New York City’s Charter School Showdown Reignites National Debate on Privatized Education | Democracy Now!

New York City’s Charter School Showdown Reignites National Debate on Privatized Education | Democracy Now!:

New York City’s Charter School Showdown Reignites National Debate on Privatized Education

 The battle over charter schools is heating up after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio blocked three privately run charter schools from using rent-free space inside public schools. The city also announced it will cut $210 million in charter school construction funding and use the money toward universal pre-K and after-school programs. The moves have set off a fierce debate in New York and the country and have even pitted de Blasio against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a fellow Democrat. We are joined by former public school teacher Brian Jones and Steve Barr, founder of the Green Dot Public Schools, a charter school network.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: A battle is heating up in New York City and state over the future of charter schools. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recently blocked three privately run charter schools from expanding and using rent-free space inside public schools. The city also announced it will cut $210 million that the Bloomberg administration had set aside for charter school construction and use that money toward universal pre-K and after-school programs.

AMY GOODMAN: The moves have set off a fierce debate in New York and the country and have even pitted de Blasio against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a fellow Democrat. A pro-charter group called Families for Excellent Schools recently launched this television ad campaign.

UNIDENTIFIED FATHER: I voted for Mayor de Blasio because he talked about looking out for the have-nots.

UNIDENTIFIED MOTHER 1: Mayor Bill de Blasio talks about the Tale of Two Cities, but yet he wants New York City’s Charter School Showdown Reignites National Debate on Privatized Education | Democracy Now!:

Preschool lessons: New research shows that teaching kids more and more, at ever-younger ages, may backfire.

Preschool lessons: New research shows that teaching kids more and more, at ever-younger ages, may backfire.:

Why Preschool Shouldn't Be Like School

New research shows that teaching kids more and more, at ever-younger ages, may backfire.

Ours is an age of pedagogy. Anxious parents instruct their children more and more, at younger and younger ages, until they're reading books to babies in the womb. They pressure teachers to make kindergartens and nurseries more like schools. So does the law—the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act explicitly urged more direct instruction in federally funded preschools.

There are skeptics, of course, including some parents, many preschool teachers, and even a few policy-makers. Shouldn't very young children be allowed to explore, inquire, play, and discover, they ask? Perhaps direct instruction can help children learn specific facts and skills, but what about curiosity and creativity—abilities that are even more important for learning in the long run? Two forthcoming studies in the journal Cognition—one from a lab at MIT and one from my lab at UC-Berkeley—suggest that the doubters are on to something. While learning from a teacher may help children get to a specific answer more quickly, it also makes them less likely to discover new information about a problem and to create a new and unexpected solution.

What do we already know about how teaching affects learning? Not as much as we would like, unfortunately, because it is a very difficult thing to study. You might try to compare different kinds of schools. But the children and the teachers at a Marin County preschool that encourages exploration will be very different from the children and teachers in a direct instruction program in South Side Chicago. And almost any new program with enthusiastic teachers will have good effects, at least to begin with, regardless of content. So comparisons are difficult. Besides, how do you measure learning, anyway? Almost by definition, directed teaching will make children do better on standardized tests, which the government uses to evaluate school performance. Curiosity and creativity are harder to measure.

Developmental scientists like me explore the basic science of learning by designing controlled experiments. We might start by saying: Suppose we gave a group of 4-year-olds exactly the same problems and only varied on whether we taught them

3-13-14 LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD

LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District):

ULTA super PAC holds off on LAUSD school board endorsement

In an unusual move, PACE, the political arm of the second-largest teachers union in the country, is sitting on the sidelines for the moment, after voting last night to “recommend no endorsement” in the upcoming LA Unified school board race to fill the vacant seat in South Los Angeles, District 1. At the endorsement meeting at union headquarters, the PACE committee interviewed 5 of the 7 candidates

2 by Aaron Stella / 26min hide  //  save

Vergara witnesses hail teamwork, even if API gaps remain

Shannan Brown Two witnesses from the same California school district told the court in Vergara vs. California today that collaborative efforts have enabled the district to deal smoothly with ineffective teachers without constrictions from the laws at issue in the case. Shannan Brown, the head of the San Juan Unified School District’s teachers union, and Elizabeth Davies, an assistant superintenden

1 by Mark Harris / 56min 

Field of candidates for LAUSD school board narrows to final 7

The race is on. The Los Angeles City Clerk’s office released the final list of LA Unified school board candidates who qualified to appear on the ballot in the June 3 special election. Of the 13 candidates who originally filed papers to run for the recently vacated seat, only seven submitted sufficient petitions with enough valid signatures to qualify. The District 1 seat, left open by the death o

2min 

City Terrace giving kids a window — and language — to the world

Students at City Terrace Elementary in east Los Angeles learn reading, writing and arithmetic, just like any other student in the LA Unified school district. Except for one thing: They are learning these subjects in Mandarin. City Terrace is located in a low-income neighborhood, and the majority of students are Latino. For many of them, English is their second language, after Spanish. “We’re takin

3 by Yana Gracile / 21min hide  //  save

Morning Read: LA Unified board amends Deasy contract

L.A. school board approves amended contract for Supt. Deasy Los Angeles Unified schools Supt. John Deasy has a newly modified contract that includes an annual buyout of unused vacation days and new performance measures that require him to bring in revenue and enroll more students. He will also pay his own pension deduction for the first time, a cost offset by an increase of $20,000 to his annual s

2 59min 

3-12-14 LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD

LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District): Denied renewals, 2 Aspire charters appeal to LA CountyAfter the LA Unified board denied renewals last month for two high-performing charter public schools in southeast Los Angeles — Aspire Antonio Maria Lugo Academy and Aspire Ollin University Preparatory Academy — the schools vowed to fight on. They file

by mike simpson / 21h 

What is “Value-Added” in Agriculture? |:

What is “Value-Added” in Agriculture?

 An interesting post came through my email defining “value-added” in its purest form. This comes from the field of agriculture where value-added is often used to model genetic and reproductive trends among livestock, and from where it was taken and applied to the “field” of education in the 1980s.

Here’s the definition: “Value-Added is the process of taking a raw commodity and changing its form to produce a high quality end product. Value-Added is defined as the addition of time, place, and/or form utility to a commodity in order to meet the tastes/preferences of consumers. In other words, value-added is figuring out what consumers want, when they want it, and where they want it – then mak[ing] it and provid[ing] it to them.”

In education, the simplest of translations follows: “Value-Added is the process of taking learning (i.e., a raw material) and changing its form (i.e., via teaching and instruction) to produce a high quality end product (i.e., high test scores). Value-Added is defined as the addition “value” in terms of changing learning’s most observable characteristics (i.e., test scores) in order to meet the (highly politicized) tastes/preferences of consumers. In other 

Hypocrisy and the Washington Post | Taking Note

Hypocrisy and the Washington Post | Taking Note:

Hypocrisy and the Washington Post

by JOHN MERROW on 13. MAR, 2014 in 2014 BLOGS, MICHELLE RHEE, OP-ED, MEDIA

Is there any limit to the hypocrisy of the Washington Post’s Editorial Page?  What brings this to mind is the Post’s recent editorial attacking the District of Columbia’s Inspector General, Charles Willoughby,whose work the same editorial writers had praised a year earlier.

What changed? How, in just ten months, did Mr. Willoughby go from being a trustworthy source to an inept hack in the eyes of the Post?  The answer is painfully obvious: Back then, the Post was defending Michelle Rhee, which it has shown time and again that it will do at all costs and in the face of clearly contradictory evidence.

This is what the Post wrote in April 2013: “Several investigations have been conducted into student testing by the public school system. All – including inquiries by the D.C. inspector general and the U.S. Education Department’s inspector general with the participation of the U.S. attorney  - concluded that no widespread cheating occurred.” (emphasis added)

As the Post knew (and as we had reported in detail on Frontline), the Inspector General conducted a slipshod inquiry that doesn’t really deserve to be called an ‘investigation.’ Despite evidence of widespread ‘wrong-to-right’ erasures in over half of DC’s public schools, Mr. Willoughby spent 17 months–more than 500 days– ‘investigating’ one school.  In that time he interviewed just 34 people!  However, the Post’s editorial writers chose to overlook his inept work–a performance that would 

3-13-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum

Seattle Schools Community Forum:

One Mom's No-Nonsense Attitude on Opting Out

As the nation gets into its standardized testing season, the number of parents, in districts throughout the nation, that are opting their children out is growing. In a story from Chalkbeat Colorado, one mom was very clear on her wishes for her daughter.  When the school ignored them - placing her daughter in an office with adults who were talking to her about the test and refusing to allow that ch

by Melissa Westbrook / 47min 

Google in Big Trouble for Data-Mining Student E-mails

 I will be writing a thread about what I learned at the Work Session on data privacy yesterday.  Some is good, some not-so-good (with Director Carr asking the best questions).  But I can say that SPS has NOT done enough.  From Education Week:As part of a potentially explosive lawsuit making its way through federal court, giant online-services provider Google has acknowledged scanning the contents

by Melissa Westbrook / 1min 

Fireworks Coming as Parents/School Staffs Clamor for Attention

Tonight is the second of the Superintendent's regional meetings about the Strategic Plan at 6:30 p.m. at Hale High School.I suspect that this particular meeting - coming on the heels of pushback from staff on later start times AND the brewing rebellion by schools over cuts to their budgets - might prove to be larger and more contentious than the one earlier this week.  And Hale - having had a late

by Melissa Westbrook / 9min 

"Redshirting" Kindergartners

From Ed Week:The youngest kindergarteners in any class are about five times more likely to be retained in school compared to their older peers, a new study states.Moreover, educators don't tend to modify their teaching to include a variety of age groups present in kindergartens—but they should make such accommodations, wrote Francis L. Huang, assistant professor in the University of Missouri Colle

by Melissa Westbrook / 21min  

3-12-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Big Data - The New Coin of the RealmMy predictions for the new coin of the realm for the next 25 years for both business and government?  Data and lots of it.  And now, we have "digital data backpacks" so that your child's data can be "carried" around AND made use of anywhere your child goes. From The Atlantic (with the what-should-be-troubling-

by mike simpson / 23h 

3-13-14 The Whole Child Blog — Turning Resistant Teachers into Resilient Teachers — Whole Child Education

Turning Resistant Teachers into Resilient Teachers — Whole Child Education:

THE WHOLE CHILD BLOG

Turning Resistant Teachers into Resilient Teachers

March 13, 2014 by Jessica Bohn

Resistant teachers can have a profound effect on the school climate and culture in both positive and negative ways. In the book Leading in a Culture of Change (2007), Michael Fullan says resisters deserve respect both because they present ideas we might otherwise miss and because their influence is crucial to navigating the politics of implementation. By using situational leadership, the ability to fluidly interchange among a variety of leadership styles as the situation demands, administrators can shape teacher resistance into resilience and develop powerful partners in school initiatives. Goleman (2004) says situational leadership can mitigate the negative and enhance the positive forces influencing school climate. Effective school leaders know when to use a different leadership approach based on the behaviors and personalities of their teachers.

Types of Teacher Behaviors

I have found that resistant teachers usually fall into one of the following categories:

• Those who believe administration will not help or understand them.
• Those who don't have confidence in their teaching and don't know how to

3-12-14 The Whole Child Blog — Keep Students and Parents (and Teachers) Initiative Fatigue Free — Whole Child Education

Keep Students and Parents (and Teachers) Initiative Fatigue Free — Whole Child Education: THE WHOLE CHILD BLOGKeep Students and Parents (and Teachers) Initiative Fatigue FreeMarch 10, 2014 by Kevin ParrLast week I entered a meeting feeling pretty good about my teaching life. I was sticking with my goals for the year, trying some new things outside my comfort zone, and achieving some success doing

by mike simpson / 22h 

Oregon schools pack in more students per teacher than any state except California, new report says | OregonLive.com

Oregon schools pack in more students per teacher than any state except California, new report says | OregonLive.com:

Oregon schools pack in more students per teacher than any state except California, new report says

Member of an honors biology class composed of 37 freshmen prepare to head out for a field study. Oregon schools pack in more students per teacher than any state but California, a new report says, and classes this large or nearly so have become common in Portland-area high schools. (Faith Cathcart / The Oregonian)

Oregon schools enrolled 21.8 students for every teacher in fall 2012, worse than all other states except California, according to the latest school statistics and rankings compiled by the National Education Association.

For many years, Oregon has ranked third- or fourth-worst among states when it comes to student-teacher ratios. But the new NEA rankings estimate that Oregon has surpassed Utah to make its teachers second-most-overloaded among states.

The Oregonian has covered the issue of class sizes and student-teacher ratiosin several recent articles.

Several factors help explain why Oregon schools are so jam-packed with students and light on teachers.

• Oregon funds schools with less money per student than the national average (about $11,600 per student in 2012-13 compared with about $12,200 nationally, these NEA estimates say). The national teachers union's researchers estimate Oregon's spending was 5 percent below the national average.
• Oregon pays its teachers more than the national average: $57,600 on average, compared with the national average teacher pay of $56,100, the NEA says. That  Oregon schools pack in more students per teacher than any state except California, new report says | OregonLive.com:

FCMAT » Cali Education Headlines Thursday, March 13, 2014

FCMAT » Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team:

Fresno teachers pack district board meeting in protest over waiver

Education Headlines

Thursday, March 13, 2014

FCMAT provides links to California K-12 news stories as a service to the industry. However, some stories may not be accessible because of newspapers' subscription policies.

Kern HSD to revamp administrative structure, add job

The Kern High School District school board Wednesday voted to create a new assistant superintendent position that will blend instructional and business responsibilities.

Oxnard Union teachers say time now for pay hike

With increased state funding for schools expected in the next academic year, teachers and other employees in the Oxnard Union High School District think it’s time for a raise.

Trustees stay the course in pursuing Pacific View auction

Hundreds of emails and the personal pleas of more than a dozen speakers Tuesday night wasn’t enough to sway trustees in the Encinitas Union School District to delay the auction of the Pacific View School site.

Rialto school board appoints interim superintendent

Five days after the announced retirement of Superintendent Harold Cebrun, the school board appointed an interim replacement. Associate Superintendent of Business Services Mohammad Z. Islam has served as the 26,485-student district’s acting superintendent since Cebrun was placed on administrative leave in September.

Salinas schools switch on energy saving plans

In 1954, the landmark Supreme Court case of Brown vs. Board of Education struck a blow against racial discrimination in public schools. Also that year, the New York Giants swept the Cleveland Indians in four games to win the World Series. And in Salinas, most of the windows at Roosevelt Elementary School were installed.

Woodland schools saw dramatic growth under retiring superintendent

Debra LaVoi read a student essay on the solar system, asked questions about “Cat in the Hat” and watched fifth-graders take a math test at the Science and Technology Academy in Knights Landing last week. It was the third school the Woodland Joint Unified superintendent had visited before lunch.

Schools’ financial health improving

In a coincidence, the state Department of Education mentioned Yucaipa-Calimesa Unified on a list of school districts in financial jeopardy at the same time district trustees signed off on an updated report that suggests its financial health is improving.

Monterey Peninsula USD makes offer to interim superintendent candidate

Trustees with the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District have offered the position of interim superintendent to William Brand. Brand would replace departing Interim Superintendent Leslie Codianne, who is scheduled to retire at the end of the month.

Palm Springs Unified eliminates reduced lunch prices

The Palm Springs Unified School District will eliminate reduced-price lunches next school year, expanding its free lunch program to serve no-cost meals to students who live on the edge of poverty.

Students speak up on controversy over Centinela Valley superintendent pay

The controversy roiling the Centinela Valley high school district over the extraordinary compensation package of the superintendent has energized teachers, taxpayers, politicians and school officials for weeks, but this week’s school board meeting added a new group of stakeholders to the fray: students.

Upland Unified board predicts balanced budgets for the next two years

In a span of months, the Upland Unified School District went from facing mounting debts and insolvency to cutting its deficit by two-thirds, balancing its budget and being able to meet its financial obligations for the next two school years.

Report: Fresno County Sikh students say they're bullied at school

Sikh students living in Fresno County say they are regularly bullied at school, and many of them say educators do nothing about it when such aggression is reported, according to a national survey being released Thursday.

Fresno teachers pack district board meeting in protest over waiver

Nearly 500 Fresno Teachers Association members dressed in black packed into the Fresno Unified School District board meeting in protest Wednesday night and returned hundreds of copies of the CORE waiver that will let the district set accountability measures for itself.

L.A. school board approves amended contract for Supt. John Deasy

Los Angeles Unified schools Supt. John Deasy has a newly modified contract that includes an annual buyout of unused vacation days and new performance measures that require him to bring in revenue and enroll more students.

Change teachers' tenure? California State Board of Education says 'not now' to San Jose request

Signaling the sensitivity of making even modest changes in how California runs public schools, the State Board of Education on Wednesday delayed action on an unusual request from San Jose Unified School District and its teachers union to change the length of probation for new teachers.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Deal would give Kern HSD teachers 5 percent raise

Teachers in the Kern High School District would -- under a tentative agreement put in writing Tuesday -- receive a 4 percent salary raise next school year and a 1 percent raise this year, the first ongoing salary increase in seven years.

Stockton USD trustees reject search for admin. building

Stockton Unified trustees Tuesday night rejected a request by school district officials to begin researching sites for a new administrative building to replace the aging offices at 701 N. Madison St. and paying for it through bond Measure E.

Lodi Unified School District ratifies teacher agreement

Members of the Lodi Unified School District board voted to approve the tentative agreement reached with the Lodi Education Association on Tuesday night at a special board meeting.

Upland schools in better financial shape

After months of concern over Upland’s dire financial picture, the district on Tuesday was singing another tune: it can pay its bills now.

Embattled Centinela Valley school district Superintendent Jose Fernandez gives himself pay cut at stormy meeting

Kicking off a wild school board meeting that drew some 300 furious residents, Centinela Valley high school district Superintendent Jose Fernandez — who has come under intense scrutiny for a compensation package that amounted to $663,000 last year — announced he would voluntarily cut many of the perks embedded in his contract, bringing his salary to $295,000.

In Which I Debate Federal Ed Policy with a UFO :: Frederick M. Hess

In Which I Debate Federal Ed Policy with a UFO :: Frederick M. Hess:

In Which I Debate Federal Ed Policy with a UFO

by Frederick M. Hess  •  Mar 12, 2014 at 11:30 am
Cross-posted from Education Week

I awoke with a start last night. Hovering above the floor, inches from the bed, was a figure. He wore a nice suit and avidly thumbed his iPhone, before glancing up at me.

"Uh, who are you? What's going on?" I asked. "And why are you hovering?"

"I'm an unidentified federal official. I'm here to chat. A bunch of us at the U.S. Department of Ed have been wondering why you're being such a pain. We used to think you were a friend. But now, it seems like you've blown a gasket. What gives?"

"You're a 'UFO'? Seriously?"

"Yep."

"And the hovering?"

"C'mon. What gives? Why've you turned into such a tosser?"

"Look," I said, "you guys ought to keep in mind that, on principle, I'm with you on a lot, like getting serious about teacher evaluation, embracing better assessments, promoting the smart use of ed tech, and expanding good charter schools. But, there are two big things. One, a bunch of this legalistic, OCR-driven stuff you guys are doing, on school discipline or teacher distribution, leaves me cold. I see lots of new rules, nervous educators, and mindless compliance, and no reason to believe it'll add up to anything but more bureaucracy 

Carpe Diem: How to Take Charge of Your Education

Carpe Diem: How to Take Charge of Your Education:

Carpe Diem: How to Take Charge of Your Education

 When I first began teaching, I modeled the same sort of education I received as a student. My classroom was, admittedly, run from the top-down. I lectured, making little time for true dialogue with my students, and carried a red pen in my pocket. I could sense my students’ lack of engagement and distinctly remember feeling as though my classes were characterized by memorization, not genuine learning.

Sound familiar? A lot of today’s educators grew up and were trained in an academic environment that values numbers over results. Too often, tests are a measure of a student’s ability to recite facts and figures, rather than her ability to demonstrate critical thinking. Between our tendency to practice what is familiar and the pressure to comply with legislation like the No Child Left Behind Act and the more recent Common Core initiative, it becomes a challenge for teachers to break away from what are generally outdated and relatively ineffective modes of teaching.

A few years into my teaching career, I began to look for innovative approaches to classroom management. I wanted to build an environment that captured my students’ attention and fostered meaningful conversations that mattered. In