Betsy DeVos: I Will Replace The Failed Ideas Of Bush-Obama With My Own Failed Ideas | The Huffington Post

Betsy DeVos: I Will Replace The Failed Ideas Of Bush-Obama With My Own Failed Ideas | The Huffington Post:

Betsy DeVos: I Will Replace The Failed Ideas Of Bush-Obama With My Own Failed Ideas
DeVos does not have a single innovative idea. It is the same old retreads of the privatization movement.

Betsy DeVos gave a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), explaining that the programs created by George W. Bush and Barack Obama had failed, and she would replace them with her own ideas. She did not point out that her own ideas have failed too. Just look at the mess she has made of Michigan, where the state’s rankings on the federal test (NAEP) have plummeted, and where Detroit is a mess thanks to the miasma of school choice.

Washington Post:

DeVos argued Thursday that education is failing too many students, pointing to “flatlined” test scores (presumably on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also called the Nation’s Report Card) and more than 1.3 million youth who drop out of school each year. The Obama administration’s $7 billion investment in overhauling the worst schools, called the School Improvement Grant program, didn’t work, DeVos said, making reference to a study by the administration that found no increase in test scores or graduation rates at schools that got the money.

“They tested their model, and it failed miserably,” she said. She emphasized that she was not indicting teachers.

She has said that she wants to return as much authority over education as possible to states and districts, and intends to identify programs and initiatives to cut at the Education Department. She has also made clear that she intends to use her platform to expand alternatives to public schools, including charter schools, online schools and private schools that students attend with the help of public funds.

“We have a unique window of opportunity to make school choice a reality for millions of families,” she said. “Both the president and I believe that providing an equal opportunity for a quality education is an imperative that all students deserve.”

Her own model of vouchers has not a single success to its name: evaluations of voucher programs in Milwaukee, Cleveland, the District of Columbia, Louisiana, and Indiana have found no gains for the students enrolled in voucher schools. Parents are happier, but that’s not a good reason to destroy public schools.

The overwhelming majority of charter studies have found that charters perform no better than public schools unless they exclude children with disabilities, English language learners, and behavior problems. When the charters kick them out, they go back to the public school, which must take them.

Cybercharters have been proven to be disastrous failures in every state. In Tennessee, the Betsy DeVos: I Will Replace The Failed Ideas Of Bush-Obama With My Own Failed Ideas | The Huffington Post:

Please Help Educate Betsy DeVos! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Please Help Educate Betsy DeVos! | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Please Help Educate Betsy DeVos!

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos repeats the hackneyed and erroneous claims that American public schools are failing.

She says the Obama ideas (testing, charters, and accountability) have failed, so she wants to impose her own ideas, which sound no diffferent from the failed ideas of the status quo.

American schools could use some support, not another four years of carping and disruption.

I explained in my book “Reign of Error” that the “Failing Schools” narrative is a hoax.

As of 2013, test scores on the federal tests called NAEP were the highest in 40 years of testing. For whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians.

The graduation rate was the highest in history, for all groups.

The dropout rate was the lowest ever recorded.

Scores on NAEP went flat from 2013-2015, possibly because of Common Core or because the test-and-punish approach had gone about as far as it could go. The flatline showed the failure of the NCLB-RTTT policies, not the schools.

We have the greatest economy in the world and the most productive workforce. Our public schools built our economy. Stop bashing our public schools, our teachers, and our students!

Please tweet @betsydevos and urge her to read “Reign of Error” or send her a copy.

I will send her an autographed copy.Please Help Educate Betsy DeVos! | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Kevin Carey: Researchers “Surprised” by “Dismal Results” from Vouchers

5by dianeravitch / 1h

Kevin Carey is the director of education research at the New America Foundation in D.C., a think tank funded by tech magnates. He writes in the New York Times that researchers are reacting with surprise at the “dismal results” from vouchers. I am not sure why this is news, because vouchers have been tried out since 1990 in Milwaukee and elsewhere and have been subject to numerous evaluations, alm

Tennessee: Legislators Propose Vouchers for Shelby County, One of Nation’s Most Fiscally Distressed Districts

6by dianeravitch / 2h

A bill was filed in the Tennessee legislature to establish vouchers for students in Shelby County. It would divert $18 million from the district, which is already one of the most fiscally disadvantaged districts in the nation. The voucher program would deepen the fiscal distress of the district. With the amount of the vouchers, students would not be accepted at first-rate private schools but at l

Education Law Center: America’s Most Fiscally Disadvantaged School Districts

19by dianeravitch / 3h

The Education Law Center lists the most fiscally distressed districts in the nation. You will note that one of them is Shelby County, Tennessee, where the Gates Foundation and Stand for Children expended a great deal of effort to introduce charters and district consolidation as a mini-bandaid to the district’s financial problems. The Gates Foundation paid to bring in the Boston Consulting Group t

YESTERDAY

Westfield/Springfield/Agawam/Holyoke, Massachusetts: Do You Want a Gulen Turkish Charter to Compete with Your Public Schools?

16by dianeravitch / 14h

A public school activist in Massachusetts sent this letter from Robert Amsterdam, an attorney retained by the Government of Turkey to investigate the large charter chain run by Fetullah Gulen. Gulen is an Islamic cleric who lives in seclusion in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. He has some vague connection with some 170 or so charter schools that are paid for with public funds but staffed an

DeVos to Conservative Conference: I Will Replace the Bush-Obama Failed Ideas with My Own Failed Ideas

500+by dianeravitch / 19h

Betsy DeVos gave a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), explaining that the programs created by George W. Bush and Barack Obama had failed, and she would replace them with her own ideas . She did not point out that her own ideas have failed too. Just look at the mess she has made of Michigan, where the state’s rankings on the federal test (NAEP) have plummeted, and where

DeVos Family Fight Over Transgender Students?

10by dianeravitch / 22h

According to the media (which the president assures us is lying, corrupt, dishonest, and “the enemy of the American people”), Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos objected to the president’s decision to remove federal protection for transgender students. She expressed concern for the harm that might occur to the students, but was overruled by the president and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. https:

Mercedes Schneider: When Tenure Is Abolished, Teachers Leave

6by dianeravitch / 23h

Mercedes Schneider reviews a new report from the Education Research Alliance in New Orleans. The bottom line: When Louisiana eliminated tenure, teacher turnover increased. https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2017/02/22/louisiana-research-when-tenure-ends-teachers-leave/ This shouldn’t be surprising. Removing job security encourages attrition. Other research has shown that instability and teacher chur

Lindsay Wagner: North Carolina Is Already a DeVos World in Education

33by dianeravitch / 1d

Veteran education journalist Lindsay Wagner writes that anyone who wants to know what Betsy DeVos will do to schools need look no further than North Carolina. It has already happened there. North Carolina was taken over by the Tea Party in 2010 and has gone on a rampage to privatize education and defund public schools. The legislature wiped out its very successful investment in teacher preparatio

Mike Klonsky: Why Florida Will be the Model For Betsy DeVos: She Owns It

13by dianeravitch / 1d

Mike Klonsky reviews Betsy DeVos’ long and fruitful relationship with pro-privatization politicians in Florida. She served on Jeb Bush’s board. She has contributed to pro-school choice candidates. Florida is ideal, from her point of view, because of the free hand given to for-profit charter operators. Of course, it would be Florida that provides the model for the nation: Florida’s charter schools

Hello, Betsy DeVos! Watch This Video!

31by dianeravitch / 1d

Ms. DeVos: The state of Michigan, as you know, plans to close 38 schools, most of them in Detroit. Please watch this powerful documentary about school closings in Detroit, how they disproportionately affect black children, how they disproportionately affect children with special needs. Detroit is littered with closed schools. Don’t you realize that closing schools destroys communities and disrupt

Helen Ladd: The Failure of No Child Left Behind

26by dianeravitch / 1d

Professor Helen Ladd is one of the nation’s most distinguished economists of education; she holds a chair at Duke University. In this article , she reviews the federal program No Child Left Behind. The first conclusion one could draw was 

Please Help Educate Betsy DeVos! | Diane Ravitch's blog:

California education officials reject Long Beach’s request to replace statewide assessment with SAT | EdSource

California education officials reject Long Beach’s request to replace statewide assessment with SAT | EdSource:

California education officials reject Long Beach's request to replace statewide assessment with SAT

A Half-dozen states are planning to swap their 11th-grade statewide assessment tests for the SAT this spring. Long Beach Unified wanted to join them, but California’s state superintendent and State Board of Education president emphatically said no.

In a lengthy letter last month, the superintendent of California’s third-largest district asked the State Board of Education for permission to substitute the SAT for the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium exam in math and English language arts, which the state requires all districts to give. Long Beach currently administers both tests, which it says is pointlessly duplicative.

“Our high school students and parents see far greater value in the SAT than (Smarter Balanced) because the SAT is the main assessment affecting college admission,” Superintendent Christopher Steinhauser wrote in arguing for a waiver from state law requiring all students be given the Smarter Balanced test.

Along with administering Smarter Balanced, 22 districts in California currently give the SAT to all 11th-graders as part of their effort to encourage more students to apply to a four-year college, and that number is expected to increase to 32 next year, according to the College Board, which administers the SAT. Long Beach was the only district so far to ask to give the SAT exclusively.California education officials reject Long Beach’s request to replace statewide assessment with SAT | EdSource:

California legislators reassure transgender students of protections, denounce Trump | EdSource

California legislators reassure transgender students of protections, denounce Trump | EdSource:

California legislators reassure transgender students of protections, denounce Trump

ay after the Trump administration rescinded federal protections that allowed transgender children and youth to use the school bathroom of their choice, members of the California Legislative LGBT Caucus on Thursday told those students that they are legally protected and welcome to be themselves in California schools.

“It wasn’t enough for this administration to bully and pick on immigrants, Muslims and women,” state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said at a news briefing in Sacramento. “Our president is now bullying, picking on and attacking some of the most marginalized members of our community – children, transgender children.”

Transgender students in California have the right under state law to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity, a term referring to a person’s internal sense of who they are, which may or may not align with their physical features. About 150,000 young people in the United States ages 13 to 17, or 0.7 percent of children in that age group, identify as transgender, according to a study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

In 2016, the Obama administration issued guidance to schools to ensure that transgender students are in a safe environment, including allowing transgender students – whose gender identity is different from their sex at birth – to dress, participate in sports, use bathrooms and locker rooms, and use pronouns according to their gender identity. The Obama administration said that under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, schools receiving federal money may not discriminate based on a student’s sex, including a student’s transgender status.

But 23 states disagreed with that Title IX interpretation and have filed a collection of lawsuits, arguing that the guidance amounted to federal overreach and violates the privacy rights of students who share bathrooms with transgender students. A federal judge in Texas placed a hold on the Obama guidance last year as a multistate California legislators reassure transgender students of protections, denounce Trump | EdSource:

 

Big Education Ape: State Law Protects Transgender Students’ Rights - Year 2017 (CA Dept of Education) - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2017/02/state-law-protects-transgender-students.html

School Funding Fairness

School Funding Fairness:

School Funding Fairness

New edition of "Is School Funding Fair? A National Report Card" just released.

The ability of state school finance systems to fairly deliver resources to students is an essential precondition for the delivery of high quality education. States must provide a sufficient level of funding that is fairly distributed to address the additional needs generated by poverty, English language learner status, student disabilities, and other special needs. Schools educating students with these needs require additional funding to support the programs and services that will provide all students with the opportunity to succeed. 

Rigorous school finance research is needed to provide convincing evidence that fair school funding is the central building block of an effective school system. Such research needs to clearly establish the relationship between state funding systems, the equitable distribution of school resources, and student outcomes.

In recognition of this need, researchers at Rutgers Graduate School of Education and Education Law Center created the “Is School Funding Fair?” project to:

• provide tools for advocates and policymakers to effectively communicate rigorous research to
  influence positive changes in state school finance policy;
• provide researchers with open access to the datasets that are the foundation of the school finance research on this site and encourage further exploration;
• build consensus on the methods for evaluating and comparing state school finance systems and the resulting inequalities in resources and outcomes

On this website you can find: the award-winning report, “Is School Funding Fair? A National Report Card” and all related materials, such as interactive reports, press releases, and media mentions; related publications on school finance equity; and open access to compiled data sets and code for further analysis.

School Funding Fairness:

Breaking News - Bridgeport, Danbury, New Britain and Waterbury among most financially strapped school districts in the nation - Wait What?

Breaking News - Bridgeport, Danbury, New Britain and Waterbury among most financially strapped school districts in the nation - Wait What?:

Breaking News – Bridgeport, Danbury, New Britain and Waterbury among most financially strapped school districts in the nation

 In a stunning and disturbing new report highlighting the political malfeasance of elected and appointed leadership across the country, the Education Law Center has identified 47 school districts in 20 states that rank as America’s Most Fiscally Disadvantaged School Districts.

The report identifies Bridgeport, Danbury, New Britain and Waterbury as among the most financially strapped school districts in the nation.  Children in these districts are attending schools that are under severe fiscal distress.

While Connecticut ranks as among the wealthiest states in the nation, Connecticut’s failed school funding system leaves many communities without the financial resources they need to ensure that all of the state’s children have access to high quality educational opportunities.

The new report identifies school districts with higher than average student need and lower than average funding.

The Education Law Center explains;

This mix of fiscally disadvantaged school districts arrayed across the country underscore the absence of a coherent and fair approach to financing state public education systems. Many districts – especially urban, inner suburban and rural, serving very high-need student populations – continue to struggle from a lack of sufficient funding, which makes it impossible to provide all students with the opportunity for a high quality education. This does not happen by accident.

Many state school finance systems are not designed based on the actual costs of purchasing the teachers, support staff and other resources to deliver rigorous education standards, 

Breaking News - Bridgeport, Danbury, New Britain and Waterbury among most financially strapped school districts in the nation - Wait What?: