Herman’s Battle for Justice For Detroit's Children

Herman’s Battle for Justice For Detroit's Children 

When Governor Rick Snyder signed the union busting Right to Work law, Civil Right’s soldier Herman Davis saw the beginning of what he knew would be a fight of hard working people against billionaires. “This has been the most corrupt administration in American history. And Snyder is ambidextrous too. He can smile, pick your pocket and poison you at the same time,” says Davis. With charter school billionaire, Dick DeVos, telling Snyder what to do, Herman Davis feared for the worst for Detroit children. The Detroit Public Schools had already been under state control for seven years when Snyder came to office. The State had nearly bankrupted the district twice. Governor Engler had taken control, then gone on a wild spending spree, entering into unsustainable contracts with the $1.5 billion dollar authority the district had. The problem was, he didn’t stop. During the two years that Detroiters regained control, they realized they’d been forced under water. One school that was completely rebuilt with bond money was Mumford High School, located in Davis’ well kept neighborhood. Governor Snyder took Mumford from DPS and put it into his controversial EAA school district. The school’s performance plummeted, and so did Herman Davis’ property value. “We live in a great neighborhood here, but people are skeptical about moving here, because we have an EAA school.” Dividing the district caused the DPS to lose students, and fewer students meant the district struggled to pay the debts Engler created. “The Republicans try to blame us, just like they tried to blame the people of Flint for the water switch, even thought the people of Flint had no say, but under Emergency Management, we had no say either.” Despite the Emergency Manager, some of the Board members, including Herman Davis remained vocal. Tawanna Simpson and LaMar Lemmons warned Snyder’s EM that sexual predator Charles Pugh should not mentor male students. “The EM shrugged his shoulders,” Lemmons said, adding that the EM dismissed him “as a homophobic troglodyte,” according to newspapers. Yet, the Board was correct, a Federal Court forced the district to pay one of Pugh’s victims $350,000. Bill Seikely, the victim’s lawyer said Pugh was Detroit’s worst kept secret. The problem is, says Davis, “If Snyder made the decision to let a predator into the schools, why should Detroiters be responsible?” His fellow Board Member, Elena Herrada, agreed, “Snyder should pay.” When Snyder closed down Oakman Orthopedic School for children with special needs, Davis filed a Title VI complaint with the Department of Justice. He believes that Snyder is treating black and brown, and special needs children differently. The case is still pending. Snyder retaliated by threatening Davis with being thrown off the Board. “Snyder thinks he can close public schools so his corporate friends can make a buck. So, under Emergency Management, we had the guy who poisoned Flint, telling us we could not even use the copy machine, while he was out wasting our money left and right, and allowing a pedophile unprecedented access with not so much as a finger print check,” said Davis.

In January, the world found out why Davis filed the Civil Rights complaint with the Department of Justice. “The teachers used Twitter to show the deplorable conditions his Emergency Managers created inside the Detroit Public Schools. Darnell Earley was sitting in luxury suites while children had rats jumping over their feet.” Earley resigned in disgrace. Then Congress took him to task. “I wish Congress would audit of all the money those Emergency Managers spent,” says Davis. Governor Snyder is now forcing the Board Members to run for office again. “I never thought a Governor could be as crooked as Snyder is. His heart is made of lead. Children across our State have suffered, if he had an ounce of decency, he would’ve resigned after Flint,” laments Davis. But I am going to keep fighting him because I am a taxpayer, and our children deserve better.” He is clear about what the district lacks. “We need an audit of the money stolen from our schools. We need to give our children safe places to attend school in their own neighborhood. And we need the truth. I am here to tell the truth. And I am going to keep on telling it,” pledged Davis.

Angie Sullivan: The Nevada Achievement School District is Only for Public Schools, Not for Failing Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Angie Sullivan: The Nevada Achievement School District is Only for Public Schools, Not for Failing Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Angie Sullivan: The Nevada Achievement School District is Only for Public Schools, Not for Failing Charter Schools

Nevada imported a woman named Jana Wilcox Lavin to run its “Achievement School District.” She is not an educator. She has a degree in marketing. The Nevada ASD is modeled on Tennessee’s failed ASD, which took over the state’s lowest performing schools and promised to vault them to the state’s top 25% in only five years and failed to do so (most are still in the bottom 5%). Lavin is employed by the United Way at the same time that she plans for the Nevada ASD. She ran charters in the Tennessee ASD and holds it up as a model. Is this what is called an “urban myth” or is it just a hoax? How many teachers and principals will be fired, how many charters will scoop up millions of dollars, and how many will succeed or fail? Place your bets, folks, it is Nevada.

Angie Sullivan, who teaches in a low-income school in Clark County (Las Vegas) writes:

The unfairness of the Achievement School District law became crystal clear during a discussion with Jana Wilcox Lavin.

The law requires a list which includes the under-performing schools in the bottom 5%.

It is apparent that Nevada’s under-performing schools are mainly charters and rural schools. 70% of the under-performing Nevada schools are charters and rural schools.

However the law ONLY allows a public school to be selected for charter take-over.

Severely underperforming charters are not allowed to be taken over by the Achievement School District.

This law is a direct attack on public schools while obviously ignoring the cancerous and tragic Nevada charters.

Also, rural schools which fill the under-performing list will most likely never be selected because there simply is zero appetite by charter schools to take over a rural school. This made me laugh inside to learn -having grown up in the rural communities of Lovelock, Winnemucca, and McDermitt. I would love to see an outsider go into those places and take over the school. I picture the community chasing the outsider out of town with a shotgun.

We also had a frank discussion about the alternative schools – 3 are on the list. These schools fill a specific need in our communities. Desert Oasis for instance is actually a school which serves a unique community Angie Sullivan: The Nevada Achievement School District is Only for Public Schools, Not for Failing Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog:

LAUSD Loses More Than Half a Billion Dollars to Charter School Growth

TheCostOfCharterSchools.org:

LAUSD Loses More Than Half a Billion Dollars to Charter School Growth
New independent report reveals a fiscal crisis that could have deep negative implications for both district schools and existing charter schools.

A report by MGT of America, an independent research firm, reveals that LAUSD has lost an astonishing $591 million to unmitigated charter school growth this year alone. If costs associated with charter school expansion are not mitigated with common sense solutions, the district will face financial insolvency, according to an analysis of the report.

As the number of independent charter schools continues to grow, it becomes increasingly important for LAUSD to quantify, forecast, and manage the costs associated with independent charter expansion. LAUSD oversees more charter schools than any other district in the country. Charters are privately managed despite relying heavily on district and taxpayer funding.

Taken together, the findings in the report paint a picture of a system that prioritizes the growth opportunities for charter school operators over the educational opportunities for all students.TheCostOfCharterSchools.org:

Ed Reform 2.0: If You Can Train a Pigeon to Detonate Bombs… – Save Maine Schools

Ed Reform 2.0: If You Can Train a Pigeon to Detonate Bombs… – Save Maine Schools:

Ed Reform 2.0: If You Can Train a Pigeon to Detonate Bombs…

 

Back in 1977, Superintendent James Guines of Washington D.C. explained his district’s competency-based education pilot program like this:

“The basic idea is to break down complicated learning into a sequence of clear simple skills that virtually everyone can master, although at different rates of speed. If you can train a pigeon to fly up there and press a button and set off a bomb, why can’t you teach human beings to behave in an effective and rational way?”

“We know we can modify human behavior. We’re not scared of that,” he added. “This is the biggest thing that’s happening in education today.”

HA! Those crazy 70’s!  Boy did they have some crazy ideas back then.

But wait…

Now check out this recent video from Angela Duckworth and Katherine Milkman:Ed Reform 2.0: If You Can Train a Pigeon to Detonate Bombs… – Save Maine Schools:

John Thompson: 'Ridiculous' A-F school grades paint partial picture - NonDoc

'Ridiculous' A-F school grades paint partial picture - NonDoc:

‘Ridiculous’ A-F school grades paint partial picture

Back in the early 1990s, there were some potentially useful purposes for hard copies of data-driven report cards about school performance. For example, they could line the bottom of the birdcage or be used to light a fire.

Now that most people read A-to-F school grade cards online, it’s hard to think of any benefits they provide, because even though they are being issued a half -ear after the 2015 school year, it is still too early to light a wood stove with the paper reports.

Seriously, though, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal law was so full of loopholes that its metrics were designed for one and only one purpose: to shame schools that were supposedly failing.

The punitive part of the plan was to provoke a series of headlines about failing schools and bad teachers that would allow corporate reformers to impose their test-sort-reward-and-punish approach to school transformation and privatization.'Ridiculous' A-F school grades paint partial picture - NonDoc:

Community objects to San Diego schools' new approach for immigrant students - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Community objects to San Diego schools' new approach for immigrant students - The San Diego Union-Tribune:

Community objects to San Diego schools' new approach for immigrant students

San Diego Unified School District has changed its program for immigrant middle school and high school students who don’t speak English in a way that the district says empowers the students but critics say sets them up to fail.

For almost a decade, such students — many of them refugees — spent their first year in a classroom with others like them in what the district called New Arrival Centers.

The students stayed with the same teacher most of the day, learning English and core subjects and joining other students for less academic classes such as physical education or art.

Starting this school year, the students are learning math, science and other core subjects in classrooms with native English-speaking students. A language “coach” accompanies the students to these classes to support them as well as their teachers.

The new program’s purpose is to recognize the value of the knowledge that the students arrive with, even if they cannot yet convey that knowledge in English, according to Sandra Cephas, the director of the district’s office of language acquisition.

The district was worried about isolation from the rest of the school, Cephas said.

“We don’t believe that just because they have a gap in language that they aren’t able to accomplish great things, because they can,” Cephas said. “That belief in them has to be coupled with the right support at the right time."

Cephas said the new program will accelerate the students’ language acquisition and provide equal access to the curriculum..

“The goal is for the entire school to embrace these students,” Cephas said. 

She said the changes have not affected the school’s budget.

Teachers, parents and students have all expressed concern over the changes, especially for newly arrived students who had pauses in their education because they come from war-torn countries or refugee camps. Some have never been to school before and are not literate in their native languages. 

Kris Larsen, who taught for the New Arrival Center at San Diego High School before retiring at the end of this past school year, said the teachers were not convinced that the changes were based on sound research.

“I get that they want to raise graduation rates,” Larsen said. “It’s absolutely absurd to think pulling these supports will raise graduation rates.”

Class size

The New Arrival Centers enabled the district to “significantly lower class size” for new arrivals and other English learners, according to Debra Dougherty, who worked in the office of language acquisition when the New Arrival Centers were created and also retired this past school year. She said it was one of the reasons the school was able to receive federal funding earmarked for immigrants and English learners. 

This year, many of the classes that these students attend — now called “International Centers” — are at or near capacity. The effects of any crowding are somewhat eased because of language “coaches” added under the new Community objects to San Diego schools' new approach for immigrant students - The San Diego Union-Tribune:

Schools Matter: Standing Rock and the Earth vs Big Oil

Schools Matter: Standing Rock and the Earth vs Big Oil:

Standing Rock and the Earth vs Big Oil

Bill McKibben has an op-ed in the NYTimes on the latest global warming flash point and human rights atrocity in the making in North Dakota.  A clip:

. . . . Originally, the pipeline was supposed to cross the Missouri just north of Bismarck, until people pointed out that a leak there would threaten the drinking water supply for North Dakota’s second biggest city. The solution, in keeping with American history, was obvious: make the crossing instead just above the Standing Rock reservation, where the poverty rate is nearly three times the national average. This has been like watching the start of another Flint, Mich., except with a chance to stop it.

The second is that this is precisely the kind of project that climate science tells us can no longer be tolerated. In midsummer, the Obama administration promised that henceforth there would be a climate test for new projects Schools Matter: Standing Rock and the Earth vs Big Oil:

Russ on Reading: Bob Dylan Wins the Nobel Prize and Walt Whitman Smiles

Russ on Reading: Bob Dylan Wins the Nobel Prize and Walt Whitman Smiles:

Bob Dylan Wins the Nobel Prize and Walt Whitman Smiles

While many people expressed surprise and some even outrage over Bob Dylan’s selection as the Nobel Prize winner for literature, I must admit, I was not surprised and I was extraordinarily pleased. I had always thought of Dylan as a poet. Dylan was the first poet I thought “I got.” He spoke mostly through song, but I heard the poetry of the words. I was introduced to Dylan the poet early on. He wrote a long and rambling poem as the liner notes to one of the first full length vinyl albums I ever owned – Peter, Paul and Mary’s 3rd album – In the Wind. I read it over and over as I listened to that seminal album over and over.

Later as a teacher, I had a slim volume of poetry in my middle school classroom library, Sounds and Silences, edited by young adult author Richard Peck especially for middle schoolers. The book contained several lyrics from Dylan songs.

As I became more immersed in poetry as an adult, I came to view Dylan as the latest link in a long chain of distinctly American voices in poetry, from Walt Whitman, through Carl Sandburg, to Allen Ginsberg. Dylan and Ginsberg were great friends, of course. The much honored (and reviled) poet was prominent on stage and off on Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Review. I also have read that Dylan was a fan of Sandburg, even going so far as taking a Russ on Reading: Bob Dylan Wins the Nobel Prize and Walt Whitman Smiles:

With A Brooklyn Accent: Why Young Voters Should Mobilize To Keep Donald Trump from the Presidency

With A Brooklyn Accent: Why Young Voters Should Mobilize To Keep Donald Trump from the Presidency:

Why Young Voters Should Mobilize To Keep Donald Trump from the Presidency

Donald Trump represents a grave threat to the multiracial society that so many young people embody in their daily lives and which so many of their parents and grandparents worked hard to create

He launched his drive for the Presidency in 2011 with racist attacks on President Obama by associating himself with the birther movement and employing rhetoric calling him an "Affirmative Action President" and has used his current campaign to target vulnerable groups by race, religion and nationality.

His speeches are filled with rage. They incite people to view one another with suspicion. They promote violence

We cannot afford to have a President whose language is so inflammatory and who makes so many people fearful of their fellow citizens as well as government.

I have no illusions about his opponent. But Donald Trump represents a threat to our democracy and civic order we have not seen nearly half a century.

There is no "do over" if he is elected.

We will enter uncharted territory as a nation if he is in the White House, Is that a chance you are prepared to take?.

If not. head to the polls on November 8 and make sure that Donald Trump remains in private life where his damage to our social fabric can be more easily contained.With A Brooklyn Accent: Why Young Voters Should Mobilize To Keep Donald Trump from the Presidency:

Campbell Brown’s PEJ Is Having Trouble Connecting Test Scores with Tenure Laws | deutsch29

Campbell Brown’s PEJ Is Having Trouble Connecting Test Scores with Tenure Laws | deutsch29:

Campbell Brown’s PEJ Is Having Trouble Connecting Test Scores with Tenure Laws

On October 26, 2016, the Minnesota teacher tenure lawsuit prodded by Campbell Brown’s Partnership for Educational Justice (PEJ) hit a roadblock when Ramsey County (MN) Judge Margaret Marrinan tossed out the PEJ-supported (instigated?) Forslund vs. Minnesota suit on the grounds that the suit “failed to establish a link between low academic achievement and the due process provided by the tenure laws,” as the Star Tribune reports.

PEJ has a library of the documents in the case, including the motions to dismiss the suit, and the plaintiffs’ opposition to the motions to dismiss, and the defendants’ responses to the plaintiffs’ opposition to the motions to dismiss. (Indeed, the legal back-and-forth is rather detailed, and costly, to be sure. I am still waiting for access to the PEJ tax form from 2014-15, which has been filed in June 2016 and which includes $4.7 million in revenue as of November 2015.)

The State of Minnesota was one entity that filed a motion to dismiss Forslund. In the State’s July 2016 reply in support of motion to dismiss, the State concisely captures the reason the Judge Marrinan dismissed the suit as reported in the Star Tribune (note that no record of Marrinan’s exact words is publicly available as of this writing):

Plaintiffs Lack Standing. The State Defendants demonstrated in their initial memorandum that Plaintiffs lacked standing because their First Amended Complaint failed to identify a concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent 

Campbell Brown’s PEJ Is Having Trouble Connecting Test Scores with Tenure Laws | deutsch29:

BRIDGEGATE TRIAL: Welcome to the brave new world of guilt by email |

BRIDGEGATE TRIAL: Welcome to the brave new world of guilt by email |:

BRIDGEGATE TRIAL: Welcome to the brave new world of guilt by email

They are so  guilty of not fully understanding that, no matter what they were talking about, their promiscuous use of email and text messages–relatively new  and poorly appreciated methods of communication, laced with ambiguity–was just, well, dumb. Without email and without text messaging, Baroni and Kelly would not be  in the federal dock now, charged with creating a traffic jam at the George Washington Bridge to punish a mayor, Mark Sokolich,  who didn’t endorse their boss, Gov. Chris Christie.

Think about it. Kelly has a good chance of going to jail because of a one-liner in an email:

“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”

To the prosecution, that meant she was giving instructions to begin traffic jams. To her, she says, it meant relaying  Christie’s approval of a traffic study that would cause traffic problems.

If she hadn’t written that line–as she noted sardonically on the stand–“We wouldn’t all know each other now.” If she had just said those words only  in a telephone conversation with David Wildstein, the Christie pal who is the government’s main witness, there probably never would be a trial because, unless their phones were tapped–and why would they be?–it would be Wildstein’s word against hers as to what was said.

And Wildstein’s word is, well, not too good. Consider that, just before that email, BRIDGEGATE TRIAL: Welcome to the brave new world of guilt by email |:

TBFURMAN: Gulen Awareness Seems To Be Growing

TBFURMAN: Gulen Awareness Seems To Be Growing:

 Gulen Awareness Seems To Be Growing

Damn good reporting from Florida on the operations of the local Gulen node there. The model is the exact same model that they use here in Chicago and across the Gulen range in the US.

 

Here's the whole story. The article doesn't even talk about the charter schools; Florida has a bunch of Gulen charters. I'm not sure which ones are part to the Orange County Gulen operation (The Atlantic Institute).

They exist as a taxpayer-funded economic engine for the Gulen Movement.

In Chicago, the Niagara Foundation used to function much like the Atlantic Institute in Florida. The awards would be shoveled out at the Niagara Foundation Peace and Dialogue awards, and they pretty much hit every Illinois luminary before Dan Mihalopoulos started writing about the sketchiness of the whole situation.

It's no wonder nobody in the state wants to talk about the Gulen Movement's presence in our charter sector; so many of TBFURMAN: Gulen Awareness Seems To Be Growing:

Standardizing Whiteness: the Essential Racism of Standardized Testing - Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association:

Standardizing Whiteness: the Essential Racism of Standardized Testing

By Steven Singer, Director of BATs Blogging and Research

Originally published on his blog here https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/26/standardizing-whiteness-the-essential-racism-of-standardized-testing/

As a method of social production, as well as social reproduction, standardized testing has had serious cultural implications, not the least of which has been the eternal question of American identity. Consistent with notions of American identity, standardized testing, as an opposition to a cultural other, represents the normalization of whiteness, richness, and maleness.”-Andrew Hartman

“In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.”
-Toni Morrison

We talk about standardized testing as if we don’t really understand what it is.

We say we want No child left behind!

And then we pass a law named after that very sentiment that ensures some students MUST be left behind.

We say we want Every student to succeed!

And then we pass a law named after that very sentiment that ensures every student will NOT succeed.

It would be absurd if not for the millions of children being forced to endure the harsh reality behind our pretty words.

It’s not these ideals that are the problem. It’s standardized testing.

Researchers, statisticians, and academics of every stripe have called for an end to high stakes testing in education policy. Parents, students and teachers have written letters, testified before congressional committees, protested in the streets, even refused to take or give the tests. All to deaf ears.

The federal government still requires all students in 3-8th grade and once in high school to take standardized tests.

But these assessments are graded on a curve. A certain amount of students are at the bottom, a certain amount are at the top, and most are clustered in the middle. This would be true if you were testing all geniuses or all people with traumatic brain injuries.

It doesn’t matter how smart your test takers are. There will always be this bell curve distribution. That’s how the tests are designed. So to talk about raising test scores is nonsensical. You can raise scores at school A or School B, but the total set of all test takers will always be the same. And some students will always fail.

But that isn’t even the worst part.

Standardization, itself, has certain consequences. We seem to have forgotten what the term even means. It’s defined as the act of evaluating someone or something by reference to a standard.

This socket wrench is a good socket wrench because it most closely Badass Teachers Association:

Teacher Pension Fund Profits Help Fund Charter School Fight in Massachusetts

Teacher Pension Fund Profits Help Fund Charter School Fight in Massachusetts:

TEACHER PENSION FUND PROFITS HELP FUND CHARTER SCHOOL FIGHT IN MASSACHUSETTS

This article originally appeared on the International Business Times.

When Massachusetts public school teachers pay into their pension fund each month, they may not realize where the money goes. Wall Street titans are using some of the profits from managing that money to finance an education ballot initiative that many teachers say will harm traditional public schools.

An International Business Times/MapLight investigation has found that executives at eight financial firms with contracts to manage Massachusetts state pension assets have bypassed anti-corruption rules and funneled at least $778,000 to groups backing Question 2,  which would expand the number of charter schools in the state. Millions more dollars have flowed from the executives to nonprofit groups supporting the charter school movement in the lead-up to the November vote. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, himself a former financial executive, is leading the fight to increase the number of publicly funded, privately run charter schools in Massachusetts—and he appoints trustees to the board that directs state pension investments.

 “This is a morally bankrupt situation,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, which opposes the ballot measure. “These managers are using money they’ve earned from teacher pensions to try to destroy the same public education system that teachers have worked in mightily to help children.”

“It makes me so angry,” said Laura Henderson, an 11-year veteran of Massachusetts public schools, who now teaches English and special education in Newton. She spends many of her weekends going door to door, trying to persuade voters to oppose Question 2. For Henderson, more charters means fewer unionized teaching jobs and the erosion of public education standards. In her view, the money behind Question 2 is motivated by a desire to ultimately privatize public education.

Baker’s office did not respond to IBT/MapLight questions about campaign donations from executives at firms that manage state pension money.

The cash flowing to the Massachusetts school initiative spotlights more than just a fight over education policy: It exemplifies one of the ways in which the securities and investment industry can get around a federal rule that was designed to restrict financial executives from giving campaign cash to governors with the power to influence state pension business.

In the case of Massachusetts, since the federal rule does not cover money donated to governors’ policy initiatives, executives banned from donating directly to Baker are able to give to a Teacher Pension Fund Profits Help Fund Charter School Fight in Massachusetts:

Robotic tutor detects emotional state of young students to better motivate them

Robotic tutor detects emotional state of young students to better motivate them:

Robotic tutor detects emotional state of young students to better motivate them

Any teachers out there know that doing your job well is about more than just reeling off facts. With any students, but particularly younger ones, it’s also vitally important to be able to gauge the emotional state of those in your care.

Being able to work out when students are engaged and concentrating or distracted and inactive results in better outcomes for learners — and is one reason why robots aren’t going to be able to take over from human teachers any time soon.

Right? Well, maybe.

A new paper published in the open access journal Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience describes a research project involving a computerized tutor that’s capable of detecting exactly these emotional states among primary school-age kids.

Related: MIT researchers have figured out a way to detect emotions by using wireless signals

“The main goal of our work was to design a system that can detect the emotional state of primary school children interacting with educational software and make pedagogic interventions with a robot tutor that can ultimately improve the learning experience,” said researcher Dr. Imbernòn Cuadrado.

The research involved determining these states based on the keystrokes and mouse actions of children using educational software. These were then linked to an algorithm that chooses the right kind of intervention — from words or gestures of encouragement to attempts to increase student’s motivation or interest levels.

Teachers shouldn’t worry too much for now: Although students reportedly preferred a robot tutor to having to work alone, they liked having a real flesh-and-blood teacher most of all.

While Cuadrado thinks robot tutors are likely to remain support staff rather than primary educators, there’s still room for their roles to expand.

“The next step will be to implement methods for detecting a more complex range of emotions with cameras and microphones, and to test the longer-term impact of robot tutors on children’s learning curves,” he noted.

• Robots could have a big impact on the school experience of chronically ill kids
• Teachers increasingly rely on crowdfunding for classroom supplies
• Made almost entirely from printed parts, ULIO is the most 3D-printable 3D printer yet

 Robotic tutor detects emotional state of young students to better motivate them:

Mexico's new push to improve schools: Get parents involved - CSMonitor.com

Mexico's new push to improve schools: Get parents involved - CSMonitor.com:

Mexico's new push to improve schools: Get parents involved

Parent involvement hasn't traditionally been part of the culture of education in Mexico. Now, programs are emerging to change that, with encouraging results.

Whitney Eulich | Caption

OCTOBER 29, 2016  MEXICO CITY—Luis Reynoso, a father of two, says he’s always tried to get involved in his children’s education: attending meetings on school-improvement projects and pitching in to provide classroom snacks.

But when his youngest daughter’s elementary school invited families to attend a nine-week pilot program to learn about parenting and school participation, he realized his past efforts barely scratched the surface.

“The workshops really woke me up,” says Mr. Reynoso about Let’s Change the Course, organized by Mexicanos Primero, a leading education advocacy group here. Each weekly session touched on different parenting themes ranging from the concrete – like setting up a dedicated space at home for kids to do homework – to the less tangible, like the importance of self-esteem.

 “I realized there’s a lot more I can be doing for her education that will make an even bigger difference, like helping motivate her or having an adult home when she’s back from school or making time to read together,” Reynoso says. One of the most helpful sessions, he recalls, focused on what a child should know academically in each grade and how to talk to teachers about his daughter’s performance.

Levels of parental participation in Mexican schools have long been low, experts say.

Reasons range from commonly held beliefs that a child’s education is the school’s domain to few opportunities or tools to get involved beyond school cleanup. In some parts of the country, a mother's or father’s own lack of education can play into a sense that they have nothing to contribute. And even in private schools, where there might be more adults with professional careers, participation often lags, with some parents viewing their tuition bill as their educational contribution.

There are also cases where the schools themselves see parents more as a complaining nuisance than a potential partner in a child’s education, discouraging communication between families and schools.

But parent involvement is key to student – and school – success. A 2012 study of Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries found that promoting higher levels of parental involvement can increase student performance, as well as helping reduce performance gaps across socioeconomic sectors.

The importance of family participation is something many nonprofits, education advocates – and recently the federal government – are starting to home in on in Mexico. Part of Mexico’s 2013 national education reform underscores the importance of parents playing a more active role in their child’s education, encouraging a boost in parental-participation programs.

And independently, programs are emerging, including Let’s Change the Course, which is Mexico's new push to improve schools: Get parents involved - CSMonitor.com:

STATE AUDIT OF LAUSD TEACHER JAIL COSTS- JUST ANOTHER COVERUP - Perdaily.com

STATE AUDIT OF LAUSD TEACHER JAIL COSTS- JUST ANOTHER COVERUP - Perdaily.com:

STATE AUDIT OF LAUSD TEACHER JAIL COSTS- JUST ANOTHER COVERUP

What kind of a credible and independent audit of the costs related to LAUSD's removal of allegedly bad teachers can the State of California Auditor objectively perform, when it goes into the audit without questioning anything LAUSD tells them?

While there is no question that it is an expensive proposition to keep charged teachers sitting often for years on end, while having in addition to pay their salaries and those of their subsitutes, the California State Auditor in their recently released audit of this practice never once mentions nor takes into consideration the fact that LAUSD actually saves a fortune in the end, when it is able to rid itself- by hook or by crook- of teachers at the top of the salary scale with expensive benefits packages and the further cost of expensive lifetime health benefits, if it doesn't move to get rid of them- one way or another.

if the State Auditor presumes from the beginning of its audit that there is an actual net cost and not a net savings achieved when LAUSD targets, removes, and ultimately fires high seniority teachers, it doesn't even consider there just might be an actual savings to LAUSD of $60,000 in combined salary and benefits in just the first year these teachers are gone. Simply stated, a major component of what this audit was supposed to look into has been completely ignored and omitted. And with this blatant omission goes any chance of STATE AUDIT OF LAUSD TEACHER JAIL COSTS- JUST ANOTHER COVERUP - Perdaily.com:

Seattle Schools Community Forum: First Indigenous Peoples' Day at Chief Sealth

Seattle Schools Community Forum: First Indigenous Peoples' Day at Chief Sealth:

First Indigenous Peoples' Day at Chief Sealth

Wonderful celebration of cultures at Chief Sealth International High School - these photos make this event look like it was a fantastic one.  All photos by Leda Costa for the West Seattle Blog. 

Neighboring Chief Sealth International High Schooland Denny International Middle School have the largest Native population of any school in Seattle Public Schools, according to Sealth principal Aida Fraser-Hammer, who hosted the schools’ first Indigenous Peoples’ Day assembly today.

The students who were onstage weren’t just performers. Below, Sierra Carpitcher (Seminole/Creek Nations) spoke about the Dakota Access Pipeline situation, which has brought a massive turnout of Native/Indigenous people and their allies to the Midwest to try to stop the controversial pipeline. 

Pacific Islanders were spotlighted at the assembly too – these students represented Fiji, Hawai’i, the Philippines, Seattle Schools Community Forum: First Indigenous Peoples' Day at Chief Sealth: