Forgotten Purpose: Civics Education in Public Schools

Forgotten Purpose: Civics Education in Public Schools:
Forgotten Purpose: Civics Education in Public Schools

ne of the primary reasons our nation’s founders envisioned a vast public education system was to prepare youth to be active participants in our system of self-government. The responsibilities of each citizen were assumed to go far beyond casting a vote; protecting the common good would require developing students’ critical thinking and debate skills, along with strong civic virtues.

Blind devotion to the state or its leaders would never be enough. Rather, being American was something to be learned and carried out.

“I share my own experience of having lived in Eastern Europe—where in some places it was dangerous to criticize the government—to help my students understand and prepare to defend the freedoms we have in America,” says educator Toni Simovski. His family emigrated from Macedonia and Simovski served as a translator for the U.S. military before becoming an award-winning high school civics teacher in Dearborn, Mich.

Only 25 percent of U.S. students reach the “proficient” standard on the NAEP Civics Assessment.  

He requires students to “see civics in action” at school board and city council meetings, engage in local issues through letter-writing campaigns, conduct interviews with local officeholders, or host members of the Michigan legislature in their classroom.

Unfortunately, such a rigorous civics education is not available to all students.
Until the 1960s, it was common for American high school students to have three separate courses in civics and government. But civics offerings were slashed as the curriculum narrowed over the ensuing decades, and lost further ground to “core subjects” under the NCLB-era standardized testing regime.

It’s Not an Exaggeration to Say that Civics Education is in Crisis.

Only 25 percent of U.S. students reach the “proficient” standard on the NAEP Civics Assessment.  White, wealthy students are four to six times as likely as Black and Hispanic students from low-income households to exceed that level. Here’s why: Students in wealthier public school districts are far more likely to receive high-quality civics education than students in low-income and majority-minority schools.

Contrary to Popular Belief, the Problem isn’t that Students Receive No Civics Education.

All 50 states require some form of instruction in civics and/or government, and nearly 90 percent of students take at least one civics class. But too often, factual book learning is not reinforced with experience-based learning opportunities like Forgotten Purpose: Civics Education in Public Schools:

60 Years Ago, Resistance to Integration in Texas Led to School Voucher Plan | KUT

60 Years Ago, Resistance to Integration in Texas Led to School Voucher Plan | KUT:

60 Years Ago, Resistance to Integration in Texas Led to School Voucher Plan

The Texas Senate Education Committee plans to discuss a bill next week that would allow parents to use taxpayer dollars to send their kids to private schools. The school voucher program is cited as a way to give students — especially low-income students — access to high-quality schools.

This isn't the first time lawmakers have tried to pass a school voucher bill; lawmakers have introduced some kind of modern-day voucher program for at least 20 years.

But vouchers have a history in Texas that dates back to school integration. And it's not pretty. 

After the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, Texas was resistant to desegregating its public schools. Then-Gov. Allan Shivers appointed a committee to recommend ways to prevent integration. One proposal created a school voucher program that would give parents who opposed integration taxpayer money to send their children to a segregated private school.

“Such aid should be given only upon affidavit that the child was being withdrawn
 from the public schools due to the parents' dislike of integration.” 

The voucher proposal was part of a larger group of bills filed to circumvent desegregation, but the bill never passed.

“It was my father and state Sen. Abraham ‘Chick’ Kazen from Laredo, and they had placed everybody on notice that they would be opposing any Jim Crow laws," former U.S. Rep. Charles Gonzalez said. In 1957, his father, Henry Gonzalez, was the first Hispanic state senator in Texas, representing San Antonio. He later became a congressman. Then-state Sens. Gonzalez and Kazen filibustered the bills targeting desegregation for 36 hours, setting a state record. 60 Years Ago, Resistance to Integration in Texas Led to School Voucher Plan | KUT:

Trump seeks to slash Education Department but make big push for school choice - The Washington Post

Trump seeks to slash Education Department but make big push for school choice - The Washington Post:
Trump seeks to slash Education Department but make big push for school choice

The Trump administration is seeking to cut $9.2 billion — or 13.5 percent — from the Education Department’s budget, a dramatic downsizing that would reduce or eliminate grants for teacher training, after-school programs and aid to ­low-income and first-generation college students.

Along with the cuts, among the steepest the agency has ever sustained, the administration is also proposing to shift $1.4 billion toward one of President Trump’s key priorities: Expanding charter schools, private-school vouchers and other alternatives to traditional public schools. His $59 billion education budget for 2018 would include an unprecedented federal investment in such “school choice” initiatives, signaling a push to reshape K-12 education in America.

The president is proposing a $168 million increase for charter schools — 50 percent above the current level — and a new $250 million private-school choice program, which would probably provide vouchers for families to use at private or parochial schools. Vouchers are one of the most polarizing issues in education, drawing fierce resistance from Democrats and some Republicans, particularly those in rural states.

[Choice advocates divided over Trump and his education pick, Betsy DeVos]

Trump also wants an additional $1 billion for Title I, a $15 billion grant program for schools with high concentrations of poor children. The new funds would be used to encourage districts to adopt a controversial form of choice: Allowing local, state and federal funds to follow children to whichever public school they choose.Trump seeks to slash Education Department but make big push for school choice - The Washington Post:

John Thompson: Family, student deaths reinforce value of teaching - NonDoc

Family, student deaths reinforce value of teaching - NonDoc:
Family, student deaths reinforce value of teaching

My mother, Betty Thompson, died last week at the age of 89.

As such, I haven’t been in the mood for analyzing education policy, but rather predisposed to contemplating deeper issues. At some point, I’m confident the words will come for celebrating my mom’s contributions.

Now, the best I can do is share this account of my father’s passing. It is a passage from A Teacher’s Tale: Learning, Loving and Listening to Our Kids. (All student names are pseudonyms.)

---

Just before the October fall break, we had time to feel introspective. My plan was to leave for the mountains immediately after school dismissed. Most seniors were on a (poorly planned) field trip, and it was a great time to reflect on our first quarter. My students joined in celebrating our classes’ great year so far, while we also shared our worries about the school’s future.

As John Marshall H.S. lost more of its student leaders to magnet and charter schools, this left a greater percentage of teens who had endured more than their share of tragedies and who had less ability to control their behavior. As disciplinary infractions increased, assistant principals became more reluctant to assess consequences, fearing that their suspension numbers would be too high. In numerous classes, teachers found it impossible to maintain order. This drove out even more of the top students and educators, making it harder for the school to function, creating a downward spiral of disorder and violence.

Crises bring classes together

Then we heard about a car wreck involving two students from Marshall. Tim might not survive. I visited him in intensive care. He was unconscious, so my attention turned to his grandmother, the woman who was his deeply devoted guardian. She sat day and night at Family, student deaths reinforce value of teaching - NonDoc:

Ed Notes Online: On ESSA Rules Change: Will Opt Out Be Affected?

Ed Notes Online: On ESSA Rules Change: Will Opt Out Be Affected?:
On ESSA Rules Change: Will Opt Out Be Affected?

My initial reaction to ESSA rules changes was the less feds the better, given the past 20 years. Like, liberals supported a fed heavy hand to force states like Mississippi to do better educationally -- good luck with that. The cost to us was testing, wasteful accountability, closing schools, charters -- ed deform. I'm ready to say -- screw Mississippi. 

A couple of varying views on the new ESSA changes in the time of DeVos/Trump. 

Leonie Haimson: Why dumping the ESSA regs is not a big deal; and what is 

There has been an unnecessary amount of angst and ink spilled on the blogs and elsewhere over the fact that Congress has voted on eliminating the ESSA regulations on accountability.  It bears repeating that the law itself -- the Every Student Succeeds Act -- still exists in force and is quite prescriptive, for good or for ill only now just a little bit less so.  ..... I only wish that the accountability hawks within the DC corporate reform groups and civil rights organizations would pay as much attention to the conditions of learning as they do on testing.  By now, they should  recognize that access to high-stakes tests has never been a necessary precondition to improving schools, nor has it been helpful. 

Now many of the Inside-the-Beltway education advocacy groups protested hugely against Congress’ elimination of the ESSA regs, arguing that this somehow would lessen the need for states to try to improve struggling schools and help low-scoring kids.  If they really cared about addressing low-performance rather than merely punishing schools with opt out rates, they should have supported this additional flexibility – to ensure that those schools that really need extra help are provided with the extra support they need.

Jim Horn: What Ending Regulations on ESSA Will Mean

 there is reason to believe that that the removal of federal regulations could escalate the move to state voucher programs that hand over cheap vouchers to the poorest children to “choose” a charter school or a below-average private school.  States will be free to make it up as they along, as long as they stay true to privatization intent and methodology within ESSA.
  

There is also reason to believe to that the removal of federal guidance for ESSA may result in more special needs children and ELL 

Ed Notes Online: On ESSA Rules Change: Will Opt Out Be Affected?:

 Opt Out Parents Fight Feral Farina's Raging Assault on Parents
When Farina and the DOE goons act like little Trumps we must 

We know Farina has targeted schools with high opt out rates. I am suspicious that the attack on CPE 1 and its staff and parents is connected to their high opt out rate. When Farina hench people put in Monika Garg as principal one of her early acts was to try to institute test prep, eliciting a giant WTF.

This came in from from NYC Opt Out.

We are hearing from some of you that your administration is insisting parents meet with them if you are considering opting your child out of the tests. We have seen a number of these letters come through other districts in the state as well, which makes us think this is a directive from the state/city DOE (like last year). Some are quite aggressive.

Can you all please snap a photo of the one you might receive or have already received and share it here, or on FB? [Email any  photos to me at normsco@gmail.com and I'll connect you.]

We have a directive for parents who are getting push back from their administration, and though the DOE FAQ states
that the principal "should offer to meet with the parent", in no way does this mean it's mandatory. Both Betty Rosa
and your Regent should be notified, as well as Tish James.

Many parents may not feel comfortable going against their principal's directive, but it is still your right to refuse  Opt Out Parents Fight Feral Farina's Raging Assault on Parents

Try this one trick to improve student outcomes | 89.3 KPCC

Try this one trick to improve student outcomes | 89.3 KPCC:

Try this one trick to improve student outcomes

"Millions of poor, disadvantaged students are trapped in failing schools."

So said President Trump at the White House recently. It's a familiar lament across the political spectrum, so much so that you could almost give it its own acronym : PKTIFS (Poor Kids Trapped In Failing Schools).

Where there's no consensus, however, is on the proper remedy for PKTIFS.

The Obama administration's signature proposal was the School Improvement Grant. This was a $7 billion attempt to turn around struggling schools with some combination of replacing personnel, overhauling the curriculum, renewed teacher support and other practices.

It was one of the largest federal education grant programs ever created. There was just one problem. As a department-commissioned independent review concluded just as Obama was leaving office, it didn't work. "Overall, across all grades, we found ... no significant impacts on math or reading test scores, high school graduation, or college enrollment."

President Trump, and his education secretary, Betsy DeVos, are largely focused on the T for "trapped" part of the problem. They talk about creating escape routes, largely by expanding charter and voucher programs.

Richard Kahlenberg has spent decades stumping for a third way. His idea: Create public schools that are more integrated. He helped innovate the use of social and economic indicators to do that — instead of race and ethnicity, the use of which is prohibited by a 2007 Supreme Court decision.

His strategy could be summed up as: Give poor kids the opportunity to attend school with not-so-poor kids.

The organization where he's a senior fellow, the Century Foundation, keeps track of 100 districts and charter schools around the country that are currently trying various integration strategies. The foundation recently released a paper with nine case studies: New York; Chicago; Dallas; Hartford and Stamford, Conn.; Jefferson County, Ky.; Eden Prairie, Minn.; Champaign, Ill.; and Cambridge, Mass.

[The integration strategy in Jefferson County is challenged by a new bill in the state Try this one trick to improve student outcomes | 89.3 KPCC:

Confronting the Scheme to Gamble With Connecticut Special Education Funds by Robert Cotto Jr. - Wait What?

Confronting the Scheme to Gamble With Connecticut Special Education Funds by Robert Cotto Jr. - Wait What?:

Confronting the Scheme to Gamble With Connecticut Special Education Funds by Robert Cotto Jr.

In a MUST READ commentary piece published in the CTNewsjunkie, Robert Cotto Jr. reviews the flawed special education proposal submitted by The Connecticut School Finance Project, a corporate education reform group that has apparently violated state law by illegally engaging in lobbying activities with Governor Dannel Malloy and his administration. (See: In violation of state lobbying laws, corporate education reform group develops Malloy’s disastrous special education funding proposal.)

Cotto begins by explaining,

As the state considers the risk of adding a new casino, Connecticut must beware of another plan to gamble with funds for students with disabilities. Based on its flawed analysis of special education, the plan could be a jackpot for profiteers and charter school entrepreneurs. We must stop this scheme and consider better alternatives.

[…]

Initially proposed by the Connecticut School Finance Project to help districts face the “ups” and “downs” of special education costs, the governor’s administration, as well as other education reformers, have now endorsed the plan. Yet, as Deborah Richards from the Capitol Region Education Council stated, “the primary issue is cost” of special education, not volatility.

Cotto adds;

If this plan sounds like a scam to you, then you are not aloneConfronting the Scheme to Gamble With Connecticut Special Education Funds by Robert Cotto Jr. - Wait What?:

Capitalism is Bad for Your Health | Bill Ayers

Capitalism is Bad for Your Health | Bill Ayers:

Capitalism is Bad for Your Health

DEMAND the IMPOSSIBLE!!

Medicare—government-run health insurance for the elderly—was fiercely opposed by conservatives and political reactionaries when it was proposed half a century ago: “We are against forcing all citizens . . . into a compulsory government program,” said one; it’s nothing less than “socialized medicine,” and, if implemented would mean that “one of these days, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”

That was the demigod of today’s political right, Ronald Reagan, speaking before he’d entered electoral politics, and his comments echoed right-wing opposition to Social Security in the 1930s (a plan to “Sovietize America”), and the minimum wage and mandated overtime pay (“Communism, Bolshevism, fascism and Nazism”). Here we go again.

 

Good medicine at its heart requires trust and an assumption of honesty and fairness; the market requires nothing more nor less than profits for shareholders. The near-total corporate capitalist capture of health care incentivizes bad behavior: a primary-care doctor ordering a battery of tests of questionable medical value because fee-for-service makes it profitable, or an obstetrician performing an unneeded Caesarian section because that procedure brings in more money only makes sense if dollars—and dollars alone—are the standard of care. Unnecessary medical tests (and procedures) are to the health industry what alcohol is to the hospitality industry: the Midas touch, everything turning magically to gold.

 

The health care marketeers lie in public, devise make-believe disorders and promote them through public relations and clever advertising, and then deal meds at the open-air drug bazaar to treat invented afflictions. Erectile Capitalism is Bad for Your Health | Bill Ayers:

 

CURMUDGUCATION: The Basic Unit of Writing

CURMUDGUCATION: The Basic Unit of Writing:

The Basic Unit of Writing

If you are of a Certain Age, this how you were taught writing--

1) Learn the parts of speech, sentence parts, and the rest of grammar. 
2) Learn how to construct a sentence.
3) Learn how to write several sentences to make a paragraph.
4) Learn how to write several paragraphs to make an essay.

That's how we were taught to write. Mind you, it is not how anybody actually learned to write-- okay, I can't say nobody learned that way because the first rule of actual writing is that everybody uses their own methods and one person's Functional Approach To Writing is another person's Unspeakably Awful Idea. But the number of people who actually learned to write by the above traditional method is tiny, like the number of people who learned how to play jazz trombone by watching Led Zeppelin videos.

The persistence of traditional grammar instruction in the English teaching world is an ongoing mystery, like the number of people who think vouchers would improve education. Some teachers do it because well, of course, that's what English teachers do. Some teachers do it because it's easier than taking calls from parents that include the phrase, "Well, back in my day..."

Grammar instruction has its place. It's a lot easier to fix things, and a lot a lot easier to talk about fixing things, if you can call those things something other than "things." It's hard to talk about the nuts and bolts of improving a piece of writing if we don't have the words "nuts" or "bolts."

But we know-- have known for years-- that simple instruction of grammar with grammar exercises and grammar drills and all the traditional things does not improve writing. You can read a good recap of the research here, and while I'm highly dubious about any research that claims it has measured the quality of student writing, the fancy big-time research matches what I've learned in my own class-sized laboratory over the past may decades. Drilling students all day on nouns and verbs and participials and dependent adverb clauses will not make them better writer, and CURMUDGUCATION: The Basic Unit of Writing:

Case Challenging Segregation As a Violation of State Right to Education Heading to Minnesota Supreme Court - Education Law Prof Blog

Education Law Prof Blog:

Case Challenging Segregation As a Violation of State Right to Education Heading to Minnesota Supreme Court

On Monday, the Minnesota Court of Appeals in Cruz-Guzman v. Minnesota ruled that plaintiffs' challenge to segregation in public schools was non-justiciable under the state constitution.  Plaintiffs, among other claims, argued that segregated schools deprive students of an adequate education.  While the court recognized that the state has a duty to provide a uniform, thorough, and efficient education under the state constitution, the court reasoned that the constitution does not include any qualitative standards or judicially manageable standards.  Thus, it lacked a basis upon which to find that segregation did not or did not deprive students of the requisite level of education.  The court wrote:

Appellants argue that the Minnesota Constitution does not provide textual support for respondents’ assertion of a constitutional right to an “adequate” education. As appellants note, “[T]he word ‘adequate’ does not appear in Minnesota’s Education Clause.” Instead, the Education Clause sets forth the legislature’s duty to establish a “general and uniform system of public schools” and to secure, “by taxation or otherwise,” a “thorough and efficient system of public schools.” Minn. Const. art. XIII, § 1. The clause does not state that the legislature must provide an education that meets a certain qualitative standard. Moreover, assuming without deciding that the Education Clause requires the provision of
an education of a certain quality, the clause does not set forth the relevant qualitative standard.

Respondents’ request for relief therefore requires the judiciary to both read an adequacy requirement based on a qualitative standard into the language of the Education Clause and to defineEducation Law Prof Blog:

Check Out PBS NewsHour’s Fine Report on School Vouchers | janresseger

Check Out PBS NewsHour’s Fine Report on School Vouchers | janresseger:

Check Out PBS NewsHour’s Fine Report on School Vouchers

On Tuesday night, the PBS NewsHour in collaboration with Education Week reporter Lisa Stark aired a short and almost perfectly framed piece on Indiana’s school voucher program. Vice President Mike Pence, who is responsible for the rapid growth of Indiana school vouchers, is, like the new education secretary Betsy DeVos, an avid champion of parents’ freedom to choose their children’s schools.

In her report, Stark captures the church-state issues by contrasting a public school, Fairfield Elementary School, with Emmaus Lutheran School, both in Fort Wayne. Vouchers and tax credits across the states fund primarily religious schools where the tuition is low enough to be offset by a modest voucher. The U.S. Supreme Court—in the controversial 2002, Zellman v. Simmons-Harris decision—found vouchers to be legal under the U.S. Constitution, though some state constitutions ban the expenditure of public dollars in religious schools. (This blog covered the church-state, First Amendment issues here.)

The most devastating impact of vouchers and tax credit programs, however, is to create a separate system that devours state public school budgets. Stark is clear from the outset: “At the heart of the debate (is) money, and how education dollars are divvied up.  Normally, the state distributes tax dollars to public schools to educate students. In Indiana, that’s about $5,800 per student. Vouchers change that. A portion of the money, the tax dollars, follow the student instead, allowing parents to use those dollars to pay tuition at the private school of their choice.”

Stark shows video footage of two nurturing, high-quality schools—a public school and Lutheran school, and she interviews their principals to learn about how the rapid growth of vouchers has affected each school. She also interviews Robert Enlow, the president of a national lobbying organization: EdChoice. Here is the background on EdCoice that Stark can’t cover in her short piece. EdChoice is today’s name for the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, the foundation started by Chicago free-market economist, Milton Check Out PBS NewsHour’s Fine Report on School Vouchers | janresseger:

Paying the Price for Monica Garcia’s Win

Paying the Price for Monica Garcia’s Win:

Paying the Price for Monica Garcia’s Win

If parents are not happy with the school program, it is a school of choice. They are free (and indeed encouraged) to remove their kids from the school. There are plenty of other public school options for their children.”– Mr. Tschang, former KIPP Principal

As I walked off stage at the only debate in the race for LAUSD’s District 2’s Board seat, a student walked up to me to express his support and to say that “we need you on the Board.” I thanked him and also assured him that I would continue fighting for the students of the District, win or lose. This pledge immediately came to mind as I found a flyer delivered by the District to the house in East L.A. where I had rented a room in order to run against Monica Garcia and her allegiance to charters. The public school closest to where I had lived for the past six months is scheduled to become the latest host for a charter school parasite and the District had scheduled an informational meeting to discuss the issue. On Tuesday morning I attended this meeting with approximately 60 parents of Marianna Avenue Elementary school. According to the flyer, staff was also invited to this meeting, but how exactly were they supposed to participate while school was in session? So much for the LAUSD’s goal of “parent and community engagement”.

Like the parents of Arminta Street Elementary School, the parents of Marianna Avenue are organized and ready to fight back. They also seemed to have a more angry tone as they denounced the planned co-location of a KIPP charter. They questioned why space was being given up when there were not enough pre-school seats to meet demand. They wondered why kindergarten and first-grade students were sharing a classroom if the District had determined they had unused space. They decried the lack of green space on the school’s campus and accused the District of ignoringPaying the Price for Monica Garcia’s Win: 

Charter School With 38% High School Completion Rate Brags About 88% College Completion Rate In USA Today | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Charter School With 38% High School Completion Rate Brags About 88% College Completion Rate In USA Today | Gary Rubinstein's Blog:

Charter School With 38% High School Completion Rate Brags About 88% College Completion Rate In USA Today

In yesterday’s USA Today there was an article with the enticing title “Charter schools’ ‘thorny’ problem:  Few students go on to earn college degrees”  This article was shared widely by the pro-teacher, pro-public school crowd.  And though the title does seem to support what many of us have been saying over the years, based on what they say in the article, I see it as something that can easily be quoted by the pro-charter crowd as evidence that charters are, in general, working.

Statistics for charter schools as a whole are hard to come by, but the best estimate puts charters’ college persistence rates at around 23%. To be fair, the rate overall for low-income students – the kind of students typically served by charters – is even worse: just 9%.

So if the rate of college completion for low-income students who attend charter schools is really 23%, that does sound like a big improvement over the non-charter rate of 9%.

The article goes on to highlight two charter chains who claim to have, respectively, a 45% and an 87.5% college completion rate.  The 45% chain was KIPP.  I remember a few years back when they first started saying this and I argued with Richard Barth, a co-CEO of KIPP, that you really can’t compare the rate KIPP publishes with the 9% statistic since the KIPP rate only applies to students who graduated KIPP and ignores the KIPP students who leave the school before reaching 12th grade.  Statistically speaking, the KIPP students are a ‘biased’ sample.

He wasn’t really interested in debating this, here is the exchange:

The real heroes of the article are the Democracy Prep charter chain.  They claim an amazing 87.5% college completion rate.  (There is not mention in the article about the recent incident where a Democracy Prep student threatened another student at gunpoint over a dispute about a Chicken McNugget.)

Having the KIPP numbers and the Democracy Prep numbers really make this into a pro-charter piece.  It basically says that some charters are struggling to get kids ‘to and through’ college, but the really good charter chains are doing well with this.  So the conclusion isn’t to slow down charter proliferation, but to only expand the really good charters like KIPP and Democracy Prep.

New York State has a pretty good public data system, so I investigated the numbers for Democracy Prep’s first cohort, the ones that 87.5% of their graduates are on track to Charter School With 38% High School Completion Rate Brags About 88% College Completion Rate In USA Today | Gary Rubinstein's Blog:

Jeff Bryant EON THIS WEEK: Schools Are Falling Apart - Teachers Oppose Trump - Charter School Corruption - School Rankings Suck - College Student Poverty

3/16/2017 – What Betsy DeVos Means When She Says ‘Public Schools’:

3/16/2017 – What Betsy DeVos Means When She Says ‘Public Schools’

March 16, 2017 Subscribe

THIS WEEK: Schools Are Falling Apart … Teachers Oppose Trump … Charter School Corruption … School Rankings Suck … College Student Poverty

TOP STORY

What Betsy DeVos Means When She Says ‘Public Schools’

By Jeff Bryant

“Betsy DeVos once called public schools a ‘dead end,’ but now that she’s U.S. Secretary of Education, she’s suddenly all for them … Has DeVos had a sudden change of heart? That’s doubtful … What does DeVos mean by ‘public school?’ It turns out that’s becoming a squishy term … at least if school choice advocates have their way.”
Read more …

NEWS AND VIEWS

Public Schools’ Infrastructure Gets Near Failing Grade From Civil Engineers

Education Week

“The American Society of Civil Engineers gave public schools a D-plus in its report card on the nation’s infrastructure … A D grade means that buildings are in fair to poor condition, with many elements nearing the end of their useful life and showing significant deterioration … Nearly a quarter of permanent public school buildings were in fair or poor condition. In more than 30% of public school facilities, windows, plumbing, and HVAC systems were in ‘fair’ or ‘poor’ condition. 53% of public schools needed to make repairs, renovations, or upgrades to be in ‘good’ condition.”
Read more …

Teachers Will Be A Formidable Force Against Trump

The Nation

“Teachers are working to protect undocumented immigrant students, trans students, and any student whose chance at an equitable education is at risk … Educators are pressing for more decisive protections for … immigrant youth, many with refugee and undocumented family members … School districts … in Pittsburgh and several California cities [are] barring ICE agents altogether, without prior government permission.”
Read more …

An Alarming Study Links Fraud In The Enron Scandal To Similar Practices At Charter Schools

Business Insider

“The charter-school industry … is rife with the same types of fraud and mismanagement that led to the Enron collapse … Related-party transactions, or deals between entities that have preexisting relationships, in charter school relationships [have] the same types of activities that Enron executives participated in before the company collapsed … So-called gatekeepers, like the Department of Education and charter school authorizers, must do more to prevent this type of abuse.”
Read more …

A-F School Rankings Draw Local Pushback

Education Week

“As states overhaul their accountability systems under the new federal K-12 law, officials in some are pushing to replace or revamp A-F grading for schools … In some states that already have them, A-F systems have received fierce backlash from local superintendents and school board members. They complain that the letter grades oversimplify student success or shortfalls, increase pressure to pay attention to tests, ignore school quality factors other than test scores, and demoralize teachers and parents. Local officials in at least four states are using this year’s window of opportunity provided by the Every Student Succeeds Act to push back against A-F systems.”
Read more …

A Striking Number Of College Students Are Hungry And Homeless

The Atlantic

“Many more community-college students are homeless or lack food than previously reported … Around two-thirds are ‘food insecure,’ meaning they have limited or uncertain access to nutritionally adequate and safe foods. Around half of these students are also ‘housing insecure,’ meaning they are forced to move often or cannot afford rent or utilities. More striking still is the number of community-college students who are homeless: around 14 percent … Nearly a third of homeless students at community colleges rely on loans to finance their education … Another third of students who are food and/or housing insecure are employed and receive financial aid.”
Read more …

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3/16/2017 – What Betsy DeVos Means When She Says ‘Public Schools’: