Justice for opt-out movement | Bradenton Herald

Courts sides with opt-out parents, ruling third graders who refuse to take the reading test can still advance by proving their reading skills. | Bradenton Herald:
Justice for opt-out movement

Parent advocates of the opt-out movement — instructing their third-grade children to avoid taking the state’s standardized reading test, although a passing grade secures promotion to the fourth grade — now have a forceful ally. A judge legitimized their opt-out position by ruling school districts cannot refuse to promote third-graders into fourth grade simply because they only wrote their names on the test and did not answer any questions.

The fact that those students broke the seal on the test and wrote their names constitutes “participation” as required by a vague state law that does not clearly define what that meant.

Furthermore, Judge Karen Gievers also decreed a poor score on the reading test is not reason enough to deny grade advancement, instructing educators to consider classroom grades and teacher evaluations. Those two elements comprise a “portfolio” of a student’s work.

Her decision comes on a lawsuit brought by parents challenging a state statute adopted under then-Gov. Jeb Bush, one of his signature initiatives. Overall, his so-called education reform policies focused on privatization via public charter schools operating on taxpayer money. Bush’s overbearing requirement of a passing grade on the third-grade reading test became a national model copied by 15 other states, though buyer’s remorse has been creeping into the harsh policy.

THE GOAL IS ADMIRABLE — HAVING STUDENTS READING TO LEARN RATHER THAN LEARNING TO READ BY THE END OF THIRD GRADE.

The goal is admirable — having students reading to learn rather than learning to read by the end of third grade. That’s the focus of the Suncoast Campaign for Grade-Level Reading in Manatee and Sarasota counties, a broad community-wide effort to raise language skills. Research shows the inability to read on grade level by the end of third grade leads to lasting negative life consequences. The state’s route to achieving that goal, however, is fraught with negative consequences.

After the 2003 enactment of that law, the Legislature added exemptions to promotion into the fourth grade — the portfolio option, a passing grade on an alternate test and additional exceptions. That removed complete reliance on a one-day test for grade advancement, which reflected the state’s oppressive obsession with standardized exams. Thousands of third-graders are held back annually while a far greater number advance via exemption.

Third-graders in six Florida counties faced grade retention despite proof they could read at or above grade level. Parents sued and successfully argued that the portfolio option was denied in those six school districts. The judge called the districts’ denial of the statutory alternatives an “illegal refusal.”

THE MANATEE COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT WISELY FOLLOWED STATE LAW AND ALLOWED THE PERFORMANCE PORTFOLIO OPTION.

Superintendents defended retention by saying the state Department of Education indicated a test score was required. But Gievers said the opt-out students should have been given zeros on the tests, thus giving families the opportunity to present student portfolios among other statutory requirements.

The Manatee County School District wisely followed state law and allowed the performance portfolio option.

Manatee Superintendent Diana Greene expressed anger about the DOE’s confusing and confounding statements on the Florida Standards Assessments after the state released scores several months ago. In a message to the district, the agency cited state statutes about mandatory participation in testing. Gievers’ ruling, on an emergency injunction, confirmed minimal participation is permissible under the imprecise law.

A full trial has yet to be conducted, but the injunction decision does bring vital clarity to the law for now. Though we’re not legal experts, the ruling does appear to be on solid ground given the judge’s explicit explanations. But the DOE and several school districts have filed appeals of the decision, and the State Board of Education called for legislative revisions to third-grade retention policies.

A PORTFOLIO OF WORK SHOULD BE THE GOLD STANDARD OF STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT, FAR MORE TELLING THAN A ONE-DAY, PRESSURE-PACKED TEST.

Manatee County’s opt-out movement and others across the state gained steam in 2015 and continues to be a strong force for change with thousands upon thousands of families participating. Their message is crystal clear, a message that school boards, superintendents, educators and others have been sending to Tallahassee for years: Scale back the nightmarish number of high-stakes and high-stress standardized exams and quit applying excessive pressure on teachers to teach to the test in order to raise student scores, school rankings and instructor ratings.

The Legislature is so hooked on these so-called accountability measures that they’re deaf and blind to the reasonable opposition.

Teachers should have the authority to evaluate students since they interact with them daily. A portfolio of work should be the gold standard of student achievement, far more telling than a one-day, pressure-packed test. The opt-out movement now has reason to grow even stronger thanks to Gievers’ ruling.

Courts sides with opt-out parents, ruling third graders who refuse to take the reading test can still advance by proving their reading skills. | Bradenton Herald:

Fifteen Years Later: Have We Learned Anything about Unity and Community? - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher

Fifteen Years Later: Have We Learned Anything about Unity and Community? - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher:

Fifteen Years Later: Have We Learned Anything about Unity and Community?

I'm avoiding the fifteen-year remembrance pieces on television this morning.

There was a time--a relatively long period of time--when I believed that our national response to overwhelming tragedy might include an incentive to do more than fight back (erroneously, as it turned out) against The Forces Opposed to Democracy.

I actually thought that absorbing the lessons of 9/11 might refocus my particular bailiwick, education, on the necessity of future-thinking, diplomacy, and the mutual needs of our global community.

But not so much.

Instead, we are concentrating, like lasers, on "efficient" school governance models, higher profit margins for common educational services, and better data outcomes for kids in poverty despite the fact that those data outcomes don't really lead to more opportunity.

So much for community. So much for peace and justice and aiming for equal opportunity.

This morning, I picked up my digital newspaper and discovered that privileged white kids in one of the most highly regarded public school systems in my state (based on those data outcomes) spent Friday night waving TRUMP signs and a so-called Betsy Ross flag (which may or may not have racist origins) across a football field at the urban school students and parents on the other side. A father from the Grand Rapids Public School district, attending the game to support the football team and the marching band, penned a powerful letter to the Forest Hills school community:

Your team, your coaches, your families were our guests, yet it seems many of your students are unaware of the negative impact these actions would have on members of our community in our home field. One could argue these boys are ignorant of the symbols they embrace and display--so they are just kids. That only goes so far.

Is it not the role of their parents, you, and your district staff to make sure they aware that their actions in this context could have negative consequences? Certainly they have the right of free speech, but is sharing such politically charged symbols actions and words at high school football game the right set of actions for this context?

Spot on.

I'm sure the administrative team at Forest Hills is in full damage control mode. I actually know folks who are teachers and school leaders at Forest Hills and respect their work and beliefs. My own school district survived appalling student behavior on more than one occasion. This will, eventually, go away--but it represents something much larger and more sinister, something that impacts all of us here in the home of the brave. I hope the teachers in both schools are ready (and allowed) to discuss these events with their students in age-appropriate ways. I hope that civil discourse is still possible.

This seems to be the long-term outcome, then, of being attacked on our own soil: more division, self-indulgence, and deepening racial fault lines. Winners and losers. To hell with unity or even civil behavior--dominance has become our national goal, our trickle-down response to all conflict.

If 9/11--arguably the most shocking thing that's happened in a generation--was not a catalyst for positive social change, what hope do we have for preserving and enhancing our (once globally admired, and still considerable) public resources? If a friendly competition between two public Fifteen Years Later: Have We Learned Anything about Unity and Community? - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher:

Stages of Technology Integration in Classrooms (Part 3) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Stages of Technology Integration in Classrooms (Part 3) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Stages of Technology Integration in Classrooms (Part 3)

Technology integration is not a binary choice: you either do it or you don’t. Anyone who has taught, observed classrooms and thought about what it means to include electronic devices and software into daily lessons knows that technology integration, like raising a child, learning to drive or cultivating a garden, is a process–not an either/or outcome. One goes through various stages in learning how to raise a child, drive a car, grow a garden. In each instance, a “good” child, driving well, a fruitful garden is the desired but not predictable outcome.

A host of researchers and enthusiasts have written extensively about the different phases a teacher, school, and district goes through in integrating technology into their daily operations. Most of the literature seldom mentions that such movement through increasingly complicated stages is really phases of putting a new idea or practice into action. The labels for the levels of classroom practice vary–novice to expert, traditional to innovative, entry-level to transformational.

Writers and professional associations have described how individuals and organization stumble or glide from one phase to another before smoothly using electronic devices to reach larger ends. And it is the ends (e.g., content, skills, attitudes) that have to be kept in sight for those who want teachers to arrive at the top (or last) stage. Buried in that final implementation stage is a view of “good” technology integration and, implicitly, “good” teaching. Often obscured but still there, these notions of what are “good” teaching and learning are embedded in that last stage. Figuring out those ends and what values are concealed within them is difficult but revealing in the biases that model-builders and users have.

As with arriving at a definition (see last post), I have examined many such conceptual frameworks that lay out a series of steps going from a beginner to an expert (across frameworks the names for each step vary). Most often mentioned are the Apple Classroom of Tomorrow (ACOT) and the SAMR models. Many implementation frameworks in use are variations of these two.

The ACOT model.

The earliest stage model came from the demonstration project Apple launched in the mid-1980s when the company placed in five elementary and secondary Stages of Technology Integration in Classrooms (Part 3) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Arkansas Residents Jim and Alice Walton Pony Up $1,835,000 to Raise Charter Cap in Massachusetts | deutsch29

Arkansas Residents Jim and Alice Walton Pony Up $1,835,000 to Raise Charter Cap in Massachusetts | deutsch29:

Arkansas Residents Jim and Alice Walton Pony Up $1,835,000 to Raise Charter Cap in Massachusetts

According to the September 09, 2016, filing of the Massachusetts ballot committee,Yes on 2, billionaire Arkansas resident Alice Walton is one of two individualsproviding the $710,100 in funding to promote MA Question 2, raising the charter school cap.

Alice Walton provided $710,000.

A second contributor, Massachusetts resident Frank Perullo provided $100 in order to establish the committee.

And then, the Alice Walton cash was moved to another Question 2 ballot committee: $703,770.29 of Alice Walton’s Yes on 2 committee money was expended to fundQuestion 2 ballot committee, Campaign for Fair Access to Quality Public Schools, where it was combined with billionaire Arkansas resident Jim Walton’s contribution of $1,125,000, thus making the total Walton contribution to the two committees $1,835,000 (and total Walton contribution to the latter committee, $1,828,770.29).

The Campaign for Fair Access total on its Sept 09, 2016, filing was $2,292,183 for 46 contributors– with 79 percent of that money ($1,828,770 / $2,292183) arriving from two out-of-state billionaires.

In other words, 96 percent of contributors (44 out of 46) provided only 21 percent of the total funding on the Campaign for Fair Access Sept 2016 report.

I can almost hear the conversation between Alice and Jim:

“You buy this Massachusetts ballot committee, and I’ll buy that one.”

“Done.”

The Waltons are not the only out-of-state billionaires using their wealth to influence the charter cap in a state in which they do not reside. According to the September 09, 2016, filing of the Question 2 ballot committee, Great Schools Massachusetts, other out-of-state billionaire/lobbying nonprofit contributors include the following:

• John Arnold (Texas), $250,000
• Michael Bloomberg (New York), $240,000
• Education Reform Now (ERN) Advocacy (New York), $250,000
• Families for Excellent Schools (FES) Advocacy (New York), $5,750,000

Note that the lobbying nonprofits, ERN Advocacy and FES Advocacy, are not Arkansas Residents Jim and Alice Walton Pony Up $1,835,000 to Raise Charter Cap in Massachusetts | deutsch29:

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Catch up on your reading (9/11)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Catch up on your reading (9/11):

ICYMI: Catch up on your reading (9/11)

Here's some education reading for a quiet week in September. As always, please share and pass on the pieces you like. 

To the Gentlemen Talking about Lazy Teachers

This blog is operated by two former teachers, but clearly the woman still remembers how the gig works.

I Don't Want My Son To Read in Kindergarten

One more great argument in favor of letting small children be small children.

Black Teachers Matter

Yes, I already aimed readers at this piece from Mother Jones earlier in the week, but if it was still parked on your "I've got to get around to reading that" list, here's your encouragement to do that today. It's an important piece.

Devos Family Showers GOP with Money

The Detroit Press lays out the discouraging picture of how one family bought itself a state legislature

Gutting the Powers of American Cities

From Slate, a detailed picture of how pre-emption is the new technique for conservatives to take control of cities (because local control is only cool when it does what you want it to). And-- surprise-- ALEC is all over this.

A Parent's Reflections on School Letter Grades

Bill Ferriter blogs a lot about technology and technique in the classroom, but he's also a father, and he takes the occasion to reflect on his concerns about his child's very wonderful school being branded with a C.

Understanding Teach Like a Champion

This is actually an old post from Peg with Pen, but Doug Lemov's little slice of teacher baloney has come up a few times this week, and this is a pretty good look at just why I would rather teach like a human teacher.

College and Career Ready: The Manufacture of Hollow People

I'm a sucker for anyone who thinks we're teaching live human beings and not manufacturing widgets for companies to consume.

The Anti-Five Paragraph Essay Five Paragraph Essay

Well done. 

Election Education Update

4by Peter Greene / 1h

After the two conventions, it began to look like public education would not have any champion in this Presidential cycle. So maybe now that the candidates have had a chance to put together clearer statements and assemble some advisors, has the picture changed? Are things looking up for fans of public education? Well, in a word, no. And in more than a single word...? Trump Flaps His Gums This was t

(Some of) What Technocrats Get Wrong

18by Peter Greene / 3h

Slate ran an article this week about the newsy side of Facebook , and it's a reminder of so many reasons that technocrats are not to be trusted around education. Facebook has been having trouble handling the news. Well, and 

 Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION

 Big Education Ape: Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Judge Cuts School Funding + Testing Still Incentivizing Cheating - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/09/catch-up-with-curmudgucation-pa-judge.html

Problems with the CCJEF Decision - Will equity without adequacy be enough to help Connecticut’s neediest children? (By Wendy Lecker) - Wait What?

Problems with the CCJEF Decision - Will equity without adequacy be enough to help Connecticut’s neediest children? (By Wendy Lecker) - Wait What?:

Problems with the CCJEF Decision – Will equity without adequacy be enough to help Connecticut’s neediest children? (By Wendy Lecker)

Wendy Lecker, an education advocate, legal expert and Stamford Advocate columnist produces a MUST READ analysis about some of the extremely serious problems associated with the Judge’s recent ruling in the CCJEF v. Rell school funding case.  The article first appeared in the Stamford Advocate and other Hearst newspapers.  You can read and comment on this critically important piece at:http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Wendy-Lecker-Ruling-raises-hope-for-poorest-9212622.php

Wendy Lecker writes;

On Sept. 7, Judge Thomas Moukawsher issued his post-trial decision in Connecticut’s school funding case, CCJEF v. Rell. His sweeping decision covered funding, which I will address here, and education policy, which I will address in my next column.

On the funding front, the outcome was mixed. While the judge did declare Connecticut’s system of distributing school aid unconstitutional, he found that the state was providing adequate funding. In doing so, he redefined constitutional adequacy and ignored the plaintiffs’ overwhelming evidence of resource deficiencies in the CCJEF districts.

At trial, the CCJEF plaintiffs put forth overwhelming evidence of severe resource deficiencies of inputs such as: academic and social intervention for at-risk students and students with special needs; guidance counselors, social workers, nurses, services for English Language Learners, music art and other subjects; and reasonable class size.

Judge Moukawsher’s charge was to examine the resources in the districts at issue in the case and determine whether those resources were so inadequate as to violate Connecticut’s constitution.

However, nowhere in the opinion does the judge systematically look the actual resources present or absent in each district.

Rather, the judge focused only on three types of resources: facilities, instrumentalities of learning, and teachers. He declared that since, in his 

Problems with the CCJEF Decision - Will equity without adequacy be enough to help Connecticut’s neediest children? (By Wendy Lecker) - Wait What?:

Demand the Impossible! (excerpt # 2) | Bill Ayers

Demand the Impossible! (excerpt # 2) | Bill Ayers:

Demand the Impossible! (excerpt # 2)

Bill Ayers -- Demand the Impossible!: A Radical Manifesto | Haymarket Books -http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Demand-the-Impossible

My latest book, Demand the Impossible! A Radical Manifesto, will be released this month from Haymarket Books in Chicago (www.haymarketbooks.org), and I will post a paragraph (or more) from the book at the start of each week for the next few months. Please read along and spread the word, and order a book (or two!) from Haymarket if at all possible.

Here is the second brief excerpt from Demand the Impossible! 

What if? That simple, humble question might be the single spark that can ignite a massive prairie fire, provoking us to leap beyond personal speculation and into the vortex of political struggle and social action. This is how it’s always been; this is the world as we’ve always known it. But why is it so? Who benefits and who suffers? How did we get here and where do we want to go? What if we took a radically different angle of regard and questioned the insistent dogma of common sense? What if we unleashed our wildest imaginations? The “what if” question might then blow open the spectrum of acceptable possibilities and take us down a rabbit hole or up into orbit—onto one of life’s restless and relentless journeys, exploring and experimenting, orbiting and spinning, inventing and adapting, struggling toward knowledge and enlightenment, freedom and liberation, fighting to know more in order to do more…

“All’s well,” says the town crier making rounds through the village and lighting lamps for the night. Perhaps it’s simply a reassuring thought for the townspeople, or perhaps there’s a more malevolent message, the toxic propaganda that the status quo is inevitable and that there is no alternative to the way things are. The dissident, the artist, the agitator, the dreamer, and the activist respond, “No, all is not well.” The current moment is neither immutable nor inescapable, and its imperfections are cause for general alarm—for the exploited and the oppressed the status quo is itself an ongoing act of violence.

Activists announce through their lives and their work that a new world is in the making. We can create a community of agitators and transform this corner of the world into a place that we want to inhabit. We can identify ourselves as citizens of a country that does not yet exist and has no map, and become that new nation’s pioneers and cartographers—and through our common actions bring a more assertive and vibrant public into being.

Each of us is immersed in what is, the world as such. In order to link arms and rise up we need a combination of somethings: seeds, surely; desire, perhaps; a vision of community and possibility; necessity and even, at times, desperation; willful enthusiasm and an acceptance that there are no guarantees whatsoever.

Imagination is indispensable in these efforts and pursuits be- cause it “ignites the slow fuse of possibility,” as Emily Dickinson wrote. More process than product, more stance than conclusion, engaging the imagination involves the dynamic work of igniting that fuse, mapping the world as it really is, and then purposely stepping outside and leaning toward a possible world.Demand the Impossible! (excerpt # 2) | Bill Ayers:

SKrashen: Bilingual programs do not prevent the acquisition of English – they facilitate it. (Letter in LA Times, 9/10/16)

SKrashen: Bilingual programs do not prevent the acquisition of English – they facilitate it. (Letter in LA Times, 9/10/16):

Bilingual programs do not prevent the acquisition of English – they facilitate it. (Letter in LA Times, 9/10/16)

Published in the Los Angeles Times, Sept 10, 2016

To the editor: I strongly agree with your editorial. In fact, bilingual education is even more effective than the Times' sources indicate.

( “Return to bilingual education,” Editorial, Sept. 7)

The most rigorous research design is to compare the progress of children in bilingual programs and children in all-English programs with similar backgrouds.

In general, these studies have shown that children enrolled in bilingual programs do better than children in all-English programs on tests of English reading.

Bilingual programs do not prevent the acquisition of English – they facilitate it.

Stephen Krashen, Los Angeles

ORIGINAL VERSION Sent to the Los Angeles Times, Sept. 7, 2016

I strongly agree with the LA Times editorial: "Proposition 58 would bring back bilingual education in California. And that's a good thing." 

In fact, bilingual education is even more effective than the Times' sources indicate.  The most rigorous research design is to compare the progress of children in bilingual programs and children in all-English programs with similar backgrounds. In general, these studies have shown that children enrolled in bilingual programs do better than children in all-English programs on tests of English reading.

In the most recent analysis, Professor Grace McField (Cal State San Marcos) and David McField (MiraCosta College) examined 89 studies comparing bilingual education and English immersion. They concluded that when the programs and research design are set up correctly, the superiority of bilingual education is considerably larger than previously reported.

Bilingual programs do not prevent the acquisition of English – they facilitate it.

Stephen KrashenSKrashen: Bilingual programs do not prevent the acquisition of English – they facilitate it. (Letter in LA Times, 9/10/16):

Big Education Ape: SKrashen: California's Multilingual Education Act (Proposition 58) - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/09/skrashen-californias-multilingual.html

Teachers share what they would love to tell their students but can’t - Business Insider

Teachers share what they would love to tell their students but can’t - Business Insider:

Teachers share 19 things they'd love to tell their students but can't

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

To maintain order in the classroom — and to keep their jobs — there are some things teachers just can't tell their students, even if they want to.

But some of these things, while perhaps controversial, could end up being a service to young people, if only someone would just tell them.

So we asked teachers everywhere to weigh in on the one thing they'd love to tell their students but can't, and more than 50 teachers shared their insights.

We've (anonymously) included some of the most constructive thoughts here:

Really, all this stuff you learn is probably not that important

What is important is the life skills you learn while completing the tasks in class.

You learn how to argue effectively and communicate with different types of people. You learn how to listen to others and respond respectfully. You learn so much that you don't even realize because it seems disguised by homework and essays. But really, you are learning to be independent adults more than you know.

Don't waste this opportunity

Please just know that I love teaching and I sincerely want to help you. But I can't help you if you don't put in the effort. I chose this job because I'm passionate and hardworking and I know my s--t, and I will help you get to where you need to be. But you need to meet me halfway.

You may not realize how important it is to do well in school. You grew up in a tiny apartment in a horrible neighborhood, your parents aren't educated, you're working 18 hour-days, and your neighbors are selling drugs — and maybe you think this is all normal, but it's not, and you have a chance to get out of this.

But you're not taking that chance. And I don't know what you think your life is going to be like if you don't graduate high school and go to college, but you're not going to get out of the South Bronx — you'll be surrounded in this unsafe, crime-ridden neighborhood, it'll be the same thing with your own kids.

It's so frustrating because education opens so many doors, and people around the world would kill to have this educational opportunity. Malala was shot in the freaking head for it. And you're just throwing it all away, and that makes me want to tear my hair out.

The world can be very harsh

You are more than what others judge you to be.

Adults don't always know best

Sometimes I wish I could tell you when your parents are wrong.

You are not your test scores

All the standardized testing we do is so insignificant to who you will become.

I don't like standardized tests either

They stress me out too!

Don't be afraid to Teachers share what they would love to tell their students but can’t - Business Insider:

How Clinton and Trump plan to tackle education as president | U.S. ELECTIONS

How Clinton and Trump plan to tackle education as president | U.S. ELECTIONS:

How Clinton and Trump plan to tackle education as president

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Clinton has spent decades talking about the needs of children and touting the benefits of early education. It's a new subject for Donald Trump.

The Republican presidential nominee added plans for education to his still relatively thin roster of policy proposals this past week, unveiling an effort to spend $20 billion during his first year in office to help states expand school choice programs. Trump wasn't shy about his intentions, debuting his ideas at an inner-city charter school in Cleveland as part of his new outreach to minority voters.

"There's no failed policy more in need of urgent change than our government-run education monopoly," Trump said at the school, blaming the Democratic Party for having "trapped millions of African-American and Hispanic youth in failing government schools that deny them the opportunity to join the ladder of American success."

"It's time to break up that monopoly," he said.

But like many of his policy plans, this was one was vague, with few specifics.

Trump argued his approach would create "a massive education market," one that produces better outcomes than the nation's existing public education system. Beyond his $20 billion in federal money, he wants states to divert another $110 billion of their own education budgets to support school choice efforts, providing $12,000 to every elementary school student living in poverty to attend the school of their choice.

Clinton's much more detailed education plans, meanwhile, are firmly rooted in improving the country's public schools. The Democratic nominee has called for new spending to improve classrooms, improve teacher salaries and add computer science programs.

"We're going to invest in education and skills, from early childhood education to giving our teachers the tools and flexibility they need to succeed in the classroom, without a lot of top-down strings all over them from Washington," she said on Monday.

On education, the two candidates are as far apart as they are on any issue at stake in the 2016 election. A summary of their proposals:

___

SCHOOL CHOICE

TRUMP: The billionaire businessman has embraced the concept popular among conservatives, which calls for students and their parents to be able to select the school they wish to attend — public, private, charter or magnet. To support that effort, Trump proposed reallocating an unspecified $20 billion in his first budget as president into block grants to states, and directing them to use the money to help millions of elementary school students living in poverty attend the school of their choice. That money "should follow the students," a concept known in education policy as portability. Critics of school choice argue that approach would deprive public schools of money, and Congress rejected the idea in the education law it passed last year to replace the No Child Left Behind Act.

CLINTON: Clinton has voiced support for charter schools, which operate with public money but are governed by an independent "charter" rather than a community's established public education system. But Clinton does not back the broader concept of school choice. "I want parents to be able to exercise choice within the public school system — not outside of it — but within it, because I am still a firm believer that the public school system is one of the real pillars of our democracy and it is a path for opportunity," she said in November 2015.

___

STUDENT LOANS AND DEBT

TRUMP: He has decried the impact of debt from loans on college students, but beyond his often-stated promise to create jobs as president, he has not offered a concrete proposal to address what he called "one of the biggest questions I get is from people in college." Trump has criticized the federal government's student loan program for making a profit, telling The Hill newspaper in July 2015 "that's probably one of the only things the government shouldn't make money off. I think it's terrible that one of the only profit centers we have is student loans."

CLINTON: She has proposed that students from families making less than $125,000 a year be able to attend a public college or university in their home state without having to pay tuition, and that all community colleges be tuition-free. Under her plan, students with existing student loan debt would be able to refinance, and Clinton promises a three-month moratorium on payments to allow those in debt to take steps to reduce their monthly payments. Those deemed "entrepreneurs" will get a three-year deferment on their loans "so that student debt and the lack of family wealth is not a barrier to innovation in our country."

___

COMMON CORE

TRUMP: The academic standards adopted in more than 40 states are a frequent target of Trump's ire. "We spend more by far, and we're doing very poorly. So, obviously, Common Core does not work," he said this past week. Trump has pledged to do away with the standards if elected, which could prove a challenge: they were created and adopted by states, not the federal government. Trump has also pledged that ripping up the state-developed standards and bringing education "to the local level" would immediately boost student performance.

CLINTON: The standards are not mentioned in Clinton's education plans, although her campaign does note that as the first lady of Arkansas, she chaired the state's education standards commission. Speaking in Iowa during the primary season, Clinton lamented what she called the "really unfortunate argument" about the standards. "It wasn't politicized," she said. "It was to try to come up with a core of learning that we might expect students to achieve across our country, no matter what kind of school district they were in, no matter how poor their family was, that there wouldn't be two tiers of education."

___

CHILD CARE

TRUMP: Trump said in August he would "reduce the cost of child care by allowing parents to fully deduct the average cost of child care spending from their taxes." He has not provided more details, which he said would come after he refined his plan with his daughter, Ivanka. As a tax deduction, rather than a tax credit, Trump's plan would primarily help more affluent households. More than 40 percent of U.S. taxpayers don't make enough money to owe taxes to the federal government, meaning they would not benefit from a deduction.

CLINTON: She proposes that no family should spend more than 10 percent of its income on child care. To achieve this goal, Clinton would seek to boost federal spending on child care subsidies and provide "tax relief for the cost of child care to working families." Those benefits would be offered on a "sliding scale" based on need. Since announcing the plan in May, Clinton has offered few details on the specifics, including how it would be funded beyond raising taxes on wealthy Americans.

___

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

TRUMP: Trump has not discussed early childhood education.

CLINTON: She would seek to make preschool universal for all 4-year-old children within 10 years of her election by providing new federal dollars to states. Clinton also seeks to double the number of children enrolled in Early Head Start, a government program that provides early education services to low-income families. Clinton has not detailed in depth on how she would pay for these expanded efforts.

___

What political news is the world searching for on Google and talking about on Twitter? Find out via AP's Election Buzz interactive. http://elections.ap.org/buzz

How Clinton and Trump plan to tackle education as president | U.S. ELECTIONS:

8 Things the U.S. Must Do Now to Save Public Education | Huffington Post

8 Things the U.S. Must Do Now to Save Public Education | Huffington Post:

8 Things the U.S. Must Do Now to Save Public Education

“I hate reading.”

Ouch.

I’d rather walk across burning coal than to hear these words from the mouth of a student in my classroom. For 14 years, I nurtured and facilitated learning in a classroom where 100% of my students made tremendous growth in reading, numeracy, and social skills. That all changed last year when I was provided with a reading script and asked not to vary from it for 90 minutes daily for the entire year. I watched my students whither and my soul ached as their reader spirits were crushed under the weight of our district’s million dollar curriculum adoption. Everyday, I begged four and five-year-olds to sit up and listen, stop going to sleep, take part, and focus. I made an ass of myself as I oohed and ahhed, jumped around with feigned excitement, and pretended that I was in love with every tiny piece of a lesson that popped up on my enormous touch screen computer—where these babes were forced to focus on and off for over 90 minutes a day. And what was the return on my efforts? “I hate reading.”

Can I change it up? “No, the program must be run with fidelity.” I was told.

Some of the content is way over their heads; some is way below; and all it is dull. Can we make adjustments to the groupings? “No, you must catch them up during the lesson. Do the lesson in order. Don’t vary from the script.”

This is just one example of where our public school system has gone awry in the United States. No Child Left Behind, ESSA, and follow-up state legislations built to comply with it has made a mess. Somewhere along the road, we got off track and forgot that we are nurturing young Americans to be great citizens; to love learning; and to become the heroes of the future. That path veered into a mucky, tangled web of bureaucracy, blind subordination, and cold implementation of terrible curriculum. Terrible curriculum hocked by curriculum publishers worried about making bank and caring little about the outcomes for young children. Over $620 billion dollars was spent on curriculum in the U.S. in 2012-13. Meanwhile, the past three times I opened a new classroom, I was given the following budgets for materials: $0; $250; $0. In other words, American school districts are pouring millions of dollars into curriculum and “programs,” while the experts who were trained and hired to facilitate learning for children—classroom teachers— are ordered to apply faulty curriculum and provided with few resources to supplement it.

In 2015, I returned to public schools from a 3-year hiatus where I had trained educators on developmentally appropriate practice and co-managed a private Pre-K through 12th grade school for a year. Shocked doesn’t even begin to describe my feelings as I undertook my first year back in public schools under a newly adopted reading curriculum. My daily thought and conversation with other educators was simply, “How did we fall so far back in such a short amount of time?”

Recently, an administrator and I were having a conversation about student learning. Knowing that I have a passion for mining best international practices and advocating for developmentally appropriate practice, she took a jab at one of my common references for proper implementation and teacher trust. Her numb, cold statement that “America just doesn’t have the culture to be Finland,” stunned me. An African-American principal in the United States of America: taught, trained, and disciplined to be hopeless and conform? How did this country go from rebellion to blind corruption in just 400 years? From revolution to cold social order in just 250 years? From abandonment of archaic slavery and segregation to hopeless conformity in just 62 years?

For every corrupt, hopeless politician and administrator out there; there are hundreds of us who still hold onto hope. There is something we can do to change the tide. As administrators, leaders, politicians, parents, and citizens: we have the power to see changes come to pass.

Here are just a few of my many thoughts on education reform in the 21st Century:

1. DUMP STIGMA: ACCEPT CLASS, RACE, ETHNIC, SEXUAL, & EMOTIONAL/MENTAL DIVERSITY

When asked, most Americans will affirm the belief that skin pigment, income, heritage, sexuality, nor health are indicators of a person’s worth. Yet to an onlooker, one would believe that America is the home of the racist, land of the haters. Maybe it’s the nightly news featuring presidential candidates who call a quarter of the country, “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it”—willing to tear a country apart all for the sake of a win. Perhaps it’s that human nature seduces us into honing into our fear and “fight or flight” instinct; causing us 8 Things the U.S. Must Do Now to Save Public Education | Huffington Post: