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Thursday, September 5, 2019

EDUCATION STARS WILL SHINE AT THE 2020 NETWORK FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION CONFERENCE: Conference Keynote Speakers #NPE2020

2020 Conference Keynote Speakers - Network For Public Education

EDUCATION STARS WILL SHINE AT THE 2020 NETWORK FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION CONFERENCE

Conference Keynote Speakers 


Diane Ravitch
Diane Ravitch is a co-founder of the Network for Public Education. She is a historian of education and Research Professor of Education at New York University. She has written ten books and edited another 14. She is a graduate of the Houston public schools, Wellesley College (BA), Columbia University (Ph.D. in history of American education), and holds ten honorary doctorates.

She blogs at dianeravitch.net. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.




Noliwe Rooks
An interdisciplinary scholar, Noliwe Rooks’ work explores how race and gender both impact and are impacted by popular culture, social history and political life in the United States. Specifically, Rooks works on the cultural and racial implications of beauty, fashion and adornment; educational inequality; race, food and the politics of the city, and Black women’s studies.

Rooks’ most current book is Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education, published by The New Press in 2017.



Nikhil Goyal
Nikhil Goyal is a sociologist who has taught as an adjunct professor in New York University’s Prison Education program. He is also the author of Schools on Trial (Doubleday, 2016). He has appeared on CNN, FOX, and MSNBC and written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, TIME, The Nation, and other publications.

Goyal is a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge, where he holds a Master of Philosophy (M.Phil) in Education. He lives in New York.



Jitu Brown
Jitu Brown is the national director for the Journey for Justice Alliance, a network of 30 grassroots community based organizations in 23 cities across the country organizing for community driven school improvement.

Born and raised in the Rosemoor neighborhood on the far south side of Chicago, Jitu Brown also teaches African-American history at St. Leonard’s Adult High School, the only accredited high school in the nation that exclusively serves people who have been formerly incarcerated.



Little Steven
In January of 2019, musician, actor and activist Little Steven was on the picket line in Los Angeles with striking teachers and Diane Ravitch. The two became fast friends – and Little Steven included Diane in his music video “Solidarity,” a video he created to bring attention to the teacher strikes across the world.

Little Steven is also shining a light on the dangers of privatization. In a Rolling Stone interview about his participation in the L.A. teachers’ strike, he said “The big-picture philosophical thing is privatization. It’s happening in every single town.”





DoubleTree by Hilton Philadelphia – Center City
237 S Broad Street Philadelphia, PA 19107-5686
A BLOCK OF ROOMS HAVE BEEN RESERVED AT A DISCOUNTED PRICE FOR THE CONFERENCE HOTEL

2020 Conference - Network For Public Education

Push for single rating of LA schools challenges state’s multi-dimensional accountability system | EdSource

Push for single rating of LA schools challenges state’s multi-dimensional accountability system | EdSource

Push for single rating of LA schools challenges state's multi-dimensional accountability system

There is a deeply rooted impulse in American society — perhaps any society — to rank everything from restaurants and refrigerators to athletes and colleges.
That may help explain why pressures continue in California to rank its schools based on a single score of some kind, despite a major thrust in the state to move in the opposite direction.
Great Schools, the hugely popular parent-oriented website, has combined several indicators to come up with score between 1 and 10 for every school in the state.

Another notable push is coming from Los Angeles, where the state’s largest school district has been working over the past year on a plan to rank schools on a numerical 1-to-5 scale, a number that would be reached by combining students’ improvement on test scores and other factors.
Underscoring the complexity and volatility of the issue, this week newly elected school board member Jackie Goldberg introduced a harshly critical resolution effectively calling on the district to abandon the idea in its current form. Among other CONTINUE READING: Push for single rating of LA schools challenges state’s multi-dimensional accountability system | EdSource

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Stories of HCC: You Failed Us: Students of Color Talk Seattle Schools

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Stories of HCC

Stories of HCC

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Crosscut has an article about a book that a 17-year-old trans person has written about their experience in HCC.  The book is called, "You Failed Us."

It was two years ago that Azure Savage began writing their first book, the origins of which can be traced back to their kindergarten year at Seattle’s Thurgood Marshall Elementary. It was there, they said, that they first noticed inequities in how different students are treated.

In August of this year, Savage published You Failed Us: Students of Color Talk Seattle Schools. Part memoir and part collected oral history, You Failed Us interlaces Savage’s personal journey with the experiences of approximately 40 other school-aged youth in the Seattle area.
Through 11 chapters, Savage's literary debut candidly explores issues surrounding race, as well as gender identity, mental health and structural barriers facing students navigating the city’s K-12 education system.
I am trying to recall when Thurgood Marshall took on HCC students but was it more than 10 years ago? Maybe the book explains.

Brazile chooses to focus on Savage so we don't get a read on what the CONTINUE READING: 
Seattle Schools Community Forum: Stories of HCC

Why 2020 Dems Should Target the Nonprofit Charter School Industry - LA Progressive

Why 2020 Dems Should Target the Nonprofit Charter School Industry - LA Progressive

Why 2020 Dems Should Target the Nonprofit Charter School Industry

Charter schools, once the darling of politicians on the right and left, have become a hot potato in the Democratic Party 2020 presidential primary with nearly every candidate voicing some level of disapproval of the industry. A common refrain among the candidates is to express opposition to “for-profit charter schools.” Charter school proponents counter these pronouncements by pointing to industry data indicating only 12 percent of charter schools are run by overtly profit-minded entities, and that most charter schools are overseen by outfits that have a nonprofit, tax-exempt status.
But the singling out of for-profit charter schools is somewhat beside the point as residents of a St. Paul, Minnesota, neighborhood learned this summer when a treasured local landmark was threatened by an expanding charter school. The charter was decidedly nonprofit, but as families and preservation advocates would learn from their tenacious, but ultimately unsuccessful, battle to save a beloved, historic church, charter schools, regardless of their tax status, have become powerful players in a lucrative real estate market in urban areas where land values are high and empty lots or school-ready buildings are hard to find.

Tearing Down a Church to Make Way for a Charter

A battle over a beloved church building in the Twin Cities reveals how money can be made from charter school real estate deals.

In the tiny Warrendale neighborhood of St. Paul, St. Andrew’s Catholic Church has stood as a community centerpiece for nearly 100 years. In 1927, St. Andrew’s was designed in the Romanesque revival style by Charles Hauser, the son of German immigrants who became the first city architect of St. Paul at the age of 25.
Today, it’s gone. In 2013, the St. Andrew’s site, which included the church building, a rectory and a small, two-story school, was sold to Kathleen Padian, a charter school real estate developer based in New Orleans. At the time, Padian purchased the site for over $2 million through a nonprofit organization, Educational Properties, Inc., which then leased the CONTINUE READING: Why 2020 Dems Should Target the Nonprofit Charter School Industry - LA Progressive




Quality Counts 2019: Grading the States - Education Week

Quality Counts 2019: Grading the States - Education Week

QUALITY COUNTS 2019: GRADING THE STATES

The third and final installment of “Quality Counts 2019” offers a comprehensive report card on the nation’s K-12 system, including A-F grades and rankings for each of the states based on a wide range of academic, school finance, and socioeconomic factors.
The report, based on analysis by the Education Week Research Center, sums up how well the nation and the states do on assuring bright prospects for success over the course of a lifetime; how much they spend on schools and how fairly that money is distributed; and the outcomes reflected by indicators such as test scores and graduation rates.
To catch up on the first installment of Quality Counts 2019, click here. For the second installment, click here.

QUALITY COUNTS 2019: GRADING THE STATES

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STATE HIGHLIGHTS REPORTS

Assess your state's performance in key areas. Click here.

PAST ISSUES

For past issues of Quality Countsclick here.

REPRINT THIS REPORT

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Who's on top and who lags behind when it comes to the nation's K-12 school systems—and why?
September 4, 2019 – Quality Counts


The annual Quality Counts report card ranks states based on dozens of factors that affect the quality of state school systems, including school finance, academic achievement, and socioeconomic indicators.
September 4, 2019 – Quality Counts
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The nation's C grade on this year's final Quality Counts report card is another sign that pursuing educational progress remains slow and challenging for many states.
September 4, 2019 – Quality Counts


A map of this year's final state scores on the annual Quality Counts report card shows states ranging from a pair of rare B-pluses to a low of D.
September 4, 2019 – Quality Counts


Examine the grades and scores that states and the nation earned on the K-12 Achievement Index in Quality Counts 2019, along with how they scored on a host of indicators that go into those rankings.
September 4, 2019 – Quality Counts


The Quality Counts 2019 Highlights Reports capture the key data you need to assess your state's performance, including on school funding and equity. (National report available as well.)
January 16, 2019 – Quality Counts


Here's a quick and easy guide to the grading scale and each of the indicators that go into making up the 50-state grades for this year's Quality Counts.
September 4, 2019 – Quality Counts


How does the Education Week Research Center determine the grades given to states and the nation in the 2019 Quality Counts report? Learn more about the report's grading scale, methodology, and sources.
January 16, 2019 – Quality Counts

Lock-Ins and Walkouts: The Students Changing City Schools From the Inside - The New York Times

Lock-Ins and Walkouts: The Students Changing City Schools From the Inside - The New York Times

Lock-Ins and Walkouts: The Students Changing City Schools From the Inside
Teenagers are helping to lead integration efforts, protesting against discrimination and demanding more inclusive curriculums.




They have locked themselves inside school buildings for days on end to protest discrimination.
They have called into Mayor Bill de Blasio’s weekly radio show to demand action on integrating schools, and have even followed him to Iowa to confront him about arrests and suspensions for students of color.
Education politics in New York City is often controlled by well-connected lobbyists, wealthy benefactors and crisis communications professionals.
But recently, the most prominent — and sometimes most effective — movements for change in the nation’s largest school system have been created and fueled by those with the most at stake: students.
A new crop of student groups, led by highly organized teenagers who have staged major rallies and protests, have helped define a swirling citywide debate about how race and class exclude vulnerable students from accessing all city schools have to offer.

Here’s how six teenagers with different backgrounds, political viewpoints and public school experiences are working to change a public school system of 1.1 million students and 1,800 schools — along with some of the city’s most prestigious private schools.

Chassidy wasn’t nervous about getting in trouble when she and her classmates locked themselves in a building at her prestigious Riverdale private school, sleeping on an air mattress in her principal’s office for three nights in a row.
She was only worried that her group, Students of Color Matter, would be ignored in their fight against what they believe is a racist school culture at Ethical Culture Fieldston School in the Bronx.





Parents Organize Online to Pressure Schools and Get Rid of Bad Teachers | Teacher in a strange land

Parents Organize Online to Pressure Schools and Get Rid of Bad Teachers | Teacher in a strange land

Parents Organize Online to Pressure Schools and Get Rid of Bad Teachers


So there it was, right out in the Twitter open:
Public school parents et al: What if we could use a site like Blind to chat anonymously with other parents at our kids’ school, share concerns and complaints, including about bad teachers, and organize to pressure administrators to do something about it?    @MichaelPetrilli
Appropriately, the very first (polite) comment came from a teacher:
Are you being facetious? @IngridFournier
And…no, no he wasn’t. It’s really frustrating, Petrilli says, to see all the things that are wrong in his child’s public school, and not be able to do anything about it. That weak principal! Etc., etc.
There followed a long string of mostly coherent tweets, centered around salient points: You don’t need an app for that, plenty of ways to form groups. Anonymous chats tend to go sideways, sometimes direly so, and anonymous kvetching solves nothing. This kind of thing is a security/data-sharing nightmare, technologically—especially when you have no idea to whom you’re speaking, online.
That devolved into union-bashing and ‘my kid has a bad math teacher,’ precisely the CONTINUE READING: 
Parents Organize Online to Pressure Schools and Get Rid of Bad Teachers | Teacher in a strange land

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Charter News - State and National

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Charter News - State and National

Charter News - State and National

Charter schools in this country reached something of a milestone this year - it's been 25 years since the first one started in Minnesota.  But there is increasing evidence they are either sliding downward and/or stalling out. From the NY Times:

KIPP’s internal reckoning has coincided with a moment in which New York’s elected officials and Democratic presidential candidates have turned decisively away from the charter movement. Both groups are eager to please their allies in teachers unions, which have consolidated power over the last year.
It is also fascinating to watch the Democratic presidential contenders shy away from talking about K-12 public education.  They all seem to just want to talk about higher ed and student debt, a worthy topic.  Cory Booker, who had a very profound effect on Newark public education, is especially not one who wants to talk. He has very little in the way of good outcomes to talk about despite the Zuckerberg dollars poured into NPS.

Beto O'Rouke's wife started a charter school in El Paso.  His kids attend public school in El Paso but it's unclear to me if they are traditional schools or charter schools.

But Bernie Sanders is coming out swinging, calling out both the lack of CONTINUE READING: 
Seattle Schools Community Forum: Charter News - State and National


Diane Ravitch Joins Nick Hanauer's Podcast, Pitchfork Economics - Network For Public Education

Diane Ravitch Joins Nick Hanauer's Podcast, Pitchfork Economics - Network For Public Education

Diane Ravitch Joins Nick Hanauer’s Podcast, Pitchfork Economics



Episode Info

Like many rich Americans, Nick used to think that focusing their philanthropic efforts in the country’s education system could heal many of our biggest problems. But in The Atlantic last month, he admitted he was wrong—better schools won’t fix America unless we fix inequality first. He’s joined this week by Diane Ravitch, a giant in the education policy world who also changed her mind about what works and what doesn’t. Can these two converts from the theory of educationism find a new way to expand educational opportunity in America while also combating runaway income inequality?
Diane Ravitch is a Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education. She is the Founder and President of the Network for Public Education. From 1991 to 1993, she was Assistant Secretary of Education under President George H.W. Bush, where she led the federal effort to promote the creation of voluntary state and national academic standards. In her book ‘The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education’, Ravitch examines her career in education reform and repudiates positions that she once staunchly advocated.
Further reading:

The Back to School Episode – Have You Heard

The Back to School Episode – Have You Heard

The Back to School Episode



In the latest episode of Have You Heard we go back to school. And not to the idealized, romantic notion of school but to the harsh reality that awaits too many students and teachers. But wait! Our special guests are all intent on doing something about it. We hear from four educators who have a keen understanding of what needs to change, both inside and outside of school. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll want to do what they’re doing! Complete transcript of the episode available here. And if you’re a fan of our work, consider supporting us with a donation.

The Back to School Episode – Have You Heard

CURMUDGUCATION: Harry Potter and Vouchers

CURMUDGUCATION: Harry Potter and Vouchers

Harry Potter and Vouchers


The Harry Potter books were back in the news for the six zillionth instance of a ban placed on the Rowling classic novels. The books have been repeatedly banned since they were published, usually because conservative religious folks think the books will normalize wizards and warlocks and witchcraft, but Reverend Dan Reehil, a pastor at St. Edward Catholic School, cites that classic argument, but then ratchets things up a bit:

"These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception,” he explained. “The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text."



The books hit 500 million copies sold in 2018, so it's really, really remarkable that we haven't heard anything about this. With half ab billion copies of conjuring spells out there that can be activated just by reading, it's amazing that the whole world hasn't looked like the third act of Ghostbusters for the last two decades.

In the meantime, it seems unlikely that the Rev. Reehik's unilateral removal of the book from the school library (he apparently didn't consult staff) will serious affect any child's ability to get her hands on a copy.

The story is a slow news day chuckle. Except that I want to point something out.

St. Edward is located in Nashville. And Tennessee just okayed an education savings account program, a version of a school voucher. That means that parents can get a chunk of money from the state which they can then use to withdraw their child from public school and then enroll her in a private school. A private school like, say, St. Edward.

That's what vouchers get you-- a system by which your tax dollars can go to support not just a CONTINUE READING: 
CURMUDGUCATION: Harry Potter and Vouchers


Texas: Public Schools Outperform Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Texas: Public Schools Outperform Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Texas: Public Schools Outperform Charter Schools

The original rationale for charter schools was that they would be innovative, would be accountable, and would have lessons to share with public schools. We now know that the only innovation associated with charter schools is the adoption of stern discipline, reminiscent of schools a century or more ago.
We now know that charter lobbies fight any accountability.
They no longer see themselves as collaborators but as competitors. If they have anything to share, they are not doing it.
Their biggest innovations are diverting resources from the public schools and choosing the students they want. As a sector, the charter industry has produced a plethora of frauds and scandals, which is what you would expect to happen when entrepreneurs get government money without supervision, oversight or accountability.
Charter advocates claimed they would “save poor kids from failing schools,” but in most states the poor kids are better off staying in their public school.
Texas is about to be flooded with dozens of new charter schools, thanks to recent brats by Betsy DeVos to big CONTINUE READING: Texas: Public Schools Outperform Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Continuing to Reduce Chronic Absenteeism Rates - Year 2019 (CA Dept of Education)

Year 2019 - News Releases (CA Dept of Education)

Continuing to Reduce Chronic Absenteeism Rates



September

August

July

Year 2019 - News Releases (CA Dept of Education) - https://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr19/