The LAUSD’s 2019 Report Card - Carl J. Petersen - Medium

The LAUSD’s 2019 Report Card - Carl J. Petersen - Medium

The LAUSD’s 2019 Report Card

“The strike that nobody wanted is now behind us”
- Austin Beutner

When I predicted that the charter industry’s recapturing of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Board would bring a level of chaos not seen in the district since the days of the iPad debacle, the MiSiS Crisis and other John Deasy disasters, I had no idea how quickly this would occur. Within months of taking control, Board Member Ref Rodriguez, a former charter school operator, was under criminal indictment. Before he could be forced from office, he and his cohorts operated behind closed doors to hire Austin Beutner as the new Superintendent. The country’s second-largest school district would be led by a man whose resume was filled with failures and lacked any professional experience in the field of education.

As 2019 began, the effects of this chaos were in full swing. Rodriguez was gone, but his cohorts had blocked the appointment of Jackie Goldberg as a temporary replacement, leaving one-seventh of the district unrepresented. The charter industry had also blocked a proposal to put a parcel tax on the general election ballot, depriving the district’s students of needed funding. Their allies in the Los Angeles County Office of Education then threatened a takeover of the district based on manufactured warnings of impending economic doom. Beutner had botched negotiations with the CONTINUE READING: The LAUSD’s 2019 Report Card - Carl J. Petersen - Medium

Shawgi Tell: Opposing Charter Schools Equals Defending the Common Good | Dissident Voice

Opposing Charter Schools Equals Defending the Common Good | Dissident Voice

Opposing Charter Schools Equals Defending the Common Good

There is no shortage of convoluted and bizarre “arguments” for creating and multiplying privately-operated non-profit and for-profit charter schools.

The rich and their conscious and anti-conscious allies in politics, the media, think tanks, higher education, and many other spheres have spent an astonishing amount of time, energy, and money promoting and imposing privately-operated non-profit and for-profit charter schools on society.

The crux of these top-down antisocial efforts is to advance a capital-centered outlook and agenda by erasing a human-centered outlook and agenda. Charter schools represent the partial victory of narrow private interests over the public interest. In this sense, charter schools are a big step backward for society.

Since their inception several decades ago, privately-operated non-profit and for-profit charter schools have functioned effectively as pay-the-rich schemes while self-servingly posing as arrangements that “benefit the kids.” They have funneled billions of public dollars to private interests with impunity. They CONTINUE READING: Opposing Charter Schools Equals Defending the Common Good | Dissident Voice

NIA Today is the fifth day of Kwanzaa – Parenting for Liberation #P4LKWANZAA

NIA – Parenting for Liberation

Habari Gani?  Nia!

Today is the fifth day of Kwanzaa, a week-long celebration that honors African heritage of the Black Diaspora. We will be highlighting the importance of the seven core principles of Kwanzaa, how you can practice in your families and communities, and share how Parenting for Liberation work embodies the tenets of each principle. 

Today, on the fifth day of Kwanzaa, we celebrate Nia (Purpose) which is to make our collective vocation the building & developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

One way Parenting for Liberation practices purpose is by holding space for Black families to learn from from historical role models who lived a purpose driven life, such as Harriet Tubman.

What this video below of our “Harriet” private screening CONTINUE READING: NIA – Parenting for Liberation

Unvaccinated Seattle Students Could Be Barred From School In The New Year | HuffPost

Unvaccinated Seattle Students Could Be Barred From School In The New Year | HuffPost

Unvaccinated Seattle Students Could Be Barred From School In The New Year
Washington state has eliminated exemptions for the MMR vaccine on personal and philosophical grounds.

Students in Washington state’s largest school system who have not met their vaccination requirements will not be allowed back at school next week, according to school officials.

Seattle Public Schools has informed parents they have until Jan. 8 to provide proof that their children have received the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine or else file for a religious or medical exemption. Any students whose parents don’t do this will not be allowed to attend classes.

In May, the state of Washington passed a bill that eliminated exemptions for the MMR vaccine on personal and philosophical grounds. The bill, which applies to public and private school students and to kids in child care, took effect in July. Volunteers and people employed by child care centers must also be vaccinated.

The state experienced two measles outbreaks in 2019, with a combined 87 cases. It was the most cases Washington had seen since 1990, according to the state’s Department of Health.

The Seattle school system, which reports more than 53,000 enrolled students, has been reminding families about the new requirement since the start of the school year in CONTINUE READING: Unvaccinated Seattle Students Could Be Barred From School In The New Year | HuffPost

Recommended: Literacy Crises: False Claims and Real Solutions, Jeff McQuillan | radical eyes for equity

Recommended: Literacy Crises: False Claims and Real Solutions, Jeff McQuillan | radical eyes for equity

Recommended: Literacy Crises: False Claims and Real Solutions, Jeff McQuillan

Recently, I have been (frantically but carefully) drafting a new book for IAP about the current “science of reading” version of the Reading War: How to End the Reading War and Serve the Literacy Needs of All Students: A Primer for Parents, Policy Makers, and People Who Care.

Those familiar with this blog and my scholarly work should be aware that I often ground my examinations of education in a historical context, drawing heavily on the subject of my dissertation, Lou LaBrant. The book I am writing begins in earnest, in fact, with “Chapter 1: A Historical Perspective of the Reading War: 1940s and 1990s Editions.”

As I have posted here, the “science of reading” over-reaction to reading and dyslexia across mainstream media as well as in state-level reading legislation has a number of disturbing parallels with the claims of a reading crisis in the 1980s and 1990s. Few people, I explained, are aware of the 1997 report authored by Linda Darling-Hammond on NAEP, reading achievement in the U.S., and the positive correlations with whole language (WL) practices and test scores.

I imagine even fewer  education journalists and political leaders have read a powerful and important work about that literacy crisis in the 1990s, Literacy Crises: False Claims and Real Solutions by Jeff McQuillan.

In his Chapter 1, “What Isn’t Wrong with Reading: Seven Myths about CONTINUE READING: Recommended: Literacy Crises: False Claims and Real Solutions, Jeff McQuillan | radical eyes for equity

It's Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... A VERY BUSY DAY | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

It's Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... A VERY BUSY DAY | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

“Elements of an Effective Math Lesson”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 11h

Elements of an Effective Math Lesson is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. In it, teachers explain how creative math lessons can spring from students’ surrounding environments and culture such as the cost of the Thanksgiving meal and the search for “math selfies.” Here are some excerpts:

Interactive: “In search of refuge”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 11h

12019 / Pixabay In Search of Refuge that is designed for “Mapping forced displacement from 1951 to 2017.” I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About World Refugee Day .

A Look Back: “What Do School Reform Technocrats and Failed Urban Renewal Schemes Have in Common?”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 11h

I thought that new – and veteran – readers might find it interesting if I began sharing my best posts from over the years. You can see the entire collection here . Today, I’m highlighting a piece I wrote in The Huffington Post over several years ago, What Do School Reform Technocrats and Failed Urban Renewal Schemes Have in Common? Here’s an excerpt:

Every School District Staffperson In Charge Of Curriculum Adoption Should Read This Piece Explaining Why We Teachers Tend To Not Use The Materials

by Larry Ferlazzo / 16h

Dylan Wiliam shared an incredibly important piece on Twitter explaining how Districts screw-up adopting materials, including technology. To start off with, here are a couple of tweets: Because they tend to be bad? https://t.co/qCKr6UZrGK — Larry Ferlazzo (@Larryferlazzo) December 31, 2019 Really, monumentally bad. — Tom Rademacher (@MrTomRad) December 31, 2019 Why aren’t teachers using the resour

The Best Resources To Help Educators Teach ELL Newcomers

by Larry Ferlazzo / 18h

geralt / Pixabay Obviously, a ton of other “Best” lists are useful to teachers of ELL Newcomers, including: The Best Online Resources For Teachers of Pre-Literate ELL’s & Those Not Literate In Their Home Language (which also 

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

Grassroots Education Network- December 2019 Newsletter - Network For Public Education

Grassroots Education Network- December 2019 Newsletter - Network For Public Education

Grassroots Education Network- December 2019 Newsletter

The NPE Grassroots Education Network is a network of over 150 grassroots organizations nationwide who have joined together to preserve, promote, improve, and strengthen our public schools. If you know of a group that would like to join this powerful network, please go here to sign on. 

If you have any questions about the NPE Grassroots Education Network please contact Marla Kilfoyle, NPE Grassroots Education Network Liaison at marlakilfoyle@networkforpubliceducation.org

Notes from Marla

I want to wish everyone a prosperous and productive 2020. I hope to see you all at the NPE Action National Conference in March. Registration is still open but please remember that seats are limited this year to 500, so DO NOT delay your registration. Go here to register and book your hotel. There are fewer than 60 discounted hotel rooms left on Friday and Saturday nights.  

Our next newsletter will be the New Year Edition. Please email me your most important accomplishment in 2019. Let’s show the nation how much we were able to accomplish without being bought off by privatizers!

Public Schools Week will be held from February 24th-28th. Start planning NOW by doing the following:

• Begin to ask your Governor, state and federal lawmakers, Mayor, City Council, or Board of Education to adopt a resolution in support of Public Education. Begin to do this now. You can adopt, edit, or modify this resolution from The School Superintendents Association. If you get a resolution please send it to Marla Kilfoyle at marlakilfoyle@networkforpubliceducation.org and we will forward it along.
  
• National organizations please cut a three-minute video that encourages your members to participate in Public Schools Week. Here are the instructions for the video. To see sample videos please go here.  
  
• Please share and ask your members to take the pledge in support of Public Schools week. You can do that here.
  
• Please consider hosting an event. Starting planning NOW and register your event here  
• To learn more about Public Schools Week, messaging for 2020 and the #PublicSchoolProud campaign please go here and the toolkit has all kinds of amazing things you can do to support the week on social media.

National Organizing CONTINUE READING: Grassroots Education Network- December 2019 Newsletter - Network For Public Education

Fulfilling FDR’s Dream: His Second Bill of Rights | Diane Ravitch's blog

Fulfilling FDR’s Dream: His Second Bill of Rights | Diane Ravitch's blog

Fulfilling FDR’s Dream: His Second Bill of Rights

I have engaged in a heated exchange off line with people who are upset about taxing billionaires. They feel sure that taxing the 1% or the .00025% is a slippery slope, and soon enough we will all pay taxes so high that we will have to give up our homes.

This is a good time, I think, to revisit Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1944 State of the Union Address. FDR came from the landed gentry but he somehow developed an acute social conscience.

Here is an excerpt from that speech, in which he described the “second Bill of Rights,” what he called “an economic bill of rights.”

He said, as he looked forward to the day when the World War came to an end:

It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some CONTINUE READING: Fulfilling FDR’s Dream: His Second Bill of Rights | Diane Ravitch's blog

Teacher Tom: Love Is The Only Revolutionary Force

Teacher Tom: Love Is The Only Revolutionary Force

Love Is The Only Revolutionary Force

Psychologist Carl Jung wrote, "Where love rules there is not will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking." This, I think, is an important thing upon which modern educators in general, and early childhood educators in particular, could stand to meditate.

I strive to place love at the center of my practice, as I know is true of most of my colleagues. We genuinely love the children we teach and they love us. I've witnessed this to be widely true wherever I've visited. It's perhaps our greatest reward (because it sure isn't financial). When it goes as it should, we spend our days loving and being loved, swimming in it, breathing it. Our job is to keep them safe and to otherwise simply be there, loving them and helping them as they figure out how to connect with, to love, more people. This is the foundation of not just all learning, but all living in the fullest sense of the word.

When I look at our habitual idea of schooling, I see a lot of loving individual teachers working in a system in which love has been pushed to the side, and where power therefore CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: Love Is The Only Revolutionary Force

NYC Educator: Why Isn't Every School Like Brooklyn Tech?

NYC Educator: Why Isn't Every School Like Brooklyn Tech?

Why Isn't Every School Like Brooklyn Tech?

Let me say this first--I adore AOC. I think she's wonderful. I would vote for her against just about anyone. I think she's brilliant. She asked a question, though, comparing schools, at a forum in Brooklyn. While I think she's got great intentions, I'm a little surprised. To me at least, the answer is obvious.

Why can't every school be like Brooklyn Tech? I mean, you go there, and everyone says wow, you got into that elite high school. You must've done really well on that test. Probably you studied for it. In fact, I know people with elementary-age children right now, already engaged in studying for Brooklyn Tech, or one of the handful of schools AOC refers to.

Now it would be great if every school in the city carried that level of prestige. Maybe then we wouldn't be targeted by scumbags like Giuliani and Bloomberg (but I'm a dreamer). You'd better believe they send their kids to elite private schools so they don't have to mix with the bootless and unhorsed like you, me and AOC. After all, you don't want Bloomberg's spawn smudging their ascots on the way to the limo.

I've got nothing but respect for kids who get into NYC's magnet schools. However, they do have one thing in common with the ones rich kids go to--they are selective. Why can't every school be like Brooklyn Tech? Because we aren't. We take absolutely everyone, regardless of test scores or ability. I teach newcomers. In fact, my students are all beginners. As far as I know, Brooklyn Tech doesn't accept them at all.

Our school has a program for non-diploma bound students. We send some of them to retail outlets where they learn to do jobs. Last I heard, their failure to graduate was counted against us. All due respect to Brooklyn Tech, I'd argue we deserve credit for helping needy children. There's more to life than passing tests, and there's more to humanity than CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Why Isn't Every School Like Brooklyn Tech?

NYC Public School Parents: Breaking: Our class size appeal will be heard on Jan. 13 in Albany!

NYC Public School Parents: Breaking: Our class size appeal will be heard on Jan. 13 in Albany!

Breaking: Our class size appeal will be heard on Jan. 13 in Albany!

Big news just announced today: Our class size lawsuit vs NYC and NY State, Agostini vs. Elia, will finally be heard on Monday, January 13 at 1 PM in the Appellate Court in Albany.

Last spring, May 23, 2019 , attorney Wendy Lecker of the Education Law Center filed our appeal on behalf of nine NYC parents, Class Size Matters and the Alliance for Quality Education.  We sued the State Education Commissioner and the Chancellor, and urged the Appellate court to order the NYC Department of Education to reduce class size in all grades as the Contracts for Excellence law requires.

Our original lawsuit, Agostini vs. Elia, was filed in April 2018 when then-NYS Education Commissioner Elia refused to take action to enforce the Contracts for Excellence law in response to our original complaint.

The C4E law was first approved in 2007 and required NYC to lower class size; instead class sizes increased sharply and remain at levels far higher than when that law was passed.

Yet in December 2018, Acting Supreme Court Judge Henry Zwack ruled against us in a skimpy decision that engaged with CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Breaking: Our class size appeal will be heard on Jan. 13 in Albany!

CANCELLING CONGRATULATIONS | The Merrow Report

CANCELLING CONGRATULATIONS | The Merrow Report

CANCELLING CONGRATULATIONS

Dear Friend,

Last week I congratulated you for earning enough money to allow you to give generously to deserving non-profit organizations.  As I told you then, I hired a high tech firm to crunch the data from my 5,000 person mailing list.  Well, one person (not you) was outraged that I had spent my money invading the privacy of friends and others.

LIGHTEN UP!  THAT WAS A JOKE! 

I did not spend my own money to dig into your personal space.  I used a gift certificate given to me by a friend in Silicon Valley.  And, by the way, it wasn’t all that expensive.

THAT’S ANOTHER JOKE!  Invasive data-crunching is very expensive.  It actually costs a surprising amount per person.  But it’s worth it because now I can sell the information to marketing firms, which means that I may end up making a profit, a nice way to end the year, I’d say.

THAT’S ANOTHER JOKE!  I will barely break even selling your data.  My data-cruncher told me that only 1,271 of you are capable of making ‘significant’ donations, and, CONTINUE READING: CANCELLING CONGRATULATIONS | The Merrow Report