Newark charter school fires half of its teachers |

Newark charter school fires half of its teachers |:

Newark charter school fires half of its teachers

Newark’s Marion P. Thomas charter school has terminated the jobs of  half of its teaching staff–just months after it raised salaries in a move supposedly designed to retain its best instructors.

“They said they wanted to keep their best teachers but what they really wanted to do is use the raises as a way of recruiting new teachers to replace those they are laying off,” said Maria Parelis, the president of the union representing instructional staff at the school.

Marion P. Thomas is one of the few charter schools where a union, an affiliate of the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), represents teachers.

According to Edward Stevens, an NJEA representative, Marion P. Thomas administrators sent termination letters to 37 of the schools 79 teaching staff members.

That represented 20 non-tenured teachers whose contracts were not renewed and 17 pre-K teachers whose jobs were eliminated whether or not they had tenure.

“This is churning,” said Stevens. “They are getting rid of people before they achieve tenure.”

Under the state’s new tenure law, charter school teachers do not receive tenure Newark charter school fires half of its teachers |:

In Today’s Game: Can You Spot The FOIA Violation? – Exceptional Delaware

In Today’s Game: Can You Spot The FOIA Violation? – Exceptional Delaware:

In Today’s Game: Can You Spot The FOIA Violation?

 Gateway Lab School, a Delaware charter school that serves a very high population of students with disabilities, held a special board meeting on April 4th, 2016.  The purpose of the meeting was to discuss a due process mediation.  Can you spot the Delaware FOIA violation?  It’s easy if you try!

Oops! That’s a big one! I’ve already filed the FOIA complaint to the Attorney General’s office. As a gentle reminder to all school boards in Delaware: you can discuss student related matters in executive session if it pertains to an issue, but you can’t vote on it in executive session. You need to come out of executive session and vote on it then. Now you can’t, and shouldn’t, say this is for x student’s due process mediation situation. But I would suggest giving a number for all action items at a board meeting. Many boards do this already. You can just say, as an example, “In the matter of 16-322, may I have a motion to vote on this action item?”, or something along those lines. It wasn’t that long ago that Brandywine School District’s board had the same issue which is causing issues for the district now as part of a lawsuit.

As well, I have also requested an opinion from the same office about public comment at public meetings. I have noticed some Delaware charter schools ask public comment to be submitted up to two weeks in advance before a board meeting. I don’t think that is in the spirit of the law. Any member of the public should have unfettered access to a public meeting and have the ability to give public comment without having to give advance notice.

Sorry Gateway! Don’t mean to call you out but if all of your board members have not received the full training on these matters I would definitely get on that!In Today’s Game: Can You Spot The FOIA Violation? – Exceptional Delaware:

Big Education Ape: Delaware Public Schools: You Have Until Thursday To Get Rid Of Your Data Walls Or I Start Filin... http://bit.ly/1WMvvg0

Big Education Ape: “The Data Walls Must Come Down”: My Email To All Delaware Superintendents & Charter Chiefs – Ex... http://bit.ly/1WMw0GE

Big Education Ape: New Legislation Uses “Cyber Attack Threat” To Shield Delaware’s Student Data Mining Tactics – E... http://bit.ly/1WMvLvo

What data is that website or online vendor collecting? There’s an app for that. – Missouri Education Watchdog

What data is that website or online vendor collecting? There’s an app for that. – Missouri Education Watchdog:

What data is that website or online vendor collecting? There’s an app for that.

 For most of us, “data” is invisible. We can’t see the bits of data being collected and shared and tracked about us when we are online. We can’t see who is collecting this data, or who is watching what we do when we are online. How can you know if a school’s online vendor or company is complying with their data privacy policy or your school’s  contract?   There’s an app  (or two) for that. 

Disclaimer: Neither the author or MEW are promoting the use of these apps, neither has any ties to said privacy apps. We do not stand to make money from telling you about these apps.  There may be other apps or similar products available. This is merely a public service, so that you, the public, can be more informed and perhaps take what you find to your school board or legislator as evidence of online data collected and shared.

Lightbeam (Free.  Anyone can use.)

Lightbeam will create a record of events for every site you visit

and every third party site that is stored locally on your browser.

.

 Think of Lightbeam as showing third party vendors who may have been contracted to analyze or package your data.

.

Step by step Lightbeam  instructions, via Graphite on the Common Sense privacy and security website:

* Install Firefox browser if you haven’t already done so

* Disable all ad blockers and other defensive protections that we use when browsing the web. These tools are great when we’re working online, but can actually block issues we need to see when testing.

* Install Lightbeam for Firefox* Run through the steps to prepare Firefox for testing Lightbeam

 .

With the above preparations in place:

1. Login to a website you would like to test, (ie: We logged in to an educational website using a student account. We could see what third parties are accessing / using data from this student account.) Lightbeam will record all calls to any third party trackers.

2. Once logged onto the website/application you are testing, navigate to any pages where a person can add information and/or connect to an What data is that website or online vendor collecting? There’s an app for that. – Missouri Education Watchdog:

Reading About Education in the Press: Consider the Source and Demand Documentation | janresseger

Reading About Education in the Press: Consider the Source and Demand Documentation | janresseger:
Reading About Education in the Press: Consider the Source and Demand Documentation

At the end of last week a friend forwarded a column that had appeared in his local paper.  It is short, pithy, and readable.  Unfortunately, although it begins with some facts that are perfectly accurate about the public schools, its author quickly twists her argument, neglects the truth and reflects the bias of her employer.  The article is written by Vicki Alger, a research fellow atThe Independent Institute.  It was circulated by the Tribune News Service, affiliated with theSeattle Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Dallas Morning News, Kansas City Star, and Philadelphia Inquirer.  It is just the sort of little column that an editor might pick up to fill a space left on the opinion pages.

Alger begins by noting that scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress have been pretty flat for decades now. She is correct that today’s school reforms have failed to raise achievement. However, she quickly jumps to the assumption that, because test scores have not risen, increased spending on education—up, she says, by 140 percent between 1971 and 2012— has failed. There is a very important omission here: she neglects to mention that in 1975, Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act that brought vastly increased spending on education for students with special needs.  Here is what Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute explained in his 1995 book, Where’s the Money Gone?: “A detailed examination of expenditures in nine typical U.S. school districts shows that the share of expenditures going to regular education dropped from 80% to 59% between 1967 and 1991, while the share going to special education climbed from 4% to 17%. Of the net new money spent on education in 1991, only 26% went to improve regular education, while about 38% went to special education for severely handicapped and learning-disabled children. Per pupil expenditures for regular education grew by only 28% during this quarter century—an average annual rate of about 1%.”

Alger then sets up several straw men: “We were promised that illiteracy would be eliminated by 1984.  We were promised that high school graduation rates would reach 90 percent by the year 2000 and that American students would be global leaders in math and science.  And we were promised that by 2014 all students would be proficient in reading and math. None of this has happened.”

So… concludes, Alger, because we have not arrived at utopia, we must get rid of the U.S. Department of Education and put parents in charge through school choice. “Research shows Reading About Education in the Press: Consider the Source and Demand Documentation | janresseger:

Campbell Brown’s Bizarre NAEP Response in the Washington Post | deutsch29

Campbell Brown’s Bizarre NAEP Response in the Washington Post | deutsch29:
Campbell Brown’s Bizarre NAEP Response in the Washington Post

On May 23, 2016, former principal and Network for Public Education (NPE) executive director Carol Burris published this Washington Post article in response to former news anchor and education privatization proponent Campbell Brown’s May 16, 2016, statement, “Two out of three eighth graders in this country cannot read or do math at grade level. We are not preparing our kids for what the future holds.” This statement was part of a Slate interview in which Brown was offering advice to the next president.

In her Washington Post piece, Burris supports the assertion that one should not take the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) “proficient” rating to mean “at grade level”– which is what Brown does in her Slate statement.

The NAEP website clearly notes that NAEP achievement levels are still considered to be in “trial status” and “should continue to be interpreted and used with caution.”

What is more to the point is that comparison research exists in which NAEP achievement levels were examined in conjunction with international testing. As Burris reports:

[Former teacher and Harvard professor who is an expert on school reform and student achievement, Tom] Loveless, who has written extensively about NAEP, said the following in his email correspondence with me:

 “The cut point on NAEP is much too high [to be considered grade level].

In a 2007 study, researcher Gary Phillips projected where scores on the TIMSS, a series of international math and science given to kids around the world, would land on the NAEP scale.  He estimated that 27 percent of Singapore’s 8th graders would fail to meet the NAEP proficient cut score in math.  At the time, Singapore was the highest scoring country in the world.  Japan — not exactly a weak math country–would see only 57 percent meet proficiency; 43 percent would “fail.” You can read more about that study on pp. 10-13 of the 2007 Brookings Report authored by Loveless that you can findhere.

The above certainly provides context for interpreting NAEP proficiency.

Let me add to it.

The NAEP website includes trends in NAEP results by achievement level. Since Campbell Brown’s Bizarre NAEP Response in the Washington Post | deutsch29:

Schools Matter: WikiLeaks reveals: Hillary Clinton plotted corporate charter school colonialism for Haiti

Schools Matter: WikiLeaks reveals: Hillary Clinton plotted corporate charter school colonialism for Haiti:

WikiLeaks reveals: Hillary Clinton plotted corporate charter school colonialism for Haiti

“Worse, Clinton’s “boarding school” socialization and structure idea sounds more like assimilation than education. Shocking and scarily reminiscent of other U.S. ventures in segregating classes of “other” people. Native Americans were also thought to be in need of “education” to work differently in groups and to be in need of structure.”— Daun Kauffman

WikiLeaks released the Hillary Clinton Email Archive mid-March 2016. Many users were searching for terms like hedge fund manager, Goldman Sachs, or, as the example in the WikiLeaks boolean tutorial: "syria libya will show results…" I decided to search for familiar phases of the neoliberal corporate education reform camp. I struck pay-dirt on my first try with "charter schools." Note my excitement on the day of discovery

In one thread Clinton and her cabal talk about a colonial project to remake earthquake stricken Haiti's education system using disaster capitalism, much in the way author Naomi Klein describes what happened in New Orleans:

In sharp contrast to the glacial pace with which the levees were repaired and the electricity grid brought back online, the auctioning-off of New Orleans' school system took place with military speed and precision. Within 19 months, with most of the city's poor residents still in exile, New Orleans' public school system had been almost completely replaced by privately run charter schools.

Before getting to the content of the email, it's important to contextualize the Clinton's relationship with the island nation. When not facilitating the orchestration of coups in Latin America, bombing the Near East and Africa into the stone age, or providing full-throated support for apartheid states, Clinton is meddling in Haiti. Lots of good pieces on the Clintons and Haiti in publications like Counterpunch and Black Agenda Report, but this excerpt from an essay by Shadowproof's Roqayah Chamseddine is an excellent summary:

In 2010, Hillary Clinton visited Haiti as part of a public relations stunt that allowed her to see firsthand the devastation wrought by the earthquake that killed at least 100,000. This performance was primarily meant to demonstrate solidarity and show the international community that the United States would be there to help in reconstruction efforts. Yet, her visit came less than a year after the U.S. State Department, then led by Clinton, had pressured the government of Haiti into denying laborers a wage increase of $0.62.

Dan Caughlin and Kim Ives of Haïti Liberté reported the U.S. Embassy in Haiti aggressively pressured “factory owners [in Haiti] contracted by Levi’s, Hanes, and Fruit of the Loom to block a paltry minimum wage increase for Haitian assembly zone workers, the lowest paid in the hemisphere.” In statements reminiscent of the Clinton campaign’s recent charges against Sanders, Deputy Chief of Mission David E. Lindwall called the proposed $5 minimum wage for Haitian assembly zone workers one which “did not take economic reality into account” but that was meant to appeal to the “unemployed and underpaid masses.”

Haiti has long been a kind of pet project for the Clintons, and they’ve often spoken of “falling in love with Haiti” during their honeymoon. But the love isn’t mutual by any means, and Haitians across the U.S. have made this increasingly clear by way of protests spotlighting the catastrophe the Clintons have left behind. Dahoud Andre, a radio host who has organized protests in New York, is quoted by the New York Times as saying that “a vote for Hillary Clinton means further corruption, further death and destruction for our people.”

Since the email I'll be discussing is accessible here, and is somewhat long, I will not reproduce it in its entirety. Rather, I'll draws excerpts from sections and discuss them. Secretary Clinton forwarded the email in question to one of her assistants, Lauren Jiloty. It was written by neoliberal corporate education reform cheerleader David Domenici in response to Clinton's wanting suggestions on how to capitalize on the Haitian disaster. Charter school profiteer Domenici has no background in Schools Matter: WikiLeaks reveals: Hillary Clinton plotted corporate charter school colonialism for Haiti:

Mexican-American textbook stirs cultural debate in Texas

Mexican-American textbook stirs cultural debate in Texas:

Mexican-American textbook stirs cultural debate in Texas

HOUSTON (AP) — A textbook proposed to help teach the cultural history of Mexican-Americans in Texas public schools is under scrutiny by scholars, some of whom decry the effort as racist and not a reflection of serious academic study.

The textbook, titled "Mexican American Heritage," describes Mexican-Americans as people who "adopted a revolutionary narrative that opposed Western civilization and wanted to destroy this society." It also links Mexican-Americans to undocumented immigrants, saying illegal immigration has "caused a number of economic and security problems" in the U.S. that include "poverty, drugs, crime, non-assimilation, and exploitation"

The State Board of Education voted to include textbooks on Mexican-American studies after activists last year demanded the subject be formally included in state curriculum. "Mexican American Heritage" is the first textbook on the subject included in a list of proposed instructional materials.

"Paradoxically, we pressed for the board to include texts on Mexican-American studies, and we achieved it, but not in the way we were expecting," Tony Diaz, host of Nuestra Palabra (Our Word) radio program in Houston and director of Intercultural Initiatives at Lone Star College-North Harris, told the Houston Chronicle (http://bit.ly/244zWSq ). "Instead of a text that is respectful of the Mexican-American history, we have a book poorly written, racist, and prepared by non-experts."

The Texas Education Agency says it followed standard procedure for the call to submit instructional materials for Mexican-American curriculums for the 2017-2018 school year.

Texans have until September to submit comments on the proposed instructional materials, said TEA spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson. She also said the proposed textbooks will undergo review by a committee that includes teachers and administrators and that committee will make recommendations to the board.

Ultimately, books adopted by the elected members of the Texas State Board of Education in November become part of the recommended instructional materials for statewide curriculums, but school districts aren't required to embrace them. Individual districts can use their state money to buy whatever textbooks they wish.

The book "is not a text that we have recommended nor we will be recommending," says Douglas Torres-Edwards, coordinator of a TEA-approved Mexican-American studies course that has been implemented in some Houston Independent School District schools. "Frankly, that author is not recognized as someone who is part of the Mexican-American studies scholarship and most individuals engaged in scholarship will not recognize her as an author."

The book is produced by Momentum Instruction, a company that appears to be owned or operated by Cynthia Dunbar, a member of the Texas State Board of Education from 2007 to 2011. Dunbar, a right-wing Christian activist who questioned the constitutionality of public schools in 2008, labeled the education system "tyrannical" when she published her book, "One Nation Under God," while serving on the board.

The Chronicle was unable to reach Dunbar or any of the books other authors. A phone message and email to Momentum Instruction from The Associated Press were not immediately returned Monday.

The Texas Board of Education's members sanction textbooks for use statewide in a process that has for years been marred by ideological fights over lessons on subjects including evolution, climate change and the influence of biblical figures such as Moses on America's Founding Fathers.

Mexican-American textbook stirs cultural debate in Texas:

Information from: Houston Chronicle, http://www.houstonchronicle.com

Even Apple (AAPL) is acknowledging that the “iPads in education” fad is coming to an end — Quartz

Even Apple (AAPL) is acknowledging that the “iPads in education” fad is coming to an end — Quartz:
Even Apple is acknowledging that the “iPads in education” fad is coming to an end

 “A disaster.”

“Largely gaming devices.”

“Students use them as toys. Word processing is near to impossible.”

“WE NEED LAPTOPS!!!”

These were the findings from a survey of high school students and teachers in a district in the US state of Maine on how effective iPads were for learning and teaching. Almost 90% of teachers and 74% of students preferred laptops over tablets, according to the Lewiston-Auburn Sun Journal.

Even Apple has bent to the will of students and teachers. Following the poll, the tech giant and Maine’s Department of Education are now offering schools in the state the chance to trade in iPads ordered in 2013 for new MacBook Air laptops, at no additional cost.

“If we had known how big a transition it would have been [to switch] from laptops to iPads we would have proactively done some good work with teachers to make the transition easier for them,” Mike Muir, the policy director of the Maine Learning Through Technology Initiative, told Quartz.

Muir said that Apple was “disappointed” by the survey’s results. According to one of the teachers surveyed, tablets provided “no educational function in the classroom.” More than 1,700 laptops will be delivered to two schools in the state later this year. (We have reached out to Apple for comment.)

Integrating technology and learning has been a bumpy ride. Last year, a school district in Los Angeles, the second-largest in the United States,aborted a plan to hand out iPads to every student and educator in the area. Launched in 2013, the $1.3-billion project was marked by poor planning and technical glitches. Other districts in Texas and North Carolina have also shelved their iPad learning initiatives.

One teacher in Virginia thought giving her third graders an iPad would enhance their learning, but found that, for all the device’s benefits in terms of adding more varied activities to lessons, it undermined her pupils’ conversation and communication skills.

It seems the iPad’s fortunes in the classroom are mimicking its fortunes in its shops.

In what was a record three months for Mac sales, iPad sales dropped to their lowest level since June 2011 in the fourth quarter of last year. Apple CEO Tim Cook hasn’t stopped believing there’s life in the tablet yet—the company launched an extra-large iPad Pro in September (and a 9.7-inch version earlier this year), dubbing it “the biggest news in iPad since iPad.” Even Apple (AAPL) is acknowledging that the “iPads in education” fad is coming to an end — Quartz:

Edvoice pumps cash into Assembly campaign | News | Palo Alto Online |

Independent groups pump cash into Assembly campaign | News | Palo Alto Online |:
Independent groups pump cash into Assembly campaign
Contributions from political action committees boost Berman's bid to replace Rich Gordon

 With the crowded race to succeed Assemblyman Rich Gordon in the 24th District heading into the final stretch, independent political action committees are throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars into the contest in hopes of influencing the outcome.

Palo Alto City Councilman Marc Berman has been the chief beneficiary of these political action committees, with groups funded by dentists, Realtors, car dealers, poultry farmers and pawnbrokers collectively contributing thousands of dollars to his campaign in the month leading up to the June 7 primary.

Berman, an attorney who until last fall worked as development director at the Silicon Valley Education Foundation, benefited from huge infusion of cash from EdVoice Independent Expenditure Committee, the political arm of the Sacramento-based education-policy nonprofit. Last week, the committee made a series of expenditures totaling $368,291 to support Berman's bid for the Assembly.

The group paid for several flyers, one touting Berman as "one of our region's innovative leaders" and crediting him for "(leading) the charge to transition Palo Alto toward cleaner energy" and for helping to close the achievement gap in public schools.

Berman said the EdVoice expenditures were made completely independently from his campaign.

"We had no coordination with (EdVoice) whatsoever," Berman said.

The California Real Estate Independent Expenditure Committee, based in Los Angeles, is also backing Berman with fliers and contributions. Last week, the group issued several fliers urging voters to support Berman, one touting his "proven record of fighting for us" and another referring to him as a "progressive focused on fiscal responsibility."

Meanwhile, another independent group, Californians Allied For Patient Protection Independent Expenditure Account, paid for an ad that takes a swing at Vicki Veenker, who is also vying for the Assembly seat. The flier criticizes Veenker for not having held an elected office and for having "never been seen at council meetings." In an obvious allusion to Donald Trump, the flier states that Veenker "sounds like someone we know running for President, doesn't it."

The attack ad drew an immediate rebuke from the California chapter of the National Women's Political Caucus of California, which has endorsed Veenker. Angelica Ramos, president of the group's local chapter, issued a statement that blasted the ad for implying to Peninsula women and girls that "despite all the hard work they do behind the scenes, like Vicki, they are unqualified for advancement as well.

"This is the kind of institutional sexism that discourages other qualified women from running for office, and it shows," the statement read.

(Berman told the Palo Alto Weekly that his campaign had nothing to do with the mailer and that negative attacks have no place in the race.)

Veenker is also backed by numerous political action committees, though she lags far behind Berman in contributions from these groups. Last week she received one $4,200 contribution from the Women's Political Committee and another $4,200 contribution from the Women In Power Political Action Committee. And last month, she received $8,500 from the California Nurses Association Political Action Committee; $2,500 from the Mountain View Professional Firefighters Political Action Committee; and $1,000 from D.R.I.V.E., a political action committee of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Earlier this year, Veenker also benefited from an $8,500 contribution from the California Teachers Association, one of her top backers.

Veenker is also the only candidate in California who is being directly opposed by the Californians Allied For Patient Protection Independent Expenditure Account. The group has raised money to support numerous candidates for the state Assembly, including Joaquin Independent groups pump cash into Assembly campaign | News | Palo Alto Online |:

What and Who Is EdVoice? | Diane Ravitch's blog http://bit.ly/1TBlDlB

Big Education Ape: Analysis: EdVoice with an IE for Dodd; Educational Reform Group Has Ties to Vergara Suit and Wa... http://bit.ly/1SJq26U

Big Education Ape: News Analysis: Education fight ‘over shades of Democrat’ | CALmatters http://bit.ly/25csc6L

Big Education Ape: Local legislative races become battleground in statewide fight over education http://bit.ly/1WMlJKA

What's really behind the curtain of "school choice"?

What's really behind the curtain of "school choice"?:

What's really behind the curtain of "school choice"?

Neighborhood schools activist, linguistics PhD, and CPS mom Katie Gruber of Hyde Park has been getting very annoyed about the ideology of school choice lately. In the context of the CPS funding crisis, her guest post is more relevant than it was a few days ago. Any guesses about how much money CPS spends on charter proliferation? The mayor's ideologically-based priority for charters is suspect especially now, considering that doomsday budget cuts will take away 40% of each child's funding next year. Yet CPS is still planning--currently--right now--charter expansion in the name of "choice." It's time to set costly, dangerous, and failed ideologies aside. Here's Katie Gruber:

The new landscape of social responsibility involves a lot of choosing--choosing which stores to shop in (as in, ones that treat workers fairly) and which food to buy (as in, safe) takes up a lot more brain space today than it did for most of our parents.

There is also lot of talk about choosing the right school for your child. The notion that parents should have the right to choose the best school for their children is pretty powerful at face value. And since one’s choices have come to be seen as an extension of one’s very self, in a culture that prizes individualism, having choices is very, very important. In order to choose something, of course, you need various options to choose from. In order to choose a shampoo, you need more than one bottle of shampoo on the drug store shelf. In order to choose a school, you need multiple options of schools. This is how charter schools are being sold – as choices for parents who deserve to choose which school their children attend.

Offering parents a choice in terms of schools is built on the premise of a market economy for education: the idea is that parents will pull their children from lesser schools and send them to the better ones. In this process, the good schools will expand to meet the growing demand and the bad schools will eventually be forced to close.

There are big problems with this scenario:

• A market system is built on supply and demand. It is built on the premise that some products are more in demand than others. Foolish is the company that turns out 100,000 X’s when Y’s are all the rage. Suppliers must change their products with the whims of market demand. But in education, the demand is unchanging: strong schools. It’s not only parents that want good schools for their children: our society as a whole has a vested interest in the creation of good schools for everyone that stabilize communities and offer opportunities for the future. A market system is fundamentally incompatible with the mission of education.

• In a market-based system, the discrepancy between supply and demand means that winners and losers are woven into the very fabric of the system. For some schools to win, as in, “be successful and attract students from other schools,” means that other schools will lose. This means that actual students and families will win and actual students and families will lose. Lose--as in, not receive a well-rounded education that will give them a lifetime of curiosity and perspective, as well as access to interesting and fulfilling kinds of jobs when they grow up. Lose--as in, be in the schools that teach to the test, cut out recess and the arts, and do not offer after school enrichment programs. These students will not be equipped to succeed in high school and college. With a market-based education system, this is what we are offering to thousands of future tax-paying, voting citizens of our country. In contrast, when we view strong public schools for all as a public good, we understand that fairness in funding and fairness in allocating expertise and resources is necessary.

• Applying a market-based system to education means that there will be a significant element of market-ing in education. If your school is good (or even if it isn’t), you can use marketing to promote your product, I mean, your school. This means that in an economy of massive cuts in education--big class sizes, the slashing of art and music offerings, neither library nor librarian, insufficient social workers, nurses, and college counselors--schools will be spending precious dollars to advertise their wares. If we turn schools into businesses, we will need a Better Business Bureau to stay on top of which businesses are good ones and which are just trying to make a quick buck. When so many schools lack so many resources, it is an extremely poor use of education dollars to spend that money on marketing. I, for one, do not want one penny of my tax dollars spent to market any publicly-funded school.

As parents’ income correlates more and more with academic success, the circumstances of one’s birth become more and more defining variables of the path of one’s life. This is the opposite of the American Dream. The American Dream is that any person who works hard can get ahead; it’s that being born poor does not mean that you have to stay poor. Opportunity and education are even more linked today than they were at the time of Horatio Alger’s rags-to- riches stories. If a quality education is only available to those whose parents have money, we are sidelining millions of children and keeping them out of the game. Out of the game, as in, forced to take low-paying jobs with no benefits, or having no job at all.

The charter school movement is very big business! People are getting rich off of contracts that do not result in better educational outcomes for students. Many charter schools can be selective in the students they admit. Given their selectiveness in terms of their student body, their student outcomes ought to be a lot better than the schools that have to meet the 

How much do charter schools cost LA Unified? Fact-checking the teachers union's estimate | 89.3 KPCC

How much do charter schools cost LA Unified? Fact-checking the teachers union's estimate | 89.3 KPCC:

How much do charter schools cost LA Unified? Fact-checking the teachers union's estimate

If a study commissioned by Los Angeles' teachers union is right — that charter schools cost the L.A. Unified School District more than $591 million annually — it's a big deal.

Only extra cash expected in this year's state budget will allow L.A. Unified to balance its books over the next two fiscal years. And by 2018-19, officials have warned creeping pension obligations, health care costs and special education spending could push the district's budget deficit beyond $450 million. Reversing a $591 million loss would make a huge difference to the district's fiscal health.

But while L.A. Unified's enrollment — which roughly determines state funding levels — has declined more than 131,000 students since 2006, charter schools have only grown by about 66,000 students. A declining birthrate and transfers to other districts have also hurt LAUSD; some charter students would've never enrolled in an L.A. Unified-run school. Calculating how much of this loss to attribute to charter schools is tricky.

Last week, the California Charter Schools Association pushed back on United Teachers Los Angeles' estimate, calling the union-backed figure "riddled with inaccuracies." The district's principals union called for reading the report with a wary eye — "trust, but verify," as their newsletter put it.

But the report concluded the district's "financial future … is threatened and charter schools contribute to that threat." Who's right?

To fact-check the report's nearly-$600 million estimate, consider the biggest "cost" it identifies: an estimated $508 million due to lost enrollment.

Here's what makes accounting for the dollars lost so tricky: for example, if one-fifth of a school's student body were to leave, administrators could theoretically slash one-fifth of the school's teachers or one-fifth of the school's supplies budget. But some costs are "fixed": the school can't cut one-fifth of a principal; the costs of heating or lighting the building won't decrease by one-fifth.

The UTLA report's authors — a consulting group called MGT of America — assume 56 percent of the district's costs are fixed. The authors derived that figure from the study materials of the blue ribbon panel L.A. Unified convened to examine the district's finances last year.

That 56 percent figure is the linchpin for much of the UTLA report's overall estimate. The district receives a little more than $8,800 in state funding for the average student. But if 56 percent of the district's costs are fixed, the report figureseach departing student leaves behind fixed costs of $4,957.

The UTLA report's authors multiplied $4,957 by the enrollment in Los Angeles charter schools — around 102,000 students — to arrive at their estimate of $508.2 million in net revenues charter schools cost L.A. Unified.

The estimate is based, as the report notes, on the assumption "all students who How much do charter schools cost LA Unified? Fact-checking the teachers union's estimate | 89.3 KPCC:

 

California DOE Pushes Forward on ESSA-Based Improvement System -- THE Journal

California DOE Pushes Forward on ESSA-Based Improvement System -- THE Journal:

California DOE Pushes Forward on ESSA-Based Improvement System

Testing is out; "whole child outcomes" are in. California is working through the impact of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which places responsibility for figuring out how to evaluate schools and districts on the states themselves. Recently, a Department of Education task force handed in its recommendations for building an accountability and continuous improvement system that emphasizes three themes: performance, equity and, most prominently, improvement.

The overall result, as the Los Angeles Times reported in its coverage, is a model that moves beyond testing scores and incorporates such factors as "suspension rates, graduation rates, attendance and the rate at which students who are still learning English are becoming proficient."

At the heart of the new system are two sets of outcomes:

• Whole child outcomes with indicators that demonstrate the extent to which children are "healthy, safe, engaged, supported, challenged and valued"; and
• School and district academic outcomes with indicators that show the extent "to which students achieve meaningful learning outcomes, including the acquisition of the knowledge, language and lifelong learning skills needed to succeed in today's world."

The emphasis on improvement is an important one to the task force. As the report stated, "The value of improvement lies in both the importance of striving to increase student and system outcomes, and the opportunity that improvement provides for shared learning across the system."

"User-friendly" dashboards would allow people to monitor progress and pinpoint areas for improvement at each level of reporting. State-mandated indicators, for example, would be used for required state and federal purposes, including proficiency on annual high-stakes assessments, high school graduation rates and progress in achieving English language proficiency. But they'd also include some indicator of school quality or student success such as suspension or expulsion rates, school climate survey scores, chronic absenteeism or college and career readiness indicators.

Some of those measures would also show up in state-reported indicators, which would complement the required measures in order to gain a "holistic picture of California DOE Pushes Forward on ESSA-Based Improvement System -- THE Journal: