Be A Fan of Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

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

Be A Fan of Diane Ravitch's blog

A site to discuss better education for all

Phyllis Bush: Facing Cancer Head On, with Humor and Determination

by dianeravitch / 3min

My dear friend and ally, Phyllis Bush, started a blog to write about her experience with cancer, which she insists on calling cancer schmanzer. She is feeling better . She is cleaning closets. She is ready for the fight for her life. 

Twelve Seconds of Gunfire on a Playground in South Carolina

1by dianeravitch / 16min

This is a heartbreaking story . A young man appeared at a playground in Townsville, South Carolina, where first-graders were playing. He opened fire. A child died. The shooter, it turned out, was not a man. He was 14 years old. He 

North Carolina: Employee of State’s Largest Voucher School Pleads Guilty to Embezzling $400,000

2by dianeravitch / 28min

Isn’t it great to be free of people watching over your shoulder when you are in charge of the money? That’s what the employee of North Carolina’s largest voucher school thought. He just pleaded guilty to embezzling $400,000 over an eight-year period from the school. Lindsay Wagner writes: Heath Vandevender is a coach, teacher and the employee tasked with managing the payroll operations of the sta

Mercedes Schneider: A Close Reading of the Church-State Decision

2by dianeravitch / 1h

Mercedes Schneider is not a lawyer but she is a very smart reader, who cuts to the chase. She read the recent decision by the Supreme Court about the church that wanted to participate in a state program to resurface its preschool playground with recycled tires. The decision doesn’t reach the voucher issue but it gives strong hints about where justices are likely to rule when they do get a voucher

Steven Singer: If Churches Get Public Funds, They Should Pay Taxes and Anticipate Government Regulation

6by dianeravitch / 2h

Steven Singer has a new view of the recent Supreme Court ruling that the state of Missouri is obliged to pave the playground of a church. If churches are going to receive federal funding, he writes, they should pay taxes. What is more, think long term. Church schools that receive federal and state funding should expect to meet accountability standards for their curriculum and their hiring practic

NAACP on Charter Moratorium: “We Won’t Back Down!”

8by dianeravitch / 3h

Corporate privatizers like Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump, Arne Duncan, and Peter Cunningham (previously Duncan’s communications director, now editor of the billionaire-funded Education Post) claim that turning public money over to operators of privately-managed contract schools (aka, “charter” schools) is the “civil rights issue of our time.” But the authentic voice of the civil rights movement–the N

YESTERDAY

The Corporate Raid on Public Schools in Indianapolis: School Board Election Corrupted by Dark Money

84by dianeravitch / 13h

At the recent school board meeting of Indianapolis Public Schools, Professor Jim Scheurich of Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis got up to speak. The story he tells is similar to what happened in Denver, where Stand for Children, DFER, and other conduits for anonymous donors bought every seat on the elected school board, swamping the opposition with cash they could not match. Th

Indianapolis Plans to Close Three Public High Schools, with No Community Input

100+by dianeravitch / 14h

There is something very sad about watching a community’s public schools die. The Indianapolis Public Schools superintendent has recommended the closing of three public high schools due to low enrollments. These are neighborhood schools that were the heart of their communities. Two will be converted to middle schools. The other is in a gentrifying neighborhood and will probably be sold to develope

New York City: Charter School for “Social Justice” Fires 3/4 of Staff for Wanting to Join a Union

28by dianeravitch / 21h

This is both sad and funny. The “Charter High School For Law and Social Justice” fired 11 of its 15 teachers because they wanted to join the teachers’ union. Doesn’t social justice mean that you listen to the voices of those who feel in need of protection and let them make their own decisions? Haven’t unions been part of the movement for social justice since the late nineteenth century? Don’t the

SomeDam Poet Explains the Logic of the Supreme Court State-Church Decision

5by dianeravitch / 22h

SomeDam Poet writes about the Supreme Court decision requiring the state of Missouri to pay for the resurfacing of the playground of the Trinity Lutheran Church: At first, SDP was puzzled by the decision and asked, “Is playing on the playground part of the Lutheran religion? “Is that why refusing the Lutheran school public money for the playground resurfacing constitutes abridgement of free exerc

Portland, Oregon: Corporate Reformers Launch Vicious Attack on School Board Member

31by dianeravitch / 23h

Portland, Oregon, is in big trouble. Despite massive spending by the fake reform Stand on Children–err, Stand for Children–the corporate reformers lost in the school board election. Now, as local activist Deb Mayer reports , they are trying to bully a school board member into resigning. Why the attacks on a man who won his seat and supports public schools? The board has been unable to pick a new

Texas: House Republicans Say “Hell, No,” to Vouchers, Again

18by dianeravitch / 1d

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has called a special session of the Legislature to deal with school finance and once again to push vouchers. Once more, he will try to bribe legislators to endorse vouchers if they want more funding. No vouchers, no funding. The state cut more than $5 billion from the education budget in 2011 and has never fully restored the cuts, even though the enrollment has grown. A

Ohio: State Auditor Reprimands ECOT for Using Public Money to Lobby Against Penalty of $60 Million

13by dianeravitch / 1d

ECOT is the largest virtual charter school in Ohio and among the lowest-performing schools in the state. It has thrived over the years because its founder, William Lager, has given generously to elected officials. The New York Times reported last year that ECOT had the largest graduating class in the nation, but also the lowest high school graduation rate in the nation. The Electronic Classroom o

Lesson from Virginia: Real Democrats Support Public Schools

14by dianeravitch / 1d

Rachel Levy, a mother and public school activist in Virginia, explains here the lesson of the recent Democratic campaign for governor: Real Democrats support public schools. http://progressive.org/public-school-shakedown/as-democrats-struggle-to-find-their-footing-in-the-trump-era/ Dr. Ralph Northam, Lt. Governor, was a strong supporter of public schools. He won the support of the Virginia Educat

Wow! Editorial Writer at New York Daily News Moves Her Child from a Charter School to a NYC Public School: Guess Why?

100+by dianeravitch / 1d

Alyssa Katz, an editorial writer for the New York Daily News, is switching her child from a charter school to a New York City public school. The teacher turnover at the charter school was constant and disruptive for her daughter, she 

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

Joan Kramer. | Fred Klonsky

Joan Kramer. | Fred Klonsky:

Joan Kramer.

Yesterday I received news that I lost a friend I’ve known on and off since I was a teenager in Los Angeles.

We all lost Joan Kramer, a teacher, librarian, advocate, activist, photographer of her beloved Silverlake, daughter of radicals, opponent of injustice.

As just one sign off Joan’s influence, her Facebook page has hundreds of comments on her passing this morning.

Read Joan Kramer's Blog 

Find Out What We Have Lost

Turtle Learning

 A SUNSET OF THE CITY

Already I am no longer looked at with lechery or love.

My daughters and sons have put me away with marbles and dolls,

Are gone from the house.

My husband and lovers are pleasant or somewhat polite

And night is night.

It is a real chill out,

The genuine thing.

I am not deceived, I do not think it is still summer

Because sun stays and birds continue to sing.

It is summer-gone that I see, it is summer-gone.

The sweet flowers indrying and dying down,

The grasses forgetting their blaze and consenting to brown.

It is a real chill out. The fall crisp comes

I am aware there is winter to heed.

There is no warm house

That is fitted with my need.

I am cold in this cold house this house

Whose washed echoes are tremulous down lost halls.

I am a woman, and dusty, standing among new affairs.

I am a woman who hurries through her prayers.

Tin intimations of a quiet core to be my

Desert and my dear relief

Come: there shall be such islanding from grief,

And small communion with the master shore.

Twang they. And I incline this ear to tin,

Consult a dual dilemma. Whether to dry

In humming pallor or to leap and die.

Somebody muffed it?? Somebody wanted to joke. 

Students Demand Right to Wear Native Regalia at Graduation

Students Demand Right to Wear Native Regalia at Graduation:

Students Demand Right to Wear Native Regalia at Graduation

In 2015, Christian Titman, a Native American student at Clovis High School near Fresno, California and member of the Pit River Tribe, was denied his request to wear an eagle feather at his high school graduation ceremony. What’s more, he was told by district officials that if he did wear the feather during his walk across the stage he would not graduate nor receive his diploma until he completed summer school and a designated amount of community service hours.

Mary Levi, president of NEA American Indian/Alaska Native Caucus, says wearing an eagle feather symbolizes the strength it took to reach the milestone and represents the strength and power of an eagle soaring through life, which is what native youth take with them as they continue on to the next stage in life.

“You don’t turn your back on that. When you walk across that stage, you’re not only proudly representing yourself, but your family, extended family and your tribe,” explains Levi.

With Native students having the lowest graduation rates among any student demographic in the United States, Native Americans see high school graduation as a significant achievement in a youth’s life.

Bring up eagle feathers for graduation, and you’re told you’re just remembering the past. But it’s very present. The reason why these students need to represent their cultures is to show others and themselves that they are still here today” – Mary Levi, NEA American Indian/Alaska Native Caucus

Milestone ceremonies are inextricably linked to Native identity. In a ceremony, Native Americans offer a prayer and typically wear an eagle prayer feather, beads or other Native regalia, on their head or in their hair throughout the ceremony. To be given any such items to wear during a ceremony is considered an absolute honor.

By wearing these symbols, students honor those who have supported them through prayer and guidance. That’s why most Native American students want to participate in their high school graduation ceremony wearing cultural items in their hair or on their graduation cap.

But like Christian Titman, most are prohibited from doing so. Districts enforce a strict dress code that prevent students from wearing anything other than school colors and graduation Students Demand Right to Wear Native Regalia at Graduation:

Mark Weber: What the Sweeney-Prieto Plan Needs Is a District-by-District Analysis - NJ Spotlight

Opinion: What the Sweeney-Prieto Plan Needs Is a District-by-District Analysis - NJ Spotlight:

What the Sweeney-Prieto Plan Needs Is a District-by-District Analysis

Sweeney-Prieto may have good intentions, but its consequences could be dire for some districts

Mark Weber

Earlier this month, state Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto reached an agreement on the allocation of state aid to school districts for the 2017-2018 school year. The original proposal added an additional $100 million in aid above Gov. Chris Christie’s proposed fiscal year 2018 budget. In addition — and more controversially — it reallocated an additional $46 million away from some districts and toward others.

On Monday, the New Jersey Education Policy Forum released my analysis of the original Sweeney-Prieto school-funding proposal. That proposal appears to have changed as of Monday; however, an examination of the original is still instructive.

The amount to be reallocated has been reduced to $31 million. But both the new and the old proposals appear to allocate aid in reaction to two factors: adjustment aid and the growth cap.

‘Overaided’

Adjustment aid was included in the School Funding Reform Act (SFRA) back in 2008 as a way for districts to ensure that they would never get less aid than they did back when the act was passed. Adjustment aid has resulted in accusations of districts being “overaided” — receiving more aid than the SFRA formula says they should.

The growth cap limits the increase in aid a district receives compared with the previous year. Critics contend it leads to “underaiding” of certain districts that have expanded quickly.

I am sympathetic to the argument that the state should take another look at adjustment aid and the growth gap. But I also contend much of the problem comes from chronically underfunding the state’s own law.

According to the Education Law Center, SFRA has been cumulatively underfunded Opinion: What the Sweeney-Prieto Plan Needs Is a District-by-District Analysis - NJ Spotlight:

Big Education Ape: The Sweeny-Prieto School Aid Proposal: An Analysis | School Finance 101 - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-sweeny-prieto-school-aid-proposal.html

Kentucky’s Republican governor just signed a bill allowing the Bible to be taught in public schools

Kentucky’s Republican governor just signed a bill allowing the Bible to be taught in public schools:

Kentucky’s Republican governor just signed a bill allowing the Bible to be taught in public schools

Kentucky’s Republican Governor on Tuesday signed a new bill into law that will allow public schools to teach the Bible as part of their Social Studies curriculum.

“The idea that we would not want this to be an option for people in school, that would be crazy,” WDRB reported Republican Governor Matt Bevin claimed at the bill signing. “I don’t know why every state would not embrace this, why we as a nation would not embrace this.”

The ACLU of Kentucky vows to monitor the situation.

“You could be an atheist, and you would appreciate there’s a lot of wisdom in the Bible,” Governor Bevin suggested.

Last December, Governor Bevin officially proclaimed that 2017 is the “Year of the Bible” in Kentucky. Governor Bevin’s plan to respond to a violence epidemic Louisville’s troubled West End is roaming prayer groups.

“A Bible literacy bill that, on its face, may not appear to be unconstitutional, could in fact become unconstitutional in its implementation,” said the ACLU of Kentucky’s Kate Miller. “We want to make sure that teachers can teach and make sure that they don’t go in to preach.”Kentucky’s Republican governor just signed a bill allowing the Bible to be taught in public schools:

Russ on Reading: School Choice Opponents and the Status Quo

Russ on Reading: School Choice Opponents and the Status Quo:

School Choice Opponents and the Status Quo

I was pleased when my recent post, School Choice: An Ugly Idea, attracted a Twitter response from choice advocate, Peter Cunningham. Cunningham is the executive director of Education Post and a former Assistant Secretary of Education under Arne Duncan. Education Post, supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation, was started 3 years ago to encourage a "better conversation" about education. With that list of pro-choice contributors, readers can infer what that better conversation was all about.

Cunningham's job is basically to use all the resources at his well-funded disposal to "swarm" back at anti-choice bloggers like Diane Ravitch, Peter Greene, and, apparently, little old me, to sell the corporate education reform line.

In his critique of my post, Cunningham raised arguments that I hear over and over from reformers and choice advocates and that I would like to address.

Those of us who continue to point out that poverty is the real issue in education are accused of using poverty as an excuse to do nothing. Right up Russ on Reading: School Choice Opponents and the Status Quo:

NYC Educator: Summer Assignment--Wake the Sleeping Giant

NYC Educator: Summer Assignment--Wake the Sleeping Giant:

Summer Assignment--Wake the Sleeping Giant

Congratulations to all my colleagues who've earned a break today. We have a few months off, and we need it. So go take a trip. Or go to the beach. Or stay home and do whatever makes you happy. Lots of principals will say you do that to return refueled and recharged. In September they'll all say how excited they are to be back. Sometimes I believe them, but other times I don't.

But make no mistake, we are at war. Barack Obama and Arne Duncan degraded our profession by taking suitcases of money from reformies, and consequently pushing for teachers to be rated by junk science. They also insisted on the proliferation of charter schools, which are largely non-union workhouses for recent college grads (or not) who may put up with it a year or two. They paved the way for Trump and DeVos.

An issue with no union is you're on your own. This is a bad place to be when the supervisors and principals are thirty years old if you're lucky. If their main qualification is having hacked the miserable charter gig for a year longer than anyone else, it doesn't precisely speak to their leadership qualities.

There is absolutely no doubt that's the model Donald Trump, Betsy DeVos and the largely insane US Supreme Court wish to replicate. They've had it with all this career stuff. Pensions are outdated. Better to have a 401K, hope for the best, and find out what the most edible brand of cat food is for your golden years.

The only road ahead for us is paved with activism. I'm hoping to impress this on union leadership as well. So far, though, they're worried about offending people who like Donald Trump. The problem, though, is that people who like Donald Trump actually support this stuff. I don't know how, exactly. Last night I was at a retirement party talking to a retired teacher who supports Trump. He was telling me how wonderful retirement was, and how via this and that he actually brings in more money by not working than by working.

I pointed out that, whatever Fox News may have said on the subject, all of his heroes oppose his retirement. They oppose his health care. I'd argue NYC Educator: Summer Assignment--Wake the Sleeping Giant:

 

Scaling Up “Successful” Reforms (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Scaling Up “Successful” Reforms (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Scaling Up “Successful” Reforms 

Recently a journalist contacted me to discuss the closure of a Carpe Diem school in Indianapolis after five years and the jeopardy of the charter network’s expansion from its original Yuma (AZ) location (see here and here; YouTube marketing video here).

We talked about the historic difficulties of “scaling up” innovations in public schools. I offered some examples of how hard it is to take a “successful” innovation and grow it quickly elsewhere in the name of efficiency (economies of scale) and effectiveness (to help more children and youth). In many instances, pressure to “scale up” from pilot projects to networks of schools seeded in different locations came from ambitious school officials, impatient donors, and entrepreneurial investors. Too often they overlooked the common teacher practice of adapting an innovation to the specific setting, a practice that is as old as teaching itself. Classroom adaptations, of course, alter the innovation.

After we got off the phone I recalled other innovations over the past 60 years that tried to “scale up” from pilot projects. Many stumbled in their expansion, especially those aimed at altering how teachers traditionally teach, for  reasons that contemporary reformers might heed before thinking big.

One that came to mind was the Higher Horizons Project in New York City between the late-1950s through the mid-1960s.

A 1964 report summarized the program’s origin in a pilot junior high school and then its rapid expansion to scores of other city schools.

Higher Horizons originated as a program to uncover latent ability among Scaling Up “Successful” Reforms (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Bring Your Gun to School – Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Senate | gadflyonthewallblog

Bring Your Gun to School – Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Senate | gadflyonthewallblog:

Bring Your Gun to School – Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Senate

Next school year, I may be able to bring my gun to class.

The Pennsylvania state Senate voted 28-22 today to allow school employees like me to start packing heat.

Hooray!

My class sizes will be larger because of almost $1 billion in budget cuts the legislature couldn’t be bothered to heal over the last seven years. I’ll have to teach more sections because my district is bleeding money from charter school vampires that the legislature couldn’t be bothered to regulate.

But now I can be fully armed.

Priorities.

Bullets over books, I guess.

As a more than 15 year veteran of the public school system, I can’t wait to get back in the classroom wondering which of my fellow teachers, principals, custodians or rent-a-cop security guards is fully locked and loaded. I can’t wait until my elementary Bring Your Gun to School – Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Senate | gadflyonthewallblog:

 

Standards Drive Curriculum | Truth in American Education

Standards Drive Curriculum | Truth in American Education:

Standards Drive Curriculum

Teacher at Maxwell AFB Elementary/Middle School 

(Air Force photo/Kelly Deichert)

I had an interesting conversation with a school superintendent in Northwest Iowa this week. He was adamant about his school district’s control over curriculum. It’s true in Iowa and most (if not all) states that state departments of education do not dictate curriculum and textbook decisions.

He noted that they barely buy textbooks anymore because they write their curriculum and their teachers use multiple resources because he said no one textbook can provide everything they want to teach.

I’m not chained to the notion of using textbooks, and having taught I can certainly agree that finding the best resources for the particular topic being taught is beneficial. That forces teachers and schools to be all that much more transparent about what is being used to teach students so parents can be informed.

That’s a challenge, however. I asked how they inform parents what is being taught if they can’t peruse a textbook. He said “should” (he didn’t say that it is) be on the teacher’s website and if it isn’t – “that’s on us.”

I’m not sure saying oops, my bad cuts it, but ok. Parents need to be proactive to find out what Standards Drive Curriculum | Truth in American Education:

NY Court of Appeals Limits Plaintiffs' Claims in School Funding Suit - Education Law Prof Blog

Education Law Prof Blog:

NY Court of Appeals Limits Plaintiffs' Claims in School Funding Suit

On Tuesday, the New York Court of Appeals dismissed most of the claims in two lawsuits that alleged that the state has failed to adequately fund New York City public schools and thus violated the state constitution's education article's requirement to provide schoolchildren with a "sound basic education." The suits' plaintiffs contended that NYC schools received millions less than they were entitled after the legislature failed to fully fund the education formula it devised to comply with court orders in the long-standing equity suit, Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Inc. v State of New York. New York state froze education funding in the 2008 recession and reduced it thereafter, creating a nearly two billion dollar education funding deficit since the freeze. The plaintiffs in one of the suits, New Yorkers for Students' Educational Rights (NYSER), an educational advocacy group, sought relief for schoolchildren across the state. NYSER's funding adequacy claim survived, but the Court of Appeals limited the claim to NYC and Syracuse, where the plaintiffs had provided specific allegations of a causal link between budget cuts and education impact. The other plaintiffs, a coalition of parents (Aristy-Farer), argued that New York's withholding of $290 million in 2012 to the NYC school district as a penalty when the city failed to comply with state law requiring districts to conduct performance reviews of teachers and administrators violated the education article. The Court of Appeals held that this allegation did not state a cognizable claim as the education article does not require a particular amount of state funding. The remainder of the Aristy-Farer plaintiffs' claims were found to be inadequately pled as there was no specific allegation linking the failure to fund public schools with deficiencies in the city's education program. The Court of Appeals affirmed the Appellate Division's decision to allow two of NYSER's claims--one Education Law Prof Blog: