How segregation keeps students of color out of richer nearby districts - Vox

How segregation keeps students of color out of richer nearby districts - Vox

How segregation keeps poor students of color out of whiter, richer nearby districts
See how your local school district compares.

Much of the conversation about school segregation in America is about how to lessen segregation within a school district, ensuring students of all races in the same district can study together in the same school.

That’s the kind of policy Joe Biden opposed in the 1970s, which he was called out for during the first Democratic presidential debates. These policies tried to ban federal courts from forcing districts to bus children from one neighborhood to another to desegregate schools.

But many districts are so segregated that they can’t be integrated just by moving students around within their borders. School district boundaries that draw a sharp line between two separate and unequal districts — one majority-white and well-funded, one nonwhite and underfunded — are quite common in the United States.

Here’s the border that separates two school districts in Connecticut — Lebanon and Windham.

Lebanon is 90 percent white, and it spends about $22,000 per pupil each year. Windham is about 25 percent white, and it spends $3,000 less per pupil than Lebanon.

There are nearly 1,000 borders like this in the US, according to a new report from the education nonprofit EdBuild. It looked for bordering districts where there was at least a 25 percentage-point gap in white students, as well as at least a 10 percent gap in funding.

On the disadvantaged side of the border, there are nearly 9 million students who attend schools that are, on average, 65 percent nonwhite. These schools received about $13,000 per pupil.

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We can draw school zones to make classrooms less segregated. This is how well your district does.

School segregation didn’t go away. It just evolved.

The data proves that school segregation is getting worse

On the advantaged side, there are nearly 3 million students who attend schools that are, on average, 25 percent nonwhite. These schools receive about $17,000 per pupil.

And there are about 133 borders that are extremely unequal, with a 50 percentage-point difference in nonwhite students and a 20 percent funding gap.

By talking about integration only in the context of what happens within school districts, “We’re missing an entire part of this debate,” EdBuild CEO Rebecca Sibilia said.

Truly integrated schools would require integration between districts. But 45 years ago, the courts made this exceedingly hard.

Is your district one of the disadvantaged? Or advantaged?

The map below shows every American district on either side of one of these borders.

We’ve zoomed into your area to give you a better look, but you can explore the entire US. CONTINUE READING: How segregation keeps students of color out of richer nearby districts - Vox

CURMUDGUCATION: FL: Trees and the Taj Mahal

CURMUDGUCATION: FL: Trees and the Taj Mahal

FL: Trees and the Taj Mahal

Florida Education Commissioner is angry with Duval Schools Superintendent Diana Greene. Grr mad. Really really mad.


Corcoran was previously the speaker of the house, where he pushed a variety of privatization moves. In particular, he pushed the "Schools of Hope," a cool plan in which public schools that were having trouble would be targeted for direct charter competition, with lots of incentives for big out-of-state operators to come and rake in some Florida taxpayer bucks. In other words, when the state finds a public school that needs some extra help and support, they instead call in private operators. Like finding a traveler beaten and hurt beside the road, and instead of calling a doctor, you call some vultures.

Yes, if you haven't been following events in Florida, they really are the worst. But then, they have installed a group of strongly anti-public education folks in all the education oversight positions, as well as powerful advocacy groups with lots of clout,  so none of this comes out of left field. If any state is well-positioned to completely eliminate public education, it is Florida (even if they do attempt to hide the attempt by redefining "public").

Anyway, Duval school system includes several schools that are struggling, and they have a brand new superintendent, Dr. Diana Greene (with a background in actual education).

Corcoran gave her three choices. One of the choices was hand over some schools to IDEA, a Texas corporate charter chain founded by a pair of Teach for America products devoted to the No Excuses model.

That was the choice Greene was supposed to pick, but instead she went with working with the local community to salvage the schools they were committed to. Corcoran was not happy. In fact, he stewed aloud that perhaps it was time for the state to take over the schools that he wanted to hand off to IDEA. IDEA is on Corcoran's favorites list-- they have been given the green light to start moving into Florida and start opening those Schools of Hope.

Actually, I'm not sure this would make a very good school.

Meanwhile, this summer has seen Corcoran throwing more snits in Greene's direction. The school district has been working on a proposal to use a half-cent sales tax to fund a major capital improvement program for the district. Corcoran is not a fan, and in explaining his non-fanness, he also shared some of CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: FL: Trees and the Taj Mahal

‘Home-school charters’ let families use state dollars for Disneyland, horseback riding lessons and more - Los Angeles Times

‘Home-school charters’ let families use state dollars for Disneyland, horseback riding lessons and more - Los Angeles Times

‘Home-school charters’ let families use state dollars for Disneyland, horseback riding lessons and more 

In California, there’s a way parents can use money from the government to buy multi-day Disneyland Park Hopper passes, San Diego Zoo family memberships, tickets to Medieval Times and dolphin encounters at SeaWorld.

There are a handful of charter schools that give students’ families as much as $2,800 to $3,200 — tax dollars sent to the charter schools — every year to spend on anything they want from a list of thousands of home-school vendors approved by the charters, according to the schools’ websites.

Some home-school vendors offer tutoring, curricula, books and other traditional educational services. Other vendors sell tickets to theme parks that are billed as field trips, or extracurricular activities that are billed as P.E., including parkour classes, acting classes, ice skating lessons, horseback riding lessons and more.

It’s such a popular deal that some home-school bloggers have written articles explaining how California parents can take advantage of the schools’ money.

“If you live in California and you’re not taking advantage of this, I don’t know what to say,” said Karen Akpan, a home-school charter parent of four who lives in Beaumont. She wrote a recent blog article describing how she used the educational funds to pay for a family trip to Disneyland, Chicago CityPASSes and Legoland tickets, as well as computer coding kits, educational toys, books and subscription cooking kits for her kids.

The idea behind these charters, which some call “home-school charters,” is that families can customize their children’s education — just like regular home school — but with state education money.

These charters differ from other, more typical independent study schools or hybrid schools or virtual charter schools, which often assign a structured curriculum of courses for students to complete or offer in-person classes at resource centers.

With home-school charters, there doesn’t have to be a set curriculum. Students only have to meet virtually with a teacher once a month and turn in one work sample for each meeting — a sample that the teacher doesn’t grade, according to parents.

It is difficult to know how many charter schools operate this way. The state doesn’t track them. The California School Boards Assn., which has been critical of charter schools, says it has not researched these kinds of charters because relatively few students enroll in them.

These home-school charters are an uncommon marriage between public charter schools and home schooling, which California considers to be private schooling.

They are an extreme but little-known form of school choice that home-school advocates say is unique to California.

“I don’t know of any states where they’re paying for the kinds of things they’re paying for in California,” said Mike Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Assn. a national group that advocates for home-schooling families.

Two of the most popular home-school charters that work this way are Valiant Prep and Inspire Charter School South, both of which were authorized to operate by the CONTINUE READING:  ‘Home-school charters’ let families use state dollars for Disneyland, horseback riding lessons and more - Los Angeles Times

La. Supt. John White Fabricates Three Years Of Teaching Into Five To Garner Questionable Certification | HuffPost

La. Supt. John White Fabricates Three Years Of Teaching Into Five To Garner Questionable Certification | HuffPost

La. Supt. John White Fabricates Three Years Of Teaching Into Five To Garner Questionable Certification

Louisiana has three levels of ed leader certification. Ed Leader 1 requires no teaching experience. Ed Leader 2 requires three years of teaching experience in one’s area of certification.

And Ed Leader 3 requires five years of teaching experience in one’s area of certification.

White does not have five years of teaching experience in his area of certification.

White has three years of teaching experience. White’s application confirms as much.

According to Louisiana law (Bulletin 746), the following criteria must be met in order for a person to be granted ed leader 3 status, certification that allows one to become a Louisiana district superintendent or assistant superintendent:

§ 708. Educational Leader Certificate Level 3 (EDL 3) [Formerly §709]

A. This certificate is required in order to serve as a school system superintendent or assistant superintendent.

Eligibility requirements:

a. valid EDL 2 or one of the Louisiana administrative/supervisory certifications that preceded the educational leadership certification structure;

b. five years of teaching experience in his/her area of certification;

c. five years of successful administrative or management experience in education at the level of assistant principal or above. The assistant principal experience would be limited to a maximum of two years of experience in that position; and

d. passing score on the school superintendent assessment (SSA), in keeping with state requirements.

Note that the five years of teaching experience is just that– teaching experience– and that it is to be in the applicant’s area of certification.

Included with White’s application is the following letter from the Jersey City Public Schools:

December 10, 2015

To Whom It May Concern:

Please be advised that Mr. John White was employed with the Jersey City School District as a certified English Teacher from September 1, 1999 to June 30, 2002. Please feel free to contact me for any further information at (201) 915-6362.

Sincerely,

Tracey A. Stone

Clerk2/Human Resources

To support the idea that White’s three years with Jersey City Schools were in White’s area of certification, his application also includes the following January 26, 2016, email from CONTINUE READING: La. Supt. John White Fabricates Three Years Of Teaching Into Five To Garner Questionable Certification | HuffPost

The MetWest High School Story (Part 5) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The MetWest High School Story (Part 5) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The MetWest High School Story (Part 5)

Internships

Forty percent of the school week is devoted to Learning Through Internships (LTI). Every teacher/advisor meets with their students in and out of school to discuss the work done at the intern site, the on-site mentor, and any issues that have arisen.

As in all Big Picture schools, MetWest has structured the academic year to have students search for and enter into two-day a week unpaid internships during school hours. Called Learning Through Internship (LTI), there is a coordinator that oversees the entire program. A former Advisor/Teacher Michael Cellemme heads this part of MetWest’s program. He is the only staff member who has also worked as a Teacher/Advisor at the first Big Picture school (The Met) in Providence (RI). He is responsible for finding sites for internships, interviewing potential work-site mentors, making matches between individual students and mentors, and monitoring what goes on in the internship.

Local mentors take on the responsibility of helping a student acquire the work and social skills necessary to succeed in a business, government agency, educational and health organization, and similar Oakland groups. Since 2002 when MetWest opened, the school had placed students with more than 400 organizations (2010), including local hospitals, radio stations and restaurants to provide learning opportunities.[i]

Advisor/Teacher Shannon Carey sees how the internship experience has made a huge difference for one of her 20 students, Kris McCoy. McCoy had struggled in school and had been in Oakland’s juvenile hall for being involved in an armed robbery while in the eighth grade. When he arrived at MetWest, he got into several fights in the ninth grade.

Carey said that “he came with an ankle bracelet, and with visits from his parole officer.” She continued: “And needing to be the alpha male and needing to show MetWest who he was and that he shouldn’t be messed with. He was way more CONTINUE READING: The MetWest High School Story (Part 5) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

America’s New School Lunch Policy: Punishing Hungry Students for Their Parents’ Poverty | gadflyonthewallblog

America’s New School Lunch Policy: Punishing Hungry Students for Their Parents’ Poverty | gadflyonthewallblog

America’s New School Lunch Policy: Punishing Hungry Students for Their Parents’ Poverty

There are few things as bad as a hungry child.

Hunched over an aching stomach as the school day creeps toward its end, one in six children go hungry in America today.

It’s harder to learn when you’re malnourished and in pain – especially for children.

It should be harder for adults to let them go hungry.

Yet for many policymakers, nothing is as bad as feeding children and letting their parents avoid the bill.

About 75% of US school districts report students who end the year owing large sums for lunches, according to the School Nutrition Association. And of those districts, 40.2% said the number of students without adequate funds increased last school year.

In fact, that has become the central issue – not child hunger but lunch debt.

Policymakers at the federal, state and school district level are finding new ways to force impoverished parents to pay for their children’s meals even if doing so means CONTINUE READING: America’s New School Lunch Policy: Punishing Hungry Students for Their Parents’ Poverty | gadflyonthewallblog

CURMUDGUCATION: CA: Any Warm Body

CURMUDGUCATION: CA: Any Warm Body

CA: Any Warm Body

California is in the midst of a legislative battle over charters, with the charter business suffering the prospect of a crackdown after years of happy life in the Land of Do As You Please.

There are many issues and voices flying about, but the Pasadena Star-News just chose to speak up for one of the odder old arguments of charter fans-- that charter schools shouldn't have to hire qualified teachers.

The public face of this argument is usually something about flexibility to hire teachers with professional expertise, like bringing in an experienced actor to teach drama class. I understand the appeal of the argument, but the fact that someone has professional accomplishments does not mean that person is in any way capable of teaching others.

Well, this looks harder than I thought it would be

The less public face of this argument is that many charter fans want charters to operated like businesses with visionary CEOs who can hire and fire as they see fit, without being forced to abide by any rules. Teachers-who-aren't-actually-teachers are also great about being paid less than real professionals and are seen as less likely to start making noises about unions and having a voice in running the school and other annoying behaviors that cramp management's style.

The PNS manages to be capture all the ways to be wrong on this issue.

One charter-school official noted to the Union-Tribune that former Gov. Jerry Brown would not be allowed to teach government under current credentialing rules. Likewise, an experienced  CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: CA: Any Warm Body

MATT BARNUM : When school turnarounds backfire: North Carolina’s effort offers a cautionary tale

When school turnarounds backfire: North Carolina’s effort offers a cautionary tale

When school turnarounds backfire: North Carolina’s effort offers a cautionary tale

A few years ago, North Carolina school officials looked at a group of its struggling schools and decided: we need to help.

State officials designed a turnaround strategy for those 75 schools, which were largely rural and served mostly low-income students of color. They dispatched education department staffers to analyze what was going wrong and make a plan, and then sent coaches to work with teachers and principals to improve instruction.

It’s an approach that would seem innocuous at worst and genuinely helpful at best.

But the results look quite different. The program actually caused test scores to fall modestly and teacher turnover to rise sharply at those schools, according to new research.

To Gary Henry of Vanderbilt, one of the researchers, it underscores that intervening in schools can backfire, and it’s not always obvious what schools need to improve.

“‘I always thought that it was better to do something than to do nothing,’” Henry said a North Carolina policymaker recently told him. “But it appears from this,” Henry said, “it actually sometimes could be worse to do something.”

The research adds to the current state of confusion about how best to improve struggling schools at a moment where the strategies states are using are in flux. Under the Obama administration’s federal turnaround program, states’ lowest-performing schools were required to fire the principal, and in some cases half the CONTINUE READING: When school turnarounds backfire: North Carolina’s effort offers a cautionary tale

Teacher's union head calls DeVos handling of student loan forgiveness program 'a travesty' | TheHill

Teacher's union head calls DeVos handling of student loan forgiveness program 'a travesty' | TheHill

Teacher's union head calls DeVos handling of student loan forgiveness program 'a travesty'

The head of the teachers union suing the Department of Education is slamming Secretary Betsy DeVos, calling her mismanagement of the public service student loan forgiveness program a “travesty” and a “betrayal” to millions of Americans.

Randi Weingarten, who is president of the American Federation of Teachers, filed a lawsuit earlier this month against DeVos. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and is brought by eight union members along with Weingarten and the union itself.

“What Betsy Devos has done is a travesty and a betrayal,” Weingarten, an outspoken critic of the Trump administration’s handing of the program, told Hill.TV on Tuesday.

An Education Department spokesperson declined to comment, but called the lawsuit "nothing more than the typical political grandstanding from the union." 

The federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program was passed with bipartisan support and signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2007.

The program promises to forgive the remaining balance of federal student loan debt for graduates who have made at least 120 payments and work in a qualifying job for the government or a nonprofit. This includes teachers, firefighters and nurses among other public service workers.

Weingarten emphasized that the current program is in such disarray, that it violates both federal law and the Constitution.

“Why are they not actually saying, ‘wait a second’ — you paid for 10 years, we’re going to find every way to get your loan forgiven,'” she said. “Instead it’s obstacle after obstacle after CONTINUE READING: Teacher's union head calls DeVos handling of student loan forgiveness program 'a travesty' | TheHill

Emails Show DeVos Aides Pulled Strings for Failing For-Profit Colleges - The New York Times

Emails Show DeVos Aides Pulled Strings for Failing For-Profit Colleges - The New York Times

Emails Show DeVos Aides Pulled Strings for Failing For-Profit Colleges

WASHINGTON — Dream Center Education Holdings, a subsidiary of a Los Angeles-based megachurch, had no experience in higher education when it petitioned the federal Education Department to let it take over a troubled chain of for-profit trade schools.

But the organization’s chairman, Randall K. Barton, told the education secretary, Betsy DeVos, that the foundation wanted to “help people live better lives.”

The purchase was blessed despite Dream Center’s lack of experience and questionable finances by an administration favorable to for-profit education. But barely a year later, the company tumbled into insolvency, dozens of its colleges closed abruptly and thousands of students were left with no degree after paying tens of thousands of dollars in tuition.

Making matters worse, the college is accused of enrolling new students and taking their taxpayer-supported financial aid dollars even after some of its campuses had lost their accreditation, which rendered their credits worthless

Company emails, documents and recordings show that part of why Dream Center kept going is that it thought the Education Department, which under Ms. DeVos has rolled back regulations on for-profit education, would try to keep it from failing. Mr. Barton emailed other Dream Center executives that the department’s head of higher education policy — Diane Auer Jones, a former executive and lobbyist for for-profit colleges — had pulled strings to help the company’s schools in their effort to regain a seal of approval from an accreditor, despite their perilous positions.

In another instance, Dream Center’s chief operating officer told faculty at an endangered campus that Ms. Jones was changing departmental regulations to help the schools obtain accreditation retroactively.

Although the Trump administration did eventually cut off federal aid to the chain of colleges and precipitate their collapse, Democrats say the department failed to respond to warning signs.

Representative Robert C. Scott, a Virginia Democrat who is the chairman of the House Education Committee, unveiled a trove of CONTINUE READING: Emails Show DeVos Aides Pulled Strings for Failing For-Profit Colleges - The New York Times