Just TRY to Catch Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

Just TRY to Catch Diane Ravitch's blog

A site to discuss better education for all

GAO Report: U.S. Schools Are Resegregating, Kentucky About to Abandon Successful Program

by dianeravitch / 36min

This article was written a year ago, but there is no doubt that the trend lines towards resegregation are only getting worse. Just this week, we learned that the Republican legislature in Kentucky is about to eliminate one of the nation’s most successful programs of school desegregation. Last May, on the anniversary of the Brown decision, Emma Brown of the Washington Post wrote that public school

Alabama Has Its Own Tax Credit Program, Run by Floridians!

9by dianeravitch / 1h

Yesterday I ran a post about Florida’s tax credit program, which accepts contributions from corporations for vouchers; the corporations get tax credits. The Florida program has raised over $1 billion to provide vouchers for religious and private schools. This is money that the state did not spend on public schools. Call it a rightwing “starve the beast” strategy. Alabama has a similar program, ca

What Reformers Don’t Understand: “The Process of Little Things”

11by dianeravitch / 2h

Reformers have grand ideas for shaking up the system. Blowing it up. Changing everything. Blowing up teacher education. Imposing national standards overnight. Turning schools into teacher-proof institutions. Teaching children the habits of highly effective scholars (age 7). But, writes David Greene and Bernie Heller, teachers understand that real change is not in the Big Things. Real change happe

Kevin Carey Explains How Tax Credit Vouchers Enrich Their Sponsors

10by dianeravitch / 2h

Kevin Carey is doing a great job exposing the failure of vouchers to help the children who are allegedly supposed to be saved by them. In his latest article in the New York Times, he shows how slick politicians and entrepreneurs are cashing in to enrich themselves while administering tax credit programs. Trump and DeVos are likely to promote school choice through tax credits since it is the faste

Ohio: A Teacher Rebukes Governor Kasich: We Know What We Are Doing, Do You?

22by dianeravitch / 3h

Julie Rine, a teacher in Ohio, wrote a public letter to Governor John Kasich, rebuking him for his insulting proposal to require teachers to spend a day in a business to learn about how to prepare students. “Your proposal in the budget to require teachers to complete an “on-site work experience” with a local business as a condition of renewing our teaching licenses is baffling. Even the state leg

Los Angeles: Final Results of the Voting

12by dianeravitch / 4h

Final results are in for the LAUSD school board election , where the billionaires outspent everyone else in their attempt to grab control of the district and put at least half of the students into charter schools: Monica Garcia, chief charter cheerleader, defender of John Deasy and enabler of the $1 Billion iPad debacle, defeated Lisa Alva and Carl Petersen, with 57% of the vote. A big loss for p

Charter Advocates Slip Legislation Through Without Notice in Arkansas

20by dianeravitch / 4h

The Trump-DeVos privatization agenda is moving fast in the Deep South, where some people long for the good old days of segregated schools. In Arkansas, charter advocates said there would be no action on a bill to turn public facilities over to charters, then introduced the bill with no opponents present, and passed it without debate. Word is that the same legislation was introduced in Missouri, t

YESTERDAY

Mike Klonsky: How Chicago Preserves Inequality

11by dianeravitch / 14h

Mike Klonsky points out that the policies of Trump and DeVos will cement the segregation and inequality that is now baked into the two-tier system in Chicago. “Modern school reform has become nearly synonymous with racial re-segregation and two-tier education. There’s one tier for the elite and one big tier for the rest of us. Sociologists call it social-reproduction, wherein school systems becom

DeVos’ Official Who Shakes His Wife Resigns

29by dianeravitch / 18h

The leader of Betsy DeVos’ Great Lakes Education Project resigned after testifying that he wanted to “shake” a public official like he shakes his wife. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/03/07/head-of-devos-founded-group-resigns-after-he-said-he-wanted-to-shake-an-official-like-i-like-to-shake-my-wife/

Young Catholic School Teachers Speak Out Against Trump Using Catholic School and Students as Props for His Agenda

41by dianeravitch / 21h

When I visited Notre Dame a few years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting with a class of students preparing to become teachers in a program called ACE (Alliance for Catholic Education). ACE is considered the Catholic version of TFA, but it is far more serious and demanding than TFA. It is not a stepping stone to a job in finance, but a commitment to teach in difficult circumstances at low pay on

Mercedes Schneider: Why Did Trump Move HBCU Funding from US Ed to White House?

20by dianeravitch / 22h

Mercedes Schneider writes that someone at the White House transferred the funding and oversight of the nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities from the U.S. Department of Education to the White House. When I first read this, I laughed out loud. First, because this happened the day after Betsy DeV pointed to HBCUs as a wonderful example of “choice,” when they were in fact created bec

SomeDAM Poet: Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

6by dianeravitch / 1d

The Good Old Days Don’t you miss the good old days? The days of school deforming ways? When Arne ruled with iron hand With Common Core and test and VAM? And Cuomo plotted night and day The way to make the schools obey? And Rhee was riding on her broom And closing schools and spreading doom? And charter schools in neighborhoods Were popping up like shrooms in woods And billionaires were here and t

Russ Walsh: Vouchers Are for the Rich, the Racists, and the Religious Right

23by dianeravitch / 1d

Russ Walsh, literacy expert, describes the Three are of vouchers: They are for the Rich, the Racists, and the Religious Right. http://russonreading.blogspot.com/2017/03/school-vouchers-welfare-for-rich-racist.html Russ writes: “Our new Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, is rich, white, and a proselytizing supporter of the Christian religious right. DeVos is also an outspoken champion of school

Red Queen in LA: Why Can’t Public Schools and Charter Schools Get Along?

11by dianeravitch / 1d

Sara Roos, aka the Red Queen in LA, explains here why public schools and charter schools are bound to clash. To begin with, they are competing for a finite amount of public dollars and a finite number of students. It is a zero-sum competition. To make matters worse, the needs of both entities is not reciprocal, nor is the distribution of these commodities without impact on the other entity. That

The Florida Corporate Tax Credit Program: A Statewide Scam

29by dianeravitch / 1d

A nonprofit parent-led group called Fund Education Now created a fact sheet about Florida’s Corporate Tax Credit plan , which was designed to evade the state constitution’s explicit ban on using public money to fund religious or private education. In 2006, as governor, Jeb Bush pushed through a universal voucher plan, which was subsequently ruled unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court. In

Paul Thomas: Unpacking the Lies Behind the “Failing Schools” Narrative

50by dianeravitch / 1d

Paul Thomas of Furman University taught high school in rural South Carolina for 18 years before becoming a college professor. He happens to be one of the nation’s leading authorities on the effects of poverty on children and schooling. Recently, he has been writing about the flaws of education journalism. In this post , he unpacks the claim that public schools are “failing,” that (some) charter s

Mother Jones: Why Did Trump and DeVos Choose Florida as Their National Model for School Reform?

21by dianeravitch / 1d

Kristina Rizga, the veteran education journalist at Mother Jones, explains why Trump and DeVos love Florida. Although the state has a constitutional ban on the use of public money for private and religious schools, although the state’s 

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

School district employees’ involvement in charter application raises questions of conflict of interest | The Lens

School district employees’ involvement in charter application raises questions of conflict of interest | The Lens:

School district employees’ involvement in charter application raises questions of conflict of interest

Four Orleans Parish School Board employees who work in the office that manages its five direct-run schools are involved in a bid by an independent nonprofit to turn them into charters, according to documents.

So is their former supervisor, who oversaw those schools for the district. She quit her job Thursday to become CEO of the new nonprofit, four days before the application deadline to take over the schools.

Their participation raises questions of conflicts of interest. Generally speaking, public employees can’t be involved in decisions in which they have an economic interest, nor can they be involved in bids for contract work with their agency. For two years following their public employment, they can’t contract with the same agency to do the same work.

Concerns over such a conflict led school district leaders to tell Nicolette London, who was the district’s chief of Local Education Agency and Network Schools, to steer clear of discussions at the central office involving charter applications.

“The public has a right to know why this is not a conflict of interest.”
—Robert Scott, Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana

That was based on a hunch she was involved in the charter bid, Chief of Staff Adam Hawf said in a February interview with The Lens. He didn’t elaborate on what led to that belief, and he said he never actually asked her about it.

Turns out he was right. London is named as the CEO in the application from a group called ExCEED Network Schools Charter Management Organization. The school district office that oversees the schools in question — the one London led — is also called ExCEED.

The application was due Monday and was released to the public on Tuesday.

The nonprofit was created in January. A week later, it submitted a letter of intent to take over the last five schools in New Orleans that are directly run by the Orleans Parish school district. The five principals of those schools have all signed on to the effort, and they would remain if the school district allows ExCEED to take over the schools.

“Conversations arose about the possibility [of being hired as CEO] but nothing was ever definite.”
—Nicolette London, now head of the ExCEED charter group

In an interview Tuesday, London said she didn’t work on the nonprofit’s application. But she said she did know in December about plans by the five principals to turn the schools into charters.

“The principals had to make me aware of what they wanted to do,” she said. “As their supervisor, I knew exactly what they were trying to accomplish.”

She continued, “Conversations arose about the possibility [of being hired as CEO] but nothing was ever definite.”

By quitting before the application was due, London may have stayed within the bounds of state ethics law. A 2006 opinion from the School district employees’ involvement in charter application raises questions of conflict of interest | The Lens:

Betsy DeVos’s Education Agenda Can Be Overturned. This City Shows How. | The Nation

Betsy DeVos’s Education Agenda Can Be Overturned. This City Shows How. | The Nation:

Betsy DeVos’s Education Agenda Can Be Overturned. This City Shows How.

What Philadelphia’s fight against market-driven school“reform” can teach us about resisting attacks on public education.

Last month, with the help of a tie-breaker vote, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos squeaked through one of the most humiliating confirmations ever for a cabinet official. In the weeks leading up to the vote, millions of Americans deluged congressional phone lines with calls and faxes urging their elected representatives not to confirm DeVos. GOP leaders may have pushed through this disgraceful nomination, but they unleashed a tsunami of citizen activism that won’t let up when it comes to the fight for our public schools.

In Philadelphia, we have learned a thing or two about beating back a top-down, anti-public school agenda. From our experiences, we’ve learned how to build a movement that will not only hold accountable people like Betsy DeVos but will also lift up a vision of vibrant public schools and restore them to the center of our civic life.

In 2002, the state of Pennsylvania took over Philadelphia’s public schools, stripping away local control, massively expanding charters, and starving existing public schools of funding and resources. Then, in 2013, thanks to a GOP-led state austerity budget that cut almost a billion dollars from public education, Philadelphia’s state-controlled school system closed down 24 public schools and lost thousands of school staff in the name of cost savings, then expanded thousands of new charter spots at nearly the same cost.

In response, Philadelphians took to the streets and organized. Parents, educators, students, and community members built coalitions among labor, clergy, business, and civic organizations. We fought against an agenda of disinvestment, consolidation, and neglect, and instead pressed forward with a commitment to establishing a baseline level of staffing and resources for every school.

Parents forged a legal strategy for ensuring adequate programs and a quality curriculum. After the massive budget cuts hit, parents filed more than 800 complaints with the state’s Department of Education about overcrowding and curriculum deficiencies and then won a court order, effectively forcing the state to investigate the problems and fix any violations of state code.

Meanwhile, years of organizing efforts by high-school students made strides towards ending zero-tolerance policies and improving school climate. A long-sought change in the student code of conduct in 2012 limited the use of suspensions and was accompanied by new, district-wide efforts to implement restorative practices. More recently, new district policies further restricted the use of suspensions with young children in response to dress-code violations.

Faced with continued austerity, we marched, took over school-board meetings, and lobbied City Council offices. And we started to win more Betsy DeVos’s Education Agenda Can Be Overturned. This City Shows How. | The Nation:

Michelle Rhee: ‘It’s going to be really hard going forward’ with school reform in the Trump era - The Washington Post

Michelle Rhee: ‘It’s going to be really hard going forward’ with school reform in the Trump era - The Washington Post:

Michelle Rhee: ‘It’s going to be really hard going forward’ with school reform in the Trump era

What does Michelle Rhee think today about the corporate school reform movement that she helped pioneer a decade ago?

Here’s a pointed interview with her, by Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider, in which she discusses some of the reforms she pushed, declares her support for protecting transgender youth in schools, and offers what she thinks is ahead for education in the era of President Trump.

Did she admit that evaluating teachers on the basis of student standardized test scores was a bad idea or that her policies hurt the teaching profession? Read on.

Rhee, for anybody who has paid no attention to education reform for the last decade, became a star reformer when she was tapped as commissioner of education in Washington in 2007, and then, after quitting in 2010, starting an advocacy group called StudentsFirst.

A Democrat, she embraced causes that at the time were more commonly associated with Republicans, such as charter schools and vouchers, and she instituted an evaluation system in traditional public schools in the District that depended largely on standardized test scores. The evaluation system included every adult in the school building, including custodians, whose job performance was also based in part — 5 percent — on standardized test scores under Rhee. She also created a merit pay system with money she secured from private philanthropists.

[D.C. custodial staff were evaluated by student test scores. Really.]

Rhee displayed her in-your-face brand of school reform early in her tenure as head of D.C. schools, posing on the cover of Time magazine in 2008 with a broom, suggesting that she was planning to do wholesale reform, including firing a lot of teachers and principals, which she in fact did, including firing employees while cameras were rolling for a public television documentary.

After quitting in 2010, when her patron, then D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, lost in a Democratic primary, she founded in 2011 StudentsFirst, which gave her a platform to promote corporate reform around the country. She stepped down from chief of StudentsFirst in 2014 and said she Michelle Rhee: ‘It’s going to be really hard going forward’ with school reform in the Trump era - The Washington Post:

Why Are Some Curriculars "Extra"? | Blue Cereal Education

Why Are Some Curriculars "Extra"? | Blue Cereal Education:

Why Are Some Curriculars "Extra"?

It’s difficult to question things we don’t realize we assume. For example, few of us ponder why we easily trust our family doctor to diagnose pretty much ANY part of our body, internal or external, except our mouth. Our mouth, it seems, is so darned complicated and unique compared to, say, our aortic valve or epidermal sheath, that only SPECIAL DIFFERENT OTHER TYPES OF DOCTORS can even LOOK at this oral outlier.

The sole exception involves gagging you with a stick while you say ‘aaahhhh’ – a breach of etiquette required to view your throat (which doesn’t even count).

We don’t really think to question it. That’s just how it is, was, and always shall be. Except it’s not. It hasn’t been THAT long since your local barber would be as likely to pull your troublesome tooth as trim your sideburns. It was all above-the-shoulders care – why limit yourself?

School is rife with these sorts of assumptions. We simply MUST shuffle students from boxed area to boxed area in slightly-under-an-hour increments. We have roughly the same number of kids in each class, one subject per teacher, and at some point papers of various kinds must be placed in baskets to “grade.” Eventually, all experiences must reduce to a number between 1 – 100 and one of five letters, none of which can be ‘E’ because that’s stupid and wouldn’t tell us anything - unlike, say, ‘C’. 

It’s really rather bizarre.

But these things are at least being discussed, and challenged. The sense that we’re missing something isn’t new, but the subject does seem to be heating up lately, thanks to a variety of issues – Common Core, Race to the Top, No Child Left Behind, anything involving Bill Gates, Jeb Bush, Arne Duncan, or Michelle Rhee. If those don’t get your panties in a wad, I could add TFA, charters, vouchers, or Virtual Embezzlement… those oughta do it.

The ease of utilizing blogs and social media probably hasn’t hurt. Teachers can rant and Why Are Some Curriculars "Extra"? | Blue Cereal Education:

CURMUDGUCATION: 8 Reasons To Opt Out

CURMUDGUCATION: 8 Reasons To Opt Out:

8 Reasons To Opt Out

Depending on your state, it is that time again-- time to waste students' school time on the Big Standardized Test. Whether it's the PARCC or the SBA or whatever mutant offspring of the testing industry that your state prefers, it's headed your way like a hungry wildebeast.

Maybe you have opted your child out in the past. Maybe you've thought about it, but ultimately decided not to. Maybe you've even become comfortably numb about test-driven education. Consider opting out this year.

If you want to read more, wider, deeper perspectives on the movement, click on over to United Opt Out. If you want to find out the specific mechanics of opting out in your state, just google "opt out" and your state. For instance, if I look for "opt out Pennsylvania," I find the basic instructions for the steps I must take to opt my children out of testing (since my children are currently Negative 3 Months old, it won't be an issue this year, but I like to be prepared).

If you opt out, you may will get grief and pushback for your choice. Here's why you should do it anyway.

1) No Benefits for Children or Parents

Your child is not allowed to discuss specifics of the test with anyone, so there will be no after-test conversation that would help her glean lessons through reflection. Your child will not get any specific feedback telling her which answers she got right, and which she got wrong. You will not get any feedback on the test except a single blanket score between 4 (super-duper) and 1 (not so great). Once this test is done, you will not know anything about your child that you did not already know.

2) No Benefits for Teachers

In most states, we are not even allowed to lay eyes on the test, and we will receive a single score for your child. All of this is useless. We will learn nothing about your child, and nothing about your child's class (except how well they did on this test). If an administrator or a teacher tells you that the test results will give them valuable information about your child, ask them why they have noCURMUDGUCATION: 8 Reasons To Opt Out: