How Good Schools and Good Intentions Widen the Achievement Gap - NEA Today

How Good Schools and Good Intentions Widen the Achievement Gap - NEA Today:

How Good Schools and Good Intentions Widen the Achievement Gap

Debate around the achievement gap is usually dominated by issues such as urban poverty, segregation, and school funding. These factors unquestionably have an enormous impact on student outcomes, but why do disparities persist at well-funded, diverse and high-achieving suburban schools?  John B. Diamond, associate professor of education at the University of Wisconsin, and Amanda E. Lewis, associate professor of African American Studies at the University of Illinois, spent five years examining such a school to find out. Riverview High (a pseudonym) is in many ways an ideal school, but, despite its successes, is still plagued by wide disparities in achievement. Diamond and Lewis recently spoke with NEA Today about their findings, which they have compiled in an eye-opening new book, “Despite the Best Intentions: How Racial Inequality Thrives in Good Schools.”

You spent five years collecting data and interviewing stakeholders at Riverview. How were able to gain access and how did the project evolve?

John Diamond: An assistant principal approached us a while ago because he had seen African American students struggle academically for so long and wanted to figure out why. The school itself was racially mixed – about 47 percent White, 35 percent Black, and 8.5 percent Latino. We started by talking with a small group of Black students to understand their experiences. We then expanded it into a larger study in which we interviewed about 170 people – Black, White and Latino students, teachers, parents, administrators, security guards and other staff members – to try and get a handle on what was going on at this supposedly very progressive, racially diverse, well-resourced school. Why was there still a large achievement gap?

A big part of this was due to the racial hierarchies that were embedded at Riverview. How were they evident not only inside classrooms, but also around the school?

JD: The hierarchies were overtly evident in how the kids would enter the same school, walk together through the hallways, but then go to different classrooms, especially the higher level, more heavily-resourced honors classes. Honors classes were 80 percent White in a school that is less than 50 percent White. For Advanced Placement classes, it was 90 percent White. There were also clear differences at the school in how suspensions and expulsions were handed out. Sixty percent of suspensions were for African American kids, who made up only around 35 percent of the student population. Also, a lot of kids from Riverview go to college, but African American and Latino kids were going more often to 2-year colleges, as opposed to 4-year colleges.

What was also clear was that navigating school was very different for these students than it was for White students. For example African American boys were much more likely to be asked for hall passes than their White counterparts. Also, enforcement of the dress code came down most heavily on Black girls. White girls would violate the How Good Schools and Good Intentions Widen the Achievement Gap - NEA Today:

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Opt Out Bill Proposed

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Opt Out Bill Proposed:

PA: Opt Out Bill Proposed

PA House Bill 1634 is as short as it is sweet. It adds the following language to the section of PA law that require the Keystone exams (our own version of the Big Standardized Test).

(b) Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, no child may be required to take a Keystone Exam if the parent or guardian of the child notifies in writing the superintendent or chief administrator that the parent or guardian wishes for the child not to take the Keystone Exam.

(c) No student may be penalized by a school district, the State Board of Education or the  Commonwealth for failing to take a Keystone Exam if the parent or guardian of the child has provided notice under subsection (b).

(d) No student may be required to take a Keystone Exam as a condition for high school graduation.

Currently, Pennsylvania families can opt out of testing only for religious reasons. The state cannot ask you what your religious reasons are, and so the effect is that PA parents can opt out any time they want to. But this makes the opt-out less equivocal, and it reduces parents' need to stand up for their principles by lying about their principles (The test makes me want to holler "God damn it" so, it's kind of a religious objection).

Most important is d), a can that the state has nudged down the road a bit, but which is still definitely in our future. That, combined with our growing insistence that students with special needs take an unmodified Keystone, promises a diploma-denying catastrophe down the road. And of course the use of BS Tests as a grad requirement insures that the lowest functioning students will be denied any education except an endless volley of test prep. Making BS Tests a grad requirement CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Opt Out Bill Proposed:

Russ on Reading: PARCC Test Results in NJ: Child Abuse on the Grand Scale

Russ on Reading: PARCC Test Results in NJ: Child Abuse on the Grand Scale:

PARCC Test Results in NJ: Child Abuse on the Grand Scale

Well, the PARCC test results are out in New Jersey and to no one's surprise, the scores were low. Certainly the State Department of Education was not surprised, since they know that similar forms of the test had similar results in states like New York where an earlier version of the test was taken and where a scant 30% of students were judged to be meeting or exceeding standards. And so it is in New Jersey, where in no grade level did more than half of the students pass the test.

New Jersey Commissioner of Education, David Hespe, says that "There is still much work to be done in ensuring all of our students are fully prepared for the 21st century demands of college and career." Of course that is the official line of all reform minded politicians from President Obama, to US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, to Bill Gates to everybody else who seeks to discredit parents, students, teachers, their unions and public education in general. Low test scores are a major component of the reformers drive for privatizing education through charter schools, vouchers, national standards, over-testing of children and the elimination teacher job protections.

But this test tells us nothing about our children's preparedness for college and career. In fact, the only thing these test results tell us is that the test is deeply and irretrievably flawed. Any Russ on Reading: PARCC Test Results in NJ: Child Abuse on the Grand Scale:

Baraka blasts critics for 'using our children' in charter school fight (VIDEO) | NJ.com

Baraka blasts critics for 'using our children' in charter school fight (VIDEO) | NJ.com:

Baraka blasts critics for 'using our children' in charter school fight (VIDEO)

NEWARK — A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it only took a few in a recent snapshot of Mayor Ras Baraka to cause a stir. 

The photo taken at a breast cancer rally on Sunday shows Baraka smiling with a number of girls dressed in pink, one of whom is holding a sign that reads "Newarkers for MORE KIPP Schools NOW!"

In light of the KIPP charter school networks recent announcement that it plans to seek permission to build up to five more schools in Newark, the picture gained traction on social media, where it was shared by advocates on either side of the city's long-simmering debate on charters.

On Tuesday, one day after calling the expansion "irresponsible" and potentially harmful to Newark children outside of KIPP schools, Baraka clarified that the picture had no bearing on his stance.

"I support all my kids even the ones I don't agree with," he said. "The kids were harmless. They were not being malicious at all. I would take the picture again but my position on expansion remains the same."

Baraka also took to the city's YouTube channel to respond to some of the criticisms he received, saying the girls were being used "to push political fights that we're having as adults."

Newark Teachers Union President John Abeigon said he had seen the picture online and understood the mayor's explanation.

"He's a politician. As a politician I guess he would have to say something like that," he said.

However, he added that he believed the issues surrounding charter growth and their impact on students in traditional public schools required more caution from those in Baraka blasts critics for 'using our children' in charter school fight (VIDEO) | NJ.com:

Why The Democratic Presidential Debate Ignored Education | The Progressive

Why The Democratic Presidential Debate Ignored Education | The Progressive:

Why The Democratic Presidential Debate Ignored Education

The recent Democratic Party presidential debate in Las Vegas left many observers scratching their heads. Why did the candidates and their CNN hosts ignore K-12 education?

Is education not important enough to merit discussion as a top national priority in 2016? The public clearly cares about education. US News reports that education is the third ranked search term on Google. When Gallup asked an open-ended question on the most important issues to voters in the 2016 campaign, education came in sixth.

Perhaps the silence is due to the fact that the Democrats have basically adopted the Republican approach to education from the 1990s.

As a university professor, I know plagiarism occasionally comes up in student work. Perhaps the Democrats are not discussing education because they don’t want to be accused of plagiarism by the Republican Party.

If you look at George H.W. Bush’s education platform of 1992, you see that Republicans have been focused on maligning unions, promoting alternative certification for teachers via programs like Teach For America, and pushing an agenda of school choice, assessments, and one-size-fits-all standards.

The Democrats’ current approach to education policy, as practiced by President Barack Obama and his acolytes (including Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel), appears to be the same. Obama did not create “change” in education.  He pressed the educational policy status quo that the Republicans engineered in the 1990s. For most of Obama’s presidency, George W. Bush’s NCLB (directly imported from Texas in the 1990s) was left alone and even enhanced via “waivers” and Race to the Top.

Is that why the Democratic Party candidates are so quiet on education? Many in the education community are worried that the current slate of candidates will adopt ideas for

- See more at: http://progressive.org/news/2015/10/188372/why-democratic-presidential-debate-ignored-education#sthash.aOlViem0.dpuf

Charter Grants from Arne Duncan Destabilize Under-Resourced Public Districts | janresseger

Charter Grants from Arne Duncan Destabilize Under-Resourced Public Districts | janresseger:

Charter Grants from Arne Duncan Destabilize Under-Resourced Public Districts

There is growing evidence that we have a big problem with public money flowing to poorly regulated charter schools—schools that do a poor job of educating students and that find all sorts of ways to rip off the public and suck in tax dollars that are desperately needed by the public school districts in which they are located. But there is a bigger problem.  In school districts that are not growing demographically—the big cities where charters are expanding—the rapid growth of new charters is destabilizing the public schools.  Research continues to demonstrate that charter schools attract parents who are active choosers and children who do not present really expensive education challenges.  Charters are known to serve fewer English language learners and fewer students whose special education needs are complex—fewer autistic, blind, deaf, and multiply-handicapped children, and fewer homeless children and those who are living below 50 percent of the federal poverty level.  Traditional public school districts are being turned into school districts of last resort as they are expected to serve the children left behind by school choice while money is divided with more and more charter schools.

At the end of September, the U.S. Department of Education awarded over $157 million to seven states, the District of Columbia, and eleven charter school projects across the country for the expansion of charter schools.  The outrageous granting of $71 million to Ohio even as the state was locked in a political battle about establishing even the most minimal oversight of charter schools has been questioned in the press. But what about the other grants?

This week Linda Lutton, the education reporter at WBEZ Chicago, questions the five-year charter grant of $8,412,500 to the Noble Network of Charter Schools in Chicago.  She describes the astute reaction of Jesse Sharkey, Vice President of the Chicago Teachers Union: “Our neighborhood schools have a hard time just delivering a basic education program.  But at the same time there’s federal dollars and private dollars mixing together to privatize schools… It’s like we’re going on a privatization bender in our schools.  And we’re gonna wake up in the gutter and discover that we have sold off the asset of our public education system, and our Charter Grants from Arne Duncan Destabilize Under-Resourced Public Districts | janresseger:

How a $100M Facebook Donation for Neoliberal School Reform Sparked a Grassroots Uprising in Newark | Democracy Now!

How a $100M Facebook Donation for Neoliberal School Reform Sparked a Grassroots Uprising in Newark | Democracy Now!:

How a $100M Facebook Donation for Neoliberal School Reform Sparked a Grassroots Uprising in Newark

Five years ago, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg donated $100 million to fix the trouble-plagued schools of Newark, New Jersey. Joining forces with Republican Gov. Chris Christie and then-Democratic Mayor Cory Booker, the effort was billed as a model for education reform across the nation. But the story of what followed emerges as a cautionary tale. Tens of millions were spent on hiring outside consultants and expanding charter schools, leading to public school closures, teacher layoffs and an overall decline in student performance. Parents, students, teachers and community members pushed back in a grassroots uprising to save their schools. We are joined by Dale Russakoff, who tells the story in her book, "The Prize: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools?"

Please check back later for full transcript.How a $100M Facebook Donation for Neoliberal School Reform Sparked a Grassroots Uprising in Newark | Democracy Now!:

Gates’ “High Impact” Teacher Evaluation Process The Most Detrimental » Missouri Education Watchdog

Gates’ “High Impact” Teacher Evaluation Process The Most Detrimental » Missouri Education Watchdog:

Gates’ “High Impact” Teacher Evaluation Process The Most Detrimental

As school districts contemplate implementing the state recommended teacher evaluation system (aka, Marzano or Hazelwood plan) and the State Board of Education considers a “Report on District Alignment to the Essential Principles of Effective Evaluation” on October 27th, it would behoove them to read Anthony Cody’s piece on this process. He says that embedding teacher growth into an evaluative framework can actually produce the opposite of the desired effect.  The Gates Foundation has been the bulldozer behind the scenes pushing this model. Bill Gates spoke on October 7th about the “successes” of his foundation in the area of education, into which the Foundation has poured millions of dollars. I guess success is in the eye of the beholder because, like his small schools experiment, so much of what the Gates Foundation has pushed has failed. Cody wrote, “While Gates acknowledged some missteps in the rollout of the Common Core – blamed on their ‘naivete’, the emphasis was on advances made, with a pledge to continue pushing in the same direction.” Gates falls on the classic “the plan wasn’t bad, it was just the implementation” excuse, insinuating that the rest of us just aren’t smart enough to implement his plan correctly.

Cody has provided a great deconstruction of Gates’ teacher evaluation framework to explain why this model is actually destructive to both teacher growth and student education.

A critical segment of Cody’s post is provided here, but I encourage everyone, especially school board members, to read the entire post.

Responding to Bill Gates’ Destructive Model of Teacher Evaluation

Here is how Gates describes the rationale for this work:

We decided to focus on what goes on inside the classroom, and focus on the teaching profession and how we could facilitate improvement there. The evidence is very strong about the importance of an effective teacher. If you take two classrooms from within the same school, and you have a teacher in one classroom who’s in the top quartile – not at the top, but just in the top 25%, and another teacher who’s at the top of the bottom quartile, the 75%, and you look at their students’ achievement over the course of the year, their scores will be ten percent different by the end of the year. And that’s a very dramatic difference. If you go three years in a row having that top line, you would completely close the Gates’ “High Impact” Teacher Evaluation Process The Most Detrimental » Missouri Education Watchdog:

Education Research Report: Post-Katrina Education Reform Results Exaggerated

Education Research Report: Post-Katrina Education Reform Results Exaggerated:

Post-Katrina Education Reform Results Exaggerated

A recent report from Public Impact and New Schools for New Orleans, Ten Years in New Orleans: Public School Resurgence and the Path Ahead, reviews the 10 years of education reform following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and the creation of a “portfolio model” of school governance. Claiming the reform is an “unquestioned success,” the authors argue that it should be duplicated by other cities.

Adrienne D. Dixson, associate professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, reviewed the report for the Think Twice think tank review project at the National Education Policy Center, housed at the University of Colorado Boulder’s School of Education.

She finds that the report does little to accurately inform the lay public or scholars about the viability of “portfolio” districts or the current state and future of public education in New Orleans.

The report is organized into six themes: governance, schools, talent, equity, community, and funders. It lays out a grand vision for the future of public education in New Orleans, which it describes as “America’s first great urban public school system.” Professor Dixson, however, identifies multiple weaknesses that limit the usefulness of the report.

In particular, Dixson’s review describes how the report exaggerates improvements in the schools while downplaying the ways in which the enacted reforms exacerbated inequities in New Orleans. She also notes that the report erroneously presents the reforms as a result of a neutral, logical and apolitical process.

In reviewing the validity of the findings, Dixson says, “The report does not present original or empirical research but bases its claims on advocacy publications that have not been peer-reviewed, and newspaper articles that primarily accept the claims made by vested interest reformers.”

Dixson further finds fault with the data referenced in the report, which was limited under the guise of protecting student information. The report overstates its claims of post-Katrina academic gains in New Orleans, due to the scant evidence and significant limitations, particularly because of the repeated changes in test-score standards across the decade.

In her conclusion, Dixson highlights the omission of research from the report as a serious concern, writing that the excluded research “tells a different and far more troubling story about the reforms in New Orleans.”

Research about the New Orleans school reforms has been troubling more generally, even beyond this recent report. Calling to mind the parable of the elephant being examined by people in the dark, researchers and advocates trumpet their favored findings to the exclusion of other important evidence. In this case, moreover, people are deliberately ignoring parts of the elephant they’d rather not see; and parts of the elephant are being deliberately hidden from some researchers. A full and honest understanding of these reforms will only come about when key data sets are truly made available to researchers and when all involved are willing to consider the reforms as a whole—including benefits and harmsEducation Research Report: Post-Katrina Education Reform Results Exaggerated:

New Inglewood school district Broad Clone takes the helm | 89.3 KPCC

New Inglewood school district leader takes the helm | 89.3 KPCC:

New Inglewood school district leader takes the helm

Vincent Matthews, the Inglewood Unified School District's new state administrator, got a warm welcome at a reception with parents, school staff, and civic leaders at the La Tijera Academy of Excellence Tuesday evening.

 “It’s an opportunity to build a rigorous, robust academic program for kids and families,” Matthews said as he entered the reception and talked to a sixth grade boy. “Once upon a time I was the young man who just interviewed me, the young people I see as I’m walking through classrooms. Once upon a time I was that young man sitting in the classroom."

The former superintendent of San Jose Unified, Matthews was appointed in September by California State Superintendent Tom Torlakson to head the troubled Inglewood school district. He will draw an annual salary of $250,000.

Inglewood Unified has been operating under state control since 2012. That's when its school board requested an emergency loan from Sacramento to help meet its financial obligations. The state approved up to $55 million, and the district has taken $29 million in loans, which must be repaid within 20 years.

With the emergency legislation, the state superintendent took over governance of the district and is charged with appointing a state administrator. Members of the district's elected board serve as advisors and will do so until the district can put in place better financial systems and controls.

It will be up to the state superintendent to decide when the district has developed a solid financial plan for the future.

Inglewood civic leaders are placing a lot of hope on Matthews’ shoulders.

“We’ve been waiting for a long time for this school district to be right,” Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr. told  told about 300 people in the auditorium.

Butts and other area elected officials have been lobbying California Superintendent of Public Schools to appoint a new trustee who can ramp up the school district's performance. 

“And now truly now believe that you have a representative who is going to take you, not only out of state receivership, but take you to the level that we should expect and New Inglewood school district leader takes the helm | 89.3 KPCC:

Alfie Kohn: Why teachers should reconsider their beliefs about learning - The Washington Post

Why teachers should reconsider their beliefs about learning - The Washington Post:

Why teachers should reconsider their beliefs about learning

Here is an examination of what teachers believe about students and learning and how those beliefs actually affect how they do their jobs. It was written by Alfie Kohn, author of 14 books on education, parenting, and human behavior, including, most recently, The Myth of the Spoiled Child and Schooling Beyond Measure, and  is adapted from the Foreword to The Teacher You Want to Be, edited by Matt Glover and Ellin Oliver Keene (Heinemann, 2015). This essay appears on Kohn’s website.

By Alfie Kohn

Creativity — in education and in general — might be defined as the capacity to look at one thing and see something else. You observe a classroom, for example, in which students get to decide whether it’s really necessary to do school assignments at home, and what you see is a respect for kids that could extend to giving them responsibility for any number of other decisions that, like homework, are usually the sole prerogative of teachers.

Or you’re introduced to an approach to teaching math that has students actively constructing meaning around fundamental concepts, and what you see is a truth about learning no less relevant to the social and moral realm: Children need to make sense of ideas like fairness or honesty (rather than being exhorted to accept prepackaged virtues) exactly as they need to make sense of ideas like equivalence or place value (rather than just being taught procedures to practice and memorize).

Or you visit Reggio Emilia schools in Italy — a remarkable program designed for young children that led the influential early-childhood educator Lilian Katz on her first trip there to remark that she thought she had died and gone to heaven — and what you see are principles just as applicable to educating older students.

To think creatively about education is to draw on an array of overlapping progressive and humanistic principles. Consider, however, not only the principles themselves — for example, how to teach in a way that is more Why teachers should reconsider their beliefs about learning - The Washington Post:

In 19 States, It's Okay To Hit Kids With A Wooden Board

In 19 States, It's Okay To Hit Kids With A Wooden Board:

In 19 States, It's Okay To Hit Kids With A Wooden Board

Laws in place despite evidence public humiliation is ineffective.

Terry sat in his middle school principal’s office knowing that in a few short minutes, he would be feeling the pain and humiliation of being paddled.

No parent, administrator or teacher should find this scenario acceptable. Yet, every school day, an estimated 838 students like Terry receive corporal punishment in American schools. Nineteen states still allow corporal punishment, despite research that clearly indicates such public humiliation is ineffective for changing student behavior and can, in fact, have long-term negative effects.

For a decade I have studied approaches that are effective for promoting appropriate student behavior. And as a teacher for a dozen years, I experienced personal reward as well as pride in my students, as they learned and used appropriate behaviors. I have not come across a single valid study that showed any positive effect of corporal punishment.

A form of child abuse

Corporal punishment is a method of responding to student misbehavior wherein an adult uses a wooden board to strike a child on the buttocks in order to inflict pain.

The harm done by corporal punishment is well-recognized by many school administrations across the US. Professional organizations across disciplines including the American Psychological Association, National Education Association, American Bar Association and National Association of School Nurses have called for ending corporal punishment.

In fact, the American Bar Association condemns the practice in the following words:

Institutional corporal punishment of children should be considered a form of child abuse that is contrary to current knowledge of human behavior and sound educational practices.

Yet, the use of corporal punishment continues.

In a recent study, my colleagues and I asked 27 principals from Florida Title I schools about In 19 States, It's Okay To Hit Kids With A Wooden Board:

Kevin Johnson Will Not Run For Third Term As Sacramento Mayor

Kevin Johnson Will Not Run For Third Term As Sacramento Mayor:
Kevin Johnson Will Not Run For Third Term As Sacramento Mayor

Kevin Johnson announced late Tuesday that he won’t be running for a third term as mayor of Sacramento. 

Statement on decision not to seek reelection. pic.twitter.com/eQrxNc0y7T

— Kevin Johnson (@KJ_MayorJohnson) October 21, 2015

The decision comes amid a wave of recent publicity about various scandals to which he’s been tied, especially the allegations of sexual abuse and harassment that have been leveled at Johnson over time. (Johnson has never been charged with a sex crime.) The most damaging of these allegations came from Mandi Koba.

Last month, Koba told Deadspin that Johnson, then a star guard with the Phoenix Suns, had paid her $230,600 in 1997 to never talk about him except to “a priest, a therapist, or a lawyer.” Koba produced a draft copy of the agreement she says she signed; the original document, she says, is locked away in a safe deposit box in Arizona that “can only be opened when both of our attorneys are present.” Koba, now 36, says she broke this agreement to speak with Deadspin because she was done “protecting” Johnson. Recently, Deadspin posted a 1996 video showing athen-17-year-old Koba claiming to a Phoenix detective that she’d been groomed and molested by Johnson a year earlier.

Johnson made his announcement on the same night that ESPN was scheduled to debut Down in the Valley, a documentary hailing Johnson for keeping the Sacramento Kings from leaving town. The network decided not to air the film because of the Koba video. 

The 30 for 30 film recently looked like it would be part of a national coming out party for Johnson. It wasn’t long ago that his political future seemed destined to transcend Sacramento. He called himself Little Barack on the Colbert Report shortly after he was elected mayor in 2008, and lots of folks around Johnson have told me in recent months that he fancied himself as the next governor of California, even a future president of the United States.

Johnson couldn’t run for those higher offices, though, without finding a way to outrun his past. And the recent reexamination of the sexual abuse allegations made his official biography—the one that boasts about his having once being named to a list of the 15 greatest men on earth byMcCall’s and tagged as one of President George H.W. Bush’s thousand points of light—seem irrelevant. All the talk about Johnson of late has been of the seamy side, with news organizations on both the far right and the elite left urging the real President Obama to cut all ties.

Even in his hometown—where he’s been famous since his days as a Kevin Johnson Will Not Run For Third Term As Sacramento Mayor:

Teach for America’s biggest problem isn’t green teachers or failing schools. It’s that it can’t take criticism. - The Washington Post

Teach for America’s biggest problem isn’t green teachers or failing schools. It’s that it can’t take criticism. - The Washington Post:

Teach for America’s biggest problem isn’t green teachers or failing schools. It’s that it can’t take criticism.

The organization spends millions defanging its critics without ever listening to their ideas.

If you’ve taught your way through Teach For America like I have, you know that feedback is part of the job. Not only do new teachers receive critiques from principals, fellow educators and students, they’re also deluged with weekly and monthly reports on their success from the organization itself.
Although the amount of feedback varies from region to region, the message is clear: With enough data, anyone can become a champion educator, able to lift students’ reading and math scores many years in a single leap.

Unfortunately, TFA does not apply a similar philosophy to its own organization. Not only is TFA notoriously unwilling to listen to outside orinternal critics (one former TFA manager decried its “inability and unwillingness to honestly address valid criticism” in The Washington Post). The organization has also spent millions of dollars on a press shop built to promote its brand while aggressively and proactively discrediting critiques.

This is bad for the organization, and it’s bad for students. TFA has real problems — its teachers are largely unprepared and fare no better than regular educators. It has a high drop-out rate, and the number of applicants has plummeted. Additionally, TFA sends its volunteer teachers to school districts in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, places now facing teacher layoffs and hiring freezes. Some school districts have even rescinded contracts with TFA, citing teachers’ lack of preparation and low retention rates.

Alum Catherine Michna, now a professor of education at Tulane, has said that she won’t write recommendation letters for students who want to join the program. “TFA members do not work in service of public education,” shewrote in Slate. “They work in service of a corporate reform agenda that rids communities of veteran teachers, privatizes public schools, and forces a corporatized, data-driven culture upon unique low-income communities with unique dynamics and unique challenges.”

TFA has the resources and the clout to address these concerns. Instead, it has chosen to ignore its dissenters. The organization is stuck, and it shows few signs of evolution.

* * *

TFA was born in a Princeton undergraduate thesis, written by founder Wendy Kopp in 1989. In that paper, Kopp imagined a program that made teaching “an attractive choice for top grads” across the country. Ideally, she wrote, getting into TFA would be as competitive as winning a Rhodes scholarship. Controversially, Kopp didn’t want to build better lifetime teachers. In a 1996 interview, she described the organization as a “leadership development program.” College grads would start in TFA, then go on to education leadership positions across the country.

In this, she’s succeeded. Today, TFA educators make up less than 0.2 percent of America’s teaching force, heavily concentrated in many poor urban Teach for America’s biggest problem isn’t green teachers or failing schools. It’s that it can’t take criticism. - The Washington Post:

What Kind of Country Would California Be? Very Unequal - On California - Education Week

What Kind of Country Would California Be? Very Unequal - On California - Education Week:

What Kind of Country Would California Be? Very Unequal

We have read in this blog that California is exceptional.  If California seceded from the union, it would surely be an exceptional nation...but in what way? Economically, California would rankeighth in the world, ahead of Canada, Italy, and Russia.  Our knowledge economy would place us on the global cutting edge in terms of innovation and technological growth.  Unfortunately, California's great wealth is also accompanied by deep pockets of poverty, especially among minorities and less educated Californians. 

As a result of these extremes of wealth and poverty, California ranks near the top of U.S.  states in income inequality, as measured by the Gini Index.  While California's Gini Index (48.9) is slightly higher than that of the United Status (48.04), the United States ranks at the top of developed nations in income inequality.  This means that California would be one of the most unequal developed countries in the world.

California would also lead the industrialized world in child poverty, again rivaling the United States.  A recent report by the UNICEF Office of Research estimated that in 2012, nearly one in three children in the United States lives in poverty, compared to 8.8% in Finland and 13.4% in South Korea: two nations that are often identified as educational role models.  The same report estimated child poverty in California to be (36%), similar to rates in Alabama (36.5%), Idaho (36.5%), and Oklahoma (36.2%). According to the California Budget and Policy Center, children also represent a disproportionate shareof poor Californians: although children comprise 23.7% of the state's population, they represent 32.7% of Californians living in poverty (see graph above).

Unfortunately, many of California's poor children do not receive adequate health or educational services.  In 2012, 75.5% of low-income families did not have a medical home. Although the percentage of children without health care coverage has declined as a result of federal health care reform, 497,000 Californian children—many of them poor—did not have health insurance in 2014. Additionally, a 2014 report by the California Legislative Analyst's Office found that 54 of California's counties provide fewer than 20% of low-income children with childcare and 26 counties serve fewer than 10% of low-income children. Although the income eligibility limit for subsidized preschool in California has not been updated since 2007, the limit for eligibility was lowered in 2011 from 75% to 70% of the state median income. As a result, many families are ineligible for subsidized childcare or preschool despite receiving relatively low incomes.

High levels of inequality and child poverty are bound to affect educational performance in California; if California were a country, where would it rank educationally? The results of the 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) allow us to make a rough comparison, as California was included as a "benchmark" participant in eighth grade mathematics and science.  In both math and science, Californian eighth graders scored below all other US benchmark states (Connecticut, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina), except Alabama.  Californian eighth graders scored slightly below the international average of participating education systems in both math and science, substantially below top performers like Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Finland, and below nearly all the developed countries participating in the assessment.  In other words, California might be considered a developing or emerging country educationally. 

Culturally, California shares many ties with our neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean. Thirty-nine percent of our population is Latino and 29% speak Spanish at home.  The impact of   What Kind of Country Would California Be? Very Unequal - On California - Education Week:

EXCLUSIVE: Billionaires donate $2M to pro-charter group - NY Daily News

EXCLUSIVE: Billionaires donate $2M to pro-charter group - NY Daily News:

EXCLUSIVE: Two hedge fund billionaires donate $1M each to pro-charter school advocacy group Families for Excellent Schools

Officials at Families for Excellent Schools have declined to name the nonprofit’s funders since it was founded in 2012.

Two hedge fund billionaires dropped $1 million each on a controversial charter school advocacy group in April, the Daily News has learned.

Officials at pro-charter lobbying powerhouse Families for Excellent Schools have declined to name the nonprofit’s funders since it was founded in 2012.

But a July filing with the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics shows finance titans Dan Loeb and Julian Robertson both donated a cool million to the group.

Critics of privately run, publicly funded charter schools said the rich contributions from the two billionaires reflect an effort to privatize public education.

“It’s clear that this is not educational philanthropy, but the further pushing of an agenda to dismantle public education in the name of privatizing the education system,” said Zakiyah Ansari, advocacy director of the Alliance for Quality Education.

TEACH THE WHOLE CHILD: WHERE SUCCESS ACADEMY SCHOOLS GET EDUCATION WRONG 

“Families for Excellent Schools has a nice name, but they are just a tool for billionaires and their political machinations,” said Ansari, whose group is partially funded by the city teachers union.

Most charter schools aren’t unionized, and in many cases the teachers unions have worked to slow the growth of charters.

There are now 207 charter schools in the Big Apple. Most were created under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who championed the growth of charters and EXCLUSIVE: Billionaires donate $2M to pro-charter group - NY Daily News: