Report: PTA Fundraising May Contribute to School Inequities

Report: PTA Fundraising May Contribute to School Inequities

Report: PTA Fundraising May Contribute to NYC School Inequities

Some parent teacher associations are raking in big bucks, while hundreds of others collect nothing at all.

New York City’s Education Department has for the first time compiled and released data on the financial standing of PTAs around the city. City Councilman Mark Treyger, a former teacher who wrote the legislation requiring the report, says it's confirmed his fears about inequity in the city's public schools.

"How many times have we heard the DOE and the chancellor and the mayor talk about, your zip code should not determine the opportunities your families receive,” Treyger said. “Well, look at the data."

According to the report, 46 PTAs raised more than $500 thousand in the most recent school year. Of those 46 PTAs, 24 raised at least a million dollars.”

The numbers were self-reported by the PTAs, and the city did not audit them. The report appears to contain some obvious errors. The PTA for PS 133 in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn is listed as raising $76 million, which would require a whole lot of bake sales.

In general, the numbers show that PTAs in comfortable neighborhoods, like Brownstone Brooklyn and Greenwich Village, are raising lots of money, while the 373 schools reporting no PTA income are mainly in poorer communities.

PTA funds can be used for after-school programs, field trips, and music and art teachers. Critics say that means these lopsided figures are unfair to students.

"Schools that can raise over a million dollars, they are using those resources to add art and music teachers,” said Treyger. “When you're in a school with a tight budget in an under-resourced community, you don't have the money CONTINUE READING: Report: PTA Fundraising May Contribute to School Inequities

How San Diego Unified Blew Up Its ‘Balanced’ Budget - Voice of San Diego

How San Diego Unified Blew Up Its ‘Balanced’ Budget - Voice of San Diego

How San Diego Unified Blew Up Its ‘Balanced’ Budget
It turns out those across-the-board 3.7 percent raises for San Diego Unified’s 10,500 employees created a big new structural deficit – adding $45 million in annual operating costs for next year. 

The dark cloud that loomed over San Diego Unified’s operating budget in the last few years had largely cleared.

District leaders this summer touted the passage of a “balanced” $1.4 billion budget and doled out more employee raises they said they could afford thanks to hard choices and layoffs in recent years that helped eliminate a structural deficit that topped $120 million in 2017. Extra state funding from Gov. Gavin Newsom for pensions, special education and cost-of-living increases also boosted revenues by millions this year.

But district records show not all is rosy on the financial front.

After a couple good years, the budget imbalance that left district in dire straits before has resurfaced, and the shortfall between revenues and expenses is again growing with no relief in sight.

Operating revenues are expected to come up nearly $38 million short by the end of the current fiscal year. One-time reserves will help close the gap. Soon district leaders will need to cobble together a plan to trim at least $58 million in expenses from next year’s budget, according to budget projections.

It turns out those across-the-board 3.7 percent raises for San Diego Unified’s 10,500 employees blew up the district’s balanced budget and created a big new structural deficit – adding $45 CONTINUE READING: How San Diego Unified Blew Up Its ‘Balanced’ Budget - Voice of San Diego

The wealth gap and segregation in the U.S. grows. So does the gap in PISA scores. Don’t tell me there is no correlation. – Fred Klonsky

The wealth gap and segregation in the U.S. grows. So does the gap in PISA scores. Don’t tell me there is no correlation. – Fred Klonsky

THE WEALTH GAP AND SEGREGATION IN THE U.S. GROWS. SO DOES THE GAP IN PISA SCORES. DON’T TELL ME THERE IS NO CORRELATION.

The results are in and two decades of corporate school reform gets poor growth scores.

Common Core, Race to the top, Every Student Succeeds.

Some of the reforms had national and state teacher union support. I recall being told by AFT and NEA leaders that Every Student Succeeds needed my best lobby efforts.

It is a bust.

Dana Goldstein in the New York Times today:

Although the top quarter of American students have improved their performance on the exam since 2012, the bottom 10th percentile lost ground, according to an analysis by the National Center for Education Statistics, a federal agency.

Forbes:

The top 10% of the wealth distribution hold a large and growing share of U.S. aggregate wealth, while the bottom half hold a barely visible share.

I claim there’s a correlation between these to facts.

In the face of failure some in charge argue we should do nothing.

“Some education leaders said they saw no reason to drastically change policy CONTINUE READING: The wealth gap and segregation in the U.S. grows. So does the gap in PISA scores. Don’t tell me there is no correlation. – Fred Klonsky

Addressing the Roots of Classroom Behavior Problems + Why Districts Are Reluctant To Let Even Struggling Teachers Go - Teacher Habits

Addressing the Roots of Classroom Behavior Problems - Teacher Habits

Addressing the Roots of Classroom Behavior Problems

By Frankie Wallace

In a 2019 report, based on a survey from 1,900 elementary school teachers, 25% of the teachers reported that they witness children in their classrooms throwing tantrums or having other behavioral issues a few times each week. 

Behavioral issues in the classroom are nothing new. Some kids have always struggled with their behavior more than others, and that comes across in a school setting. 

What has changed, though, is how we can learn more about the root of these behavioral issues, and what can be done about them. Things like talking back to a teacher, throwing a tantrum, or showing disrespect obviously shouldn’t be allowed in a classroom setting. Depending on the severity of the incident, it’s normal for a teacher to exert some kind of punishment, whether it’s staying after school, or bringing that student’s parents in to discuss further options. 

But instead of going straight to punishment, it’s important to understand what might be causing such behavior in the classroom. When a teacher and parents can get to the core of the problem, that’s when real, lasting changes can be made. 

So what are some potential roots of classroom behavioral problems? 

Listening to Learn 

As a teacher, your job is about more than just educating your students. It’s about listening to them. For starters, every student learns  CONTINUE READING: Addressing the Roots of Classroom Behavior Problems - Teacher Habits

Why Districts Are Reluctant To Let Even Struggling Teachers Go 

Those who want to reform public education in America have made one thing abundantly clear: they believe that teachers are the problem. They don’t often come right out and say so, but their actions are unmistakable. They weaken tenure protections because they want districts to more easily be able to dismiss veteran teachers. They end last-in-first-out policies for the same reason. They attack unions because they are the only thing standing between a teacher’s job and an administrator’s desire to give it to someone else. They push for new teacher evaluation systems as a way to identify the bad apples and to legitimize their removal, because who can argue with data? They advocate for more charter schools because charter leaders don’t usually have to deal with pesky unions who make it more difficult to fire substandard educators. They back alternative certification schemes as a way to undermine current professionals. And in perhaps their biggest tell, they pitch an absolute fit when their best-laid plans go to waste because the damn principals still won’t fire teachers!

Reformers believe that America can fire its way to better education. The so-called “5-10 percent solution,” a product of economist Eric Hanushek, is often cited by reformers. As you probably gathered, it posits that American education would improve if we consistently fired

CONTINUE READING: Why Districts Are Reluctant To Let Even Struggling Teachers Go

Dana Goldstein: ‘It Just Isn’t Working’: Test Scores Cast Doubt on U.S. Education Efforts - The New York Times

‘It Just Isn’t Working’: Test Scores Cast Doubt on U.S. Education Efforts - The New York Times

‘It Just Isn’t Working’: Test Scores Cast Doubt on U.S. Education Efforts
An international exam shows that American 15-year-olds are stagnant in reading and math even though the country has spent billions to close gaps with the rest of the world.

The performance of American teenagers in reading and math has been stagnant since 2000, according to the latest results of a rigorous international exam, despite a decades-long effort to raise standards and help students compete with peers across the globe.

And the achievement gap in reading between high and low performers is widening. Although the top quarter of American students have improved their performance on the exam since 2012, the bottom 10th percentile lost ground, according to an analysis by the National Center for Education Statistics, a federal agency.

The disappointing results from the exam, the Program for International Student Assessment, were announced on Tuesday and follow those from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, an American test that recently showed that two-thirds of children were not proficient readers.

Over all, American 15-year-olds who took the PISA test scored slightly above students from peer nations in reading but below the middle of the pack in math.

Low-performing students have been the focus of decades of bipartisan education overhaul efforts, costing many billions of dollars, that have resulted in a string of national programs — No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, the Common Core State Standards, the Every Student Succeeds Act — but uneven results.

There is no consensus on why the performance of struggling students is declining. Education experts argue vociferously about a range of potential causes, including school segregation, limited school choice, funding inequities, family poverty, too much focus on test prep and a dearth of instruction in basic skills like phonics.

About a fifth of American 15-year-olds scored so low on the PISA test that it appeared they had not mastered reading skills expected of a 10-year-old, according to Andreas Schleicher, director of education and skills at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which administers the exam.

Those students, he said, face “pretty grim prospects” on the job market.

Daniel Koretz, an expert on testing and a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said recent test results showed that CONTINUE READING: ‘It Just Isn’t Working’: Test Scores Cast Doubt on U.S. Education Efforts - The New York Times

Indiana: Karen Francisco on Shady Charter Real Estate Deals | Diane Ravitch's blog

Indiana: Karen Francisco on Shady Charter Real Estate Deals | Diane Ravitch's blog

Indiana: Karen Francisco on Shady Charter Real Estate Deals

Indiana legislators have rewritten state laws to favor privatization of public assets. If a public school is considered unutilized, a charter operator can claim it for only $1. When the West Lafayette school district sued to challenge the law, a judge sided with the legislators. Give the public school away to a private operator, even though it belongs to the public who paid for it!

Karen Francisco, the brilliant editor of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, writes here that the state’s political leadership is conspiring against the public interest by giving away public property to entrepreneurs. More than once, the  public has been fleeced by shady charter operators in search of profit.

The “real estate racket” that the legislature endorsed on behalf of charter entrepreneurs is draining millions of dollars away from taxpayers in Indiana and other states.

It would take an accountant to disentangle the tangled web of real estate deals that allow charter operators to rip off the public.

Francisco tries to explain it here:

A decade ago, The Journal Gazette reported a local charter school, Imagine MASTer Academy, was using state tax dollars to pay a for-profit landowner nearly triple in rent what it could have paid to own its building outright.

No one – not the governor, attorney general or any CONTINUE READING: Indiana: Karen Francisco on Shady Charter Real Estate Deals | Diane Ravitch's blog

How the Other Half Learns: A Review (Part 3) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

How the Other Half Learns: A Review (Part 3) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

How the Other Half Learns: A Review (Part 3)

Robert Pondiscio’s book is about Success Academies, a highly praised and critiqued charter school network in New York City. Once connected to those urban schools called “No Excuses’–a term that founder Eva Moskowitz hates (p.52), How the Other Half Learns enters the highly-charged arena of fiery reform rhetoric over publicly-funded urban charter schools that has raged for the past two decades. *

Boosters and opponents of charter schools have argued incessantly over their effectiveness compared to regular public schools (e.g., test scores, degree of innovativeness) and broadening parental choice (e.g., give poor and minority families a choice in schools beyond the one in the neighborhood). Using public funds for charters, critics have said, drained scarce monies away from regular public schools and encouraged the privatization of a public good (see here , here, and here).

I will not take sides in that debate. Pondiscio’s book becomes fuel for one side or the other in this continuing rancorous struggle over charter schools.**

What this book is clear on is that Success Academies screen parents. Only those parents who can adhere to strict school requirements can have their children enter the lottery for kindergarten and higher grades. Success Academies do not “cream”students from public schools; they select parents who want their sons and daughters to be safe, challenged academically, follow the rules, and achieve academically. There are many parents who want exactly what Success Academies CONTINUE READING: How the Other Half Learns: A Review (Part 3) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Wealthy White Elites Attacking Little Rock School District | tultican

Wealthy White Elites Attacking Little Rock School District | tultican

Wealthy White Elites Attacking Little Rock School District

By Thomas Ultican 12/2/2019

In an apparent reaction to the 2014 school board election, new Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson and the state of Arkansas assumed stewardship of Little Rock School District (LRSD). A law passed January 28, 2015 authorizing the takeover requires the state to give control back to Little Rock voters by January, 2020. New racially motivated proposals hearkening back to the days of openly racist governor, Orville Faubus, ensure minority residents lose their democratic rights. Big money from the Waltons – The world’s wealthiest family – is driving privatization and segregation within LRSD.

A leading Little Rock community activist, Reverend Anika Whitfield, said in an interview, “The Governor, the Attorney General and the state legislature are all controlled by the Walton family.” In 2016 when new Superintendent Mike Poore came to Little Rock from Bentonville, Arkansas (headquarter of the Walton family), Whitfield was suspicious and asked him about his relationship with Walmart’s owners. He replied, “I know you all are apprehensive; I don’t even know Jim Walton.”

Driving Corporate Education Reform in Little Rock

Little Sis Map Showing Leaders of the Attack on LRSD

In 2007, Arkansans for Education Reform (AFER) was established in Bentonville, Arkansas. AFER files taxes under IRS rule 501 C3 which means it is categorized as a charity. In 2013, Arkansas Learns was founded in Little Rock, Arkansas. Arkansas Learns files taxes as a 501 C6 organization which means it CONTINUE READING: Wealthy White Elites Attacking Little Rock School District | tultican

Back to the Future of Reading Instruction: 1990s Edition | radical eyes for equity

Back to the Future of Reading Instruction: 1990s Edition | radical eyes for equity

Back to the Future of Reading Instruction: 1990s Edition

The year is 1997 and the topic, of course, is improving a failing education system in the U.S. Linda Darling-Hammond explains in the Preface [1]:

This follow-up report, Doing What Matters Most: Investing in Quality Teaching, seeks to gauge the nation’s progress toward the goal of high-quality teaching in every classroom in every community. It draws on data about the conditions of teaching that have become available since the original Commission report was released, and it examines policy changes that have occurred.

This report has five recommendations that may sound familiar:

I. Standards for teachers linked to standards for students….

II. Reinvent teacher preparation and professional development….

III. Overhaul teacher recruitment and put qualified teachers in every classroom….

IV. Encourage and reward knowledge and skill….

V. Create schools that are organized for student and teacher success.

We need better standards for teachers and students, better teacher education, better recruitment of teachers focusing on high quality, better reward systems for teacher expertise and outcomes, and better teaching and learning conditions.

Yet, the report also offers some sobering information:

Over the last decade, reforms have sought to increase the amount of CONTINUE READING: 

Back to the Future of Reading Instruction: 1990s Edition | radical eyes for equity

As usual in DC … | GFBrandenburg's Blog

As usual in DC … | GFBrandenburg's Blog

As usual in DC …

… we don’t have a sane schools policy. Witness: Valerie Jablow’s post today.

Safe Passage To Nowhere

by Valerie Jablow

While I was writing this blog post, on the November 25 DC council hearing on safe passage, a DC public school student who was shot during school hours died and DCPS announced the closure of an alternative high school whose students had poor attendance, quite possibly because many had to travel across town to attend it.

Sadly, all are related events.

That hearing was ostensibly about a piece of legislation that would set up an office of safe passage that would endeavor to form a strategic plan for safe passage; award grants to organizations that can help; and set up priority areas in wards 7 and 8 that have high incidents of violent crime and then provide buses to public transit for students in areas without nearby public transit.

(In fact, Ward 7 tonight (12/2) hosts a public meeting on safe passage at 6:30 pm at Nats Academy, 3675 Ely Place SE. See more information here.)

Because concerns about safe passage go to the heart of lived experience for nearly every DC family, the council hearing featured a wide spectrum of people–and reactions to the CONTINUE READING: As usual in DC … | GFBrandenburg's Blog

'Can I get a ride?' Removing an obstacle for families using school choice | TheHill

'Can I get a ride?' Removing an obstacle for families using school choice | TheHill

'Can I get a ride?' Removing an obstacle for families using school choice

Some critics of school choice say that because not all families can take advantage of it to the same degree, it ought to be cut back. They are correct about this: Some families can’t make the most out of their available school choice options because they have trouble transporting their children to school. The solution to that inequity is not to dismantle those options, but to help needy families find their own transportation solutions. Choice should be more universal, not just the domain of those who can afford it.

For many families of means, getting their child into a better school is a matter of paying private school tuition or relocating to a new community. Those methods, however, limit school choice based on ZIP codes and bank accounts. While most states have made school choice more broadly accessible by creating more tuition-free educational options, some foes of choice want to dial back opportunity.

Progressive journalist Jennifer Berkshire has openly acknowledged she is “a little bit obsessed” with Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who favors expanding choice, and her home state of Michigan. Earlier this year, Berkshire gave a disparaging analysis of Michigan’s 20-year-old policy of inter-district choice. Among the chief complaints, she offered this: “Because there’s no transportation provided and attending school in another district often requires some significant travel, schools of choice are only an option for kids who have a way to get there.” 

Berkshire’s observation holds some weight. The vast majority of districts accepting nonresident students offer no assistance beyond maybe CONTINUE READING: 'Can I get a ride?' Removing an obstacle for families using school choice | TheHill

2019 Medley #22 | Live Long and Prosper

2019 Medley #22 | Live Long and Prosper

2019 Medley #22

RESPECT FOR TEACHERS

Are Teachers Allowed to Think for Themselves?

Teaching isn’t, as some legislators apparently think, professional babysitting. Teachers don’t just “tell” students what they need to know, and students don’t just “remember” everything.

Teaching a class of children — whether they are 6 years old, or 16 — is not easy. To do it well takes training, experience, support, resources, and a fair amount of luck.

Most licensed teachers in Indiana have four-year degrees from accredited university teacher training programs; many have master’s degrees. Yet almost half of all new teachers leave the field within the first five years. Perhaps they didn’t realize that teaching is hard work. Perhaps the hours are too long and they thought they were just getting a 7 – 3:30 job with lots of vacation time. Perhaps the pay isn’t good enough. Perhaps they find out that they’re not cut out for teaching.

The teachers who stay, then, are those who are committed to education. One would think that, with years of training, teachers would be considered experts in their field. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

Panels of “education experts” regularly have no teachers on them. The National Reading Panel had only one middle school teacher. The Panel, which explored CONTINUE READING: 2019 Medley #22 | Live Long and Prosper

More Kids on Medicaid to Get Health Care in School | The Pew Charitable Trusts

More Kids on Medicaid to Get Health Care in School | The Pew Charitable Trusts

More Kids on Medicaid to Get Health Care in School

A mountain of evidence proves it: Good health translates to better student performance.

Children who have high blood pressure or are obese perform worse academically than others. Children with asthma miss far more school. Students who have healthy diets, who are physically active, who abstain from alcohol and illicit drugs, get better grades.

With that in mind, more than a dozen states are finally taking advantage of a five-year-old federal policy change that would make it easier for schools to provide health care to millions of children across the country.

Before the change, the federal government barred school-based clinics and providers from billing Medicaid, the joint state-federal health care program for the poor, for care provided to children on the Medicaid rolls. The federal government reversed that policy in 2014, but only now are some states taking advantage of the shift. About 45 million children are enrolled in Medicaid.

One possible reason for the delay is that officials at the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, tend to communicate with their counterparts at state Medicaid agencies and health departments, not departments of education.

Now that they can bill Medicaid, more schools will be able to help students manage chronic conditions such as asthma, diabetes and food allergies; offer mental health and addiction treatment; and provide dental, vision, hearing and speech services. Schools that have been providing those services with their own money can now spend it on other things.

“We know kids aren’t getting the health care they need, especially vulnerable populations and children of color,” said Alexandra Mays, executive director of the Healthy Schools Campaign, a Chicago nonprofit that pushed hard for the federal policy change. “Schools are where the children are.”

Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina have received permission from CMS to bill Medicaid for health care in schools. California and Georgia are awaiting approvals, and Colorado and Oregon are preparing paperwork.

“We are very excited, and our school districts are excited as well,” said Wayne Lewis, commissioner for the Department of Education in Kentucky, which received CMS approval in CONTINUE READING: More Kids on Medicaid to Get Health Care in School | The Pew Charitable Trusts

Texas Is Taking Over Houston’s Schools, Prompting Charges of Racism - The New York Times

Texas Is Taking Over Houston’s Schools, Prompting Charges of Racism - The New York Times

Texas Is Taking Over Houston’s Schools, Prompting Charges of Racism
A takeover of the state’s largest school district has led to lawsuits and accusations that minority voters are being ignored. At the center of it are a majority-black high school and a member of the Class of 1961.

HOUSTON — Harold V. Dutton Jr. was proud to have walked the same high school halls that Barbara Jordan, the first black woman elected to Congress from the South, did. Ms. Jordan graduated in 1951 from Houston’s Phillis Wheatley High School, a pillar for nearly a century in the Fifth Ward, one of Houston’s historic black neighborhoods.

Mr. Dutton, 74, graduated from Wheatley 10 years after Ms. Jordan and went on to become a lawyer and Democratic lawmaker in the state House of Representatives. He watched his old high school deteriorate as poverty spread through the Fifth Ward and grew increasingly frustrated by what he felt was a lack of urgency by local educators.

His solution has embroiled the city’s entire public school system in a bitter fight that has stirred legal, political and racial turmoil in the largest school district in Texas. This month, the state’s education commissioner informed the leaders of the Houston Independent School District that the state was taking it over, citing the repeated failing performance of Wheatley as one of the reasons.

Mr. Dutton opened the door to the takeover as the co-author of a law that created what education experts have called one of the harshest remedies in the country for troubled schools. Under its terms, any district that has even one school that consistently fails to meet state standards for five or more years must either shut the campus or face the possibility of a state takeover.

Though the Texas Legislature passed the law in 2015, it is only now being put to its biggest test, in Houston. The state takeover in Houston has put Mr. Dutton’s political career at risk and caused upheaval and uncertainty in one of the largest public-school CONTINUE READING: Texas Is Taking Over Houston’s Schools, Prompting Charges of Racism - The New York Times