Shake Off Those Charter Chains! | The Progressive

Shake Off Those Charter Chains! | The Progressive:

Shake Off Those Charter Chains!

• Mark Fiore

Ever wondered about the magic bullet of charter schools?  Turns out they may not be the promised educational salvation so many claim.  Sure, there are good, community-based charter schools that are built from the ground up, but the rise of huge “Charter Chains” dwarfs them by comparison.

I did this cartoon in collaboration with the good people at The Progressive.  This video is a good starting point for learning about a very real threat to public education in the United States.  The more you dig into some of these Charter Chains, the more awful they become.

And the hits keep coming.  Success Academy charter schools in New York kept a “got to go” list to kick out kids who might drag down its scores. Hillary Clinton weighed in, making news by saying that most charter schools don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids, and if they do, they don’t keep them. As Progressive Education Fellow Peter Greene points out, charter schools drain resources from already-strapped public schools.

Enjoy the cartoon, and be sure to dive into some of the accompanying links!

- See more at: http://www.progressive.org/news/2015/11/188410/shake-those-charter-chains#sthash.cHUdWnoK.dpuf

CURMUDGUCATION: More Charter Pushback for HRC

CURMUDGUCATION: More Charter Pushback for HRC:

More Charter Pushback for HRC

Man-- so much fuss from a couple of Hillary Clinton sentences.

After Robert Pondiscio stood up for charters, yesterday's USA Today included another pushback from charter cheerleader Richard Whitmire (Emerson Collective).

Whitmire has several charer-friendly notions that he would like to put forth.

First, he allows that charters have not turned out to be the great laboratories of innovation first envisioned-- but he blames that on public schools. Whitmire would have us believe that charters are chock full of innovative secrets to educational success, although he does not name a single lesson that public schools can learn from charters. In fact, I have never seen a charter advocate lay out lessons for public schools from charters, and I would propose that it's because there are no lessons to learn.

Spend more time on instruction. Have smaller classes. Be selective about which students are allowed to sit in your classroom, and when they can be admitted. Spend lots of money on resources and support, but don't take on any students who need a disproportionate amount of resources.

These are the "lessons" that modern charters have to teach, and they are not news to anybody. But CURMUDGUCATION: More Charter Pushback for HRC:

NYC Public School Parents: State Longitudinal databases: Tracking students from birth to the workforce and beyond

NYC Public School Parents: State Longitudinal databases: Tracking students from birth to the workforce and beyond:

State Longitudinal databases: Tracking students from birth to the workforce and beyond

Yesterday, this piece on the collection and sharing of large amounts of personal student data by states was posted  as “The astonishing amount of data being collected about your children.” at the Washington Post AnswerSheet.  It is also posted at our Student Privacy Matters website.  If you are interested in the issue of protecting your children against this sort of data collection and tracking, please join the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy.  thanks, Leonie

By Leonie Haimson and Cheri Kiesecker, Parent Coalition for Student Privacy 

Remember that ominous threat from your childhood, “This will go down on your permanent record?” Well, your children’s permanent record is a whole lot bigger today and it may be permanent. Information about your children’s behavior and nearly everything else that a school or state agency knows about them is being tracked, profiled and potentially shared.

During a February 2015 Congressional hearing on “How Emerging Technology Affects Student Privacy,” Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin asked the panel to “provide a summary of all the information collected by the time a student reaches graduate school.” Joel Reidenberg, The Center on Law & Information Policy Fordham Law School Director, responded:

“Just think George Orwell, and take it to the nth degree,” Reidenberg said. “We’re in an environment of surveillance, essentially. It will be an extraordinarily rich data set of your life.” 

Most student data is gathered at school-via multiple routes; either through children’s online usage or information provided by parents, teachers or other school staff. A student’s education record generally includes demographic information, including race, ethnicity, and income level; discipline records, grades and test scores, disabilities and Individual education plans (IEPs), mental health and medical history, counseling records and much more.

Under the federal law known as FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, if medical and counseling records are included in your child’s education records they are unprotected by HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act passed by Congress in 1996). Thus, very sensitive mental and physical health information can be shared outside of the school without parent consent.

Many parents first became aware of how widely their children’s personal data is being shared with third parties of all sorts when the controversy erupted over inBloom in 2012, the $100 million corporation funded by the Gates Foundation. Because of intense parent opposition, inBloom closed its doors in 2014, but in the process, parents discovered that inBloom was only the tip of the iceberg, and that the federal NYC Public School Parents: State Longitudinal databases: Tracking students from birth to the workforce and beyond:

How Social Justice Unionism Helped Spark Mizzou Protests - NEA Today

How Social Justice Unionism Helped Spark Mizzou Protests - NEA Today:

How Social Justice Unionism Helped Spark Mizzou Protests

An anti-racism boycott by Black football players at University of Missouri may have been the final straw for the teetering Mizzou president, who resigned on Monday, but student activism on campus started months ago when the university abruptly eliminated health benefits for all of its thousands of graduate students.

Two days before the start of the semester, grad students were left reeling, wondering how they would pay for their medications, or how they would deliver their babies, recalls Ph.D. student Eric O. Scott. And so they met, in the hundreds, to talk about what actions they could take to ensure that they would have a voice in their working conditions.

“I was speaking, and I didn’t say the word ‘union.’ But people were shouting the word ‘union’ from the audience,” Scott recalls.

Since then, the graduate students in that room have become the Coalition of Graduate Workers, a unionizing group with the support of the Missouri National Education Association (MNEA). They seek to improve the teaching and learning conditions for students, and also have become a force for social justice on campus, aligned with Concerned Student 1950, a group that was formed to address institutional racism on campus.

“Eric and I are firmly committed to social justice — and everybody we’ve talked to about the union has been on the same page,” said Connor Lewis, a Coalition organizer who is seeking a Ph.D in history. “People really respond to the idea that this isn’t just about workplace benefits. It’s also about your students.”

Graduate students — or graduate assistants (GA) — are employees at universities How Social Justice Unionism Helped Spark Mizzou Protests - NEA Today:

Protecting the Clash of Ideas in Higher Education | John Thompson - Linkis.com

Protecting the Clash of Ideas in Higher Education | John Thompson - Linkis.com:

Protecting the Clash of Ideas in Higher Education

My first post on the New York Times Magazine's special issue, "Collegeland," explained how the rise of corporate power has shifted the balance in higher education between students getting a good return on their college investments and their opportunities for "building your soul as much as your skills." It drew on Kwame Anthony Appiah's account of competing visions about higher education today - Utility U. and Utopia U. Equal attention should be paid, however, to the way that corporate values have influenced free speech and civil rights conflicts on college campuses.

The first post praised "Collegeland," and the way it began with the foundation laid byAppiah and concludes with Nikole Hannah-Jones's review of the way inequality has worsened for African Americans.

That was mostly true. For instance, Appiah starts us off with the reminder that Utility U. has dramatically reduced the proportion of faculty with tenure. Tenure provides the "intellectual freedom that has helped make our universities the research powerhouses of the world."

But, the magazine actually began with the same type of unfettered debate in the "Letters to the Editor." The issue began with a rousing discussion of the magazine's previous story on Serena Williams. In other worlds, the Times represents the clash of ideas that is essential for journalism, higher education, and democracy, but that has not been properly valued in the quest for Utility U.

The clash of correspondents' ideas was followed by Appiah's account of free speech controversies in Utopia U., warts and all. The "aim is to create a safe space, to check your privilege and suspend the prejudices of the larger world, to promote human development and advance moral progress." Utopia U. stresses civility and it needs to create safe spaces. Appiah explains that when students stridently complain about "microaggressions -- possibly unintentional slights that stem from racial, ethnic or sexual difference ... It's easy to roll your eyes at 'social justice warriors,' but there's a Protecting the Clash of Ideas in Higher Education | John Thompson - Linkis.com:

Why Teacher Evaluations Often Go Awry | My Island View

Why Teacher Evaluations Often Go Awry | My Island View:

Why Teacher Evaluations Often Go Awry

We often hear that the most influential element in a student’s life is the teacher. As an educator this can be both an honor and a daunting responsibility. It elevates the status of a position, often viewed by some as public service, to that of a valued mentor. This would all be well and good if education could truly be defined as it was for centuries in the past. Students were empty vessels to be filled with the knowledge of their teachers. If this were in any way true today, and a teacher was able to pour all of the knowledge contained in his or her head into the empty vessels seated in rows before him or her, the teacher would still not be imparting enough information for an adequate education in today’s world. Our world, as well as information itself, changes and evolves at too fast a pace. Teaching and learning are evolving and many of the old concepts no longer apply.

Unfortunately however, many politicians and some educators buy into this traditional model of what an educator should be, and base teacher evaluations on it. In many states a teacher’s evaluation will be predominantly based on how well his or her students perform on a standardized test. That test performance has de facto become the goal of education.

What makes all of this so complicated is that kids are not widgets. They are complicated. It may be true that a teacher may at times be the most influential factor in the classroom for some kids, but not for all kids, and not every time. Kids do not leave everything at the door of the classroom so they can have their vessels filled. All of their problems travel with them. The difference between kid problems and adult problems is that, hopefully, adults have learned coping mechanisms, but kids have not.

Teachers do not just address that part of a kid that is in school to learn. The whole child with all of his or her problems must be addressed. Learning, no matter who is the teacher takes a back seat to safety, hunger, health, and emotional stability. When it comes to kids we need to first address Maslow’s Hierarchy before we can get to Bloom’s Taxonomy. This is never a consideration in a teacher’s evaluation.

Kids today are entering schools after traveling through neighborhoods that might be considered war zones in some countries. Kids are coming from homes where Why Teacher Evaluations Often Go Awry | My Island View:

Response to Intervention: Derailed!

Response to Intervention: Derailed!:

Response to Intervention: Derailed!

Response to Intervention (RtI) is assessment all children get, starting early, in order to determine if they need special assistance to address learning disabilities. It has been plugged as “research” or “scientifically-based” programming to identify problems in young children so they can avoid special education. Those descriptors were often used, sometimes unjustifiably so, with programs involving No Child Left Behind.

In 2004, IDEA quit making states use the discrepancy model described below. Instead, funding was provided to do RtI, even though the program was controversial and sometimes not given the appropriate resources or trained staff to accomplish the assessment and interventions.

Now, the National Center for Evaluation and Regional Assistance is reporting that in a study looking at RtI in schools that chose to do the program, for the last 3 or more years, first graders did worse than those who did not go through RtI. The study Response to Intervention: Derailed!:

Madison Superintendent provides Parents with the truth about the Common Core SBAC Test - Wait What?

Madison Superintendent provides Parents with the truth about the Common Core SBAC Test - Wait What?:

Madison Superintendent provides Parents with the truth about the Common Core SBAC Test

As George Orwell wrote in his initially classified book of fiction,

In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

To which it is well to remember the words of Winston Churchill who observed,

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.

If you had a child in the Madison, Connecticut public schools you’d have a superintendent, school administrators and Board of Education that was committed to telling the truth about the Common Core Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) Testing System and dedicated to putting children, parents, teachers and their public schools above the Corporate Education Reform Industry’s ongoing attempt to undermine public education in the United States.

If you had a children in the Madison, Connecticut public schools you would have received the following a letter from Superintendent Thomas Scarice and Assistant Superintendent Gail Dahling-Hench, a letter that honestly and truthfully explains why the Common Core SBAC test is not an appropriate tool or mechanism to judge our children, their teachers or our public schools.

The letter to Madison Parents states;

Individual Student Reports for the 2015 Smart Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) standardized test were mailed this week. This specific report format is provided to the district by the Connecticut State Department 

Madison Superintendent provides Parents with the truth about the Common Core SBAC Test - Wait What?:

CURMUDGUCATION: Recognizing Excellent Schools

CURMUDGUCATION: Recognizing Excellent Schools:

Recognizing Excellent Schools

With all the various programs designed to recognize those who have been compliant with reformster requirements or those who have successfully offered control of their organization in return for Big Buck, are there any programs that recognize actual excellence in schools?

The answer is yes.

The National Education Policy Center is an invaluable piece of the great education debates, providing solid scholarship and a keen eye to cut through the baloney. Run out of the University of Colorado Boulder, these folks a dedication to truth, accuracy, and public education to the table.

They have harnessed all that into the Schools of Opportunity program, a program that seeks "to identify and recognize excellent public high schools that actively strive to close opportunity gaps by engaging in practices that build on students’ strengths, thereby creating engaging and supported learning opportunities for all their students." Yes, look at that. Building on students' strengths instead of beating every square peg into a pre-determined round hole. And all students-- not just the worthy strivers and deserving few.

The project is directed by Kevin Welner, of the UCB School of Education, and Carol Burris, former NY principal and current Executive Director of the Network for Public Education. It is funded by the Ford Foundation and the NEA Foundation. And it will select a school that serves at least grades 10-12 based on the following criteria:

* Create and maintain healthy school culture
* Broaden and enrich school curriculum
* Provide more and better learning time during the school year and summer
* End disparities in learning opportunities created by tracking and ability grouping
* Use a variety of assessments designed to respond to students needs
* Reassessed student discipline policies
* Support teachers as professionals
* Meets the needs of students with disabilities in an environment that balances challenge and support
* Address key health issues
* Build on strength of language minority students and correctly identify their needs
* Wise use of technology, and access to internet and libraries

Does that not sound like a school you would want to teach at or send your child to?

Last year the program was piloted in New York and Colorado, yielding five gold recognition schools CURMUDGUCATION: Recognizing Excellent Schools:

4LAKids - WHY POVERTY AND SEGREGATION MERGE AT PUBLIC SCHOOLS

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: WHY POVERTY AND SEGREGATION MERGE AT PUBLIC SCHOOLS:

WHY POVERTY AND SEGREGATION MERGE AT PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Chicago, like most of the country, braces for the impact of concentrated poverty and increasing racial separation.

RONALD BROWNSTEIN EDITORIAL DIRECTOR THE NATIONAL JOURNAL | HTTP://BIT.LY/1WQRUTN

Nov 12, 2015  ::  CHICA­GO—In 2014, Amer­ica’s edu­ca­tion sys­tem marked an im­port­ant mile­stone. For the first time ever, chil­dren of col­or be­came a ma­jor­ity among K-12 pub­lic school stu­dents na­tion­wide.

Today schools are cross­ing a second, more troub­ling, bar­ri­er. The latest fig­ures show that 51 per­cent of pub­lic school stu­dents at­tend schools where a ma­jor­ity of their class­mates qual­i­fy as poor or low-in­come un­der fed­er­al guidelines. This deep­en­ing con­cen­tra­tion of eco­nom­ic need com­plic­ates the in­ter­twined chal­lenges of equip­ping Amer­ica’s in­creas­ingly di­verse young people with the edu­ca­tion they need to reach the middle-class and de­vel­op­ing the skilled work­ers the U.S. needs to main­tain its in­ter­na­tion­al com­pet­it­ive­ness. Without pro­gress in ad­dress­ing the harden­ing isol­a­tion of low-in­come fam­il­ies, school re­form alone is un­likely to pro­duce the edu­ca­tion­al res­ults Amer­ica needs.

Two con­ver­ging trends are driv­ing the growth of low-in­come schools. One is the over­all tra­ject­ory of poverty. When Bill Clin­ton left of­fice after 2000, the poverty rate for chil­dren un­der 18 stood just over 16 per­cent. That rose to 19 per­cent un­der George W. Bush and peaked at 22 per­cent un­der Pres­id­ent Obama in 2010. The num­ber has since de­clined only slightly to 21 per­cent; it re­mains about one-third for both Afric­an-Amer­ic­ans and Lati­nos.

The second trend is the grow­ing isol­a­tion of poor people. In an im­port­ant pa­per this fall, Cen­tury Found­a­tion schol­ar Richard Kah­len­berg noted that both rich and poor fam­il­ies are more sep­ar­ated from fam­il­ies in oth­er in­come brack­ets today than in 1970. Fig­ures com­piled by the An­nie E. Ca­sey Found­a­tion’s Kids Count pro­ject show that over the past dec­ade, the share of kids liv­ing in neigh­bor­hoods of con­cen­trated poverty (defined as places where at least 30 per­cent of the res­id­ents are poor) has in­creased in most ma­jor cit­ies—for ex­ample, from 25 to 34 per­cent in Los Angeles, 29 to 36 per­cent in Chica­go, and 28 to 38 per­cent in Hou­s­ton.

Be­cause most stu­dents at­tend neigh­bor­hood schools, these in­ter­sect­ing trends have swelled the por­tion of kids in schools that also ex­per­i­ence con­cen­trated eco­nom­ic need. In 1999, only 28 per­cent of pub­lic school stu­dents at­ten­ded schools where most of their class­mates qual­i­fied as poor or low-in­come, mean­ing their fam­il­ies earned less than 185 per­cent of the fed­er­al poverty level, or about $45,000 for a fam­ily of four. (Schools track these fig­ures to de­term­ine which stu­dents are eli­gible for free or re­duced-price school lunches.) The share of stu­dents at­tend­ing ma­jor­ity low-in­come schools has rock­eted to al­most 51 per­cent, roughly 25 mil­lion kids in all, in the most re­cent fed­er­al fig­ures, which cov­ers the 2012-13 school year.

For stu­dents of col­or, the fig­ures are even high­er. Na­tion­wide, about three-fourths of both Afric­an-Amer­ic­an and Latino stu­dents at­tend ma­jor­ity-low in­come schools. By con­trast, only about one-third of whites at­tend such eco­nom­ic­ally strained schools.

In Chica­go, in a school sys­tem where 85 per­cent of stu­dents are either black or Latino, the con­cen­tra­tion of eco­nom­ic need is over­whelm­ing. In 77 of the city’s roughly 680 pub­lic schools, at least 99 per­cent of the stu­dents qual­i­fy as poor or low-in­come. The share tops 90 per­cent in an­oth­er 388 schools. In only 50 schools do less than half of stu­dents qual­i­fy as 4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: WHY POVERTY AND SEGREGATION MERGE AT PUBLIC SCHOOLS:

In Attempting to Save Itself, PARCC Now Offers “Testing Options” | deutsch29

In Attempting to Save Itself, PARCC Now Offers “Testing Options” | deutsch29:

In Attempting to Save Itself, PARCC Now Offers “Testing Options”

The whole point of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) was to standardize American public education (and any private education entities that would buy in) for some supposed, fantastic sameness that would allow state-to-state comparisons on accompanying CCSS consortium-developed, “next generation” assessments.

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is one of two federally-funded testing consortia supposed to allow state-to-state comparisons of test results related to the CCSS that was *adopted* by most states.

But PARCC is crumbling fast, and the PARCC consortium is working to reinvent itself as a vendor of PARCC testing “options.”

For the 2015-16 school year, only DC and six states (Colorado, New Jersey, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Illinois) are clearly committed to the comprehensive, Pearson-vended PARCC assessments as of this writing.

Thus, in order to survive, PARCC had to offer to sell itself off in parts– which defeats the entire point of a testing consortium tied to “common” standards. Nevertheless, here is what PARCC is offering as of November 12, 2015:

New Participation Options

State Education leaders that make up the Governing Board of the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) are giving new options for all states to access high quality assessments.

The Partnership states are providing a tiered approach for the 2016-17 school year that will allow any state or other educational entities to have 

In Attempting to Save Itself, PARCC Now Offers “Testing Options” | deutsch29:

Broad Foundation defends charter plan after concerns about public school impact | 89.3 KPCC

Broad Foundation defends charter plan after concerns about public school impact | 89.3 KPCC:

Broad Foundation defends charter plan after concerns about public school impact

Speaking at an invitation-only panel discussion, the executive director of the Broad Foundation on Thursday defended his organization’s plan to lead a doubling of charter schools in Los Angeles over eight years.

“We’ve got over 50,000 students on wait lists in charters. Why is that? It’s because parents want different choices, they want something different,” Broad's Gregory McGinity said, speaking publicly on the plan for the first time since it was leaked in September.

The education reform advocacy group ABC sponsored the panel discussion held at the L.A. County-USC Medical Center before a gathering of about 70 invitees.

The event focused almost entirely on the charter expansion plan and featured a tense discussion with McGinity and Los Angeles Unified School Board President Steve Zimmer on the proposal's financial impact on the public schools.

The plan’s stated goal is to increase the charters’ “market share” of Los Angeles' public education. That approach, Zimmer said, is contrary to the founding mission of charter schools.

“The idea was to use these networks, these schools, as incubators for change and then spread that change throughout the system so all kids could be part of that change,” he said.

Instead, Zimmer said, the plan to enroll 130,000 new students in charter schools could push LAUSD into bankruptcy because state funding would follow the students.

McGinity said he doesn't believe that will happen.

“I have a lot of faith in the school board and the team at LAUSD, but we also know we’ve seen a lot of school districts around the country with a high percentage of charter schools and they’re thriving,” he said.

The plan proposes spending $490 million to secure school sites around Los Angels and hire charter school staff. Because many charter schools are nonunion, the plan is opposed by the UTLA, the teachers union, which was not invited to the event.

McGinity said the charter school plan is a work in progress and the Thursday discussion would help shape the final proposal. He didn’t say when that might be completed. 

Just where the charter schools would be located is still up for discussion. “Is it just a few isolated communities? Is it the broader city? Is it the greater Los Angeles area as we think about access to high-quality education for families?” he asked.

After the discussion, McGinity, and the other panelists went table to table, taking questions from participants.

Rob McGowan, an associate director at CADRE, a parent support group, said what he’s heard so far from the Broad Foundation assumes inner city kids will enroll in the charters and automatically benefit. But he said “it takes something more than that, it takes a belief in that black child, that this black child is a human being and is capable.”

He said his group pushes LAUSD to create disciplinary policies and instructional approaches that address the learning needs of African-American children. He said he'd like to see those goals included in the charter expansion plan.

Support or opposition to Broad’s charter school plan has become a litmus test in L.A.’s public school community to determine alliances, according to Claremont Graduate University’s Charles Kerchner.

“Clearly the Broad plan has started something which I call the Charter School Wars in Los Angeles that’s going to be with us for some time,” he said.

To bring the battle to a peaceful end, he said a coalition is needed that includes representatives from City Hall, the school district, the business community, labor unions and charter supporters. But he added he didn't think it is likely the groups would sit down together any time soon.Broad Foundation defends charter plan after concerns about public school impact | 89.3 KPCC:

4LAKids - BROAD CHARTER PLAN COULD RESHAPE LAUSD: Critics warn it could bankrupt the district

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: BROAD CHARTER PLAN COULD RESHAPE LAUSD: Critics warn it could bankrupt the district:

BROAD CHARTER PLAN COULD RESHAPE LAUSD: Critics warn it could bankrupt the district

BYHOWARD BLUME | LA TIMES* | HTTP://LAT.MS/1O74FCE

Gregory McGinity, executive director of the Broad Foundation, said during a forum on the future of Los Angeles public schools that a charter expansion could transform education in the region. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Nov. 12, 2015  | 8:50PM  ::  A massive expansion of charter schools could change the fate of Los Angeles families who have suffered from inferior schools for generations, according to a top official from the Broad Foundation, which is spearheading the proposal.

In the first public discussion involving the foundation's efforts, Executive Director Gregory McGinity said that charter schools have transformed education, and he challenged critics who say charters don't serve all students. He also disputed fears that the growth of charters could drive the L.A. Unified School District into bankruptcy.

"The overall vision is that every child has access and every family has access to a high-quality education," McGinity said during an invitation-only forum at the former county general hospital near downtown. "We have to find a way to give better options to families, and we have to do that as soon as we can."

Facing off with McGinity was school board President Steve Zimmer, who swiftly and strongly opposed the Broad plan when The Times made it public in September. Zimmer said that he is not sure L.A. Unified can survive the charter plan, and that students would be harmed as a result.

"This is not a conversation about choice," or competition or innovation, he said. "It draws us to a very honest and open place about the future of the Los Angeles Unified School District. ... This is about: Is there a future for L.A. Unified?"

Under the projected $490-million plan, half of L.A. Unified students would be enrolled in charters over the next eight years. That compares with about 16% today. L.A. Unified already has the most charters and charter students — more than 100,000 — of any district in the country.

Charters are publicly funded, independently operated and free from some regulations that govern traditional schools. Most are non-union. Many city labor unions have united to speak out against the Broad plan.

Zimmer said the charter expansion would leave the district with fewer resources to serve the more difficult and costly students who would remain in regular schools.

McGinity disputed his claim in an interview after the forum, which was sponsored by the local nonprofit group Alliance for a Better Community.

"Charters take all kids and that's what they are required to do," McGinity said.

The debate has echoed across the country. Charters are required by law to take all students who apply, space permitting. And in Los Angeles, the demographics of charter students are similar to those in traditional schools: both enroll high percentages of low-income students, for example, and both provide services for the disabled.

But critics have questioned whether charters handle their share of students with behavior problems and of those with moderate to severe needs. And they question whether charter families are more motivated toward academic success.

McGinity also responded to a new report from a panel of experts, who concluded that charter growth could threaten the district's solvency. The experts took no position on whether charter expansion was good or bad for students' academic achievement.

"I don't see LAUSD going bankrupt," McGinity said. "LAUSD, like a lot of other districts, has fiscal challenges." He added: "Other districts with a significant number of charters are thriving in terms of their operations and finances."

During the forum, McGinity insisted that the expansion plan was created "for discussion purposes."

"The plan that was released was premature and not intended for any purpose other than to get feedback," he said.

His message on Thursday contrasted with language in the cover letter philanthropist Eli Broad wrote to those who received a confidential copy of the plan. Broad's letter describes "a landmark opportunity" and his commitment to "a bold plan to expand the charter sector to serve 50% of Los Angeles public school students."

"Such dramatic charter growth would address the needs of families who have been underserved by public schools for years, if not generations," the letter says. "It would also be a bellwether for cities around the country."

The letter calls for "wide-reaching philanthropic investment" for a project that would make Los Angeles "a model for every city in America."

"Our current school system is falling short of providing a quality education to all students," said Nadia Diaz Funn, executive director of the group that sponsored the forum. The Broad 4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: BROAD CHARTER PLAN COULD RESHAPE LAUSD: Critics warn it could bankrupt the district:

In Blog Series, Bruce Baker Explores Issues at the Intersection of Money and Reform | janresseger

In Blog Series, Bruce Baker Explores Issues at the Intersection of Money and Reform | janresseger:

In Blog Series, Bruce Baker Explores Issues at the Intersection of Money and Reform

Bruce Baker, professor of education finance and education policy and law at Rutgers University, is also the author if the Education Law Center’s annual review of school funding adequacy and equity across the states: Is School Funding Fair? A National Report Card. In his blog, School Finance 101, Baker explores issues of school funding fairness as well as other matters he is investigating for academic research.  At the end of October to launch a connected series of posts, At the Intersection of Money and Reform, he declared, “At times, this blog serves as a palette for testing/sharing ideas.  So… in this, and a rapid fire sequence of follow-up posts, I will share some excerpts of forthcoming, and early stage, in-progess work.”  What makes this series  so interesting is not only Baker’s summary of the history of the current state of school policy but also his dive into the research literature.

In the first post, Baker deftly discounts the often repeated myth that paying teachers based on their earning masters’ and doctors’ degrees and based on their years of experience fails to improve their students’ education and is, therefore, a waste of money. Reviewing the research literature, he concludes:  “To summarize, despite all the uproar about paying teachers based on experience and education… this line of argument misses the point… (T)he average salaries of the teaching profession, with respect to other labor market opportunities, can substantively affect the quality of entrants to the teaching profession, applicants to preparation programs, and student outcomes.  Diminishing resources for schools can constrain salaries and reduce the quality of the labor supply.  Further, salary differentials between schools and districts might help to recruit or retain teachers in high need settings.  In other words, resources used for teacher quality matter.”

Baker’s recent series then moves to several posts that explore primary policy concerns about the charter sector.  He begins Part II with a serious investigation of the idea that charter schools are more efficient: “The core assumption is that charter schooling improves efficiency because the flexibility afforded through chartering permits charter schools to engage in more creative teacher compensation strategies and technological substitution, such as trading small In Blog Series, Bruce Baker Explores Issues at the Intersection of Money and Reform | janresseger:

Teachers' suit is another corporate attack on workers - The Orange County Register

Teachers' suit is another corporate attack on workers - The Orange County Register:

Teachers' suit is another corporate attack on workers

It’s no secret that our nation’s economy in recent years has swung out of balance. Working people are having an increasingly difficult time just getting by, while getting ahead can often seem a dream out of reach. It’s not for lack of effort. Everyday Americans are working more than ever. That work has created record wealth for an economic recovery that is the envy of the world and that seems to be reflected everywhere but in workers’ wallets.

This is no accident. The rules that govern our economy are unfairly manipulated by corporations and the ultrawealthy 1 percent so that they favor corporations and the rich. Sadly, there are very few people in power today who stand up for average Americans.

Yet we all know that it’s also no accident that our nation is as great as it is. That greatness was built by a commitment to a strong middle class, where those who work hard should be able to make ends meet, have a say about their futures and have the right to negotiate together for better wages and benefits to support their families.

Unfortunately, corporate CEOs and wealthy special interests are still not content, no matter how skewed the rules are in their favor, no matter how much wealth they control. That explains the fact that the Koch brothers and other corporate interests have backed an anti-worker case before the U.S. Supreme Court this term, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association.

To understand what’s at stake, it’s necessary to understand what is known as the Fair Share system. In the United States today, no one is forced to join a union. But unions are forced to represent all workers, even those who do not join the union.

A previous Supreme Court determined that because unions are legally required to represent all employees, it is only fair that they be permitted to charge a reasonable fee to nonunion employees for the cost of representing those employees. And that court made clear that the teachers, firefighters, nurses and other municipal workers who do not want to join the union could only be charged for those costs of the representation they receive – and none of their fees can be used for political purposes.

Abolishing Fair Share would mean that some employees get the benefits of the union for free, while others pay more than their fair share. Yet that’s just what the corporate-funded plaintiffs in Friedrichs are trying to accomplish.

This effort to have the Supreme Court ban Fair Share agreements is really about a political agenda, not the law. This is just the latest tactic by the same wealthy special interests who have been attacking working people for years and still want to tilt the balance of power further their way and build their fortunes on the backs of others. We already know the impact – in states that have made Fair Share illegal, worker wages are lower, they are much less likely to have health insurance, and there is a significantly higher rate of workplace deaths.

The Supreme Court should reject this attack on public employees and allow Fair Share to continue to work fairly and equitably, as it has for decades. Then we can continue to build an economy for teachers, nurses, firefighters and other workers, an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few.

Jennifer Muir is general manager, Orange County Employees Association.Teachers' suit is another corporate attack on workers - The Orange County Register:

Republicans right to address education, but wrong on agenda | Cloaking Inequity

Republicans right to address education, but wrong on agenda | Cloaking Inequity:

Republicans right to address education, but wrong on agenda

During this week’s Republican debate in Milwaukee, the issue of K-12 education was again substantively ignored even though the focus of the debate was the U.S. economy. However, higher education was not left out of the debate as Senator Marco Rubio availed himself of a couple of opportunities to attack the U.S. higher education system. He posited that the system is “outdated, too expensive, and hard to access.” In the debate, he didn’t lay out solutions beyond his talking points, so I visited his campaign website to understand how he would “modernize” U.S. higher education. He argues that we need to “overhaul our outdated higher-education system” and more specifically “modernize higher education system to fit 21st century economy” in four ways:

• Increase access to career and vocational education;
• Better utilize apprenticeships and valuable on-the-job training;
• Ease access to state colleges and online educational opportunities;
• Increase hiring of non-degree holding workers.

First, I have a hard time understanding how the hiring of non-degree workers is in any way related to the modernization of higher education. To me that seems like the anti-thesis of valuing higher education and the skills necessary in a 21st century economy. I suspect you could argue that an increase in career and vocation education is part and parcel of that argument. To support this modernization Republicans right to address education, but wrong on agenda | Cloaking Inequity:

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Charter School Updates - National and State

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Charter School Updates - National and Stat:

Charter School Updates - National and State

Where are we with the Washington State charter law?

As usual, waiting on the Supreme Court.  The last action that I see is that four former state attorneys general — Slade Gorton, Ken Eikenberry, Chris Gregoire and Rob McKenna - filed a friend of the court document, asking the Court to reconsider. This was filed right at the end of October which may have been on purpose - the Court does have to read and consider everything filed. 

I think the Court will politely tell all these people - thanks for the input but we got it right the first time.  They will say thanks for the input but outcomes from the ruling ("this will hurt other education initiatives the Legislature funds") fall on the Legislature to solve.  But the ruling on charters is separate from those.

I think the one bone the Court will throw out is asking the Legislature to fund the existing charters thru the end of the school year.  Given how late the Court ruled on the challenge and now, the lateness of their reconsideration, it's probably the right thing to do.

I myself just received in the mail today a glossy "How Do You Tell Him?" plea from a group, Act Now for Washington.  It seems to give up on the Court's Seattle Schools Community Forum: Charter School Updates - National and Stat: