Torlakson Announces Approval of Science Framework - Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education)

Torlakson Announces Approval of Science Framework - Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education):

State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Announces

Approval of Science Framework

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today announced that the State Board of Education (SBE) voted to approve a new Science Framework for California’s public schools that will dramatically upgrade and modernize science instruction.

“Science education is undergoing a renaissance that began with the adoption of California’s Next Generation Science Standards in 2013 and advances today with a Science Framework that will guide teaching,” said Torlakson, who began his career as a high school science teacher in the 1970s.

“This framework will help our students become the scientists and technology leaders of the future as well as citizens who are knowledgeable and understanding of the natural world and the environment,” Torlakson said. “It will also help produce the well-educated, innovative workers needed by all of our employers, but especially our high-tech companies, which are some of the most advanced companies humankind has ever seen.”

California becomes the first state in the nation to adopt a Science Framework based on Next Generation Science Standards and is now poised to lead the nation in rolling out a rich, updated, 21st century science curriculum. The Science Framework provides guidance to teachers, administrators, and textbook publishers for the teaching of the Next Generation Science Standards from transitional kindergarten through twelfth grade.

The Science Framework expands and refines discussion of climate change and for the first time includes engineering, environmental literacy, and strategies to support girls and young women in science.

The Framework, for example, presents middle school students with the engineering challenge of diverting rainwater away from road surfaces, where it can pick up oil, grit, and other pollutants into the ground to minimize flooding and maximize filtration. Seventh grade students may be tasked with graphing fish populations under various global warming scenarios. High school chemistry students can explore the increasing acidification of the world’s oceans, the causes, and potential remedies.

Beyond updated science content, the Science Framework encourages a new teacher-student dynamic with the teacher becoming more of a facilitator, asking questions and encouraging discovery. Students conduct experiments and lead the scientific inquiry.

The Framework was developed after an extensive public process that spanned almost three years and generated more than 3,000 public comments. In support of the process, the California Science Teachers Association sponsored 30 different focus groups throughout the state to collect feedback.

Throughout the spring of 2017, the California Department of Education (CDE), together with educational partners, will present California Science Framework rollout events around the state to start preparing educators and administrators in all aspects of Next Generation Science Standards instruction. In 2018, the State Board of Education is scheduled to adopt textbooks and other instructional materials aligned to the Standards and Framework.

The CDE also is developing a new online science assessment that will reflect the Standards and Framework.  A pilot test of the new assessment will take place in spring 2017 in grades five, eight, and in one high school grade—ten, eleven, or twelve—that will vary for each high school.

# # # #

Tom Torlakson — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5206, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

Last Reviewed: Thursday, November 3, 2016

 Torlakson Announces Approval of Science Framework - Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education):

The reason so many black teachers leave the job early - The Hechinger Report

The reason so many black teachers leave the job early - The Hechinger Report:

The reason so many black teachers leave the job early

New report probes why African-American teachers become frustrated with a profession that desperately needs them

What will it take to get more black teachers to stay in the classroom?

School administrators will have to explicitly address the racial biases and stereotyping that stifle black educators’ professional growth, argue researchers Ashley Griffin and Hilary Tackie in a new report from The Education Trust, a national nonprofit advocacy organization.

As the nation’s classrooms become increasingly diverse, with non-white children now making up the majority of public school students, schools have made inroads in recruiting more teachers of color. But those educators tend to leave the profession at much higher rates than their white counterparts. Teachers of color currently represent only 18 percent of the nation’s teaching force and black teachers comprise just 7 percent of that workforce.

Increasing those numbers matters because research suggests students do better in school when exposed to teachers who share similar backgrounds and experiences.

Griffin and Tackie’s report explores why African-American teachers are more prone to abandoning the profession. The researchers used a focus group of 150 black teachers, choosing participants representative of the experience levels and teaching environments of the nation’s black teachers, and found several patterns.

Related: New Orleans’ uphill battle for more black and homegrown teachers

The very reasons schools were eager to hire black educators – that is, their perceived ability to work well with African-American students, particularly black students that other teachers were having trouble reaching – often morphed into career roadblocks. While other educators were allowed to advance and take on more challenging work like teaching Advanced Placement courses, black educators said they were often relegated to teaching low-performing students and taking on disciplinarian roles.

While many educators relished their roles acting as formal and informal mentors for their black students, and even pointed to those relationships as being a key reason for staying in the classroom, they also reported feeling pressure from administrators, fellow teachers and even students, to build and maintain relationships with every student of color.

“We become the representative for every child of color, I mean, whether we relate to them, whether our culture is the same or not,” one teacher told the researchers. “We become the representative for all of those children.”

Related: To increase teacher diversity, ignore selectivity of teacher education programs?

Many of the teachers reported that because of these relationships, they were often in a unique position to deal with students with behavioral challenges, a fact that often led to them taking on disciplinarian roles.

“[B]eing able to easily discipline students often led others to see them as enforcers rather than educators — a reductive stereotype that we heard throughout the focus groups,” the researchers wrote. “These teachers were assumed to be tough and strict instead of being able to connect to their students and use that connection to establish order and create a classroom environment conducive to learning.”

In fact, a recent study showed that African-American students are The reason so many black teachers leave the job early - The Hechinger Report:

Campbell Brown’s PEJ Files Another Lawsuit– Now in New Jersey | deutsch29

Campbell Brown’s PEJ Files Another Lawsuit– Now in New Jersey | deutsch29:

Campbell Brown’s PEJ Files Another Lawsuit– Now in New Jersey

On November 01, 2016, Campbell Brown’s Partnership for Educational Justice (PEJ) filed its third lawsuit in pursuit of teacher tenure laws, this time in New Jersey.

PEJ’s first suit continues to sit in the New York courts, and its second lawsuit was just dismissed in Minnesota.

In short, PEJ’s third lawsuit tries to paint New Jersey’s “last in, first out” (LIFO) teacher tenure policy as unconstitutional based on the New Jersey constitution’s education terminology of the legislature’s charge to provide “for the maintenance and support of a through and efficient system of free public schools for all children of the state.”

However, it seems that the lawsuit does not make its case; even though the suit takes issue with the LIFO policy for not considering the results of teacher evaluation when reductions in force are in order, the legislature’s LIFO policy could still be regarded in court as “thorough and efficient.”

The PEJ suit argues that Newark tries to dodge the legislature’s LIFO reduction-in-force requirement by not laying off teachers rated ineffective and instead putting such teachers into a pool of employees that take other jobs (including clerical and paraprofessional positions). The suit continues by noting that such a practice is expensive and still requires Newark schools to rehire such “ineffective” teachers when positions open up as opposed to being able to hire new, out-of-district, “effective” teachers instead.

Though the lawsuit touches on the declining enrollment in Newark’s traditional public schools, it does not discuss a major cause: Newark is a state-run district, and as Campbell Brown’s PEJ Files Another Lawsuit– Now in New Jersey | deutsch29:

 

The Loss of Special Education Services: An Update

The Loss of Special Education Services: An Update:

The Loss of Special Education Services: An Update

Every day I check the education news and am appalled to see more stories about children being denied special education services. Where is the federal government? Where’s the state? And how does the local school district get away with this without being sued?

It is as if students with differences of any kind are being told “go away–you are not welcome here.”

Often, these despicable stories make headlines. Then they fade away leaving parents and the community to struggle finding services.

Children flounder in schools where they once were supposed to be protected by special The Loss of Special Education Services: An Update:

Telephone town hall pulls no punches about election stakes | American Federation of Teachers

Telephone town hall pulls no punches about election stakes | American Federation of Teachers:

Telephone town hall pulls no punches about election stakes 

 We can gather our strength for one last push to turn out our vote for a supremely prepared and qualified candidate who listens to voices on all sides and will work tirelessly to make life better for all Americans. Or we can ease up and allow a grudge-driven reality show TV star to become the nation's next commander-in-chief, free to roll out the Oval Office welcome mat for white supremacists, misogynists, xenophobes, anti-Semites and other hate-filled actors who are trying to warp our national dialogue.

Those were the stark choices laid out for more than 180,000 AFT members in a Nov. 2 telephone town hall conversation led by union President Randi Weingarten and other national education and political leaders. With less than a week remaining, the nationwide discussion also addressed how every AFT member can help in these final few hours by talking with family, friends and colleagues, and by canvassing neighborhoods or making calls, including at-home phone bankingthrough the AFT's Action Network. (Almost 500 people on the call volunteered.)

"I believe with every bit of my soul that Hillary Clinton will be a great president," especially if we get a Senate elected that will partner with her, Weingarten told the audience. The choice on the other ticket, she added, is no choice at all. "We all want change, but do we want the type of change that elects a man so unhinged and disqualified" for high office?  

Weingarten's passion was matched by town hall guest Diane Ravitch, a historian of education, New York University professor and one of the nation's most persuasive voices on education issues. The tone of Donald Trump's campaign is unprecedented in its viciousness, she said, and it "uses the language of authoritarian dictatorship, not the language of democracy."

Public education would be staring at catastrophe with Trump in the White House, Ravitch warned. "Donald Trump looks with contempt on public schools and the people who teach in them." Under Trump, there would be a "renewed push for privatization and destruction of the teaching corps."

Ravitch went on to describe Hillary Clinton as a leader who "is not the lesser of two evils but a wonderful woman, and I'm sure she'll be a great president." While she may hold somewhat different views in areas like charter schools, those differences pale in comparison to the threat posed by Trump. And they are areas where Ravitch felt certain there was common ground to be found. "Hillary Clinton will listen," she said. "I don't know if I'll convince her—but I know an intelligent, thoughtful and open-minded person will listen."

Down-ballot hopes

Weingarten was also joined in the town hall discussion by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who described tight but eminently winnable matchups in Senate races that will be key to securing a new majority in the upper chamber. Such a majority is essential, he told the audience, if the nation is ever to make progress on such vital matters as seating a full Supreme Court, which the current GOP majority has blocked by refusing to fulfill its constitutional responsibility for White House nominees.

States where Democratic holds or pickups will secure a new majority are Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Tester said, and the deciding factor in each contest could easily be the Democratic Party's superior ground game. "What wins close races is people helping candidates win by knocking doors and contacting friends," said Tester. "We have to have a Democratic Senate to apply a little common sense to a crazy place like Washington."

Two of the most effective areas for the AFT's get-out-the-vote efforts have shaped up to be pivotal on election night: South Florida, and the region in and around Philadelphia. And approaching voters in ways that present a team for change—candidates both up and down ballot—has proven to be effective, AFTers in these areas report.

The town hall also heard from Chicago teacher Erika Wozniak, an AFT 2016 Everyday Hero and a self-described "hard-core progressive," who made an impassioned appeal for other Bernie Sanders supporters to rally behind Hillary Clinton in these final days. "I am all about quality education, first and foremost, and Hillary is the candidate who will fund our public schools [and] set the example of respect" that educators deserve. Should the Democratic standard-bearer ever visit her classroom, "I'd welcome with her with open arms," Wozniak remarked. "Donald in my classroom is the scariest thought in the world."

Final push

The AFT has been firing on all cylinders in this election, laying the groundwork for Hillary Clinton and strong down-ballot candidates, and for school-friendly results on key ballot questions. Union get-out-the-vote efforts are up and running in 22 states, with more than 300,000 voter contacts, Weingarten reported.

Today, more than 4 out of 5 members are backing candidates endorsed by the union in 2016, but more remains to be done to ensure victory up and down the ballot. The way to start is by contacting your local to see how you can help, or by joining the AFT's call team.

Too much is at stake to let it slip away in these final few hours, Weingarten said. This election "is the clearest assault on our democracy and the closest we have ever come to fascism that I have seen in my life," she told the audience.

What it boils down to, she added, is a choice between "hope and fear, anger and aspiration, democracy and fascism."

[Mike Rose]

- See more at: http://www.aft.org/news/telephone-town-hall-pulls-no-punches-about-election-stakes#sthash.MOxt6SYe.dpuf

State board praises, then adopts clearer, friendlier accountability plan | EdSource

State board praises, then adopts clearer, friendlier accountability plan | EdSource:

State board praises, then adopts clearer, friendlier accountability plan

The State Board of Education on Wednesday approved a new version of the school improvement plan that districts must create or update annually.

Board members praised the revision of the Local Control and Accountability Plan (see draft template starting page 7) as a significant advance in making an opaque and dense document more usable and readable. Representatives of school districts and advocates for parents and students, who had loudly criticized previous versions of the plan, generally agreed with board members in public comments.

The LCAP serves as a district’s comprehensive budget and policy plan that’s supposed to address weaknesses in performance, disparities in student achievement and inequities in resources. The Legislature, in requiring it, said it should also reflect community priorities.

But two earlier versions of the three-year planning document had been widely panned. District officials complained about the length and organization. Parents and advocates for low-income students called for tighter controls to track supplemental money that districts receive under the Local Control Funding Formula for high-needs students – English learners, low-income students and foster youth.

While not totally satisfied with the new template, several dozen speakers acknowledged that they got some of what they sought. The new LCAP includes a three-page summary that asks districts to cite significant areas of progress and greatest needs for improvement. It also requires listing two to three significant ways it will improve or increase services for student groups who receive supplemental dollars.

A district must estimate how many extra dollars it will receive under the funding formula for high-needs students and the actions it’s taking on their behalf. In annual updates, the district must explain why it didn’t spend money in areas it had budgeted the year before.

These are improvements, but still don’t go far enough in requiring districts to spend all of what they get for high-needs students, said John Affeldt, managing attorney for the nonprofit law group Public Advocates.

Teri Burns, a legislative advocate for the California School Boards Association, said the LCAP changes will result in more “transparency, simplicity and clarity” in planning, but cautioned that districts, particularly those with small staffs, may continue to find the requirements overwhelming.

The new version will require districts to make it a priority to address weaknesses that data from the state’s new accountability system will identify. That system, State board praises, then adopts clearer, friendlier accountability plan | EdSource:

Blame Reformers If Massachusetts Charter School Ballot Question Fails | Knowledge Bank | US News

Blame Reformers If Massachusetts Charter School Ballot Question Fails | Knowledge Bank | US News:

Blame Education Reformers for Their Defeat

Ignoring middle-class families could cost Massachusetts charter advocates this election.

While the rest of the nation is riveted by the final days of the presidential campaign, the education world is paying equally close attention to Massachusetts, where voters will decide next week whether or not to allow more charter schools in their state. Polls are deadlocked on Question 2, a ballot question which has attracted millions of dollars of advertising from supporters and opponents alike, making it the most expensive ballot-question battle in the nation, according to the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity.

Writing at the pro-reform website The 74, Richard Whitmire framed the issue as one of fairness and equity: "Will voters in Newton (median house listing price: $1.2 million) vote to help out voters in Roxbury (median list price: $479,000) looking for better school options?" he asked.

If the answer turns out to be no, don't point angry fingers at selfish Massachusetts voters: Blame falls equally upon a movement that has long been a bit too enamored of its own civil-rights-movement-of-our-time rhetoric to worry much about building a constituency among the middle class.Blame Reformers If Massachusetts Charter School Ballot Question Fails | Knowledge Bank | US News:

Wall Street Journal: Educators are key voters in battleground states - Lily's Blackboard

Wall Street Journal: Educators are key voters in battleground states - Lily's Blackboard:

Wall Street Journal: Educators are key voters in battleground states

The Wall Street Journal profiled Lily and her efforts to motivate NEA members to vote.

“Her union can also deliver key voters. Among NEA’s three million members, roughly three-quarters are women, many of them with college degrees, who live in the swing suburban areas in presidential battleground states.”

Read the full article here.  Wall Street Journal: Educators are key voters in battleground states - Lily's Blackboard:

What do teachers do when they retire? This!

 Bob Peterson, a retired teacher and past president of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association, is a busy guy. Outspoken social justice advocate, unionist to the core…and citizen of the world.

 

Bob and his wife, Barbara, decided that they didn’t need to be 18 to take a “gap year.” Earlier this year, they trekked to four continents, visiting public schools, educators and students everywhere they went. Their travels helped them “learn about efforts to defend the public sector, especially public schools, and how issues of race, class and gender play out in struggles against inequality.”

 

Bob shared their adventure in NEA Today Retired.

 

“There was no ‘St. Paul on the Road to Damascus’ moment that instantly changed my life,” Bob wrote. “Instead, there were endless encounters that have irrevocably shaped my view of the world and my role in it.”

“For three decades, the month of March would find me encouraging 30 fifth graders to finish their projects and hold it together until spring break.

This spring, I was doing something entirely different as I tried to keep pace with a young South African who gave a multi-generational group of 15 bicyclists a street-eye history lesson on Soweto’s role in the anti-apartheid struggle.”

 

Read his inspiring story here. What do teachers do when they retire? This!

Bernie Sanders calls for defeat of charter school measure - The Boston Globe

Bernie Sanders calls for defeat of charter school measure - The Boston Globe:
Bernie Sanders calls for defeat of charter school measure

BOSTON (AP) — Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is criticizing Question two as the ballot campaign heats up before Election Day.

On Tuesday, opponents of the question, about expanding the number of charter schools in the state, released a statement from the Vermont Senator calling for the measure’s defeat.

Sanders, a former Democratic presidential candidate, faulted the question for relying on money from New York backers. He said the question would drain resources from traditional public schools.

‘‘Wall Street must not be allowed to hijack public education in Massachusetts,’’ Sanders said in a statement. ‘‘This is Wall Street’s attempt to line their own pockets while draining resources away from public education at the expense of low-income, special education students and English language learners.’’

More than half of the nearly $22 million raised by backers of the question has come from the New York City-based Families For Excellent Schools Advocacy.

Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who said charter schools offer important educational options for minority students, spent Tuesday morning going door to door in Springfield drumming up support for the question. He was joined by Henry Thomas III, president of Urban League of Springfield, which says it serves the black community and advocates for services that enhance the academic and social development of young people and families.

Baker said that charter schools are ‘‘the single intervention of the past 20 years’’ that has worked to eliminate the state’s persistent achievement gap between white students and minority students.

‘‘The reason why we have to vote yes on Question 2 is because our obligation goes to more than our own children, it goes to all children,’’ Baker said in a press release.

Democratic President Barack Obama’s former secretary of education, Arne Duncan, also has endorsed the question.

Others who oppose the measure include Democratic Mayor Marty Walsh, who planned to headline an anti-Question 2 rally Tuesday evening in the Dorchester neighborhood with Democratic U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark and Boston city councilors and community leaders.

Walsh has argued that approving the question will drain away money from district school budgets. The campaign to defeat the question has been funded largely through teachers’ unions.

The ballot question asks whether to let the state board of education approve to up to 12 new or expanded charter schools each year in Massachusetts.

The charter schools would be exempt from existing limits on the number of charter schools, the number of students enrolled in them and the amount of local school districts’ spending allocated to them.

If the board received more than 12 applications in a year, the proposed law would give priority to new or expanded charter schools in districts where student performance on statewide assessments is in the bottom 25 percent of all districts in the previous two years and where parent demand is greatest.

The schools would be subject to annual performance reviews.

The question is one of four statewide initiatives to be decided by voters.

Election Day is Nov. 8, although hundreds of thousands of voters already have cast ballots during the state’s early voting period.

More on Question 2

• Should Mass. lift the charter school cap?
• Watch: Debate on Question 2
• Charters used to enjoy bipartisan support. Not anymore
• Mayor Martin J. Walsh: Vote 'no' on Question 2
• When does charter school politicking cross the line?

 Bernie Sanders calls for defeat of charter school measure - The Boston Globe:

This Election Is About School Funding, Democratic Control of Education

11/3/2016 – This Election Is About School Funding, Democratic Control of Education:

This Election Is About School Funding, Democratic Control of Education

THIS WEEK: No To Question 2 … School Climate Matters … College Costs Rise … Georgia Amendment 1 … Privatization Hurts Kids

TOP STORY

This Election Is About School Funding, Democratic Control of Education

By Jeff Bryant

“In the upcoming election … education issues [are] getting a relatively large amount of attention in states … Two recurring themes are 1) Who controls schools, and 2) How to save schools from a persistent funding crisis … If you’re discouraged about the lack of substance in this year’s presidential race, there are ample opportunities to support candidates and measures down ballot that will determine the course of education policy, and thus affect the well being of children and the future of our nation.”
Read more …

NEWS AND VIEWS

It’s Not Anti-Charter To Oppose Lifting Cap

Commonwealth Magazine

“Uncapped charter school growth means that municipal budgets … will suffer without a fix to state education financing … Tradeoffs in local budgets … include unsustainable cutbacks for basic city services … Uncapping charter school growth will only speed this growing divide … Uncapped charter growth will surely lead to district reorganization and school closures, but the transition will create inefficiencies that add costs to cities and towns … Keep the cap on charter school growth and seek sensible financing reform to ensure that all of our children succeed.”
Read more …

Positive School Climates May Help Narrow Achievement Gaps, Analysis Finds

Education Week

“Schools where students feel safe, engaged and connected to their teachers are also schools that have narrower achievement gaps between low-income children and their wealthier peers … ‘Schools do matter and can do much to improve academic outcomes … By promoting a positive climate, schools can allow greater equality in educational opportunities, decrease socioeconomic inequalities, and enable more social mobility.'”
Read more …

College Costs Rising Faster Than Financial Aid, Report Says

The Washington Post

“Colleges are putting the brakes on hefty price increases, but tuition and fees are still rising at a faster rate than the financial aid and family income needed to cover costs … Price increases have hovered around 3% … but net prices for a college education are rising … The positive news is that families are taking on less debt to cover the cost of higher education as the economy improves … People who earned a bachelor’s degree in 2015 left school with an average of $28,100 in debt.”
Read more …

Georgia Voters To Decide State’s Role In Struggling Schools

Education Week

“The ballot measure – known as Amendment 1 – has generated heated debate and created strange political bedfellows, with teachers’ unions, the state’s school boards’ association, the Georgia PTA, and some conservative Republicans lining up against the measure. On the other side is GOP Gov. Nathan Deal … the state chamber of commerce, some Democrats, and supporters of charters and school choice … The pro-amendment side has raised $1.2 million toward that effort with contributions from Georgia Leads, a Deal-backed group, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, and 50CAN, an education advocacy group. On the other side, the National Education Association was expected to spend $1.5 million opposing the measure … A poll this month showing that most likely voters are leaning against supporting the measure.
Read more …

The Privatization Of Public Education Is Failing Our Kids

The Progressive

Wisconsin US House Representative Mark Pocan writes, “Wisconsin now has more than 32,000 students statewide enrolled in its voucher plan, even though approximately three-quarters of the new students receiving that public money were already attending private schools. Now they are just doing so on the taxpayer’s dime. States across the country are draining funds from public schools that educate the vast majority of our children and diverting it to a few students in private schools … Public schools are rightly required to educate all our children. Yet many voucher schools … are able to cherry-pick which students they prefer. They could refuse to take in a child who might cost more to educate, such as a child with disabilities … It is unconscionable for taxpayers to continue funding two duplicative education systems, particularly when the one can cherry-pick students and ignore educational standards and dodge showing proof they are working.”
Read more …

11/3/2016 – This Election Is About School Funding, Democratic Control of Education:



 

Robert Cotto Jr. on why Relay Graduate School of Education should have been rejected - Wait What?

Robert Cotto Jr. on why Relay Graduate School of Education should have been rejected - Wait What?:

Robert Cotto Jr. on why Relay Graduate School of Education should have been rejected

The following is the testimony provided to the State Board of Education by Robert Cotto Jr. on  November 2, 2016.   The State Board of Education went on to approve the poorly designed Relay Graduate School of Education proposal, thereby undermining Connecticut’s teacher preparation programs and the value of Connecticut’s teacher certification requirements.

Robert Cotto Jr.

Dear members of the State Board of Education,

Thank you for your service and the chance speak to this morning. My name is Robert Cotto, Jr. and I am a certified teacher in Connecticut, educational researcher, and resident of the City of Hartford. Based on the evidence and my experience, I have deep concerns about the Relay program proposal. I come today to ask that you reject the Relay proposal and explore new and existing alternatives to diversifying the teacher force.

Relay is an inferior teacher training program compared to existing university-based and alternative teacher certification programs. As a certified teacher, I can remember the hours of fieldwork, lesson planning, student-teaching, and reflection with mentor teachers and university professors that had decades of K-12 experience. This experience in MA allowed me to earn my CT teacher certification. Relay deviates wildly from the structure and guidance required of other programs in CT that educate and certify new teachers. Created by the charter school industry and venture capitalists, Relay places its students into classrooms before extensive preparation, provides online modules in place of coursework, and assigns a teacher partner to supplement this “on-the-job” training. Relay Robert Cotto Jr. on why Relay Graduate School of Education should have been rejected - Wait What?:

Kandice Sumnet on How America's Schools Keep Kids in Poverty - Education Law Prof Blog

Education Law Prof Blog:

Kandice Sumnet on How America's Schools Keep Kids in Poverty

Kandice Sumner, a public school teacher, breaks down racial and socio-economic inequality in our public schools in this straightforward and experiential-based Ted Talk.  The webpage offers this introductory summary:

Why should a good education be exclusive to rich kids? Schools in low-income neighborhoods across the US, specifically in communities of color, lack resources that are standard at wealthier schools — things like musical instruments, new books, healthy school lunches and soccer fields — and this has a real impact on the potential of students. Kandice Sumner sees the disparity every day in her classroom in Boston. In this inspiring talk, she asks us to face facts — and change them.

One of the more interesting themes of her talk is the argument that our education system has never been designed to offer equal or quality opportunities to communities of color and that when it does occur it is random or potentially a result of private philanthropy rather than the education system itself.  In one snippet of the conversation, she offered:

If we really, as a country, believe that education is the "great equalizer," then it should be just that: equal and equitable. Until then, there's no democracy in our democratic education.

On a mezzo level: historically speaking, the education of the black and brown child has always depended on the philanthropy of others. And unfortunately, today it still does. If your son or daughter or niece or nephew or neighbor or little Timmy down the street goes to an affluent school, challenge your school committee to adopt an impoverished school or an impoverished classroom. Close the divide by engaging in communicationand relationships that matter. When resources are shared, they're not divided; they're multiplied.

You can watch her talk here. Education Law Prof Blog:

Are We Becoming More Tolerant? Watch the Fate of California Prop. 58 in Next Week’s Election | janresseger

Are We Becoming More Tolerant? Watch the Fate of California Prop. 58 in Next Week’s Election | janresseger:

Are We Becoming More Tolerant? Watch the Fate of California Prop. 58 in Next Week’s Election

Anthropological linguistics fascinates me.  How is it that the Uralic languages of northern Siberia are related to Finnish and Hungarian?  And what about these Altaic language cousins—Turkish, Korean and Japanese?  There is also the mystery of the ancient records, preserved in the dry climate of the Taklamakan Desert in western China, of an Indo-European people who brought their Tocharian language all that distance 5,000 years ago. When people emigrate, they bring along their primary language.

Of course people who emigrate also learn the language of the dominant culture of the place they move to.  Knowledge of language is not a zero-sum-game, in which one must give up one language to learn another. Most cultures accept and even value bilingualism. In the United States, however, as part of a belief in American exceptionalism, some people think immigrants ought to give up their native languages immediately as a way to declare they are loyal Americans.

One of those believers in English-only is Ron Unz, the Silicon Valley software developer who bankrolled California Proposition 227, a ballot initiative passed by voters in 1998 to ban bilingual education and prescribe that immigrant children must be immersed in all-English classes from the day they enter school. Last evening the PBS NewsHour (in partnership with Education Week) broadcast a feature story about the new Proposition 58 , that would roll back some of Prop. 227’s stringent restrictions on language instruction in California’s schools.

Corey Mitchell, in Education Week, describes California’s rethinking its English-only mandate: “Nearly 20 years after voting to restrict bilingual education in a state with more than 1 million schoolchildren who don’t speak English as their first language, California voters appear poised to reverse that ban… (V)oters will decide the fate of a statewide ballot question that would bring an end to the restrictions of Proposition 227 and close out California’s official era of English-only instruction.”  Under Proposition 58, school districts themselves would decide how to provide instruction for immigrant children, “and provide any program, including the existing English-only classes, that enough families request.”

Mitchell suggests that attitudes are changing: “Enthusiasm and demand for students who can read, write, and speak in more than one language have spiked in California and elsewhere. California is also the birthplace of the seal of biliteracy, a national movement to recognize and honor high school graduates who demonstrate fluency in two or more languages. Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia now offer biliteracy seals… Besides California, only Arizona and Massachusetts have English-only mandates.”

Research documents that students who learn to read in their primary language and then Are We Becoming More Tolerant? Watch the Fate of California Prop. 58 in Next Week’s Election | janresseger: