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Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG 

A site to discuss better education for all

Slaying Goliath

 The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and 

the Fight to Save America's Public Schools

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Susan Edelman: Bloomberg’s Test Score Con

by dianeravitch / 42min

Strange as it may seem, the best education reporter in New York City works for Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post. Her name is Susan Edelman, and she regularly reports on what is happening in the city’s schools without fear or favor. Unlike the New York Times, where reporters cycle in and out of the education beat, Sue has been writing on the subject for many years. One of her best articles appeared

Riverhead, N.Y.: Good Public Schools Starved by Cuomo Tax Cap and Charter

87by dianeravitch / 20h

A mother in the Riverhead, New York, School District wrote an opinion article about underinvestment in the small city’s public schools. Years ago, Governor Cuomo slapped a tax cap of 2% on all districts to prove his conservative credentials. In addition, Riverhead has a charter school siphoning off millions of dollars and now wants to expand. This week, voters must pass a bond issue to meet the b

Diane Joins the Illustrious Klonsky Brothers on “Hitting Left” in Chicago

by dianeravitch / 21h

This is a really great podcast that I enjoyed taping with brothers Mike and Fred Klonsky on their podcast “Hitting Left” while I was in Chicago. We borrowed time from our host Mario Smith, because the show occurred while Mario was on the air. Start with the photograph of the four of us holding baseball bats, the better to hit left with. Mike and Fred are veteran activists. While Mike was a leader

AFT supports Three Democratic Candidates

75by dianeravitch / 22h

The American Federation of Teachers Issued this statement yesterday: Press Release American Federation of Teachers Passes Resolution to Encourage Support for 3 of the 2020 Democratic Primary Candidates For Release: Thursday, February 20, 2020 Contact: Oriana Korin 202-374-6103 Oriana.Korin@aft.org http://www.aft.org WASHINGTON—In a telephone town hall on Thursday night with thousands of American

Ross Douhat: Will Democrat’s Nominate a Smart Plutocrat to Replace a Stupid One?

by dianeravitch / 23h

Ross Douhat is a conservative columnist for the New York Times. Maybe he wrote this column to help Trump, yet it rings true. He writes: For a long time the notion of a Michael Bloomberg presidential candidacy seemed like a Manhattan fancy, a conceit with elite appeal but no mass constituency, a fantasy for Acela riders who imagine that the American people are clamoring for a rich person’s idea of

Tom Ultican Doesn’t Like Amplify One Bit

by dianeravitch / 1d

Tom Ultican, retired teacher of advanced mathematics and physics in California, doesn’t like Amplify. He doesn’t like its focus on profit and he doesn’t like its pedagogy. He traces its provenance from Joel Klein to Rupert Murdoch to Laurene Powell Jobs. it started with high promise and claims that it would transform American education but the business went south when its first big client complai

FEB 20

Book Tour Reaches Chicago!

by dianeravitch / 1d

Last night I spoke at the conference hall of the Chicago Teachers Union. Today began with an interview at WGN-TV. It’s a short segment but I said what I needed to day about the condition of education. Enjoy!

When Bloomberg Compared the AARP to the NRA

53by dianeravitch / 1d

Remember “loose lips sink ships”? I think that was a World War 1 poster, warning defense workers to be careful what they said. Apparently no one ever passed that warning to Mike Bloomberg. Given that he is a billionaire, he feels free to insult at will. This post reports a public forum where he compared the AARP to the NRA, complaining that they were a single-issue group that would fight any effo

Andrea Gabor: Betsy DeVos’s Voucher Obsession Could Boomerang on Republicans

100+by dianeravitch / 1d

Veteran journalist Andrea Gabor explains that Betsy DeVos got the Trump administration to commit fully behind her voucher obsession, rolling some 29 or 30 programs into a block grant, including the toxic federal Charter Schools Program. In exchange, the Trump administration is seeking $5 billion for national voucher program. It is certain not to be approved by Congress, but meanwhile the Supreme

Virginia: GOP Chair Stalks Democrat Leading Gun Control Effort

by dianeravitch / 1d

So this is what America has come to. The chairman of a local Republican party in Virginia threatened a Democratic legislator leading the campaign to restrict access to assault weapons. He threatened to kill him and marched outside his home with weapons. A Democratic lawmaker who is leading an effort to ban assault weapons in Virginia has asked local prosecutors to consider pressing charges agains

David Dayen: An Election of Plutocrat Vs. Plutocrat

by dianeravitch / 1d

David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, expresses his concern about billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who is a plutocrat and an autocrat. In many ways, Dayen writes, Bloomberg is like Trump, only richer. How strange would it be for the Democrats to nominate a Republican to run against Trump. He writes: I have been on the record as saying that Michael Bloomberg will never become the p

Montana: School Choice Doesn’t Make Sense Here

28by dianeravitch / 2d

Sarah Vowell is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times where this article appeared. Proponents of vouchers often claim that the state prohibitions on public funding of religious schools were birthed in anti-Catholic bigotry, based on the Blaine Amendment, which was offered as a Constitutional amendment after the Civil War but failed to be adopted. Many states wrote their own “baby B

FEB 19

Washington Post: The Case Against Sanders

20by dianeravitch / 2d

If Senator Bernie Sanders wins the Democratic nomination, you can be sure that Trump will redbait him on a daily basis. Sanders will be “red meat” for Trump’s ridicule. If you support Sanders, you will hate this column. Be forewarned. For a preview of what lies ahead, read this column from the Washington Post by Megan McArdle. The world of comic books, in which characters are constantly dying and

Study: Stop-and-Frisk Increased Dropout Rate

34by dianeravitch / 2d

Matt Barnum and Alex Zimmerman of Chalkbeat report that a new study of Bloomberg’s stop-and-frisk policy found that it increased the dropout rate, especially for black boys, who were most likely to be stopped and frisked.

Heather Gautney and Eric Blanc: Bloomberg’s Ed Reform Ideology Would Be a Disaster for Public Schools

62by dianeravitch / 2d

Heather Gautney and Eric Blanc warn in the Guardian the Michael Bloomberg’s ideas abou t education would be a disaster for the nation. He is the only candidate whose ideas about education are in synch with those of Donald Trump, Betsy DeVos, and Arne Duncan. The authors are both supporting Bernie Sanders. Affer persuading the legislature to give him total control of the city’s 1.1 million public

Jeff Bryant: The Planned Demolition of Public Education in America

31by dianeravitch / 2d

Jeff Bryant writes in the Progressive about the Trump-DeVos budget and their plan to eliminate the federal Charter Schools Program, which incensed the charter industry. The charter industry was certain they had a friend in Betsy DeVos, how could she have abandoned them? Bryant quotes me as saying that the far-right foundations and think tanks embraced charters thirty years ago because they were e

Wisconsin: School Choice is Causing Ruinous Damage to Public Schools

by dianeravitch / 2d

Two Wisconsin legislators published an opinion piece about the harm that school choice is doing to the state’s public schools. Jon Erpenbach and Sondy Pope object to the way that vouchers have taken money away from public schools without the compose top of the governed. It hasn’t been long since many Wisconsinites have had to vote on referendums to keep their public school doors open, and now in

Florida: Charter Drain Causing School Closures in Broward County

33by dianeravitch / 3d

About 30 public schools in Broward County may close due to loss of students to charter schools. The original purpose of charter schools was to collaborate with public schools, not to destroy them. Unfortunately, the charter industry is so well represented in the legislature that they have a distinctive edge over real public schools. The wife of the State Commissiomer of Educatuon Richard Corcoran

FEB 18

This Story Made Me Cry: A Mother and Child, Separated for 2 1/2 Years

42by dianeravitch / 3d

Can this be America? The Trump administration separated parents and children at the border. This mother and child were separated in 2017. The mother was deported to Guatemala, the child sent to live with an aunt in Fort Myers. They communicate by cellphone. One child. One mother. Not so far from Mar-a-Lago. Gratuitous and pointless cruelty. Not a rapist or murderer. A mother and a child. FORT MYE

Bloomberg Surges into Second Place, Behind Sanders

300+by dianeravitch / 3d

From Politico today: Of all the Democratic candidates, Michael Bloomberg has the worst record on education. His education policies mirrored George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind. He was fully invested in high-stakes testing, data-based decision-making, closing schools with low scores instead of helping them, opening new schools and then closing those schools, creating selective schools that chose

Oklahoma: Gulen-Style Online Charter School Obtains Names and Addresses of Students for Recreuitment

32by dianeravitch / 3d

Oklahoma has just experienced a fraud involving an online charter school called EPIC, which was accused of collecting money for ghost students and billing for excessive administrative overhead. It’s amazing how many of the big scandals in charter land involve the highly profitable online charters. Now parents in Oklahoma are outraged that a new virtual charter obtained the names and addresses of

Alex Pareene: Michael Bloomberg’s “Polite” Authoritarianism

53by dianeravitch / 3d

Alex Pareene, staff writer at the New Republic, reminds us of Michael Bloomberg’s intolerance of dissent abd his casual disdain of civil liberties. He writes here about the mass arrests of people suspected of wanting to protest the Republican National Convention in New York City in 2004. He mentions in passing the Occupy Wall Street protest, in which a ragtag group of protestors occupied a small

Brookings: The Political Strategy Behind Much of Michael Bloomberg’s Charitable Donations

22by dianeravitch / 3d

Vanessa Williamson of the Brookings Institution wrote one of the most insightful columns that I have read about the candidacy of Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg’s net worth is more than $50 billion. He has given generously to many charitable causes. But he has also used his charitable donations to advance his political ambitions. In recent years, he has given millions of dollars to mayors across the

National Education Policy Center: Are Zillow and Real Estate Agents Promoting Segregation?

52by dianeravitch / 3d

Are Zillow and Realtors Contributing to School Segregation? : \\\\ How do renters or buyers judge the quality of the schools zoned to their prospective homes? Often it starts not with schools or teachers or students, but with the real estate industry. Two recent pieces of investigative journalism call attention to a prominent flaw with this system: Realtors and real estate websites alike share as

Black Agenda Report: The Looting of Oakland’s Public Schools by Broadies

78by dianeravitch / 4d

This is an astonishing report about the destruction and privatization of public schools in Oakland, California, and the billionaires who facilitated the looting of that city. The article by Eugene Stovall appeared in “Black Agenda Report.” The audacity of this attack on public education is astonishing. The mechanism for the destroyers were graduates of the Broad Academy, known as Broadies. Since

FEB 17

California: Charter Schools Advocates Distribute Vile, Anti-Semitic Poster of School Board Member Scott Schmerelson

1Kby dianeravitch / 4d

A front group for the California Charter Schools lobby, which calls itself “Families and Teachers United,” released a flyer that attacked school board member Scott Schmerelson, a pro-public school member of the LAUSD school board and well-qualified educator. Schmerelson has been endorsed by every Democratic club in Los Angeles. The scurrilous flyer accuses him of investing in mutual funds that in

How Private Equity Looted One of NYC’s Favorite Grocery Stores

31by dianeravitch / 4d

We have a problem in this society. We have many problems. One of them is the role of private equity in destroying products and services that were once household names. Here is an example: One of the stores that many New Yorkers love is Fairway Markets. It started as one store on the Upper West Side. It was the place to go for an amazing selection of cheeses and fresh produce and dozens of varieti

Oklahoma: Should the State Superintendent be Elected or Appointed by the Governor?

by dianeravitch / 4d

Oklahoma has an elected state superintendent of schools. Her name is Joy Hofmeister. Amazingly, she is a strong friend of public schools, and has done her best to shield them from a penny-pinching, anti-education legislature that puts tax cuts first, children last. So of course, the conservative Republican governor Kevin Stitt thinks it is time to get rid of the elected superintendent and give hi

New Hampshire Seeks to Pilot Online Pre-Schooling and Tries Again for Charters

300+by dianeravitch / 5d

New Hampshire’s Governor is a Trump-style extremist, Chris Sununu, whose father John advised the first President Bush. Sununu appointed Frank Edelblut as state commissioner of education. The state commissioner home-schooled his children and follows the ideology of Betsy DeVos. He thinks government money should go wherever children go, regardless of who gets the money. That’s called “Learning Ever

FEB 16

Jan Resseger Credits NPE for Exposing Charter Scams

47by dianeravitch / 5d

Jan Resseger, tireless champion for social and economic justice, reflects on the fading reputation of the charter industry. The decision by the Trump administration to axe the federal Charter Schools Program (DeVos’s slush fund for corporate charter chains) is the latest affront to an industry that once was regarded as the great hope for innovation and effectiveness but got overwhelmed by scandal

Oklahoma: EPIC Virtual Charter School Penalized $530,000 for Excessive Administrative Costs

25by dianeravitch / 5d

There is not much to admire in Oklahoma’s penurious funding of its public schools. But there is one admirable law on the books. Schools are not permitted to spend excessive amounts on administrative overhead. And when they do, they are penalized. Epic One on One virtual charter school has been penalized more than $530,000 for exceeding the state limit on administrative spending, a limit imposed b

Arizona: Charter School Principal Pleads Guilty to Fraud

27by dianeravitch / 5d

The principal of the Discovery Creemos Charter School pled guilty to inflating enrollment and stealing $2.5 million from the state and federal governments. The former principal of the shuttered Discovery Creemos Academy pleaded guilty Friday to participating in a $2.5 million scheme to inflate enrollment at the defunct charter school. Harold Cadiz, 55, faces up to 12 ½ years in prison after plead

Laura Chapman: Aaron Churchill, Minister of Information for Privatization in Ohio

42by dianeravitch / 6d

The munificently-funded Thomas B. Fordham Institute, based in D.C., controls Educatuon Policy, graduation requirements, curriculum, and testing in Ohio. Mr. Fordham, for whom the institute is named, had no known interest in education, but his namesake is part of the rightwing ALEC nexus, where contempt for public schools, hatred for unions, contempt for gun control and environmental regulation ar

FEB 15

Jesse Hagopian and I Speak in Seattle

by dianeravitch / 6d

When I spoke at Town Hall in Seattle, I was introduced by Garfield High School teacher Jesse Garfield. Jess is one of the heroes in SLAYING GOLIATH. Here is the conversation..

Steve Hinnefeld: The Stench of Virtual Charter Schools

49by dianeravitch / 6d

Steve Hinnefeld writes about education in Indiana. In this post, he explains the deep corruption in the virtual charter industry and how the frauds were facilitated by generous gifts to key politicians. He writes: We’ve known something fishy was going on with virtual charter schools since 2017, when a Chalkbeat Indiana investigation exposed shady business practices and lousy test scores and gradu

Detroit: A Cautionary Tale of a Promising Charter School That Was Doomed to Fail

38by dianeravitch / 6d

This is an extraordinary story, which I hope you will read to the end. It was published by Chalkbeat . A group of concerned leaders in Detroit, including some retired educators, decided to open a charter school. They won the endorsement of the city’s leading philanthropies. They won a federal grant from the Charter Schools Program. The school struggled from the beginning. It struggled initially t

Indiana: Two Virtual Charter Schools Steal More Than $68 Million from State

100+by dianeravitch / 6d

The biggest and worst charter scandals are perpetrated by virtual charter schools. Why do states tolerate their waste, fraud, and abuse? The only online charters should be operated and supervised by public officials, not by grifters and entrepreneurs. Indiana was just scammed of more than $68 million by two virtual charters. This was money that should have spent on children and in classrooms to r

Jersey Jazzman: Sorry, Jersey Charters, You Can’t Have It Both Ways

35by dianeravitch / 7d

Jersey Jazzman notes that charters in his state are on the horns of a dilemma: on one hand, public school advocates are suing to block charter expansion, because they drain away public school funding: on the other hand, charters 

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

February 24-28 is Public Schools Week - Education Votes #PUBLICSCHOOLPROUD #PUBLICSCHOOLSWEEK #REDFORED #NEA #AFT #tBATs

February 24-28 is Public Schools Week - Education Votes

February 24-28 is Public Schools Week

A record number of lawmakers signed the bipartisan, bicameral resolution declaring February 24-28 Public Schools Week: 45 senators and more than 70 representatives—and still growing. The resolution recognizes the importance of our nation’s public schools and honors those who work tirelessly to support and strengthen them. Public education is the foundation of 21st century democracy. Our public schools are open to every child—regardless of ability, wealth, or country of origin—and 9 out of 10 students attend them. The Public Schools Week resolution sends an important message: Strengthening our public schools strengthens America. The House sponsors of the resolution are Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Sam Graves (R-MO); the Senate sponsors are Susan Collins (R-ME) and Jon Tester (D-MT). Urge your representatives to contact one of them and become a cosponsor.

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Email your representatives and urge them to cosponsor the Public Schools Week resolution.

February 24-28 is Public Schools Week - Education Votes

Love Public Education | Public Schools Week 2020 - 

http://lovepubliceducation.org/?p=835

San Diego prosecutors: Districts that authorized A3 charter schools should pay back oversight fees - The San Diego Union-Tribune

San Diego prosecutors: Districts that authorized A3 charter schools should pay back oversight fees - The San Diego Union-Tribune

San Diego prosecutors: Districts that authorized A3 charter schools should pay back oversight fees
Prosecutors say A3 charter schools were vehicles of fraud; six small districts benefited

Prosecutors leading the A3 charter school criminal case want to take back potentially millions of dollars of charter school oversight fees that were paid to small school districts that were supposed to hold the A3 schools accountable.

Prosecutors with the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office said in a motion last week that six small school districts — including Dehesa School District in San Diego County — were paid millions of dollars by the A3 schools to oversee them but ended up providing little to no oversight of the schools, which prosecutors said turned out to be vehicles for fraud.

The districts also collected oversight fees from the A3 schools beyond state law limits and beyond the actual costs of oversight, prosecutors allege. They want the excess oversight fees, which are state educational dollars, to be returned to the state.

The districts named in the motion are Dehesa, Trona Joint Unified in San Bernardino County, Bradley Union in Monterey, Cuyama Joint Unified in Santa Barbara, Acton-Agua Dulce Unified in Los Angeles and Meridian Elementary in Sutter.

It’s unclear exactly how much the districts would have to repay the state if the prosecutors’ motion is successful. Those amounts would be determined at a future evidentiary hearing.

Some districts named in the motion dispute the prosecutors’ claims that they provided no oversight. They also say it could be financially devastating if they are forced to pay back charter oversight money.

Dehesa, for example, already is operating with a projected $1.5 million deficit this year and expects to make $701,000 in budget cuts for next year. Bradley Johnson, who became Dehesa’s superintendent just this month, declined to comment on CONTINUE READING: San Diego prosecutors: Districts that authorized A3 charter schools should pay back oversight fees - The San Diego Union-Tribune

New Mexico Sues Google For Collecting Children's Data In Schools | HuffPost

New Mexico Sues Google For Collecting Children's Data In Schools | HuffPost

New Mexico Sues Google For Collecting Children’s Data In Schools
The suit accuses Google of using its “education services package” to spy on children and their families.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s attorney general sued Google Thursday over allegations the tech company is illegally collecting personal data generated by children in violation of federal and state laws.'

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque claims Google is using its education services package that is marketed to school districts, teachers and parents as a way to spy on children and their families.

Attorney General Hector Balderas said that while the company touts Google Education as a valuable tool for resource-deprived schools, it is a means to monitor children while they browse the internet in the classroom and at home on private networks. He said the information being mined includes everything from physical locations to websites visited, videos watched, saved passwords and contact lists.

The state is seeking unspecified civil penalties.

“Student safety should be the number one priority of any company providing services to our children, particularly in schools,” Balderas said in a statement. “Tracking student data without parental consent is not only illegal, it is dangerous.”

Google dismissed the claims as “factually wrong,” saying the G Suite for Education CONTINUE READING: New Mexico Sues Google For Collecting Children's Data In Schools | HuffPost

CURMUDGUCATION: OH: Whose Gold Makes That Parachute?

CURMUDGUCATION: OH: Whose Gold Makes That Parachute?

OH: Whose Gold Makes That Parachute?

It turns out there's one more problem with the kind of autocratic corporate-style takeover that Ohio implemented under HB 70.

You may recall that Lorain, Ohio, is one of three districts to be placed under the control of an all-powerful CEO. It was not pretty. An Ohio-style school CEO has all the powers of a school board and a superintendent, less the ability to levy taxes but plus the power to arbitrarily rewrite contracts. The job requires such a super-human level of expertise that it's unlikely that anyone could really do it well-- but Lorain was saddled with David Hardy, Jr., a guy who was especially not-superhuman. Hardy was relieved of his duties last November, effective the beginning of January.

David Hardy was yet another example of someone who built a career as an education expert based on his two year stint as a Teach for America guy. And he used his position of power in Lorain to bring along a bunch of his old TFA friends, including Arliss Prass, who he apparently knew from way back CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: OH: Whose Gold Makes That Parachute?

American Federation of Teachers urges members to support Biden, Sanders, Warren - POLITICO

American Federation of Teachers urges members to support Biden, Sanders, Warren - POLITICO

American Federation of Teachers urges members to support Biden, Sanders, Warren
The move was a pointed rebuke of former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

The 1.7 million member American Federation of Teachers union announced Thursday that it would encourage its local and state affiliates to back or endorse the presidential bids of former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders or Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

The move was a pointed rebuke of former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, the day after Bloomberg was widely panned for his first appearance on the debate stage with other Democratic contenders. Bloomberg is a strong supporter of charter schools, which have come under attack by teachers unions for taking funds away from traditional public schools.

The announcement is not the union's coveted presidential endorsement, but it marks a first step toward that endorsement at a later date. It followed a telephone town hall meeting with thousands of AFT members and leaders who have been engaged in the union’s 2020 process.

AFT President Randi Weingarten said during the call that the AFT executive council, at this week’s meeting, voted to step up member engagement in the election, according to the union. The council encouraged “locals and state affiliates to support, be actively involved with, or endorse” the three candidates ahead of the selection of more than 60 percent of the delegates by the end of March.

“The resolution signals to members and leaders that support for any of those three candidates is welcome at this stage of the process before the union makes a national endorsement,” the union said.

A second teachers union, the larger National Education Association, has not yet CONTINUE READING: American Federation of Teachers urges members to support Biden, Sanders, Warren - POLITICO

Eye Opening Book: The Power Worshippers | tultican

Eye Opening Book: The Power Worshippers | tultican

Eye Opening Book: The Power Worshippers

By Thomas Ultican 2/20/2020

Katherine Stewart’s The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism is a brilliant piece of investigative journalism. It shines a light on significant threats to American pluralism and representative democracy. The religious rights amazing successes now influence every aspect of American life, from the White House to local governments, from schools to hospitals. Stewart documents the origins of “the Russia thing” and the evangelical embrace of Donald Trump. She clarifies that the Christian right is not fighting a culture war; it is a political war waged against the institutions of American democracy and freedom of conscience.

Trump is a Gift from God

Ralph Drollinger: “I started sending him my Bible studies when he was running his campaign and Trump has been writing notes back to me ever since, in a positive sense. He likes loyalty.”

Paula White about Trump: “It is God that raises up a king.”

Franklin Graham on Trump’s election: “God’s had intervened.”

David Barton called Trump: “God’s guy.”

Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed God: “wanted Trump to become president.”

Ralph Reed stated: “There has never been anyone who has defended us and CONTINUE READING: Eye Opening Book: The Power Worshippers | tultican

Inequitable Opportunity to Learn: Student Access to Certified and Experienced Teachers | Cloaking Inequity

Inequitable Opportunity to Learn: Student Access to Certified and Experienced Teachers | Cloaking Inequity

INEQUITABLE OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN: STUDENT ACCESS TO CERTIFIED AND EXPERIENCED TEACHERS

I gave a keynote for the Tucson Urban League yesterday and one of the topics of discussion was the persisting inequality in teacher quality for low income and students of color. On cue, The Learning Policy Institute (LPI) has released Inequitable Opportunity to Learn: Student Access to Certified and Experienced Teachers authored by Jessica Cardichon, Linda Darling-Hammond, Man Yang, Caitlin Scott, Patrick M. Shields and Dion Burns.

Access to fully certified and experienced teachers matters for student outcomes and achievement, yet many states have hired uncertified and inexperienced teachers to fill gaps created by persistent teacher shortages. These teachers are disproportionately found in schools with high enrollments of students of color, according to LPI analysis of the most recent U.S. Department of Education Civil Rights Data Collection, which has proposed cutting key data collection questions related to school funding and educator experience.

Researchers examined the two most recent CRDCs (2014 and 2016) to assess the degree to which students of color (including African American, Asian, Latino/a, Native American, Pacific Islander, and students of two or more races) have access to certified and experienced teachers compared to their white peers. The report also provides key policy strategies for increasing student access to certified and experienced teachers.

Some state statistics:

• In 13 states (Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Kansas, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Washington), there are about twice as many inexperienced teachers in schools with high enrollment of students of color compared to the share of inexperienced teachers in schools with low enrollment of students of color.
• In five states (Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Tennessee), there are at least three times as many inexperienced teachers in schools with high enrollment of students of color compared to the share of inexperienced teachers in schools with low enrollments of students of color.

Another must read, check out the report Inequitable Opportunity to Learn: Student Access to Certified and Experienced Teachers.

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Inequitable Opportunity to Learn: Student Access to Certified and Experienced Teachers | Cloaking Inequity

NANCY BAILEY: ‘Screens in Schools Action Kit’ to Help Parents Push Back Against Edtech Overuse

‘Screens in Schools Action Kit’ to Help Parents Push Back Against Edtech Overuse

‘Screens in Schools Action Kit’ to Help Parents Push Back Against Edtech Overuse

Parents and educators worry about how much time students spend facing digital devices. Here is a useful resource to help children live lives that aren’t dominated by screen use.

Contact: Seth Evans, Chair, (seth@commercialfreechildhood.org) Screens in Schools Work Group, Children’s Screen Time Action Network

Advocates Release ‘Screens in Schools Action Kit’ to Help Parents Push Back Against Edtech Overuse

The free resource from the Children’s Screen Time Action Network will help parents advocate for less device use and more hands-on learning in schools.

BOSTON, MA —February 10, 2020—Today, the Children’s Screen Time Action Network released the Screens in Schools Action Kit to help parents and educators address the overuse of educational technologies in schools. The Action Kit is a product of a grassroots movement challenging Silicon Valley myths that tech is a panacea for all that ails our educational system, and that “personalized learning” is better delivered by software and algorithms than highly skilled educators. The Children’s Screen Time CONTINUE READING: ‘Screens in Schools Action Kit’ to Help Parents Push Back Against Edtech Overuse

CURMUDGUCATION: Common Core Is Dead. Long LIve Common Core.

CURMUDGUCATION: Common Core Is Dead. Long LIve Common Core.

Common Core Is Dead. Long LIve Common Core.

The Common Core State Standards are dead. Done. Finished. Authorities have told us so.

Betsy DeVos delivered a brief eulogy at the American Enterprise Institute back in January. “And at the U.S. Department of Education, Common Core is dead,” she declared.

In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis just announced that the work of “rooting out all vestiges of Common Core” done, and new standards would now replace the old, unloved ones.

So is that it? Can we get out our forks and prepare to stick them in the Common Core? Or have the reports of their death been greatly exaggerated? Sad to say, it’s probably that second one. The Common Core may very well be shambling along, zombie-like, at a school district near you. Here are the factors that may be keeping it up and shambling.

Yeti Repellant

When Betsy DeVos says the federal government isn’t supporting the Core any more, she’s being disingenuous. The Department of Education never officially endorsed or required the standards. It used winks and nudges and the extortion-style leverage that came from No Child Left Behind CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Common Core Is Dead. Long LIve Common Core.