New Orleans Schools, 10 Years After Katrina: Beacon Or Warning? : NPR Ed : NPR

New Orleans Schools, 10 Years After Katrina: Beacon Or Warning? : NPR Ed : NPR:

New Orleans Schools, 10 Years After Katrina: Beacon Or Warning?

On Sept. 15, 2005, two weeks after Katrina and the levee breaches, I drove with my parents into New Orleans. It was my 25th birthday.

We used my press pass from The Village Voice to get past a military checkpoint so we could assess the damage to their home near Tulane University. It turned out to be minimal: a few slate tiles off the roof, tree limbs downed, a putrid refrigerator full of rotting food to drag to the curb.

I stayed on as the city blinked back to life in fits and starts. Most public schools remained officially closed for months. New Orleans students descended on schools in Houston and Baton Rouge. Many missed months of classes. Some never went back. Thousands of teachers were pink-slipped.

Makeshift one-room schoolhouses popped up — I volunteered for a few days at one run in a room at Loyola University.

Even as the debris was being cleared, there were those who saw an opportunity. At the time, New Orleans was the second-lowest-ranked district in the second-lowest-ranked state in the country.

"I feel optimistic for these kids from the Orleans Parish school system," Robin Delamatre, a family friend and a veteran New Orleans educator, told me back then."These poor children may come from a failing system to a school system that will really support them."

A decade is a natural moment to pause and look back. Our NPR Ed team spent lots oftime over the past school year trying to find out what has happened to the kids from the Orleans Parish school system. Today, that system is, for all intents and purposes, no longer. Almost every student in the city attends a charter, private or parochial school.

We looked at:

The pros and cons of an all-choice system.

The saga of one student who attended a total of five schools during and after Katrina.

The recent influx of unaccompanied minors from Central America.

The struggles of alternative schools, which take students who aren't successful elsewhere.

"Disconnected youth."

The school-to-prison pipeline.

And, teachers passing down the city's musical traditions.

Today, New Orleans is a "portfolio model." The role of the Recovery School District is largely to coordinate, not to run, a variety of schools. There is a centralized application process called the OneApp, and a centralized expulsion board. The RSD has been especially active in taking over schools deemed underperforming: Since the schools reopened, 16 New Orleans schools have been completely closed and another 30 have been reorganized, out of just 90 in the city total.

The changes have brought a new sense of excitement and possibility around education in the city.

On a visit back home this month, all over town, at bus shelters and local cafes, there were fliers and posters advertising schools — with vegetable gardens and maker spaces and computer classes, yoga and meditation and foreign-language immersion.

There's no higher concentration anywhere in the country of education-related nonprofits, philanthropies and startups.

Some see a success story. Others are raising an alarm.

Tracking Progress

The most recent set of research reports, issued in July by Douglas Harris of the Education Research Alliance, confirms what the state, city and other organizations have repeatedly said: "The performance of New Orleans students shot upward after the reforms."

It's not just about higher test scores. The researchers find that, "relative to the state as a whole, the New Orleans high school graduation rate and college entry rate (among high school graduates) rose 10 and 14 percentage points."

Not only that: "The number of suspensions and expulsions has dropped since the reforms."

And, Harris and his co-authors conclude, "We are not aware of any other districts that have made such large improvements in such a short time."

Now the question that many are asking is: Can New Orleans really be a model for other cities? Urban districts pursuing some version of the portfolio model include New York, Chicago, Denver and Baltimore.

Harris cautions that repeating the city's improvements won't be easy, for two reasons. One is that in New Orleans, the schools performed so badly before that there was nowhere to go but up.

The second is the disaster itself. The storm and its aftermath did what no democratic authority or education advocate could do: Shutter every school and focus national attention on the city.

Philanthropic money poured in. And self-described Young Urban Rebuilding Professionals came from all over the country to help rebuild. In a relatively small school system, there were enough to make a difference.

Attracting that kind of talent and energy to labor hard for low wages is exceedingly difficult. Elsewhere in the country, the reality instead is big teacher shortages.

At the same time, there are those who are determined that what happened to New New Orleans Schools, 10 Years After Katrina: Beacon Or Warning? : NPR Ed : NPR:

Louisiana Educator: A Practical Approach to Revising Our Louisiana Curriculum Standards

Louisiana Educator: A Practical Approach to Revising Our Louisiana Curriculum Standards:

A Practical Approach to Revising Our Louisiana Curriculum Standards

Note to readers: The following is an email I sent to members of the committees of educators and citizens charged with making revisions to the Louisiana Curriculum Standards. I believe that the process for revision of the standards currently being implemented by the LDOE is designed tosimply make minor changes and basically rebrand the present common core standards as genuine Louisiana standards. In passing Acts 329 and Act 342 of the last legislative session, I believe the Louisiana Legislature expected more than just minor revisions. 

Dear Standards Review Committee Members:

Please consider the following as my recommendations as a citizen and as an educator for revisions of the Louisiana Academic Content Standards being conducted as directed by Act 329 of the 2015 legislative session.

As an experienced educator, I have a concern that the Standards Review Portal at the Louisiana Department of Education website tends to limit comment to the current Common Core State Standards that were first tested extensively in the Spring of 2015. The portal does not provide much opportunity for parents and educators to compare and contrast the new Common Core standards with those that were in use prior to adoption of Common Core.  Those prior standards were considered by some experts to be both rigorous and effective. Also it is a fact that most teachers and administrators in our schools are very familiar with the previous standards used in Louisiana and could easily substitute them for any of the new CCSS if they are judged to be more effective and appropriate in educating our students.

My first recommendation is that the previous Louisiana standards often referred to as the Louisiana Grade Level Expectations for math and ELA be provided to the standards review committees, to be reviewed alongside the new Common Core standards. This would facilitate the consideration and comparison of the two sets of standards with which our educators are most familiar.

My second recommendation relates to the use of the recent standardized tests administered in the Spring of 2015 as part of the standards review process. It is my belief after extensively studying the annual LEAP and iLEAP tests for the last several years that the tests themselves serve as a critical part of the standards implementation process.  I believe that the actual performance of our students on individual test questions that are designed to measure student proficiency on each of the standards provides valuable insight into the grade level appropriateness and usefulness of each of the standards.  For example, even though a particular standard may look good on paper, it is only when we attempt to test that standard with an actual question on the annual test that we can judge the true effectiveness of that standard.  Teachers regularly conduct an analysis of their teacher made tests to constantly refine and improve both their teaching and test construction.

I am therefore recommending that BESE and the Standards Review Committees request that the Louisiana Department of Education make available to all committee members, as soon as possible, an individual item analysis of each test question that was utilized in the Spring 2015 testing along with the identity of the corresponding standard which it was designed to test. This item analysis should include the percentage of Louisiana students who answered each item correctly. This would provide the Review Committees with some insight into the effectiveness and appropriateness of Louisiana Educator: A Practical Approach to Revising Our Louisiana Curriculum Standards:

 FLIP THE 
LOUISIANA BOARD OF ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION 
( BESE)

Click Here to Follow Flip BESE on Facebook 

Click Here to Follow Flip BESE on Facebook 

Controversial teacher evaluation method is on trial — literally — and the judge is not amused - The Washington Post

Controversial teacher evaluation method is on trial — literally — and the judge is not amused - The Washington Post:

Controversial teacher evaluation method is on trial — literally — and the judge is not amused

Here is a report on what happened this week in a New York court where a judge is hearing the case brought by Sheri G. Lederman, a fourth-grade teacher in the Great Neck public school district, against state education officials over their controversial method of evaluating her — and, by extension, other N.Y. teachers.

The method is known as “value-added modeling,” or VAM, and it purports to be able to use student standardized test scores to determine the “value” of a teacher while factoring out every other influence on a student (including, for example, hunger, sickness, and stress). One way it works is by predicting, through a complicated computer model, how students with similar characteristics are supposed to perform on the exams, and teachers are then evaluated on how well their students measure up to the theoretical students. New York is just one of the many states where VAM is a key component of teacher assessment. Evaluation experts have warned  policymakers that this method is not reliable for evaluating teachers, but VAM became popular among school reformers as a “data-driven” evaluation solution.

Lederman’s suit against state education officials — including John King, the former state education commissioner who is now a top adviser to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan — challenges the rationality of the VAM model, and it alleges that the New York State Growth Measures “actually punishes excellence in education through a statistical black box which no rational educator or fact finder could see as fair, accurate or reliable.”

Here’s what happened to Lederman: In 2012-13, 68.75 percent of her New York students met or exceeded state standards in both English and math. She was labeled “effective” that year. In 2013-2014, her students’ test results were very similar, but she was rated “ineffective.” Meanwhile, her district superintendent, Thomas Dolan, declared that Lederman — whose students received  standardized math and English Language Arts test scores consistently higher than the state average — has a “flawless record.”

Lederman and her attorney husband, Bruce Lederman, sued and obtained affidavits of support from a number of education experts. You can read about what they said here.

On Aug. 12, New York Supreme Court Justice Roger McDonough presided over a hearing in the case — and he was not amused with the state’s case. Following is a report on the hearing by Carol Burris, the executive director of the nonprofit Network for Public Education Fund. Burris retired in June as an award-winning principal at a New York high school, and she is the author of numerous articles, books and blog posts (including on The Answer Sheet) about the botched school reform efforts in her state.

[Why a master teacher is suing New York state over her evaluation]

By Carol Burris

The exasperated New York Supreme Court judge, Roger McDonough, tried to get Assistant Attorney General Galligan to answer his questions. He was looking for clarity and instead got circuitous responses about bell curves, “outliers” and adjustments. Fourth-grade teacher Sheri Lederman’s VAM score of “ineffective” was on trial.

The more Ms. Galligan tried to defend the bell curve of growth scores as science, the more the judge pushed back with common sense. It was clear that he did his homework. He understood that the New York State Education Department’s VAM system artificially set the percentage of “ineffective” teachers at 7 percent. That arbitrary decision clearly troubled him. “Doesn’t the bell curve make it subjective? There has to be failures,” he asked.

The defender of the curve said that she did not like the “failure” word.

The judge quipped, “Ineffectives, how about that?” Those in attendance laughed.

Ms. Galligan preferred the term “outlier.” Those who got ineffective growth Controversial teacher evaluation method is on trial — literally — and the judge is not amused - The Washington Post:

Decision to cancel high school exit exam creates chaos - San Jose Mercury News

Decision to cancel high school exit exam creates chaos - San Jose Mercury News:

Decision to cancel high school exit exam creates chaos

Big Education Ape: Call for Action for Students Affected by CAHSEE - Year 2015 (CA Dept of Education) http://bit.ly/1DOwDYL

SACRAMENTO -- A hasty decision by California education officials to cancel the final high school exit exam for the Class of 2015 has unwittingly prevented several thousand students across the state from graduating.

The state considers the exit exam outmoded and intends to ditch it altogether, but legislators haven't yet altered state law requiring students to pass the test. That has left in the lurch seniors who met all other requirements and planned to take the exit exam this summer before starting college this fall. More than 300 students from San Francisco and Oakland alone are affected.

"The state has not left the school district or the students any attractive options," said Troy Flint, a spokesman for the Oakland Unified School District who noted that many of the district's 221 students affected are immigrants who have struggled to learn English.

"These children are victims of bureaucratic mismanagement," Flint said.

To make matters worse, the exam is effectively obsolete because its questions are aligned to a math and language arts curriculum that hasn't been used in California schools for several years. That's why lawmakers are considering a bill to eliminate the requirement to pass the test.

San Francisco's school board Friday decided to "go rogue" and defy state law by eliminating the exit exam requirement. That will mean 107 students who haven't passed the exam will receive their diplomas. Scores of the students received them Friday evening at a special board meeting.

"It was tears, it was hugs, and I think there was a lot of disbelief," said Richard Carranza, superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District "It was incredibly powerful. That's why I'm a teacher in the first place, to see students walk across the stage. It's why we do what we do."

Unlike San Francisco, Oakland is not planning on bending state law and issuing diplomas out of fear that heavy fines and the withholding of state funding could potentially affect the entire district, Flint said.

Gov. Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris on Friday condemned the situation and pledged to resolve it as quickly as possible to ensure that students are able to pursue their dreams in college, the military or the work force. Failing to fix the mess right away creates "real and immediate harm for these students," Harris said.

Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, and Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, issued a joint statement Friday promising to introduce "urgency legislation" as soon as Monday -- when the Legislature returns from its summer break -- to help as many as 5,000 students "stuck in bureaucratic limbo through no fault of their own." It would take lawmakers at least a week to move such a bill to Brown's desk for his signature.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson said in a statement that he is working with lawmakers and leaders of the University of California and California State University to ensure students aren't denied entry to college solely because they haven't passed the exit exam.

"No student's dream of a college education should be delayed because of an anomaly," Torlakson said.

Education officials had scheduled the July test, but in June they canceled it.

Torlakson said the July exam wasn't offered as it had been in previous summers because the state canceled the $11 million-a-year contract it held with Educational Testing Service, the company that has long administered the exam.

"Most of the cost in conducting an assessment is in developing the test," said Keric Ashley, a deputy superintendent at the state Department of Education, so the cost for just one administration of the July test "would have been very expensive."

Sophomores at Monterey High were taking high school exit exams March, 9, 2011. (Vern Fisher/Monterey County Herald)

Indeed, the contract won't be needed if lawmakers pass Senate Bill 172, sponsored by Sen. Carol Liu, D-Glendale, and suspend the requirement to take the test for three years. But the California Department of Education apparently did not consider the immediate impact that decision would have on students who banked their futures on passing the exam in July.

Some other Bay Area school districts weren't hit as hard as Oakland and San Francisco. Only two students in the San Ramon Valley Unified School District, for example, failed to graduate because they didn't pass the exam. Many other Bay Area school districts did not respond to requests Friday to provide the number of students affected by the state decision suspending the exam.

So far, UC isn't aware of any students having had their admissions offers rescinded for not passing the exit exam, said Dianne Klein, a spokeswoman for UC's Office of the President. And if they learn of any students affected by this problem in the coming weeks, their Decision to cancel high school exit exam creates chaos - San Jose Mercury News:

A Civil Rights Legacy Squandered? Bilingual Education and the Reauthorization of No Child Left Behind

A Civil Rights Legacy Squandered? Bilingual Education and the Reauthorization of No Child Left Behind:

A Civil Rights Legacy Squandered? Bilingual Education and the Reauthorization of No Child Left Behind

As Congress continues its work on the long-overdue reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), debates about Title I funding, testing, standards, accountability and charter schools have captured the bulk of the media's attention. Much less consideration has been given to another (and historically important) aspect of the legislation, which is also known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA): bilingual education.

In 1968, the Bilingual Education Act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson, becoming Title VII of ESEA - a hard-fought civil rights victory. However, beginning in the 1980s (as I've chronicled in The Bilingual School in the United States) subsequent reauthorizations of ESEA began to reflect the political pressure of the English-only movement and, thus, included more funding for non-bilingual programs, such as English as a Second Language (ESL) and English immersion. The term "bilingual" was removed from the 2001 reauthorization when the act was renamed "No Child Left Behind." Although bilingual education is not prohibited by ESEA, it is not encouraged either; the transitioning of English learners to only English rather than cultivating their bilingualism has become the preferred practice.

This slow but steady retreat from dual-language instruction is problematic because many language scholars agree that bilingual education serves the needs of English learners better than ESL or English immersion programs. That is, numerous studies - brilliantly analyzed and synthesized in Eugene E. Garciá's Teaching and Learning in Two Languages - show that instruction in students' home language provides a linguistic foundation for the learning of English (and other languages) and bolsters their self-esteem, precisely what the Bilingual Education Act originally hoped to achieve.

Currently, there are two competing bills to reauthorize ESEA in Congress. Both the Senate's Every Child Achieves Act and the House's Student Success Act essentially stay the course with regard to language policy. Both versions have categorized "limited English proficient" children as "English learners" - a slightly more positive label, but one that still keeps the focus on English - but there are some differences between the bills as well.

The Senate's legislation merely tweaks No Child Left Behind's section on language instruction - Title III - while the House's rendition eliminates a specific division for this purpose and primarily addresses language issues within the multifaceted Title I. Like the various ESEA reauthorizations since the 1980s, bilingual education is permitted, but the focus is on its development of English-language skills, not bilingualism. For example, the House version allows the "instructional use of both English and a child's native language" to "attain English language proficiency" (section 1221). With the primary focus on "English language proficiency," rather than bilingualism, linguistic minorities' arduous civil rights journey has been ignored. Continuing in the tradition of NCLB, both of these reauthorization bills squander the historical legacy of the Bilingual Education Act.

As a historian of education who studies bilingual instruction in the United States, I sometimes hear the common refrain that "my grandparents came from Germany (or some other country), and they turned out just fine without bilingual education." There are a couple of problems with that commonsensical stance. First, it was not until the Great Depression and, especially, the postwar era that the American high school became a mass institution; thus, most students, including foreign-language speakers, left school without completing a secondary education. Financially, many of these folks may have "turned out just fine" because there were plenty of blue-collar jobs in an industrial United States. That is not necessarily the case today.

Second, these mythical grandparents or great-grandparents that so many people mention they may have, in fact, received bilingual instruction during their schooling. Many Americans think of bilingual education as an educational practice that emerged during the 1960s and 1970s for Latinos, Asians and Native Americans. Dual-language instruction in the US, however, is as old as public schooling itself.

Because of the local nature of schooling during the 19th century, as I argue inBilingual Public Schooling in the United States, immigrants often established and shaped the schools in their communities, frequently insisting that their mother tongues be cultivated in the curriculum. German-English public schools were ubiquitous throughout the nation, while Norwegian and French bilingual schools A Civil Rights Legacy Squandered? Bilingual Education and the Reauthorization of No Child Left Behind:

Lawmakers finally consider tighter rules on charter schools - Sun Sentinel

Lawmakers finally consider tighter rules on charter schools - Sun Sentinel:

Lawmakers finally consider tighter rules on charter schools

It's not often that Florida's lawmakers try to further regulate charter schools, which operate with fewer restrictions than public schools.

So it's refreshing to see that Sen. John Legg, R-Lutz, and Rep. Manny Diaz Jr., R-Hialeah Gardens, want to tighten at least one area to make charters more accountable for how they spend taxpayer dollars.

Legg and Diaz have said they will push for legislation prohibiting charters from paying founders and investors for start-up costs incurred years before a school opens. Their effort is in response to a Palm Beach Post investigation that found one of Palm Beach County's largest charter schools is paying its founder's company for a loan that doesn't exist.

The revelations the newspaper has uncovered make it appear like Eagle Arts Academy Charter School for the Arts founder and board chairman Gregory James Blount is using the school as his personal piggy bank.

Blount claims the $38,000 loan, according to the report, was for expenses his company, Sound Tree Entertainment, incurred writing a charter school application years before the Wellington school opened. Only there are no documents to verify the loan exists. And no invoices to document most of the expenses.

Yet Eagle Arts is not only "repaying" the so-called loan, but also paying thousands in interest.

Charter schools are run privately but financed publicly, so the money Blount's company is pocketing is taxpayer dollars for educating students.

Though highly unusual — and some say unethical — Eagle Arts' payments to Blount's company do not violate state law. That's because lawmakers do not hold charter and private schools to the same standards as public schools. They demand increasingly more accountability from public educators while keeping the reins loose on private companies that profit from educating Florida's students.

This latest discovery about Eagle Arts has at least prompted Legg and Diaz to act.

"It would be my intent to prohibit retroactive payments that are prior to a charter contract and that are not stipulated in a contract," Legg, chairman of the Senate's education committee, told The Post. "I just don't see how a board can offer reimbursement for something there's no invoice for or no receipt for."

It certainly isn't good business practice.

Diaz said the terms of repayment for start-up loans from founders and investors should be outlined upfront. "In cases like this, it needs to be very clear that there is a loan," said Diaz, chairman of the House's Choice and Innovation subcommittee."In the normal business world you don't go around loaning people money without setting terms."

In Florida's business world it's OK for charter schools to do that.

The Palm Beach County School Board is already auditing Eagle Arts in light of an earlier report by The Post on the school's questionable financial dealings with Blount.

In addition to the alleged loan repayment, Eagle Arts paid Blount's company Artademics $7,500 in consulting fees. Blount also awarded another company he owns a $125,000 contract to design Eagle Arts' curriculum.

The conflict of interest in Blount's position as board chairman is blatant. He appears to be violating a provision in Eagle Arts' charter that prohibits board members from profiting from the school.

A former model, Blount has no background in education. Florida, though, doesn't require charter school applicants to have any knowledge in education. State law allows school districts to consider only the plan for instruction and budget when evaluating charter school proposals. Florida statutes do not require background checks or financial screenings that private companies seeking public dollars typically undergo.

Lawmakers have rejected legislation that would allow districts to better vet charter school applicants.

Florida's lax oversight of charter schools is a disservice toLawmakers finally consider tighter rules on charter schools - Sun Sentinel:

Opting Out of Standardized Tests Isn’t the Answer - The New York Times

Opting Out of Standardized Tests Isn’t the Answer - The New York Times:
Opting Out of Standardized Tests Isn’t the Answer

An alarming 200,000, or 20 percent, of the students in grades three through eight in New York State public schools this yearrefused to take the state’s standardized tests in reading and math that are supposed to measure progress in meeting national academic standards.

This ill-conceived boycott could damage educational reform — desperately needed in poor and rural communities — and undermine the Common Core standards adopted by New York and many other states. The standards offer the best hope for holding school districts accountable for educating all students, regardless of race or income.

The 200,000 students, out of 1.1 million, who skipped the tests did not have a known valid reason, like illness. That was quadruple the number from the year before and by far the highest opt-out rate for any state. In some school districts the opt-out rate was above 80 percent. For the most part, those opting out were white and in wealthy or middle-class communities. In New York City, less than 2 percent opted out.

Many parents who oppose the tests say the tests are too difficult or do not track with classroom instruction. Of the students who took the tests statewide, only 31 percent had a proficient score on reading while 38 percent were proficient in math.

And teachers have complained that they will be judged unfairly based on how well students perform on tests that they consider faulty; at least one of their union leaders urged parents to boycott the tests.

Some of these complaints are legitimate. New York has adopted some of the most stringent testing standards in the country — equal to or higher than the bar set by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which most experts consider the best measure of student performance — but has not done enough to train teachers to carry out a more rigorous curriculum.

In response to parental protests, the State Legislature last year forbade school districts to use test scores as the primary factor in grade promotions or to put the scores on a student’s permanent record. Current law also limits the use of test scores to rate teachers and requires that most of the rating be based on other factors, like classroom observations.

There may well be too much testing, but the math and reading tests, which come once a year, are not the ones to eliminate. And having a large number of students opting out of the tests could hurt efforts to document and close the achievement gap between low-income and minority students and more privileged students.

Federal law requires that at least 95 percent of eligible students take the annual tests, and districts that fall short may face penalties, including a loss of federal aid. But imposing penalties would further damage poor districts that already lack sufficient money to improve their academic performance or help subpar students with remedial tutoring. At the same time, financial penalties might not persuade districts with the highest opt-out rates — often the wealthier ones — to participate, since they are apt to receive little federal funding.

Although the state can also withhold funds, officials seem reluctant to stoke further parental anger.

With opt-out activists threatening to redouble their efforts next year, political leaders need to convince everyone involved — school boards, superintendents, principals, parents, state education officials, guidance counselors, and teachers and their unions — of the importance of these tests and find ways to help students and teachers meet the challenge they pose.Opting Out of Standardized Tests Isn’t the Answer - The New York Times:

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Bernie Sanders Explains Puzzling Education Vote – It’s Because Accountability | gadflyonthewallblog

Bernie Sanders Explains Puzzling Education Vote – It’s Because Accountability | gadflyonthewallblog:

Bernie Sanders Explains Puzzling Education Vote – It’s Because Accountability

When teachers asked, Bernie Sanders answered.

Why, Bernie? Why did you vote this summer against everything you seem to stand for on education policy?

You stood against President George W. Bush’s disastrous No Child Left Behind legislation in 2001. Why did you vote for almost the same thing in 2015?

The answer is in from the Vermont Senator turned Democratic Presidential Candidate, but it’s not entirely satisfactory.

The short version: Accountability.

In education circles, it’s a buzzword meaning opposite things to opposite people. And determined in opposite ways.

Ask a representative of the standardized testing industry, and more than likely he’ll tell you accountability means making sure public schools actually teach students –especially the poor and minorities. And the only way to determine this is through repeated, rigid, standardized assessments. Let’s call that TEACHER ACCOUNTABILITY.

Ask a real live educator, and more than likely she’ll tell you it means making sure local, state and federal governments actually provide the funding and resources necessary to teach students – especially the poor and minorities. And the best way to determine this is simple math. Let’s call that LAWMAKER ACCOUNTABILITY.

These seem to be the central disagreements: Are lawmakers providing equitable resources to all our public schools or are teachers just not doing their jobs? Are student test scores the best way to measure accountability or should we rely on something as rock solid as elementary math?

TEACHER ACCOUNTABILITY is hard to determine. You have to spend billions of taxpayer dollars buying tests, scoring tests and on test prep materials. And then you have to ignore all the evidence that this proves nothing. You could instead just poke your head into any public school across the nation and actually see teachers workingtheir butts off. Heck! You could stop in after school hours and count the numbers of teachers still at work and tabulate the amount of their own cash they spend on class materials. But that won’t work – there isn’t an industry profiting off you using your own eyes and brain.

On the other hand, determining LAWMAKER ACCOUNTABILITY is easy. Justcompare school budgets. Greater than and less than. You’ll find that none of our lawmakers provide equitable funding. Rich kids in wealthy districts get Cadillac funding while poor and minority kids in impoverished districts get bicycle funding. Strangely, this is never discussed.

Moreover, none of this relies on opinion. All it takes is empirical evidence to see the truth. Lawmakers are not accountable at all. Teachers are accountable for too much and judged by unscientific and untrustworthy methods.

Unfortunately, few politicians have fully figured this out yet. Even you, Bernie.

This summer it’s all come down to a series of votes on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).

The law the governs K-12 public schools was written in 1965 to ensure all schools received the proper resources – LAWMAKER ACCOUNTABILITY.

However, under President George W. Bush and throughout the Obama years, it’s become about punishing teachers and schools for low standardized test scores –TEACHER ACCOUNTABILITY.

And the champions of TEACHER ACCOUNTABILITY this summer have been primarily Democrats including liberal lions like Elizabeth Warren and Sanders.

LAWMAKER ACCOUNTABILITY? No one’s talking that.

Most troubling is the Murphy Amendment – an attempt to double down onTEACHER ACCOUNTABILITY. Keep testing and punishing because it’s working soooowell. Thankfully, the move was defeated by Senate Republicans. But Sanders and Warren both voted for it. Warren even co-sponsored it!

That’s why a group of respected education professionals and union leaders (including myself) wrote an open letter to Sanders asking him to please explain, himself.

We aren’t exactly a hostile crowd. We like a bunch of things that Sanders represents in his presidential campaign. We want to support him, but we need to know why he voted to keep the worst aspects of the current law.

And Bernie answered! Or his staff did.

I’ll reproduce the entire letter we received from staffer Phil Fiermonte below this blog. But first I want to focus on Bernie’s specific reasons for voting in favor of the Murphy Amendment:

As you mentioned, Senator Murphy introduced an amendment on the Senate floor that would have required states to hold schools accountable for the academic performance of low-income, minority and disabled students. Senator Sanders voted for this amendment because he believes states must do more to protect every student’s right to a quality education, and that from a civil right’s perspective, the federal government has an important role to play in protecting low-income, minority and disabled children. As you pointed out, the mechanism this amendment would have used to identify struggling schools resembles the failed policies of No Child Left Behind. This was a significant concern to the Senator, and one that he shared with the sponsors of the amendment.

Senator Sanders cast his vote on this amendment to express his disapproval 

Bernie Sanders Explains Puzzling Education Vote – It’s Because Accountability | gadflyonthewallblog:

Broad's LAUSD WMDs - Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association:

Broad's LAUSD WMDs 

by Geronimo, NBCT, Honorary BAT

The forces that Eil Broad represents are relentless. Their money buys them access and political clout. We are engaged in an endless war with the privatizers.

Eli Broad’s methodology is much like TFA’s. You work and groom your people and offer them to the system so that they can implement their corporate ed reform policies from the inside. 

John Deasy’s tenure at LAUSD is the perfect example. Groomed in the Gates/Broad laboratory, he was offered to former Mayor Villaraigosa who stashed him in LAUSD for detonation within the school system to cause massive disruption and casualties.

Deasy performed his destructive function brilliantly and the collateral damage from his tenure still roils the district. 

After LAUSD was battered by his reckless and arrogant tenure, Deasy escaped the district without answering publicly for his crimes to education. He found cushy asylum with Broad who currently harbors him in the inner sanctum of his foundation. Deasy remains a Napoleon in his luxury skybox Elba but still manages to dictate policy.

The intense bond between him and Arne Duncan is legendary and both advise each other on policy matters. 

When Broad’s 50% plan to charterize LAUSD was reported, it was as unsurprising as learning Dick Cheney wanting to go topple Iraq. The writing had been on the wall for years and Broad’s Foundation has the cash and resources to bulldoze his way to that end.

Broadism is all about the ENDS. Deasyism is about the MEANS.

These two cowards will not come out to debate their positions in anything but a FOX NEWS friendly audience. They are much like the Koch Brothers in this way and use their money and connections to bypass the public and go right to the politicians who will make the rules.

Broad and Deasy are shrewd at the political game. Their entire careers are testaments to how well they have courted the rich and powerful.

Engaged citizen activists are the ONLY thing standing in their way from the control they have mapped out from Day One.

For Cheney it was Baghdad.

For Broad it is Beaudry.

  

Broad Trumps Trump

 
by Geronimo, NBCT

We all may think Donald Trump is a buffoon and a bizarre spectacle for our insatiable Ringing Brothers' amusement, but we all owe him a debt of gratitude for ripping the charade off how “business” is done in America.

In Thursday’s GOP debate, Trump quite honestly stated that he buys politicians and expects favors in return. He calls everyone else naive and idiots if they don’t know how the system works.

John Deasy was the Trojan Horse in the world of LA’s public education.

After he was installed in LAUSD, Deasy proceeded to implement the business model he was weaned on all his life over the city's education system.

This grotesque Trump-style "economic" pedagogy was enacted by Deasy throughout his tenure at LAUSD. Deasy's entire career was Badass Teachers Association:

Los Angeles Unified School District Debates Whether to Shoot Its Own Students–With Department of Defense Weapons

Los Angeles Unified School District Debates Whether to Shoot Its Own Students–With Department of Defense Weapons:

Los Angeles Unified School District Debates Whether to Shoot Its Own Students–With Department of Defense Weapons

On Thursday, July 30, 50 Black and Latino students wearing mock bullet proof vests with stickers that stated #StudentsAintBulletProof #End1033, from the Strategy Center’s Fight for the Soul of the Cities, once again asked the Los Angeles Unified School District to give us a list of the weapons they received from the Department of Defense 1033 Program, to return 61 M 16 assault rifles we believe are still in their possession, and to apologize for being in the program in the first place. Students said, after 3 public comment testimonies, four long letters (September 2014, November 2014, May 2015, July 2015), over 3,500 petitions, appeals, and every other method of persuasion “Why is the LAUSD trying to kill us?” This campaign is part of the Strategy Center’s No Cars in LA and the U.S., No Tanks in LA and the U.S. (see Huffington Post http://huff.to/1P7TkHS)

Shortly before the board meeting Manuel Criollo, the Center’s director of organizing and I received a letter from LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines informing us that “the Los Angeles School Police Department discontinued its participation in the DoD 1033 Program. This decision was made prior to the release of the May 2015 Presidential Order 13688 limiting or restricting law enforcement agencies nationwide participation in the aforementioned program.”

We wrote back saying that language was very vague—what did “discontinued its participation” mean? Was the LAUSD completely out of the program? What military grade weapons had it received from the DOD, which weapons and when had it returned (such as the DOD MRAP tank) and which weapons, such as the reported 61 M-16 Assault Rifles, it still retained and when it planned to return them. We did not receive a reply.

When we talked to new LAUSD Board President Steve Zimmer and other board members there was ambiguity about what they knew and what they were told–and they agreed to at least find out the answers to our questions. But we wrote back that we needed more than that.

We needed a commitment that they would introduce a motion supporting the demands we had been raising for a year—including calling on President Obama to end the entire program.

But we also raised deep concerns about what we believed was the board’s disrespectful behavior towards the public during “public comment–in which students and parents pour their hearts out but board members do not comment, empathize, or offer encouragement. Instead, after each person speaks, the chair says, “next!” turning “public comment” into a sterile exercise of sham democracy. We believed we had the commitment of one board member to change that behavior, to respond to Strategy Center’s demands we have raised for more than a year, to introduce a motion to make a full accounting of the process and the weapons, to let us know if they had any remaining weapons, and to commit to returning every one down to the last bullet.

But the students did not get a positive response or from most board members, any response at all.

One LAUSD Board member did address the group—in response to students’ demands from the audience. Sadly, Dr. George McKenna (the sole Black member of the board) aggressively defended the tanks, M 16s, and other lethal weapons in the schools. He argued that gangs, drugs, terrorists are all a threat to the public safety, that he wanted to keep the weapons, and added, provocatively, that he would ask for Los Angeles Unified School District Debates Whether to Shoot Its Own Students–With Department of Defense Weapons: