KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG A site to discuss better education for all

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

KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG 

A site to discuss better education for all

Big Education Ape: My New Book Was Just Announced! | Diane Ravitch's blog -https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/05/my-new-book-was-just-announced-diane.html

Diane in Europe

Gary Rubinstein: TFA Is Shocked, Shocked to Hear That It Is Tied to the Charter Industry

by dianeravitch / 43min

Recently ProPublica published a deeply researched investigation of Teach for America’s close ties to the charter industry. As Gary Rubinstein reports in this post, TFA functionaries responded with shock to this clear statement of fact. What is amazing is their defensive reaction to easily documented facts.

YESTERDAY

Mercedes Schneider:Corey Booker’s Brother Was Surprised When Tennessee Expected His Charters to be Accountable

100+by dianeravitch / 20h

Mercedes Schneider wrote a post about Cory Booker’s brother , Cary, who opened two charter schools in Tennessee with an ally. His application had lofty goals. He pledged that 95% of his students would score proficient on state tests. He and his partner were astonished when the state took their promise seriously. Apparently they were just engaging in marketing by making a promise they had no inten

Larry Cuban: AltSchool Collapses, Reborn as a “Learning Platform”

by dianeravitch / 21h

Larry Cuban recounts the short history of AltSchool , which was intended to be a progressive moneymaker but flamed out and has been replaced by another company called Altitude Learning. Another chapter is added to the annals of the for-profit education history. Cuban writes: Begun by wealthy high-tech entrepreneur (and ex-Google executive) Max Ventilla in 2013, AltSchool made a splash with its st

Los Angeles: The Absurdity of “Co-Location”

21by dianeravitch / 22h

Howard Blume wrote an illuminating and straightforward description of two schools in Los Angeles that share the same space. One is a public school—Curtiss Middle School— the other is a Gulen charter school, part of the Magnolia chain. The charter invaded the public school, and appropriated many of its classrooms and facilities. They have similar students (although about 40% of the charter student

DeBlasio: A Hypocrite on Charter Schools

26by dianeravitch / 23h

DeBlasio recently boasted at the NEA candidates’ panel about his courageous resistance to the charter industry. It is true that he started his first term in office in 2014 determined to stop the charter zillionaires’ efforts to grab money and the students they wanted from the public schools. When he did not grant Eva Moskowitz all the new charters she wanted, her backers launched a PR blitz again

Bob Shepherd: Assessing E.D. Hirsch Jr. and Cultural Literacy

by dianeravitch / 1d

Bob Shepherd writes here about E.D. Hirsch Jr.’s work, and how it was wrongly appropriated by conservatives in their fight for the canon of “great white men.” I first met Don Hirsch in 1983 at a conference where we both spoke. We became good friends. We even served on the Koret Task Force together at the Hoover Institution, which we both quit, perhaps for different reasons or maybe for the same r

JUL 11

California: Charter Schools Are the Day Lilies of Education

24by dianeravitch / 1d

Larry Buhl of Capital and Main writes here about the transient nature of charter schools . In California, as in other states, they open with bold promises but many close with short notice to patents due to under enrollment or financial problems or both. As Buhl writes, parents are left scrambling and students’s lives are disrupted when their charter school closes suddenly. Buhl begins: IN LATE AU

Jan Resseger: The Long Process of Repairing the Damage to Education in Wisconsin

100+by dianeravitch / 1d

Jan Resseger writes here about Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers’ efforts to repair the damage done to education in Wisconsin by ex-Governor ScottWalker, who used his time in office to try to destroy education. She writes about Gordon Lafer’s brilliant book The One Percent Solution as context for the siege of the schools and universities by Walker. She begins: In Gordon Lafer’s 2017 book, The One Per

Wendy Lecker on Racial Segregation in Connecticut

28by dianeravitch / 1d

Civil rights lawyer Wendy Lecker writes here about the persistence of racial segregation in Connecticut. She writes: The racial imbalance law applies to all public schools. It was enacted prior to the existence of charter schools but it was amended after the Connecticut charter school law was written. A 1996 revision of the law specifically included charters as a method to reduce racial isolation

Mercedes Schneider: How “Non-Profit” Charters Make a Profit

100+by dianeravitch / 2d

Mercedes Schneider knows that Democratic candidates righteously day they oppose “for-profit” charters. Carol Burris explained that there is little or no difference between for-profit charters and nonprofit charters. Schneider demonstrates how nonprofits can reap big profits through “related transactions,” that is, self-dealing.

California: Is Governor Gavin Newsom Selling Out to the Charter Industry?

30by dianeravitch / 2d

The charter Industry has one thing going for it. Guess what that is. Not superior academic results. No, its trump card is money. In this society, money is power. Politicians always are in search of money for their next campaign. Big donors always find open doors. Follow the money has become a precept more recognizable in this era than the Ten Commandments. In California, there is a heated battle

JUL 10

BREAKING NEWS! Harvard Suspends Roland Fryer Jr.

by dianeravitch / 2d

Roland Fryer Jr.s Education Innovation lab at Harvard was funded primarily by Eli Broad’s Foundatio n. Fryer received numerous prestigious awards for his work a san economist. He was the “chief equality officer” for the NYC Department of Education under Joel Klein. BREAKING NEWS ALERT Harvard on Wednesday suspended the prominent economist Roland G. Fryer Jr. for two years without pay and shut dow

Rhode Island: Governor Raimondo Picks a Member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change as State Commissioner

100+by dianeravitch / 2d

Governor Gina Raimondo is a bona fide neoliberal who is part of the DFER clique, having been a hedge fund manager herself. She recently selected Angelina Infante-Green as State Commissioner of Education. Infante-Green is a member of Jeb Bush’s cohort of Future Chiefs for Change. Now that she is a State Commissioner, she will qualify to join the big boys and girls as a full-fledged member of Jeb’s

BREAKING NEWS: Former Secretary of Education for Puerto Rico Arrested!

200+by dianeravitch / 2d

In a major corruption investigation, the FBI arrested former Puerto Rico Secretary of Education Julia Keleher in DC. Keleher was brought to the Island to cut costs, impose charters and vouchers, and break the union. She was paid $250,000 a year while preaching austerity and budget cuts. Puerto Rican educators did not like her, to put it mildly. They referred to her with the hashtag #JuliaGoHome.

Tom Ultican: How Charter Operators Scammed $50 Million (or More) from California

72by dianeravitch / 2d

Tom Ultican writes here about the biggest charter fraud in history (to this date). This fraud was not one of those one-day wonders that people read about and forget the next day. This one should wake up state legislators and produce genuine reforms of the state’s super-permissive charter law. Ultican writes about the indictment of 11 people for the theft of $50 million. Other writers, however, pe

North Carolina: “I Need a Teacher”

22by dianeravitch / 2d

Reader Greg Brozeit posted the following comment and video. I went to see Hiss Golden Messenger, aka MC Taylor, perform. He played a new song that I think all of you will appreciate. Here is what he said to introduce it: “I was thinking about, what to make a video, how to make a video for this song. And I started thinking about all of the teachers that I’ve had in my life, specifically public sch

G.F. Brandenburg on the Strange Case of the D.C. Editorialist Who Still Loves Michelle Rhee

by dianeravitch / 3d

G.F. Brandenburg cannot understand the Washington Post editorial writer Jo-Anne Armao. When Michelle Rhee started her job as chancellor of the D.C. schools in 2007, Armao interviewed her and decided that she was the greatest educator ever. Nothing that has happened in the past dozen years has changed her views. To this day, she still writes lovingly, respectfully about the Miracle that was Michel

JUL 09

Angie Sullivan: Is Soner Tarim Opening a Charter in Nevada?

300+by dianeravitch / 3d

Angie Sullivan teaches in a Title 1 elementary school in Las Vegas. It is underfunded. The state is willing to fund failing charter schools but not pay for the public schools that most children attend. Angie wants to know why. She recently learned that Soner Tarim wants to open a charter in Nevada. This is the same man who wants to open a charter in rural Washington County in Alabama and set off

Angie Sullivan: The Great Charter Scam in Nevada

100+by dianeravitch / 3d

Angie Sullivan teaches children in a Title 1 elementary school in Las Vegas. Many of her children are poor and don’t speak English. Her school is underfunded. Angie frequently sends blast emails to every legislator in the state, as well as journalists. She refuses to allow them to ignore her students, while they cater to the whims of billionaire casino owners, like the chair of the state board of

Noliwe Rooks Speaks About School Privatization and Racial Inequity

37by dianeravitch / 3d

Please watch this six-minute presentation by Noliwe Rooks about her book Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education. The video was produced by Bob Greenberg as part of his Brainwaves project. Rooks is the Director of American Studies and Director of African-American Studies at Cornell University. Her book is a fascinating history that examines the interest of bill

Did Jeb Bush Choose Your District’s Superintendent?

500+by dianeravitch / 4d

Jeb Bush created an organization called Chiefs for Change, whose original membership consisted of state superintendents who shared Jeb’s ideas: high-stakes testing, evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students, school grades of A-F, and school choice (charters and vouchers). Chiefs for Change has now become a clearinghouse for district superintendents. You can be sure that anyone reco

JUL 08

Carl J. Petersen: Public School Allies Retake Control of the Los Angeles School Board

20by dianeravitch / 4d

Carl J. Petersen, parent advocate and blogger in Los Angeles, writes here about the long, hard struggle to wrest control of the Los Angeles Unified School District school board from the hands of the billionaires. Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, Reed Hastings and other billionaires have funded the campaigns of charter advocates. The billionaires spent many millions to gain control, only to see one m

Mitchell Robinson: Tax Credits Are a Zombie Idea

200+by dianeravitch / 4d

Mitchell Robinson of Michigan State explains why “tax credit scholarships” are a zombie idea . They are consistently rejected by voters, they fail to educate students, yet they never die. So even though “Tax Credit Scholarship” is just a sneaky way to “rebrand” private school vouchers–a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, Very Betsy DeVosian idea that’s pretty clearly unconstitutional and has

Arthur Goldstein: New York Does Not Care About ELLs

by dianeravitch / 4d

Veteran teacher Arthur Goldstein writes here about New York state’s cruel indifference to educating non-English-speaking students. He writes: President Trump commits outrages against humanity by separating newcomers from their families, leaving them without soap, blankets or toothbrushes. New York State would never do things like that. We’re more enlightened. Instead of depriving young immigrants

Ariel Sacks: Teach Whole Books or Excerpts?

100+by dianeravitch / 5d

Teacher Ariel Sacks notes two clashing trends in teaching literature: teach whole books or excerpts. The recent trend toward short texts seems to have come from the Common Core State Standards and accompanying standardized tests. As Peter Greene explains in a Forbes Magazine article, Common Core Testing and the Fracturing of Literature , “Both the standards and the tests are focused on ‘skills,’

JUL 07

Benton Harbor, MI: Commissioner Ron Singleton Reviews Options for District

by dianeravitch / 5d

This statement by Benton Harbor Commissioner Ron Singleton was posted on the blog as a comment: I spoke with teacher and different members of our community to put recommendations for the department of education to consider. Here is a copy of the suggestions. We have to wait and see what happens, it’s to my understanding others have sent suggestions also, hopefully we will all Make an impact. Bent

Christine Langhoff Describes the Charter-Friendly Power Elite in Massachusetts

by dianeravitch / 5d

Christine Langhoff, retired teacher and education activist in Massachusetts, describes the power elite in the Bay State. After losing the charter referendum in 2016 by 68-32%, they keep pursuing ways to bypass the voters. Massachusetts has 3 Walton-connected members of the state board of education, appointed by the governor, who was formerly the executive director of The Pioneer Institute. The Pi

Peter Greene: The Essential Foolishness of the Fordham-CAP “Moonshot”

by dianeravitch / 5d

Peter Greene writes here about the “moonshot” to transform American education, co-sponsored by the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the allegedly liberal Center for AMERICAN Progress. Peter points out that this collaboration demonstrates that both sides of the DC Establishment endorse corporatedceducarion reform (despite its manifest failure for the past 25 years). He compares their c

Carol Burris: Don’t Let Democratic Candidates Get Away With: “I’m Against For-Profit Charters”

500+by dianeravitch / 5d

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, writes here about the efforts by most Democratic candidates to avoid confronting the dangers of privatization: When Democratic candidates are questioned about charter schools, many typically reply, “I am against for-profit charter schools.” Everyone cheers. Politicians have created a convenient (and false) dichotomy that says n

Gary Rubinstein: Success Academy’s Curious Test Scores

24by dianeravitch / 6d

Gary Rubinstein tries to decipher the paradoxical test scores At Eva Moskowitz’s controversial Success Academy. For years, the No-Excuses charter chain has posted sky-high test scores, which skeptical observers attribute to the chain’s practices of exclusion and attrition. However, Gary has noted this strange contradiction: SA students get high scores on state tests but low scores on high school

JUL 06

West Contra Costa Public Schools Lose $27.9 Million Annually to Charter Schools

100+by dianeravitch / 6d

According to a study by the watchdog group In the Public Interest, The public schools of the small West Contra School School District in California lose $27.9 million each year due to charter schools, a loss of nearly $1,000 for each student in the public schools. The majority of students suffer budget cuts so a small proportion can attend charter schools that may be no better and may close mid-y

Bob Shepherd: This Is What a Generation of “Standards and Testing” Has Done to ELA Teaching

100+by dianeravitch / 6d

Bob Shepherd—teacher, author, textbook writer, assessment developer, etc.—posted the following here as a comment while discussing the negative effects ofCommon Core and other efforts to standardize the curriculum: This is what an entire generation (20 years) of standards-and-high-stakes testing has done to the field of the English language arts. Department chairpersons now make comments like, “We

Leonie Haimson: What You Need to Know About CZI’s Summit Learning and Student Privacy

28by dianeravitch / 6d

Leonie Haimson has watched the development of CZI’s Summit Learning, a tech-based platform. She is a leader of Student Privacy Matters and the Parents’ Coalition for Student Privacy. Here are recommended readings: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/12/20/why-parents-students-are-protesting-an-online-learning-program-backed-by-mark-zuckerberg-facebook/ https://www.studentprivacymatters.

New York Times: Charters in NYC Trying to Reform Themselves as Backlash Grows

32by dianeravitch / 6d

Eliza Shapiro of the New York Times reports on the efforts of some charter schools in New York City to reform their practices and repair their tarnished image in response to a backlash against them. If you can open the comments, you will see that most readers who comment understand the charter hoax. They know that charters are a rightwing ploy created by billionaires like DeVos and Broad to bust

Andrea Gabor: The Slow But Steady Decline of the Charter Industry

32by dianeravitch / 7d

Andrea Gabor is one of the most interesting education writers around. She holds the Bloomberg Chair in Business Journalism at Baruch College. Her articles appear on sites read by people in the business world. Yet she has a firm grasp of education issues. Her latest book, After the Education Wars , has the best discussion of New Orleans education issues that I have seen. Her book The Man Who Inven

An Exchange About Destroying a Significant Work of Art That Some Find Offensive

100+by dianeravitch / 7d

The individual with whom I had this exchange asked me to delete it. I posted it without identifying her so her views and links would get the attention they deserved. She wants it deleted so it is.

An Exchange About Destroying a Significant Artwork That Some Find Offensive

by dianeravitch / 7d

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

CURMUDGUCATION: Are These Lessons To Learn From Cyberschools?

CURMUDGUCATION: Are These Lessons To Learn From Cyberschools?

Are These Lessons To Learn From Cyberschools?

At this stage of the game, there's no reason to keep imagining that cyberschools are a viable option for education on any sort of scale. There's a small group of students with specialized needs that they can serve well, but mostly they've failed big time. But they are also excellent money-makers, and so we periodically find folks trying to rehabilitate the cyberschool image. Here comes another such attempt.

Where did this one come from?

North Carolina-based Public Impact is yet another reform group dedicated to advocacy for charter schools etc. It has all the usual features. For instance, the jargon-soaked product line:

Using our unmatched thought leadership and experience with charter schools, turnarounds, and innovations for great teachers and principals, school design, funding, technology, parent support, community engagement and data analysis to help states, localities, districts, charter organizations, funders, and nonprofits choose the right strategies for dramatic improvements.

And the leadership which, you will be shocked to learn, involves a minimum of actual educators. Co-President Bryan Hassel is a big-time consultant and "recognized expert" (recognized by who, one wonders) on charters and turnarounds and funding systems and writing pieces for Education Next and EdWeek. His Co-President is Emily Hassel, who provides thought leadership and oversight. They're both Pahara-Aspen Education Fellows, which puts them in the company of many other charter and reformster folks. Lucy Steiner is the senior vp for "educator excellence and implementation services," and she has some actual classroom background-- she taught English from 1993-1996.

Like most such groups, Public Impact likes to crank out "reports" that serve as slickly packaged advocacy for one reform thing or another. Two of their folk have just whipped together such a CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Are These Lessons To Learn From Cyberschools?

Will This Be On The Test? | gadflyonthewallblog

Will This Be On The Test? | gadflyonthewallblog

Will This Be On The Test?

As a public school teacher, I’m confronted with an awful lot of urgent questions.

Sometimes all at once and in rapid fire succession.

But perhaps the most frequent one I get is this:

“Mr. Singer, will this be on the test?”

Seriously?

Will this be on the test?

In 8th grade Language Arts, we’re discussing the relative merits of the death penalty vs. life imprisonment – or the history behind the Nazi invasion of Holland – or the origin of Dill Harris’ obsession with Boo Radley — and this little kid wants to know if any of it is going to be on the test!?

What in the almighty universe does he think we’re doing here!?

I pause, take a deep breath and reflect.
After all, it could be worse. The kiddo could have interrupted the flow just to ask to CONTINUE READING: 

Summer Reading/Bike Donations | The Merrow Report

Summer Reading/Bike Donations | The Merrow Report

Summer Reading/Bike Donations

First, let’s follow the money!  Apparently quite a few of you contributed to a favorite causes, including Planned Parenthood, Chess in the Schools, and the Network for Public Education.  From what was reported to me, the total seems to be just north of $8,000. Thank you, because having that public challenge provided a major incentive NOT to quit!   And, believe me, there were a few times during my 78-mile ride when my 78-year-old body cried out for a nap!

(Sorry to be so late with this news: We have had a houseful of family and, full disclosure, the Women’s World Cup was a very high priority in our home!)

Summer reading for education wonks:  My list includes David Kirp’s forthcoming CONTINUE READING: Summer Reading/Bike Donations | The Merrow Report

The Campaign Finance Problem is About to Get Worse

The Campaign Finance Problem is About to Get Worse

The Campaign Finance Problem is About to Get Worse

Follow the instructions on the BMD (Ballot Marking Device) and begin making your selections OR scan your Poll Pass at the BMD to expedite your voting experience.”– Los Angeles County

The new Ballot Marking Device

Up through the August 13, 2019, special election, the 5,346,339 registered voters of Los Angeles County will be using a voting system that was created before man landed on the moon. It was designed when we interacted with computers through punch cards, telephones were used exclusively for phone calls and all mail was sent by the speed of a snail. In short, our world has changed a lot, but the underlying system behind our elections has not.

This will all change when Los Angeles voters go to the polls for the 2020 Presidential Primary (and LAUSD School Board) Election. Under the Voting Solutions for All People initiative, precinct-based polling places will be replaced by county-wide Vote Centers. While this will greatly reduce the number of voting locations, it will expand options:

• Voters will not be assigned to one specific voting location but will be able to use any vote center in the county.
• Some vote centers will be open for 11 days prior to election day with additional sites being open for four days. 
• Mobile and pop-up vote centers will be able to serve populations that have difficulties getting to the polls.

The updated technology will also allow same-day voter registration to occur including the ability to re-register with a different political party for the primary elections. People with disabilities will have greater access to the same voting booths being used by all the other voters for a “private and independent voting experience.” The touchscreen will allow voters to “read or listen to [their] ballot in 13 languages” and video-conferencing will be built into the Electronic Pollbooks that will replace the printed list of voters so that voters can receive assistance CONTINUE READING: The Campaign Finance Problem is About to Get Worse

Vox Interviews Edgar Villanueva on the Racial Philanthropy Gap | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Vox Interviews Edgar Villanueva on the Racial Philanthropy Gap | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Vox Interviews Edgar Villanueva on the Racial Philanthropy Gap

In a recent interview by Dylan Matthews at Vox, Schott Vice President of Programs and Advocacy Edgar Villanueva described how the racial wealth gap has translated to a similar gap in philanthropic giving: a bias in how that wealth is dispersed, which keeps control away from people of color, and minimizes donations to groups run by people of color for the benefit of communities of color.

Dylan Matthews

Walk me through some of the racial equity problems facing philanthropy: What are some of the representational and grant-making gaps you’ve discovered?

Edgar Villanueva

Many families and many institutions that have amassed wealth have done so on the backs of people of color and indigenous people. One example I often share is my first job in philanthropy was in North Carolina, and it was all tobacco money. My office was on a plantation.

The R.J. Reynolds family had amassed all this wealth through the tobacco industry. Clearly, slave labor was a major part of that and helped to build this family’s fortune. There are multiple Reynolds foundations that now exist. I think that [money] should be given in a way that sort of centers and prioritizes giving in communities of color that helped amass that wealth.

The latest research that came out from the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equality shows that only about 8-9 percent of grant-making from foundations goes into communities of color [in the US].

And so, when you take the historical account as to how indigenous communities and how people of color have contributed to building wealth in this country, and the trauma that exists because of how wealth was accumulated, I think that it’s an easy case to make that philanthropic capital should at least be more inclusive of those communities.

I also think [part of the] race conversation [is] around who actually gets to control, allocate, manage, and spend that CONTINUE READING: Vox Interviews Edgar Villanueva on the Racial Philanthropy Gap | Schott Foundation for Public Education

AFT’s Weingarten: We survived our battle with ‘billionaires and ideologues’

AFT’s Weingarten: We survived our battle with ‘billionaires and ideologues’

AFT’s Weingarten: We survived our battle with ‘billionaires and ideologues’

American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten took what amounted to a victory lap on Thursday, telling union members they had survived a decade-long battle with “billionaires and ideologues.”

“To our enemies’ vexation, we are thriving,” Weingarten told attendees of the union’s conference in Washington D.C. 

“Remember the false narrative about public schools a decade ago — about so-called bad teachers, failing students, and a system supposedly so broken that privatization and austerity were the only answers? We’ve busted up those myths, one by one.”

The speech reflected the union’s confidence, which has been buoyed by widespread support for teacher strikes and walkouts over the past year, backlash toward charter schools, and, for now, the union’s ability to avoid a budget crisis in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Janus decision.

Still, the union can hardly claim total victory: charters have continued to grow, albeit more slowly, and they maintain political support among many black and Hispanic Democrats; a number of red states have passed legislation favorable to charters and private school vouchers; and Weingarten acknowledged that AFT has lost fee-payers in the wake of Janus.

“Ten years ago, Time magazine emblazoned its cover with this image of a school superintendent sweeping out so-called ‘bad teachers,’” Weingarten said, referring to CONTINUE READING: AFT’s Weingarten: We survived our battle with ‘billionaires and ideologues’

Powerful Koch network taking on school choice with new group - The Washington Post

Powerful Koch network taking on school choice with new group - The Washington Post

Powerful Koch network taking on school choice with new group

SEATTLE — Billionaire industrialist Charles Koch’s powerful network that’s known for influencing state policy is now targeting education issues like school choice as the movement battles a new wave of hostility from Democrats who oppose charter schools and private school vouchers that use taxpayer money.

Koch in June announced the Yes Every Kid initiative as the latest addition to his sprawling network of wealthy donors, political groups and tax-exempt advocacy organizations best known for pushing anti-regulation, small-government policies. Its political arm, Americans for Prosperity, has made waves supporting the tea party and fighting former President Barack Obama’s health care law.

The Yes Every Kid group is tasked with monitoring statehouses where it can be influential on school choice, said Stacy Hock, a Texas philanthropist who is among hundreds of donors each contributing at least $100,000 annually to the Koch network’s wide-ranging agenda.

Hock and officials with the Koch network said it’s too early to provide specifics about what policies the group is pushing.

“The priority is to go where there is a political appetite to be open to policy change and lean in there,” said Hock, who also leads the Texans for Education Opportunity advocacy group that supports charters and other education alternatives.

She cited Texas, West Virginia, Tennessee and Florida as priority states where school choice proposals have flourished.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers union, called Koch’s new effort a public relations stunt.

“To date, the Koch strategy has been to profit from and compete with public schools, while trying to ‘defund and defang’ anyone who got in their way,” Weingarten said in a statement.

Koch’s new education reform lobbying group comes as the conservative icon recalibrates his priorities, both CONTINUE READING: Powerful Koch network taking on school choice with new group - The Washington Post

What the SAT really measures - Vox

What the SAT really measures - Vox

What the SAT really measures
Predicting what we might do can’t be untangled from where we’ve been.

A few months ago, an FBI investigation found that rich parents — including celebrities like Felicity Huffman — were cheating to get their kids into elite colleges.

It involved an elaborate scam to get higher SAT scores for their children.

This isn’t the first time people paid for higher SAT scores. In 2011, about 20 teenagers in Long Island were accused of paying as much as $3,600 to have someone else take the SAT for them. And a few years ago, 15 Chinese nationals were accused of the same thing, paying nearly $6,000 for the higher score.

And this is for good reason.

Colleges often say the SAT score is just a small part of the admissions decision, but survey data of colleges shows that it’s actually one of the biggest factors. In addition, the CONTINUE READING: What the SAT really measures - Vox

Bob Shepherd: Assessing E.D. Hirsch Jr. and Cultural Literacy | Diane Ravitch's blog

Bob Shepherd: Assessing E.D. Hirsch Jr. and Cultural Literacy | Diane Ravitch's blog

Bob Shepherd: Assessing E.D. Hirsch Jr. and Cultural Literacy

Bob Shepherd writes here about E.D. Hirsch Jr.’s work, and how it was wrongly appropriated by conservatives in their fight for the canon of “great white men.”

I first met Don Hirsch in 1983 at a conference where we both spoke. We became good friends. We even served on the Koret Task Force together at the Hoover Institution, which we both quit, perhaps for different reasons or maybe for the same reason. While there, we had a public debate with Paul Peterson and Caroline Hoxby. The topic was: Curriculum and instruction are more important than markets and choice. We argued for the proposition, and they argued against. Given that we were at the Hoover Institution, the audience favored the negative. Of course.

Bob Shepherd writes:

There was a lot of willful (e.g., intentional) misreading of Hirsch’s work, which wasn’t helped by the fact that his work was embraced by far-right conservatives who thought that he was all about defending the canon of work by dead white men against multiculturalism. And, unfortunately, his Core Knowledge Foundation had a brief flirtation with Common [sic] Core [sic] advocates, which Hirsch later renounced as a mistake.

So, here, a brief tutorial on his major ideas:

Hirsch first made his name as a proponent of a particular approach to literary interpretation, or hermeneutics. He was a champion of the traditional notion that the meaning of a literary work lies in the intention of the author and that the practice of interpretation is about recovering that intention, which requires not only close reading but also familiarity with the author’s life, the social and historical context of the work, and the literary genres and tropes employed in the work. Well, this poem was written by a CONTINUE READING: Bob Shepherd: Assessing E.D. Hirsch Jr. and Cultural Literacy | Diane Ravitch's blog

Despite Cruel Conditions at the Border and Threatened ICE Raids, Educators Across U.S. Strive to Serve Immigrant Children | janresseger

Despite Cruel Conditions at the Border and Threatened ICE Raids, Educators Across U.S. Strive to Serve Immigrant Children | janresseger

Despite Cruel Conditions at the Border and Threatened ICE Raids, Educators Across U.S. Strive to Serve Immigrant Children

There is a disconnect between the education policy debates and what is really happening in public schools.  In Wednesday’s NY Times, Miriam Jordan captured that reality.  Jordon’s story describes public school educators’ work across the country to serve the needs of children whose schooling has been delayed and interrupted by the journeys they and their families have undertaken.

While legislators have been haggling over the state budgets that generally underfund our public schools, and while our U.S. Secretary of Education and her fellow advocates promote various kinds of school vouchers and privately operated charter schools, Jordan describes the hard work of school district professionals trying to serve the needs of immigrant students who may worry about threatened ICE raids, who may have survived harrowing border crossings, or who may have endured long stays in the detention centers where children are being warehoused.

The 1982, U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plyler v. Doe protects the right of every child living in the United States to a free and accessible public education. Jordan writes: “Under a 1982 Supreme Court decision, all children, regardless of immigration status, are entitled to a K through 12 education. With hundreds of thousands of new parents and children crossing the border in recent months, districts across the country are having to transfer teachers to affected schools, expand bilingual training for staff and prepare for students who may be traumatized.”

Most of us are satisfied not to think too much about what happens to immigrant children at school.  Maybe we just assume that public schools will somehow take care of the needs of these children; many of us are willing to criticize schools when the children fail to learn English or catch up with their studies in a mere matter of months.  Few of us try to imagine CONTINUE READING: Despite Cruel Conditions at the Border and Threatened ICE Raids, Educators Across U.S. Strive to Serve Immigrant Children | janresseger