CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Now Where Was I Edition (6/30)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Now Where Was I Edition (6/30)

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Now Where Was I Edition (6/30)

Last week I was on an actual vacation, so I'm still getting back up to speed. Here's what I've got for you to read on  this muggy Sunday.

Michigan's School Choice Mess

Jennifer Berkshire took a road trip to Michigan for the Have You Heard podcast, to see what she could learn about the choice system, the local love for DeVos, and the implication for the nation as a whole. This episode focuses on the inter-district choice system they have out there.

Why Many School Districts Are Being Set Up For Fiscal Failure  

Jeff Bryant takes a look at how some systems have been financially gutted. Good reporting here.

What If Teachers Didn't Focus On Individual Achievement

Some really interesting thoughts about how to use a classroom to lift up a community.

Are Today's Children Developmentally Different  

This is a classic from Nancy Bailey that was making the rounds again this week. Still an important read.

AltSchool Finally Bites Dust 

The high tech personalized learning boutique charter chain has finally devolved into the software company it was always destined to be.

What Actually Helps Poor Students

Another article from a few years back. A meta-study about what actually helps students achieve and-- surprise-- it's not computer software.

Things Education Reformers Still Don't Understand About Tests

Jersey Jazzman lays out in plain English some of the fallacies worked into reformer "news" about test results.

Chalkbeat and TFA Propaganda

Chalkbeat Tennessee published a horrendous piece of TFA-as-savior baloney, and Gary Rubenstein is here to pick it apart.

New Koch and Walton Backed Initiatives  

EdWeek reports on some new players in the reformster advocacy game. Forewarned is forearmed.

About That Marshmallow Test

Another study debunks the famous delayed gratification experiment.

Pay for Success Preys On The Poor

A direct and clear explanation of how some see the pay for success movement turning the poor into financial fodder in the surveillance state.

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Now Where Was I Edition (6/30)

DeVos Backs Corporate Profits Again

50by Peter Greene / 1d

If there is one signature feature of a DeVos doctrine, it's that the government should never, ever stand between a business and its revenue stream. That part of the doctrine was on display yesterday as DeVos officially announced her intention to let for-profit colleges do whatever the hell they want. Okay, that may be an overstatement. What she actually did was roll back the Obama-era requirement

Eight Weeks of Summer: Leaders and Followers

41by Peter Greene / 1d

This post is week 3 of 8 in the 8 Weeks of Summer Blog Challenge for educators. This post will catch me up on this little project. It's an interesting piece of teacher sharing and is also turning out to be a nice antidote to political overload. As always, I'm answering the prompt on behalf of the younger, pre-retirement version of me. How are you both a leader and a follower in your career? Of co

Eight Weeks Of Summer: Influences

25by Peter Greene / 1d

This post is week 2 of 8 in the 8 Weeks of Summer Blog Challenge for educators. Well, actually, I'm a week late because I was on vacation where the mosquitoes are stronger than the wifi. But I'm going to stick with the exercise anyway, because I find it interesting. Here's the Week #2 prompt. As always, I'll answer for my previous pre-retirement self. What has contributed to the educator you are

JUN 28

Dear Teachers: Don't Make Your Lesson Relevant

500+by Peter Greene / 2d

When I was getting my teacher training way back in the 1970s, we used to hear a great deal about making our teaching relevant. It took me several years of teaching to figure out why that was terrible advice. And it hasn't ever gone away . It seems to make sense. Connect your lesson on parts of speech to a current popular song. Assign persuasive essays about something the kids are into today. Coul

JUN 20

Five Reasons School Takeovers Fail

100+by Peter Greene / 10d

At the May 22 meeting of the Florida State Board of Education meeting, Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran and some board members expressed frustration with the state of Duval County Schools. " At what point do you say, ‘Maybe we should put them in receivership. Maybe we should have legislation that allows us to go over there and take over,’ ” he said. Meanwhile, Ohio is trying to come to gri

JUN 18

We Told You So, Dammit

2Kby Peter Greene / 12d

Over the past two years or so, there has been a steady drip drip drip of apostastic epiphanies among some Reformsters, some of whom have stepped forward to write some version of, "Oops. I think we were probably wring about X." For X, substitute emphasis high stakes testing, treating teachers like the enemy, attempts to impose national standards, education policy dictated by wealthy self-appointed

JUN 17

WV: Did Trump Just Kick Betsy DeVos (plus, Hidden Donor Shenanigans)

77by Peter Greene / 13d

Is it hyperbole to suggest, as Huffington Post does , that West Virginia's Senate has gone to war with teachers (again). I'm always reluctant to use combat metaphors, but at a bare minimum, the West Virginia Senate is showing teachers a big fat middle finger. It's not just the Senate is making its third attempt to implement the same policies that prompted two previous teacher strikes. On top of tr

JUN 16

ICYMI: BBQ And Blues Edition (6/15)

32by Peter Greene / 15d

Today in our city park you can listen to jazz and blues all day while sampling a variety of barbecue offerings. Now don't you wish you lived near me? In the meantime, here is some reading for you. Remember to share. Better Schools Won't Fix America Another wealthy reformster figures out that ed reform is on the wrong path. She Left The Education Department For Groups It Curbed; Now She's Back Yet

JUN 15

Winners Take All, Education Edition

89by Peter Greene / 15d

Every so often you come across a book that unpacks and reframes a part of the universe in a way that you can never unsee. Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas has been a book like that for me. Giridharadas is writing about "the elite charade of changing the world," and while he is taking a broad look at the way the Betters are trying to influence our country and our world, the connections to edu

Winners Take All-- Read This Book (Excerpts)

92by Peter Greene / 15d

Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas might be the most important book you read this year. It is not directly aimed at education or education reform, and yet it has everything to do with education form. I 'll address that in a separate post going up the same time as this one . But here I just want to share some important quotes from the book as a means of encouraging you to buy it and read it, b

Eight Weeks of Summer: Professional Growth Plans

by Peter Greene / 16d

This post is week 1 of 8 in the 8 Weeks of Summer Blog Challenge for educators . This is a little blogventure put on by hotlunchtray.com; for eight weeks they invite teachers to respond to a prompt about how they actually spend summer. I am a sucker for A) busting the myth that teacher summers are all unicorns and pina coladas and B) a prompt. I am, of course, a retired teacher, but I'm just going

JUN 14

Magical Money And School Choice

77by Peter Greene / 16d

Pennsylvania's legislature is currently having Version 2,433,672,127 of the same argument that emerges every five minutes in the places where charter schools and public schools bump up against each other. The PA legislature just passed a suite of charter school bills addressing a variety of issues, but not the single issue that folks on all sides want to have addressed: Absent from all four bills

JUN 13

The Trouble With The College Board's New Adversity Score

86by Peter Greene / 17d

The College Board has for years been trying to rescue its floundering flagship, the SAT. The newly announced adversity score is just the latest unforced error from the testing giant. Just keep telling yourself that For almost a decade, the 

The Candidates: How Will They Solve Society’s Problems Without Great Public Schools?

The Candidates: How Will They Solve Society’s Problems Without Great Public Schools?

The Candidates: How Will They Solve Society’s Problems Without Great Public Schools?

Here we go again. Two nights of Democratic debates and public schools were only mentioned in connection with other issues. The candidates discussed climate change, gun control, health care, foreign policy, free community college, and more. They never tackled the issues surrounding for-profit colleges.

There were no questions about the privatization of public education in America. No questions about Red for Ed and the teachers and parents who want better public schools in America. Don’t say these are state issues. The President needs to set the stage for how education will work in America. NCLB and Race to the Top did real harm to public education.

Sparks flew when Senator Harris asked Vice President Joe Biden about bussing. We heard mention of universal preschool and free tuition, especially to community college, but, like previous debates and Presidential elections, K-12 was ignored.

How will this country address all those issues without addressing the problems CONTINUE READING: The Candidates: How Will They Solve Society’s Problems Without Great Public Schools?

Our Schools Jeff Bryant - Independent Media Institute

Jeff Bryant - Independent Media Institute

Our Schools Jeff Bryant 
Chief Correspondent, Writing Fellow for Our Schools

Why Many School Districts Are Being Set Up for Fiscal Failure

June 25, 2019 - Our Schools

Our Schools’ Jeff Bryant in Radio Interview on Charter Schools Fight in West Virginia

June 18, 2019 - Our Schools

Charter Schools Are a Major Dividing Line for the 2020 Democratic Candidates—Education Fights in Pennsylvania Point the Way

June 10, 2019 - Our Schools

Why Democratic Presidential Candidates May Have to Choose Between Teacher Pay Raises and Charter Schools

June 2, 2019 - Our Schools

The Federal Government Has Poured Millions into Failing Charter Schools in Louisiana

May 19, 2019 - Our Schools

Why Charter School Proponents Have Lost Many of the Democrats Who Once Supported Them

May 10, 2019 - Our Schools

Progressives Take a Bold Stance at an Epicenter of the Charter School Movement to Score a Major Win for Public Education

April 29, 2019 - Our Schools

Things Didn’t Go Well When Betsy DeVos Was Confronted With Her Department’s Charter School Fraud

April 22, 2019 - Our Schools

Sacramento Teacher Strike Is a Warning to #RedForEd Movement Everywhere

April 9, 2019 - Our Schools

3 Questions That ‘Created Havoc’ in Betsy DeVos’ Department of Education

April 7, 2019 - Our Schools

VIEW ALL

With union backing, D.C. Council introduces proposed overhaul of controversial teacher evaluation system - The Washington Post

With union backing, D.C. Council introduces proposed overhaul of controversial teacher evaluation system - The Washington Post

With union backing, D.C. Council introduces proposed overhaul of controversial teacher evaluation system

The District’s controversial teacher evaluation system could face significant changes under proposed legislation that would give the teachers union substantial input in the system’s design during collective bargaining.

The evaluation system — which was one of the first in the nation to tie teachers’ job security and paychecks to class performance — has been central to the District’s high-profile education efforts over the past decade and is one of the more controversial legacies of former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee.

Rhee, who led the District’s public schools between 2007 and 2010 and gained national recognition for her overhaul efforts, enacted the evaluation system without negotiating it with the union. The implementation of the evaluation system, known as IMPACT, led to the firing of hundreds of teachers and produced heightened tensions between the school system and union that persist today.

If passed, the proposed legislation could be the biggest change to the evaluation system since its adoption.

Elizabeth Davis, president of the Washington Teachers’ Union, said she drafted the legislation and lobbied council members to introduce it. She blames IMPACT for a high teacher turnover rate in the District.

Supporters of IMPACT argue the evaluation system allows schools to fire ineffective teachers who linger in their jobs for years with little accountability.

Davis said she still wants ineffective teachers punished but believes IMPACT often results in the firing of competent instructors or young teachers who have not had an opportunity to develop.

If the school system unilaterally created a separate evaluation system, it could not be used to punish teachers under terms of CONTINUE READING: With union backing, D.C. Council introduces proposed overhaul of controversial teacher evaluation system - The Washington Post

Mike Klonsky's Blog: Education not an issue for Dem debaters until the Harris/Biden clash over deseg

Mike Klonsky's Blog: Education not an issue for Dem debaters until the Harris/Biden clash over deseg

Education not an issue for Dem debaters until the Harris/Biden clash over deseg

Demand for School Integration Leads to Massive 1964 New York City School Boycott

"Forcing integration upon us is not a nimble concept."  -- Alabama Police Chief Eugene "Bull" Connor, 1956

For most of the 20 Democratic Party candidates onstage Wednesday and Thursday nights, or for the debate moderators, education wasn't an important enough campaign issue to deserve a mention. Not a word was spoken about the hottest ed issues like charter schools, vouchers, pensions or testing. Common Core Standards, ESSA, it seems, were yesterday's news. There was not even a poke at Trump's ed secretary, Betsy DeVos or at Trump himself.

That's nothing new for party presidential campaigns. I remember the 2015 debates when education issues never came up. At the time, Prof. Julian Vasquez Heilig wrote in the Progressive,

Perhaps the silence is due to the fact that the Democrats have basically adopted the Republican approach to education from the 1990s.

If anything has changed in the past four years, that hasn't. This week, hardly an ed word was spoken. Not a word, that is, until Sen. Kamala Harris stole night two with her devastating "That little girl was me," confrontation with Joe Biden. After prefacing her CONTINUE READING: Mike Klonsky's Blog: Education not an issue for Dem debaters until the Harris/Biden clash over deseg

Betsy DeVos' Zombie Voucher Schemes — the Unconstitutional, Undemocratic Tax Scams That Just Won't Die | Eclectablog

Betsy DeVos' Zombie Voucher Schemes — the Unconstitutional, Undemocratic Tax Scams That Just Won't Die | Eclectablog

Betsy DeVos’ Zombie Voucher Schemes — the Unconstitutional, Undemocratic Tax Scams That Just Won’t Die

The week ended with yet another excellent article from Peter Greene​ in Forbes, this time on the dangers of “Tax Credit Scholarships”, one of Betsy DeVos major thrusts as Secretary of Education under Donald Trump.

So, what are Tax Credit Scholarships? They are complicated financial mechanisms that allow businesses to divert their tax payments to fund specific private and religious schools, including those that discriminate against LGBT kids and teachers, include overtly religious instruction in their curriculums, and endorse the teaching of objectively inaccurate and incorrect information to their students.

Now, “Isn’t that a violation of the separation of church and state?”, you may ask. “Aren’t private and religious school vouchers unconstitutional?” Well, it depends on who you ask.

If you ask constitutional law experts and former Supreme Court Chief Justices, then the answer is “Yes”…

“Under our system the choice has been made that government is to be entirely excluded from the area of religious instruction. . . . The Constitution decrees that religion must be a private matter for the individual, the family, and the institutions of private choice. . . .”
–Chief Justice Warren Burger, Lemon v. Kurtzman.

But if you ask advocates of school privatization and those who stand to profit from these voucher CONTINUE READING: Betsy DeVos' Zombie Voucher Schemes — the Unconstitutional, Undemocratic Tax Scams That Just Won't Die | Eclectablog

Mike Klonsky's Blog: After silence at the debate, Bernie puts out his ed plan and Warren defends Harris.

Mike Klonsky's Blog: After silence at the debate, Bernie puts out his ed plan and Warren defends Harris.

After silence at the debate, Bernie puts out his ed plan and Warren defends Harris.

Senator Bernie Sanders unveiled his education plan during a visit to South Carolina on Saturday. (Travis Dove, New York Times)

Did Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren read my post from yesterday? You know, the post that chastised them and the rest of the candidates for their silence on education issues during the debates? Also the one that was critical of them all for not having Kamala Harrisback when she took on Joe Biden over the issue of school deseg?

Probably not. But by yesterday afternoon, as if on cue, Team Bernie released his full-blown education plan during a visit to South Carolina. His so-called, Thurgood Marshall Plan for Public Education includes opposition to for-profit charter schools and calls for an end to public funding for charter school expansion on the grounds that charters promote school segregation.

This, about the same time as Sen. Warren was tweeting her defense of Sen. Harris against the racist backlash she's facing for her confrontation with Biden.

Well, actually, Bernie's plan had been published in the Times well over a month ago so yesterday's story obviously had nothing to do with my blog. But it's nice to feel validated CONTINUE READING: Mike Klonsky's Blog: After silence at the debate, Bernie puts out his ed plan and Warren defends Harris.

They called it “forced” bussing for integration. – Fred Klonsky

They called it “forced” bussing for integration. – Fred Klonsky

THEY CALLED IT “FORCED” BUSSING FOR INTEGRATION.

Boston in the seventies.

I remember very well back to the 70s the fight around what they called “forced” bussing to integrate our schools.

There were not many of us who supported bussing.

To paraphrase Kamala Harris, that twenty-something defending “forced” bussing was me.

And with others, we even had to argue with those on the Left who opposed it because they said it divided the working class. As if it weren’t divided already.

And no, it was not just Joe Biden among the Democrats who opposed bussing. After all, that’s why we needed the courts to order it.

And why, 20 years after Brown, did we need it?

And why is it that nobody mentioned the other night, or since, that our schools are still segregated?

They called it “forced” bussing for integration. – Fred Klonsky

Big Education Ape: What is busing? What you need to know about busing - CNNPolitics - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/06/what-is-busing-what-you-need-to-know.html

With A Brooklyn Accent: "Thank You Les Bleues"- A Tribute to the French Women's Soccer Team by Fordham Soccer Star Annie Worden

With A Brooklyn Accent: "Thank You Les Bleues"- A Tribute to the French Women's Soccer Team by Fordham Soccer Star Annie Worden

"Thank You Les Bleues"- A Tribute to the French Women's Soccer Team by Fordham Soccer Star Annie Worden

In the aftermath of the US Women's Soccer Team World Cup victory over France, I refuse to share anything that puts that put the French team in a poor light

Those women are my heroes. From my childhood through the years following my college graduation, I was in France every year, every summer, playing pick up games and being the only girl on the field. Nobody would ever want me on their team because I was a girl. In 2016, I finally saw a girls team training next to our pick up game It was a long time coming. I am proud of the growth and support these French women have been able to garner with such little support from the country.

You may not remember from my Fordham days, but I have French citizenship, a French birth certificate and my family lives in Paris. Don't get me wrong, I love the US National Women's Soccer Teams dearly I have played, fought and even lived with some of the starting 11. I am rooting for our ladies and Rapinoe's CONTINUE READING: With A Brooklyn Accent: "Thank You Les Bleues"- A Tribute to the French Women's Soccer Team by Fordham Soccer Star Annie Worden

CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos Backs Corporate Profits Again

CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos Backs Corporate Profits Again

DeVos Backs Corporate Profits Again

If there is one signature feature of a DeVos doctrine, it's that the government should never, ever stand between a business and its revenue stream.

That part of the doctrine was on display yesterday as DeVos officially announced her intention to let for-profit colleges do whatever the hell they want. Okay, that may be an overstatement. What she actually did was roll back the Obama-era requirement that such schools either show that their graduates actually land jobs, or the school would lose access to all that sweet sweet federal money. That was a powerful piece of leverage, because the for-profit colleges focus on veterans and poor folks with the result that a great deal of the for profit college revenue stream comes from the feds, who loan to the students and pay off the schools, guaranteeing that the for-profits get paid and that the students are in hock to the feds.

Rolling back Obama-era protections is problematic because the Obama administration itself did a super-lousy job of riding herd on these predatory schools. At one point, having announced that they were now by golly going to clamp down those outfits, they turned around and bailed out one of the worst. Then, when that outfit collapsed anyway, the feds let them be sold off to a debt-collection agency.

It was after all that foolishness that the administration finally implemented a gainful employment rule. This was also followed by  students scammed by the for-profit agitating to be released from their debts. The Department of Justice requested that the Department of Education simply release the portion of that debt that they held; they refused.

All of that happened before Trump ever descended the escalator to unleash havoc on US politics; it's CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos Backs Corporate Profits Again

Now where do we go from here? Parent Power’s plan to reunite African American families and public education | Parents Across America

Now where do we go from here? Parent Power’s plan to reunite African American families and public education | Parents Across AmericaNow where do we go from here? Parent Power’s plan to reunite 
Now where do we go from here? Parent Power’s plan to reunite African American families and public education

On June 21, the Indianapolis Public School (IPS) selected Teach for America alum and interim superintendent Alessia Johnson to be the district’s leader. She was preceded by Dr. Lewis Ferebee, a Broad Academy fellow who helped close and/or privatize Indy’s public schools and sell off the assets of IPS to the businesses, community, who is now the superintendent of D.C. schools. Parent Power predicts under the Johnson regime, IPS will mimic New Orleans and become a business-model privatized school district (IPS Inc.) using a portfolio model where IPS will not be a school system, but a system of schools.
See more in The Great American Education-Industrial Complex: Ideology, Technology, and Profit at https://www.amazon.com/GreatAmerican-Education-Industrial-Complex-Sociocultural/dp/0415524148

The response of Parent Power, Indy’s Parents Across America affiliate, is to spend less time continuing our critique of Supt. Johnson and more time actualizing what we are for: winning back the hearts and minds of families who were mis-attracted to the charter movement.
Here’s Parent Power’s response to the election of Alessia Johnson http://vorcreatex.com/wp-content/uplSo now where do we go from here? Parent Power’s plan to reunite Black families and public education

Now where do we go from here? Parent Power’s plan to reunite African American families and public education | Parents Across AmericaNow where do we go from here? Parent Power’s plan to reunite