were originally LAUSD public schools. While charters are marketed as a way to offer alternatives to poorly performing schools, both of these schools had excellent reputations before their conversions. El Camino has won seven Academic Decathlon National Championships, both as a charter and a public school. GHCHS “had one of the best academic records in the district [prior to its conversion], but it was bothered by cuts in district funding and hampered by rules that limited its own fund-raising abilities.” Like LAUSD schools, the teachers at both schools continue to be represented by UTLA. It should be no surprise that both  of them continue to meet their academic benchmarks.

While the CCSA would like the sole focus for the judgment of both of these charters to be their continued academic achievement, the LAUSD has a responsibility to view the entire operation, including finances. ECRCHS’s  “financial shenanigans” have been well documented and provide insight into a regulatory system that moves slowly and with very little public accountability. While the Notice to The Fallacy of Charter School Oversight in L.A.:

Carl J. Petersen for LAUSD School Board, District 2 because:

All Kids Are Our Kids!

• The LAUSD School Board needs a parent's perspective. None of the current Board members has a child enrolled in the district.
• One size education does not fit all. The District must provide opportunities to all students, not just those who are college bound. We will fight to block the closure of special education centers and return funding to vocational education.
• Eli Broad's plan to privatize education must be stopped. Unlike Mónica García's campaign, this campaign will not be funded by the charter industry. I will answer to the parents and students of the district, not corporate donors.

  CHANGE IS COMING!

March 7, 2017

Carl J. Petersen for LAUSD School Board 2017 (ID# 1384794) -http://www.changethelausd.com/

Denver Advisory Committee Trashes Great Work Charter Application | deutsch29

Denver Advisory Committee Trashes Great Work Charter Application | deutsch29:

Denver Advisory Committee Trashes Great Work Charter Application

Great Work Montessori School (GWMS) has submitted this 738-page charter school application to the Jefferson County (Denver) Board of Education (Jeffco) in order to gain approval for the school.

The Jeffco Board is scheduled to vote on the GWMS charter on November 03, 2016.

On October 29, 2016, I tried to access this link for what was supposedly a 61-page Jefferson County District Accountability Review (DAC) of the Great Work Montessori charter application. However, the link does not work. (I later learned it still works for others. Go figure.)

It seems that later the same day, the DAC issued another, briefer, report on the Great Work Montessori charter application, this one only 10 pages long and named the “final GWMS review.”

The 10-page, “final” DAC report is a scathing commentary on a charter school that, among other issues, caters to Arkansas-based Walton Family Foundation (WFF) control at the expense of local, parental control (e.g., parental involvement on the board is clearly cosmetic, with parent board members having limited terms, no voting majority, and able to be dismissed from the board without reason).

From the October 29, 2016, DAC review of the GWMS charter application:

GOVERNANCE:

There are concerns about a self-perpetuating board that disenfranchises parents.

Board does not ensure parental/local control: GWMS governance shows a board that does not ensure local parents or even local community members can obtain a majority of the available seats. Anyone, from any area, regardless of ties to the school, can become a board member.

• “There are no minimum number of parents on the board.” (p76)
• “Future board members will be recruited in a manner consistent with identified priorities for areas of expertise, strengths, and sector experience.” (p. 81)

It takes until the FOURTH year (and final charter contract year) of the 

Denver Advisory Committee Trashes Great Work Charter Application | deutsch29:

 

The proposed NSA-like national database for student data: Moneyball for kids – Missouri Education Watchdog

The proposed NSA-like national database for student data: Moneyball for kids – Missouri Education Watchdog:

The proposed NSA-like national database for student data: Moneyball for kids

For anyone who has ever filled out a college application, or scholarship or grant application, you know the incredible amount of personal information these forms require.  What if there was a massive database that combined and shared not only all of that personal information, but also answers from surveys you took over the years, social media posts you made, information normally kept protected and isolated in agencies like the Social Security Administration, Health and Human Services, HUD, IRS, and the US Census Bureau.  This kind of database, linking (and sharing) data across agencies, with a profile on each individual citizen is something that countries like China has, but it is not legal in the US, currently.

This database is about to happen, not for you parents, but for your kids, starting with students in college.

(The focus of this blog will be on the push for a national higher ed database, but we remind you that there is also a push (Student data systems unite!-2010) and recently re-fueled by Bill Gates’ 2016 Priorities, which outlines the need to link k12 data with higher ed data, creating a national database.  MEW wrote about this and another commission on collecting, ranking student emotions here.  Gates is lobbying to create a national student tracking database on k-12 children, which is currently banned.)

History behind the push for a national unit-record database

There has been a push to create this type of database to track and link student data across agencies for years, and has always been rejected due to privacy or cost concerns. However, this year, a special commission, (created by the passage of this law, HR1381–jointly sponsored by Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), and signed by President Barack Obama on March 30, 2016),  has convened for the purpose of lifting the ban on this national database, that they refer to as the student unit record.  For background on the push for a national student database/unit record, see this 2013 HigherEd publication where they hoped to lift this ban and link the data, with a previous bill:

“The previous version of the bill called for stitching together state longitudinal databases in order to better track students — a project that some observers said would be technically The proposed NSA-like national database for student data: Moneyball for kids – Missouri Education Watchdog:

John Oliver: School segregation is rampant, even in the school districts of liberal US cities like New York — Quartz

John Oliver: School segregation is rampant, even in the school districts of liberal US cities like New York — Quartz:

“Of course racism exists in New York”: John Oliver confronts school segregation in liberal US cities

“The hard truth is,” says John Oliver, “you don’t have to be intentionally racist to do things that have racist effects.”

It’s a comment that could apply generally—but the comedian, speaking on Sunday’s (Oct. 30) episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, is specifically addressing modern-day segregation within school districts, a problem that he points out should have been addressed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 but is in fact still rampant today.

Thanks to discriminatory housing policies and economics, there are still thousands of schools all over the country that are racially divided, disadvantaging students and parents alike. (What’s more, that segregation appears to be on the rise.)

While one might think the issue of school segregation is limited to particular regions of the US, Oliver says, the historically racially troubled South is actually the least segregated part of the country—with the worst segregation in New York City and other urban areas.

Big city public school districts tend to group minority students in low-income areas together in schools that are staffed by inexperienced teachers and offer meager resources, while their white counterparts get access to more. Why? In short, Oliver explains, because “funding tends to follow white people around, the way white people follow the band Phish around.”

The comedian points to several local governments, like that of Boston, that have made valiant efforts at racial integration such as setting up voluntary programs to send inner-city kids to suburban schools. But most urban schools remain cripplingly divided, breeding racial discrimination in children as they grow up into adults.

“Oh shit, liberal white New Yorkers,” Oliver scoffs. “Twist ending: you were racist the whole time. Put back those persimmons you bought yourselves as a treat from Fairway. You don’t deserve them anymore.”John Oliver: School segregation is rampant, even in the school districts of liberal US cities like New York — Quartz:

Big Education Ape: John Oliver hysterically savages charter schools — and charter supporters aren’t happy - The Washington Post - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/08/john-oliver-hysterically-savages.html

Big Education Ape: Update The Buzz on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Standardized Testing (HBO) - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2015/05/last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver.html

The Debate Over Bilingual Education In California : NPR Ed : NPR

The Debate Over Bilingual Education In California : NPR Ed : NPR:

The Debate Over Bilingual Education In California

Alice Callaghan has spent decades working with mostly Mexican and Guatemalan families out of a tiny office near Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. It doubles as a school for a few dozen 4- and 5-year-olds.

After the Pledge of Allegiance, children scamper to their seats to work on phonics exercises, blended words, vocabulary and reciting classroom rules. Not a word in Spanish is spoken, heard or written on the posters and word puzzles hanging on the walls, and many of the children's names have been anglicized.

It's been nearly two decades since California imposed significant restrictions on bilingual education and mandated English-only instruction for the state's 1.4 million English-language learners (ELLs). But on this year's ballot, Proposition 58 will give voters a chance to lift those restrictions and make it easier for parents to choose.

Proponents of bilingual instruction say the change is long overdue, but opponents are convinced it will be a huge mistake.

Here in downtown Los Angeles, Callaghan — a former nun and self-described liberal — is proud to call this an English-only school.

Students at Las Familias Del Pueblo practice sentence structure and language.

Morgan Walker for NPR

"Almost all of our children are at the beginning level," she says. "When they leave first grade, they're at the advanced level."

Callaghan and critics of bilingual instruction say it delays kids' ability to read, write and speak proper English.

"Think about it," she says. "Our children live in Spanish-speaking families, Spanish-speaking neighborhoods, and listen to Spanish television when they're home. If school refuses to teach them English, where are they going to learn it? They're not going to go to college if they don't have academic English down well."

This criticism was widespread in 1998, the year that 61 percent of voters passed Proposition 227, which required parents to sign a waiver if they wanted to keep their children in a bilingual classroom. Without a waiver, ELLs were automatically placed in English-only classes.

Books in English and Spanish sit on the shelves at Las Familias Del Pueblo.

Morgan Walker for NPR

Callaghan was a key figure in that campaign against bilingual education in 1996. Now she worries that if Proposition 58 passes, schools in California will return to Spanish as the language of instruction for children who desperately need to master English first.

Ricardo Lara says this is an absolute distortion. He's a state senator from the Los Angeles area and the author of Proposition 58.

"I believe the English-only approach has failed a large portion of our students," Lara says. "In California, one of The Debate Over Bilingual Education In California : NPR Ed : NPR:

What Have the Presidential Candidates Said About School Integration? - Politics K-12 - Education Week

What Have the Presidential Candidates Said About School Integration? - Politics K-12 - Education Week:

What Have the Presidential Candidates Said About School Integration?

The resegregation of the nation's schools might be one of the hottest issues in education policy these days. But it's never really penetrated the presidential race.

So, now that the race is almost at the finish line: What have Democratic president nominee Hillary Clinton and GOP nominee Donald Trump said about school integration? Why hasn't there been more talk about it? And maybe, more importantly, what, if anything, can the next president do to help schools become more racially and socio-economically diverse?

Campaign Rhetoric

Let's start with the first question, what has actually been said. Clinton hasn't given a major speech focused only on this topic,but she has addressed it on the campaign trail, to some extent.

For instance, in a speech in May to the NAACP, Clinton noted that, "Our schools are more segregated than they were in 1968.  We've got to reverse that. It's dangerous. We need a good school with a good teacher in the classroom for every child no matter [where] that child lives."

And in late September, on the anniversary of the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., Clinton also sent a personally signed tweet saying that the country needed to finish the work of the nine black students who became the first students of color to attend the school, over the strenuous objections of the state and many white residents.

Maybe more prominently, her running mate, Tim Kaine and his wife, Anne Holton, have talked quite a bit about the issue. Holton's father, A. Lindwood Holton, lead the effort to desegregate the Richmond, Va., schools in the early 1970s, as governor of the state. Holton herself attended one of those integrated schools, and later, she and Kaine sent her own children to them.

It was a good experience, for all of them, Holton said in an interview.

"As a 12-year-old, to have an opportunity to be part of something larger than yourself that advances the ball for the world, was a very special opportunity," she explained. And her own kids were exposed to life experiences that those who attended more homogenous schools did not have.

The next president can move the needle on reducing school resegregation first and foremost by talking about it, Holton said.   

"I think there is a federal role, starting with the bully pulpit," she said. "And we're doing that right now by talking about it."

It's unclear exactly what steps a Clinton administration might take beyond the bully pulpit, though. Clinton has floated some proposals that Holton said would address inequities, including anti-poverty measures such as raising the minimum wage, and dramatically expanding access to early-childhood education. But she hasn't put forth a specific proposal focused just on school integration.

The Trump campaign did not return calls for this story. The centerpiece of Trump's education planis a serious expansion of school choice, which he said would help students who are stuck in "failing" schools in "inner cities."  The program would allocate $20 billion in federal funding to allow students to attend any private or public school of their choice. Trump didn't explicitly couch his plan as a way for schools to become more racially or socioeconomically integrated.

Trump also has said that Democrats have taken black and Hispanic voters for granted, in part through perpetuating educational inequality, and he has urged them to support him instead. "You're living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed—what the hell do you have to lose?" Trump said at a rally in August.  

What Can the Feds Do?  

Why hasn't there been more specific discussion of these issues on the campaign trail?

The campaign hasn't really been about policy of any kind, whether it's energy or equity in education, said Gary Orfield, the co-director of the Civil Rights Project at the University of California-Los Angeles. He said Clinton, for one, "has talked a lot about racial discrimination and the fact that we haven't solved it, including the fact that we have all these racial problems in the criminal justice system." But he added, "she hasn't made the connection [to education]."

Just because Clinton and Trump aren't talking about school integration much doesn't mean they couldn't do anything about it once they are elected president, said Orfield.

The courts have obviously been key to school desegregation since the historic Brown vs. Board of Education decision, so considering these issues when appointing justices to the U.S. Supreme Court is a good start, Orfield said. The federal government could also encourage the proliferation of "good magnet schools with civil rights requirements and goals." And it can hold charter schools accountable for accepting a range of students, something he doesn't think the Obama administration has done enough of.

But in its final year in office, the Obama administration did propose a $120 million competitive-grant program called "Stronger Together" (which happens to be Clinton's campaign slogan). The program is unlikely to receive funding in Congress this year, but Clinton could renew Obama's pitch. And that could be a start, Orfield said.

"You have to get your feet wet before you go swimming," he said. "A lot of school districts and communities would be interested."

Orfield also suggested that the federal government could look at coordinating housing and education policy more closely. For instance, if a community wants to build a new housing project, it should make sure not to put it near a "dropout factory high school that's segregated by race and class," he said. What Have the Presidential Candidates Said About School Integration? - Politics K-12 - Education Week:

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FedEd Still Bugs Texas - Houston Chronicle

State seeks input on new eduction law, but restrictions linger - Houston Chronicle:

State seeks input on new eduction law, but restrictions linger

As the Texas Education Agency seeks input on how to implement a federal education law intended to give states more decision-making power, it can't actually adhere to suggestions on two of the bigger issues: backing off the weight given to standardized tests in accountability rankings and lessening the amount of time students spend taking such tests.

That's because much of Texas' accountability and testing systems are written into state law, which were just recently rewritten and remain more stringent that what's mandated by federal law.

"It is not allowable under state law," said Mark Baxter, the TEA's director of policy and planning, who is leading the agency's internal efforts to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act. "We still have some constraints on what we can access under ESSA, but we're always willing to implement changes that Texas Legislature wants us to."

Passed by Congress in 2015, ESSA replaces the largely reviled No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 that centralized a considerable amount of decision-making power with the U.S. Department of Education and required states to implement standardized tests to track student performance. It also required collecting specific data for subgroups of students, such as ethnic minorities and students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds.

No Child Left Behind

But a No Child Left Behind mandate that required states to achieve 100 percent student proficiency in math and reading by the 2013-2014 school year caused frustrations to boil over in 2011. So many states lined up for waivers exempting them from the requirements that lawmakers developed ESSA to replace it.

"Texas or any state, in theory, can design new accountability systems more suited to the educational realities they face in each state," said Deven Carlson, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma.

The TEA is seeking public and school district comment on several aspects now, including how to support struggling schools, what nonacademic measurers it should use to assess school performance and what graduation rate it should aim to reach by 2030.

Revamped rules

The state agency will wait until June 2017 to submit its plan for implementing ESSA to the U.S. Department of Education just in case Texas lawmakers make any changes to accountability or testing during the upcoming spring legislative session.

But such changes are unlikely since they approved a new accountability system last year that will rate schools and districts with A-F letter grades when it debuts in 2018. The new system's measures will blunt the significance of standardized test performance by making 45 percent of a school's rating based on a variety of factors, such as access and completion of advanced courses, dropout rates and parental involvement.

While standardized test scores will have less of a bearing on rankings, Daniel Bowen, an assistant professor of educational administration with Texas A&M University, said it's surprising lawmakers have remained mum on scaling back testing and accountability measures in light of ESSA.

"It's kind of surprising and shocking to me, just because it seems like an easy political win to state that you're against over-testing. So I don't know of any drawbacks for the TEA or the Legislature to State seeks input on new eduction law, but restrictions linger - Houston Chronicle:

Push to expand California charter school enrollments provokes backlash | EdSource

Push to expand California charter school enrollments provokes backlash | EdSource:

Push to expand California charter school enrollments provokes backlash

After a quarter century of uninterrupted growth, aggressive efforts by charter school advocates to increase enrollments and to elect sympathetic school board members and legislators have triggered a backlash unlike anything that has occurred since the first charter school opened in California.

Charter schools have drawn an increasing share of California’s approximately 6 million public school students. How this conflict plays out will have major ramifications for the kinds of schools those students will attend in future years. 

“What you have in California right now is a charter school community that has a great sense of momentum,” said Jed Wallace, president of the California Charter School Association. “Our adversaries can see that our strength is really, really growing. This year we are crossing the 600,000 enrollment barrier, and we have crossed the 10 percent of students in public school threshold. The pipeline for growth seems robust.”

California Charter School Association President Jed Wallace

The push has roused the California Teachers Association to ramp up  their demands for more regulation of charter schools, and to pressure Sacramento legislators  to require greater transparency in charter school operations. It has launched a campaign titled “Kids Not Profits” – complete with radio ads in both English and Spanish – that declares that billionaires have launched a “coordinated strategy” to divert money from neighborhood schools to “privately run charter schools.”

“Instead of subsidizing corporate charter schools with taxpayer dollars, we should be using the money to strengthen our neighborhood public schools for all California children,” the CTA campaign declares.

“We are not saying get rid of charter schools, period,” said CTA president Eric Heins. “What we are opposed to is the opaqueness in how public money is spent, and that there’s no accountability for many of these schools, and there are a lot of Push to expand California charter school enrollments provokes backlash | EdSource:

An analysis of student performance in Chicago’s charter schools | Orfield | education policy analysis archives

An analysis of student performance in Chicago’s charter schools | Orfield | education policy analysis archives:

An analysis of student performance in Chicago’s charter schools

Abstract

Charter schools have become the cornerstone of school reform in Chicago and in many other large cities. Enrollments in Chicago charters increased by more than ten times between 2000 and 2014 and, with strong support from the current mayor and his administration, the system continues to grow. Indeed, although state law limits charter schools in Chicago to 75 schools, proponents have used a loophole that allows multiple campuses for some charters to bypass the limit and there are now more than 140 individual charter campuses in Chicago. This study uses comprehensive data for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 school years to show that, after controlling for the mix of students and challenges faced by individual schools, Chicago’s charter schools underperform their traditional counterparts in most measurable ways. Reading and math pass rates, reading and math growth rates, graduation rates, and average ACT scores (in one of the two years) are lower in charters all else equal, than in traditional neighborhood schools. The results for the two years also imply that the gap between charters and traditionals widened in the second year for most of the measures. The findings are strengthened by the fact that self-selection by parents and students into the charter system biases the results in favor of charter schools.

Keywords

charter schools; student performance; school reform

Full Text:

PDF

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/epaa.24.2203

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An analysis of student performance in Chicago’s charter schools | Orfield | education policy analysis archives:

Evidence that edTPA needs to be Killed! | BustED Pencils

Evidence that edTPA needs to be Killed! | BustED Pencils:

Evidence that edTPA needs to be Killed!

The edTPA is supposed to be a performance based assessment that can help predict the effectiveness of future teachers.  For one of the best analysis of edTPA and how it correlates to effectiveness please read Peter Greene’s post from May 2016.

So why kill it?  Because even though Peter thoroughly dismantled the edTPA; it continues to be used as a high-stakes gateway test into the profession of teaching.  And, according to Peter, the edTPA

insults college ed departments by assuming a premise that your college ed program, your professors, your co-operating teacher, and basically none of the people who work with you and give you a grade– none of those people can be trusted to determine whether or not you should be a teacher.

Despite this, many of my teacher education colleagues still cling to the edTPA as if it had some magic ability to legitimize teacher education.  Some even believe the edTPA can shield teacher education from reformers who would like to see “alternative pathways into teaching”—like being able to breath.

Reality check!

Reformers who want “alternative pathways” don’t give a shit about edTPA.  They want what they want and will not be deterred by a self flagellation performance by teacher educatorsEvidence that edTPA needs to be Killed! | BustED Pencils: