KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG | A site to discuss better education for all

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

KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG 

A site to discuss better education for all

Pennsylvania: Those Disgraceful, Failing CyberCharters

by dianeravitch / 51min

I recommend that you get on the email list of the Keystone State Education Coalition if you want to know what is happening in Pennsylvania. Lawrence Feinberg posts informative articles about the schools of that state. You can contact him at lawrenceafeinberg@gmail.com. One ongoing scandal in Pennsylvania is the story of cyber charters. Pennsylvania has 14 cyber charter schools, and 13 of them are

YESTERDAY

Matt Barnum: Summit Learning Misleads About Percent of Schools That Quit Every Year

36by dianeravitch / 21h

Matt Barnum of Chalkbeat reports that the Chan-Zuckerberg tech-based schools called Summit have been underreporting the percent of schools that quit their program every year. After multiple news reports of high school students walking out in protest against the Summit tech platform, Summit responded by saying that only 10% of schools leave every year. That figure, writes Barnum, was widely report

Samuel Abrams on the Coming Charter Expansion in Puerto Rico

50by dianeravitch / 22h

Samuel Abrams, director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, writes here about the likely effects of the influx of charter schools in Puerto Rico. This is the abstract . With the passage of the Education Reform Act in March 2018, Puerto Rico joined states across the mainland in authorizing charter schools as privately managed government-funded alternatives to conven

In the Public Interest: The Real Cost of Charters=Budget Cuts for Public Schools

100+by dianeravitch / 23h

Last year, In the Public Interest, a nonpartisan advocacy group in California published Professor Gordon Lafer’s seminal study of the fiscal impact of charters on three school districts in California. Oakland alone lost $67 million in “stranded costs” because of the flooding of the district with charter schools. Stranded costs are the costs beyond the per-pupil tuition that leaves the district, l

Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh School Board Rejects Charter School, But State Overrules Decision

67by dianeravitch / 1d

The elected School Board of Pittsburgh unanimously rejected a charter school called Catalyst Academy because of concern about its proposed disciplinary policy and its ability to meet the needs of students with disabilities. The School Board’s decision was overturned by the state’s Charter Appeals Board , which was appointed by the former Republican Governor. The members of the CAB have ties to th

MAY 23

DeVos Actually Visited A Public School in Poway, California

100+by dianeravitch / 1d

Education Week reported that Betsy DeVos visited a public school in Poway, California, and the school was asked to keep the visit a secret so that the Secretary would not encounter hostile crowds of protesters, which might endanger the lives of students or staff or DeVos herself. Of course, DeVos was well guarded. She came with her special retinue of U.S. Marshals to protect her. NBC has estimate

Rochester, New York: Leaked Emails Reveal Secret Plan for State Takeover of Rochester Schools

100+by dianeravitch / 1d

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle obtained emails revealing that the New York State Education Department and the New York Board of Regents are considering a plan to oust the elected school board, take over the Rochester public schools, appoint a five-member interim school board, and appoint a temporary school superintendent. I wish I knew of an example where a state takeover led to better educ

Good News! Bill to Restrict Charter Appeals Passes California Assembly

100+by dianeravitch / 1d

The Legislature in California is considering four bills to regulate the state’s unregulated, unaccountable charter industry. Under current law, charters can locate wherever they want, without regard to the fiscal impact on the district they choose. They first apply to the local district; if they are turned down because the local district doesn’t want or need a charter, they can appeal to the coun

Jersey Jazzman Offers Advice to the Media About Covering Charter Schools

22by dianeravitch / 1d

Jersey Jazzman, aka Mark Weber, is a teacher in New Jersey who took the time to earn a Ph.D. So he could decipher the studies and research usedto make decisions about schools. In this post , he explains to the media how to cover charter schools. He noticed that Senator Bernie Sanders’ proposal to ban for-profit charter schools unleashed a wave of commentary about charter schools. Many people have

Jan Resseger: Teachers in West Virginia Forego a Pay Raise to Block Charters and Vouchers

90by dianeravitch / 1d

Teachers in West Virginia stunned the nation in February 2018 by going out on strike and staying out while demanding a pay raise and a commitment from the Governor and Legislature not to support charter schools and privatization. Theywon a pay raise and they had a commitment from Governor Jim Justice to veto charter legislation. Justice is a billionaire, the richest man in the state. A year later

Mercedes Schneider: Disillusionment with TFA, In the U.S. and Brazil

99by dianeravitch / 1d

Mercedes Schneider discovered an article by a former TFA recruit, Rolf Straubhaar, who now teaches at Texas State University. Straubhaar compares the experience of Teach for America in the U.S. and the experience of those who joined the TFA offshoot, called a Teach for All, in Brazil. The program in Brazil didn’t last long. It folded. His studies persuaded him that many of the participants in the

XPRIZE: $10 Million Prize for Teaching Without Teachers!

100+by dianeravitch / 2d

You knew this was coming, didn’t you? The XPRIZE awarded $10 million in awards to programs that teach children basic skills without a human teacher! One of the funders of the award was our very own Betsy DeVos, who loves teachers so much that she wants to get rid of them. They cost too much, and they tend to want unions. They even think for themselves, which is dangerous. The XPRIZE Foundation ha

MAY 22

Journey For Justice Had a Busy Day

44by dianeravitch / 2d

Don’t believe the right wingers who claim that charter schools are supported by Black and Brown people. Not only did the NAACP, the nation’s most venerable civil rights group, call for a moratorium on charter schools but so did Black Lives Matter. The Journey for Justice Alliance is a true grassroots civil rights organization. It led demonstrations across the nation today. One of its demands: No

Los Angeles: At First Meeting, Jackie Goldberg Changes Board Dynamics by Challenging Co-Location of Charters

69by dianeravitch / 2d

Jackie Goldberg was sworn in to her new office as representative for District 5 on the Los Angeles school board, and she hit the ground running. She criticized co-locations, when charters take space in an existing public school, especially when charters are given preferential treatment. Goldberg’s concerns arose minutes after the board began moving through its agenda. The item was $16 million to

Members of the Sackler Family Flee Manhattan, Moving to Florida

by dianeravitch / 2d

The Sackler family has been rightly criticized for making billions from the manufacture and marketing of opioids. Its Purdue Pharmaceuticals has been hit with hundreds or thousands of lawsuits. Recently, New York State’s aggressive new State Attorney General Leticia James has been targeting individual members of the family, perhaps to claw back some of those billions and use them for victim compe

Nikhil Goyal: Bernie’s Plan for Public Schools

200+by dianeravitch / 2d

Nikhil Goyal, a graduate student and veteran activist for public schools, is deeply impressed by Senator Bernie Sanders’ ambitious and sweeping plan to pour billions into the schools and to protect public schools from privatization pirates. Writing in “The Nation,” Goyal describes Sanders’ plan as “the most progressive education platform in modern American history.” As a historian, I would drop t

Jennifer Berkshire: When Cory Booker Helped DeVos’s Voucher Referendum in Michigan

200+by dianeravitch / 2d

This is a stunner. Jennifer Berkshire writes in The New Republic that Cory Booker flew to Michigan in 2000 to help promote vouchers, at the request of Betsy and Dick DeVos. They put a referendum on the state ballot to change the Constitution to allow vouchers. They asked for Booker’s help, and they got it. Booker was a young Newark city councilor when Dick and Betsy DeVos brought him to Michigan

Los Angeles: Charter Chain Founder and Executive Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison

60by dianeravitch / 2d

Vielka McFarlane, founder of the Celerity charter chain in Los Angeles, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for misappropriation of $3.2 million from the schools’ accounts. In January, Vielka McFarlane pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to misappropriate and embezzle funds for personal use. McFarlane, 56, had for years used her charter schools’ credit card and spent taxpayer money on expe

Rob Levine: How Charters Kill Public Schools, the Example of Minneapolis

72by dianeravitch / 3d

Rob Levine, a critic of Ed Deform, created a website called edhivemn.com that tracks funding of education reform orgs in MN – and it has a feature called Charter School Scandals of the Day Levine created a graphic to demonstrate the damage that charters do to public schools. He focuses on the charter schools in Minneapolis, which are well funded and highly segregated. Defenders of charters in Min

MAY 21

Congressional Leaders Take DeVos to Task and Demand Answers

98by dianeravitch / 3d

A group of leaders in Congress wrote to Betsy DeVos to complain about her Department’s failure to demand accountability from the Charter Schools that win federal funding. She has $440 million to hand out to charters, and she has chosen to shower millions on corporate charter chains like IDEA, KIPP, and Success Academy. All of these chains are super rich. They don’t need federal aid. The charter i

Bad News for the Sackler Family

by dianeravitch / 3d

The Sackler family owns Purdue Pharmaceuticals, which manufactures and markets (ed) OxyContin, a highly addictive opioid. More than 200,000 people have died of opioid addiction. The Sackler family is listed by Forbes as one of the richest families in America with a net worth of $14 billion. The Sackler name is engraved on museums, libraries, and universities. Some of those institutions have remov

URGENT: Contact Your Senators and Urge Them to Fund Public Schools, NOT the Charter Slush Fund!

69by dianeravitch / 3d

Please open and read this action alert from NPE Action. We urge all concerned citizens, parents, and educators to contact your Senators and encourage them to cut the budget of the federal Charter Schools Program (“charter slush fund”) and use the $440 million currently budgeted for Title 1 and the nation’s neediest children. NPE wrote a report on the federal Charter Schools Program and documented

Texas: GOOD NEWS! Texas House Rejects Bill to Ban Lobbying for Public Schools, But Allow It for Charter Schools

34by dianeravitch / 3d

Charles Foster Johnson, leader of Pastors for Texas Children, describes an effort to censor and silence those who advocate on behalf of public schools: Texas Senate Bill 29 was roundly defeated late yesterday afternoon in the Texas House on an 85-58 vote. The bill would have prohibited local school districts and other local government authorities such as counties from taxpayer-supported advocacy

Watch My Interview with Lauren Steiner, Taped Yesterday

59by dianeravitch / 3d

Lauren Steiner is an activist who is actively engaged in fighting privatization in California. She has a regular program on Facebook, where she interviews people like me. She interviewed me yesterday about charters, billionaires, neoliberalism, and other issues. The California Legislature is deciding right now about bills to regulate charters and make them accountable. I reactivated my FB account

Jeff Bryant: The Waste of Millions of Federal Dollars on Charters in Louisiana

77by dianeravitch / 3d

Jeff Bryant reports here on the waste of millions of federal dollars poured into charter schools in Louisiana. Usually, when the media writes about New Orleans, they tell you about success stories, but they don’t mention the many failures. Between 2006 and 2014, on the watch of both Margaret Spellings and Arne Duncan, millions of dollars were awarded to open or expand charter schools in New Orlea

Jersey Jazzman Debunks the “Newark Miracle”

28by dianeravitch / 3d

Whenever anyone mention an education “miracle,” scoff. We had the “Texas miracle,” the “New York City Miracle” (that lasted only as long as MIchael Bloomberg was Mayor), and countless others. Now that Cory Booker is running for President, we will hear about the “Newark miracle.” Don’t believe it. To understand the statistical legerdemain, read Jersey Jazzman’s explanation here about Newark . JJ i

Stuart Egan: Graphics That Demonstrate the War on Public Schools in North Carolina

41by dianeravitch / 3d

Stuart Egan has gathered some powerful graphics that demonstrate the war on public schools and their teachers in North Carolina. You will see, for example, that school grades are not a measure of school quality. They are quite decisively a measure of the affluence or poverty of the students who attend the school. The schools are underfunded, teachers are underpaid, and fraudulent measures are use

Peg Tyre Asks for Your Help: How to Encourage Creativity

by dianeravitch / 4d

Peg Tyre, veteran journalist, needs your help. If you write her, please copy your comment here. You don’t have to, but it would be nice if you did. I know her and trust her. Peg writes: Japan & S. Korea Want Their Schools To Produce Innovators. Curious About What That Looks Like? I am too! Policy-makers and parents in Japan and S. Korea are determined to get rid of the shallow, rote learning, and

MAY 20

John Merrow: Why I Am a Betsy DeVos Fanboy

52by dianeravitch / 4d

There is something very funny about imagining John a Merrow as anyone’s fanboy, but in this satirical post, he admits that he is bewitched by Betsy DeVos. John is quite the humorist. His April Fools’ Day posts are always hilarious, the more so because so many of his readers are fooled. Remember, friends, satire! He begins: Full disclosure: Although I have never met or interviewed Education Secret

Guess Which Democratic Senators Celebrated National Charter School Week?

300+by dianeravitch / 4d

These are the Senators sponsoring a resolution to celebrate National Charter Schools Week. You will notice that the Democrats who signed on as sponsors include Cory Booker (NJ), Michael Bennett (CO), Dianne Feinstein (CA), and the two Senators from Delaware (Coons and Carper). Let’s hope that the Democrats who did not sponsor this resolution had a finger in the air and realized that the winds are

Nancy Bailey: Shame on PBS for Its Misleading Program on Reading Instruction

200+by dianeravitch / 4d

Nancy Bailey critiques PBS for running a feature about dyslexia that misrepresents the current state of reading instruction. The report was presented on the PBS Newshour and co-sponsored by Education Week. She writes: Schools must provide adequate reading programs and reading remediation for students who need more assistance. But the recent report on dyslexia recommending intensive phonics for al

Arizona Legislators Plan to Use Public $$ to Pay Tuition at Out-of-State Private Schools

60by dianeravitch / 5d

Arizona Republicans hate public schools. Even though 85% of the children in the state attend public schools, the Republican legislators seize every opportunity to pay for alternatives to public schools. Now they want students who enroll in out-of-state private schools to have vouchers paid for by the taxpayers of Arizona. Last year, the Legislature tried to make vouchers available to every studen

Peter Dreier: College Student Debt Is a National Scandal

26by dianeravitch / 5d

Peter Dreier read the previous post about the billionaire Robert F. Smith giving a grant to erase the debt of the class of 2019, and he wrote to express his strong belief that government action is needed, not the generosity of philanthropists. For college students across the nation, their student loans are a crushing burden that cause some to drop out and others to decide that they can’t afford a

MAY 19

Billionaire Pledges to Pay Student Debt of 2019 Morehouse College Graduates

42by dianeravitch / 5d

Investor Robert F. Smith was invited to give the commencement address at Morehouse College, an all-male historically black college in Atlanta. Smith is the wealthiest black man in America, with a fortune estimated at $4-5 billion. Smith began his speech by talking about his good fortune, having been bused to an integrated public school in Denver. Smith described being bused to a high-performing,

Edd Doerr Responds to George Will: Americans Don’t Want Their Tax $$$ to Subsidize K-12 Tuition

37by dianeravitch / 5d

George Will is under the misapprehension that separation of Church and State was imposed after the Civil War by James G. Blaine, thus explaining why state constitutions have “Blaine amendments” forbidding the use of public dollars for religious schools . It is true that there was a wave of anti-Catholic bigotry before and after the Civil War, but support for separation of church and state long pr

Fred Smith: New York Is Wasting Instructional Time for Benefit of Test Publishers

200+by dianeravitch / 5d

UPDATE. Fred Smith, testing expert, warns parents that New York begins using their children as guinea pigs starting tomorrow when field tests start in 869 schools in NYC and 2,490 schools across the state. More than a quarter million children will be forced to take a useless test. The tests are meant to field-test future test questions. They don’t count. They waste students’ time for the benefit

Chalkbeat Reporter Tried to Attend Board Meetings at Charter Schools, But…

28by dianeravitch / 5d

Koby Levin, reporter for Chalkbeat, tried to attend meetings of the board of 10 charter schools in Detroit. It was challenging, to say the least. When parents have an issue with their child’s school, there’s at least one place where they’re guaranteed a hearing on anything from school finance to student discipline: a school board meeting. Yet in Detroit, a city with an infamously troubled school

Southern Poverty Legal Center On Florida Vouchers

32by dianeravitch / 5d

The SPLC wrote to Governor Ron DeSantis to protest the latest Florida voucher plan, which takes money intended for public schools, without the fig leaf of tax credits. The SPLC writes: By signing S.B. 7070 into law yesterday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis set his state on the path to further decimate its public schools through an unprecedented expansion of private school vouchers. Florida already div

California: Gov. Newsom Tightens Enrollment Rules for Charter Schools, No Exceptions

60by dianeravitch / 5d

Governor Gavin Newsom acted to tighten enrollment rules for charter schools, which have been credibly accused of excluding or pushing out students with disabilities and students who get low scores. Three years ago, the ACLU of Southern California and the public interest law firm Public Advocates identified charter schools that advertised their exclusionary policies on their websites, but have sin

Pearson’s Plans for 2025: Make Sure You Are Seated When You Read This

500+by dianeravitch / 6d

Pearson has plans for the future. Its plans involve students, education, and profits. Pearson, of course, is the British mega-publishing corporation that has an all-encompassing vision of monetizing every aspect of education. Two researchers, Sam Sellar and Anna Hogan, have reviewed Pearson’s plans. It is a frightening portrait of corporate privatization of teaching and of student data, all in se

MAY 18

Bernie Sanders’ Bold Plan for Education

500+by dianeravitch / 6d

Senator Bernie Sanders has produced an excellent plan for education . Thus far, he is the only candidate to address K-12. His first principle is crucial: Every human being has the fundamental right to a good education. Read the plan. Sanders’ commitment to funding education is breathtaking. He intends to triple the funding of Title 1 for the neediest children. He proposes a national floor for per

NYC: Join Me to Celebrate “Class Size Matters” On June 19

21by dianeravitch / 6d

If you live in or near New York City, this is the one event you cannot miss. You will meet heroes of the Resistance. The dinner on June 19 is a joyous occasion where great people who care passionately about better education for all children meet, drink, and dine, o behalf of Class Size Matters, the organization founded by Leonie Haimson to fight for smaller classes, higher funding, Student Privac

Jackie Goldberg: Why I Love This Woman!

33by dianeravitch / 6d

Capital & Main interviewed Jackie Goldberg about her views, her vision, her hopes for the future. My heart sang and my brain hummed as I read her inspiring words. Reading Jackie’s words was like eating comfort food. I kept saying to myself, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Read the interview and you will see what I mean. Jackie knows we are in the middle of a war to save public education. She knows that there is

A Day in Columbus, Ohio: Honoring Bill Phillis and Meeting Student Journalists from Kentucky

43by dianeravitch / 6d

On May 16, Public Education Partners of Ohio hosted a conference that featured a dialogue between me and Bill Phillis, the former deputy state superintendent who has been fighting for adequate and equitable funding of the state’s public schools for many years. The main event of the day was the discussion between Bill Phillis and me. Bill talked about his intention to keep going until his work is

John Thompson On Deeper Learning

100+by dianeravitch / 7d

John Thompson is a historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma who blogs frequently. Reading In Search of Deeper Learning: the Quest to Remake the American High School , by Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine, is like reading the 

Big Education Ape: KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG | A site to discuss better education for all - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/05/keep-up-catch-up-with-diane-ravitchs_18.html

2018 Charter School Credit Ratings for Nine States, with a Focus on California and Michigan | deutsch29

2018 Charter School Credit Ratings for Nine States, with a Focus on California and Michigan | deutsch29

2018 Charter School Credit Ratings for Nine States, with a Focus on California and Michigan

There are situations in which B is a grade to be avoided.

Let us consider some 2018 charter school credit ratings as reported in Standard & Poor’s.

First, some background on “rated debt,” compliments of Zacks:

Just like stocks, debt instruments, specifically bonds, can be traded in public exchanges. Since corporate bonds can be a great deal more complicated than stocks, they sometimes come with ratings to help investors understand the potential risks and rewards. …

In finance, the word “rating” refers to a letter grade assigned to a corporation or its debt instruments by a rating agency. These ratings are based on the rating agency’s prediction of the default probability. In simpler terms, the better the rating, the more likely the firm will be able to make good on its promise to pay periodic interest and repay the principal. …

Next, a word about “investment grade” bonds from Investopedia:

An investment grade is a rating that indicates that a municipal or corporate bond has a relatively low risk of default. Bond rating firms, such as Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s, use different designations consisting of upper- and lower-case letters ‘A’ and ‘B’ to identify a bond’s credit quality rating. ‘AAA’ and ‘AA’ (high credit quality) and ‘A’ and ‘BBB’ (medium credit quality) are considered investment grade. Credit ratingsfor bonds below these designations (‘BB’, ‘B’, ‘CCC’, etc.) are considered low credit quality, and are commonly referred to as “junk bonds.”

And now, about those charter schools:

According to S&P’s U.S. Charter Schools 2019 Sector Outlook, the following ratings capture virtually all of its 281 rated charter schools across 25 states for  CONTINUE READING: 2018 Charter School Credit Ratings for Nine States, with a Focus on California and Michigan | deutsch29

Big Education Ape: Which Is Higher at BASIS Schools: Its AP Scores, or Its Debt? | deutsch29 - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2017/05/which-is-higher-at-basis-schools-its-ap.html

Thank You To The Assembly Members Who Passed AB 1505

AB 1505 Passes

Thank you to the following Assembly Members who voted to pass AB 1505, which will ensure all matters related to charter schools’ authorization, renewal and other key decisions be made by the local school communities — those parents, educators and locally-elected school board members who know best the needs of their neighborhood children.

Assembly Member Twitter Link/Facebook

Asm. Jim Wood (D) - AD2 - Santa Rosa https://www.twitter.com/@JimWoodAD2
http://www.facebook.com/jimwoodassembly/

Asm. Kevin McCarty (D) - AD 7 - Sacramento https://www.twitter.com/@AsmKevinMcCarty
http://www.facebook.com/AsmKevinMcCarty/

Asm. Jim Cooper (D) - AD 9 - Elk Grove https://www.twitter.com/@AsmJimCooper
http://www.facebook.com/AssemblymemberJimCooper/

Asm. Jim Frazier, Jr. (D) - AD 11 - Discovery Bay https://www.twitter.com/@asmjimfrazier
http://www.facebook.com/ASMJimFrazier/

Asm. Susan Talamantes-Eggman (D) - AD 13 - Stockton https://www.twitter.com/@SusanEggman
https://www.facebook.com/AssemblymemberSusanTalamantesEggman/

Asm. Buffy Wicks (D) - AD 15 - Richmond https://www.twitter.com/@BuffyWicks
https://www.facebook.com/BuffyForAssembly/

Asm. Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D) - AD 16 - Dublin N/A N/A

Asm. David Chiu (D) - AD 17 - San Francisco https://www.twitter.com/@DavidChiu
http://www.facebook.com/davidchiu.sf/

Asm. Rob Bonta (D) - AD 18 - Alameda https://www.twitter.com/@RobBonta
http://www.facebook.com/RobBontaCA/

Asm. Phil Ting (D) - AD 19 - San Francisco https://www.twitter.com/@PhilTing
http://www.facebook.com/philtingsf/

Asm. Bill Quirk (D) - AD 20 - Hayward https://www.twitter.com/@Bill_Quirk
http://www.facebook.com/BillQuirkAD20/

Asm. Adam Gray (D) - AD 21 - Merced https://www.twitter.com/@AdamGrayCA
http://www.facebook.com/AdamGrayForAssembly/

Asm. Kevin Mullin (D) - AD 22 - South San Francisco https://www.twitter.com/@kevinmullin
http://www.facebook.com/AssemblymemberKevinMullin/

Asm. Kansen Chu (D) - AD 25 - San Jose https://www.twitter.com/@KansenChu
http://www.facebook.com/kansen.chu

Asm. Ash Kalra (D) - AD 27 - San Jose https://www.twitter.com/@Ash_Kalra
http://www.facebook.com/ash.kalra

Asm. Mark Stone (D) - AD 29 - Scotts Valley https://www.twitter.com/@AsmMarkStone
http://www.facebook.com/AssemblymemberMarkStone/

Asm. Robert Rivas (D) - AD 30 - Salinas N/A N/A

Asm. Rudy Salas (D) - AD 32 - Bakersfield https://www.twitter.com/@rudysalasjr
http://www.facebook.com/rudysalas

Asm. Jordan Cunningham (R) - AD 35 - San Luis Obispo County https://www.twitter.com/@Cunning_Jordan
http://www.facebook.com/AsmCunningham/

Asm. Christy Smith (D) - AD 38 - Santa Clarita N/A N/A

Asm. James Ramos (D) - AD 40 - Rancho Cucamonga N/A N/A

Asm. Chris Holden (D) - AD 41 - Pasadena https://www.twitter.com/@ChrisHoldenNews
http://www.facebook.com/Assemblymember/

Asm. Laura Friedman (D) - AD 43 - Glendale https://www.twitter.com/@laurafriedman43
http://www.facebook.com/AssemblymemberLauraFriedman/

Asm. Adrin Nazarian (D) - AD 46 - North Hollywood https://www.twitter.com/@Asm_Nazarian
http://www.facebook.com/AdrinNazarian/

Asm. Eloise Gomez-Reyes (D) - AD 47 - Grand Terrace https://www.twitter.com/@AsmReyes47
N/A

Asm. Ed Chau (D) - AD 49 - Arcadia https://www.twitter.com/@AsmEdChau
http://www.facebook.com/AssemblymemberEdChau/

Asm. Freddie Rodriguez (D) - AD 52 - Pomona https://www.twitter.com/@AsmRodriguez52
http://www.facebook.com/AssemblymemberRodriguez/

Asm. Miguel Santiago (D) - AD 53 - Los Angeles https://www.twitter.com/@SantiagoAD53
http://www.facebook.com/people/Miguel-Santiago/100008236323163

Asm. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D) AD 54 - Los Angeles N/A N/A

Asm. Ian Calderon (D) - AD 57 - Whittier https://www.twitter.com/@IanCalderon
http://www.facebook.com/AssemblymemberIanCalderon/

Asm. Cristina Garcia (D) - AD 58 - Bell Gardens https://www.twitter.com/@AsmGarcia
http://www.facebook.com/cristinagarciaad58/

Asm. Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D) - AD 59 - Los Angeles https://www.twitter.com/@JonesSawyer59
http://www.facebook.com/reggiejonessawyersr/

Asm. Sabrina Cervantes (D) - AD 60 - Riverside https://www.twitter.com/@AsmCervantes
http://www.facebook.com/asmsabrinacervantes/

Asm. Jose Medina (D) - AD 61 - Riverside https://www.twitter.com/@AsmJoseMedina
http://www.facebook.com/AsmJoseMedina/

Asm. Autumn Burke (D) - AD 62 - Inglewood https://www.twitter.com/@AsmAutumnRBurke
http://www.facebook.com/AssemblywomanAutumnRBurke/

Asm. Anthony Rendon (D) - AD 63 - Lakewood https://www.twitter.com/@Rendon63rdAD
http://www.facebook.com/SpeakerAnthonyRendon/

Asm. Mike Gipson (D) - AD 64 - Carson https://www.twitter.com/@AsmMikeGipson
http://www.facebook.com/AssemblymemberMikeGipson/

Asm. Sharon Quirk-Silva (D) - AD 65 - Fullerton https://www.twitter.com/@QuirkSilva65th
http://www.facebook.com/QuirkSilva65th/

Asm. Patrick O'Donnell (D) - AD 70 - Long Beach https://www.twitter.com/@AsmPatODonnell
http://www.facebook.com/AssemblymemberPatrickODonnell/

Asm. Cottie Petrie-Norris (D) - AD 74 - Huntington Beach N/A N/A

Asm. Tasha Boerner Horvath (D) - AD 76 - Oceanside N/A N/A

Asm. Brian Maienschein (R) - AD 77 - San Diego https://www.twitter.com/@Bmaienschein
http://www.facebook.com/briankmaienschein/

Asm. Todd Gloria (D) - AD 78 - San Diego https://www.twitter.com/@AsmToddGloria
http://www.facebook.com/toddgloria/

Asm. Lorena Gonzalez (D)- AD 80 - San Diego https://www.twitter.com/@LorenaSGonzalez
http://www.facebook.com/lorena.gonzalez.942/

How Could Education Reformers Get it So Wrong? - Living in Dialogue

How Could Education Reformers Get it So Wrong? - Living in Dialogue

How Could Education Reformers Get it So Wrong?
A Review of The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch, Part 2

This is a second post reviewing The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch.    Part one summarized Ravitch’s essays from 2010, which was the time when corporate reform pivoted from what she called “the Death Star of education,” NCLB, to “the Executioner,” her term for the Race to the Top which spearheaded the Obama administration’s and the Billionaires Boys Club’s attempt to “blow up” the education “status quo,” in a failed attempt to produce “disruptive” and “transformative” reforms.

Had NCLB’s architects bothered to read education history and social science research, they would have learned that education scholars mostly agreed with Ravitch that, “No other nation tests every student every year,” and “No high-quality system judges the quality of teachers by the test scores of their students.” Had the Obama administration taken the time to listen to researchers and practitioners, it might have realized that his administration dramatically increased drill-and-kill malpractice by mandating the use of statistical models that Ravitch correctly described as “fundamentally flawed,” and “inaccurate, unreliable, and unstable.”

For instance, Ravitch draws upon the work of Dan Koretz, who “excoriates the reform movement for its indifference to the harm it caused.” Koretz, as well as Ravitch, makes a sophisticated, carefully worded, scientific case against the testing imposed under the Bush and, especially, the Obama administrations. It’s not surprising that impatient corporate reformers didn’t want to take the time to read such complex science. But there is no excuse for their failure to pay attention to this specific harm cited by Koretz. How could they not face up to the damage that would inherently result from teaching kids that there is just “one ‘right answer,’” as opposed to asking the “right question?”

NCLB did terrible damage to schools, but it held only about 1/5thof educators accountable for increasing test scores. The novice reformers didn’t understand why value-added teacher evaluations, that were CONTINUE READING: How Could Education Reformers Get it So Wrong? - Living in Dialogue

The Sanders Education Plan: Five Good Ideas, One Bad Idea, And A Missed Opportunity

The Sanders Education Plan: Five Good Ideas, One Bad Idea, And A Missed Opportunity

The Sanders Education Plan: Five Good Ideas, One Bad Idea, And A Missed Opportunity

Bernie Sanders has raised the bar for Presidential candidates by offering a hefty set of planks for an education platform. His Thurgood Marshall Plan for Public Education is the first substantive attempt to address education policy in a Presidential campaign we’ve seen in decades.  

In the 2016 campaign, education was supposed to be an issue that Jeb Bush would ride to the White House, but instead conservative opposition to Common Core took the wind out of those sails. Democrats stuck to safe issues— more pre-school, cheaper college. Sanders has gone beyond that with ten broad goals backed up by a long list of specifics. Among those, we can find five really good ideas, one not-so-great idea, and one missed opportunity.  

The Good  

Tripling Title I. Title I funds are designated for schools with a high population of disadvantaged students. There is room for debate about some of the specifics of the title, but it is a good means of moving federal money out to schools that are underfunded and students who are underserved. Increasing the funding has the advantage of not requiring new agencies or mechanisms to gets support out there. Sanders has this listed both under his item for more equitable funding for schools and his goal of fighting segregation, and that makes sense because part of the problem of segregation is the segregation of resources.   

Clamping down on charter schools. The big headlines for Sanders came from his pledge to ban for-profit charter schools, but that’s a nothing-burger. Hillary Clinton tried this angle in 2016, CONTINUE READING: The Sanders Education Plan: Five Good Ideas, One Bad Idea, And A Missed Opportunity

Dana Goldstein: Sanders’s Education Plan Renews Debate Over Charter Schools and Segregation - The New York Times

Sanders’s Education Plan Renews Debate Over Charter Schools and Segregation - The New York Times

Sanders’s Education Plan Renews Debate Over Charter Schools and Segregation

When Senator Bernie Sanders delivered a wide-ranging speech on education Saturday, he became the first major Democratic candidate to propose a detailed plan to racially integrate schools, calling for $1 billion in funding to support local integration efforts, such as magnet schools and busing.

It was the type of robust agenda that integration advocates say they have waited decades for.

But for some, those ideas were overshadowed by more divisive elements of the proposal: Mr. Sanders’s plan to freeze federal funding for all new charter schools, and the link his plan made between charter schools and segregation.

Many Democrats, most notably Barack Obama, support charters as a way to provide more options to families, especially those that are too poor to move to a higher-quality school district or pay for private school. The impact of charters on school segregation is hotly disputed in education circles, and by linking these elements, Mr. Sanders touched a nerve in a highly charged debate within the party.

Blaming charters for school segregation is “galling,” said Amy Wilkins, a vice president at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and a longtime advocate in Washington for racial equity in education. “What Brown v. Board of Education did was say that government can’t tell black parents which public schools they can and can’t send their kids to. What Senator Sanders is saying with his attempt to limit charter schools is telling black parents, who overwhelmingly support CONTINUE READING: Sanders’s Education Plan Renews Debate Over Charter Schools and Segregation - The New York Times

CURMUDGUCATION: Betsy DeVos Lets Down Her Hair

CURMUDGUCATION: Betsy DeVos Lets Down Her Hair

Betsy DeVos Lets Down Her Hair

You probably saw the quote from Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos equating US public education with Soviet East Germany. That was a good headline (and great clickbait), but it's worth it to go and take a look at the full context of that quote. This will be long, but I can't help it-- I find strolling through the inside of Betsy DeVos's head kind of fascinating. I'd love to have her come join me at the local coffee shop for an afternoon.

The occasion of the speech was a presentation to Young America's Foundation at the Reagan Ranch Center. Young America's Foundation was founded in 1969, and it is as conservative as can be-- it is one of the co-founders and forces behind the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). The organization bought the Reagan ranch "Rancho Del Cielo" in 1998 with the help of $10 million from Richard and Helen DeVos (Betsy's parent-in-laws).

So on this occasion DeVos was very much among her people, and we've seen in the past that these are the occasions on which she tends to let down her hair, stop playing to a wider audience, and let's her plutocrat flag fly.

She opens with a paean to YAF and Reagan, but she actually calls back to the group Young Americans for Freedom, founded 1959ish with a series of conversations in William F. Buckley's living room about what it means to be a conservative, resulting in the Sharon Statement (Young Americans for Freedom were eventually absorbed by Young America's Foundation) . That's a complicated topic on its own, as it represented a bit of a break with conservative thought at the time (which was struggling a bit with the not-terribly-popular Richard Nixon in the White House). The ideas of the Sharon Statement were carried into the 80s when all those college radicals grew up-- political freedom is inseparable from economic freedom, CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Betsy DeVos Lets Down Her Hair

Matt Barnum: Summit Learning Misleads About Percent of Schools That Quit Every Year | Diane Ravitch's blog

Matt Barnum: Summit Learning Misleads About Percent of Schools That Quit Every Year | Diane Ravitch's blog

Matt Barnum: Summit Learning Misleads About Percent of Schools That Quit Every Year

Matt Barnum of Chalkbeat reports that the Chan-Zuckerberg tech-based schools called Summit have been underreporting the percent of schools that quit their program every year. 

After multiple news reports of high school students walking out in protest against the Summit tech platform, Summit responded by saying that only 10% of schools leave every year. That figure, writes Barnum, was widely reported.

Summit has led the “movement” for “personalized learning,” which is in fact “depersonalized learning.” To be personalized, there must be interaction between at least two persons, not interaction between a computer and a student.

Barnum writes:

When nearly 100 students walked out of their Brooklyn high school in protest last year, saying they were spending too much of their days in front of a computer, the story took off.

The students were complaining about their school’s use of Summit Learning, a curriculum and online learning system backed byFacebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. But the organizations behind Summit pushed back, CONTINUE READING: Matt Barnum: Summit Learning Misleads About Percent of Schools That Quit Every Year | Diane Ravitch's blog

Is Your School Band Playing this Weekend? Thank a Teacher. | Teacher in a strange land

Is Your School Band Playing this Weekend? Thank a Teacher. | Teacher in a strange land

Is Your School Band Playing this Weekend? Thank a Teacher.

I’m not much of a flag waver, really. I always thought that author James Baldwin captured my feelings precisely in Notes of a Native Son when he wrote:

I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

These days, perpetual criticism is essential. We are headed into dark times, redefining the meaning of patriotism and sacrifice. It’s easy to lose faith in our government and the grand experiment—all men created equal—that founded this nation. It’s easy to let hope die when threats of another pointless war appear on the horizon.

I still believe, however, heart and soul, in the shining but imperfect ideals of a democratic education –equality under the law, the American common school, a free, high-quality education for all children, simply because they deserve it. Thirty years of teaching school have given me a hard crust of cynicism about many things related to education and America. But I never lost my enthusiasm for the Memorial Day parade.

For 25 years, my middle school band students marched through the small town where I taught and lived, in the Memorial Day Parade. There was a whole set of traditions around this event, which grew larger and more complicated every year: the aural passing down of our special drum cadences from the self-appointed 8th grade drumline leaders, mending the color guard flags originally purchased through a pizza sale back in ’88, and patching up hand-me-down snares and sousaphones scrounged from the high school.

There was never a budget for this–middle schools don’t typically have marching CONTINUE READING: Is Your School Band Playing this Weekend? Thank a Teacher. | Teacher in a strange land