Dana Goldstein: Algebra II has to go.

Algebra II has to go.:

Down With Algebra II!

It drives dropout rates and is mostly useless in real life. Andrew Hacker has a plan for getting rid of it.

Algebra II, which is required by the new Common Core curriculum standards used by 47 states and territories, drives dropouts at both the high school and college levels.

angelacolac/Thinkstock

 n his new book The Math Myth: And Other STEM Delusions, political scientist Andrew Hacker proposes replacing algebra II and calculus in the high school and college curriculum with a practical course in statistics for citizenship (more on that later). Only mathematicians and some engineers actually use advanced math in their day-to-day work, Hacker argues—even the doctors, accountants, and coders of the future shouldn’t have to master abstract math that they’ll never need.

I showed the book to my husband, Andrei, a computer programmer who loved math in school. He scrunched up his face. “People don’t use Shakespeare in their jobs, but it’s still important for them to read it,” he said.

“It’s not the same,” I told him. “Reading fiction builds empathy.”

“Math helps us understand the world around us!” Andrei replied. “Like how derivatives demonstrate change over time.” He smiled, and I could tell that for him, it was all clear and beautiful.

But I had no idea what he was talking about. In high school, I found math so indecipherable that I would sometimes cry over my homework. I don’t think I ever understood what a derivative signified 15 years ago, when I was struggling my way to a low B in calculus—a class I was convinced I had to take to pad my college applications.

Hacker attacks not only algebra but the entire push for more rigorous STEM education.

So Hacker’s book is deeply comforting. I’m not alone, it tells me—lots of smart people hate math. The reason I hated math, was mediocre at it, and still managed to earn a bachelor’s degree was because I had upper-middle-class parents who paid for tutoring and eventually enrolled me in a college that doesn’t require math credits in order to graduate. For low-income students, math is often an impenetrable barrier to academic success. Algebra II, which includes polynomials and logarithms, and is required by the new Common Core curriculum standards used by 47 states and territories, drives dropouts at both the high school and college levels. The situation is most dire at public colleges, which are the mostAlgebra II has to go.:

The Hidden Agenda Behind 21st Century Learning | Psychology Today

The Hidden Agenda Behind 21st Century Learning | Psychology Today:
The Hidden Agenda Behind 21st Century Learning
Public-private partnership is strangling our education system.

 How has our public education system gotten so off track?

High-stakes testing, obsessive data collection, and lofty promises of technology’s potential to “revolutionize” education are contributing to ever-increasing amounts of school-based screen-time. The invasion is occuring with complete disregard for what it taking away from in terms of basic developmental needs, as well as for screentime's negative influence on nervous system health.  Health and development risks aside, research suggests computer use in schools drags down test scores(link is external).  

Why collect copious amounts of data if the process of data collection itself negatively impacts student performance? Or the ability to acquire real-life skills? Not surprisingly, when education policies are ineffective and impractical but continue to move forward like a freight train, what’s typically greasing the wheels is--you guessed it--money.

This month's post is by Tara Ehrcke(link is external), a high school math teacher and public education advocate in British Columbia. I highly recommend reading the more complete article foundhere(link is external), as Ms Ehrcke manages to paint a disturbing but clear picture of the complex public-private relationship that’s placing a stranglehold on public education in the US and Canada. Below are snippets of her insightful commentary:

________________________

A false narrative about our schools is spreading through the education community and the public at large. Apparently, with the turn of the clock and the dawn of a new century, our schools are suddenly inadequate. As Canadians for 21st Century Learning and Innovationarticulates the issue, “public education in Canada must be transformed to position Canadians for success in the knowledge and digital age.”1  The Partnership for 21st Century Skills puts it this way: “Every child in the U.S. needs 21st century knowledge and skills to succeed as effective citizens, workers and leaders.”2 A common turn of phrase is that we must leave behind the “factory model” of schooling and embrace the technological change of the new century.

A peek beneath the surface reveals that the drive for change and the changes sought are not new, necessary or unique, but in fact familiar — cost cutting, privatization, and restructuring public education around technology. Despite the promises, 21st Century Learning will not bring “success”. The crisis of “factory schooling” is manufactured. And The Hidden Agenda Behind 21st Century Learning | Psychology Today:

Security Guards In Compton Schools Staging Sickout With Teachers « CBS Los Angeles

Security Guards In Compton Schools Staging Sickout With Teachers « CBS Los Angeles:

Security Guards In Compton Schools Staging Sickout With Teachers

COMPTON (CBSLA.com) — Several security guards working in the Compton Unified School District called in sick Monday, joining the teachers who have been staging sickouts as they demand better pay.

For the third time since last week, teachers, custodians, security guards and anyone governed by a union contract with the school district called in sick.

A high school teacher who declined to reveal her name or appear on camera said her union has not taken a strike vote and does not plan to. The sick days are the members’ way of trying to make their point, she said.

CBS2/KCAL9’s Dave Lopez called the union for comment, but his call was not returned.

Most of the teachers in the district were in the classrooms Monday, except for one school. But the district would not say which one.

At Compton High School on Monday, there was no organized teacher sickout. But there was a sickout among the security guards at most of the schools, according to Lopez.

Superintendent Darin Brawley’s office released the following statement:

“Today several members of our classified staff called in sick at several schools necessitating temporary adjustments in staff assignments to ensure the District provides a full day of instruction. There were also several teachers that called in sick at one of our schools.

As superintendent I want to assure parents and the community that the District has taken every step to ensure all students are in class and that all the campuses are safe. For the most part, the classified staff that called in sick do not impact classroom instruction, and through temporary shuffling of staff the District’s schools are in full operation.

It continues to be regrettable that employees who are dissatisfied with the progress of their negotiations with the District decide to express their frustration with actions that can hurt and impede our children’s progress in the classroom.”

The teachers and staff are fighting for higher wage and better health benefits after being offered a 2-percent pay increase. They are also unhappy that contract negotiations have stalled.

So far, there is no word on whether teachers and staff will vote to go on strike.Security Guards In Compton Schools Staging Sickout With Teachers « CBS Los Angeles:

CURMUDGUCATION: PTA Sells Out

CURMUDGUCATION: PTA Sells Out:
PTA Sells Out

 Shannon Sevier, vice-president for advocacy of the National PTA, took to the Huffinmgton Post this week to shill for the testing industry. It was not a particularly artful defense, with Sevier parroting most of the talking points put forth by test manufacturers and their hired government guns.


Sevier starts out by reminiscing about when her children took their Big Standardized Tests, and while there was fear and trepidation, she also claims to remembers "the importance of the assessments in helping my children's teachers and school better support their success through data-driven planning and decision-making."

I'm a little fuzzy on what time frame we'd be talking about, because Sevier's LinkedIN profile seems to indicate that she was working in Europe from 2009-2014. Pre-2009 tests would be a different animal than the current crop. But even if she was commuting, or her children were here in the states, that line is a load of bull.

"Support their success through data-driven planning and decision-making" is fancy talk for "helped design more targeted test prep in order to make sure that test scores went up." No BS Tests help teachers teach. Not one of them. There is no useful educational feedback. There is no detailed educational breakdown of educational goals provided to teachers on a timely basis, and, in fact, in CURMUDGUCATION: PTA Sells Out:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rahm gives advice to Trump on race relations

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rahm gives advice to Trump on race relations:

Rahm gives advice to Trump on race relations

 As horrific as they are, Trump's stupid racist comments are a gift to Clinton Democrats like Rahm Emanuel who only have to distance themselves from Trump, Mussolini and the KKK to become the "progressive" alternative. 


From Crain's editor Tom Corfman:

Maybe Mayor Rahm Emanuel is watching too many “Star Wars” movies lately, but he accused Trump of “playing with dark forces” for not emphatically disavowing the support of white supremacist leader David Duke, the Tribune reports. The mayor also knocked Trump for retweeting a quote by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. 

“Whether it was dealing with Mussolini or David Duke, his statements or the lack of clarity around his statements, you know, you sleep in the bed you make,” he Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rahm gives advice to Trump on race relations:

GRIT YOUR TEETH | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing

GRIT YOUR TEETH | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:

GRIT YOUR TEETH

We admire people and fictional characters from all walks of life who display courage, bravery, spirit, strength of character, fortitude, resolve, determination, endurance, and spunk. All of these words are synonyms for a now “hated” word…. GRIT. Why?

I believe it is because it is another word stolen from our positive vocabulary by “reformistas” and thus has been deemed anathema to use.

That’s letting the wolf tell us what to believe!

However it seems, that even within the wolf’s lair there is a dispute about “grit” and the stupidity to try to test and measure it.

In this NYT article entitled, Testing for Joy and Grit? Schools Nationwide Push to Measure Students’ Emotional Skills, Kate Zernike interviews people on both sides of the argument about whether or not to test for the social and emotional skills educators know kids need to succeed in school and post high school.

She writes,

“A recent update to federal education law requires states to include at least GRIT YOUR TEETH | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:

Detroit Schools’ Pending Fiscal Collapse Endangers Over 45,000 Children | janresseger

Detroit Schools’ Pending Fiscal Collapse Endangers Over 45,000 Children | janresseger:

Detroit Schools’ Pending Fiscal Collapse Endangers Over 45,000 Children

 The public schools in Detroit, Michigan—a school district that serves over 45,000 students—may run out of money in April.  The mess is so complicated that it is hard to know even how to describe it.  How to address it would require strong leadership that appears to be lacking in Michigan these days.

The state is a one-party, all Republican state.  Its governor and legislature are unified in their commitment to lowering taxes through austerity budgeting.  In education they have also proven to be pro-privatization at least in the biggest and poorest cities.

One thing is certain. The kind of thing that is happening in Detroit is unlikely to affect your children personally unless you live in one of the 10 most distressed large U.S. cities profiled in the NY Times last week—Cleveland; Detroit;  Newark; Toledo; San Bernardino, Calif; Stockton, Calif.; Milwaukee; Buffalo; Memphis; and Cincinnati or a similar smaller city like Camden or Gary or Youngstown or Hartford or Flint. What is alarming is that Detroit’s public school crisis has not created any kind of urgent public sense that it must be remedied immediately.

The situation in Detroit’s schools has been a long time in the making.  A lot of deplorable choices have been made by politicians over the years.  Here are some of the major problems.

First, the school district has a staggering $3.5 billion long-term deficit.

Second, fifteen of Detroit’s schools were, several years ago, turned into a state Education Achievement Authority that has never encompassed more than this small group of the city’s Detroit Schools’ Pending Fiscal Collapse Endangers Over 45,000 Children | janresseger:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Teachers get ready. Another strike looming.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Teachers get ready. Another strike looming.:

Teachers get ready. Another strike looming.

CTU  members and supporters marched through the loop Feb. 4th.

With a strike authorization vote from the rank-and-file in their pocket and a schools CEO who won't bargain in good faith, CTU leaders are preparing the membership for a strike on April 1st.

Rahm's fixer, Forrest Claypool, hasn't been able to fix anything. The mayor with the tough-guy rep, has turned into a pussy cat when it comes to taking on his pal, Gov. ("Little Trump") Rauner, who continues to hold the school budget hostage in an attempt to force CPS into bankruptcy. 

Faced with a new round of lay-offs and with Claypool's contract-busting push to drop the teachers' pension pick-up, amounting to a 7% pay cut, a strike seems to be the only course left to the CTU.

"For them to say 'You can't go on strike, but we can make a unilateral change in terms of employment by way of a 7 percent pay cut,' that's just an outrageous violation of the way labor law works," CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey said at Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Teachers get ready. Another strike looming.:

Revised and Available: De-testing and De-grading Schools (Peter Lang USA, 2016) – the becoming radical

Revised and Available: De-testing and De-grading Schools (Peter Lang USA, 2016) – the becoming radical:

Revised and Available: De-testing and De-grading Schools (Peter Lang USA, 2016)



 Co-edited with Bower, J. (2016). De-testing and de-grading schools: Authentic alternatives to accountability and standardization. Revised ed. New York, NY: Peter Lang USA.

Book synopsis

A century of education and education reform, along with more than three decades of high-stakes testing and accountability, reveals a disturbing paradox: education has a steadfast commitment to testing and grading. This commitment persists despite ample research, theory, and philosophy revealing the corrosive consequences of both testing and grading in an education system designed to support human agency and democratic principles. This revised edited volume brings together a collection of updated and new essays that confronts the failure of testing and grading. The book explores the historical failure of testing and grading; the theoretical and philosophical arguments against testing and grading; the negative influence of tests and grades on social justice, race, class, and gender; and the role that they play in perpetuating a deficit perspective of children. The chapters fall under two broad sections. Part I, Degrading Learning, Detesting Education: The Failure of High-Stake Accountability in Education, includes essays on the historical, theoretical, and philosophical arguments against testing and grading. Part II, De-Grading and De-Testing in a Time of High-Stakes Education Reform, presents practical experiments in de-testing and de-grading classrooms for authentic learning experiences.

Contents: Rick Wormeli: An Unexamined Pedagogy Harms – Lisa Guisbond/Monty Neill/Bob Schaeffer: NCLB’s Lost Decade for Educational Progress: What Can We Learn from This Policy Failure? – Fernando F. Padró/ Michael F. Hawke/Laurie M. Hawke: Assessment and Quality: Policy-Steering and the Making of a Deus ex Machina – Anthony Cody: Technocratic Groupthink Inflates the Testing Bubble – Lawrence Baines/Rhonda Goolsby-Smith: America’s Obsessive-Assessment Disorder – Julie A. Gorlewski/David A. Gorlewski: Solidarity and Critical Dialogue: Interrupting the Degradation of Teacher Preparation – Morna McDermott: Feeding the World = Reading the World: Let Them Eat Tests – Richard Mora: Bubble in B for Boredom – Brian R. Beabout/Andre M. Perry: Reconciling Student Outcomes and Community Self-Reliance in Modern School Reform Contexts – David L. Bolton/John M. Elmore: The Role of Assessment in Empowering/Disempowering Students in the Critical Pedagogy Classroom – Christian Z. Goering: «How Long Does This Have to Be?»: Confronting the Standardization of Writing Instruction with Teachers in National Writing Project Invitational Summer Institutes – Joe Bower: Telling Time with a Broken Clock: Moving Beyond Standardized Testing – John L. Hoben: The Grading Mousetrap: Narcissism, Abjection, and the Politics of Self-Harm – Arnold Dodge/Ruth Powers Silverberg/Katie Zahedi: Leadership Denied: Principal as Compliance Officer – Hadley J. Ferguson: Journey into Ungrading – Jennifer Magee/Mark Dziedzic: An Oath to Stop Degrading Students: A Story of De-grading an Elementary Classroom – P. L. Thomas: De-grading Writing Instruction: Closing the «Considerable Gap» – Brian Rhode: One Week, Many Thoughts – Lisa William-White: Striving Toward Authentic Teaching for Social Justice: Additional Considerations – P. L. Thomas: Yes, to Be Clear, I Am Anti-testing, Anti-grading.Revised and Available: De-testing and De-grading Schools (Peter Lang USA, 2016) – the becoming radical:

On welfare and in juvie – dual clients get lost :: SI&A Cabinet Report

On welfare and in juvie – dual clients get lost :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:

On welfare and in juvie – dual clients get lost

(Calif.) County systems responsible for tracking youth involved in both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems are unable to accurately identify these children and keep tabs on their academic progress, according to a recent survey.

Of the six counties included in the California State Auditor’s report released last week, five were unable to identify the total number of youth considered dually-involved. In addition to each county employing a different method of tracking, there was also a lack of integration between the welfare and juvenile systems within each county.

“These systems don’t have the proper data infrastructure to both share vital information with each other and know what is happening with a young person, like whether or not they are succeeding, and what that young person needs because of this fundamental lack of coordination and tracking,” said Patricia Soung, senior staff attorney and policy associate at Children’s Defense Fund – California. “It’s not just a lack of data, but a lack of partnership between these agencies and systems that shape the day-to-day life of a youth.”

Many dually-involved young people often do not receive the services they are entitled to, such as counseling or gang prevention efforts, because each system assumes the other is providing them, Soung said in an interview.

Research has long suggested that children involved in the child welfare system often have lower achievement levels in school, and are more likely to struggle with homelessness, behavioral health disorders, unemployment and criminal justice involvement in their early adult years. Those involved in both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems tend to have even worse outcomes, according to the auditor’s report.

In 2005, the Legislature established the statewide Child Welfare Services/Case Management System database to provide welfare services and probation agencies a common place to document and track children involved with both systems. The report, however, found that information regarding case histories, demographics, services delivered, and placement and contact information was often incomplete or inaccurate.

Currently, counties determine how to track dually-involved children, as well as their outcomes, at On welfare and in juvie – dual clients get lost :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:

Part 3–From the Classroom: Teachers Integrating Technology | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Part 3–From the Classroom: Teachers Integrating Technology | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Part 3–From the Classroom: Teachers Integrating Technology

Among the courses that Will Colglazier teaches at Aragon High School in San Mateo Union High School District is Advanced Placement U.S. history. He also teaches a social studies methods course at Stanford University every Tuesday–“That is a long,long day,” he says. Colglazier has been profiled in various publications (see here, here, and here) and I have done a post about a class I observed last year. So why do even another post on Colglazier?

For my project on looking at best cases of technology integration at the classroom, school, and district levels I went to Dominic Bigue, coordinator of technology for SMUHSD. He identified teachers, including Colglazier, who were making technology integral to their lessons and were willing to have me visit their classrooms. Of those he identified, I have already described lessons of English teacher Sarah Press (Hillsdale High School) and Spanish teacher Nicole Elenz-Martin (also at Aragon). Today, I focus on Colglazier’s Advanced Placement U.S. history class that I observed February 19, 2016.

Aragon’s hillside campus has just over 1400 students of whom 70 percent are minority.  Twenty-four percent of the students are eligible for free and reduced-price lunches (common measure of poverty). Nearly 98 percent graduate. Of those graduating, 44 percent attend community college and 54 percent enter four-year colleges and universities.

The lesson I observed was about Pearl Harbor (1941), particularly historical documents that argued for and against the conspiracy theory surrounding Part 3–From the Classroom: Teachers Integrating Technology | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Very Important Warning for Connecticut High School Juniors and their parents - Wait What?

Very Important Warning for Connecticut High School Juniors and their parents - Wait What?:

Very Important Warning for Connecticut High School Juniors and their parents

Last spring Governor Dannel Malloy and the Connecticut General Assembly passed legislation mandating that the 40,000+ high school juniors who attend Connecticut’s public schools must take the NEW SAT – Tomorrow – March 2, 2016, despite the fact that the NEW SAT has not been publicly released, has not been statistically validated and includes a significant number of questions that are related to content that most high school juniors have not been taught.

Like the Common Core SBAC testing scheme that is being inflicted upon children in grades 3-8, the NEW SAT has been “aligned to the Common Core” and is intentionally designed to fail a large number of students.

After considering the issues involved I have opted my daughter out of the NEW SAT and she will be using tomorrow to learn rather than serve as a guinea pig for the testing industry and the Connecticut State Department of Education.

One thing is extremely clear.

The attempt to force Connecticut’s 11th graders to take the NEW SAT is not about helping students, improving graduating rates or expanding the number of people who go to college.

Instead, the new “mandate” is part of the broader corporate education reform agenda that is successfully diverting scarce public funds away from teacher-student instruction to private companies.

The College Board, the conglomerate that owns the SAT, collects nearly $1 Billion a year Very Important Warning for Connecticut High School Juniors and their parents - Wait What?:

Schools Matter: Mathews Reviews His Own Book

Schools Matter: Mathews Reviews His Own Book:
Mathews Reviews His Own Book

When Jay Mathews rushed out a response to his WaPo editors before my book was even on sale, I wasn't surprised that he would disparaging in his assessment of this, or any, book that provides a critique of the segregated corporate KIPP schools.  

What did surprise me, however, is that he would post a picture of his own book, which was published six years ago as a exuberant paean to the "founders," Feinberg and Levin, as they are referred to by their acolytes.  At the end of Part 2 of his review, published yesterday, he invites the reader to read his book, as well as mine, and decide for yourself who is right and who is wrong.  The problem with this proposal is that the two books, with a couple of exceptions that Mathews seizes upon, cover very different terrain and ask very different questions.  

In fact, Jay's book asks no questions at all but, rather, sets out to tell us how, in a wooden sort of fairy tale fashion, how "two inspired teachers created the most promising schools in America." Mathews would have us believe that this sprouting and kudzu paced growth of KIPP resulted from two young geniuses inspired by a "magical" teacher godmother who sprinkled her fairy dust on them and gave them her blessing. 

The facts, however, are a bit more complicated and prosaic.  KIPP sprang from the corporate conceptual ground provided by Teach for America and its market-centered and publicly-fed neoliberal agenda, and it was fertilized and manicured by tons of tax-sheltered cash provided initially by renowned conservative GAP founder, Donald Fisher.  It did not hurt, either, that KIPP was asked to do a skit at the 2000 National Republican Convention.

As for the godmother teacher in Jay's fairy tale, Harriet Ball, her ideas were harvested by the KIPP machine, and she was left unpaid for her intellectual property.  

The questions that I ask in the preface of Work Hard, Be Hard: Journeys through "No Excuses" Teachingare below (from the Preface): 

As an antidote to the KIPP Foundation’s marketing and public relations outreach, which 

Schools Matter: Mathews Reviews His Own Book:

 

Work Hard, Be Hard: Journeys through "No Excuses" Teaching

With A Brooklyn Accent: Letter to Fordham Admissions Director Urging that Students Who Opt Out of Tests Be Given Serioius Consideration

With A Brooklyn Accent: Letter to Fordham Admissions Director Urging that Students Who Opt Out of Tests Be Given Serioius Consideration:
Letter to Fordham Admissions Director Urging that Students Who Opt Out of Tests Be Given Serioius Consideration

March 1, 2016

Dr. Patricia Peek
Director of Admissions
Fordham University

Dear Dr Peek
As a faculty member at Fordham for 45 years, and as a scholar following trends in education policy, I want to call your attention to the possibility that young people who are refusing standardized tests as a matter of principle may eventually be a significant group among future applicants to Fordham University.
Last year, in New York State alone, more than 220,000 students refused to take Common Core aligned tests and the movement this is part of –Opt Out- is growing in every part of the country. Participants in this movement believe that standardization and excessive testing are undermining critical thinking, an appreciation of literature and the arts, and student and teacher autonomy in favor of a one size fits all model of pedagogy that aligns learning to standards imposed from above. As a faculty member who teaches History courses, I see some of the damage imposed by this model in the form of student confusion when I ask for critical commentary on course tests and assign independent research projects instead of short answer tests. And I am not alone in this perception. Many of my colleagues also complain of students who resist being asked to read entire books or do independent research projects. In short, the kind of testing and pedagogy that is prompting test resistance at the K-12 level is also creating problems for students at the college level, at least in Humanities courses.
My main point is this. I strongly urge Fordham to allow applicants to the school to refuse to take the SAT- which is now Common Core aligned- and submit applications where they are judged solely on grades, recommendations, persuasive essays and submission of independent work. Many such students will be highly gifted, principled young people, who have taken a moral position on one of the great issues of the day. Fordham will not only be taking a stance for creative pedagogy by adopting such a policy, it will encourage applications from talented students who have a great deal to contribute to our University community.
I am available to meet with you in person if you would like to discuss this issue in greater depth
Sincerely
Mark D Naison
Professor of African American Studies and History
Founder and Director
Bronx African American History Project
Please feel free to use this letter, with appropriate adaptations, at other universities.With A Brooklyn Accent: Letter to Fordham Admissions Director Urging that Students Who Opt Out of Tests Be Given Serioius Consideration:

Another Disaster of the Accountability Era? State Takeovers of High-Poverty, Majority-Minority Schools | Alternet

Another Disaster of the Accountability Era? State Takeovers of High-Poverty, Majority-Minority Schools | Alternet:
Another Disaster of the Accountability Era? State Takeovers of High-Poverty, Majority-Minority Schools
These takeovers often include reconstituting schools as charters, replacing entire faculties and administrations.

 Louisiana and my home state of South Carolina both share a historical struggle with high-poverty, racial minority public schools. In recent years, however, New Orleans has become a model for a drastic form of education reform, in which the state takes over schools and entire districts from local control.

These takeovers often include reconstituting schools as charters, replacing entire faculties and administrations, and even handing over operations to private entities — which is precisely what is now being proposed in Charleston, SC, where education and poverty were given close examination via the 2006 documentary Corridor of Shame: Neglect of South Carolina's Rural Schools.

In that film, South Carolina novelist Pat Conroy narrated his own experience teaching in a high-poverty, majority-black school on a coastal SC island. The experience, Conroy explains, “shook me to the core”; the extreme poverty and failure of formal education Conroy witnessed during the late 1960s to early '70s included children who had no lived experiences beyond the coastal islands they inhabited and literacy skills that suggested their futures would be dim.

By the 1980s, my home state had made a decision about how to treat education inequality: South Carolina became one of the first states to adopt high-stakes accountability for education reform, and in effect, committed to the belief that in-school only reform could overcome the negative consequences of poverty and racism.

Unsurprisingly, nothing changed. By1993, high-poverty districts were suing the state over inequitable education funding — the very suit that is the basis of the documentary Conroy participated in.

It took over two decades for the courts to rule finally in favor of those districts, Another Disaster of the Accountability Era? State Takeovers of High-Poverty, Majority-Minority Schools | Alternet:

Analysis: Districts in Most States May Lose Title I Money Under Obama Budget - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Analysis: Districts in Most States May Lose Title I Money Under Obama Budget - Politics K-12 - Education Week:
Analysis: Districts in Most States May Lose Title I Money Under Obama Budget

 Districts in more than 30 states could stand to lose a small portion of their Title I funding if Congress adopts the president's fiscal year 2017 proposal for the program without any changes, according to an unpublished analysis by the Congressional Research Service obtained by Politics K-12.

Districts in Michigan could stand to lose the most, according to the report—more than $10 million out of $495 million in Title I funding overall currently. Other states facing losses include Mississippi, which could lose nearly $5 million out of $186 million in Title I funding overall, according to the analysis. Other potential cuts are smaller, relatively speaking. Alaska districts could lose about $40,000.

The report could provide fuel for advocates for districts that have expressed dismay that the FY 2017, which would go into effect largely during the 2017-18 school year (the first year that the new Every Student Succeeds Act will be in place), would essentially level-fund the main federal K-12 program for disadvantaged students, Title I.

Some wonky background: Under the president's budget, which was released in February, Title I would get about $15.4 billion, or roughly $450 million more than current levels. That probably sounds like a big increase. But it isn't, because ESSA eliminated the Title I School Improvement Grant program, which is currently funded at $450 million. That money would simply be folded into the new proposed total for Title I.

So where do these potential cuts come from? Even though it eliminated the school improvement program, ESSA sought to provide other resources for improving struggling schools by upping the amount of Title I funding states must set aside for that purpose, from 4 percent to 7 percent. But, crucially, for just one year, it suspends a requirement that districts be "held harmless," meaning that for the 2017-18 school year—and for that year—districts can receive less Title I funding than they did the previous year, to make room for the state set-aside. The report assumes all states are currently taking the full 4 percent set-aside.

What's more, ESSA allows state education departments to hold back up to 3 percent of Title Analysis: Districts in Most States May Lose Title I Money Under Obama Budget - Politics K-12 - Education Week:I 

Citing free speech, California school lets students wear anti-gay stickers - Yahoo News

Citing free speech, California school lets students wear anti-gay stickers - Yahoo News:

Citing free speech, California school lets students wear anti-gay stickers

The line between free speech and hate speech is blurry, but finding it is offering an educational opportunity to one California community.

 A thorny scene playing out in southern California has one small community scrambling to find the elusive line between free speech and hate speech.

The big question is whether students at Shadow Hills High School in Indio can wear anti-gay stickers that portray a small rainbow inside a circle with a line through it. So far, administrators and lawyers have decided that students have as much right to wear anti-gay stickers on their school ID badges as they do to wear stickers supporting gay rights, as long as they don’t harass students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT).

“If at any point students are interrupting class time to express their beliefs, they are to be sent to the discipline office with a referral for disruption,” said an email statement of the anti-gay students, sent to staff Wednesday by school administrators, according to a report from the Desert Sun.

Recommended: How much do you know about gay rights in America? Take the quiz!

“We all have a right to freedom of speech, but students also have a right to be educated without fear. This has always been our policy, and we will continue to enforce it," the e-mail said.

The US Supreme Court in 1969 ruled in Tinker v. Des Moines that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."

Whether the stickers are hate speech, harassment, or just simply inappropriate, some educators consider the dilemma facing its community to draw the boundaries between hate speech and harassment to be a perfect opportunity for education, with many calling for the school to offer sensitivity training to students.

"It's not just dealing with the five or six kids. It's trying to change the culture to help the students feel emboldened to say to their classmates 'Hey, that's not OK. That's not appropriate,' " David Parsons, a Spanish and advanced placement (AP) literature teacher at Shadow Hills told the Sun.

The stickers started showing up a couple of weeks ago on students’ ID badges and on social media, and even on the classroom window of the school’s Gay Straight Alliance coordinator, reports the Sun. This has unnerved some students and staff, who say they feel targeted.

"Yes, there is freedom of speech established by Tinker, but at least in my view, it's a hate crime because a group was targeted," Amy Oberman, an AP US history teacher at Shadow Hills told the Sun.

"I'm Jewish, and if that had been a little swastika on my window, what's the difference?" she asked.

But as long as there is no bullying accompanying the free speech, the anti-gay stickers can stay. Administrators say this is not a decision that they made lightly; they agonized over the case before siding with free speech.

"Sometimes people can be uncomfortable because of an opinion, but that doesn't mean it's bullying," said Laura Fisher, assistant superintendent of personnel services for the Desert Sands Unified School District.  "We truly spent hours discussing this."

Some students that support gay rights are taking the opportunity to show their support for the LGBT cause.

"Shadow Hills High School has been able to come together and try and educate those discriminating,” said Michelle Bachman, a senior at Shadow Hills and vice president of the Gay Straight Alliance. “Instead of having anti-gay stickers in our lanyards, we have made heart stickers with rainbows to display our support and love."Citing free speech, California school lets students wear anti-gay stickers - Yahoo News:

Gov. Inslee signs K-12 finance bill to answer Supreme Court | The News Tribune

Gov. Inslee signs K-12 finance bill to answer Supreme Court | The News Tribune:

Gov. Inslee signs K-12 finance bill to answer Supreme Court

Joined by Democratic and Republican lawmakers, Gov. Jay Inslee signs a bill that sets out a plan for finishing the Legislature's work of reforming the way the state of Washington pays for K-12 education, Monday, Feb. 29, 2016, in Olympia, Wash. It is designed to answer the Supreme Court's ruling in 2012 that Washington's school funding was not adequate or uniform. Rachel La Corte AP Photo

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/latest-news/article63211217.html#storylink=cpy

SEATTLE 

Gov. Jay Inslee on Monday signed a bill that sets out a plan for finishing the Legislature's work of reforming the way the state of Washington pays for K-12 education.

The measure is the first bill the governor has signed this legislative session. It is designed to answer the Supreme Court's 2012 ruling — and its orders in the case since then — in the so-called McCleary decision that Washington's school funding was not adequate or uniform.

Inslee said he expected the measure would satisfy the court, which has held the state in contempt over the Legislature's failure to make a plan for resolving the remaining issues over paying the full costs of basic education, while ending its overreliance on local tax levies.

"It does advance a significant recognition by the Legislature that they need to act and have a full intention to act," Inslee said after the bill signing ceremony.

The government commended lawmakers for coming up with a bipartisan compromise on this issue, even though some were reluctant to do so.

"This wasn't easy. The Legislators worked hard on this for months," Inslee said, adding that the part won't be easy either. "The next step before us is arguably the most complex and I'm confident the Legislature is up to the task."

The measure would establish a task force to find the state dollars needed to replace some local levy spending and instructs the 2017 Legislature to finish the work.

It also instructs the task force to make recommendations on teacher pay and asks for clarification on how local levies are being used today. The measure directs the task force to determine whether more legislation is needed to ensure all-day kindergarten and lower K-3 class sizes are possible in every elementary school in the state.Gov. Inslee signs K-12 finance bill to answer Supreme Court | The News Tribune:

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/latest-news/article63211217.html#storylink=cpy