Students speak on DC schools, SBOE roles 8/15/19 – Education Town Hall Forum

Students speak on DC schools, SBOE roles 8/15/19 – Education Town Hall Forum

STUDENTS SPEAK ON DC SCHOOLS, SBOE ROLES 8/15/19

Before DC students head back to school later this month, Education Town Hall was privileged to have in studio three DC public school students serving in a variety of roles both at their schools as well as with the DC State Board of Education (SBOE).

Show begins at 6:20 mark on this recording —

Valerie, Shayla, Alex, Maya, Thomas

Shayla Dell is a rising sophomore at Duke Ellington School of the Arts, studying vocal music, and has participated in classical singing competitions. As a student advocate, Ms. Dell has served on the student government association at Duke as well as the DCPS chancellor’s student cabinet and is a continuing member of the student advisory committee of the DC SBOE. (The student advisory committee is consulted by the state board on issues of policy before the board.)

Maya Gray is a rising senior at Benjamin Banneker Academic high school and a returning member of the SBOE’s student advisory committee. Having attended both DC public and charter schools, Ms. Gray has worked as a teen aide with DC Public Library, served as a member of the National Building Museum’s teen council, and completed internships with DC government agencies. She is also involved in a variety of sports and looks forward to a career in either architecture or veterinary medicine.

Alex O’Sullivan is a rising sophomore at BASIS DC. He is one of two student representatives CONTINUE READING: Students speak on DC schools, SBOE roles 8/15/19 – Education Town Hall Forum

CARL J. PETERSEN: State of Our Schools: Rudderless

State of Our Schools: Rudderless

State of Our Schools: Rudderless

That’s it?”
– Audience member’s reaction to Austin Beutner’s speech

As parents were making their final preparations to send their children back to school, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) leadership was gathering downtown last Thursday for the annual “State of Schools” event. After a breakfast in Grand Park provided by the Food Services Division (no, there was none of the Walmart surplus that is said to be part of the Breakfast in the Classroom program), principals, five out of the seven school board (Nick Melvoin and Kelly Gonez were conspicuously absent) and district bureaucrats headed to the Walt Disney Concert Hall for the headline event – a speech by Superintendent Austin Beutner.

Beutner started his speech by looking back at the most significant event of the past year – the strike by the District’s teachers. While acknowledging that many of the concessions won by United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) would be beneficial to the students, he did not explain why a work stoppage was necessary to achieve them. Nor did he accept responsibility for his part in creating animosity between the district and its workers that led to the strike.

From here, Beutner segued to the cost of providing the services CONTINUE READING: State of Our Schools: Rudderless

NYC Educator: Long Discredited, Merit Pay Dies in Newark

NYC Educator: Long Discredited, Merit Pay Dies in Newark

Long Discredited, Merit Pay Dies in Newark

I'll leave it to Jersey Jazzman, who's followed this far more closely than I have, to fill you in on chapter and verse. He does mention, though, that only 20% of those with a choice opted into the system, and that highly rated teachers were mostly found in the opt-out pool. I'd argue well-informed, smart people make the best teachers. Diane Ravitch has written extensively on merit pay, and states it's been around for over a hundred years, and has never worked anywhere.

Why on earth does it keep bouncing back? In a world looking for quick fixes and quick answers, it makes sense. If you're good, you should earn more money. The question then becomes how you measure who is good. The answer, usually, is via test scores. When I first started this blog, I assumed that test scores measured something. I've since evolved. I think it was Alfie Kohn who suggested what they actually measured was zip code.

I'm in a funny position. Someone told me recently that my students had very good test scores. Assuming that's true, it has very little to do with me and everything to do with the test. I'm rated on the NYSESLAT, and it appears that everyone is advanced, even if they know little to no English. Can't form present tense? Advanced. Can't write a coherent sentence? Advanced. Can't make basic conversation? Advanced.

So I'm a frigging genius, and all my students will go to the advanced class. Therefore, I deserve merit pay. However, the tests give, and the tests taketh away. Next year, NY State CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Long Discredited, Merit Pay Dies in Newark

Jeffrey Epstein, Apollo Global Management and IL TRS investments. – Fred Klonsky

Jeffrey Epstein, Apollo Global Management and IL TRS investments. – Fred Klonsky

JEFFREY EPSTEIN, APOLLO GLOBAL MANAGEMENT AND IL TRS INVESTMENTS

Pensions and Investments is reporting this morning:

CalPERS is pressing Apollo Global Management LLC, one of its private equity managers, over co-founder Leon Black’s relationship with registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“CalPERS takes this issue very seriously. The actions our general partners take, both in professional and private contexts, impact our assessment of which firms we desire as long-term partners,” said Megan White, spokeswoman for the $376 billion California Public Employees’ Retirement System, Sacramento, in an email.

While CalPERS is the largest pension system in the United States, they are not the only ones doing business with the shady Leon Black and Apollo Global Management.

Other retirement systems making commitments to Apollo within the past 18 months include the $152.5 billion Teacher Retirement System of Texas, $80.4 billion Virginia Retirement System, $29 billion Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System, $20.1 billion Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana and $2.6 billion Oklahoma Police Pension & Retirement System. Pension fund representatives either

What about the Illinois Teacher Retirement System? CONTINUE READING: Jeffrey Epstein, Apollo Global Management and IL TRS investments. – Fred Klonsky

NYC Public School Parents: High levels of lead in water still at many NYC schools; check to see if your child's school is on the list!

NYC Public School Parents: High levels of lead in water still at many NYC schools; check to see if your child's school is on the list!

High levels of lead in water still at many NYC schools; check to see if your child's school is on the list!

In all the news about peeling lead paint in schools, there has been little attention given to the fact that there were more than 500 NYC public schools and/or preK centers in which lead was found in the water above the “action” level of 15 parts per billion. 

The DOE spreadsheet showing the lead test results of water outlets in 534 schools is posted on this page.  DOE says that “One third of all schools were tested in this round, with the remainder of schools scheduled to be tested in 2019 and 2020.”  Of those 534 schools, more than 80% had at least one outlet with elevated levels of lead.  The detailed DOE spreadsheet is here. 

We created a new spreadsheet, adding tabs for fixtures found to have lead above the action level of 15 ppb sorted by district and by concentration (with outlets found to have the highest levels at the top).  The new spreadsheet is here.

Some of the schools with the highest levels are listed below, showing outlets with lead at 54 to 873 times the action level, with the most alarming results from a cold water faucet in the 4^th floor boys bathroom in Prospect HS.  This outlet emitted water with lead at an incredible 13,100 parts per billion.  In that same school as well, a hallway fountain (or “bubbler”) on the 3rd floor was found to emit water at 3,070 parts per billion. CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: High levels of lead in water still at many NYC schools; check to see if your child's school is on the list!

Hollywood Insiders Battle Over Charter Schools | Hollywood Reporter

Hollywood Insiders Battle Over Charter Schools | Hollywood Reporter

Hollywood Insiders Battle Over Charter Schools

 It's industry creatives vs. Reed Hastings as California bills restricting new options are up for vote: "The people backing charters [are] really problematic." 

When LAUSD board member and charter school advocate Ref Rodriguez pleaded guilty in July 2018 to a felony count of conspiracy, it seemed that Los Angeles' charter school movement had hit a critical low. Rodriguez's unraveling over campaign finance violations tipped the balance of power on the seven-member board that oversees the nation's second-largest school district, weakening its charter school block.

Tensions between proponents of public schools and of charter schools — which are started by parents, teachers or community groups and receive government funding but operate independently of state school systems — were already high. The January teachers' strike won concessions for LAUSD public schools ranging from smaller class sizes to hiring full-time nurses but was marked by heated anti-charter rhetoric. Critics of charters say they continue to drain

much-needed resources from public schools. "If LAUSD were properly funded, then I think the choice that a charter school gives would be a nice one," says writer Audrey Wauchope (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend). "Unfortunately, it often seems that going charter is now just another way for parents to leave behind their neighborhood school."

Public-school proponents contend that charters operate without sufficient oversight (proof of which came in May when California authorities arrested two men for allegedly stealing more than $50 million in state funds via a network of online charter schools). For their part, charter school CONTINUE READING: Hollywood Insiders Battle Over Charter Schools | Hollywood Reporter

Educating Voters About Jessie Ryan's Lack of Transparency - Sacramento City Teachers Association

Educating Voters About Jessie Ryan's Lack of Transparency - Sacramento City Teachers Association

Educating Voters About Jessie Ryan's Lack of Transparency

For the past several weeks, SCTA educators and other community allies have been talking to voters in School Board District, Area 7, currently represented by School Board President Jessie Ryan. The flyer being distributed is below.

Over the weekend, there were some questions raised about including the telephone number used to contact Ms. Ryan.

The number included was the one provided by Ms. Ryan to SCTA representatives on several occasions as her contact number. When this issue came up several months ago, SCTA specifically offered Ms. Ryan that an alternative number would be used if that was her preference. She did not provide an alternative.

School board members received a taxpayer-financed stipend from the District for their cell phone use.

Big Education Ape: District cuts mic on SCTA again in violation of the contract; what Jessie Ryan didn’t want to hear. - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/08/district-cuts-mic-on-scta-again-in.html

Educating Voters About Jessie Ryan's Lack of Transparency - Sacramento City Teachers Association

By teaching slavery adequately, we can overcome our history

By teaching slavery adequately, we can overcome our history

Slavery still shapes all of our lives, yet students aren’t taught its history
Glossing over America’s original sin means we can never overcome it

I had been taught, in school, through cultural osmosis, that the flag wasn’t really ours, that our history as a people began with enslavement and that we had contributed little to this great nation.”

Nikole Hannah-Jones wrote those words in her introductory essay to The 1619 Project, a special issue of The New York Times Magazine she edited that commemorates the 400-year anniversary of the arrival of 20 enslaved Africans who were sold into slavery to the shores of Virginia. Often referred to as America’s original sin, slavery is so pervasive that its residual effects can be found in everything from the stock exchange to our prison system. Slavery was instrumental in the formation of the United States. It’s crucial that we understand its inner workings and aftereffects; only then can we create a moral, economic and social roadmap to achieving our democratic ideals.

Under slavery, our ancestors were robbed of our liberty, of opportunity to gain wealth, an education, due process, and basic dignity — and all those thefts bolstered an American economy; it was built on the back of slave labor.

It’s past time all students learn why black and white Americans can expect very different life outcomes, so that they can unlearn the myths of America and the black stereotypes that bolstered those falsehoods.

Slavery may have ended 154 years ago, but its vestiges remain in our criminal justice system, in the systematic devaluation of our property, and in the harsh discipline to which we are disproportionately subjected. Even as black students stand and pledge allegiance to the flag, they know their country considers them second-class citizens. It’s past time all students learn why black and white Americans can expect very different life outcomes, so that they can unlearn the myths of America and the black stereotypes that bolstered those falsehoods.

The disconnect between students’ lived experiences and what they are taught in school is reinforced by the failure of our schools to properly teach about the institution of slavery. In a 2018 study, the anti-racist nonprofit the Southern Poverty Law Center surveyed high school seniors and social studies teachers and found that only 8 percent of the students surveyed could identify slavery as a central cause of the Civil War. Less than a quarter could identify how the U.S. Constitution gave advantages to slaveholders. And while most teachers (90 percent) claimed they were comfortable teaching about slavery, 58 percent stated their textbooks were inadequate, and 40 percent believed their respective states offered insufficient support CONTINUE READING: By teaching slavery adequately, we can overcome our history

School’s Open! Cartoons | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

School’s Open! Cartoons | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

School’s Open! Cartoons

Yep, it’s that time of year for buying school supplies, getting up early, and returning to school. Parents, children, principals, and teachers are preparing for that glorious first day of school. Here are some cartoonists’ jabs at the annual ritual of returning to school. Enjoy!

MORE CARTOONS: School’s Open! Cartoons | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Breaking the Gender Codes of Dress Codes | radical eyes for equity

Breaking the Gender Codes of Dress Codes | radical eyes for equity

Breaking the Gender Codes of Dress Codes

A popular meme in the wake of even more mass shootings makes a powerful, if somewhat hyperbolic, point:

DAVID MACK/BUZZFEED NEWS via TeenVogue

With most formal schooling restarting now, the dramatic consequences of gun violence is more likely to overshadow the more subtle negative and disproportionate impact of dress codes, especially on girls and young women as well as black and brown students.

When I raise the topic of dress code early in my foundations of education course, where students are required to tutor in a nearby school once a week, the young women invariably respond in ways that confirms what research has shown about the gender inequity of dress codes and how they are applied.

An early-career high school teacher and I were discussing her school and the new year starting with a different principal; she noted that principal is taking a different approach to the school’s dress code, specifically focusing on applying the existing code uniformly and more strictly.

She is concerned about the strictness, knowing that dress codes and their implementation tend to target girls more harshly than boys and perpetuate slut-shaming culture as well as placing the burden of “proper attire” on those girls instead of addressing toxic masculinity and sexism among the boy students. However, the consistency, she thinks, will be welcomed and much better for the students and the teachers.

Her next comment was important for me since she plans to ask the principal to re-examine the dress code next year, stressing that administrators and teachers need to explore the purposes of that dress CONTINUE READING: Breaking the Gender Codes of Dress Codes | radical eyes for equity

Jersey Jazzman: The Merit Pay Fairy Dies in Newark

Jersey Jazzman: The Merit Pay Fairy Dies in Newark

The Merit Pay Fairy Dies in Newark

Hey, youse bums -- get back to the teachin' already!

One of the long-running characters on this blog is the Merit Pay Fairy.

The Merit Pay Fairy lives in the dreams of right-wing think tanks and labor economists, who are absolutely convinced that our current teacher pay system -- based on seniority and educational attainment -- is keeping teachers from achieving their fullest potential. It matters little that even the most generous readings of the research find practically small effects* of switching to pay-for-performance systems, or that merit pay in other professions is quite rare (especially when it is based on the performance of others; teacher merit pay is, in many contexts, based on student, and not teacher, performance). 

Merit pay advocates also rarely acknowledge that adult developmental theory suggests that rewards later in life, such as higher pay, fulfill a need for older workers, or that messing with pay distributions has the potential to screw up the pool of potential teacher candidates, or that shifting pay from the bottom of the teacher "quality" distribution to the top -- and, really, that's what merit pay does -- still leaves policymakers with the problem of deciding which students get which teachers.

Issues like these, however, are at the core of any merit pay policy. Sure, pay-for-performance sounds great; it comports nicely with key concepts in economic theory. But when it comes time to implement it in an actual, real-world situation, you've got to confront a whole host of realities that theory doesn't address.

Which is what seems to have happened in Newark:

In 2012, Newark teachers agreed to a controversial new contract that linked their pay to student achievement — a stark departure from the way most teachers across the country are paid. 

The idea was to reward teachers for excellent performance, rather CONTINUE READING: Jersey Jazzman: The Merit Pay Fairy Dies in Newark

DeVos-Linked Adoption Agency Exposed Highly Sensitive Children's Medical Data - VICE

DeVos-Linked Adoption Agency Exposed Highly Sensitive Children's Medical Data - VICE

DeVos-Linked Adoption Agency Exposed Highly Sensitive Children's Medical Data
Bethany Christian Services left information about prospective adoptees' "intellectual development" as well as their medical histories and lab results online.

An adoption and foster care non-profit linked to the family of Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos exposed highly sensitive personal and medical information of dozens of children, Motherboard has learned.

The charity, called Bethany Christian Services, is one of the nation's largest adoption agencies and helps place children for adoption and foster care. It works with vulnerable children in the U.S. as well as refugees and immigrants.

"Our vision is to find a loving family for every child who needs one—that is where they thrive best," the group says on its website.

The exposed data was stored on PDFs openly available on its website. Some PDFs were called "Children Medical Examination Records" that included the names, dates of birth, the hospital or orphanage they were based in, and extremely sensitive medical information.

This includes a child's HIV status, number of teeth, lab test results, and whether the child has any physical deformities ("Spine: no deformity" "Liver: not palpable under the rib; "Anus: no abnormal findings" are examples of the data contained on the form). Other information exposed includes a "Growth Report" that explains the child's background and "motor skills and intellectual development." One notes that a child arrived "wearing yellow baby clothes and she was placed in a paper box" and that, between the age of 10 and 12 months, "she knows her name, can get biscuits, and feeds herself."

The charity has multiple connections to the DeVos family: Brian DeVos, a cousin of Betsy DeVos' husband, was a senior vice president at the CONTINUE READING: DeVos-Linked Adoption Agency Exposed Highly Sensitive Children's Medical Data - VICE

Q&A Collections: Education Policy Issues - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo - Education Week Teacher

Q&A Collections: Education Policy Issues - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo - Education Week Teacher

Q&A Collections: Education Policy Issues

During the summer, I will be sharing thematic posts bringing together responses on similar topics from the past eight years. You can see all those collections from the first seven years here.

Here are the ones I've posted so far:

This Year's Most Popular Q&A Posts

Race & Gender Challenges

Classroom-Management Advice

Best Ways to Begin the School Year

Best Ways to End the School Year

Implementing the Common Core

Student Motivation & Social-Emotional Learning

Teaching Social Studies

Cooperative & Collaborative Learning

Using Tech in the Classroom

Parent Engagement in Schools

Teaching English Language Learners

Reading Instruction

Writing Instruction

Today's theme is on Education Policy Issues. You can see the list following this excerpt from one ...CONTINUE READING: Q&A Collections: Education Policy Issues - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo - Education Week Teacher

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007 - http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/ on @Larryferlazzo

CURMUDGUCATION: KY: Starting the New Year With Threats Against Teachers

CURMUDGUCATION: KY: Starting the New Year With Threats Against Teachers

KY: Starting the New Year With Threats Against Teachers

Sadly, it's not unusual for teachers to start their new school year by being threatened, but even the worst administrators understand that it's useful to at least pretend that they think of teachers are respectable grown-up professionals. But in some districts, bosses go straight to thinly veiled warnings. And then there's those special rare occasions when teachers start the school year by being threatened by their state's governor.

Welcome to Kentucky.

All discussions of teacher upset in Kentucky have to start with one important reminder-- teachers in Kentucky will get absolutely nothing from Social Security when they retire (surprised? There are fourteen other states where that is true).

So when you mess with teacher pensions in Kentucky, you are threatening teachers' entire future.

The recurring strikes in the newly right-to-work state of Kentucky have been about issues related to the teacher pension, an always-tender subject, as it is possibly one of the worst-funded pensions in the country. So, in  2018 it was about a sneaky attempt to kneecap the pension fund. And in 2019, it was about an attempt to strip the Kentucky Education Association of its power on the pension board. This is a logical next step in a right-to-work state that is just flexing its muscles and trying to  disempower the teachers union. Some media dutifully note that KEA "only" represents 43,000 active and retired teachers, without providing the context that there are just under 43,000 teachers are working in Kentucky.

The state wants to give more power to the Kentucky Association of Professional Educators, one of CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: KY: Starting the New Year With Threats Against Teachers

New Orleans: An Amazing Feat of Spinning Poor Results! | Diane Ravitch's blog

New Orleans: An Amazing Feat of Spinning Poor Results! | Diane Ravitch's blog

New Orleans: An Amazing Feat of Spinning Poor Results!

The Education Research Alliance at Tulane University has accomplished a spectacular feat with its latest report about the “academic progress” (or lack thereof) of the all-charter district in New Orleans. The report claims that the disruption strategy of school takeovers and closures is responsible for the academic improvements in the district, but at the same time admits “The average school improved from the first to the second year after it opened, but school performance remained mostly flat afterwards. Schools starting off above the state average saw slightly declining performance in later years.” Furthermore, “quality peaked around 2013 and has either stagnated or started to decline during 2014-2016.”

So, here is the New Orleans model: Close almost all public schools. Replace them with private charters. Fire all the teachers. Replace most of the teachers with inexperienced, ill-trained TFA recruits. Close low-performing charters and replace them with other charters. Keep disrupting and churning. In the first two years, scores will go up, then stall. By year eight, “quality” will stagnate or decline. The schools will be highly stratified and racially segregated. The few high-performing schools will have selective admissions.

Here is the report, released this morning.

This report should be read in tandem with the latest state scores, which shows the all-charter district lagging far below state average scores, actually declining. Most charter schools in New Orleans, as detailed in this link prepared by a pro-charter organization, are very low-performing. The high-scoring schools have selective admissions.

New Orleans is one of the lowest performing districts in one of the lowest-performing states.It is a model of how privatization increases stratification and segregation. It should not be copied elsewhere.

But the report claims the success of the venture in school CONTINUE READING: New Orleans: An Amazing Feat of Spinning Poor Results! | Diane Ravitch's blog