CURMUDGUCATION: Florida Really Is The Worst

CURMUDGUCATION: Florida Really Is The Worst

Florida Really Is The Worst

There are plenty of states in the country that are not very friendly to public education, but Florida under its new governor has established itself as the very worst state for public education. The worst. Its hatred of public school teachers and its absolute determination to dismantle public education so that it can sell off the pieces to privatizers and profiteers puts the sunshine state in the front of the pack.

The Newest Baloney

The latest nail in the coffin is Senate Bill 7070, a bill that adds yet another school choice program to the Florida portfolio of choiceness. That bill was passed today and now needs only Governor DeSantis's signature, which it will get quickly. The bill offers up vouchers that can be used for private schools, including the religion-based ones, like the ones that teach dinosaurs and humans roamed the earth together and the ones that maintain their right to discriminate against, well, whoever. The vouchers will be one more drain on the public tax dollars intended to fund public education, but then, a key feature of the Florida approach has been to keep underfunding public schools so that charter and private schools can look better by comparison.

No signs of help for education anywhere on the horizon

One Democratic representative during the discussion of this bill pointed out that Florida has been proud of its accountability system (the stupid test-score based awarding of letter grades to schools) and these vouchers will completely circumvent that system.

"What are we doing?" Montford said. "We're allowing them to take public funds to go to schools where the standards are not as high, or maybe don't have any standards. And worse than that, we don't even know what those standards are. Why are we supporting allowing parents to take their children to schools that don't fit the accountability system that we all are so proud of? Why are we doing that?"

Just spitballing here, but I'm betting the answer is "The accountability system was just a tool for CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Florida Really Is The Worst

Jonathan Rodrigues: When Segregation Is the Innovation | Diane Ravitch's blog

Jonathan Rodrigues: When Segregation Is the Innovation | Diane Ravitch's blog

Jonathan Rodrigues: When Segregation Is the Innovation

The privatizers got badly beaten in 2016, when they tried to lift the cap on charter schools in Massachusetts. Funded by the Waltons and the usual coven of billionaires, they asked the public to endorse a proposal to launch 12 charter schools every year, wherever they wanted to open. The referendum was overwhelmingly defeated, much to the surprise of its sponsors.

Governor Charlie Baker is a Republican who has appointed a choice-friendly State Board, so the privatizers have not given up hope for undermining democracy.

Now they are back with a proposal for “innovation zones.” 

Jonathan Rodrigues writes:

In a world where we’re more and more accustomed to jargon inherited from corporate start up world like “disruption” and “big data”, “innovation” stands out as one of the most empty vessels in which we project meaning without much thought of it.

In the education world in particular, almost anything can be “innovative”. Even bringing back purposeful segregation and differential treatment under the guise of educational opportunity. Governor Baker’s latest “Innovation Partnership Zones” may be clever, but it’s certainly not very innovative.

If only segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace CONTINUE READING: Jonathan Rodrigues: When Segregation Is the Innovation | Diane Ravitch's blog

Ohio Legislature Must Pass HB 154 to Eliminate State School Takeovers in Youngstown, Lorain and East Cleveland | janresseger

Ohio Legislature Must Pass HB 154 to Eliminate State School Takeovers in Youngstown, Lorain and East Cleveland | janresseger

Ohio Legislature Must Pass HB 154 to Eliminate State School Takeovers in Youngstown, Lorain and East Cleveland

The members of the Ohio Legislature must pass House Bill 154, thereby repealing Ohio House Bill 70, which provides for the state to seize governance from locally elected school boards in the state’s lowest scoring school districts. HB 70 was passed in 2015.

House Bill 154, a bipartisan bill sponsored by Representatives Joe Miller (D-Amherst) and Don Jones (R-Freeport), would dissolve existing state-appointed Academic Distress Commissions and their appointed CEOs in Youngstown, Lorain and East Cleveland.  By passing HB 154, the Legislature would restore the governance of these school districts to their locally elected school boards. HB 154 would also restore respect and collective bargaining rights for their teachers.

Under the current HB 70, Ohio identifies any school district which has received three years of consecutive “F” grades on the state report card as in academic distress and subject to state takeover. Youngstown and Lorain are now completing their fourth school year under HB 70 state takeover.  East Cleveland was seized at the beginning of the current school year. Other districts facing HB 70 state takeover in the near future are Dayton next year and Columbus, Canton, Mansfield, Toledo and several others the following year.

The Elyria Chronicle-Telegram‘s Carissa Woytach describes the provisions of HB 154 which would offer broader support to districts deemed in academic distress: “Starting July 1, ‘failing’ districts under takeover would transition out of the Academic Distress Commission model and into a community learning center or other option. Starting July 1, 2020, districts that were not subject to an ADC but had received an overall F on the report card would begin to transition into an alternative model—including a community learning center… It also would allow for the Ohio Department of Education to provide support in creating the improvement plan and CONTINUE READING: Ohio Legislature Must Pass HB 154 to Eliminate State School Takeovers in Youngstown, Lorain and East Cleveland | janresseger

Louisiana Educator: The Real Reasons for the Louisiana Teacher Shortage

Louisiana Educator: The Real Reasons for the Louisiana Teacher Shortage

The Real Reasons for the Louisiana Teacher Shortage

State education officials are now alarmed about the growing teacher shortage in Louisiana. What are the causes of the decline in certified teachers, and how can we fix it?

I would hazard a guess that most legislators have no clue that theyhave been primarily responsible for the teacher shortage in Louisiana. So they are looking for solutions in areas that may not help alleviate the problem.

Here are the usual reasons given for the Louisiana teacher shortage and how to cure it: Sure, teacher salaries are too low and a big boost in teacher salaries in Louisiana would get a few more young people to choose teaching. Unfortunately, the Republicans in the legislature are too tight fisted to allow more than a measly $1,000 raise proposed by Governor Edwards for next year (and that is still not a sure thing). Sure, if the State were to drop standards for teacher certification as is being proposed by the LDOE and some superintendents, that will draw more warm bodies into the teaching field. Maybe providing extra pay for teachers in shortage fields such as math, ELA, science and special education would add a few more desperate workers in those areas.

Those are the quick fixes being considered by the legislature in HB 310. But the real problem causing the present teacher shortage can be summarized with the title of the Aretha Franklin song: R-E-S-P-E-C-T! Unfortunately respect is the last thing the reformers and self appointed bosses of public education are willing to give.
For 16 years now, the reformers have operated on the assumption that the teaching profession is failing and deserves little respect. The power brokers believed they could fix the profession by putting it under the control of a bunch of "elite non-educators" who would demand better performance or else!

Starting in 2004, laws were passed that would allow the state to take over so called failing schools where student performance was CONTINUE READING: Louisiana Educator: The Real Reasons for the Louisiana Teacher Shortage

Want to ‘Fix’ Public Education? Then Fix the Economy! | The Merrow Report

Want to ‘Fix’ Public Education? Then Fix the Economy! | The Merrow Report

Want to ‘Fix’ Public Education? Then Fix the Economy!

I was raised to believe in public schools.  My parents taught me that good public schools both improve and unite their communities.**  Moreover, they said, great teachers transform children’s lives by unlocking their potential, which allows them to cast off whatever shackles they had been born into and rise into the middle class and beyond.  Education was liberation, they said, and I embraced the view that schools did not simply ratify the social status a child was born into.

Now, however, I realize that our economic system is so sharply tilted in favor of the privileged that even the best efforts of teachers are not enough to open the doors of opportunity to significant numbers of poor and underprivileged students.

What’s to be done?   Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, politicians in Florida and elsewhere, many Republicans, and ‘Corporate Democrats’ like Cory Booker want to change the way we go to school–by providing vouchers or opening more charter schools.  This approach, which they call ‘choice,’ will not even begin to touch the inequity that pervades education. In fact, I believe these changes would weaken an already endangered system.

It may be helpful to look back to how things were just over a half century ago. As it happens, things have not always been so unfair.

After finishing college in 1964, I taught for two years in a public high school just CONTINUE READING: Want to ‘Fix’ Public Education? Then Fix the Economy! | The Merrow Report

3rd District Democrats honor public education advocate Bush | Political notebook | The Journal Gazette

3rd District Democrats honor public education advocate Bush | Political notebook | The Journal Gazette

3rd District Democrats honor public education advocate Bush

Public education advocate and activist Phyllis Bush, who died March 19 at the age of 75, was named this year's recipient of the J. Edward Roush Service Award presented by the 3rd Congressional District Democratic Party.

The party honored Bush posthumously at an April 27 dinner at the Eagle Glen Clubhouse in Columbia City. The annual award is for "contribution of time, talent and treasure" to 3rd District Democrats, said Misti Meehan, Allen County Democratic chairwoman.

Bush had taught English at South Side High School in Fort Wayne, founded Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education and was a board member for the Network for Public Education. 

Bush "demonstrated steadfast dedication to the betterment of the education system for all people," Meehan said in her remarks at the dinner.

"Whether writing and organizing for the cause or holding a sign, Phyllis wanted people to know what is happening in their community. ... She participated in any way she could and was always willing to help," Meehan said.

The award is named after the Democratic congressman who represented northeast Indiana in the U.S. House from 1959 through 1968 and from 1971 through 1976. Roush, a Huntington resident who died in 2004, is best known for his legislative work to create the 911 emergency telephone system, build flood control reservoirs in Indiana and develop the nation's space exploration program.

3rd District Democrats honor public education advocate Bush | Political notebook | The Journal Gazette

Lecker: The disturbing transformation of kindergarten - StamfordAdvocate

Lecker: The disturbing transformation of kindergarten - StamfordAdvocate

Lecker: The disturbing transformation of kindergarten

One of the most distressing characteristics of education reformers is that they are hyper-focused on how students perform, but they ignore how students learn. Nowhere is this misplaced emphasis more apparent, and more damaging, than in kindergarten.

A new University of Virginia study found that kindergarten changed in disturbing ways from 1999-2006. There was a marked decline in exposure to social studies, science, music, art and physical education and an increased emphasis on reading instruction. Teachers reported spending as much time on reading as all other subjects combined.

The time spent in child-selected activity dropped by more than one-third. Direct instruction and testing increased. Moreover, more teachers reported holding all children to the same standard.

Is this drastic shift in kindergarten the result of a transformation in the way children learn?

No. A 2011 nationwide study by the Gesell Institute for Child Development found that the ages at which children reach developmental milestones have not changed in 100 years.

For example, the average child cannot perceive an oblique line in a triangle until age 5 1/2. This skill is a prerequisite to recognizing, understanding and writing certain letters. The key to understanding concepts such as subtraction and addition is "number conservation." A child may be able to count five objects separately but not understand that together they make the number five. The average child does not conserve enough numbers to understand subtraction and addition until 5 ½ or 6.

If we teach reading, writing, subtraction and addition before children are ready, they might memorize these skills, but will CONTINUE READING: Lecker: The disturbing transformation of kindergarten - StamfordAdvocate

American Schools Lack Playtime, According To New Research | WSKG

American Schools Lack Playtime, According To New Research | WSKG

American Schools Lack Playtime, According To New Research

American schools have a “sad” lack of play, according to new research published in the American Journal of Play.

The work done by Olga Jarrett, a professor emeritus at Georgia State University, stresses that recess should be mandated and is a right of all children.

The American Journal of Play, published by the Strong Museum, is the first interdisciplinary journal dedicated to the research of play. Its editor, Jeremy Saucier,  said advocating for play is important because  most school systems today don’t value play.

“Olga shows us that schools are really under pressure to increase test scores, which are sometimes tied to teachers’ salaries,” Saucier said. “So you can understand that in that sort of prep-and-test mode, play is often taking a back seat.”

Saucier said rethinking what the classroom is might help validate play and make it mandatory. He said more than just physical activity happens when kids are on the playground.

“They’re also learning social skills, like how to organize. How to lead and follow directions,” he CONTINUE READING: American Schools Lack Playtime, According To New Research | WSKG

Nearly a decade later, did the Common Core work?

Nearly a decade later, did the Common Core work?

Nearly a decade later, did the Common Core work? New research offers clues

A 2008 report offered a dire warning: U.S. schools were falling behind their international peers. Its prescription: states should “adopt a common core of internationally benchmarked standards in math and language arts.”

The idea of the Common Core would soon gain steam. Thanks to interest from state leaders and financial incentives offered by the federal government and private philanthropies, most states adopted new academic standards over the next few years. That would soon mean new tests, new textbooks, and new teaching methods — and in many places, backlash to those changes.

But amid the fierce debates, there has been virtually no research on whether the standards were actually accomplishing their goal of improving student learning.

Until now. A new study, released in April through a federally funded research center, shows that states that changed their standards most dramatically by adopting the Common Core didn’t outpace other states on federal NAEP exams. By 2017 — seven years after most states had adopted them — the standards appear to have led to modest declines in fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math scores.

“It’s rather unexpected,” said researcher Mengli Song of the American Institutes for Research. “The magnitude of the negative effects tend to increase over time. That’s a little troubling.”

Studying the effects of Common Core is challenging, since the changes reached so many students nationwide at the same time — so there is a good deal of uncertainty in determining whether the standards were successful. And another study, which has not yet been published, offers a more encouraging view: the Common Core may have led to modest increases in test scores, though it only looked through 2013.

But the latest research suggests that even in the best case scenario, the academic CONTINUE READING: Nearly a decade later, did the Common Core work?

CURMUDGUCATION: Why It's Important To Say There Is No Teacher Shortage

CURMUDGUCATION: Why It's Important To Say There Is No Teacher Shortage

Why It's Important To Say There Is No Teacher Shortage

I've been saying it. Tim Slekar has been saying it. Other people who aren't even directly tied to teaching have been saying it.

There is no teacher shortage.

There's a slow-motion walkout, a one-by-one exodus, a piecemeal rejection of the terms of employment for educators in 2019.

Why is it important to keep saying this? Why keep harping on this point?

Because if you don't correctly identify the problem, you will not correctly identify a solution (see also every episode of House).

It's not lupus.

"We've got a teacher shortage," leads us in the wrong direction. It assumes that, for some reason, there just aren't enough teachers out there in the world, like arguing there aren't enough blue-eyed people or enough people with six toes. It assumes that "teacher" is some sort of solid genetic state that either exists or does not, and if there aren't enough of them, well, shrug, whatcha gonna do?

"We've got a teacher shortage," argues that we've had the meat widget equivalent of a crop failure. The drought and the dust storms were just so bad this year that we didn't get a full harvest of teachers. And when the harvest is slow, CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Why It's Important To Say There Is No Teacher Shortage

Teacher Protests Are Student, Worker Advocacy | radical eyes for equity

Teacher Protests Are Student, Worker Advocacy | radical eyes for equity

Teacher Protests Are Student, Worker Advocacy

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, I was a public school English teacher, and for part of that time, I was also a coach.

I taught more than 100 students each year, meaning I responded to about 4000 essays and 6000 journal entries every academic year along with thousands of other assignments and mountains of paperwork. I was responsible for preparing students for state testing, Advanced Placement testing, and the SAT.

While coaching, and during the soccer season, I would run to the gym between classes to wash and dry the soccer uniforms. Most days, I had to find time to go to the bathroom, and rarely had moments alone even during lunch.

I have never loved more deeply anything than teaching, and I so deeply loved all my students that is often overwhelming to think about no longer being a high school teacher. Facebook has provided me some connection with those students, but I miss intensely being that teacher and that coach.

When I left high school teaching for higher education, I was wearing a wrist brace because I could barely move my right hand from almost two decades of marking essays and trying my damnedest to teach young people to write well.

If you have never taught, you cannot appreciate the psychological and physical toll of being on throughout the day and in the service of dozens of CONTINUE READING: Teacher Protests Are Student, Worker Advocacy | radical eyes for equity

Capping Illinois teacher salaries will continue the shortage of quality teachers. – Fred Klonsky

Capping Illinois teacher salaries will continue the shortage of quality teachers. – Fred Klonsky

Capping Illinois teacher salaries will continue the shortage of quality teachers

Following up on yesterday’s post.

On April 11th Illinois State Senator Andy Manar succeeded in pushing a package of bills through the Senate. One raised the minimum teacher salary from $10,000 a year to $40,000 a year.

The average starting teacher salary in the Illinois is currently $39,000. The bill will take four years to reach the $40,000 minimum level.

Another Manar bill returned the cap on teacher wage increases to 6 percent after it was dropped to 3 percent in a bill Democrats passed and Rauner signed last year,

The bill  repealing the 3% cap moved to the House where a similar bill had already been filed.

Both SB1952 and HB350 were assigned to the House Rules Committee where no hearings have been scheduled.

And that is where they will die.

There has been a lot of talk from some Illinois Democratic legislators about their concern with the state’s teacher shortage.

Central and southern Illinois have been hit the hardest and where the teacher pay CONTINUE READING: 

It Looks As Though Proposed Ohio School Funding Overhaul May Have to Wait Two More Years | janresseger

It Looks As Though Proposed Ohio School Funding Overhaul May Have to Wait Two More Years | janresseger

It Looks As Though Proposed Ohio School Funding Overhaul May Have to Wait Two More Years

There was a sense of hope on March 25th, when Ohio State Representatives Bob Cupp and John Patterson proposed a new, bipartisan school funding plan for Ohio, a plan that was intended to serve as the House’s education proposal for the 2020-2021 biennial budget, which must be passed by June 30.  We owe these two legislators enormous thanks for overcoming partisan rancor and setting out to try to address school funding injustice in our state.

Under a patched together mess of additions to old formulas, Ohio’s school districts have suffered for years from state funding that hasn’t met the state’s constitutional obligation. The problem has become more serious as state revenue for schools has declined. Following the Great Recession a decade ago, Governor John Kasich and his all-Republican legislature continued the phase out of local business taxes, eliminated the state estate tax and reduced state income taxes. In a state where all tax increases are required by law to be voted, school districts have been forced to ask their residents to increase local property taxes and at the same time to cut programming.  Just as school teachers have been striking all year across other states to highlight outrageous problems with large classes and shortages of counselors, social workers, nurses and librarians, Ohio’s students and teachers have been experiencing the same funding inadequacies.

The proposed Cupp-Patterson Plan was supposed to fund schools adequately—according to a calculation of what it actually costs to provide required services.  It was supposed to be stablewithout the kind of quirks and changes Ohio school districts have noticed recently in their state funding.  And it was supposed to be equitable by considering not only a district’s property valuation but also the community’s aggregate income in calculating what Ohio calls the local chargeoff—the calculation of what a school district has the capacity to generate in local taxes. Currently in Ohio, 503 of the state’s 610 school districts are on guarantee; they have been getting from the state just what they got last year and the year before and the year before that.  The new Cupp-Patterson plan was designed to flip that situation and restore the awarding of formula-calculated funding to at least 510 districts.

The only problem was, once the computer runs for the state’s 610 school districts were CONTINUE READING: It Looks As Though Proposed Ohio School Funding Overhaul May Have to Wait Two More Years | janresseger

An Open and Extended Response (On Testing Season) | The Jose Vilson

An Open and Extended Response (On Testing Season) | The Jose Vilson

AN OPEN AND EXTENDED RESPONSE (ON TESTING SEASON)

I laid my lesson plans on top of the roller tray. I pulled off my “problem of the moment” off my printer and put scissors on top of them. I turned on my Promethean board and connected the AppleTV to it. I pulled out my iPad mini and turned to the released questions from the New York State math test for both 7th and 8th grades year 2017. I flipped quickly to the extended responses as shown on my lesson plan.

The students came in. Besides a salutation, I didn’t say anything. After a few minutes, I felt like I was merely floating about the classroom, not angry or elated. Just floating. Then, a student asked me, “Mr. Vilson, are you OK?” I snapped up and said, “Yes, but I’m getting concerned that we’re taking a little while to get ready for class.”

No, I’m actually fine.

The NYS math test starts on Wednesday and I’ve done everything in my power to teach the major (and minor) topics that could potentially be covered by this exam. Because I generally don’t do multiple choice assessments, I’ve geared the vast majority of my learning through open, extended response questions. For the eighth graders, I delved into scientific notation, gave multiple renditions of linear relationships, and drew comparisons between linear and non-linear functions through multiple representations. For the seventh grade, I made the vast majority of the work about proportional reasoning through modeling, calculations, and contextual examples. I was equal parts architect, CONTINUE READING: An Open and Extended Response (On Testing Season) | The Jose Vilson

Making Schools Business-Like: The Case of Summit Charters (Part 3) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Making Schools Business-Like: The Case of Summit Charters (Part 3) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Making Schools Business-Like: The Case of Summit Charters (Part 3)

Many educators use business-speak. Students are customers. Principals and Superintendents are CEOs. School board members ask staff what the return on investment is. Another common phrase educators use borrowed from the corporate community, especially when seeking dollars from donors, is “scaling up.”

Going to scale is what occurs when an innovation “works” (in quote marks for the word has different meanings to different people) and donors or high-ups want to spread the “success” (ditto for this word also) to other schools in the district, state, and nation.

The history of diffusion of innovation–that is the phrase that academics have used–is a checkered one. Some innovations have, indeed, spread (think the mid-19th century age-graded school and early 20th century kindergartens, and small high schools later in the century) but when an innovation is complex with many moving parts, permeable to outside forces, and dependent on relationships with teachers, students and parents for the program to work, then scaling up is damn hard to do. Variation in putting the innovation into practice occurs frequently making it difficult to impossible to assess whether the new model or innovation caused changes in student and teacher outcomes. Recall what has happened to the innovative New Math in the 1960s or the Common Core standards in the past decade.

And that is the story captured by recent articles on what has happened to the Summit Learning Program for “personalized learning” (ditto again) that Summit charter schools have given away free to many schools and districts. Donors gave a pile of money to Summit schools to prepare the high-tech tool and transfer the model elsewhere in the nation. Keep in mind that these pieces come from an intricate, organic, and complex operation deeply dependent upon teachers, a CONTINUE READING: Making Schools Business-Like: The Case of Summit Charters (Part 3) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

NYC Public School Parents: inBloom redux? NYSUT, NYSAPE and Parent Coalition for Student Privacy protest

NYC Public School Parents: inBloom redux? NYSUT, NYSAPE and Parent Coalition for Student Privacy protest

inBloom redux?

 NYSUT, NYSAPE and Parent Coalition for Student Privacy protest

I thought this announcement was from 2013 until I saw the date: a new NY state effort to “envision” a new state data system with funding from the Gates Foundation.

Apparently the grant was obtained by the Capitol region BOCES but Commissioner Elia must have approved it. Do these guys never learn? 

Envisioning a New Statewide Data System

A variety of data is collected about children and students—from birth through their school years and into young adulthood. Used purposefully, this data can be a powerful tool to inform, engage and create opportunities for our students. It can paint a “bigger picture” of who students are and what they most need to grow, achieve and meet their educational goals, and help educators and others make connections that can lead to school and curricular improvements.

See the letter of protest sent today from NYSUT, NYSAPE and our Parent Coalition for Student Privacy below. Meanwhile, a series of sessions are being held throughout the state “to gather feedback” in late May and early June.  Please sign up if you can.

Let Voters Fix Harrisburg School Board – Not State Takeover | gadflyonthewallblog

Let Voters Fix Harrisburg School Board – Not State Takeover | gadflyonthewallblog

Let Voters Fix Harrisburg School Board – Not State Takeover

Pushing the self-destruct button is the ultimate measure of last resort.

But that’s how several Pennsylvania lawmakers are suggesting we fix the dysfunctional Harrisburg School Board.

An election that could oust most of the very school directors responsible for the district’s troubles is less than a month away. But Democratic Representative Patty Kim, Republican Senator John DiSanto and Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse all say we shouldn’t wait – The state should takeover the Harrisburg School District immediately.

This would effectively destroy all democratic government in a district located in the state capital.

While senators and representatives from all over the Commonwealth work to enact the will of their constituents from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, residents at city schools a few miles away would be robbed of their own voices.

Under state law, if the district were put into receivership, a court-appointed receiver would assume all the functions of a locally elected school board, except the power to raise and levy taxes. This appointee would effectively take charge of the district’s CONTINUE READING: Let Voters Fix Harrisburg School Board – Not State Takeover | gadflyonthewallblog

2019 Medley #9 | Live Long and Prosper

2019 Medley #9 | Live Long and Prosper

2019 Medley #9 | Live Long and Prosper

INVESTING IN THE FUTURE

Two reports endorse investment in early childhood education

Truthfully, neither of these reports tells us anything new (see also Untangling the Evidence on Preschool Effectiveness: Insights for Policymakers). What they do tell us, however, is that states aren’t investing in early childhood education the way they should…too many tax breaks for the wealthy and for corporations (“Corporations are people, my friend.”) to be able to afford any investment in something so lacking in a quick return on investment as early childhood education.

The supermajority in Indiana still hasn’t been able to figure out how to help their friends profit from the state’s pilot program in pre-school…a “pilot” now in its sixth year.

A pair of reports released this week offered supporting arguments for one of Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s top priorities: increasing investment in early childhood education.

Both reports, one by a group of law enforcement officials and another by leading business executives, use data from the Illinois State Department of Education that shows roughly three-fourths of all students entering kindergarten in Illinois lack necessary school readiness skills in at least one of three critical areas – social-emotional development, literacy or math. Only about a quarter of all new kindergarteners demonstrate school readiness in all three categories.

What Preschool Isn’t: Waterford UPSTART and Any Other Online Program!

Yes…we’re trying this in Indiana, too. Indiana is nothing if not consistent. We’ll  CONTINUE READING: