Charter School Oversight Remains Weak | Dissident Voice

Charter School Oversight Remains Weak | Dissident Voice

Charter School Oversight Remains Weak

In 2016, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called for a moratorium on new charter schools, citing many problems with these privatized schools, including poor performance, extensive waste, widespread segregation, and inadequate accountability.

Oversight, transparency, accountability, and good governance have never been the strong suits of charter schools or charter school authorizers. Both have been poor stewards of the public interest for more than a generation.

A new report confirms what many already know about chronically poor oversight in the segregated charter school sector.

The report, titled “Improving Oversight of Michigan Charter Schools and Their Authorizers,” was released February 2020 by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan (founded in 1961).  It reminds the public that charter school authorizers in Michigan are essentially useless, despite years of scandalous news about charter schools coming out of Michigan.

Quality charter schools are elusive in Michigan. Poor performance is widespread. And parents and government officials are constantly overwhelmed by the chaos and anarchy unleashed by the presence of hundreds of charter schools competing with each other and with public schools. Competition has brought out the worse in everyone and everything. It has lowered the level for everyone and left communities worse off.

Michigan, however, is not unique with its endless charter school problems: “market accountability” has undermined democratic accountability and quality education across the entire charter school sector. Thus, for example, waste, fraud, and corruption plague not only Michigan but the entire charter school sector.¹ Every day, news reports expose racketeering, insider deals, CONTINUE READING: Charter School Oversight Remains Weak | Dissident Voice

Human Capital Markets, Digital Identity, & the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals – Wrench in the Gears

Human Capital Markets, Digital Identity, & the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals – Wrench in the Gears

Human Capital Markets, Digital Identity, & the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

The following is a presentation that I had planned to make as an invited guest at Big Ocean Women’s Many Waves, One Ocean gathering in coordination with the 2020 United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Due to the pandemic, the conference and all related events were cancelled. A decision was made for those who had been asked to present to create a presentation that could be shared online. The video below was created for that purpose.

Below is the text I read from during the above presentation.

Hello everyone. Welcome to “Many Waves, One Ocean Cross Movement Summit.” I’m Alison McDowell, a mom and independent researcher in Philadelphia who blogs at wrenchinthegears.com. I started my activism around public education, first fighting standardized testing, then ed-tech, and eventually realized the push by global finance to turn everything into data for the purpose of digital surveillance and profit meant I had to expand my work beyond schools and start digging into the global poverty management complex.

I organize with the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, an independent anti-poverty group that is led by the poor and does not take CONTINUE READING: Human Capital Markets, Digital Identity, & the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals – Wrench in the Gears

More than 1.3 million K-12 students in U.S. now affected by school closings related to coronavirus - The Washington Post

More than 1.3 million K-12 students in U.S. now affected by school closings related to coronavirus - The Washington Post

More than 1.3 million K-12 students in U.S. now affected by school closings related to coronavirus

The number of K-12 students in the United States whose schools have closed or are scheduled to be because of the spread of the novel coronavirus is now more than 1.3 million, according to one comprehensive tally.

Around the world, the number of students whose education has been interrupted by the virus has soared to nearly 377 million students, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO.

The World Health Organization says that the number of confirmed cases of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has surpassed 126,000 people, and that more than 4,600 have died. The death toll in the United States had reached 38 by early Thursday, with more than 1,3000 cases diagnosed and experts warning that they expect the crisis to worsen in the next few weeks.

As of Thursday, UNESCO reported, 26 countries have shuttered schools and universities, impacting almost 376.9 million children and youths. That was several million more students than the day before, showing the continuing impact from the spread of the coronavirus.

An additional 20 countries have had localized school closures to prevent or contain the spread of the virus, UNESCO said, and if they all went to nationwide closures, more than 500 million more students would be affected.

The United States has seen a rapid rise in the number of students affected by school closures as a result of the spread of the coronavirus, according to a tally being kept by Education Week.

On Wednesday, the number of K-12 students affected by schools that have closed or were scheduled to CONTINUE READING: More than 1.3 million K-12 students in U.S. now affected by school closings related to coronavirus - The Washington Post

How to keep students learning and communities calm — from Harvard experts https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/03/11/how-keep-students-learning-communities-calm-harvard-experts/

As coronavirus spreads, so does misinformation — a news literacy lesson  https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/03/11/coronavirus-spreads-so-does-misinformation-news-literacy-lesson/

St. Paul Educators are Striking Because their Students are Suffering | Schott Foundation for Public Education

St. Paul Educators are Striking Because their Students are Suffering | Schott Foundation for Public Education

St. Paul Educators are Striking Because their Students are Suffering

The dedicated educators in St. Paul, MN that went on strike Tuesday know full well that it takes wraparound supports for the city’s neediest children to have a fair and substantive opportunity to learn. They’ve gone on strike after ten months of failed contract negotiations because their students are suffering—and their #1 demand is more mental health supports. We see their fierce determination as an act of love.

Unicorn Riot@UR_Ninja

St Paul, MN: public #schools are closed today, March 10, due to the @SPFE28 teacher's union strike.

We spoke with some of the strikers, who told us their #1 demand is more #MentalHealth support for their students, some of whom "face tremendous trauma in their day-to-day lives."

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As Labor Notes reports:

“There are so many kids with so many issues,” said middle school teacher Leah Van Dassor. “Kids are depressed because they have problems at home. They don’t have anyone to talk to.”

St. Paul Federation of Educators (SPFE) Vice President Erica Schatzlein sees a wide range of needs in her work as an elementary teacher with English language learners.

“A students that had a parent pass away, instead of acting out, becomes completely withdrawn,” she said. A newly homeless student “has a meltdown, and I have to evacuate the classroom.”

In addition to its mental health demands, the union is asking for more bilingual teacher’s aides and limits on class size for special education.

“It’s too bad that all these important social services fall on the shoulder of the schools, but they do,” said Van Dassor, who is also on the bargaining team. “We have to try to figure out a way to help.”

To systematize this greater, holistic understanding of public schools and movements working to improve them, Schott released the Loving Cities Index. The Index measures access to 24 community and school-based supports, from clean air to unemployment, from healthy food to public transit.

Key measures in the Loving Cities Index include in-school support staff and mental health supports — and it's going to take broad and dynamic grassroots movements to move the needle.

Demands like these are part and parcel of a longstanding grassroots effort to create CONTINUE READING: St. Paul Educators are Striking Because their Students are Suffering | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Florida: House Passes Bill to Protect “Parents’ Rights” vs. School System | Diane Ravitch's blog

Florida: House Passes Bill to Protect “Parents’ Rights” vs. School System | Diane Ravitch's blog

Florida: House Passes Bill to Protect “Parents’ Rights” vs. School System

The Florida House passed a bill to protect “parents’ rights” against decisions by the school system.

The House advanced sweeping, if aspirational, legislation codifying a parent’s “bill of rights” on Monday. The vote in favor was 77-41.

The House version (CS/HB 1059), sponsored by Rep. Erin Grall, now includes a technical amendment that reaffirmed parental rights to any type of school (public, private, and even home schooling).

Another Grall amendment vouchsafed parental rights to spike objectionable instructional material “based on beliefs regarding morality, sex, and religion or the belief that such materials are harmful.”

The amendments offered reassured some Democratic critics of the bill, but not enough to earn their votes.

Parents already have the right to home school or send their children to private schools.

This bill would give parents the right to “protect” their children from topics that are objectionable to their CONTINUE READING: Florida: House Passes Bill to Protect “Parents’ Rights” vs. School System | Diane Ravitch's blog

Is Penn Foster High School Diploma Legit ?

Is Penn Foster High School Diploma Legit ?

Is Penn Foster High School Diploma Legit ?

Let us discuss few most asked questions like Is Penn Foster good, Is it’s High School Diploma legit and how about the legitimacy of other online courses it offers.

Penn Foster is your online education partner that helps you learn on the go. We know you want to learn but something or the other pulls you away from the thought. Well, not anymore! Whether it is your current work responsibility or family liabilities, Penn Foster allows you to learn and grow while you cater to all other things on your plate.

Online Education – An Alien Concept?

It is 2020 and we all have at least heard about online education. The phrase “online education” is as luring as it is scary.

There is a prevailing idea that suggests online education is not as good as education from a traditional setting. Though, the idea is fading away but quite gradually. This myth needs to be broken.

Today, more and more youngsters wish to rely on online education. And although, they want to depend on flexible options, fear of investing in an illegitimate option CONTINUE READING: Is Penn Foster High School Diploma Legit ?

Big Education Ape: Another Study: Students Experience Academic Decline in Virtual Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog - 
https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/03/another-study-students-experience.html

Why It Might Matter To Close Your School – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Why It Might Matter To Close Your School – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Why It Might Matter To Close Your School

It’s understandable to look at the fatality and even incidence rate of Covid-19 here in Los Angeles and think:

“Huh?  Why the panic; far, far more people die of the flu annually, and we’re all healthy here. A little cold’s no big deal, most people will survive, particularly kids, and besides, I have no way to care for (or feed) the kids during the daytime.”

There are a lot of issues in there to unpack, but most importantly, the considerations surrounding school closure are not about individual risk or anyone’s personal chance of survival. At issue is a sensible, effective public health response to a local health emergency and a global pandemic.

The concern is that those who do suffer adverse effects from the novel coronavirus will need access to hospitals, hospital beds, ventilators and a sizable medical staff. With huge estimates of the ultimately infected population, if transmission happens too rapidly, the health infrastructure could be overrun and vital care unavailable when a lot of people need it.

That is why slowing the spread of Covid-19 is so important. Public health CONTINUE READING: Why It Might Matter To Close Your School – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Today’s New Resources For Teaching Online If Schools Are Closed | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Today’s New Resources For Teaching Online If Schools Are Closed | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

TODAY’S NEW RESOURCES FOR TEACHING ONLINE IF SCHOOLS ARE CLOSED

Seattle schools and other announced closures today, and it looks like things will only get worse.

Here are new additions to The Best Advice On Teaching K-12 Online (If We Have To Because Of The Coronavirus) – Please Make More Suggestions!:

Coronavirus Has Led to a Rush of Online Teaching. Here’s Some Advice for Newly Remote Instructors is from Ed Surge.

Coronavirus is poised to inflame inequality in schools is from The Hechinger Report.

What Happened When Hong Kong’s Schools Went Virtual to Combat the Spread of Coronavirus is from Smithsonian Magazine.

Separated By A Screen? Advice For Online Teaching Amid The Coronavirus Outbreak is from WBUR.

On a different note, The NY Times Learning Network’s Coronavirus Resources: Teaching, Learning and Thinking Critically is a great source for teaching about the virus. I’m adding it to A Beginning List Of The Best Resources For Learning About The Coronavirus.

Today’s New Resources For Teaching Online If Schools Are Closed | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

CURMUDGUCATION: Administration Matters

CURMUDGUCATION: Administration Matters

Administration Matters

This tweet turned up the other day.

Fixing Education@FixingEducation

I interviewed a teacher who is leaving the profession in June. I asked her why she was quitting.

Her response:
“I was told to teach to the test...that if it’s not a test-taking skill, don’t teach it. I didn’t become a teacher to help kids become better test-takers.”#EdChat

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I wish the teacher hadn't slipped into passive vice. I wish she had said, "Principal Testy McScoresuck told me to teach to the test." Because administrators like this need to be outed. They need to be held up before the world as people helping to facilitate the creeping educational malpractice rooted in high stakes testing.

A manager's job-- and not just the management of a school, but any manager-- is to create the system, environment and supports that get his people to do their very best work. When it rains, it's the manager's job to hold an umbrella over his people. When the wind starts blowing tree limbs across the landscape, it's the manager's job to stand before the storm and bat the debris away. And when the Folks at the Top start sending down stupid directives, it's a manager's job to protect his people the best he possibly can.

NCLB, Race to the Top, Common Core, the high stakes Big Standardized Tests-- each of these bad policies is bad for many reason, but the biggest one is this: instead of helping teachers do their jobs, these policies interfere with teachers doing their jobs, even mandate doing their jobs badly. In each case a bunch of educational amateurs pushed their way into schools and said, "You're doing it all wrong from now on, you have to do it like this," like medically untrained non-doctors barging into a surgical CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Administration Matters

John White Is Officially Out; Deputy Beth Scioneaux Becomes La.’s Acting Superintendent | deutsch29

John White Is Officially Out; Deputy Beth Scioneaux Becomes La.’s Acting Superintendent | deutsch29

John White Is Officially Out; Deputy Beth Scioneaux Becomes La.’s Acting Superintendent

March 11, 2020, marked John White’s last day as Louisiana superintendent.

On his Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) bio, White began sometime between March 2019 and July 2019 to identify himself as “the longest serving state education chief in the nation.”

He does not mention the political maneuvering and insulation that brought him there and kept him there for eight years and two months.

Well, White’s political favor ran out during the 2019 BESE elections, and with the reelection of Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards to a second term, apparent behind-closed-door negotiations likely involving some of the same political forces that maneuvered to keep White in place for eight years made a deal which led to White’s resignation announcement on January 08, 2020, only days prior to Edwards’ second inauguration, on January 13, 2020.

Given that White tendered his resignation with “‘no plans’ for his immediate future,” his exit was not likely to be of his own doing. In 2017, Education Week found White to be the third highest paid education superintendent in the nation.

Education reform pays.

White’s annual salary was $283,384 in 2012 and has been $275,000 from 2013 to 2018, as per White’s annual financial disclosure reports (which can be found here). If White’s annual salary was also $275,000 in 2019 and $22,917 per month for his final two months, then that means Louisiana, with its average teacher pay falling in the national rankings, has paid its poltically-positioned, Teach for CONTINUE READING: John White Is Officially Out; Deputy Beth Scioneaux Becomes La.’s Acting Superintendent | deutsch29

solidaridad: Open Letter to LAUSD Board regarding Citizens of the World Charter School Corporation

solidaridad: Open Letter to LAUSD Board regarding Citizens of the World Charter School Corporation

Open Letter to LAUSD Board regarding Citizens of the World Charter School Corporation

A copy of this letter was sent to each individual member via email

March 11, 2020

Dear Members of the Board of Education:

I am an educational rights attorney and law professor here in Los Angeles. I am writing you regarding the Citizens of the World Charter School Corporation (“CWC Corp.”), an alleged non-profit benefit corporation that operates a number of privately managed charter schools authorized by the Los Angeles Unified School District (“LAUSD”).

CWC Corp. is currently trying to occupy a portion of a public school, Shirley Avenue Elementary School, under the provisions of Proposition 39. I will not discuss the myriad flaws, inequities, and attendant problems associated with Proposition 39 in this communication. I do, however, want to ask you to put off any consideration of allowing CWC Corp. to move forward with its hostile occupation of a public school while they have seemingly repeatedly refused to pay their legally obligated bills to LAUSD.

As you know, charter school corporations utilizing Proposition 39 to force their hostile occupations of public schools are obligated to pay over-allocation fees in certain circumstances. CWC Corp. currently owes LAUSD hundreds of thousands of dollars in over-allocation fees. Before allowing them any further opportunities to continue operating in bad faith, LAUSD should collect all payments past due and obtain written assurances from CWC Corp. that they will pay their obligations in the future.

Children in Los Angeles public schools are starved for resources. Our students go without school librarians, full-time health-care professionals, adequate access to services, etc. Meanwhile, just three years ago, CWC Corp.’s Executive Director Mark Kleger-Heine received a staggering salary of over $231,000.00 USD (see CWC Corp.’s 2017 Form 990 Part VII). This disparity of resources is by design, and underlies the purpose of the charter school industry. Public school students go without, while charter school executives collect fat checks.

As a member of the LAUSD Board of Education, I hope you will turn your attention to resolving this matter not only with CWC Corp., but with all of the charter school corporations that are in arrears in their over-allocation fee payments with LAUSD.

-rds

solidaridad: Open Letter to LAUSD Board regarding Citizens of the World Charter School Corporation

This and that | Deborah Meier on Education

This and that | Deborah Meier on Education

This and that

Dear friends and colleagues,

I am hoping, maybe unrealistically, that I can walk well enough to ring doorbells by the fall. Even if not for Warren or, I have not given up yet – Sanders. It will make me feel less useless.

And while I immensely enjoy visits to and from family and friends, reading or listening to books and doing crossword puzzles — and slogging thru 100 emails et al a day (90% deles)—I miss being in the middle of the action.

Getting old however is better – I think – than the alternative.

Seeing almost all my friends in Chicago was wonderful. But the North Dakota Study Group gathering was frustrating for reasons that I’m sorting through. It is always good to see young and old education allies, but I felt uncomfortablyI out of synch with many of my “allies” on what our task today is. I will share my dilemma in my next blog.

I have committed to writing several essays and chapters  – focused on what schools could do to advance democracy. It boils down to “practicing it”. First and foremost, amongst the adults.

I have been reading manuscripts by teachers, and some recently published practitioner CONTINUE READING: This and that | Deborah Meier on Education

A Hidden History of Integration and the Shortage of Teachers of Color

A Hidden History of Integration and the Shortage of Teachers of Color

A Hidden History of Integration and the Shortage of Teachers of Color

Evelyn J. Chatmon, the first African American female assistant superintendent in Baltimore County Public Schools, grew up under Jim Crow in Maryland during the 1940s and 50s. Even though she could see the white elementary school from her house, she had to ride a bus for more than an hour to the black school, where there was no running water. Students drank from a ladle dipped into a bucket and used an outhouse, even in the bitter cold of winter.

But Chatmon also recalled that her educators were extraordinarily talented and provided her with excellent instruction despite the poor conditions.

“This is the hidden piece of history,” said Vanessa Siddle Walker, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of African American Educational Studies at Emory University and the president-elect of the American Educational Research Association. “What we’ve seen written about inequality and oppressive school conditions is all true, but it’s incomplete. It’s only part of the story.”

The script that was written, she said, is that segregated schools were all bad and “that nothing really good happened for black children until we desegregated them into white schools.”

That hidden history, that there were good educators and advocates within the all-black schools, she said, can also offer clues to the current shortage of teachers of color in America’s public schools today.

Exceptional Educators

According to Walker, the experience of Evelyn Chatmon was shared by many black students who had teachers of color before schools were desegregated. With limited professional options, many well-educated black people became teachers who ardently passed on a thirst for knowledge to their pupils. They developed rigorous curriculum that challenged and inspired them, and though society told black CONTINUE READING: A Hidden History of Integration and the Shortage of Teachers of Color