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

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

Reign of  Diane Ravitch's blog

A site to discuss better education for all

Betsy DeVos Would Not Deny Federal Funding to a School That Refuses to Admit Child of LGBT Family

1by dianeravitch / 15min

At her Congressional hearing, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was asked directly if she would deny federal funding to the Lighthouse Christian zacademy in Bloomington, Indiana, which explicitly bans the enrollment ipof students who are homosexual or who live in a family where homosexual activity is practiced. “Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Massachusetts, cited Lighthouse Christian Academy’s enrollme

New Orleans: Charter School Principal Filmed in Nazi Regalia

3by dianeravitch / 1h

The principal of the Crescent Leadership Academy, a charter school in New Orleans, was fired after he was filmed wearing Nazi rings and participating in a “white genocide” tape. The students in the school are almost all African-

Saddest Statistic of the Year: Minority Students Clustered in High-Poverty Schools

6by dianeravitch / 50min

Politico Morning Education reports that the U.S. Department of Education f inds that an extraordinary proportion of black and Hispanic students are enrolled in high-poverty schools. The combination of racial segregation and poverty is a 

Jeff Bryant: DeVos’s “Transformation”=Public Theft

by dianeravitch / 1min

Jeff Bryant has read Betsy DeVos’s speeches slamming public schools and extolling the virtues of public subsidy for private and religious schools. She carefully selects an anecdote to make her case. But she is late to the party. There is now persuasive evidence that students in voucher schools get worse results than their peers in public schools. In addition, many of those who use vouchers are st

D.C. Teacher: “We Are Graduating Students We Have Failed to Educate”

4by dianeravitch / 1h

Rob Barnett teaches mathematics in a D.C. public high school. He is faced every year with a dilemma. Does he pass or fail the student who is not ready, who has not mastered the course? He notes that D.C.’s graduation rate has soared, yet its NAEP scores are virtually unchanged since 2005. Its PARCC scores are even worse. NCLB and Race to the Top pressured teachers like him to get the graduation r

Slate: Online Credit Recovery Is Scamming Graduation Rates

7by dianeravitch / 2h

Arne Duncan used to boast about the rising high school graduation rate, but he never talked about one cause of the increase: online credit recovery. Slate has run a multi-part series on the online credit recovery racket. Imagine a student failing a one-year course, then earning full credit in less than one week. It has its benefits: superintendents get praised for the steady increase in the gradu

John Kuhn: The Hypocrisy of the Texas State Senate, Protector of Inequity Towards Neediest Children and Schools

16by dianeravitch / 3h

John Kuhn is superintendent of a school district in Texas. He is one of the nation’s most eloquent spokesmen for children and public schools. He first came to national attention when he spoke at the Save Our Schools March in Washington, D.C. In 2011. He describes the recent legislative session, where an effort was made to improve school funding, but the Semate leaders knowingly sabotaged it. He w

Jack Covey: The Return of Jim Crow?

30by dianeravitch / 4h

Reader Jack Covey watched Betsy DeVos testify at a Congressional hearing and was startled by what he saw and heard: “What’s scary is Secretary Devos’ tacit claim that, when it comes to schools that receive government funding — charter schools, voucher-funded private schools, etc. — the U.S. Department of Ed.: “— HAS NO RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT STUDENTS FROM DISCRIMINATION — based on race, ethnic

YESTERDAY

Wisconsin Congressman Tries but Fails to Get DeVos to Acknowledge Failure of Vouchers in Milwaukee

14by dianeravitch / 21h

Betsy DeVos appeared at her second Congressional hearing to defend the Department’s budget priorities. At her first hearing, she said that schools might need guns to protect against grizzlies. What she demonstrated was her masterful ability to evade and obfuscate questions, never giving a direct answer to inconvenient questions. Congressman Mark Pocan of Wisconsin tried to get her to respond to t

Official in Charge of Federal Student Loan Program Resigns, Unwilling to Defend DeVos’ Policies and Mismanagement

33by dianeravitch / 22h

James Runcie, the head of the agency in charge of federal student loans at the U.S. Department of Education, resigned in protest when he was directed to testify in support of Betsy DeVos’ policies before Congress. DeVos has been shifting the Department’s policies to favor debt collection agencies, not students.

Utah: Betsy’s Pal Excited by Her Push for Vouchers

3by dianeravitch / 23h

One of the wealthiest people in Utah is Patrick Byrne, who founded Overstock.com. He is a friend of Betsy DeVos and shares her passion for vouchers. Now, he says, the time is right because she’s in charge. https://www.apnews.com/aaca1fc28be4418e8493b46178c3c60b/Trump,-DeVos-embolden-supporters-of-Utah-school-vouchers Byrne funded support for vouchers in a state referendum in 2007, but it was trou

Who is Behind the Assault on Public Education?

55by dianeravitch / 1d

Howard Ryan, writing in Monthly Review, analyzes the sources of support for corporate reform and privatization. Ryan writes: Over the past three decades, public schools have been the target of a systematic assault and takeover by corporations and private foundations. The endeavor is called “school reform” by its advocates, while critics call it corporate school reform. Finnish educator Pasi Sahlb

Minnesota: Governor Dayton Blocks Reformers’ Efforts to Grant Licenses to Uncertified Teachers

12by dianeravitch / 1d

Governor Mark Dayton of Minnesota has become a hero of public education. Despite the pleas of the entire corporate reform movement in Minnesota, Dayton vetoed a bill that would have created a pathway into teaching for uncertified teachers, legislation needed to maintain a teaching force for charter schools. http://www.brightlightsmallcity.com/minnesota-governor-disrupts-right-wing-education-refor

Jeb Bush Blasts Teachers’ Unions at School Choice Meeting in Indianapolis

23by dianeravitch / 1d

Jeb Bush was honored by Betsy DeVos’ organization, the American Federation for Children, at their meeting in Indianapolis. Bush’s Foundation for Educational Ecellence is heavily funded by the technology and Bush loves to attack the schools that don’t adopt technology faster. On this occasion, he blamed teachers’ unions for standing in the way of the electronic future. He says they care only for a

New Jersey: Democrats Enable Christie to Quash Dissent on the State Board of Education

100+by dianeravitch / 1d

Darcie Cimarusti, a school board member in New Jersey, reports with disgust that Democratic legislators are helping outgoing Governor Chris Chr

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

Let's Make History by Ann Cronin - Wait What?

Let's Make History by Ann Cronin - Wait What?:

Let’s Make History by Ann Cronin

Efforts to improve K-12 education over the past 30 years have produced a bipartisan mess. In the excerpt below, Diane Ravitch describes how Democrats have contributed in substantive ways to that mess.

“Listening to their cries of outrage, one might imagine that Democrats were America’s undisputed champions of public education. But the resistance to DeVos obscured an inconvenient truth: Democrats have been promoting a conservative “school reform” agenda for the past three decades. Some did it because they fell for the myths of “accountability” and “choice” as magic bullets for better schools. Some did it because “choice” has centrist appeal. Others sold out public schools for campaign contributions from the charter industry and its Wall Street patrons. Whatever the motivations, the upshot is clear: The Democratic Part lost its way on public education. In a very real sense, Democrats paved the way for DeVos and her plans to privatize the school system.

Thirty years ago, there was a sharp difference between Republicans and Democrats on education. Republicans wanted choice, testing, and accountability. Democrats wanted equitable funding for needy districts, and highly trained teachers. But in 1989, with Democrats reeling from three straight presidential losses, the lines began to blur. That year, when President George H.W. Bush convened an education summit of the nation’s governors, it was a little-known Arkansas Democrat named Bill Clinton who drafted a bipartisan set of national goals for the year 2000 (“first in the world” in mathematics, for starters). The ambitious benchmarks would be realized by creating, for the first time, national achievement standards and tests. Clinton ran on the issue, defeated Bush, and passed Goals 2000, which provided grants to states that implemented their own achievement metrics.

The Democrats had dipped a toe in “school reform.” Before long, they were completely immersed. After George W. Bush made the “Texas miracle” of improved schools a launching pad for the presidency, many Democrats swallowed his bogus claim that testing students every year had produced amazing results. In 2001, Ted Kennedy, the Senate’s liberal lion, teamed with Bush to pass No Child Left Behind. For the first time, the government was mandating not only “accountability” (code for punishing teachers and schools who fall short), but also “choice” (code for handing low-performing public schools over to charter operators).

When Barack Obama took office in 2009, educators hoped he would return the party to its public school roots. By then, even Bill Clinton was calling No Child Left Behind a “train wreck.” Instead, Obama and Arne Duncan Let's Make History by Ann Cronin - Wait What?:

NYC Educator: Restorative Justice? Maybe Sometimes, but Not Always

NYC Educator: Restorative Justice? Maybe Sometimes, but Not Always:

Restorative Justice? Maybe Sometimes, but Not Always

I don't oppose restorative justice. I'm for whatever works. I read with interest this piece on using it, and I suppose, particularly at an elementary school, it's best not to use punitive measures where they aren't called for. I also wonder, though, whether sometimes this is pushed at the expense of issues like suspension, which I think needs to remain an option for us.

A few weeks ago, we administered the NYSESLAT in my school. My job was monitoring the test. I'm gonna say right here that proctoring is one of my least favorite activities. To me, it's like watching paint dry. Of course, there are those little moments that spice it up.

A young man walked into the auditorium talking on a cell phone. I immediately walked up to him and told him he had to leave. His response was to repeatedly instruct me not to touch him. I found this odd because I had no intention whatsoever of doing so. I have no idea what gave him any impression otherwise.

I told the young man the auditorium was full of English Language Learners, and that they were taking a standardized test. He said, since they didn't know English, that his talking wouldn't disturb them. That was pretty clever, I though. Less clever, though, was his repeatedly calling me a moron. I followed the young man as he walked through doors and outside. I've been working in this building 20 years and never realized we had doors on that side, so I guess the young man knew the building better than I did.

I just kept walking with the young man, and talking to him. He refused to identify himself and kept reminding me that I was a moron. I had no plan but just kept talking. Luckily, one of my colleagues noticed our discussion in the auditorium. Actually, I suppose everyone did. But a few minutes after I got outside, a dean walked out, spoke the young man's name, and I instantly walked back into the building and wrote the whole thing up.

I later learned that the young man had blown past two of my colleagues outside the auditorium. Evidently they were not crazy enough to follow him. I was, and I'm glad I did. The student was suspended and I'm not losing any sleep over it. As much as I hate these tests, my kids have every right to take them in peace without undue distractions. To me it was unconscionable to show such disrespect for these kids.

Hey, if there's some method that works, if there's some circle to sit in, if they want to do whatever it's fine with me. But I really felt that not suspending that kid would have sent a message that anything goes, you can do whatever you want, and that admin would sit by and let it happen. I'm glad that mind didn't. 

I'm open to better ideas. Feel free to leave them in the comments.NYC Educator: Restorative Justice? Maybe Sometimes, but Not Always:

Kicked out of a charter school? Deal struck in Sacramento on bill spelling out your rights | 89.3 KPCC

Audio: Kicked out of a charter school? Deal struck in Sacramento on bill spelling out your rights | 89.3 KPCC:

Kicked out of a charter school? Deal struck in Sacramento on bill spelling out your rights

Parents who believe their child is being "counseled out" of a charter school in California could soon have the right to request a hearing to challenge the student's removal.


 This provision is part of a broader deal State Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Oakland) brokered between charter school lobbyists and teachers union leaders in Sacramento, potentially paving the way for state lawmakers to change state laws governing charter schools' enrollment or discipline policies this session.

The deal would amend Assembly Bill 1360, which members of the Assembly's Appropriations Committee could take up and send to the House floor at their meeting on Friday. Bonta said the legislature's lawyers are still working out the exact wording for the changes.

But if the new language meets with all sides' approval, Bonta will have sewn up a rare agreement between two rival Sacramento heavyweights: the state's largest teachers union, the California Teachers Association; and the California Charter Schools Association.

The deal is also a response to an Aug. 2016 report from the ACLU and the non-profit law firm Public Advocates which questioned whether the admissions policies at nearly one-fifth of the state's 1,200 charter schools were discriminatory.

In an interview, Bonta said the deal results in "milestone legislation protecting all students from discrimination in any publicly-funded school."

Under terms of the deal, the amended AB 1360 would strengthen or clarify several state charter school laws:

• Discipline policies. The bill would require charter schools to publish a specific list of acts for which a student could be suspended or expelled. The bill also spells out the "due process" rights of a charter school student facing discipline. Depending on the length of the student's suspension, she could be entitled to oral or written notice of the charges, the right to present alternative evidence or even a hearing overseen by a neutral arbitrator.
• 'Non-disciplinary' dismissals. Critics often allege charter schools attempt to push out students who are costly or difficult to educate, such as special education students. (Charter school advocates say the charges are often overblown.) The amended AB 1360 would outline a similar "due process" procedure for charter school students who are transferred or dis-enrolled for "non-disciplinary" reasons, giving parents up to five school days to request a hearing challenging the students' dismissal.
• Enrollment preferences. Charter schools are supposed to admit any student who applies so long as there's space. When applicants outnumber available seats, charter schools must hold random drawings to fill those seats. State law allows charter schools to set limited admissions preferences, such as for pupils who reside in the district — but current law also leaves a big grey area, saying charter schools can enact "other preferences" so long as they're not discriminatory. Under the deal, AB 1360 would officially allow two "other preferences" that have become common practice among charter schools — preferences for children of charter staff members and for siblings of current charter school students.
• Mandatory parent volunteer hours. California Department of Education officials have said parents cannot be compelled to volunteer their time or donate money to any public schools. Still, last year, the report from the ACLU and Public Advocates found more than 60 California charter schools which required parents to commit to a set number of volunteer hours as a condition for enrollment. The amended AB 1360's language would explicitly prohibit these volunteerism requirements. (By the way, half of those 60 schools have since changed their policies.)

In a joint statement with Bonta, California Teachers Association president Eric Heins wrote the union "supports amendments to AB 1360 that will stop charter schools Audio: Kicked out of a charter school? Deal struck in Sacramento on bill spelling out your rights | 89.3 KPCC