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Thursday, April 6, 2017

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 4/6/17


Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 4/6/17
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The Will of the People Doesn’t Seem to Be with Trump and DeVos on School Privatization | janresseger





Betsy DeVos isn't listening to parents: Column
Betsy DeVos isn't listening to parents: Column : Betsy DeVos isn't listening to parents Betsy DeVos, our new secretary of Education, claims that she wants the federal government to become more responsive to the will of the American people. As she argued at her Senate confirmation hearing: “[I]t’s time to shift the debate” about school reform “from what the system thinks is best for kids to what m
CURMUDGUCATION: Schools Are Symptoms
CURMUDGUCATION: Schools Are Symptoms : Schools Are Symptoms Schools have always been a visible symptom of whatever has ailed United States society as a whole. When we explicitly valued mostly only white men, we only educated white boys. When we were resistant to waves of immigrants, we ran parallel school systems for them. And as long as we have been mired in racism that is steeped all the way do
Student heckles Betsy DeVos on campus of Miami college: ‘They bought you a cabinet position’
Student heckles Betsy DeVos on campus of Miami college: ‘They bought you a cabinet position’ : Student heckles Betsy DeVos on campus of Miami college: ‘They bought you a cabinet position’ President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was confronted by a protester on Thursday who asked some pointed questions about about her brother Erik Prince and his dealings with the Russian govern
New (Unvetted) Research about Washington DC’s Teacher Evaluation Reforms | VAMboozled!
New (Unvetted) Research about Washington DC’s Teacher Evaluation Reforms | VAMboozled! : New (Unvetted) Research about Washington DC’s Teacher Evaluation Reforms In November of 2013, I published a blog pos t about a “working paper” released by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and written by authors Thomas Dee – Economics and Educational Policy Professor at Stanford, and James Wycko
What is Education Secretary Betsy DeVos doing with the rapper Pitbull in Miami? - The Washington Post
What is Education Secretary Betsy DeVos doing with the rapper Pitbull in Miami? - The Washington Post : What is Education Secretary Betsy DeVos doing with the rapper Pitbull in Miami? View image on Twitter Follow Kyra Gurney ✔ @KyraGurney . @ pitbull and @ BetsyDeVos speaking at SLAM! charter school in Miami 9:36 AM - 6 Apr 2017 67 67 Retweets 80 80 likes There Betsy DeVos goes again — literally.
The story behind the meme mocking Pepsi’s attempts to brand rebellion | I AM AN EDUCATOR
The story behind the meme mocking Pepsi’s attempts to brand rebellion | I AM AN EDUCATOR : The story behind the meme mocking Pepsi’s attempts to brand rebellion Yesterday I woke up to find out I was a meme gone viral . The hilarious meme by @ignant_ was in reference to the shameful ad that Pepsi produced —and quickly took down —depicting model Kendall Jenner diffusing tensions between protestors
State Courts Could Be Key for School Integration - The Atlantic
State Courts Could Be Key for School Integration - The Atlantic : The New Champions of School Integration The Department of Education killed a federal program supporting diversity efforts, but the fight to desegregate the nation’s classroom is far from over . Policies that promote school integration by race and class took a significant hit last week when the U.S. Department of Education announced
How Much Does the Public Understand About Effective Teaching and Learning?
How Much Does the Public Understand About Effective Teaching and Learning? : How Much Does the Public Understand About Effective Teaching and Learning? Since almost everyone has at some point in their life spent a good amount of time in a K-12 classroom, it’s safe to assume that many believe they have knowledge and insight into what works and what doesn’t. Is it also safe to assume that these per
Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: 'School killer' Rahm still on the hunt
Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: 'School killer' Rahm still on the hunt : 'School killer' Rahm still on the hunt Rahm's latest scheme calls for the closing of at least 7 more high schools in Chicago's black community. I know, I know -- he promised the community a moratorium on school closings after blighting the neighborhoods with his 50-school closings four years ago. But now he's promising the En
State commission makes no recommendation on L.A. charter schools’ future - LA Times
State commission makes no recommendation on L.A. charter schools’ future - LA Times : State commission makes no recommendation on L.A. charter schools’ future The fate of two Los Angeles charter schools remained an open question Wednesday, after a state commission declined to make a recommendation on whether they should remain open or close this summer. The move comes amid a federal investigation
Big Education Apes can tell when humans are wrong
Apes can tell when humans are wrong : Apes can tell when humans are wrong Great apes, including chimpanzees, orangutans and bonobos, might be able to tell when humans are wrong, according to researchers. In a study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers revealed experiments in which great apes helped humans when witnessed them making an incorrect decision. Researchers at the Max
Understanding the Privatization State Report Card Ratings - Network For Public Education
Understanding the Privatization State Report Card Ratings - Network For Public Education : Understanding the Privatization State Report Card Ratings The Privatization State Report Card is a rating system designed to let the public know what privatization programs exist in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. It is a simple system. We rated each state on whether or not it allows the followi
Chicago has made the flip to declaring what students owe the state – Missouri Education Watchdog
Chicago has made the flip to declaring what students owe the stat e – Missouri Education Watchdog : Chicago has made the flip to declaring what students owe the state Thank goodness this isn’t in Missouri, but we have a history of following the other lemmings so let’s rightly denounce the nonsense coming from our neighbor to the east. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has proposed a new policy wherein C
Connecticut will no longer use SBAC and SAT as part of teacher performance evaluations. - Wait What?
Connecticut will no longer use SBAC and SAT as part of teacher performance evaluations. - Wait What? : Connecticut will no longer use SBAC and SAT as part of teacher performance evaluations As the CT Mirror reports, The state Board of Education voted late Wednesday afternoon to adopt new usage standards for state mastery test data, explicitly prohibiting the use of those test scores in evaluating
Crony Capitalism – Have You Heard
Crony Capitalism – Have You Heard : Crony Capitalism Deregulation in education has led to cronyism, corruption and conflicts of interest. Dr. Preston Green sees a familiar pattern and a cautionary tale… Jennifer Berkshire : Our Secretary of Education is visiting a Florida charter school that is best known for being started by rap-u-preneur, Pitbull. But a lesser known true fact is that the school
Trump and Rahm double team Chicago schools and public education. | Fred Klonsky
Trump and Rahm double team Chicago schools and public education. | Fred Klonsky : Trump and Rahm double team Chicago schools and public education. I’m back from our trip to Memphis where we spent Tuesday honoring the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King and joining with young southern Black Lives Matter activists, college students, those fighting for $15 and religious leaders like Reverend William Ba
Choice Advocates Not Only Want More Money for Vouchers, They Want It with No Strings Attached - Education Law Prof Blog
Education Law Prof Blog : Choice Advocates Not Only Want More Money for Vouchers, They Want It with No Strings Attached Ever since the Betsy DeVos was nominated as Secretary of Education, school choice advocates have been salivating over the possibility that the privatization of education would enter a new expansive era. Last week, the USA Today interviewed some of the nation's leading advocates
The Will of the People Doesn’t Seem to Be with Trump and DeVos on School Privatization | janresseger
The Will of the People Doesn’t Seem to Be with Trump and DeVos on School Privatization | janresseger : The Will of the People Doesn’t Seem to Be with Trump and DeVos on School Privatization On Tuesday, Tony Evers was elected by Wisconsin voters to his third term as state superintendent of schools, and he wasn’t merely re-elected. It was a tsunami. Evers carried 70 percent of the vote and his oppo
The Schools Betsy DeVos Wants Parents To Choose
The Schools Betsy DeVos Wants Parents To Choose : The Schools Betsy DeVos Wants Parents To Choose U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos finally found a public school she could visit where there wouldn’t be protests . It’s on a military base, safely inside the compound of Ft. Bragg in North Carolina. As a local news outlet reports, DeVos used her appearance at Kimberly Hampton Primary, a school
Fake News, Common Core and How Parents Are STILL Getting Thrown Under the Media Bus | Truth in American Education
Fake News, Common Core and How Parents Are STILL Getting Thrown Under the Media Bus | Truth in American Education : Fake News, Common Core and How Parents Are STILL Getting Thrown Under the Media Bus From 2010 to 2014 – for four consecutive years – I researched and wrote about , lobbied against, designed memes until my hard drive nearly crashed, and crisscrossed virtually the entire state on spea

YESTERDAY



Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 4/5/17
Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 4/5/17 Featured Post 2 Education Dept. Picks Raise Fears on Civil Rights Enforcement - The New York Times Stuck in the Muck: Trapped in Outcome-Based Reforms - The Crucial Voice of the PeopleThe Crucial Voice of the People by mike simpson / 8min Stuck in the Muck: Trapped in Outcome-Based Reforms - The Crucial Voice of the PeopleThe Crucial Voice of the

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Betsy DeVos isn't listening to parents: Column

Betsy DeVos isn't listening to parents: Column:

Betsy DeVos isn't listening to parents



Betsy DeVos, our new secretary of Education, claims that she wants the federal government to become more responsive to the will of the American people. As she argued at her Senate confirmation hearing: “[I]t’s time to shift the debate” about school reform “from what the system thinks is best for kids to what moms and dads want, expect and deserve.” The solution for what ails public education won’t be found in Washington, D.C., she added. “The answer is local control and listening to parents, students and teachers."
Fair enough. So when it comes to public education, what do the American people want?
Judging by her support for President Trump’s budget proposal, DeVos thinks that most Americans want the Department of Education to spend a lot more money to promote school choice programs (a $1.4 billion increase, including more than $400 million for public and private school tuition vouchers) and to spend a lot less money on just about everything else. Overall, the budget would slash the department’s funding by $9 billion and, in the process, do away with programs that support teacher development, after school services, literacy instruction, college access for low-income students and more
But is that really what Americans want? Since 1969, PDK International has conducted an annual poll of the public’s attitudes toward the public schools. The methodology is rigorous, the questions are vetted by a politically diverse group of advisers, the data are robust and the results suggest that DeVos hasn’t been listening very carefully.
Consider school choice, which DeVos has placed at the top of her policy agenda. Our poll reveals that, in general, Americans like the idea of choice in public education. On the specifics, though, DeVos’s positions are out of tune with majority opinion, particularly when it comes to school vouchers. Most respondents tell us that they disapprove of using public funds to support voucher programs. Since 1993, we have asked Americans 20 times whether they support allowing parents to choose a private school at public expense, and every time a majority has said “No.”
DeVos is equally tone deaf when it comes to charter schooling, which is her other Betsy DeVos isn't listening to parents: Column:

CURMUDGUCATION: Schools Are Symptoms

CURMUDGUCATION: Schools Are Symptoms:

Schools Are Symptoms


Schools have always been a visible symptom of whatever has ailed United States society as a whole.

When we explicitly valued mostly only white men, we only educated white boys. When we were resistant to waves of immigrants, we ran parallel school systems for them. And as long as we have been mired in racism that is steeped all the way down into our systems, our schools have displayed the symptoms of the racial divide.



We have occasionally tried to treat the symptoms that manifested in public schools. We made the effort (which in retrospect seems almost charmingly naive) to combat racism by desegregating schools. But in many places that led to segregation just being institutionalized in other ways, like segregation academies and mass firings of black educators. When you only treat symptoms, the disease just keeps finding new ways to manifest itself. 

Treating symptoms can be necessary-- if someone has sliced open your major arteries, stemming that blood flow is a big priority. But it's not the solution. Your medical goal is not simply to find something that will staunch the flow, but to stitch up the wounds themselves. Your bigger goal is to get the person with the knife to stop stabbing you.

If you are coughing a lot because of your growing lung cancer, the best medical treatment is not a powerful cough suppressant. If you have an abdominal tumor, the best treatment choice is not a compression belt to hide the swelling. 

Nowadays, we face a massive yawning Jupiter-sized gulf between haves and have-nots in this country (check these charts). And so, our school system is a visible symptom of that problem. Rich folks get rich, well-financed schools. Poor folks get run-down, poorly-supported schools. And policy decisions are driven by a bunch of rich folks saying, "Well, I don't want the government taking 
CURMUDGUCATION: Schools Are Symptoms:



Student heckles Betsy DeVos on campus of Miami college: ‘They bought you a cabinet position’

Student heckles Betsy DeVos on campus of Miami college: ‘They bought you a cabinet position’:

Student heckles Betsy DeVos on campus of Miami college: ‘They bought you a cabinet position’


President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was confronted by a protester on Thursday who asked some pointed questions about about her brother Erik Prince and his dealings with the Russian government.
The Miami New Times said that DeVos “offered a sheepish wave” as she ducked into an elevator at Florida International University (FIU) while a student peppered her with questions.
“Secretary DeVos,” the man said, “can you tell us about your brother’s deal with the United Arab Emirates and the Russians to buy your cabinet position? Can you tell us about that?”
He went on, “Can you tell us about the deal to lift the Russian sanctions? They bought you a cabinet position, Madam Secretary. You don’t know anything about schools.”
Prince — founder of the mercenary military firm Blackwater, which changed its named to XE Security in 2009 and Academi in 2011 — is accused of trying to establish himself as a secret communications channel for Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to communicate without international scrutiny.
The former security contractor — who now lives in the UAE as a guest and employee of the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi in order to avoid extradition or arrest — relied upon connections within the UAE government to set up a meeting between himself and Putin. The meeting reportedly took place in the Seychelles Islands on Jan. 11.
Blackwater Security was accused of a number of atrocities and war crimes over its conduct in Iraq, including a 2007 incident in which drunk contractors fired automatic weapons into a crowd of civilians, killing 17 and wounding scores of others.
DeVos has spent years agitating against the U.S. public education system, which she says “secularizes” students and causes them to “turn away from Christ.” She has never Student heckles Betsy DeVos on campus of Miami college: ‘They bought you a cabinet position’:

New (Unvetted) Research about Washington DC’s Teacher Evaluation Reforms | VAMboozled!

New (Unvetted) Research about Washington DC’s Teacher Evaluation Reforms | VAMboozled!:

New (Unvetted) Research about Washington DC’s Teacher Evaluation Reforms


In November of 2013, I published a blog post about a “working paper” released by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and written by authors Thomas Dee – Economics and Educational Policy Professor at Stanford, and James Wyckoff – Economics and Educational Policy Professor at the University of Virginia. In the study titled “Incentives, Selection, and Teacher Performance: Evidence from IMPACT,” Dee and Wyckoff (2013) analyzed the controversial IMPACT educator evaluation system that was put into place in Washington DC Public Schools (DCPS) under the then Chancellor, Michelle Rhee. In this paper, Dee and Wyckoff (2013) presented what they termed to be “novel evidence” to suggest that the “uniquely high-powered incentives” linked to “teacher performance” via DC’s IMPACT initiative worked to improve the performance of high-performing teachers, and that dismissal threats worked to increase the voluntary attrition of low-performing teachers, as well as improve the performance of the students of the teachers who replaced them.
I critiqued this study in full (see both short and long versions of this critique here), and ultimately asserted that the study had “fatal flaws” which compromised the (exaggerated) claims Dee and Wyckoff (2013) advanced. These flaws included but were not limited to that only 17% of the teachers included in this study (i.e., teachers of reading and mathematics in grades 4 through 8) were actually evaluated under the value-added component of the IMPACT system. Put inversely, 83% of the teachers included in this study about teachers’ “value-added” did not have student test scores available to determine if they were indeed of “added value.” That is, 83% of the teachers evaluated, rather, were assessed on their overall levels of effectiveness or subsequent increases/decreases in effectiveness as per only the subjective observational and other self-report data include within the IMPACT system. Hence, while authors’ findings were presented as hard fact, given the 17% fact, their (exaggerated) conclusions did not at all generalize across teachers given the sample limitations, and despite what they claimed.
In short, the extent to which Dee and Wyckoff (2013) oversimplified very complex data to oversimplify a very complex context and policy situation, after which they exaggerated questionable findings, was of issue, that should have been reconciled or cleared out prior to the study’s release. I should add that this study was published in 2015 in the (economics-oriented and not-educational-policy specific) Journal of Policy Analysis and New (Unvetted) Research about Washington DC’s Teacher Evaluation Reforms | VAMboozled!:

What is Education Secretary Betsy DeVos doing with the rapper Pitbull in Miami? - The Washington Post

What is Education Secretary Betsy DeVos doing with the rapper Pitbull in Miami? - The Washington Post:

What is Education Secretary Betsy DeVos doing with the rapper Pitbull in Miami?
There Betsy DeVos goes again — literally.
On Wednesday, the education secretary visited an all-girls charter school in Washington D.C., along with first lady Melania Trump and Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan. In a statement afterward, DeVos emphasized her support for school choice by saying that Excel Academy “is a shining example of a school meeting the needs of its students, parents and community” and shows “the transformation that can happen when parents are empowered to choose the education setting that best fits their child’s individual needs.”
DeVos then headed to Florida where over two days she will visit a handful of  Miami-area schools that run something of a gamut of different educational offerings. They include a private Christian school; a traditional public elementary school;  two institutions of higher education; and a charter school started by the popular rapper Pitbull, criticized by some for profanity-laced and misogynist lyrics.
DeVos, a devout Christian, appeared on Thursday with Pitbull, whose real name is Armando Christian Pérez, at the charter school he started in Miami, underscoring her commitment to making school choice expansion her top priority.
This is DeVos’s third time as education secretary visiting schools in Florida, which she has frequently said is a national model for school choice. She has been a longtime ally of former Florida governor Jeb Bush, supporting his national education reform agenda of increasing charter schools and voucher/voucher-like programs that use public money for private and religious school tuition. She also has strong family ties to Florida, where her husband, Amway heir Dick DeVos, own a home along with other DeVos family members. What’s more, her father-in-law bought the Orlando Magic basketball team in 1991, and the family owns it still.
On Thursday, DeVos visited CARE Elementary School, formally known as the Christian Academy for Reaching Excellence, in the Overtown section of downtown Miami. CARE is part of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program, which offers tax incentives for individuals and corporations to donate money to organizations that provide “scholarships” for private and religious school tuition and other educational expenses. Supporters say such programs help students from low-income families attend private schools, while critics say they are privatizing public education, offer the public no accountability and violate the constitutional tenet of separation of church and state.
DeVos on Thursday also visited Florida International University’s Nicole Wertheim College of Nursing and Health Sciences, and the SLAM Charter School. SLAM is an acronym for sports What is Education Secretary Betsy DeVos doing with the rapper Pitbull in Miami? - The Washington Post:

The story behind the meme mocking Pepsi’s attempts to brand rebellion | I AM AN EDUCATOR

The story behind the meme mocking Pepsi’s attempts to brand rebellion | I AM AN EDUCATOR:

The story behind the meme mocking Pepsi’s attempts to brand rebellion

Yesterday I woke up to find out I was a meme gone viral.
The hilarious meme by @ignant_ was in reference to the shameful ad that Pepsi produced—and quickly took down—depicting model Kendall Jenner diffusing tensions between protestors and cops by handing one officer a refreshing can of Pepsi. When the officer cracks open the can, the protestors are overjoyed and the officer gives an approving grin. Peace on earth prevails because of commercialism and sugar water.pepsi-ad_cop
PepsiAdProtestersHundreds of thousands of people have liked and shared the hilarious meme that mocks the ignorance of the Pepsi ad that was made from an image taken of me at the 2015 Martin Luther King Day rally in Seattle.
But here’s what folks who shared the meme might not know about that photo: The image is a still taken from a video that shows me on the phone, walking on the sidewalk, when Seattle The story behind the meme mocking Pepsi’s attempts to brand rebellion | I AM AN EDUCATOR:


State Courts Could Be Key for School Integration - The Atlantic

State Courts Could Be Key for School Integration - The Atlantic:

The New Champions of School Integration

The Department of Education killed a federal program supporting diversity efforts, but the fight to desegregate the nation’s classroom is far from over.


Policies that promote school integration by race and class took a significant hit last week when the U.S. Department of Education announced that it was killing a small but important federal program to support local diversity efforts. The initiative, “Opening Doors, Expanding Opportunities,” was slated to provide $12 million to school districts to boost socioeconomic diversity. The brainchild of President Obama’s Secretary of Education, John B. King Jr., the program had attracted interest from 26 school districts across the country that believed kids would be better off in schools that educate rich and poor, and white and minority students, together rather than separately.

According to the Washington Post, an Education Department spokesperson said the program was nixed because “it was not a wise use of tax dollars, in part because the money was to be used for planning, not implementation.” But supporters of the plan rejected that view.  Representative Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat and the ranking member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said, “Continuing this important program would have been an easy way for the Trump Administration to affirm its commitment to civil rights.  Unfortunately, the Trump administration missed that opportunity.”

By coincidence, as the news of the program’s discontinuation broke, proponents of school diversity, including King, were gathering at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for a strategic-planning conference on school-diversity efforts. The day-long meeting, sponsored by Harvard’s Reimagining Integration program, the National Coalition on School Diversity, and The Century Foundation (where I work), brought together 50 scholars, civil-rights activists, and educators to plot out new strategies for school diversity in the age of Trump.

The decision by Donald Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, to kill Opening Doors was a reminder, if any was needed, that proponents of school diversity need to look beyond the federal government for support during Trump’s administration. The decision on whether to proceed with the Opening Doors program, Philip Tegeler of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council told Patrick Wall in an Atlantic article last month, was “going to be a real test of her State Courts Could Be Key for School Integration - The Atlantic:


How Much Does the Public Understand About Effective Teaching and Learning?

How Much Does the Public Understand About Effective Teaching and Learning?:

How Much Does the Public Understand About Effective Teaching and Learning?


Since almost everyone has at some point in their life spent a good amount of time in a K-12 classroom, it’s safe to assume that many believe they have knowledge and insight into what works and what doesn’t. Is it also safe to assume that these perceptions are likely to be a little off the mark? Probably, but very few if any studies exist that answer this question one way or the other. Ulrich Boser, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and author of Learn Better, recently conducted a survey to find out what the general public really knows about effective teaching and learning.
Using Amazon Mechanical Turk, Boser, assisted by a team of researchers, polled 3000 people, a sample weighted by race, income and education level, about their opinions on a variety of classroom-related issues. Boser believes it is the first survey to guage the public’s understanding of teaching and learning.
Overall, the responses are interesting, maybe a little discouraging, but not altogether surprising. To Boser, they collectively reveal a general misunderstanding about what makes effective classrooms and effective educators. The implications are important because misperceptions feed off each other, whether they begin with the public, politicians or the media. Furthermore, Boser says there is an abundance of research into the “science of learning” that should be gaining more traction in our schools, not to mention teacher preparation programs.
Here are some of the highlights from the survey. What do you think they say about the public’s understanding of effective teaching and learning?
Praise and Content Mastery
Nearly all respondents believe that are “relatively skilled” at identifying effective teaching strategies, and 72%  say they are “above average” in evaluating instructional practice. But when they were asked to evaluate specific strategies, Boser says things go awry.
For example, 72% said praising students for “being smart” is an effective instructional strategy and 39% believe that mastering basic content is overrated, agreeing with the How Much Does the Public Understand About Effective Teaching and Learning?: