AFT PRESIDENT RANDI WEINGARTEN: TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S NEW FLORES RULE “CRUEL” | Black Star News

AFT PRESIDENT RANDI WEINGARTEN: TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S NEW FLORES RULE “CRUEL” | Black Star News

AFT PRESIDENT RANDI WEINGARTEN: TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S NEW FLORES RULE “CRUEL”

AFT's Weingarten: “In another cruel move, the Trump administration has chosen to once again target immigrant children, making it easier to hold them in detention indefinitely and under inhabitable conditions. The White House’s goal is quite clear: to prevent anyone from majority nonwhite countries from seeking refuge and asylum in the United States."
Today, AFT President Randi Weingarten spoke on the Trump Administration's "cruel" amending of Flores Settlement Agreement protections for migrant children.
Statement of American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten following the Trump administration’s announcement of a new rule that would amend the Flores Settlement Agreement—an agreement that protects migrant children seeking asylum in the United States and ensures that they are released from immigration detention as quickly as possible:
“In another cruel move, the Trump administration has chosen to once again target immigrant children, making it easier to hold them in detention indefinitely and under inhabitable conditions. The White House’s goal is quite clear: to prevent anyone from majority nonwhite countries from seeking refuge and asylum in the United States. As a nation of many descendants of immigrant families who sought safety, opportunity and hope CONTINUE READING: AFT PRESIDENT RANDI WEINGARTEN: TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S NEW FLORES RULE “CRUEL” | Black Star News

YUGE NEWS SACRAMENTO! - SACRAMENTO PROGRESSIVE ALLIANCE

SACRAMENTO PROGRESSIVE ALLIANCE

YUGE NEWS SACRAMENTO!

As you know, Bernie is coming to town on August 22. He will be at Caesar E. Chavez Plaza at 910 I Street in Downtown Sacramento.

Parking will be scarce, so you need to get there early. We encourage you use alternate transportation if possible! You can follow this link to find a public transit route to get you there on time! Please be aware of Sacramento's parking enforcement policies. 

SACRAMENTO PROGRESSIVE ALLIANCE

You Belong Here - Lily's Blackboard

You Belong Here - Lily's Blackboard

You Belong Here

When school started this year in Mississippi, a child went to kindergarten on a Tuesday. Just imagine how excited and nervous she must have felt to meet her new teacher, to sit at a table with new friends, to take the first steps on this awesome adventure in education—and how proud and nervous her parents felt, too.

On Wednesday, during the second day of school, maybe while the 5-year-olds were working hard on their “All About Me” worksheets, the child’s parent was taken away by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

What do you imagine the new teacher said on Thursday? I know what I would have said: “You belong here. You’re safe here.” And how much we wish that to be true.

On that particular day, during raids at food processing plants in small towns across Mississippi, about 680 people were taken away. School officials in Scott County know many were parents of their students. They advised school bus drivers to make “visual contact” with a parent or guardian before dropping off a child, so that children wouldn’t go home to empty homes.

Minneapolis marchers protest federal immigration policies at the 2018 NEA at the 2018 NEA Representative Assembly in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Photo/Calvin Knight – June 29, 2018

What we are seeing is unimaginable on many levels.  The cruelty of separating families.  The senseless fear and trauma experienced by thousands of children that will impact them for the rest of their lives.  But the most unimaginable for me is that this is being done by our government intentionally.  Callously.  Cruelly.

I believe that what happened in Mississippi on the second day of school, and what has happened during arrests or raids in Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, and across the U.S., and especially what is happening at our southern border to families seeking refuge, is heartless, cruel, and against everything that the United States, a nation of hard-working immigrants, stands for.

Putting that aside: These immigration policies also deeply affect the work of educators. After ICE departs, with our students’ parents in handcuffs, educators still have their children in our classrooms. We still must teach that CONTINUE READING: You Belong Here - Lily's Blackboard

Study: Charters in California Enroll Fewer Students with Disabilities, Fewer with Severe Disabilities | Diane Ravitch's blog

Study: Charters in California Enroll Fewer Students with Disabilities, Fewer with Severe Disabilities | Diane Ravitch's blog

Study: Charters in California Enroll Fewer Students with Disabilities, Fewer with Severe Disabilities

It has been widely reported that charter schools enroll fewer students with disabilities and few of the students they enroll have severe disabilities.

The California Teachers Association and the United Teachers of Los Angeles reviewed public records to document the enrollments of students with disabilities in charter schools in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Oakland.

The study is titled “State of Denial: California Charter Schools and Special Education Students.”

https://www.utla.net/news/new-study-reveals-privately-run-charter-schools-under-enroll-students-disabilities

The study found that charters enroll fewer students with disabilities than public schools. Charter enrollment is 11% compared to more that 14% in public schools. Furthermore, charters enroll fewer students with severe disabilities. They avoid the students who are most expensive to educate. Consequently these charter policies cost the three districts between $64 million to $97 million each year.

In some of the charter networks, fewer than 10% of students are entitled to special education services. One celebrated charter in Oakland, the American Indian Model Schools, known for its high test scores, has fewer than 3%. The 12 Rocketship charter schools enroll only 7.34% students with disabilities. The two charters created by former Governor Jerry Brown in Oakland enroll fewer than 10% of students with disabilities.

CONCLUSIONS:

Advocates for students with disabilities have long held CONTINUE READING: Study: Charters in California Enroll Fewer Students with Disabilities, Fewer with Severe Disabilities | Diane Ravitch's blog

Bernie’s labor plan includes restoring pension rights undone by Obama/Biden in 2014. – Fred Klonsky

Bernie’s labor plan includes restoring pension rights undone by Obama/Biden in 2014. – Fred

BERNIE’S LABOR PLAN INCLUDES RESTORING PENSION RIGHTS UNDONE BY OBAMA/BIDEN IN 2014.

Campaigning in Iowa, Bernie Sanders released a comprehensive labor plan today as he and other Democratic presidential candidates addressed the Iowa Federation of Labor’s annual convention in Altoona.

Included in Sanders’ plan is a repeal of an Obama executive order, signed in 2014, allowing for major pension theft across private sector industries.

The 2014 bill, endorsed and signed by President Obama led to what was the first cuts in earned pension benefits to current retirees in over 40 years.

Writing in the Intercept in 2016, David Dayen:

The pension changes in the CRomnibus enable trustees of multi-employer plans — union-negotiated pension benefit funds that cover employees across entire industries like trucking or construction — to apply to the Treasury Department to cut benefits for current retirees in order to stretch the fund’s resources. This changed the ban on cutting such benefits written into the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974, which governs private-sector pension plans.

There were no public hearings on this change to pension law, CONTINUE READING: Bernie’s labor plan includes restoring pension rights undone by Obama/Biden in 2014. – Fred

Gov. Wolf Tries to Stop Charter Schools Gorging on Public School Funding | gadflyonthewallblog

Gov. Wolf Tries to Stop Charter Schools Gorging on Public School Funding | gadflyonthewallblog

Gov. Wolf Tries to Stop Charter Schools Gorging on Public School Funding

Sooey! Here Pig Pig Pig!

No one minds that healthy call at the hog farm when it’s time to feed the sows.

But taxpayers do take issue with it when it’s the call of the state legislature gathering a different kind of swine around public tax dollars.

Pennsylvania’s 180 charter schools gobbled up $1.8 billion last year from the Commonwealth’s public schools.

And Gov. Tom Wolf is refusing to let them continue to gorge on public funding meant to nourish everyone.

Last week, he took executive action to hold these schools accountable and force them to be more transparent – even if the legislature won’t.

Charter schools are publicly financed but privately run. Unlike authentic public schools, charters are often administered by appointed boards. They don’t have to provide the same level of services for children, don’t have to accept all students, can make a profit and don’t even have to be transparent about how they spend their money.

Yet that money comes from taxpayers.

For years fiscal watchdogs have complained that the state’s 22-year-old charter school law needs revising. However, after lining lawmakers pockets with charter school cash, the legislature continually refuses to do anything about it.

A few Democrats have offered plans that would increase accountability, but they’ve gotten no traction. And Republican plans have almost exclusively offered to make CONTINUE READING: Gov. Wolf Tries to Stop Charter Schools Gorging on Public School Funding | gadflyonthewallblog

La. PAC Used to Funnel $3M in Out-of-State Billionaire Cash into 2015 BESE Election Disbands | deutsch29

La. PAC Used to Funnel $3M in Out-of-State Billionaire Cash into 2015 BESE Election Disbands | deutsch29

La. PAC Used to Funnel $3M in Out-of-State Billionaire Cash into 2015 BESE Election Disbands

In 2015, six out-of-state billionaires from four families contributed a combined $3M to influence the outcome of Louisiana’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) election.

For the October 24, 2019, primary, out-of-state billionaire spending totaling $2.1M was as follows:

• John and Laura Arnold (Texas): $625K
• Michael Bloomberg (New York): $800K
• Eli Broad (California): $250K
• Alice Walton (Arkansas): $200K
• Jim Walton (Arkansas): $200K

In all cases, the funnel used to bring this $2.1M into Louisiana’s October 24, 2015, state board of ed election was Louisiana businessman Lane Grigsby’s Empower Louisiana PAC.

For the October 24, 2015, election, Grigsby used the money to purchase ads in support of corporate ed reform candidates James Garvey, Sandy Holloway, Holly Boffy, and Tony Davis and in opposition traditional ed supporters Mike Kreamer and Lottie Beebe.

The October 2015 BESE election resulted in six ed-reform wins and two runoffs, which were decided in a subsequent, November 2015, election.

Regarding those two BESE seat runoffs, yet another $1M came to Louisiana via Grigsby’s PAC:

Jim Walton donated $250K AND Michael Bloomberg donated $650K toward the November 21, 2015, runoff between BESE candidates Tony Davis and Mary Harris CONTINUE READING: La. PAC Used to Funnel $3M in Out-of-State Billionaire Cash into 2015 BESE Election Disbands | deutsch29

New Study Reveals Privately-Run Charter Schools Under-Enroll Students with Disabilities | UTLA

New Study Reveals Privately-Run Charter Schools Under-Enroll Students with Disabilities | UTLA

New Study Reveals Privately-Run Charter Schools Under-Enroll Students with Disabilities

A new first-of-its-kind report released today proves the theory advocates for students with disabilities and public schools have been saying for years:  charter schools are enrolling fewer students with disabilities. Those they do enroll generally have less severe – and therefore less costly – disabilities, and that this is having a disparate fiscal impact on public school districts. The report and brief, LINK à State of Denial: California Charter Schools and Special Education Students, conducted by United Teachers Los Angeles and California Teachers Association researchers, calculated the cost disparity on San Diego Unified School District, Los Angeles Unified School District, and Oakland Unified School District, and found the gross fiscal impact for these three districts to be between $64.52 million and $97.19 million annually.

“For years, we have heard anecdotally from parents, public and charter educators that the charter industry under-enrolls students with disabilities. For the first time, we can now quantify those stories using data from three of the three largest charter authorizers in the state. Beyond the civil rights concerns, there are also stark fiscal impacts on our public schools. This report shows a disturbing a pattern that, if left unchecked, means we are looking down the barrel of a public education system that will become increasingly segregated and destabilized,” said Elaine Grace Regullano, UTLA’s Strategic Research and Analytics Director and co-author of the report.

In the 2016 – 2017 academic year, SDUSD, LAUSD, and OUSD charter schools were serving significantly fewer students with disabilities than district schools – 11.01% vs. 14.27%. In Oakland, charter schools enrolled students at roughly half the rate of district-run schools (7.67% vs. 13.58%). Charter schools in SDUSD, LAUSD, and OUSD were serving a statistically smaller share of students with the most severe disabilities, who are also generally the most expensive to serve, including a persistent under-enrollment of students with autism, intellectual disabilities, multiple disabilities, and orthopedic impairment. In CONTINUE READING: New Study Reveals Privately-Run Charter Schools Under-Enroll Students with Disabilities | UTLA

Texas: The IDEA Charter FlimFlam | Diane Ravitch's blog

Texas: The IDEA Charter FlimFlam | Diane Ravitch's blog

Texas: The IDEA Charter FlimFlam

Betsy DeVos has awarded more than $200 million to the IDEA charter chain to expand in Texas and beyond. IDEA plans to swamp San Antonio, El Paso, and other cities.

IDEA promises that all students will graduate and go to college, but it doesn’t promise that all students will make it to senior year, or that they will make it in college (earlier studies by Ed Fuller, then at the University of Texas, now at Penn State, found that IDEA graduates had high dropout rates from college).

Read this study of IDEA to learn more.

Texas Charter Schools – Perception May Not Be Real

IDEA Public Schools: Remove the “Rose–Colored Glasses” and Many RED FLAGS Appear

By:  William J. Gumbert

IDEA Public Schools (“IDEA”) is the fastest growing privately-operated charter school in Texas and its rapid expansion in local communities is funded and controlledby “special interests” that desire to “privatize” public education.  With promotions of a “100% College Acceptance Rate” and students being “Accepted to the College or University of Their Choice”, a full-time staff is employed to advocate for IDEA in local communities and to aggressively recruit “economically-disadvantaged” parents dreaming of a better life for their children.

Ann Landers said: “Rose-colored glasses are never made in bifocals.  Nobody wants to read the small print in dreams”.But with the education of children and millions of taxpayer dollars at stake, the small print is vitally important. Part 4 of this 5–part series removes the “rose-colored glasses” that are inherent in the promotions of IDEA Public Schools to provide parents, taxpayers and communities an opportunity to review the potential RED FLAGS that appear when the light is solely focused on the facts of the rapidly expanding, privately-operated charter school.

Overview, Growth, Taxpayer Funding and Financial Benefits: As a privately-operated charter, IDEA has been approved by the State to separately operate in community-based school districts with taxpayer funding.  Since opening with 150 students in 2000, IDEA has been consistentlyfocused on expanding its footprint. In this regard, IDEAstrategic growth plan states it will serve 100,000 students by 2022 as new campuses are opened CONTINUE READING: Texas: The IDEA Charter FlimFlam | Diane Ravitch's blog

Women of #RedForEd Closing the Pay Gap - NEA Today

Women of #RedForEd Closing the Pay Gap - NEA Today

Women of #RedForEd Closing the Pay Gap

By Cindy Long

Rosa Jimenez, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, is a single mom who shares a bed with her daughter in a one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles. She holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, but she’s still just scraping by in a city with one of the highest costs of living in the nation. Jimenez is a high school history teacher.

Fellow Angeleno Georgia Flowers Lee is a special education teacher at Saturn Elementary School in the gentrifying mid-city section. She can’t afford to live anywhere near her school, so she commutes about an hour each way from what she calls a “challenging” part of LA. She’s been an educator—her second career—for almost two decades but still struggles to make ends meet.

“You pay the bills, and you look at what’s left and you decide, ‘OK, what do I do without this month?’” Lee says.

Across the country in rural, western Pennsylvania, Missy Brant teaches kindergarten. She says there are teachers right in her backyard who earn just over the minimum wage. The starting teacher salary in Pennsylvania is $18,500 and has been since 1989, when Brant was just 8 years old and thinking of becoming a teacher like her mom. It never occurred to her that educators would be worse off now than they were then.

Jimenez, Flowers Lee, and Brant aren’t alone. Across the nation, teachers—most of them women—are underpaid and struggling. Their growing frustration has fueled a nationwide movement called #RedForEd that demands professional pay for professional work.

Professions dominated by women have lower pay, but even within the profession there is CONTINUE READING: Women of #RedForEd Closing the Pay Gap - NEA Today

California Schools May Be Banned From Suspending Students For ‘Willful Defiance’ – CBS Sacramento

California Schools May Be Banned From Suspending Students For ‘Willful Defiance’ – CBS Sacramento

California Schools May Be Banned From Suspending Students For ‘Willful Defiance’

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – Starting next school year principals and administrators may be banned from suspending students for “willful defiance” of teachers, staff, and administrators.

Senate Bill 419 bans schools from suspending students in grades 4-8 for disrupting school activities or willfully defying school authorities, including teachers and staff. The bill would also ban schools from suspending students in grades 9-12 for the same thing until January 1, 2025. The law would apply to both public and charter schools.

The full Assembly voted to pass the bill Monday by a vote of 58-17, with four Assemblymembers not voting. The vote went along party lines.

A similar bill was vetoed by Governor Jerry Brown last legislative session.

Existing law already prohibits schools from suspending children in grades K-3 for disrupting or willful defiance. Existing law also prevents schools from recommending the expulsion of students in all grades for disrupting or willful defiance.

SEE ALSO: New Law Asks California Schools To Ban Smartphones In Classrooms

Students could still be suspended or expelled for other acts, including threatening violence, bringing a weapon or drugs to school, or damaging school property. Teachers could also still be allowed to “suspend pupils from class for the day and the following day who disrupt school activities or otherwise willfully defied valid
authority of supervisors, teachers, administrators, school officials, or other school personnel engaged in the performance of their duties.”

As part of the new bill, superintendents or principals would be asked to provide alternatives to suspension or expulsion that are “age-appropriate and designed to address and correct the pupil’s specific misbehavior.”

The Alliance for Boys and Men of Color supports the bill, writing:CONTINUE READING: California Schools May Be Banned From Suspending Students For ‘Willful Defiance’ – CBS Sacramento

Not Funding Schools or Paying Teachers? That’s a You Problem, Right? | Teacher in a strange land

Not Funding Schools or Paying Teachers? That’s a You Problem, Right? | Teacher in a strange land

Not Funding Schools or Paying Teachers? That’s a You Problem, Right?

In the school district next to mine—and where I live, all the schools are small and rural—there was an unpaid collective lunch debt in June. As a goodwill gesture, a local craft brewery paid off the debt, $2700, so all the students in Suttons Bay will start the year with a clean slate. There are about 525 kids, PK-12, in the district and roughly half of them meet qualifications for free or reduced lunch.

According to Realtor.Com, the median price of homes for sale in Suttons Bay is $454,000.

You can get a pretty nice house for $450K, almost anywhere in the Midwest. So why are there so many kids on free and reduced lunch in the school district? You can get a hint by noting that the young man who suggested The Mitten Brewing Company pay off students’ lunch debt is both bartender at The Mitten and substitute teacher in Suttons Bay.

There’s poverty in paradise, as Bridge Magazine revealed in a startling series of articles. There are people supporting families on three or four patched-together jobs, often in industries serving the older, wealthier residents in those gorgeous lakefront homes. Lots of those hard-working people have college degrees—the thing that was supposed to keep them ahead of the pack—and student loans.

You could see this as repellant conservative motormouth Ben Shapiro does: CONTINUE READING: Not Funding Schools or Paying Teachers? That’s a You Problem, Right? | Teacher in a strange land