More Troubling Than Vouchers | Oklahoma Observer

More Troubling Than Vouchers | Oklahoma Observer:

MORE TROUBLING THAN VOUCHERS

BY JOHN THOMPSON

“For the life of me,” retiring Tulsa Superintendent Ballard said, “I cannot understand why … at a time when we’re talking about a huge [state revenue] shortfall, why are we shoveling money at private schools.”

Oklahoma is projecting a $611 million reduction in general revenue for the fiscal year that begins July 1, yet the state Senate is considering a voucher bill – SB 609 – that would take tax dollars from public schools and allow them to be spent on private or home schooling.

“This is going to have a disastrous affect on public schools,” added Ballard. “In Tulsa Public Schools alone, the first 500 kids alone that go to a private school are going to take $1 million out of Tulsa Public and move it over to private schools.”

I oppose vouchers, but I’m much more worried about SB 68, which would allow the city governments of Oklahoma City and Tulsa to authorize charter schools [see Editor’s Note below]. The costs of vouchers are primarily monetary, issuing checks to many persons who would never attend public schools, or subsidizing others who then choose private schools.

Classroom seats emptied because of charters, however, would be just as empty as those that lost students to vouchers. And while the costs of vouchers would be spread across the state, the damage done by SB 68 would primarily be born by the poorest children of color in the inner cities.

SB 68 is an extreme version of choice that grew out of the claim by market-driven reformers that local school boards, teachers’ unions, and university education departments – i.e. the “status quo” – must be destroyed so that “disruptive innovation” can transform schools.

In Oklahoma City, it could eventually become a mortal threat to the school system, as well as its teachers’ union.

If the majority of the City Council gains the power to compete with the Oklahoma City Public Schools, SB 68 would allow them to set their own rules in doing so. Oklahoma City could then join the growing ranks of communities where traditional public schools are extinct or nearly all replaced by charters, including “virtual learning” online charters.

If corporate leaders decided that their lives would be easier without unions, especially public service unions, they could use all of the advantages granted to charters to break the OKC AFT.

As a member of the MAPS for KIDS bipartisan reform coalition, I supported charter schools. I still do, even as I mourn the way that the original version of choice has been undermined.

Back then, charters were seen as a source of innovation. [Oklahoma City’s ASTEC and Stanley Hupfield Academy are examples of the type of outstanding 1990s charters that sought holistic instruction, not just drill and kill.] Since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, charters have become a competitive force that, all-to-often, embraced teach-to-the-test shortcuts in an effort to defeat neighborhood schools.

Worse, due to their focus on outperforming traditional public schools, charters have resorted more and More Troubling Than Vouchers | Oklahoma Observer:

Charter spent $2.27M on advertising | The Columbus Dispatch

Charter spent $2.27M on advertising | The Columbus Dispatch:



Charter spent $2.27M on advertising

 Ohio’s largest online charter school spent at least $2.27 million of state education tax dollars last school year on advertising to attract students, or about $155 for each student who enrolled that year.

And that’s only part of the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow’s advertising budget, because other advertising — including those featuring Jack Hanna, director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, as an ECOT spokesman — are paid for by the school’s for-profit management company, and its records are not public.

“We’re always concerned with the amount of money or expenditures spent in classroom instruction,” said Rick Teeters, superintendent of ECOT. “We try to keep the marketing expenditure around or under 2 percent of the total budget.”

ECOT’s 2013-14 revenue was $112.7 million, 90 percent funded by the state.

ECOT’s spending on advertising during the 2013-14 school year included:

• $1.79 million on ads, including radio and television time.

• $119,722 on Facebook ads.

• $135,418 on Google ads.

• $35,938 on mailing lists.

By comparison, Columbus City Schools, the state’s largest district, spent just over $108,000 on ads during 2013-14, about half of which was to remind parents to enroll their children before the start of the school year and announce new programs. About $44,000 was spent to advertise adult-education classes and vocational programs, said district spokesman Jeff Warner.

If Columbus schools spent 2 percent of its revenue on ads, it could mount a $16.1 million-per-year media blitz. That’s more than five times what the district’s unsuccessful levy campaign spent in 2013, when private donors gave a record $3 million and ads blanketed local TV screens.

“It seems shockingly high, and I cannot imagine there would be any good reason to spend that kind of tax dollars” on ads, state Rep. Teresa Fedor, a Democrat from Toledo, said of ECOT’s ad budget. She is calling for an overhaul of the state’s charter-school laws.

“Of course, there’s a profit margin associated with this, and that makes it even more questionable,” Fedor said. “I am outraged by this because we’re not getting the results at the end of the day, and it’s time for a review.”

The Dispatch reported last week that ECOT had an average enrollment of 14,600 students last school year, but only because it enrolled thousands of students each month to replace the thousands who left after staying for only weeks or months. ECOT churned through almost 23,000 students over the course of calendar year 2014 to arrive at an enrollment of 14,600.

Charter schools need to do more advertising than a local district school, said Chad Aldis, vice president for Ohio policy and advocacy with the pro-charter Fordham Institute in Columbus. “What amount is appropriate is a fair question,” Aldis said.

And a statewide charter school such as ECOT would have more ad expenses than a local school because its audience is larger.

Aldis is concerned whether parents and students are getting the information they need to make an informed decision from the school’s advertising.

“There’s probably a better way of doing it,” he said of spending tax dollars to get the message out about available charter-school programs. “This is to me a reflection of the lack of high-quality, school-level information that’s readily out there and available. The point I’m making is, parents are looking for sources of information about schools.”

Maybe a better way to meet that need with tax dollars would be for the state Department of Education to host a website that reviews schools, kind of like an Angie’s List of charter schools, Aldis said.

“Advertising in and of itself isn’t good or bad,” said State Auditor Dave Yost.

This week, Yost presented a charter-school reform plan to the Charter spent $2.27M on advertising | The Columbus Dispatch:

Big Education Ape: Report Slams Virtual Charter Schools That Graduate Just 36% Of Students - BuzzFeed News http://bit.ly/1AVX7nl

California Virtual Academies, a chain of 11 online charter schools with 14,000 students, is the subject of a critical new report from In The Public Interest, an advocacy group.

Why getting to school has gotten harder for kids in the Big Easy. - Pacific Standard

Uphill Both Ways - Pacific Standard:

Uphill Both Ways

Why getting to school has gotten harder for kids in the Big Easy.

 At 5:15 a.m., it is easy to spot the Jones household on its quiet residential block. In the darkness of this December morning, it’s the only place with the lights on.

Renata Jones and her three kids live in the Westbank area of New Orleans, across the Mississippi River from the bright lights of the French Quarter, where many of the bars are still serving drinks at this hour.

Although the school day for Renata Jones’ youngest son, Kai, age seven, will not begin until nearly 8 a.m., his daily trip to Lafayette Academy, the pre-K-through- eighth-grade charter school that he attends on the opposite side of the city, takes an hour, and the bus is often late.

Inside the house, Kai, a spindly little boy, comes down the stairs from his room in a trance, grumpy and mute. “It’s always a fight,” says his mother, who works as a registration coordinator in the radiology department of a local hospital. She manages to dress him in his embroidered-polo-and-khakis uniform without a complaint. “He doesn’t understand why he can’t get up when the rest of the kids do.”

The chronic absenteeism rate among students from kindergarten to third grade in New Orleans is 16.2 percent—about 60 percent higher than the national average.

Renata is an old hand at this routine, having perfected it with her older son, Ronjaé, 16, and her daughter, Amya, 14. She sent them to Lafayette Academy after years of severe misgivings about Paul B. Habans Elementary, a nearby but consistently low-performing school that last year received an F ranking from the state of Louisiana.

“They weren’t learning anything,” Jones says. “When I took my children out of Habans, I was just like, ‘I’m so gone.’ It was such a disappointment.” Because of changes to the New Orleans school system over the last decade, Jones and her kids were able to “vote with their feet”—as school-choice advocates are fond of saying—and leave a failing school. What they didn’t expect was how far away that vote would take them.

Last year, New Orleans became home to the first school district in the nation made up entirely of charter schools. The effects of this transformation have been dramatic, complex, and heavily debated, but one of the more straightforward consequences is that kids simply travel much farther than they once did to get to school.

In a city where schools have lost virtually all connection to their students’ neighborhoods, 25 percent of all New Orleans students, including Kai, live five miles or more away from their school, according to the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans, an organization at Tulane University that examines local school reform. That’s distance as the crow flies, which doesn’t take into account the vagaries of urban density, road conditions, traffic, and bus routes that make frequent stops to Uphill Both Ways - Pacific Standard:

AFT's Weingarten: Walker Will Say and Do Anything to Attack Workers | American Federation of Teachers

AFT's Weingarten: Walker Will Say and Do Anything to Attack Workers | American Federation of Teachers:



AFT's Weingarten: Walker Will Say and Do Anything to Attack Workers

WASHINGTON—Statement from American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten on Gov. Scott Walker's signing of the so-called right-to-work bill in Wisconsin:

"During his campaign for governor, Scott Walker promised not to amp up his attacks on workers. But when he decided to run for president, he kicked that commitment to the curb. In the last two weeks, he has compared working people to ISIS, has celebrated President Reagan's bust of the air traffic controller strike as a 'significant foreign policy decision,' and now has signed into law a bill that will drive down wages, destroy good jobs and break the backs of unions. By his actions and statements, Walker has revealed that his plan to win the Republican nomination is a willingness to say and do anything to attack and tear down workers. It's cynical and sad, and will ultimately fail.

"Scott Walker fails the test of common decency and common sense. If you want good jobs, then you also must stand up for the workers who hold them. If you want a strong middle class, then you can't take out the unions that built it. If you want higher wages, then workers need a voice.

"Governors of our nation, you have a decision to make. You can take your state the way of Wisconsin, where Gov. Walker's attacks on workers and tax cuts for the wealthy have landed the state, which is ranked 32nd for business and 27th in economic climate, with a $2 billion deficit. Or you can look over to Minnesota, where Gov. Mark Dayton has stood with workers and raised taxes on the wealthy few. Minnesota has a $1 billion surplus and is ranked in the top 10 in the nation for business and economic climate.

"The workers of Wisconsin are resilient. They will continue to fight back and wait until they have a governor who will work with them, not work to break them."

Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten:
http://twitter.com/rweingarten

- See more at: http://www.aft.org/press-release/afts-weingarten-walker-will-say-and-do-anything-attack-workers#sthash.dCwh1rYT.dpuf

Students Around The Country Are Opting Out Of Tests, Even If State Law Doesn't Allow It:

Students Around The Country Are Opting Out Of Tests, Even If State Law Doesn't Allow It

Dolores Ramos, 16, right, joins dozens of Highland High School students in Albuquerque, N.M., as students staged a walkout Monday March 2, 2015, to protest a new standardized test they say isn't an accurate measurement of their education. Students frustrated over the new exam walked out of schools across the state Monday in protest as the new exam was being given. The backlash came as millions of U.S. students start taking more rigorous exams aligned with Common Core standards. (AP Photo/Russell | ASSOCIATED PRESS

In New Mexico this past week, over 2,000 students from Albuquerque Public Schools opted not to participate in standardized testing, after voicing their opposition to the exams with protests and walk-outs. In New Jersey, districts around the state also reported large numbers of opt-outs, with some school administrators calling the test resistance nearly unprecedented.

But in these places, state policy might not actually allow students to opt out of statewide testing, according to a new report from the Education Commission of the States. The report from the nonpartisan group outlines each state's policy on opting out of standardized testing, finding that in many cases, protocol is actually unclear and lacks enforcement.

In recent months, resistance to high-stakes standardized tests has reached a fever pitch, amid the rollout of exams associated with the Common Core State Standards. The Common Core State Standards are a set of education benchmarks that have been adopted in most states in an effort to make sure students around the country are learning at the same level. The standardized tests associated with the new standards are known for their increased rigor. This past week, a handful of states -- like New Mexico and New Jersey -- administered the exams.

The Education Commission report says that a few states give clear guidance on opting out: In California and Utah, state law expressly allows parents to prevent their children from taking standardized tests.

On the other end of the spectrum, state law in places like Texas and Arkansas clearly prohibits opt-outs.

In New Mexico, the Department of Education has said that state law requires all students to take state tests –- and mass opt-outs could end up impacting a school’s funding. But that hasn’t appeared to stop districts from implementing their own individual policies on the issue. In New Jersey, the Department of Education has sent guidance to school districts informing them that state policy requires students to take statewide assessments. However, this hasn’t seemed to stop kids from refusing to participate.

“In many states … the guidance as to whether opt-outs are allowed is far less clear, as departments of education are often silent on the issue,” says the report. “Additionally, many states have no consequences in place for not participating in mandatory assessments, adding a further wrinkle to defining what it means for states to truly prohibit opt-outs”

In sum, in many places, policy is murky.

"This is such a new issue, you could easily see how all of these policies are constantly evolving," Julie Rowland, one of the authors of the study, told Education Week.

However, as Education Week noted, activist groups like United Opt Out andFairTest/The National Center for Fair and Open Testing both work to provide their own guidance for parents who wish to keep children from taking state tests. FairTest, for example, has a list of contacts in most states who are knowledgable about the consequences of opting out in that area.

“In most cases, it is unplowed ground,” Bob Schaeffer, public education director of Students Around The Country Are Opting Out Of Tests, Even If State Law Doesn't Allow It:

Parents Can Opt Out - United Opt Out National

Click Here to go to United Opt Out National: 

Click Here to go to the Website- United Opt Out Team

Click Here to go to the Website FairTest

Most Teach For America Instructors Plan to Flee Teaching - Yahoo Finance

Most Teach For America Instructors Plan to Flee Teaching - Yahoo Finance:

Most Teach For America Instructors Plan to Flee Teaching

Teach for America, the mammoth nonprofit that grooms thousands of bright young college graduates to be teachers every year, is divisive. Advocates say TFA is on the front lines of fighting educational inequity; critics charge it’s little more than a two-year pit stop for Ivy League graduates eyeing careers outside of education.

A new study from a nonpartisan research organization adds ammunition to skeptics’ claims. More than 87 percent of TFA teachers say they don’t plan on remaining teachers throughout their careers, compared with 26.3 percent of non-TFA teachers working in the same subjects, grades, and schools, according to an analysis released last week by Mathematica Policy Research (PDF).

The study suggests the risk of turnover is relatively high for the recent grads that become teachers through TFA's program. A full 25 percent of them said they would quit teaching after the current school year, compared with only 6.7 percent of non-TFA teachers. And of those who plan to quit, 42.9 percent of TFA teachers anticipated leaving education altogether, compared with 6.7 percent of non-TFA teachers.

The numbers point to attrition issues that, while perhaps endemic to the teaching profession as a whole, seem to be hitting TFA teachers --who are more likely than other teachers to be young, white, male, and educated at an elite college -- particularly hard.

“We do encourage our corps members to pursue leadership in whatever way feels most impactful for them. That said, we are seeking ways to continue to get better and provide more options for those who want to stay in the classroom,” says Takirra Winfield, vice president of national communications for TFA.

Turnover can be damaging to any organization. After all, it costs money to recruit, hire, and train new employees. Yet critics say what makes TFA's attrition particularly damning is that the organization puts teachers in exactly the types of low-income, under-resourced schools that could benefit from consistent leadership.

"I've heard stories from students who've said to me that they really like the TFA teachers, but they know they're going to leave," says Julian Vasquez Heilig, an associate professor of educational policy and planning at the University of Texas at Austin. "There's a psychological impact on the kids when they know the teachers aren't really committed to the school."

To be sure, turnover in teaching is a problem much bigger than just TFA. Richard Ingersoll, a University of Pennsylvania professor, estimates (PDF) about 41 percent of teachers will leave the classroom within five years—meaning teachers quit at a higher rate than nurses, lawyers, and engineers. TFA teachers, 12 percent of whom leave after their first year in the classroom, contribute an untold amount to that turnover rate.

When TFA teachers leave, it's not inconsequential. It costs $51,400 to fund each teacher for three years, starting from when the soon-to-be college graduates are recruited to when they finish their two-year teaching commitment, according to TFA's data. There's also a less tangible cost: the effect a rotating cast of teachers can have on children. "Students in grade levels with higher turnover score lower in both English language arts and math," researchers found in a 2013 study (PDF) published by the American Educational Research Journal. "These effects are particularly strong in schools Most Teach For America Instructors Plan to Flee Teaching - Yahoo Finance:

Penn State Researcher Analyzes Outsourcing K-12 School Food Services | GantDaily.com

Penn State Researcher Analyzes Outsourcing K-12 School Food Services | GantDaily.com:

Penn State Researcher Analyzes Outsourcing K-12 School Food Services

Posted on Monday, March 9, 2015 by Gant Team in Health News

UNIVERSITY PARK — While studies have recognized the need for schools to outsource food services, there is little research on how school officials can determine whether or not to outsource their food service operations, particularly by understanding the costs and benefits of this decision. Additionally, there is a major market opportunity for food service companies to manage operations at schools.

A recent article co-authored by Amit Sharma, associate professor of hospitality management, highlights the complex issues school administrators face when considering outsourcing food services.

“Cost-Benefit Framework for K-12 Food Service Outsourcing Decisions,” published by the International Journal of Hospitality Management in February, focuses on the issue at a time when childhood obesity is receiving national attention.

“There has been a continued focus on how schools can be instrumental in making kids understand healthy eating and provide balanced eating options for them,” Sharma said. “The question that comes up frequently is: Should food service operations be outsourced? It’s a business decision, it’s a financial decision and, at the same time, it’s a decision that is associated with health outcomes. Meanwhile, school administrators want to make sure that the new, third-party operator is going to do a good job in all of these aspects.”

Sharma and co-authors developed a generic framework to guide future research to investigate K-12 food service outsourcing decisions.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are roughly 14,000 school districts in the United States. Between 12 and 15 percent of those districts outsource food services. Nearly half of the districts outsourcing food services are located in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

The study included a survey of school administrators mostly from districts where food service is outsourced. Authors used the information collected to create a cost and benefit framework for K-12 food service operations outsourcing decisions, incorporating the costs and benefits that respondents cited as being important in their decision-making process to outsource food services. Authors also incorporated input from stakeholders, parties that would be influenced by the cost and benefit items.

Costs that were identified in the proposed framework included: poor performance, lack of student or parent support, a poor contract or vendor selection, hidden costs and low morale of staff. Benefits within this framework included: access to skilled staff, quality improvement, quality of taste, nutritional quality of food, reduced operating costs, and better accountability and management of legal compliance.

“The Food Decisions Research Laboratory investigates decisions and choices of managers and consumers in the foodservice industry. We are particularly interested in how actual and perceived costs and benefits impact such decisions,” Sharma said. “In this paper we have laid out a possible map of what these costs and benefits could be. We will now leverage this knowledge to dig deeper into how these costs and benefits might impact food decisions.”

Future research questions could include: How are costs and benefits perceived and assessed in outsourcing decisions? How can costs and benefits be estimated, measured or quantified to enhance decision-making?

“We were not expecting this to be an easy answer,” Sharma said. “It’s not supposed to be an easy answer. It is more complicated. The main takeaway for us is that the decision involves a balance of pros and cons, the benefits and costs. How the decision is made, which one of these factors was weighted more, that requires further investigations about Penn State Researcher Analyzes Outsourcing K-12 School Food Services | GantDaily.com:

The Straw That Broke the Teacher's Back | M. Shannon Hernandez

The Straw That Broke the Teacher's Back | M. Shannon Hernandez:

The Straw That Broke the Teacher's Back

My teaching career began at the age of 21, straight out of college, in a second grade classroom in a small town outside of Concord, North Carolina. Early in my career I thought I wanted to teach the little ones, but I learned rather quickly my personality was better suited to middle-school students. So after a few years of teaching in elementary school, I transitioned to teaching in middle school, where I remained for the next 12 years.

Throughout my middle-school years, I taught English Language Arts (ELA) and Social Studies. I coached sports teams and served as grade team leader, curriculum chair and student teaching supervisor, mentored new teachers and initiated many programs and clubs in the schools I served in North Carolina and New York City.

I taught students firsthand how rewarding it is to learn while traveling. We took summer trips to the Grand Canyon, Canada, London, Paris and Rome. I worked diligently every year to secure grant funds so I could have the most current literature in my classroom library. I also worked with local organizations to ensure my students could visit museums, attend plays and have other cultural experiences so they could learn about the world around them.

After meeting my Brooklynite husband during the tenth year of my teaching career, I was ready for the adventure of city life. My first New York City teaching job was in Spanish Harlem. While some days I wondered if I would make it from the school to the train station alive, I fell in love with my inner-city students -- their strengths, their struggles, and especially their big-city survival skills.

The last four years of my teaching career were in an excellent school in Manhattan. I had never taught with a more dedicated and unified staff. The students were also some of the most kindhearted and intelligent I had had the honor of teaching.

Upon accepting a teaching position in New York City, I was well aware I would need to return to college and earn my master's degree, as this is a certification requirement for this state. I enrolled in Brooklyn College and began working towards a degree in Biology Education. I also knew that I would be losing the tenured position I had worked so hard to earn during my first ten years of teaching in North Carolina. While I wasn't thrilled about the latter point, because it meant, once again, "proving" myself to a new school district, I accepted it. Within three years of teaching in New York City, my tenure had been granted to me once again.

In October of 2012, two months before I was to graduate with a my master's degree, I learned something that would change the course of my life and career. I had just been informed by the New York City certification department that I would lose my tenure, again, once I began teaching under my new biology certification the following fall.

I was livid. I cried. I screamed. I made phone calls. And with each person I spoke to, the news was consistent: Because I was switching from a certification in ELA to Biology, my tenure would be taken from me, and I would have to prove, once again, that I was a teacher worthy of keeping.

I guess you can say that I had had enough, 15 years into the career. And you know what the sad part was? I loved teaching...I still do. But I just got so tired of the policies and the "proving of myself" over and over again. I rarely felt appreciated, valued or heard in the teaching profession, no matter how high my ratings were, how much growth my students showed on the exams, or no matter how much work I put in.

So, I decided it was time to change paths -- before bitterness and resentment set in. I turned in my resignation in June 2013, and I've been teaching future teachers at Brooklyn College; I became the author of my memoir about my exit of public The Straw That Broke the Teacher's Back | M. Shannon Hernandez:

54 Documents!! Anonymous Georgia Teacher - Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association:



54 Documents!!

Anonymous Georgia Teacher **this is a Facebook post blogged with permission - it has not been edited.

  "What type of alternative assessments do other states have? I teach in Georgia and we have an alternative assessment (portfolios) for students with significant cognitive disabilities (which I teach). I just finished my portfolios today and it was wretched. Basically its doesn't assess how the kids do, but rather how well the teachers can type up reports. The basic rundown for the portfolio and how ridiculous it is:

The state provides approved standards (ELA and Math are Common Core standards) and then the teachers chose two ELA standards (1 reading/1 writing/speaking&listening), two Math standards (1 numbers/1 geometry or measurement), and one of each science and social studies.

Now for each standard selected (6) - we have to create or find 4 work samples. (two 'baseline" before lessons and two "achievement" to show growth)- That's 24 work samples per student (which can also other things such as observation write-ups, or captioned photos of a student doing a task).

Next, you have to write an entry sheet for each standard describing the 4 tasks and the standard they align to.

Now we are up to 30 documents per student.

And finally, an annotation sheet for each work sample (the state makes this optional but my district Badass Teachers Association: