Education Research Report
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
Teachers’ Strikes in Oakland and Los Angeles Change the Conversation about Charter Expansion | janresseger
Teachers’ Strikes in Oakland and Los Angeles Change the Conversation about Charter Expansion | janresseger
Teachers’ Strikes in Oakland and Los Angeles Change the Conversation about Charter Expansion
Teachers’ Strikes in Oakland and Los Angeles Change the Conversation about Charter Expansion
Students and teachers were back at school yesterday in Oakland, California. Oakland’s teachers ended their seven day strike on Sunday night by voting to ratify an agreement reached last Friday. Teachers are adamant that the fight for well-funded public schools must continue. Oakland’s strike is the latest in a yearlong wave of walkouts by teachers—a state-by-state cry for help from a profession of hard-working, dedicated public servants disgusted with despicable working conditions, lack of desperately needed services for their students, and, in Oakland’s case, pay so low that teachers cannot afford to live in the Bay Area, where the cost of living is skyrocketing.
After a long meeting where the agreement was ratified on Sunday afternoon, the president of the Oakland Education Association, Keith Brown expressed gratitude for what the strike achieved, at the same time explaining that it does not go far enough to address problems for Oakland’s schools resulting from a long fiscal crisis in the district. It is only a beginning: “This victory, accomplished through our collective strength on the picket lines with Oakland parents and students, sends the message that educators will no longer let this school district starve our neighborhood schools of resources. Our fight is not over, though. Oakland educators spoke clearly today at our ratification vote that this agreement will not be the end of our struggle, and we will continue to fight in Oakland and Sacramento for the schools our students deserve.”
The Oakland Education Association describes what are hard-won but very modest gains. Teachers, the lowest paid in the Bay Area, won an 11 percent raise over three years with a 3 percent bonus. The district had originally offered 7 percent over three years. Turnover among teachers has been a serious problem, with the district losing 500 teachers every year, according to the teachers’ union.
Teachers won modestly improved services for their students—a reduction in maximum class size by one student this year and another reduction by one student next year. Caseloads for counselors were reduced from 600:1 to 500:1, along with reductions in case loads for CONTINUE READING: Teachers’ Strikes in Oakland and Los Angeles Change the Conversation about Charter Expansion | janresseger
A ’staggering’ 30,000 teachers in Oklahoma have left the profession in the past 6 years. Here’s why. - The Washington Post
A ’staggering’ 30,000 teachers in Oklahoma have left the profession in the past 6 years. Here’s why. - The Washington Post
A ’staggering’ 30,000 teachers in Oklahoma have left the profession in the past 6 years. Here’s why.
A ’staggering’ 30,000 teachers in Oklahoma have left the profession in the past 6 years. Here’s why.
Oklahoma’s schools superintendent described it as “staggering,” and it is: A new report says that 30,000 teachers in the state have quit the profession over the past six years — and about half did it because of low pay, little respect and other reasons that made the job too hard or unattractive.
The state Department of Education’s 2018 report on educator supply and demand underscores the reasons that teachers throughout the state went on strike last year to protest inadequate school funding and pay so low that many had to take several jobs to pay their bills. That strike, which ended with a pay raise, was part of a wave of walkouts in Republican-led states dubbed the “Red For Ed” movement, which continued and spread to Democratic-led states this year.
The exodus of teachers, the Department of Education said in a release, “represents an average of 10 percent of Oklahoma’s teacher workforce, in comparison to a national attrition rate of 7.7 percent.” State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister was quoted as saying:
Steep budget cuts over the last decade have made the teaching profession in Oklahoma less attractive, resulting in a severe teacher shortage crisis and negative consequences for our schoolchildren. The loss of 30,000 educators over the past six years is staggering — and proof that our schools must have the resources to support a growing number of students with an increasing number of needs.
While the report focuses on Oklahoma, it highlights problems teachers face throughout the country. States have been reporting increasing teacher shortages (see the map below with state-by-state information), and surveys have found in recent years plummeting morale among public school teachers who feel they have been blamed by policymakers for low student achievement and who work in schools with a desperate need for more resources.
The report says:
Oklahoma’s public school system has suffered one of the largest national budget cuts over the past decade. As a result, steep reductions to school budgets have forced administrators to implement strategies to reduce expenses, many of which critically hinder instruction and unequivocally contribute to making the teaching profession less attractive.One of the most pervasive outcomes of the public sector fiscal austerity has been a persistent educator shortage — more severe in certain geographies, grades or subject matters than others — that in turn prompted undesired measures such as relaxing qualification requirements during hiring and increasing the workload of educators CONTINUE READING: A ’staggering’ 30,000 teachers in Oklahoma have left the profession in the past 6 years. Here’s why. - The Washington Post
Jobs and Automation: Anxiety is Historic | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
Jobs and Automation: Anxiety is Historic | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
Jobs and Automation: Anxiety is Historic
Jobs and Automation: Anxiety is Historic
A new report predicts that by 2030, as many as 800 million jobs could be lost worldwide to automation. The study, compiled by the McKinsey Global Institute, says that advances in AI and robotics will have a drastic effect on everyday working lives, comparable to the shift away from agricultural societies during the Industrial Revolution. In the US alone, between 39 and 73 million jobs stand to be automated — making up around a third of the total workforce.
But, the report also states that as in the past, technology will not be a purely destructive force. New jobs will be created; existing roles will be redefined; and workers will have the opportunity to switch careers. The challenge particular to this generation, say the authors, is managing the transition. Income inequality is likely to grow, possibly leading to political instability; and the individuals who need to retrain for new careers won’t be the young, but middle-aged professionals.
The First paragraph jump-starts anxiety. Second paragraph is supposed to ease it with words about “new jobs will be created.” But it doesn’t when its mentions growing income inequality, political instability, and retraining middle-aged professionals.
The fact is–and it is a fact that I document below in cartoons–fear of job loss to new machine has been part of American and global culture for the past century.
The larger question of preparing children and youth for future jobs–one of at least four historic purposes of U.S. public schooling– becomes apparent in light of predictions of job loss (“between 39 and 73 million jobs stand to be automated” by 2030). When the primary focus of school reform for the past four decades has been preparing the next generation for the workplace, such predictions question whether job preparation should be the purpose of tax-supported public schools. So the anxiety over job loss to new machines spills over what curriculum to teach the young, what forms of instruction, and how CONTINUE READING: Jobs and Automation: Anxiety is Historic | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
CURMUDGUCATION: The $5 Billion DeVos Money Laundromat
CURMUDGUCATION: The $5 Billion DeVos Money Laundromat
The $5 Billion DeVos Money Laundromat
You have read by now that Betsy DeVos is finally going to get one of her favorite policy ideas floated past Congress. But what the heck is it, and why is it a problem? To understand, we have to look first at what's been happening in some states.
The financial device we're talking about is a Tax Credit Scholarship, and it's a bit of a clever dodge.
Let's say I'm the State of New West Virkota. The state would like to collect a tax of $100 from Bob and give it to Come To Jesus Academy, but there are rules in place that say that the state can't give taxpayer money to a private religious school. So instead, the state tells Bob that he can give $100 to the Good Neighbor Scholarship Fund instead of to the state, and then the Good Neighbor Scholarship Fund can spend the $100 to pay tuition for some child to attend Come To Jesus Academy. It is a transaction not unlike money laundering, or a fifteen year old paying a college kid to buy beer for him. In Georgia, your contribution can be earmarked for a specific school where "the funds will be equally divided among all approved, eligible students." So, yeah-- it's a donation to the school, not a scholarship for a student. Georgia can't give Bob's tax dollars to a private religious school, so it just gives Bob credit for giving the money for them.
And it's not just the shadiness of skirting the law. In some states, like Virginia, by leveraging state and federal deductions and credits, you can actually make a profit on your contribution. Here's a wealth management firm explaining how to turn $10,000 into $10,960. The definitive research on just how crazy this stuff gets has been done by Carl Davis of the Institute on Taxation Economic Policy (his name appears in virtually every article that has been written about the Trump-DeVos proposal). Here's a whole paper, or you can catch him in an informative interview here; I advise you to be sitting down while you're reading it. According to Davis, ten states have that little profit quirk, and they aren't shy about saying so:
"When you donate, you will receive both a Georgia state tax credit AND a federal charitable CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: The $5 Billion DeVos Money Laundromat
The $5 Billion DeVos Money Laundromat
The financial device we're talking about is a Tax Credit Scholarship, and it's a bit of a clever dodge.
Let's say I'm the State of New West Virkota. The state would like to collect a tax of $100 from Bob and give it to Come To Jesus Academy, but there are rules in place that say that the state can't give taxpayer money to a private religious school. So instead, the state tells Bob that he can give $100 to the Good Neighbor Scholarship Fund instead of to the state, and then the Good Neighbor Scholarship Fund can spend the $100 to pay tuition for some child to attend Come To Jesus Academy. It is a transaction not unlike money laundering, or a fifteen year old paying a college kid to buy beer for him. In Georgia, your contribution can be earmarked for a specific school where "the funds will be equally divided among all approved, eligible students." So, yeah-- it's a donation to the school, not a scholarship for a student. Georgia can't give Bob's tax dollars to a private religious school, so it just gives Bob credit for giving the money for them.
"When you donate, you will receive both a Georgia state tax credit AND a federal charitable CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: The $5 Billion DeVos Money Laundromat
Real Faces Behind Corporate Reform? Look Closer. | deutsch29
Real Faces Behind Corporate Reform? Look Closer. | deutsch29
Real Faces Behind Corporate Reform? Look Closer.
Real Faces Behind Corporate Reform? Look Closer.
A few days ago, I read this February 28, 2019, Forbes article entitled, “The Real Faces Behind the ‘Corporate Reform’ of America’s Public Schools,” by Emily Langhorne, policy analyst for the Reinventing America’s Schools project at The Progressive Policy Institute.
In her piece, Langhorne features three DC charter school CEOs; she does so to counter words spoken by National Education Association (NEA) president, Lily Eskelsen Garcia, regarding the Los Angeles teachers’ strike– words that Langhorne misquotes, and in which she employs one strategically-placed ellipsis, as follows:
Unfortunately, those listening to coverage of the Los Angeles teachers strike received a very different definition of charter schools from National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen García. On MSNBC, she explained that the Los Angeles Unified School District had no money because “they’ve given it away to for-profit charters. If you’re in the charter industry, what do you want to do? You want to create horrible public schools…. The billionaires who are behind this, the venture capitalists, the Wall Street guys, are out to make money on public schools.”This statement is absurd: California has never had many for-profit charters, and the legislature banned them entirely last year. Nationwide, less than 15% of the roughly 7,000 charters are run by for-profit operators.
First of all, Eskelsen Garcia does not say “for-profit charters.” She says “for-profit companies.”
I can operate a nonprofit charter school and make money by the way I distribute contracts for school services to for-profit companies, even ones to which I am connected. (Arizona is a fine example of a state in which one can handily use a nonprofit charter school to serve oneself. Charter advocates sell this as “free from bureaucratic red tape,” like Langhorne does in her article.)
That error right there kills Langhorne’s piece: One can siphon public education funding into for-profit company coffers via nonprofit entities, including charter CONTINUE READING: Real Faces Behind Corporate Reform? Look Closer. | deutsch29
Candidate Red Flags: Democracy Lies In Your Vote in the Special Election, March 5th, 2019
Candidate Red Flags: Democracy Lies In Your Vote in the Special Election, March 5th, 2019
Candidate Red Flags: Democracy Lies In Your Vote in the Special Election, March 5th, 2019
Candidate Red Flags: Democracy Lies In Your Vote in the Special Election, March 5th, 2019
As a candidate in tomorrow’s election, I am asking you to read this post before you go to the polls. Our nation’s Democracy is at stake. We are at a very critical moment in Los Angeles’ political and social history. City Hall’s pay-to-play, corrupt culture has been publicly exposed by the FBI’s raid of a former LAUSD School Board President and the current City Councilman Jose Huizar. Although charges have not been filed, the raids have given light to the overt corruption and fraud that many suspected but was rarely covered by the press.
Overt corruption and fraud also entered our public school system with the election of Dr. Refugio Rodriguez. His indictment and conviction on felony charges exposed more of what we knew about the charter school privatizing industry and the individuals behind his rise to power, Eli Broad and his billionaire posse, including Betsy DeVos. Our city’s public institutions are supposed to work towards the best interests of Angelenos from all races, creeds, religions, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, but they have lost their way and are failing us. The Angelenos that represent the 99% have been left behind. Democracy was put up for sale and We, the people, are on the losing end of reality. It has been clear to me for quite some time that We, the people, must take back our democracy from special interests, corporate ideologues and all the billionaire money that has been CONTINUE READING: Candidate Red Flags: Democracy Lies In Your Vote in the Special Election, March 5th, 2019
Charters and Vouchers: The Threat to Public Schools is Real - Living in Dialogue
Charters and Vouchers: The Threat to Public Schools is Real - Living in Dialogue
Charters and Vouchers: The Threat to Public Schools is Real
Prothero apparently only consulted one side of this contentious issue, as all the statistics she cites are from the National Alliance for Public (sic) Charter Schools.
Wow. That is quite a conclusion! It would be reassuring if this were not the way that almost every charter CONTINUE READING: Charters and Vouchers: The Threat to Public Schools is Real - Living in Dialogue
Charters and Vouchers: The Threat to Public Schools is Real
Across the nation, educators have awakened to the reality that charter schools are a threat to the health and even survival of public schools. For that reason, charters have become a major point of contention in teacher strikes, from Oakland to Los Angeles, and even in West Virginia.
But at Education Week’s blog, Charters and Choice, staff writer Arianna Prothero tells us these fears may be overblown. She acknowledges that charter school expansion is “a salient issue,” but only for those who live in urban areas like Los Angeles and Oakland, where charters enroll as many as 30% of the students.
But after acknowledging this, she asserts:
But are the expansion of charter schools and school vouchers really an existential threat to traditional public schools? In most parts of America, it’s hard to argue that they are.Charter schools educate only about 3 million students, or 7 percent of all public-school students, according to federal data. It’s taken charter schools more than 25 years to get to that 7 percent enrollment share—and it looks as though that growth has been slowing in recent years.
By “most parts of America,” the author seems to be referring to rural areas, which are the focus of the rest of her post. She writes:
…areas with less population density struggle to support robust school choice, which requires lots of schools clustered close enough together that families can reasonably get to them.
She then notes that “it’s mostly rural states that still don’t allow for charter schools…”
And then she suggests that the West Virginia proposal recently defeated by a teacher strike was no real threat:
In West Virginia, lawmakers wanted to allow up to seven charter schools to open and to create 1,000 education savings accounts, a voucher-like program, for students with disabilities.Make no mistake, this would have been an important symbolic victory for school choice advocates, especially charter school supporters who have been pressing to get charters in the state for a while.But based on the rate of charter school growth so far, and where charters have been successful in expanding, it seems unlikely West Virginia would have been overrun by charter schools anytime soon, if at all.
Chaz's School Daze: Why Defined Pensions Are Great For Teachers.
Chaz's School Daze: Why Defined Pensions Are Great For Teachers.
Why Defined Pensions Are Great For Teachers.
One of the great benefits in being a teacher in New York State is the defined pension benefit we have. For the 40% of state teachers that are vested for a pension, the pension benefit averages about $41,703 annually, that is 54% of the teachers final three year salary, not including Social Security and other retirement plans like a 403b program. In other words, most New York State teachers can expect to enjoy a well funded retirement.
The defined benefit pension plan is mostly funded by the State's School Districts. For most Tier IV employees, the vast majority of recent retirees, the employee only pays a 3% contribution for the first ten years and nothing thereafter. That means the School Districts pay the lion's share to fund the pension.
The table below shows how much the School Districts pay to adequately fund the teacher pension system.
Year.........School District Contribution
2010-11.............8.62%
2011-12............11.11%
2012-13............11.84%
2013-14............16.25%
2014-15............17.53%
2015-16............13.26%
2016-17............11.27%
2017-18.............9.80%
2018-19............10.62%
The estimated School District contribution is CONTINUE READING: Chaz's School Daze: Why Defined Pensions Are Great For Teachers.
Why Defined Pensions Are Great For Teachers.
The defined benefit pension plan is mostly funded by the State's School Districts. For most Tier IV employees, the vast majority of recent retirees, the employee only pays a 3% contribution for the first ten years and nothing thereafter. That means the School Districts pay the lion's share to fund the pension.
The table below shows how much the School Districts pay to adequately fund the teacher pension system.
Year.........School District Contribution
2010-11.............8.62%
2011-12............11.11%
2012-13............11.84%
2013-14............16.25%
2014-15............17.53%
2015-16............13.26%
2016-17............11.27%
2017-18.............9.80%
2018-19............10.62%
The estimated School District contribution is CONTINUE READING: Chaz's School Daze: Why Defined Pensions Are Great For Teachers.
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