BREAKING: Republican Senator Susan Collins (ME) “Leaning” No On Betsy DeVos For Education Secretary. Updated Decision Desk HQ 49-49 1 Undecided UPDATED: COLLINS And Murkowski Are NOs.

BREAKING: Republican Senator Susan Collins (ME) “Leaning” No On Betsy DeVos For Education Secretary. Updated Decision Desk HQ 49-49 1 Undecided UPDATED: COLLINS And Murkowski Are NOs. – Decision Desk HQ Election 2016:

BREAKING: Republican Senator Susan Collins (ME) “Leaning” No On Betsy DeVos For Education Secretary. Updated Decision Desk HQ 49-49 1 Undecided UPDATED: COLLINS And Murkowski Are NOs.

 Both Murkowski (AK) and Collins (ME) confirm they are NO votes on DeVos for Secretory of Education. That puts the tally at 50-50 if Sessions (AL) votes while awaiting his confirmation or 49-50 if he doesn’t or is confirmed before DeVos nomination is voted on.

From Politico.

“I’m still working through that but I’m leaning against her. But I will, in keeping with my tradition, vote for cloture,” Collins said in an interview, referring to a vote to advance DeVos to a final vote.

With 52 Republicans, DeVos can afford to lose 2 GOP votes. Lisa Murkowski (AK) is the only other Republican who appears undecided on DeVos at this point. Should Murkowski eventually vote “NO”, Vice President Mike Pence would break the 50-50 tie.

This assumes that Jeff Sessions of Alabama votes for DeVoss. He has abstained from some but not all confirmation votes while he awaits his vote to be Attorney General.

If Sessions is confirmed before DeVos and Murkowski were to join Collins as “NO” votes, Republicans would have to wait until the Governor of Alabama appointed a replacement for Sessions (that replacement will serve until a special election is held for the rest of Session’s term).

Defeating DeVos remains a long shot for Democrats but the chance has increased greatly with Collin’s “leaning”.

Our current estimate map:

 BREAKING: Republican Senator Susan Collins (ME) “Leaning” No On Betsy DeVos For Education Secretary. Updated Decision Desk HQ 49-49 1 Undecided UPDATED: COLLINS And Murkowski Are NOs. – Decision Desk HQ Election 2016:

'Freedom in Congo Square' Celebrates the Dominance of Spirit Over Suffering

'Freedom in Congo Square' Celebrates the Dominance of Spirit Over Suffering:

‘Freedom in Congo Square’ Celebrates the Dominance of Spirit Over Suffering

Down in swampy, sultry Louisiana in the 19th century, slaves toiled in the fields from sunup to sundown every day of the week. The only exception was Sunday, when they had half a day in the afternoon to gather in New Orleans’ Congo Square – an open space that is now part of the city’s Louis Armstrong Park in the Treme neighborhood. There the slaves were free to set up an open air market and remember their African heritage through dance, song, and other cultural traditions.

Freedom in Congo Square a picture book written by Carole Boston Weatherford, and illustrated by R. Gregory Christie, is a poetic, nonfiction children’s book that celebrates the dominance of spirit over suffering.  Last week it was named a Caldecott Honor Book, just in time for Black History Month, and it is February’s featured book in the NEA Read Across America calendar as a poetic, vibrant reminder of how humans can come together to find joy, hope and dignity, even under the cruelest circumstances.

“The main challenge was to make slavery understandable for children,” says Weatherford. “I did so by framing the relentless labor and inhumanity with a day of the week [and a] countdown rhyme. The book underscores the persistence and preservation of African cultural traditions, and attests to the spirit and endurance of African descendants,” author Weatherford told E. Ce Miller of Bustle.com.

Mondays, there were hogs to slop,
mules to train, and logs to chop.
Slavery was no ways fair.
Six more days to Congo Square.

Each day of the week is counted down with rhythm and lyricism and illustrations evocative African folk art, all while conveying the cruelty of the slave system.

Wednesdays, there were beds to make,Silver to shine, and bread to bake.The dreaded lash, too much to bear,Four more days to Congo Square.

In Freedom in Congo Square, the tyranny of slavery isn’t sugar coated for young readers. It’s presence helps them to understand how jubilant Sundays would be for slaves, when at 'Freedom in Congo Square' Celebrates the Dominance of Spirit Over Suffering:

Dallas charter that took kids from Deion Sanders’ failed school faces shutdown | Education | Dallas News

Dallas charter that took kids from Deion Sanders’ failed school faces shutdown | Education | Dallas News:

Dallas charter that took kids from Deion Sanders’ failed school faces shutdown

For three straight years, Focus Academies in southwest Dallas has failed to pass academic muster. Under a “three strikes” law, state officials say the charter school must close at the end of this school year. 

School leaders vow to fight for survival.

“We’re going to do what we can to keep the school open,” said Leroy McClure, founder and CEO of Focus Academies. “Our school does not fit the criteria of a low-performing school or a school that needs to have their doors shut.

Focus was among Dallas’ first charter schools, opening in 1999 with about a hundred students. Its mission: Teach kids who have learning disabilities or are likely to drop out.

Now Focus enrolls about 1,100 students at two campuses on West Ledbetter Drive: Focus Learning Academy for pre-kindergarten through sixth grade and Triple A Academy for seventh through 12th grade.

Along the way the school became a basketball powerhouse. Triple A Academy won the 2013 University Interscholastic League Class 1A Division I boys basketball title, becoming the first charter school boys’ team to win a UIL title.

While competing in one of the state's smallest classifications, four players on that championship team -- including King McClure, son of founder Leroy McClure -- signed with Division I colleges.

The school has excelled on the court, but it’s struggled in the classroom.

In 2014, Focus Academies was rated “improvement required” - meaning students failed to meet state academic standards as judged by STAAR scores.

Then Focus inherited about 80 students from Prime Prep Academy, the charter school co-founded by NFL star Deion Sanders. Prime Prep had abruptly closed in January 2015 under a heap of financial and academic woes.Dallas charter that took kids from Deion Sanders’ failed school faces shutdown | Education | Dallas News:

John Dillon protests Betsy. | Fred Klonsky

John Dillon protests Betsy. | Fred Klonsky:

John Dillon protests Betsy.

 By John Dillon. John blogs at Pension Vocabulary.

When my brother and I traveled down to the “Say No to Betsy DeVos” protest at the Federal Building in Chicago this afternoon, we wondered whether we’d see anyone dressed in a large Grizzly costume.  In fact, we scoured a few blocks on the way to find a costume shop.  You might recall that when asked whether or not schools should be gun-free zones, DeVos cited the likely need for weapons in some cases; for example, like Wyoming where grizzlies are present.  So, that would be a yes?

Arrived at Jackson and Dearborn at 3:30.

No Grizzlies, but a swelling crowd of around three hundred protestors materialized.  DeVos had received a confirmation vote of 12 – 11 hours before in the Committee hearings, a vote split with a dozen Republican Yays, and eleven Democratic Nays.   The full Senate confirmation may fall along the same lines unless the Democrats hold firm in their opposition and several or more Republicans agree with education as a right, not a privilege.  And an Education Secretary who might perhaps understand existing laws to protect students in an educational or academic environment?

The throng of people at the Federal Building grew and the chanting began – rhythmic and forceful: “Education for the masses. Not just for the upper classes.”

Placards expressed frustration with much more than DeVos.  Some in Arabic opposed the immigration crackdown; others listed the various cabinet choices and one effigy of Trump was carried about as a large puppet.  Note how small the hands are.

Several protestors were arrested for blocking doorways at the Federal Building, and as they came by to be processed, the crowd stood against the windows shouting encouragement.

You might also recall that Betsy DeVos’ resume for Secretary of Education is spotless; that is, missing any real experience in education.  She has no education degree, no teaching experience, nor any experience working in any school environment.  Indeed, none of her children have ever had any John Dillon protests Betsy. | Fred Klonsky:

A bad day for working people: Right to Work and Gorsuch. This is not a head fake.

by Fred Klonsky / 1h

When Antonin Scalia bought the farm, it left the Supreme Court split on the issue of agency fees and Right to Work laws. Trump’s choice – really any choice he would have made – will end the four/four split on the court unless the Democrats obstruct any Supreme Court appointment for the next four years at least. Right. That will happen. What were once called “union shops” have been outlawed in the

Billionaire Blunders: Appointing Education Chiefs Who Know Little about Public Schools | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Billionaire Blunders: Appointing Education Chiefs Who Know Little about Public Schools | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Billionaire Blunders: Appointing Education Chiefs Who Know Little about Public Schools

Anyone remember Cathy Black? Don’t think so. In 2011, Michael Bloomberg, billionaire and New York City Mayor appointed the 66 year-old head of the Hearst magazine chain–a “superstar manager,” he said–to head the 1.1 million student district. Neither having the requisite three years of teaching experience or a master’s degree or professional degree in administering schools, the state commissioner waived these requirements in order for Black to become Chancellor.*

The uproar that followed over a choosing a Chancellor who knew little about public schools–her children were educated in private schools–led to Bloomberg firing Black 95 days after she took office (see here and here).

Then there is Betsy DeVos, billionaire President Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education. Raised in a wealthy family–her father was an auto parts manufacturer in Michigan–she attended private Christian schools, married into the Amway fortune, sent her children to Christian private schools, and became a philanthropist and fervent advocate for vouchers and for-profit charter schools in Detroit and the state of Michigan. She has had no experience as a manager of a large organization (see here and here; for more positive views of DeVos, see herehere, and here)

The recent Senate hearings where she was cuddled by the Republican majority of Senate and grilled by the minority Democrats revealed a great deal about DeVos’s thinking about public schools and the direction that federal monies and regulations should move. A zealous advocate for school choice in Michigan through vouchers and for-profit charter schools, she sees more parental choice as the direction for the U.S. Department of Education. Rapid-fire questions from Democrats on the Senate Committee revealed the following (see here and here)

*lack of knowledge that it is federal law protecting the rights of disabled children and youth and it cannot be left to the states to enforce, as she said.

*lack of knowledge of the difference between tests showing student proficiency and tests showing student growth over time.

*refusal to say that while public schools should be held to account for student outcomes, charter and voucher-accepting schools should not be held to the same standard.

Uninformed as DeVos is about education policy aimed at 50 million public Billionaire Blunders: Appointing Education Chiefs Who Know Little about Public Schools | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Not All Fun And Games: New Guidelines Urge Schools To Rethink Recess : NPR Ed : NPR

Not All Fun And Games: New Guidelines Urge Schools To Rethink Recess : NPR Ed : NPR:

Not All Fun And Games: New Guidelines Urge Schools To Rethink Recess

What's the best time for students to have recess? Before lunch, or after? What happens if it rains? If students are misbehaving, is it a good idea to punish them by making them sit out recess?

Those are just a few of the issues addressed in new guidelines designed to help schools have good recess. The recommendations come from a group called SHAPE (Society of Health and Physical Educators) America and from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Recess might seem simple — just open the doors and let the kids run free. But only eight states have policies that require it, according to last year's Shape of the Nation report. And when researchers started looking, they found very little consistency or guidance about what makes recess effective.

The new guidelines, in two documents, offer educators a list of 19 evidence-based strategies and a template to show them what a good recess policy looks like.

Some of the suggestions seem obvious, like "promote a physically active environment" or "designate spaces for outdoor and indoor recess." But there's a point there. Without a designated indoor space, for example, schools might just cancel recess when it's raining or snowing.

Oh, and the answers to those other questions above? Before lunch is better, the guidelines say, because recess can make kids hungry, and thus more likely to eat healthy foods like fruits and vegetables. And maybe they won't throw food away uneaten. And they say recess should never be used as punishment, because it deprives students of physical activity — which can be a much-needed outlet.

"There's a lot that has to be squeezed in[to] that time a student is in class," says Michelle Carter, senior program manager at SHAPE who helped develop the Not All Fun And Games: New Guidelines Urge Schools To Rethink Recess : NPR Ed : NPR:

The dangerous rise of privatization and corporate education reform - Wait What?

The dangerous rise of privatization and corporate education reform - Wait What?:

The dangerous rise of privatization and corporate education reform

The charter school industry and their allies in the corporate education reform movement are making unprecedented gains in their effort to privatize public education in the United States.

With Betsy DeVos on the verge of becoming the United States Secretary of Education and President Donald Trump promising to divert $20 billion in federal funding from public schools to privatization through school choice programs, the movement to undermine public education must be deliriously excited about their prospects over the next four years.

Of course, the proponents of corporate education reform have been riding high for more than two decades thanks to the policies and politics of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, both of whom used their time in office to promote charter schools and the broader corporate reform agenda.

Although the corporate reform movement has made unprecedented gains in the last twenty years, its roots go back more than sixty years to Milton Friedman’s essay, “The Role of Government in Education,” which laid out the call for privatizing public education in the United States.

Friedman argued that the nation needed to scrape its historic commitment to local public schools and replace these hallowed institutions with a system in which parents could use public funds to send their children to “private for-profit schools, private nonprofit schools, religious schools or even ‘government schools,’” a derogatory term corporate education reformers use to describe local public schools.

For decades, Friedman’s proposal was relegated to academic debates about the potential advantages and pitfalls associated with privatization.

However, the situation started to change when the state of Wisconsin enacted the first large-scale school voucher program in 1989 and The dangerous rise of privatization and corporate education reform - Wait What?:

 

Court ruling will hinder some charter schools’ right to cross district borders | EdSource

Court ruling will hinder some charter schools’ right to cross district borders | EdSource:

Court ruling will hinder some charter schools' right to cross district borders

e California Supreme Court has let stand a 2016 appeals court decision that will restrict some charter schools’ ability to expand and jeopardize the status of an estimated 38,000 students studying under charter school arrangements that the appeals court declared illegal.

The case involved a small but growing number of charters, called “nonclassroom-based” charter schools or “independent study charters” – schools that don’t operate in a traditional bricks-and-mortar setting. They serve a range of students, among them children home-schooled for religious reasons, students who struggled in a regular school environment, and child actors and athletes needing a flexible schedule. Some of these schools, like for-profit K12 Inc., operate only online, while others offer limited face-to-face services in satellite offices or “resource centers,” where the schools run science labs, tutor students, give standardized tests and serve special education students.

At issue in “Anderson Union High School District v. Shasta Secondary Home School” was whether the charter school law permits an independent study charter authorized in one district to open a “resource center” to serve students living in other districts in the same county. A district court said Shasta Secondary Home School, recently renamed Shasta Charter Academy, could; a three-judge panel of the 3rd District Court of Appeals ruled it couldn’t.

The Supreme Court’s decision earlier this month not to hear the Shasta Charter Academy’s appeal will leave the affected charters the choice of converting to a fully virtual operation or closing the centers and forcing students to travel to a resource center in the district that authorized the charter. More than a quarter of the 142,000 students that, according to the California Charter Schools Association, were enrolled in independent study charter schools in 2014-15 may be left with the Court ruling will hinder some charter schools’ right to cross district borders | EdSource:

Department of Education Releases Guide to Diversifying Schools - Education Law Prof Blog

Education Law Prof Blog:

Department of Education Releases Guide to Diversifying Schools

Former Secretary of Education John King said the Department would work until the last moment, as it had important work still to do.  January 19th, 2017 did not disappoint.  The Department released a guide for improving diversity in public schools.  The introduction states:

This brief provides information to support school districts and stakeholders seeking to improve student diversity in their schools through voluntary, community-led programs as part of an overall effort to increase equity and excellence for all students. Diversity can include many factors, such as race, national origin, disability, socioeconomic status, and language proficiency. What follows is an action-oriented summary of considerations when embarking on efforts to increase student diversity, starting with possible steps to consider when conducting a diversity needs assessment and planning for implementation. Potential diversity strategies and a few examples from the field are included, as well as thoughts on efforts to sustain an inclusive environment once diversity strategies are being implemented.

The guide goes through the nuts and bolts of data collection, decision making, and funding for diversity programs--the basic things a school needs to look at to determine what is or is not necessary.  It then focuses on five specific types of programs and policies that schools can use to diversify: magnet schools; controlled choice; open enrollment; high-quality charter schools.  The guide also offers suggestions for maintaining an inclusive environment in diverse schools: culturally relevant instruction, detracking/expanding access to advanced coursework within schools; diversifying the teacher workforce; and teacher development.

There is nothing particularly new in the document, but it offers good resources and a strong vote of confidence for districts considering positive changes.

Get the full report here.

Education Law Prof Blog:

HELP Committee Sends DeVos Confirmation to Full Senate; Possible Cracks Open in Republican Support | janresseger

HELP Committee Sends DeVos Confirmation to Full Senate; Possible Cracks Open in Republican Support | janresseger:

HELP Committee Sends DeVos Confirmation to Full Senate; Possible Cracks Open in Republican Support

Yesterday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee held its vote on President Trump’s nomination of Betsy DeVos as the next U.S. Secretary of Education. The members of the committee voted 12 to 11 (All Republicans voted yes, and all Democrats voted no.) to report the nomination for a vote of the full U.S. Senate. (I watched the live feed of the hearing and was moved by the depth of concern for public education expressed by several committee members. My commentary is from my notes; because there has to this time been no published transcript of the full committee meeting, I have linked all direct quotes to published press reports.)

The committee hearing was definitely not a routine proceeding. Two Republican Senators—Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—expressed strong reservations about DeVos even as they voted to forward her nomination for a full Senate vote. Collins and Murkowski both said they are still considering whether or not they will finally vote to confirm the nominee. They explained that yesterday they voted to forward the nomination as a courtesy to the President.

In one of her reports after the proceeding, Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post writes: “Betsy DeVos, the Michigan billionaire chosen by President Trump to be education secretary, brings a whole new dimension to the discussion of polarizing figures in education leadership. DeVos is clearly the most controversial education nominee in the history of the nearly 40-year-old Education Department… No education secretary nominee was opposed by the ranking member of the Senate education panel before Tuesday, when Democratic Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.) voted against DeVos…. (T)he opposition to DeVos is less about politics and more about her vision for the future of American education.  DeVos has long been seen by many in the education world as on the forefront of the movement to spread school choice and using public dollars to allow families to pay for tuition at private schools and religious schools that are poorly regulated. She has directed millions of dollars from her family fortune to support candidates and programs that spread school choice—at the expense, critics say, of traditional public schools that educate the vast majority of America’s school children.”

Committee Chair, Senator Lamar Alexander, a former Secretary of Education himself under President George H.W. Bush, admitted in his opening statement that although the committee has been able to work together through bipartisanship in the past, in the crafting of the Every Student Succeeds Act as a replacement for No Child Left Behind, for example, the committee members are irreconcilably split on the issue of the DeVos nomination. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island accused Committee Chair Alexander, for example, of “steamrolling” the DeVos confirmation vote.

Two Democrats were particularly profound as they explained why they were opposing the HELP Committee Sends DeVos Confirmation to Full Senate; Possible Cracks Open in Republican Support | janresseger:

Choosing Democracy: Defeat DeVos- Call Your Senator Now tout de suite - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2017/01/choosing-democracy-defeat-devos-call.html

Judge Gorsuch’s dissent in the case of a 13-year-old arrested for making fake burps in class - The Washington Post

Judge Gorsuch’s dissent in the case of a 13-year-old arrested for making fake burps in class - The Washington Post:

Judge Gorsuch’s dissent in the case of a 13-year-old arrested for making fake burps in class

President Trump on Tuesday night nominated the ultraconservative Colorado federal appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy left by the 2016 death of Justice Antonin Scalia (and kept open by the Republican refusal to consider President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland).

Gorsuch’s record will be scrutinized in the coming weeks as the Senate undergoes a formal confirmation process even as Democrats are being urged by Trump critics to do everything they can to block the nomination.

The federal appeals court on which he has sat for 10 years has heard a number of education-related cases, including an unusual one in which he was the lone dissent. It was about a 13-year-old seventh grader who was arrested at school after his physical education teacher took exception to fake burps he was generating during class, which disrupted instruction. Gorsuch’s reasoning on the case reveals something about how he thinks about criminal justice issues.

Here are the basic facts of A.M. vs. Holmes, decided in July 2016 by the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver (and you can see the entire court decision below):

On May 19, 2011, a physical education teacher at Cleveland Middle School (CMS) in Albuquerque named Margaret Mines-Hornbeck sought assistance over her school-issued radio. A student, referred to as F.M. in the case to shield the child’s identity, was a 13-year-old seventh grader who, the court order said, “had generated several fake burps, which made the other students laugh and hampered class proceedings.” He was arrested by a school police officer for disrupting the education process and suspended from school.

The boy’s mother sued two school officials and the police officer, claiming her son had been subject to unlawful arrest and excessive force. The appellate court upheld a decision by district court judges in support of the school officials and the officer. But Gorsuch wrote a dissent. This is what he said:

If a seventh grader starts trading fake burps for laughs in gym class, what’s a teacher to do? Order extra laps? Detention? A trip to the principal’s office? Maybe. But then again, maybe that’s too old school. Maybe today you call a  police officer. And maybe today the officer decides that, instead of just escorting the now compliant thirteen year old to the principal’s office, an arrest would be a better idea. So out come the handcuffs and off goes the child to juvenile detention. My colleagues suggest the law permits exactly this option and they offer ninety-four pages explaining why they think that’s so. Respectfully, I remain unpersuaded.

The simple fact is the New Mexico Court of Appeals long ago alerted law enforcement that the statutory language on which the officer relied for the arrest in this case does not criminalize “noise[s] or diversion[s]” that merely “disturb the peace or good order” of individual classes. State v. Silva, 525 P.2d 903, 907 (N.M. Ct. App. 1974). Instead, the court explained, the law requires “a more substantial, more physical invasion” of the school’s operations — proof that the student more “substantially interfered” with the “actual functioning” of the school. Id. at 907-08. What’s more, other state courts have interpreted similar statutes similarly. They’ve sustained criminal convictions for students who created substantial disorders across an entire school. See, e.g., State v. Wiggins, 158 S.E.2d 37, 42-44 (N.C. 1967); State v. Midgett, 174 S.E.2d 124, 127-28 (N.C. Ct. App. 1970). But they’ve also refused to hold students criminally liable for classroom antics that “momentarily divert[ed] attention from the planned 

Judge Gorsuch’s dissent in the case of a 13-year-old arrested for making fake burps in class - The Washington Post:

Corporate Ed Reform Strikes Again: Seattle Schools Community Forum: Going on a Hiatus

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Going on a Hiatus:

Going on a Hiatus

Readers,

For both personal and professional reasons, the blog is going on a hiatus.  Charlie and I will try to get up a Tuesday and Friday Open Thread and perhaps breaking news.

I'll be honest; some of this is a combination of exasperation with the district and just plain exhaustion. I'm finding it less and less worth my time to advocate for this district.  I'm happy to advocate for students and funding and data privacy and many other things but Seattle School District?  Not so much.

In the meantime, keep up the good fight; I'll be with you in spirit. 

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Going on a Hiatus

Betsy DeVos’ Response to Senator Patty Murray’s Question about Virtual Schools | deutsch29

Betsy DeVos’ Response to Senator Patty Murray’s Question about Virtual Schools | deutsch29:

Betsy DeVos’ Response to Senator Patty Murray’s Question about Virtual Schools

I have been reading Michigan billionaire school choice champ and US ed sec nominee Betsy DeVos’ written responses to the 139 follow-up questions asked by Senate Health, Education, Labor and pensions (HELP) Committee member, Patty Murray.

On January 31, 2017, the Senate HELP Committee voted 12-11 to send the DeVos nomination to the full Senate for a vote.

Committee members asked DeVos to respond to more than 1,000 follow-up questions to her January 17, 2017, hearing.

At least a couple of the responses submitted in DeVos’ name have already been traced verbatim to other sources– without DeVos having credited such sources. Murray says she will examine DeVos’ responses beyond specifically for any additional, non-cited cut-and-paste prior to a full Senate vote.

Issues of plagiarism aside (for this post, at least), I would like to offer readers a telling DeVos response one of to Murray’s questions, this one about the poor performance of virtual schools (question 21).

Here is an excerpt from DeVos’ response:

I support great schools in all forms– public, private, magnet, home, religious and virtual. Unlike other public schools, charter schools can– and should– be closed when they fail to meet the obligations outlined in their charters. We need to bring traditional neighborhood schools up to the same high-level of accountability as public charter schools.

High quality virtual charter schools provide valuable options for families, particularly those who live in rural areas where brick-and mortar schools might not have the capacity to provide the range of courses or other educational experiences for students. Because of this, we must be careful not to brand an entire category of schools as failing students. For example, the following virtual academies have four-year cohort graduation rates at or above 90 percent:

• Idaho Virtual Academy (IDVA): 90 percent
• Nevada Virtual Academy (NVVA): 100 percent
• Ohio Virtual Academy (OHVA): 92 percent
Betsy DeVos’ Response to Senator Patty Murray’s Question about Virtual Schools | deutsch29:

Testimony Before the NYC Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) - Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association:

Testimony Before the NYC Panel for Educational Policy (PEP)

By:  Kemala Karmen, Deputy Director, Co-Founder NYCpublic.org

Ladies and gentlemen of the PEP, I thank you for calling a special session to consider passing a resolution against the nomination of Betsy DeVos. My suspicion is that you would not have called this session unless you were already inclined to pass the resolution because, as I am sure those who come before and after me today will note, Ms. DeVos completely and utterly lacks the qualifications to run a classroom--much less the education system of our entire country.

Since passing this resolution is a no-brainer, I would like to use my brief time in front of you to ask you to think about why you oppose DeVos and, further, to think about how New York State and New York City are guilty of some of the same crimes for which you would call out DeVos. And, as the parent of public school children myself, I would ask you PLEASE, on behalf of the children and families of our city, that you put your money where your mouth is, and no longer shore up those things, as you currently do, whether through direct action or passive inaction.

What am I talking about? In their home state of Michigan, the DeVos family has been working to undermine public education for at least 40 years. When their initial attempts to fund religious schools with public money failed, they jumped on charter schools as an answer, leveraging their billions in assets to buy pro-charter political clout. In NY, the mechanism may not be exactly analogous, but our politicians too, both Democrat and Republican, have bent under a cascade of donations from the Big Money pro-charter sector. In NY, as in Michigan and elsewhere, the means by which the denigration, defunding, and closure of public schools is justified is through test-based “accountability.” Though our governor has remarked that the state test scores are “meaningless” for students, that is in fact not true. The state receivership law sends the bottom 5% of schools into receivership based on test scores—i.e. open for charterization, something DeVos would applaud. If you keep doing away with the bottom 5% year after year, soon you will be left with no public schools. Also, test scores tend to correlate with income, so the vulnerable schools tend to be right here in our city, where there are many families living in poverty. I would hope that the mayor, the chancellor, and you on the PEP would be screaming to the rooftops about this injustice, but I don’t hear much about it. Instead, I have heard the Chancellor, in response to parents like me, who see the test refusal endorsed by the grassroots opt-out movement as a way to fight back—because without the test scores you can’t rank the schools for this indignity—endorse the tests with infuriating statements like “Our students are up for the challenge.” Really? Performing on a test whose purpose is to close down public schools is not the challenge I envision for my child. The Badass Teachers Association: