Democrats Once Proposed Tripling Charter Schools. Here's What's Changed - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Democrats Once Proposed Tripling Charter Schools. Here's What's Changed - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Democrats Once Proposed Tripling Charter Schools. Here's What's Changed

In 2000, Vice President Al Gore ran for president as a Democrat on an education plan that called for tripling the number of the nation's charter schools —a plan that was mirrored in his party's platform that year.

Nearly two decades later, many of the busload of politicians seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination are hesitant to say anything positive about charters, and some have sought to distinguish themselves through sharp critiques and even calls for a national moratorium on the publicly funded, privately operated schools. It's been one of the most notable education talking points in the primary.

A look at the two major parties' platforms in the years since the first charter school law was passed shows that Democrats first supported charters as an alternative to private school vouchers, which were supported by both Sen. Bob Dole in his 1996 GOP bid for the White House and by former President George W. Bush during his 2000 campaign.

You can see the evolution of the platform language in the chart below and explore the changes for yourself.

"We should expand public school choice, but we should not take American tax dollars from public schools and give them to private schools," says the Democrats' 1996 platform in its first mention of charter schools since Minnesota passed the first state charter law in 1991. "We should promote public charter schools that are held to the highest standards of accountability and access."

But the party has  added conditions to its support of the concept, at least in print, while Republicans have largely remained consistent in lauding both private-school vouchers and charters.

Some highlights:

• In 2004, Republicans' support for charters included a call for assistance with facilities, a major issue for the sector.
• In 2008, Democrats specifically mentioned promoting charter schools "that are accountable," along with other priorities, like reforming teacher-preparation programs.
• In 2012, Republicans listed virtual schools among the options they supported. Concerns about accountability of virtual charter schools have divided some in the school choice advocacy community.
• In 2016, the Democratic platform included opposition to charter schools managed by for-profit organizations, calls CONTINUE READING: Democrats Once Proposed Tripling Charter Schools. Here's What's Changed - Politics K-12 - Education Week

The Problem with Too Much Screen Time And Too Little Privacy Is Parents (Anya Kamenetz) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The Problem with Too Much Screen Time And Too Little Privacy Is Parents (Anya Kamenetz) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The Problem with Too Much Screen Time And Too Little Privacy Is Parents (Anya Kamenetz)

Anya Kamenetz is an NPR education reporter and the author of “The Art of Screen Time.”

This appeared as op-ed in the New York Times, June 5, 2019

Parents this year were introduced to a goblin for the digital era: Momo, a bird-woman with an eerie grin who commanded the children who watched her videos on YouTube to harm themselves. The story turned out to be essentially a hoax, but it went viral in the first place because it seemed to validate a widely held belief: Our kids are in danger because of threats associated with the dark corners of social media and risk of addiction to phones and tablets.

The annual American Family Survey found last fall that “overuse of technology” had risen to the top of the list of concerns for parents of teenagers, above drugs, sexual activity and mental health. Viral headlines like “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” and books like “Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids” are resonating with parents. One of the authors of the original American Academy of Pediatrics “no screens before age 2” rule (it has since been softened) has written a book with the fearsome title “The Death of Childhood.” Screens are his main culprit.

The truth isn’t so simple. Smartphones and social media may be, in fact, transforming the experience of childhood and adolescence in some ways. But the hard (for many adults to hear) truth is that many of technology’s effects on kids have less to do with screen time per se than they do with the decisions grown-ups are making — many of which place children’s privacy at great risk.

First, there’s surveillance. Children are now under intense scrutiny from a young age, from platforms and advertisers, but also parents and other authority figures.

Many public schools use online gradebooks, and sometimes app-based communication systems like Class Dojo. Depending on their settings, these systems allow parents to instantly see the score on every quiz, and a record of every time their child is disciplined or praised. Family dynamics vary; these CONTINUE READING: The Problem with Too Much Screen Time And Too Little Privacy Is Parents (Anya Kamenetz) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

West Virginia Lawmakers Out to Punish Educators for Taking a Stand

West Virginia Lawmakers Out to Punish Educators for Taking a Stand

West Virginia Lawmakers Out to Punish Educators for Taking a Stand

In October, the West Virginia Legislature promised to give educators a pay raise. It failed to deliver on that promise and so a special session was called to hash out the details. As many suspected, strings would be attached.

“Not exactly an earth-shattering revelation,” wrote Dale Lee, president of the West Virginia Education Association, in an editorial in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, “but even we’re a little shocked at how far West Virginia’s [senate] has gone to punish public school teachers and service personnel for striking two years in a row to defend their livelihoods and the kids they teach.”

On June 3, the state senate narrowly passed an amendment to its Student Succeeds Act (S.B. 1039), which does include some provisions educators support, like providing more social workers, counselors, and nurses. But the bill also comes with a heavy dose of bitter pills: banning teacher strikes, removing local control from county superintendents to close school districts for a strike, canceling extracurricular activities during work stoppages, and docking the pay of teachers and staff who go on strike—or firing them altogether.

Additionally, the bill proposes an unlimited number of charter schools and diverts public dollars toward voucher programs.

“[T]he Student Success Act … [was] never about students at all,” Lee explained. “[T]his late addition is petty and vindictive, and probably what Senate President Mitch Carmichael … wants more than anything, after being embarrassed by the teachers, school service personnel, and their unions two years in a row.”

In 2018, WVEA members statewide went on strike for nine days, which lit the fire for#RedForEd across the U.S. Thirteen months later, they showed their power again with another work stoppage over charter expansion and vouchers.

West Virginians Ignored

The Student Success Act is similar to a previous senate bill (S.B. 451) that died in the house in February 2019. The main discord between the two chambers was over charter schools and vouchers.

Wendy Peters, an elementary school teacher, told MetroNews at the time, “Some CONTINUE READING: West Virginia Lawmakers Out to Punish Educators for Taking a Stand

A Billionaire Declares: Better Public Schools Won’t Fix America | Diane Ravitch's blog

A Billionaire Declares: Better Public Schools Won’t Fix America | Diane Ravitch's blog

A Billionaire Declares: Better Public Schools Won’t Fix America

Nick Hanauer was a big supporter of charter schools. As he explains in this fascinating article, he swallowed the Corporate Reform Dogma whole. He believed that America’s “failing public schools” were the cause of poverty and inequality. Fix the schools and—poof—poverty and inequality will disappear.

He writes:

Taken with this story line, I embraced education as both a philanthropic cause and a civic mission. I co-founded the League of Education Voters, a nonprofit dedicated to improving public education. I joined Bill Gates, Alice Walton, and Paul Allen in giving more than $1 million each to an effort to pass a ballot measure that established Washington State’s first charter schools. All told, I have devoted countless hours and millions of dollars to the simple idea that if we improved our schools—if we modernized our curricula and our teaching methods, substantially increased school funding, rooted out bad teachers, and opened enough charter schools—American children, especially those in low-income and working-class communities, would start learning again. Graduation rates and wages would increase, poverty and inequality would decrease, and public commitment to democracy would be restored.

But after decades of organizing and giving, I have come to the uncomfortable conclusion that I was wrong. And I hate being wrong.

What I’ve realized, decades late, is that educationism is tragically misguided. American workers are struggling in large part because they are underpaid—and they are underpaid because 40 years of trickle-down policies have rigged the economy in favor of wealthy people like me. Americans are more highly educated than ever before, CONTINUE READING: A Billionaire Declares: Better Public Schools Won’t Fix America | Diane Ravitch's blog

With A Brooklyn Accent: How Charter Schools and Teach for America Have Contributed to the Destruction of Public Education in the United States

With A Brooklyn Accent: How Charter Schools and Teach for America Have Contributed to the Destruction of Public Education in the United States

How Charter Schools and Teach for America Have Contributed to the Destruction of Public Education in the United States

The following is a chart summarizing federal education policy in the last 20 years. Note where Charter Schools and Teach for America fit in the puzzle

Step One: Require all states to administer standardized tests to students enrolled in all public schools as a condition of receiving Federal funding

Step Two: Require states to rate schools and school districts on the basis of scores on those tests

Step Three: Require states to close schools which are designated as "failing" on those tests, and take school districts designated as "failing" into receivership.

Step Four: In replacing schools which have been closed, give preference to Charter Schools.

Step Five: Staff the "replacement schools"- most of them Charter Schools-, with Teach for America corps members

What have been the results of this? Hundreds of thousands of CONTINUE READING: With A Brooklyn Accent: How Charter Schools and Teach for America Have Contributed to the Destruction of Public Education in the United States

CURMUDGUCATION: Can SEL Learn From Common Core

CURMUDGUCATION: Can SEL Learn From Common Core

Can SEL Learn From Common Core 

At the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Michael McShane (EdChoice) recently took a look at what the nascent social-emotional learning movement for education could learn from studying the checkered history of the Common Core. It's an interesting paper both for what it says about SEL and for what it gleans from the story of the Common Core, operating as it does from the reliably free-market loving reformy point of view of AEI. Plus it includes one of my new most favorite Arne Duncan quotes.

The paper opens with a history of the Core and then goes on to draw four lessons. Let's take a look.

Common Core History

McShane takes a good, honest look at the downward trajectory of the Core's popularity with everyone, and notes "It's fair to say that the implementation of Common Core did not live up to advocates' expectations." He notes the phenomenon of how Race to the Top "turbocharged" adoption of the standards, in some cases before they were even finished (he does not talk about how Bill Gates helped drive the whole process). He notes also that the standards came hand in hand with the Big Standardized Tests, and reminds us all of some of the grotesque over-promising that Duncan offered up regarding the BS Tests. McShane takes us back to Duncan's speech announcing the grants for the PARCC and SBA tests:

In that same  speech, he set a pretty high bar for these two tests. He said they would "be an absolute game-changer in public education ," "make widespread use of smart technology," and "provide students with realistic, complex performance tasks, immediate feedback, computer adptive testing, and incorporate accommodations for a range of students." He harped on new testing technology that would allow students "to design products or experiments, to manipulate parameters, run tests and record data." He  said tests would be able to "incorporate audio and video" and situate problems "in real world environments, where students perform tasks or include CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Can SEL Learn From Common Core

Attempting 78 Miles on a Bike to Celebrate My Birthday | The Merrow Report

Attempting 78 Miles on a Bike to Celebrate My Birthday | The Merrow Report

Attempting 78 Miles on a Bike to Celebrate My Birthday

Well, last Friday was so beautiful that, even though it wasn’t literally my birth anniversary, I decided to go for it.  My daughter Elise and I hit the trail at precisely 7AM. While we were the only humans around, we certainly were not alone.

The snapping turtle, one of two, was intent on laying her eggs, and the goslings were protected by at least a half dozen aggressively vigilant Canada Geese.  The adult deer could have been the yearling I encountered on the path a year ago.  During the day we probably saw three or four times as many chipmunks as people!

The first half went well, and we stopped for lunch (energizing smoothies) at the 44-mile mark in Yorktown, New York.

My daughter kept an eye on me, making certain that I was hydrating properly. What’s more, Elise was riding a folding bike!  This is the cycling equivalent of the CONTINUE READING: Attempting 78 Miles on a Bike to Celebrate My Birthday | The Merrow Report

Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Education Policy Blunders | Teacher in a strange land

Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Education Policy Blunders | Teacher in a strange land

Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Education Policy Blunders

Here’s my theory of how Democrats can win the next election.

It doesn’t have anything to do with electability, because one man’s ‘electable’ is another woman’s ‘no thanks, old white dude.’ It also doesn’t have anything to do with one specific issue—because there are a dozen bona fide Hot! Burning! Critical! issues right now (the destruction of the planet, for starters) and nobody seems to be paying much attention to the one candidate who puts that at the top of his list.

We got troubles, right here in River City.

Fortunately for us, we also have at least a dozen pretty good candidates, probably more. And we have months of opportunity to hear lots more from each of them, to actually use the primary debates as a thoughtful winnowing, an in-depth national conversation on the full range of issues. We can not only pick a candidate, we can audition candidates for other Congressional roles, as potential cabinet members, judges and future political stars.

Unless Donald Trump doesn’t make it to the finish line— and even if the plug gets pulled mid-campaign— we are surely looking two old conservative white men as Republican opponents. While it may seem shallow and obvious to focus on demographics, Democrats can run a ticket that represents women, people of color and younger voters. If you put together women, POC and progressive youth as a voting bloc, that’s a considerably bigger cohort than 50%.  The trick is to get them excited about actually voting.

Which is why I was so disappointed to see educators—teachers! — going after Elizabeth Warren.

Not because she’s my top candidate. I don’t have a top candidate. In fact, I mistrust anyone who’s settled on The One. Because what that means is that you’ll start aggressively looking for flaws in the other candidates and focus entirely on your CONTINUE READING: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Education Policy Blunders | Teacher in a strange land

School Field Trip Turns Into a Tour of Our Nation’s Unhealed Scars | gadflyonthewallblog

School Field Trip Turns Into a Tour of Our Nation’s Unhealed Scars | gadflyonthewallblog

School Field Trip Turns Into a Tour of Our Nation’s Unhealed Scars

You’ve got to be a little crazy to take a bunch of teenagers on a field trip – especially overnight and out of town.

But that’s what I did, and – yeah – guilty as charged.

For the second time in my more than 15-year career as a public school teacher, I volunteered along with a group of parents and other teachers to escort my classes of 8th graders to Washington, DC, and surrounding sights.

And I never regretted it. Not for a moment.

Not when Jason bombed the bathroom in the back of the bus after eating a burrito for lunch.

Not when Isaac gulped down dairy creamers for dessert and threw up all over himself.

Not when a trio of teenage girls accidentally locked themselves in their hotel room and we needed a crowbar to get them out.

But as I stood in Manassas, Virginia, looking at a statue of Stonewall Jackson, the CONTINUE READING: School Field Trip Turns Into a Tour of Our Nation’s Unhealed Scars | gadflyonthewallblog

Charter school task force echoes calls for tighter charter school regs, more local control | CALmatters

Charter school task force echoes calls for tighter charter school regs, more local control | CALmatters

Charter school task force echoes calls for tighter charter school regs, more local control

A highly anticipated state report on charter school reforms was made public Friday, recommending that California school districts be financially buffered from the loss of students to charters and get more flexibility in deciding whether to approve any more of the privately run, publicly financed and mostly non-union schools.

Commissioned by Gov. Gavin Newsom and led by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, who both overcame opposition from charter supporters on their way to election, the report, drawn up by a special state task force, stopped short of calling for some of the more sweeping regulations now under legislative consideration.

But it also pointedly noted that a majority, if not a full consensus, of the 11-member panel—an even mix of labor and charter advocates, plus Thurmond—supported some of the key rule changes state lawmakers have been mulling at the urging of teachers unions.

Among them: provisions that would let districts include the financial impact on traditional schools in their criteria for determining whether to authorize charters and that would make charter school denials harder to appeal.

Months in the making, the report has been on the minds of legislators as they have weighed a cluster of hotly debated charter regulations against the backdrop of urban teacher strikes. The charter issue has pitted two powerful constituencies—organized labor and wealthy proponents of school choice—against each other, and was a campaign flashpoint in the 2018 races for governor and state schools chief. Union opposition to charters has been particularly vocal in big urban districts such as Oakland and Los Angeles.

Convening the task force was one of Newsom’s first acts as governor, after striking teachers in the state’s largest school Charter school task force echoes calls for tighter charter school regs, more local control | CALmatters

NHTA Ratifies Tentative Agreement with 60% Vote Ending Historic 14-Day Strike | New Haven Teachers Association

NHTA Ratifies Tentative Agreement with 60% Vote Ending Historic 14-Day Strike | New Haven Teachers Association

NHTA Ratifies Tentative Agreement with 60% Vote Ending Historic 14-Day Strike

This is the beginning, not the end – New Haven Teachers Will Continue to Make Students/Teachers/Classroom Needs a Budget Priority

UNION CITY – With a 60% yes vote (302 yes, 200 no), members of the New Haven Teachers Association ratified the tentative agreement with the New Haven Unified School District, officially ending the historic 14-day strike. Members met today at the Portuguese Hall in Union City, and voting closed at 7 p.m.

The vote should put the school board and new superintendent on notice that this is just the beginning and not the end, NHTA President Joe Ku’e Angeles said. “Our unity with each other on the picket lines was an incredible display of power that resulted in some real gains for our union. The strike brought us together and made us stronger as a union to fight for our students, connected us with parents in a way we have never seen before in Union City, and expanded the spotlight of the underfunding of public education across California. We have made history together.”

Angeles noted the agreement wasn’t everything teachers wanted, but it did force NHUSD managers to prioritize attracting and retaining teachers in the budget, and built strong parent coalitions to work on lowering class size and increasing student supports. Members say their yes votes were in support of their union and the no votes were aimed at the district management’s bad behavior.

While NHTA members are encouraged  to rest up over the summer, Angeles outlined the union’s agenda to continue the fight for students:

• Participating with parents in collecting signatures on the school board recall petition.
• Meeting regularly, weekly even, with the new superintendent to ensure students and teachers are a priority in the budget.
• Continuing conversations with school board members and monitoring board actions.
• Actively engaging in NHUSD budget review and development.
• Lowering class size and increasing student services and supports (mental health services, librarians, counselors) are major priorities in the next full bargaining session (the negotiations process starts again in the fall).
• Helping drive professional development. In the past, NHUSD has received millions in grants for professional development and instead of utilizing the expertise from within the New Haven teaching ranks, the district spent it on consultants and trainings.  

Going back to the classroom Monday, moving forward and mending relationships will be tough, Angeles CONTINUE READING: NHTA Ratifies Tentative Agreement with 60% Vote Ending Historic 14-Day Strike | New Haven Teachers Association

Jeff Bryant: The charter school ‘dumpster fire’ in Pennsylvania provides an important lesson for 2020 Democratic candidates – Raw Story

The charter school ‘dumpster fire’ in Pennsylvania provides an important lesson for 2020 Democratic candidates – Raw Story

The charter school ‘dumpster fire’ in Pennsylvania provides an important lesson for 2020 Democratic candidates

Charter schools have finally broken into the national political dialogue, with presidential candidates in the Democratic Party proclaiming their stances on these schools. But a national debate about charters and “school choice” will be an exercise in empty rhetoric unless the candidates’ views are grounded in the real consequences of how charter schools and school choice affect communities.

Although much of the debate is stuck to a bumper sticker message about the need for families to have a choice to attend charter schools, few if any candidates seem willing to acknowledge providing families with an option to choose charters can come with considerable costs to everyone else in the community.

To understand those costs, consider Pennsylvania, where the costs of charter schools are most blatantly apparent but nevertheless representative of the cost of charters everywhere.

A ‘Perfect Storm’ Crushing the Middle Class

Across the state, charter schools are part of what Dan Doubet tells me is “a perfect storm of economic factors crushing down on middle- and working-class families.” Doubet is executive director of Keystone Progress, a Pennsylvania-based activist group focused on progressive issues and community organizing.

Pennsylvania passed its charter school law in 1997 and now has 179 CONTINUE READING: 

Teachers Should Not Feel Guilty About Taking The Summer Off - Teacher Habits

Teachers Should Not Feel Guilty About Taking The Summer Off - Teacher Habits

Teachers Should Not Feel Guilty About Taking The Summer Off

It’s that time of year once again. The time of year when teachers try to convince people who don’t teach that they really don’t have summers off.

Teacher Nicholas Ferroni, who enjoys a large Twitter following of mostly fellow teachers (it might have something to do with his looks, though his pandering to teachers probably doesn’t hurt), got an early jump this year when he asked teachers to share with him all the work they’ll be doing this summer.

He’s calling it #NoSummersOff and he’s been sharing videos of teachers explaining how many humps they’ll be busting between this year’s final bell and next year’s welcome-back-to-school-time-wasting-PD-day.

Nicholas Ferroni

✔@NicholasFerroni

THIS

Teachers have summers off, right?

Well, I asked educators from all over the country what they will be doing off this summer and this is what they said.

What will YOU be doing this summer and share this w/ anyone who thinks you do have off. #NoSummersOff pic.twitter.com/dFOlgohg0D

84

7:31 AM - Jun 1, 2019

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Ferroni explained that the campaign is “not intended for sympathy or to complain, but to crush the myth that only NON-educators believe: teachers have summers off.”

But why do teachers feel the need to crush this myth instead of CONTINUE READING: Teachers Should Not Feel Guilty About Taking The Summer Off - Teacher Habits