CURMUDGUCATION: TN: Market Forces Are Not Magical

CURMUDGUCATION: TN: Market Forces Are Not Magical

TN: Market Forces Are Not Magical

Shelby County is running up against two of the fallacies embedded in most charter school policy.

One is the modern charter policy lie-- the notion that you can run multiple parallel school systems with the same money that used to run one system. The other is that charter systems don't need a lot of regulation because the invisible hand of the market will take care of it all.

Shelby County Schools in Tennessee has noticed that it has problems with both of those principles.

The issue was raised back in August when the board considered nine more charter applications-- which would have brought the grand total to 63 charter schools in the county. Superintendent Dorsey Hopson put his finger on the problem:

“No surprise, we have too many schools in Memphis,” Hopson said. “If you got 12 schools in a three-mile radius… and all of them are under-enrolled, we’re not serving kids well.”

Shelby County is home to Memphis, one of the great early charter playgrounds in a state that has always ridden on the reformster train. About 14% of students in the county attend charter schools, and that's enough to leave some schools feeling a financial pinch (the overhead of maintaining a building does not go down whether you lose one student or one hundred). That's also before we count schools being run by the state in the Achievement School District (a method of state takeover of school districts with low test scores).

Nor are the schools well-distributed. Check this map and you'll see that some neighborhoods have clusters of charter schools, while other areas of the county have none at all. It's almost as if market forces do not drive charter businesses to try to serve all students, but only concentrate on the CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: TN: Market Forces Are Not Magical

John White Speaks at a San Francisco TFA Board Meeting… for the Benefit of Louisiana | deutsch29

John White Speaks at a San Francisco TFA Board Meeting… for the Benefit of Louisiana | deutsch29

John White Speaks at a San Francisco TFA Board Meeting… for the Benefit of Louisiana

According to a Louisiana ethics filing dated January 16, 2019, Louisiana state superintendent John White spoke in San Francisco, California, at a Teach for America (TFA) board meeting on January 09, 2019, and was comped by TFA for his lodging ($1,186.75) and transportation ($605.33).

The particular ethics form for the filing above has undergone a revision as of August 2018; the form it replaced used to require the signature and seal of a notary. That is no longer true.

Now, it’s only White certifying himself.

As his own agency head, White now approves his own attendance and certifies that his speaking at a TFA board meeting “is of direct benefit to the agency” (the “agency” being the Louisiana Department of Education).

Next, as the public servant for the agency, White was also able to attest that his own agency-head declaration was “true to the best of his (“public servant,” not “agency head”) knowledge” by signing as the public servant for the agency of which he is the agency head.

Of course, one might rightly wonder how, exactly, John White’s speaking at a TFA board meeting in San Francisco is of benefit to the Louisiana Department of Education.

My ready guess is that the reverse is true– that it is LDOE benefiting TFA through offering TFA contracts with LDOE and through employing TFA alumni at LDOE.

White is a TFA alum whose has never stopped championing TFA, the single org  CONTINUE READING: John White Speaks at a San Francisco TFA Board Meeting… for the Benefit of Louisiana | deutsch29

Tying Kids’ Lunch Money to Test Scores? It’s No Crueler Than High Stakes Testing | gadflyonthewallblog

Tying Kids’ Lunch Money to Test Scores? It’s No Crueler Than High Stakes Testing | gadflyonthewallblog

Tying Kids’ Lunch Money to Test Scores? It’s No Crueler Than High Stakes Testing

UPDATED

Most people agree that the best way to get kids to read isn’t by threatening to take away their lunch.

But an Arkansas state Representative is threatening to do just that – sort of.

Rep. Alan Clark, a West Memphis Republican, proposed a bill that would cut “Lunch Funding” for impoverished children in state schools where students struggle with standardized reading tests.

However, he’s not proposing we take away kids’ food.

If passed, the bill would reduce a district’s National School Lunch funding – a state mechanism that distributes extra resources to schools with high concentrations of students who qualify for free lunch programs – if student test scores don’t rise over a period of time. This would cut things like professional development and tutoring.

However, this has been confused with the federal program of the same name and CONTINUE READING: Tying Kids’ Lunch Money to Test Scores? It’s No Crueler Than High Stakes Testing | gadflyonthewallblog

TFA Celebrates New Research That Suggests That Corps Members Are Ineffective Teachers | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

TFA Celebrates New Research That Suggests That Corps Members Are Ineffective Teachers | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

TFA Celebrates New Research That Suggests That Corps Members Are Ineffective Teachers

Over the years there have been various studies comparing the ‘effectiveness’ of TFA teachers to non-TFA teachers.  Though these studies are based on the results from standardized tests that may or may not be appropriate for this purpose, the results of these papers are still interesting to look at.

Many of these studies have concluded that TFA teachers, especially, corps members who have not become alumni yet, are a little less effective at teaching reading and a little more effective at teaching math compared to non-TFA teachers with the same amount of teaching experience.  Considering all the teacher bashing allies of TFA, I always find it pretty ironic that if the average teacher in this country is supposed to be so bad and that the TFA teachers are about the same, then what does this say about the TFA teachers?  But the reformers don’t really mind that TFA teachers aren’t so good.  Most of those TFA teachers aren’t going to be in the classroom for very long anyway and some of them are going to be fast-tracked to help join in the fight to bash teachers.

The other day I noticed this tweet from TFA:

#TeachForAmerica corps members and alumni teachers have a demonstrated positive impact on student achievement, according to a new research study from @SMU's Center on Research and Evaluation. https://t.co/uFA4aR1L9F

— Teach For America (@TeachForAmerica) February 21, 2019

So I took a look at the research paper and found that when you look at the whole thing, there is actually a lot of data that suggests, according to their way of comparing teachers, that TFA corps members, particularly the ones who are in their first of second year, are actually underperforming compared to non-TFA teachers with the same amount of experience.

This diagram summarizes most of the results, though it does CONTINUE READING: TFA Celebrates New Research That Suggests That Corps Members Are Ineffective Teachers | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Oakland Teachers Strike, And West Virginia Teachers Say Trust Issues Persist | 89.3 KPCC

Oakland Teachers Strike, And West Virginia Teachers Say Trust Issues Persist | 89.3 KPCC

Oakland Teachers Strike, And West Virginia Teachers Say Trust Issues Persist

Oakland teachers are the latest to strike

Teachers in Oakland, Calif., went on strike Thursday after the Oakland teachers union rejected a last-minute proposal from the district Wednesday. Teachers in the Oakland Unified School District have been working without a contract since July 2017.

The Oakland Education Association, which represents around 3,000 educators, is seeking a 12 percent pay raise, reductions in class sizes and more nurses and counselors in schools. The district's latest offer included a 7.5 percent raise over three years, plus a retroactive 1.5 percent bonus, KQED's Matthew Green reports.

Oakland schools remained open during the first two days of the strike, staffed by non-union employees and substitute teachers.

The district is also shouldering a $30 million budget deficit.

West Virginia teacher strike kills controversial education reform bill, but teachers still have 'trust' issues

On Tuesday, teachers in West Virginia went on strike. But it only took a few hours for the state's House of Delegates to effectively kill the controversial education bill the state's teachers' unions were protesting.

Despite the legislature's action, union leaders called for the strike to continue on CONTINUE READING: Oakland Teachers Strike, And West Virginia Teachers Say Trust Issues Persist | 89.3 KPCC

“We’re Fighting a Mean-Spirited and Antidemocratic Attack on Public Education” #Unite4OaklandKids #WeAreOEA #WeAreCTA #strikeready #REDFORED

“We’re Fighting a Mean-Spirited and Antidemocratic Attack on Public Education”

“We’re Fighting a Mean-Spirited and Antidemocratic Attack on Public Education”

On the first day of the Oakland teachers’ strike, I met up with Oakland teacher and union activist Tim Marshall at the rally downtown. Marshall has been an Oakland public school teacher for twenty-two years. He sits on the organizing committee for the Oakland Education Association (OEA), the teachers union that’s fighting for a living wage, smaller class sizes, more student supports, and an end to school closures. He’s also a cluster leader, in charge of organizing union activity at a handful of school sites. And he’s a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), having joined in the big post-Bernie membership wave.

My name is Meagan Day. I’m also a DSA member, as well as a staff writer for Jacobin. I interviewed Marshall on Thursday in Oakland, to get a sense of what’s really at stake in the teachers’ fight.

Marshall and I peeled off the rally the pickets had converged into, and settled into a restaurant called Ed’s Cheesesteak. From our booth, we could hear more than five thousand teachers chanting and singing outside City Hall. Before the interview began, Marshall got a phone call from a leader at one of his school sites. “It’s a propaganda war right now,” he told the organizer on the other end. “That’s why you take attendance. We need to show that we shut it down.”

Marshall hung up and pulled up an app on his phone that showed attendance percentages at schools across the city. Many of them were in the single digits. He pointed to one, a major aberration with a thirty percent attendance rate. “This is a problem,” he said. “We’ll be sending DSA members out to this picket tomorrow morning to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

I talked with Marshall about the Oakland teachers’ fight, the role of billionaires in dismantling public education, what’s so undemocratic about charter schools, and the right of every student to an equitably funded school that reflects and responds to the community where they live.

After the interview, we walked outside to find nurses from the California Nurses Association chanting, “Without teachers, we wouldn’t be nurses!” and elementary school children chanting, “Get up, get down, Oakland is a union town!” CONTINUE READING: “We’re Fighting a Mean-Spirited and Antidemocratic Attack on Public Education”

Denver Teachers’ Strike Was a Rejection of Education ‘Reform’

Denver Teachers’ Strike Was a Rejection of Education ‘Reform’

Denver Teachers’ Strike Was a Rejection of Education ‘Reform’

A Denver Public Schools teacher pay stub from 2016 shows the complexity of teacher salaries in the district.

“I definitely drank the education reform kool-aid,” recalls Alex Nelson, a Denver teacher who, along with over 5,300 fellow teachers and school support staff, walked off the job earlier this month in a four-day strike that resulted in the teachers having most of their demands met.

Now in his sixth year at Denver Public Schools, Nelson is at Bryant-Webster Elementary where he teaches Math, Science, and Spanish to third- and fourth-grade students. “I was convinced education was failing and needed reform,” he recalls about his early years in the profession.

Back then, Denver schools were still basking in the glow of favorable national media coverage received during the leadership of superintendent, and now current U.S. Senator and expected presidential candidate, Michael Bennet. Under Bennet’s direction from 2005-2009, Denver adopted a package of policies and programs favored by bipartisan education reformers, including measuring school and teacher performance by student test scores, closing low-performing schools, and opening competitive charter schools. After Bennett’s tenure, district leadership transitioned to protege Tom Boasberg who just finished a ten-year term in office maintaining most of the same policies Bennet started.

Denver’s approach to school governance has been much-ballyhooed by politically centrist advocates like David Osborne of the Progressive Policy Institute, the Clinton-era “ideas shop” that has been pushing the privatization of public services for more than thirty years. Beltway-based think tanks, on both the right and the left of the political spectrum, hail CONTINUE READING: Denver Teachers’ Strike Was a Rejection of Education ‘Reform’

Steph Curry, Mahershala Ali and MC Hammer made a video to support striking Oakland teachers. Here it is. - The Washington Post #Unite4OaklandKids #WeAreOEA #WeAreCTA #strikeready #REDFORED

Steph Curry, Mahershala Ali and MC Hammer made a video to support striking Oakland teachers. Here it is. - The Washington Post

Steph Curry, Mahershala Ali and MC Hammer made a video to support striking Oakland teachers. Here it is.

Luminaries from sports, film, radio and the letters star in a video posted on YouTube that supports Oakland, Calif., teachers who went on strike Thursday demanding higher pay, lower class sizes and more nurses and other resources for schools. They are also calling for an end to school closings and a stop to unfettered charter school expansion.

Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors, Oscar-winning actor Mahershala Ali and rap pioneer and preacher MC Hammer are just some of the people in the video, which is anchored by Oakland native Rafael Casal, an actor, poet and filmmaker.

Casal says in the video that teachers went on strike for “four simple things:” a livable wage, smaller classes, more support staff for students and an “end to the district’s plan to close 24 of its 86 schools in predominantly black and Latinx neighborhoods.”

Casal says the plan to close schools is “a complete and outright assault on Oakland families — and above all else, they don’t even have to do it!”

Casal, along with Daveed Diggs, also an Oakland native and a member of the original “Hamilton” cast on Broadway, co-wrote, co-produced and starred in the 2018 film "Blindspotting, which transpires in Oakland, where they grew up together.

Here’s the video, and below is a longer list of people who appear. CONTINUE READING: Steph Curry, Mahershala Ali and MC Hammer made a video to support striking Oakland teachers. Here it is. - The Washington Post

Sacramento City Unified school board hears budget warnings | The Sacramento Bee #Unite4SACKids #WeAreSCTA #WeAreCTA #strikeready #REDFORED #SCTA #CTA

Sacramento City Unified school board hears budget warnings | The Sacramento Bee

Sacramento City schools ‘running out of cash and ... running out of time,’ board is warned

Michael Fine from the state's financial crisis team and David Gordon from the county office of education address the Sacramento City Unified School Board on cutting costs in their district on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2019 in Sacramento. 

By José Luis Villegas

With a possible teacher strike, an approved motion for layoffs and a potential state takeover looming over the Sacramento City Unified School District, the county superintendent delivered a grim message at a Thursday night school board meeting.

“Your district is running out of cash, and you in the district are running out of time,” David Gordon said.

Gordon and an independent fiscal manager repeated their warnings of an imminent state takeover and what that would look like for the district.

“With insolvency and under a state administrator, all of the cuts you need to make now will still have to be made – and then some,” Gordon said. Because the district would have to make large loan payments to the state to close its budget gap under receivership, the result would be “even greater program cuts” and diminished services to students, he said.

In its audit of Sacramento City Unified late last year, the state-created Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team warned the district that if it failed to address its $35 million deficit, it faces a state takeover in six months. The report said the district was likely to run out of money by November.

Gordon said the board and Superintendent Jorge Aguilar were working to identify cuts, but that the plan is incomplete.

He stressed that the district and its labor groups would have to work together to achieve the level of budget reductions needed. “It’s imperative that all employee groups come to the table now, and be part of the solution to avoid cash insolvency and the need for a state loan,” he said.

FCMAT’s chief executive Mike Fine, who presented his fact-finding report warning the district of insolvency last year, reiterated those sentiments.

“You’re not going to make progress until everyone can sit down and rebuild that relationship that’s been hurt over a long period of time,” he said. 

Four of the five labor unions have been working with the district. But the Sacramento City Teachers Association is at odds with the district over its salary adjustment schedule, and has signaled deep mistrust over its labor agreements. Earlier this month, a Sacramento Superior Court judge ordered a return to the arbitration table after negotiations were halted when the district filed a court motion last year.

The district’s budget was disapproved twice last year. If its proposed cuts cannot be met soon, it CONTINUE READING: Sacramento City Unified school board hears budget warnings | The Sacramento Bee

Big Education Ape: Tell the Sac City School Board to Put Students First - Action Network #Unite4SACKids #WeAreSCTA #WeAreCTA #strikeready #REDFORED #SCTA #CTA - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/02/tell-sac-city-school-board-to-put.html

“Out Here Because I Love Teaching”: The Oakland Teachers Strike, In Photos #Unite4OaklandKids #WeAreOEA #WeAreCTA #strikeready #REDFORED

“Out Here Because I Love Teaching”: The Oakland Teachers Strike, In Photos

“Out Here Because I Love Teaching”: The Oakland Teachers Strike, In Photos
On day one of the strike, teachers, students and community members speak from the picket line.

THOUSANDS OF TEACHERS IN OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA, WENT ON STRIKE THIS MORNING—the latest in a series of increasingly militant work stoppages by educators across the country.

In January, teachers in Los Angeles, California, won a historic strike, securing smaller class sizes, a nurse in every school, a reduction in standardized testing, a 6 percent pay raise for teachers and a plan for the School Board to vote to call on the state to cap charter school growth.

The teachers union in Denver, Colorado, won its first strike in 25 years last week, while educators in West Virginia walked out earlier this week, halting proposed legislation that would have allowed tax dollars to pay for private-school tuition.

Today, the 3,000-member Oakland Education Association (OEA) is on strike after 95 percent of its members voted on February 4 to authorize the work stoppage. The union says it has picket lines up at all 86 educational campuses in Oakland.

The Oakland teachers strike is as much about defending public education as it is about teacher pay.

United under the slogan, “Fighting for the schools our students deserve,” the union is calling for smaller class sizes, more support services for students (nurses, counselors and librarians), and an end to neighborhood school closures.

Currently, 24 Oakland public schools are slated for closure, the majority of them in poor and working-class communities of color.

The school closures are directly related to the rise in charter schools. According to a report by In the Public Interest, charter schools in Oakland are currently costing the district $57 million dollars per year.

The union is also calling for a living wage for teachers who are increasingly being priced out of Oakland. According to a recent op ed by the union’s president, Keith Brown, a starting teacher would have to spend 60 percent of their salary to afford a one-bedroom apartment in Oakland. Unsurprisingly, the district is CONTINUE READING: “Out Here Because I Love Teaching”: The Oakland Teachers Strike, In Photos

California charter schools facing new oversight under fast track legislation | EdSource

California charter schools facing new oversight under fast track legislation | EdSource

California charter schools facing new oversight under fast track legislation
Assembly vote could come as early as next week. If it passes, Newsom expected to sign it.

t the urging of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a bill that will require charter schools to be more accountable and transparent is making its way swiftly through the legislature and may be the first of several bills seeking to tighten oversight of charter schools.

Senate Bill 126 would require that California charter school boards comply with the same open meeting, conflict-of-interest and disclosure laws as district school boards, including holding public board meetings, opening records to the public upon request and ensuring board members don’t have a financial interest in contracts on which they vote.

The bill was introduced by Sen. Connie Leyva, D-Chino and Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, D-Long Beach. It passed the state Senate Thursday with a 34 to 2 vote and will go to the state Assembly for a vote as early as next week. If it passes, the law will go into effect Jan. 1.

The bill met no opposition from the California State Charter Schools Association, although it did not formally support it.

Leyva said she was able to get Senate Bill 126 through with little resistance because all parties, including representatives of the charter school association and teacher CONTINUE READING: California charter schools facing new oversight under fast track legislation | EdSource

Class dismissed: How and when New Orleans schools close | The Lens

Class dismissed: How and when New Orleans schools close | The Lens

Class dismissed: How and when New Orleans schools close

For more than a decade, most public schools in New Orleans were overseen by state bureaucrats, 80 miles away in Baton Rouge. That changed last summer, when a state law passed in 2016 took the majority of the city’s schools back from the state-run Recovery School District to the locally elected school board — and its superintendent, Henderson Lewis, Jr. — for the first time since Hurricane Katrina.

It is a different district than the one the Orleans Parish School Board ran before the storm.  Nearly every school in the city is now a publicly funded, privately run charter school. This summer, New Orleans is slated to become the first major city in the country without any traditional, district-run charter schools. And Lewis has more power than superintendents from earlier eras. Under the 2016 law, he can now decide without Orleans Parish School Board approval, to close schools considered troubled or failing, barring a supermajority veto vote from the seven-member board. In November, he decided that five New Orleans schools  would close this spring.

As of the state’s fall enrollment count, 1,127 students were enrolled in those five schools.

Two district-run schools — Harney elementary and Cypress Academy — were recently taken over from their charter boards due to financial and governance problems. They are slated to close this spring.

Another, the historic McDonogh 35 Senior High School — which opened in 1917 as Louisiana’s first public high school for black students — will continue to operate. But it will be “phased out” after being passed from district to contractor control this summer. The contractor is also opening a charter school there this fall.

”Closure is a very difficult and unpleasant decision that is part of the landscape in New Orleans. It’s part of what it means to be a charter school.”
—Caroline Roemer, Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools

The three remaining schools set for closure are all charters. They were returned from the Recovery School District last summer and are considered academically failing. Three have been rated F by the state for three years in a row or more, based largely on student performance in state standardized tests. Lewis decided not to renew their charter contracts, effectively closing them.

“It’s hard to explain to your child why they have the “F” rating,” Alex Lafargue said. His nine-year-old son, Alongkoin Lafargue, CONTINUE READING: Class dismissed: How and when New Orleans schools close | The Lens

John H. Jackson: We Must Denounce Trump Jr.'s Attack on Teachers | Schott Foundation for Public Education

We Must Denounce Trump Jr.'s Attack on Teachers | Schott Foundation for Public Education

We Must Denounce Trump Jr.'s Attack on Teachers

It may be hard to distinguish in the current political climate where the line of decency is—but one thing is clear, Donald Trump, Jr.’s recent attack on teachers crossed it.  At the president’s February 11 border wall rally in El Paso, Trump, Jr. stirred up the crowd:

“I love seeing some young conservatives because I know it’s not easy. (Crowd applauds and shouts.) Keep up that fight. Bring it to your schools. You don’t have to be indoctrinated by these loser teachers that are trying to sell you on socialism from birth.”

The son of the president urging rally goers to bring their “fight” to schools is concern enough.  The language does not seem like an empty threat when you reflect on escalating white nationalist violence, and the horrific incidences of violent attacks in schools.  

The broader concern is that America’s public school teachers—who come from diverse backgrounds and have political attitudes that cover the spectrum—are increasingly being vilified for political purposes, rather than being appreciated for the vital role they play caring for and educating our children. 

Our public education system is one of the most critical institutions supporting our democracy.  The chants of “USA, USA” that filled the hall may purport to make Trump Jr.’s rallying cry seem like mainstream America—but it is anything but. As three teachers—one from the U.S. and two international colleagues said, “This is a message you would expect in an authoritarian regime, not at a rally for the U.S. president.”  

Educators around the world are denouncing Trump Jr.’s statement.  We must join them.

We Must Denounce Trump Jr.'s Attack on Teachers | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Tell your friends and colleagues to speak out against this attack. This is no time to be silent:

 

We Must Denounce Trump Jr.'s Attack on Teachers | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Why Are Teachers Going On Strike In Oakland, Los Angeles And Denver? : NPR

Why Are Teachers Going On Strike In Oakland, Los Angeles And Denver? : NPR

Oakland, Los Angeles And More To Come: Why Teachers Keep Going On Strike

The current wave of teacher walkouts started a year ago this week, when educators across West Virginia were out of the classroom for nine days. The movement spread to five more states before the school year was over.

New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that almost a half a million U.S. workers were off the job in strikes or lockouts during 2018, and nearly 400,000 of them were teachers. It was the biggest year for work stoppages since 1986.

This year, individual districts — such as Denver and Los Angeles — have picked up where states left off. Teachers in Oakland, Calif., were on the picket lines Thursday and Friday, and Sacramento, Calif., teachers could be next.

Educators say they're angry. They don't like how states and school districts treat them and their students. A lot of the frustration comes down to money, but dignity and respect are touchstones, too.

Why are teachers striking?

Teachers earn less than other workers with comparable experience and education — a gap that's widened in recent years. More than a million teachers aren't covered by Social Security. An NPR/Ipsos poll conducted last April found that 59 percent of teachers have worked a second job, and 86 percent say they've spent their own money CONTINUE READING: Why Are Teachers Going On Strike In Oakland, Los Angeles And Denver? : NPR

West Virginia Teachers Flex Muscle Again | Capital & Main

West Virginia Teachers Flex Muscle Again | Capital & Main

West Virginia Teachers Flex Muscle Again
Meanwhile, Oakland teachers break out the picket signs and LAUSD discovers the joys of transparency.

“Yes, West Virginia, there is a teachers union, and it’s still fighting mad.” That was the message for Mountain State lawmakers this week when thousands of West Virginia teachers and school workers walked off the job to kill a privatization bill reputedly written in retaliation for last year’s historic nine-day teachers strike. Only hours into the Tuesday-Wednesday walkout, the state’s House of Delegates voted 53 to 45 to indefinitely table Senate Bill 451, which had linked a teacher pay raise to the gutting of job security and a first-time legalization for West Virginia of charters and private school vouchers. “Instead of trying to treat a symptom with garbage legislation that isn’t even vetted or proven to work,” Logan County teacher Kristina Gore told New York magazine, “let’s brainstorm some legislation to fix the real problem — the social conditions in which our children live.”

All eyes now turn to the East Bay, where over 3,000 Oakland Unified educators walked off the job today, following the recommendations issued last Friday by a neutral fact-finding panel, which agreed with key union bargaining positions but was unable to break the deadlock. “Years of underfunding, the unregulated growth of the charter school industry and district neglect [have] starved our schools of the necessary resources,” OEA president Keith Browncharged at a Saturday press conference. In addition to a 12 percent raise over three years, the union is asking for class size reductions, more support staff and is opposing extreme austerity measures that could shutter up to 24 OUSD neighborhood schools.

That OUSD chopping block was the subject of Tuesday’s almost Dickensian Oakland school board meeting in which a procession of tearful parents, students, teachers, activists and education leaders pleaded with trustees to spare programs targeted for cuts. School libraries, the district’s restorative justice and foster youth programs, and its Asian Pacific Islander Student Achievement services have all been slated for deep reductions in the current, $21.75 million round of budget cuts. The final vote comes February 25.

A murky scheme to transform Los Angeles Unified into a“portfolio” or “network” school  CONTINUE READING: West Virginia Teachers Flex Muscle Again | Capital & Main