Saturday Reads Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

Saturday Reads Diane Ravitch's blog

A site to discuss better education for all

This Is a Broadway Play You Should See

2by dianeravitch / 2h

A few nights ago, I went to see a Broadway play that was scheduled to close on June 25. The play is “Indecent,” and it is wonderful. It was written bu a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Paula Vogel. It is about a play written for the Yiddish 

Randy Rainbow Questions Comey and Sessions

by dianeravitch / 3min

Time for a laugh!

Jeff Bryant Wins “Project Censored” Award for His Article on the Walmart Takeover of Public Education

1by dianeravitch / 1h

Jeff Bryant has won one of the annual Project Censored awards for his brilliant article about the malign intrusion of Walmart into public education. We may differ about which person is “the worst in the World,” but if there were a 

Emily Talmage: The Fight Against the Invasion of the EdTech Entrepreneurs

2by dianeravitch / 11min

Emily Talmage describes the fight against the edtech industry in New England. The resolutions passed by the Massachusetts Teachers Association are a landmark in teachers’ efforts to block privatization, data mining, and 

Who is “the Worst Person in the World?” Ken Bernstein Knows.

2by dianeravitch / 39min

Who is the Worst Person in the World? Ken Bernstein knows, and he shares his reasons here. Right now, I would nominate the brutal dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong-Un, who brutalizes his own people and recently sent home the near-lifeless body of Otto Warmbier, a college student who had foolishly attempted to bring home a propaganda poster as a souvenir of his five-day trip to North Korea. Otto d

PBS: A Moving Program about the Saving Power of Higher Education

4by dianeravitch / 1h

I have written a lot lately about the bad judgment of PBS in running a one-sided, partisan three-hour series attacking public education and advocating for running schools like businesses. I am happy to share with you a wonderful documentary about a higher education program that awards degrees to prisoners at the notorious Sing Sing prison in Ossining, New York. The title is FIRST DEGREE. it enabl

New Jersey: Charter School Closing, Won’t Pay Teachers for last Two Months

9by dianeravitch / 2h

The Merit Preparatory Charter School in Newark has been ordered to close down at the end of June due to low test scores. The school’s teachers are paid on a 12-month schedule for ten months of work. That means they are owed salary for July and August. At present, the school does not plan to pay what it owes the teachers. The teachers have turned to the Newark Teachers Union for help, even though

Carol Burris: The Broken Promises and Scams of the Charter Industry

14by dianeravitch / 2h

Carol Burris notes in this article that the NAACP passed a resolution last year demanding a moratorium on new charters until charters cleaned up their actioms and policies. Instead of doing some self-examination and trying to right what was wrong, the charter apologists attacked the NAACP. Burris reviews some of the notable charter scams and corruption in the past year or so. Back in the 1990s, w

NYC: Little Public Support for Mayoral Control

6by dianeravitch / 2h

This issue deserves a longer post by me, since my first book in 1974 was a history of the New York City public schools. Mayors have always had a large measure of control over the city’s public schools, but only under Mayor Bloomberg did the mayor take control of appointing the superintendent/chancellor and direct every aspect of the system. Bloomberg used his power without checks/balances to clos

New York City: No Deal Yet on Renewal of Mayoral Control

6by dianeravitch / 3h

I was premature yesterday is reporting that a deal was near on renewing mayoral control. As of now, there is no deal. The State Senate, controlled by Republicans, wants more charters. The State Assembly, controlled by urban Democrats, does not. On June 30, mayoral control expires, and the previous board is revived, seven members, with only two appointed by the mayor. The Republicans in the Senate

YESTERDAY

New York: Legislature Close to a Deal on Renewing Mayoral Control

11by dianeravitch / 16h

The legislature in New York is close to a final deal to permit mayoral control of the public schools for another year. When Michael Bloomberg became Mayor of New York City, one of his first goals was to take control of the school system. He claimed he could get better results because of his experience as a businessman. The Board of Educationconsisted of seven members, one appointed by each of fiv

New York Times’ Columnist Gail Collins Names Betsy DeVos the Winner of Her Contest!

16by dianeravitch / 20h

Gail Collins used to be the editorial page editor of the New York Times. Now she writes a regular column for the Times, which is usually hilarious. Today, she names Betsy DeVos the winner of her informal reader poll as the Worst Member of Trump’s Cabinet. This was no easy contest. Remember, she was up against Jeff Sessions, who has total amnesia, and Scott Pruitt, the director of the Environmenta

Reed Hastings, Billionaire, Says that Elected School Boards Should be Eliminated

98by dianeravitch / 21h

Reed Hastings, billionaire owner of Netflix, says that democracy is the problem at the root of American education. Elected school boards are the cause of too much turmoil. Appointed boards are far better and allow innovative charter schools to grow. At the annual meeting of the National Alliance for “Public” Charter Schools, Hastings pointed to elected school boards as dysfunctional and lauded th

Newly Elected LAUSD Member Says He is not Going to Promote Charter Expansion

3by dianeravitch / 22h

Surely to the surprise of the California Charter School Association, Eli Broad, Reed Hastings and the other billionaires who funded his election campaign, Nick Melvoin told EdSource in California that his election was not about expanding the number of charter schools. No, what he is about is seeing public schools replicate the successes of charter schools. Melvoin was a TFA teacher for two years,

Lordy! Peter Greene Agrees with Checker Finn About a Few Things

9by dianeravitch / 23h

Peter Greene is kind of busy, what with having two-week-old twins in the House, with crying, diapers, and all that entails. But not too busy to read that Checker Finn describes parts of Jeanne Allen’s pro-choice book as “idiocy .” See, Jeanne agrees with Betsy DeVos that the government should hand out taxpayer dollars to families to use however they want. Checker recognizes that this is a dumb id

Do Corporations Care about American Workers?

50by dianeravitch / 1d

This is an excellent article about the nations’ major corporations and their abandonment of their fellow citizens. It was written by Gordon Later and Greg LeRoy and posted by the Economic Policy Institute. Gordon Later wrote the wonderful book “The One Percent Solution: How Corporations are Remaking America, One State at a Time, ” which I highly recommend, to understand how Dark Money has taken o

Jessica Tang Makes History in Boston

200+by dianeravitch / 1d

Congratulations, Jessica Tang, the newly elected leader of the Boston Teachers Union! What I admire about Jessica, in addition to all the firsts attached to her rise, is that she is determined to fight privatization. Despite the fact that Massachusetts is far and away the highest performing state on NAEP, the plutocrats have been trying to bust the public schools. She is a fighter. Between Tang a

DeVos Puts CEO of Student Loan Company in Charge of Policing Student Loans

12by dianeravitch / 1d

Can anyone spell “conflict of interest”? Has anyone at the Department of Education ever heard the term? Betsy Devos just selected the CEO of a corporation collecting student loans to police the collection of student loans. 

 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

Ed Notes Online: Politico - Undemocratic Mayoral Control Survives as Charters Get Major Objective - Ability to Hire Cheaper, Uncertified Teachers

Ed Notes Online: Politico - Undemocratic Mayoral Control Survives as Charters Get Major Objective - Ability to Hire Cheaper, Uncertified Teachers:

Politico - Undemocratic Mayoral Control Survives as Charters Get Major Objective - Ability to Hire Cheaper, Uncertified Teachers

SUNY is now planning to create “an alternative teacher certification pathway to charter schools.” The regulations represent a major first step to resolving an existential threat to the city’s large and powerful charter sector, which relies heavily on young and uncertified teachers, some right out of college, to staff their dozens of schools. Moskowitz, who demonstrated her power in the Capitol with a push to pass a sweeping pro-charter bill in 2014, has been advocating for a fix to teacher certification problems for several years..... .......Politico-- Charter sector secures win in Albany, clearing a path for deal on mayoral control


Politico reports that Eva gets what she wants -- charters will be able to hire uncertified teachers right out of school. What Politico and the press in general don't report is the context -- why don't they question the concept of uncertified and fundamentally inexperienced teachers and the impact on students?

Charters have trouble competing for teachers and have to pay people more than they want --- by basically being able to drag people off the street they can control their salaries and cover their massive turnover rate --- none of this gets reported.

So for those who think mayoral control is dead, don't get out the stake -- Leonie points to some history: 

NYC Public School Parents

Some fact checking & historical context on community school boards and what happened last time Mayoral control lapsed -  
If you follow the debate on mayoral control, it would seem everyone wants it --- except the public, parents and teachers -- the real stakeholders in the system. In the real world, the ed deformers have the major stake in keeping mayoral control, as does the UFT. And politicians. The press goes along. If you followed my post - I Enter Mayoral Control Debate on @BrianLehrer on WNYC--
after my call to the Brian Lehrer program on WNYC where I made the case for local school boards and the case against mayoral control (I didn't have time to make the full case) -- note the surprise in Brian's voice over the fact that people would support the Ed Notes Online: Politico - Undemocratic Mayoral Control Survives as Charters Get Major Objective - Ability to Hire Cheaper, Uncertified Teachers:

Charter school won’t pay teachers for final 2 months, union says

Charter school won’t pay teachers for final 2 months, union says:

Charter school won’t pay teachers for final 2 months, union says

NEWARK -- A New Jersey charter school ordered to shut down at the end of June may close its doors without paying the final two months of teachers' salaries, state and local union leaders say.

Teachers at Merit Preparatory Charter School in Newark are not unionized and have individual employment contracts stipulating they work during the 10-month school year and have their paychecks spread out over the 12-month calendar year, according to the American Federation of Teachers New Jersey chapter.

Some of those teachers' contracts began in September 2016 and run through August 2017, with as much as $12,000 per teacher scheduled to be paid over July and August, the union said. 

The school, however, has informed teachers they will not receive their scheduled paychecks in July and August after it closes on June 30, a breach of teacher's contracts, said John Abeigon, president of the Newark Teachers Union. 

"The bottom line is these people are employees in the state of New Jersey, they worked and they are owed and entitled to this money," said Abeigon, who along with the AFT-NJ is helping the teachers try to secure their full pay though they are not union members. 

Why 4 charter schools will close

Michael Cosack, chair of Merit Prep's governing board, insisted teachers will be paid all money they are contractually owed, despite the unions' claims. 

"We love our teachers," Cosack told NJ Advance Media. "We would like to give them as much money as we can to reward them for the work that they have done." 

Cosack could not explain how teachers will receive the July and August payments, though, and referred specific questions about compensation to Lee Nunery, an independent trustee assigned to oversee the school's closing. Nunery referred questions to the board's attorney, who did not return calls seeking comment. 

Matchbook Learning, the non-profit management group that runs the school, did not respond to a request for comment. 

School documents obtained by NJ Advance Media, including a teacher contract, termination letter and email from the school principal, confirm that Merit Prep informed teachers they will not receive pay after June 30.

The charter school is considering giving teachers a retention stipend, a form of bonus described as "a percentage of their current gross annual salary," according to the documents. However, teachers would not be eligible for the stipend if they missed more than two days or work after March 27, according to the documents.

The documents do not specify how much the stipend would be, and Cosack would not say if the stipends would be equal to what teachers would have received in their July and August paychecks. 

Even though the school is closing, it's still required to pay teachers for the time they have already worked, said Robert Smith, an employment lawyer who reviewed a Merit Prep teacher contract and termination letter at NJ Advance Media's request. 

"I would take the position that these people are entitled to the balance of their Charter school won’t pay teachers for final 2 months, union says:

Trying to Sort Out All the Concerns about Charters and Vouchers | janresseger

Trying to Sort Out All the Concerns about Charters and Vouchers | janresseger:

Trying to Sort Out All the Concerns about Charters and Vouchers

I recently spent far too much time slogging through the over 80 pages of the new report on Charter Management Organizations from Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes. Stanford CREDO is affiliated with the Hoover Institution. The study compares test score gains in four types of charter schools—the independent, stand-alone, charters; the charters run by Charter Management Organizations (that operate “at least three separate charter schools and the CMO is the charter holder for each school”); what CREDO calls Vendor Operated Schools (organizations which operate “at least three separate charter schools, but do not hold the charter for any school they serve”); and finally what CREDO calls hybrids (that “have aspects of both a CMO and a VOS).  After trying to sort through all these definitions plus the over 70 pages of data, I was underwhelmed by the conclusions: that students in independent charters have lower achievement, overall, than those that are part of a network; that charter quality varies by networks; that even though there is a range of CMO quality, “larger organizations of charter holders have taken advantage of scale to the benefit of their students”; that CMOs which directly operate their schools seem to do better than VOSs that bring in a vendor to manage the charters; that there is a need for better oversight by authorizers; that there is huge variation by state based on the kind of oversight the state provides; and that virtual-online charters don’t work for most students.

Although I certainly don’t recommend that you look at CREDO’s new report, you will likely find Jeff Bryant’s response to it as refreshing as I did.  While CREDO seeks to distinguish CMOs from VOSs from Hybrids from Independents, Bryant begins with a different distinction, necessary because he believes there is a lot of confusion about charter schools: “Quick,” he asks, “is this school a nonprofit or for-profit?”  His question is followed by this profile of a chain of charter schools:

“In the most recent financial filings available, the couple who run the chain of 18 schools pay Trying to Sort Out All the Concerns about Charters and Vouchers | janresseger:

 

The Jeff Bryant Reporrt – Charter Schools Do Bad Stuff Because They Can

6/22/2017 – Charter Schools Do Bad Stuff Because They Can:
Charter Schools Do Bad Stuff Because They Can

Charter Schools Do Bad Stuff Because They Can

By Jeff Bryant

“Charter schools have become a fetish of both Democratic and Republican political establishments, but local news reports continue to drip, drip a constant stream of stories of charter schools doing bad stuff that our tax dollars fund … Most recently, my reporting on the shadowy business of the charter school industry was cited by media watchdog Project Censored as one of the top 25 most under-reported news stories of 2016 … When do you think the malfeasance committed by charters won’t be ‘under reported’?”
Read more …

NEWS AND VIEWS

White, Wealthy Communities Want Their Own Schools

U.S. News & World Report

“30 states have laws on the books that allow communities to secede from their school district, and it’s an allowance that many municipalities have taken advantage of over the years – at least 47 since 2000 … Only 4 require that seceding communities gain the majority support in the school district being left behind and only 6 require consideration of the racial and socioeconomic effects of the separation. Moreover, only nine states require a study of the financial impacts of dividing communities … Currently there are 9 active secession efforts in various states.”
Read more …

19 Kids Are Shot Every Day In The United States

The Washington Post

“Roughly 7,100 children under the age of 18 were shot each year from 2012 to 2014. An average of 1,300 died of their injuries in a typical year. That works out to 19 children shot every single day in the course of a year – or 3.5 children killed by guns every single day … ‘Firearm-related deaths are the third leading cause of death overall among US children aged 1 to 17 years.’”
Read more …

Oil’s Pipeline To America’s Schools

Public Integrity

“Decades of documents reviewed by the Center for Public Integrity reveal a tightly woven network of organizations that works in concert with the oil and gas industry to paint a rosy picture of fossil fuels in America’s classrooms. Led by advertising and public-relations strategists, the groups have long plied the tools of their trade on impressionable children and teachers desperate for resources. Proponents of programs … say they help the oil and gas industry replenish its aging workforce by stirring early interest in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM. But some experts question the educational value and ethics of lessons touting an industry that plays a central role in climate change and air pollution.”
Read more …

Betsy DeVos Moves To Help For-Profit Schools Defraud Students

The Nation

“Betsy DeVos announced a postponement and imminent rewriting of two key rules designed to protect students of predatory for-profit colleges … The Gainful Employment rule and the Borrower Defense rule both force for-profits to make good on their promises of helping students pursue a viable career path, and provide students a way to cancel their debt if the college actually defrauded them … Current and former Education Department officials have acknowledged that for-profits are getting a light touch under DeVos’s tenure … DeVos has brought in former employees of for-profits as top officials at the agency.”
Read more …

Education Dept. Closes Transgender Student Cases As It Pushes To Scale Back Civil Rights Investigations

The Washington Post

“The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights last week closed a long-running discrimination case involving a transgender student and withdrew its earlier findings that the girl had suffered discrimination at school … Civil rights advocates see the closure of the Ohio case – and especially the unusual withdrawal of the federal investigators’ legal conclusion – as a troubling sign of retreat from civil rights enforcement … The agency also this month closed a different long-running case involving a transgender student’s complaint about locker room access.”
Read more …

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6/22/2017 – Charter Schools Do Bad Stuff Because They Can:

Ohio State Superintendent Declines $22M of the Controversial $71M Fed Charter Grant | deutsch29

Ohio State Superintendent Declines $22M of the Controversial $71M Fed Charter Grant | deutsch29:

Ohio State Superintendent Declines $22M of the Controversial $71M Fed Charter Grant

The same week that Arne Duncan announced his upcoming exit from the office of US secretary of education in late 2015, his USDOE earmarked $249 million in charter school expansion grants, with the largest grant ($71 million) tagged for Ohio, a state with a highly questionable charter sector, as Jeff Bryant writes in October 2015 in Salon:

US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s surprise announcement to leave his position in December is making headlines and driving lots of commentary, but an important story lost in the media clutter happened three days before he gave notice.

On that day, Duncan rattled the education policy world with news of a controversial grant of $249 million ($157 the first year) to the charter school industry. This announcement was controversial because, as The Washington Post reports, an audit by his department’s own inspector general found “that the agency has done a poor job of overseeing federal dollars sent to charter schools.”

Post reporter Lynsey Layton notes, “The agency’s inspector general issued a scathing report in 2012 that found deficiencies in how the department handled federal grants to charter schools between 2008 and 2011″ – in other words, during Duncan’s watch.

Even more perplexing is that the largest grant of $71 million ($32.5 the first year) is going to Ohio, the state that has the worst reputation for allowing low-performing charter schools to divert tax money away from educational purposes and do little to raise the achievement of students.

A number of Ohio officials were shocked by the news.

As a different article from The Post reports, Democratic Party Representative Tim Ryan “was alarmed” by the Education Department’s decision. Ryan called his state’s charter school sector “broken and dysfunctional.”

Ted Strickland, an ex-Governor and now Democratic candidate for a US Senate seat in Ohio, wrote Duncan a letter telling him to reconsider the Ohio grant. “Too many of Ohio’s charter schools are an embarrassment,” he states. Strickland quotes from a recent study showing charters in his state perform significantly worse than public schools. He points to a recent scandal in which the person in the state’s department of education responsible for oversight of charters had to resign because he was caught “rigging the books.”

Even Ohio Republicans are disturbed about Secretary Duncan’s generosity to charter schools in the Buckeye State. Like a parent who sees a visiting relative doling out chocolate bars to an already stimulated child, State Auditor Dave Yost quickly stated his concerns about the new charter school largesse to the media and his intention to track how the money is spent. Yost should know. An audit he conducted earlier this year found charter schools in the state misspend millions of tax dollars.

“Why is the Department rewarding this unacceptable behavior,” Strickland asked in his letter.

In response to the controversial $71 million grant, in October 2015, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and others wrote USDOE a letter asking for increased oversight for Ohio charters. In June 2016, Brown asked for even more oversight and was Ohio State Superintendent Declines $22M of the Controversial $71M Fed Charter Grant | deutsch29:

Teachers Don’t Want All This Useless Data | gadflyonthewallblog

Teachers Don’t Want All This Useless Data | gadflyonthewallblog:

Teachers Don’t Want All This Useless Data

One of the most frustrating things I’ve ever been forced to do as a teacher is to ignore my students and concentrate instead on the data.

I teach 8th grade Language Arts at a high poverty, mostly minority school in Western Pennsylvania. During my double period classes, I’m with these children for at least 80 minutes a day, five days a week.

During that time, we read together. We write together. We discuss important issues together. They take tests. They compose poems, stories and essays. They put on short skits, give presentations, draw pictures and even create iMovies.

I don’t need a spreadsheet to tell me whether these children can read, write or think. I know.

Anyone who had been in the room and had been paying attention would know.

But a week doesn’t go by without an administrator ambushing me at a staff meeting with a computer print out and a smile.

Look at this data set. See how your students are doing on this module. Look at the projected Teachers Don’t Want All This Useless Data | gadflyonthewallblog:

 

Who is Responsible for the Demise of Mayoral Control? Eva | Ed In The Apple

Who is Responsible for the Demise of Mayoral Control? Eva | Ed In The Apple:

Who is Responsible for the Demise of Mayoral Control? Eva

Years ago I served on the teacher union negotiating team in New York City.  We started with formal meetings across the table with thick briefing books; each side presented “demands” and the other side agreed, disagreed or put aside for further discussion. Slowly, the number of “demands” was pared down to the core issues. We discussed an issue and management would respond, “We have to discuss among ourselves, we’ll be back in an hour.” The hour turned into two and three and more hours as management consulted with the city and school boards and “other interested parties.”

The ultimate decision-makers were management, the Board of Education, and the union; however. neither side wanted other organizations to publicly trash the ultimate settlement; consensus settlements are essential

In 1975 the negotiations began in the spring and moved through the summer as the differences narrowed, days before the start of school the city pitched toward default and layoff notices went out to  14,000 teachers. We rapidly moved from “Lets’ keep talking and start the school year” to a strike vote.  I still vividly remember the Delegate Assembly, after almost two days of around the clock negotiations, a strike vote was almost unanimously voted by the thousand plus delegates and teachers walked the picket line.

After a week on strike and a complex agreement teachers returned and later in the fall the union actually loaned the city money to avert default. (Read “How the UFT Saved the City” here) and in a couple of years all laid off teachers were offered jobs.

The 2002 mayoral control law in New York City has a sunset clause – unless it is extended the law sunsets, expires, the city returns to the previous management structure – a seven member board, one member appointed by each borough Who is Responsible for the Demise of Mayoral Control? Eva | Ed In The Apple: