Who’s actually running America’s charter schools? | School Finance 101

Who’s actually running America’s charter schools? | School Finance 101:

Who’s actually running America’s charter schools?

Education policy research and the rhetoric emergent from that research typically fails to represent the realities – the real distribution – of schooling across our nation. We focus extensively on urban schooling most often ignoring what might or might not work in the suburbs or rural areas. We focus on development of reading and math/STEM skills but far less on other content, knowledge or skills. We focus on measuring teacher/teaching quality through estimates of student gains in reading and math, but often ignore the contextual factors that may influence teacher effectiveness, or other less commonly measured outcomes.

These foci aren’t necessarily problematic. After all, there’s only so much we can research at any given time. The problem lies in our desire – specifically in translation to policy recommendations – to broadly extrapolate the meaning of these findings.  Sometimes, it’s a mere extrapolation problem, where researchers and well-meaning policymakers simply wish to project one finding onto an entirely different situation.

Other times, it’s a straight up bait-and-switch, where self-interested actors or advocates point to one great success, and then swap it for a cheap imitation in their own policy recommendations/proposal. It’s like holding up Exeter or Andover as examples of great private schooling to advance a voucher argument, and then providing a voucher sufficient for children to attend their local evangelical school housed in a double-wide on a vacant lot. [private school cost/spending data here]

Charter school research is, in my view, one of the most problematic areas of education policy research, especially in its translation to policy recommendations. The most extreme version of the pro-charter unregulated expansion argument goes something like this:

Look at the research on those massive gains created by KIPP schools, especially those studies done byMathematica researchers, as well as the work of Dynarski and colleagues in Boston. And hey, look at Fryer’s stuff on NYC’s ‘no excuses’ charters! This is incredible. We must move forward with all deliberate speed to replicate this!

And how must we do that – well, we really need to take the lid off this movement – no caps. Increase subsidies. Have more authorizers available to fast-track the flood of new applications from these great providers! That’s it. Move… and move now! From Arizona, to Ohio, Michigan, Florida and beyond – authorizers will ensure accountability. The few… and let me emphasize that… few… bad actors will be shut down, and these amazing providers will flourish across our great nation!

Okay… so maybe I’m overdoing it a bit. Certainly some, even those at TB Fordham institute have now admitted problems in the Ohio charter accountability process. And the folks at Brookings have raised questions about the quality of Arizona charter schools.

At least a handful of studies on high profile charter operators have yielded substantive, positive results, at Who’s actually running America’s charter schools? | School Finance 101:

Must Parents Go to Night School to Help Children with Common Core Math? - Living in Dialogue

Must Parents Go to Night School to Help Children with Common Core Math? - Living in Dialogue:

Must Parents Go to Night School to Help Children with Common Core Math?

By Anthony Cody.

For years teachers have heard about the crucial role parents have in supporting their children’s academic progress. Extensive research shows that increased parental involvement translates into success for students. However, the new Common Core approach to math is having a rather perverse effect. Because students are being taught such radically different methods to solve problems, their parents are often rendered unable to help them with their homework. The algorithms most of us learned have been replaced. Students are taught to “decompose” numbers in order to add or subtract. Parents are now flummoxed by even second grade math work, and feel inadequate — even stupid — as a result. Some have posted math problems on Facebook or Twitter, expressing their frustration.

These methods may help students develop a better sense of the numbers they are working with, but there is a real cost – and this may result in greater inequities. Students who need help with their work are unable to get it from the people who should be their greatest source of support — their parents.

In the suburbs of Suffolk County, New York, one community college is now offering a special four-week course called “Common Core School Mathematics for Parents and Guardians.” Any guesses as to the socioeconomic status of the parents who will find the time to take special courses like this?

A classroom teacher I asked about this said,

My students’ parents work at night or they don’t have a car or they have seven kids and no way to get a babysitter. Those parents are not going to have access to something like this course, but the school across town that’s primarily white and upper-middle-class — every one of those parents are going to sign up and go. It just furthers the gap.

Most parents will not be taking these classes, and will be helpless – even embarrassed, when their Must Parents Go to Night School to Help Children with Common Core Math? - Living in Dialogue:

Thompson: Rick Hess's (& My) Lessons from Race to the Top This Week In Education:

This Week In Education: Thompson: Rick Hess's (& My) Lessons from Race to the Top:

Rick Hess's (& My) Lessons from Race to the Top 

 Some academics persist in a strange ritual - gauging greatness by the effects that government office holders have on the political process, as opposed to the results of their policies for flesh and blood human beings. Andrew Jackson and Teddy "the Big Stick" Roosevelt have been categorized as "great" because they were so effective in stealing Indians' land and leaping into imperialism. Ronald "the Great Communicator" Reagan gets high marks for the transformative nature of his politics, as the Central American death squads he supported and the destruction of blue collar jobs are forgotten.

Now, some proclaim Arne Duncan as a great transformer because he completely changed the nature of education policy. Those who celebrate Duncan's political victories, like William Howell and Joanne Weiss, remain curiously silent about the possible benefits and the costs of his school improvement experiments.

Fortunately, conservative Rick Hess's contribution to the discussion in Education Next, Lofty Promises but Little Change for America's Schools, offers a real world critique of Duncan's gambles. Hess recounts the results that matter, concluding "the breakthrough wins touted so avidly by Race to the Top enthusiasts in 2010 and 2011 now look much more like pyrrhic victories—shot through with design flaws, tainted by federal compulsion, and compromised by half-hearted follow-through." 

The lessons Hess draws from the RttT include: #2 "Execution, Not Action, Is the Goal." The first step in doing so is realizing, #7 "Paper Pledges Are Not 'Buy-In.'" The second step is #3 "Reward Pioneers, Not Groupies." All three serve as a reminder that, "The public imagination is often captured by the fact of a federal program, but what matters in schooling is how programs actually work."

One would have thought that #4 "Build Reliable Infrastructure" would have been the most obvious lesson.  Hess graciously notes, "It was no fault of the Obama administration, but the infrastructure to do Race to the Top well simply didn't exist." But, I wonder if we would be so forgiving of an engineer who built a $4 billion skyscraper without bothering to lay a foundation?

Neither can I understand why even non-educators don't pay more attention to #6 "Beware of Opportunity Costs." Hess likely would have invested in different policies than I would have, but now the money is gone, and since so few tangible improvements were produced by the RttT (and the SIG, and the rest of Duncan's gold-plated innovations), how do we make the case that more science-based education policies should be funded?

My second-favorite of Hess's lessons is #5 "Seek to Eliminate Impediments, Not to Secure New Promises." But, it may resonate better with practitioners than policy wonks, and it brings us to the point where I apparently disagree with Hess, and believe he should remain more committed to his conservative philosophy.  Some may see the lifting charter caps and removing data firewalls that prohibit the linking of test scores with individual teacher's evaluations as impediments. But, it should be local governments that decide how many charters they can authorize and still pay their utility bills and maintain their essential overhead.

Similarly, when the federal government coerced states into using value-added models - that were invalid and unreliable for evaluating individuals - it opened the door to the new tsunami of teach-to-the-test that wrecked the push for college readiness standards. I wonder if Hess had been in Duncan's shoes whether he would have accepted a compromise where the federal government knocked down those data firewalls in order to gain information about increases in student performance but without demanding that those guess-timates be used to hold individuals accountable.  

Hess's best lesson is #1 "First, Do No Harm."  Understandably, Hess focuses on policy from a macro perspective, noting that "the pressure to pursue proposals like Common Core testing and testThis Week In Education: Thompson: Rick Hess's (& My) Lessons from Race to the Top:

Anti-Bullying School Policies Continue to Fail LGBT Students - NEA Today

Anti-Bullying School Policies Continue to Fail LGBT Students - NEA Today:

Anti-Bullying School Policies Continue to Fail LGBT Students

Research has consistently shown that schools with strong, inclusive policies for lesbian gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) youth create safer learning environments. Designing and implementing effective anti-bullying policies are obviously key to this effort, but, according to the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), most school districts have been falling short.

In the new report, Statehouse to Schoolhouse: Anti-Bullying Policy Efforts in U.S. States and School Districts, GLSEN examined anti-bulling policies in more than 13, 000 districts and found that the vast majority do not have policies that explicitly protect LGBT students.

“The report illustrates the gap that can emerge between the intentions of a law and the actual implementation – arguably the most critical component of the passage of any law,” explains GLSEN Executive Director Dr. Eliza Byard. “There remain far too many school districts that have failed to institute policy protections, even in states which require them by law.”

Although most districts have anti-bullying school policies on the books, their effectiveness is undermined by a number of factors. According to GLSEN, a successful program must include specific protections for all individual groups (based on race, gender, ethnicity, actual or perceived sexual orientation, and gender identity/expression), strong accountability provisions and professional development for school staff.  GLSEN found that only 3 percent of district anti-bullying policies included all three elements.

Although the majority of districts with policies enumerate at least one group of protection to students, less than half include specific protections for students based on sexual orientations, and only 14 percent did so for students based on gender identity/expression.

In addition, less than one-third mandated reporting requirements to the district and/or states, and only a quarter required professional development for staff on Anti-Bullying School Policies Continue to Fail LGBT Students - NEA Today:

Child Poverty Among Blacks and Hispanics Persists as U.S. Fails to Address Its Causes | janresseger

Child Poverty Among Blacks and Hispanics Persists as U.S. Fails to Address Its Causes | janresseger:

Child Poverty Among Blacks and Hispanics Persists as U.S. Fails to Address Its Causes

Two new reports document very troubling rates of high poverty among children in the United States. As a society we ought to be ashamed that we tolerate devastating child poverty and residential economic segregation without concerted policy strategies to ameliorate challenges for the children.  African American children are most seriously affected.

In the NY Times, Sabrina Tavernise summarizes new data from the Pew Research Center:  “Black children were almost four times as likely as white children to be living in poverty in 2013, a new report has found….  (T)he poverty rate has remained stable for black children, while it fell for Hispanic, white and Asian children, a sign of just how pervasive and stubborn poverty has been for African American children…. About 38.3 percent of black children lived in poverty in 2013, nearly four times the rate for white children, at 10.7 percent.  About 30.4 percent of Hispanic children and 10.1 percent of Asian children live in poverty.  For the first time since the federal government started collecting the data, the number of black children in poverty appears to have overtaken the number of poor white children, even though white children far outnumber black children in the American population…”  The federal poverty rate is currently $23,624 for a family of four.

Reporting that the economy is finally rebounding but that child poverty remains alarmingly high for African American and Hispanic families, the Annie E. Casey Foundation explores the same problem in its 2015 Kids Count Data Book, released earlier this week: “Although new job growth has occurred at all wage levels, it has been disproportionate in low-wage sectors, such as retail and food services, and in some of the lower-wage positions within health care and home care.  And a stagnating federal minimum wage has exacerbated low wages.  During the last three months of 2014, the unemployment rate for whites and Asian Americans was roughly 4.5 percent, compared with a devastating 11 percent for African Americans and 6.7 percent for Latinos…  As of April 2015, 17.6 percent of African American workers and 14.4 percent of Latino workers were jobless or working only part time when they wanted full-time work.” “Compounding this issue, low-wage hourly jobs are increasingly subject to unpredictable and irregular schedules, which makes it difficult for parents to arrange child care and transportation; erratic schedules also lead to volatile incomes.”

The Annie E. Casey Foundation advocates a “two-generation approach” to helping America’s poorest children.  “The best way to facilitate optimal outcomes for today’s children is to address their needs, while providing tools and assistance to their parents.”  Parents need jobs that pay a living wage: “State and federal programs that boost income, including the Earned Income Tax Credit and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), help individual families a great deal.  But ultimately, we cannot sustain a healthy national economy without more jobs that pay higher wages… Individuals who are willing to work hard should be able to provide for their families.  We don’t need to accept the current proliferation of low-quality Child Poverty Among Blacks and Hispanics Persists as U.S. Fails to Address Its Causes | janresseger

LAUSD BLACKLISTING THOUSANDS OF TEACHERS- HOW THEY DO IT - Perdaily.com

LAUSD BLACKLISTING THOUSANDS OF TEACHERS- HOW THEY DO IT - Perdaily.com:

LAUSD BLACKLISTING THOUSANDS OF TEACHERS- HOW THEY DO IT

(Mensaje se repite en Español)

One fundamental principal of any honest legal system is that those who are party to a dispute are not allowed to call all the shots as to what is relevant and what is not in investigating and fairly resolving the dispute. If this were allowed to take place, that party's own actions or interests in arriving at a predetermined unfair result would never be scrutinized by a truly neutral party. And yet that is precisely what has now gone on for years at the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) without any outside governmental intervention in a process where thousands of teachers have not only been removed from their jobs based on completely fabricated charges, but it has also subsequently led to their being blacklisted in a manner that almost assures they will never work again as a teachers in any setting.

The euphemistically named Student Safety Investigation Team (SSIT) at LAUSD- that sounds and seems to function in a manner similar to the Committee of Public Safety in the French Revolution- who determined those who were to be sent to the guillotine- now has 15 members, including six full-time investigators, four LA school police, two forensic specialists and one supervising investigator. However, the problem here is that SSIT is headed by 30 year LAUSD veteran José Cantu, who in no way shape or form is independent enough from LAUSD to be given the power of a sole arbiter as to whether predominantly senior teachers should lose their jobs- especially when LAUSD has the strong incentive of saving $60,000 a year for every top-of-the-salary scale teacher they remove.

One might also note as past LAUSD Board President Richard Vladovic pointed out that, "No exculpatory evidence of innocence or right-doing is ever presented to the LAUSD Board in actions brought before it to terminate [these expensive teachers]."

So what ensues is a completely one-sided process where a file is built that not only fabricates charges against teachers, it also solicits false statements in support of these fabricated charges, which LAUSD students and employees seeking to ingratiate themselves with their superiors are only too happy to give- especially since their statements are not verified under penalty of perjury as the law requires- but this fact continues to be ignored.

Faced with the daunting task of trying to defend oneself without any help from your union United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), most teachers without the financial or emotional ability to sustain and defend themselves for what becomes years against this formidable array of LAUSD power, jump at the chance to resign, when they are told by LAUSD, "We will take no further action against you if you resign." What they don't tell these teachers is that this "no action" doesn't include reporting them to California Teacher Credentialing (CTC), where they might have their credential suspended or lifted.

But if losing your job or having your credential lifted or suspended in this rigged process is not enough, what LAUSD BLACKLISTING THOUSANDS OF TEACHERS- HOW THEY DO IT - Perdaily.com:

Common Core Politics and Elections: Where the Standards Stand Amid No Child Left Behind Rewrite, Post-Testing Glitches (HEAT MAP) | RealClearEducation

Common Core Politics and Elections: Where the Standards Stand Amid No Child Left Behind Rewrite, Post-Testing Glitches (HEAT MAP) | RealClearEducation:

Common Core Politics and Elections: Where the Standards Stand Amid No Child Left Behind Rewrite, Post-Testing Glitches (HEAT MAP)

With presidential campaigns gearing up alongside pending education overhaul in Congress, education’s latest political punching bag is taking bigger blows.

The Senate last week approved a No Child Left Behind rewrite that would rework the Bush-era law, which expanded the federal role in education, and return much education power to the states. Among the rewrite’s provisions is banning the federal government from incentivizing or mandating specific sets of academic standards, like the Common Core, which in recent years has become the target of political education backlash.

The Senate’s legislation comes just after students across the country completed their first year of Common Core-aligned exams in the spring. The testing process was less than perfect, with Nevada, Montana, and North Dakota dominating the airwaves with news of a botched exam rollout that crippled standardized testing across the states. Nevada has since filed a breach of contract notice for the technical outages with vendor Measured Progress, and is looking to sign a new deal with California-based CTB/McGraw-Hill.

[Jump to the interactive graphics]

The Common Core is a set of academic benchmarks -- not a curriculum -- that lays out what American students should know by the end of each grade level to ensure students are college-and career-ready by the time they graduate high school. Individual states and districts determine how to teach and assess their students to meet those standards, which were developed by education experts and interest groups representing state leaders. Nationally, 45 states, Washington, D.C. and three territories originally adopted the standards between 2010 and 2011.

But in response to public outrage and political pressures, some states started to backtrack. Indiana was the first to ax the Common Core last March. Oklahoma and South Carolina followed.

Now, Republican presidential hopefuls are also playing to political strengths, decrying the standards regardless of their prior stances on the issue. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker are among those who once backed the Common Core, but now abhor it as they race toward the White House. Even New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, once one of the few pro-Core Republican governors left standing, decided to take it all back after he announced his White House bid. For a while, former Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush was the only candidate on the right who stood behind the standards, until Ohio Gov. John Kasich announced his candidacy Tuesday.

As Common Core opponents fight more vociferously than supporters, RealClearEducation compiled an (unscientific) heat map that assesses Common Core’s risk of revocation in each state based on a number of measures, including the stances of state governors and superintendents, legislative warmth for the standards, and how previous attempts to edit or repeal the standards have fared in state legislatures. The states are rated on a scale of 0 (no risk of repeal) to 10 (very high risk of repeal). See our first heat map from December here.

Hover over the heat map below for more. Zoom controls are at the top left. To drag the map, hold down the shift key, click, and pull with your mouse. Select consecutive groups to highlight by clicking while holding down the shift key, or highlight nonconsecutive groups by clicking while holding down the control key. Alaska is not pictured, as the state did not adopt Common Core.

This article and the data below were last updated July 22, 2015.

The landscape hasn’t changed drastically since the winter, as most of the Common Core climate has shifted more politically than legislatively. That, however, could change we enter election season and are faced with possible new implications in an NCLB rewrite, and as states reassess testing contracts and consider new legislation.

 Common Core Politics and Elections: Where the Standards Stand Amid No Child Left Behind Rewrite, Post-Testing Glitches (HEAT MAP) | RealClearEducation:

Schools Matter: Hillary’s Hedge Fund Fundraiser Was Chelsea’s Boss

Schools Matter: Hillary’s Hedge Fund Fundraiser Was Chelsea’s Boss:

Hillary’s Hedge Fund Fundraiser Was Chelsea’s Boss

By Doug Martin at Hoosier School Heist

This morning, the Associated Press reports that Hillary Clinton is busy gobbling up donations from hedge fund managers, a group highly involved in school privatization (as I detail in my book Hoosier School Heist) and one she says she will target if elected America’s new president.

According to AP, one New York City hedge fund manager who has raised at least $100,000 to Hillary’s campaign is Marc Lasry, a new owner of the Milwaukee Bucks.

In a statement to Bloomberg News a while back, Lasry said “we have a moral responsibility” to Milwaukee.  

Morality, for Hillary’s hedge fund manager friend, means a taxpayer bailout. 

Even though Lasry’s basketball team  is set to bring in $89 million annually, Wisconsin governor and presidential candidate Scott Walker is seeking a $220 million taxpayer bond deal for the Bucks’ new sports arena, about the same amount to be cut from Wisconsin universities soon.

Lasry is also a team player in supporting school privatization.  

In 2012, Lasry spoke at the Invest for Kids Conference in Chicago, an event which raised $180,000 for the LEARN Charter School Network. 

The Invest for Kids Conference was led by Goldman Sachs’ managing director Ron Levin.

Hillary’s son-in-law, a few years earlier, worked for Goldman Sachs, before starting his own hedge fund.

Funded by Oprah and Walmart’s Walton family, the LEARN Charter School Network is run by past venture capitalist Greg White.  The Schools Matter: Hillary’s Hedge Fund Fundraiser Was Chelsea’s Boss:

U.S. charter school default rate up, but sector sound -report - Yahoo Finance

U.S. charter school default rate up, but sector sound -report - Yahoo Finance:

U.S. charter school default rate up, but sector sound -report

By Megan Davies

NEW YORK, July 21 (Reuters) - U.S. charter schools are defaulting on bonds at a rate of 3.3 percent, a level higher than that recorded three years ago but still not one which should concern investors, according to the co-publisher of a report made available on Tuesday.

Charter schools, held in a number of municipal bond funds, are public schools that operate independently and are an alternative to schools run by local school districts. They are publicly funded but use private-sector lenders to fund buildings.

Of the $10.4 billion issued by charter schools, $346.9 million, or 3.3 percent, has defaulted, according to the report by community financing organization the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and Charter School Advisors. That compares to 2.7 percent recorded in a 2012 LISC report by the same author, CSA managing director Wendy Berry.

"I don't think it should be concerning to investors if they're looking at schools in the right way," said Reena Abraham, LISC's vice president of education programs.

"There is tons of growth in this sector. I think they should be asking the same questions that we have been asking around academic performance. A good school will not fail you."

The data also showed an uptick in the default rate on the basis of the number of schools issuing bonds - with 5 percent of the 818 schools defaulting according to the 2015 report versus 3.8 percent of 583 recorded in 2012.

The schools defaulted mainly because the authorizer of the school did not renew their charter due to sub-par academic performance, the report said.

Michigan's default rate of 12 percent was the highest amongst all states. Michigan was particularly active in issuing charter school bonds in the early years of charter school bond issuance - which began in 1998 - according to the report, when underwriting criteria had not evolved, it said.

The high default rate is also due to the state having mostly small, stand-alone schools that were less able to weather Michigan's economic downturn and the associated effects of reduced education funding, the report said.

The study also said that some state programs were improving charter schools' access to the bond market with state officials in Colorado, Utah and Texas developing programs to allow charter operators to get enhanced credit ratings.

(Reporting by Megan Davies; Editing by Andrew Hay)U.S. charter school default rate up, but sector sound -report - Yahoo Finance:

Some charter schools require kindergarteners to take admissions tests | Deseret News

Some charter schools require kindergarteners to take admissions tests | Deseret News:

Some charter schools require kindergarteners to take admissions tests

A New Orleans parent whose kindergartener took a test for admission to a selective public charter school wants to know more about the test and how it's used. And the state attorney general may be looking into it.

"Jacob Landry has a soon-to-be kindergartener," the Hechinger report notes, "and he wants to know just the name of the test, not the questions on it or other secure information. He penned a column on his experience seeking the test’s name that ran on The Lens on June 9. As a former employee of the Louisiana Department of Education, he said he wants to know if the test being used is appropriate for admissions, and to make sure that it’s not an IQ test, which is forbidden by state law."

The notion of competitive admissions at the kindergarten level for charter schools cuts across two very current disputes: standardized testing at early ages and the public accountability of charter schools using public funds.

Earlier this year, Slate looked at the New Orleans kindergarten classroom of Molly Mansel, where kindergarteners were expected to perform a whole slate of standardized tests.

"Mansel’s students started taking tests just three weeks into the 2014–15 school year," Slate noted. "They began with a state-required early childhood exam in August, which covered everything from basic math to letter identification. Mansel estimates that it took between four and five weeks for the teachers to test all 58 kindergarten students — and that was with the help of the prekindergarten team. The test requires an adult to sit individually with each student, reading questions and asking them to perform various tasks. The test is 11 pages long and “it’s very time-consuming."

Meanwhile, battles over charter school accountability continue to flare across the country, including in Wisconsin, Ohio, Washington and Delaware.

In Connecticut, new legislation will require "charter schools to make additional financial disclosures that will include an audited statement of revenues. In addition, the accountability measure places new restrictions on nepotism and requires that all employees, including administrators, undergo background checks," NBC Connecticut reports.

In Georgia, Jarod Apperson, a doctoral student in Some charter schools require kindergarteners to take admissions tests | Deseret News:

Standardized tests on 91 out of 180 school days? Nonsense. Seminole has plan to simplify - Orlando Sentinel

Standardized tests on 91 out of 180 school days? Nonsense. Seminole has plan to simplify - Orlando Sentinel:

School tests 91 of 180 days? Seminole proposes simpler plan

Most everyone with even the faintest of pulses already knows that school testing is out of control in this state.

The latest proof comes from Palm Beach County, where a middle school tallied the number of days in which classes were interrupted by testing and test-prep activities.

The finding: 91 days … out of 180.

Keep in mind: We're not talking about the regular old tests and pop quizzes that teachers want to give their students. Those are additional. We're just talking about the top-down, state- and district-ordered tests.

Orange County had to create 1,000 new tests one year just to keep up.

If that's your version of "learning," you must be from Mars ... or Tallahassee, where politicians and bureaucrats created the current testing insanity.

Still, repeated testing debacles have forced Tallahassee to admit that the current system is flawed. And legislators and bureaucrats have wisely asked for help from local school districts. (What a novel idea: asking educators about education.)

Well, the top-rated Seminole County district recently spoke up — with some solid ideas.

Superintendent Walt Griffin penned a letter to Gov. Rick Scott's education commissioner, Pam Stewart, where he suggested several changes. Namely:

•Florida should move to tests that are already nationally accepted (instead of continually trying to create new Florida-specific ones).

•Move to paper-based tests (Florida's computer-based system keeps crashing).

•Cut the amount of testing time.

"Our solution would take four hours to administer," Griffin later said, "as opposed to disrupting education for a month."

Amen, Mr. Superintendent.

And you'd think state officials would listen to Griffin — who runs one of theStandardized tests on 91 out of 180 school days? Nonsense. Seminole has plan to simplify - Orlando Sentinel:

Common Core and Martin Luther King Jr.: Is this any way to teach his famous letter from jail? - The Washington Post

Common Core and Martin Luther King Jr.: Is this any way to teach his famous letter from jail? - The Washington Post:

Common Core and Martin Luther King Jr.: Is this any way to teach his famous letter from jail?

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., right, and his close associate, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, are released after eight days from a jail in Birmingham, Ala., on April 20, 1963. (AP Photo)

Educators are still sounding off on what they see as significant problems with the Common Core English Language Arts standards.

One problem became clear in a New York Times article by Kimberly Skillen, a New York school district administrator, who was quoted about the Core dictate that more nonfiction be taught to students in all classes, including English. She said that this has led to the “elimination” of some literature, but that “we look at teaching literature as teaching particular concepts and skills” and students don’t have to read an entire novel to learn “the concepts” in it. (For that matter, they could just read the Spark Notes to get the “concepts.”)

[A disturbing quote about teaching literature in the Common Core era]

Then there’s the way that David Coleman, one of the principal authors of the ELA standards and now president of the College Board, wants teachers to present literature to students. Coleman has explained that he wants students to do what is called “close reading” of text by looking only at what the author has written, without drawing on any background information in the text analysis.

Peter Greene,  a veteran teacher of English in a small town in Pennsylvania, wrote on his lively Curmudgucation blog, that Coleman’s reading concept is “not anchored in anything.” Referring to an essay Coleman wrote called“Cultivating Wonder,” Greene wrote:

When I looked at his long essay on reading, I saw the Coleman who wants to read works in a vaccuum– let’s look at the “Gettysburg Address” without talking about the Civil War, or “The Sun Also Rises” without considering the Great European War or Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” without looking at what he was doing in the jail in the first place. How, I wonder, do you consider a work of literature out of time, out of context. How does it make sense to read the poetry of Anne Bradstreet without knowing anything about the Puritan faith that informed her every word?

A teacher named Daniel E. Ferguson took a critical look at how teaching “Letter from Birmingham Jail” would look like through Coleman’s approach, which follows. Ferguson taught elementary school and high school debate in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, and he is currently a preschool teacher in New York City as well as a doctoral student in curriculum and teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University.

A version of this piece first appeared in “Rethinking Schools,” a magazine that balances classroom practice and educational theory while also addressing key policy issues. It is published by a nonprofit of the same name and writers include teachers, parents, researchers. This version has removed or updated Common Core and Martin Luther King Jr.: Is this any way to teach his famous letter from jail? - The Washington Post:

About the Upcoming House-Senate ESEA Conference Committee… and One from the Past | deutsch29

About the Upcoming House-Senate ESEA Conference Committee… and One from the Past | deutsch29:

About the Upcoming House-Senate ESEA Conference Committee… and One from the Past

In July 2015, both House and Senate passed bills to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. The House version is known as the Student Success Act (SSA); the Senate version is called the Every Child Achieves Act (ECAA) of 2015.

Both are an effort to reauthorize the last version of ESEA known as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. NCLB was supposed to be reauthorized in 2007, but Congress would not touch it because it was a bust and the bipartisan honeymoon that gave America NCLB was over. So, NCLB remains on congressional life support to this day.

Since both House and Senate have passed versions of an ESEA reauthorization, they now must come together and sort out the issues that differ between their two versions so that they might present a single bill to both houses for a vote.

The committee chairs who presided over the House and Senate bills, Representative John Kline and Senator Lamar Alexander, respectively, get to decide who to invite to sit on the resulting House-Senate conference committee. There is no set number of individuals, and House and Senate do not have to have equal numbers on the committee because the two houses vote separately and act via majority vote. Still, there might be some friction between Democrats and Republicans within a house regarding the proportions of each party invited to sit on the committee.

The 2015 situation with the two ESEA reauthorizations is unusual in that what is being discussed in conference is not one bill that originated in one house of Congress and then was agreed to “as amended” by the other house. What we have here are two distinct bills. It seems that content of the two bills that does not differ is not up for amendment. For example, both SSA and ECAA preserve annual testing. So, it seems that the conferees will not be able to vote to rid the bills of annual testing.  However, on issues about which the two bills differ, such as Title I funding portability, conferees will be able to vote. (I am drawing my reasoning from two Library of Congress documents on House-Senate conference committees, here and here.)

But there is a lot of negotiation that will occur, not only between the two houses, but also between the houses and the White House.

To help me understand the process and the timeline, I investigated the NCLB House-Senate conference committee. (I realize that when this 2001 committee was in session, there was not yet an NCLB, but I will use this title for clarity’s sake.)

NCLB originated in the House as HR 1 for the 107th session of Congress (2001-02).On May 23, 2001, HR 1 passed in the House by a 384-45 vote.  On June 14, 2001, the Senate approved HR 1 “as amended” by a vote of 98-1. Since the Senate was in About the Upcoming House-Senate ESEA Conference Committee… and One from the Past | deutsch29:

How REAL Community Schools Differ from Charters Who Adopt that Label

How REAL Community Schools Differ from Charters Who Adopt that Label:

How REAL Community Schools Differ from Charters Who Adopt that Label

By Mark Naison



Community Schools are public schools with wrap around services that become places where all residents of low income communities can find spaces where they can learn, organize and find a voice. The concept was once at the forefront of social justice organizing in the 1980’s and 1990’s, but was pushed aside for a vision of test based accountability from the top down in which all schools must promote mastery of a common curriculum. Bringing back the original ideal of Community schools, along with curricula which incorporate community traditions and cultures, is one of the best responses public school advocates can make to the Corporate sponsored charter school offensive.

What complicates this effort is that those promoting charter schools, now that charters have lost their luster due to fiscal improprieties and academic abuses, are starting to call corporate charters “Community schools” This is taking place in Memphis, and is also occurring in Youngstown, where state education officials propose to charterize the entire district.

The only way to challenge this effort and prevent Corporate reformers from hijacking and derailing the Community schools movement, is to spell out the differences between public community schools and charters which take some elements of the community school concept and reject others.

Here are some of the key features of Community schools as developed over the last fifty years.

Democratic participation and control. The school is a place where all community members are welcome and access services, take classes and hold meetings, not just families of children at the school.. Charters almost NEVER do that. They separate families in the school community from those in the larger community.

Culturally appropriate curricula and school culture. Community schools draw on the cultural traditions of the people in the communities where they are How REAL Community Schools Differ from Charters Who Adopt that Label:

Man walks hundreds of miles, calls for education reform - Your4State.com

Man walks hundreds of miles, calls for education reform - Your4State.com:

Man walks hundreds of miles, calls for education reform

FREDERICK COUNTY, Md. – A Connecticut professor pushing for change in education, made a stop in Frederick County, Md. while embarking on a 400 mile walking journey to Washington, D.C.

“The educational policy of this nation is abusive,” said Jesse Turner, who is referred to as “the walking man.” “The testing is abusive, the curriculum that they're forcing upon kids is abusive and the common core is abusive.”

Turner, who has a background in civil rights work, averages about 10 miles a day, usually in the morning when the weather is still cool. 

Turner set out on a similar journey in 2010, but said very few people paid attention. 

“In 2015, people are paying attention,” Turner said. “Parents and students are coming out to show their support.”

Turner’s voyage, which spans five states, is a grass roots campaign aimed to bring awareness to what he refers to as “testing abuse.” 

Turner’s trip to Mt. Airy, Md., was not on the original agenda for his trip. However, he made the stop to meet with a Frederick County family that has fought for education reform at the local level for more than two years. 

“Why are we harassing kids like Ben and making them take state mandated tests?” Turner asked. “Shouldn’t we be making his life as comfortable and meaningful as possible?”

Ben Rose, who is a 10-years-old, has cerebral palsy and is considered non-verbal. While his disability limits his cognitive skills, Rose’s mother said school policy requires him to take tests that he does not understand. 

“He doesn't know his name. He couldn't pick out his name on a piece of paper, but they want him to explain complex ideas,” Rose said. “He's tested for his age not his ability.”

Rose added that he operates at the level of an 18-month-old. 

Rose has been fighting to deny testing on behalf of her son, who can not speak for himself, for the last two and a half Man walks hundreds of miles, calls for education reform - Your4State.com: