Parents risk dying for Dyett and neighborhood public schools #FightforDyett #WeSupportDyett12 | Cloaking Inequity

Parents risk dying for Dyett and neighborhood public schools #FightforDyett #WeSupportDyett12 | Cloaking Inequity:

Parents risk dying for Dyett and neighborhood public schools #FightforDyett #WeSupportDyett12

Parents and community members are entering the 4th week of a hunger strike in Chicago. While the issues may seem at first glance specific to Dyett High School, the protest is really about the top-down, private control school reform regime in Chicago and elsewhere. In essence the parents are demanding

• An open-enrollment neighborhood public school.
• A school that is properly resourced.
• A school that is community-based and provide children 21st century skills rather than rote learning.

These are also the core issues ignored by top-down, private control school reform in New Orleans, Detroit, Tennessee etc.

I was blown away by Anna Jones’, one of the parents involved in the Dyett Hunger Strike, recent testimony.

My name is Anna Jones. I have four children. My three younger children are in elementary school, and my eighth grader will be starting high school in the fall.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed 50 schools in “low-income neighborhoods” for “underutilization.” The largest number of school closings in history.I’m no politician but I do know that schools underutilized are schools underfunded. “UNDERFUND=UNDERUTILIZE.”

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know, that if you don’t invest in something, there is no use for it. That if public schools in Bronzeville were getting the same funds as public schools in Lincoln Park, that public schools would be equally utilized and not “over  utilized” verses underutilize

Emanuel’s idea to close 50 schools devastated me and the aftermath broke my heart. School is overcrowded and filthy daily, Children eat breakfast in the hallway or the classroom sometimes the gym room, kids with disabilities receive their services under the stairwell and are often distracted, the nurse is only available on Tuesday and her office is the security guard’s desk, 1 teacher’s aide in the entire building with 500 students, a k-1 split class, no books, no library, nor librarian, no restorative justice, no science lab, no after school programs, absolutely no reading teacher for over 3 months in my daughter’s eighth grade year,  my kids being inappropriately handled by staff and the district’s policy has destroyed good teacher’s passion and ability to teach etc. To add insult to injury my children were flooded with test that took away from basic instruction that did nothing to support their achievements. I didn’t know what to do or where to turn but every time I looked in the eyes of my boys and girls (especially my eldest) I accepted that giving up could never be an option.

The community has been fighting for Dyett high school since 2009. In 2013 I was proud and relieved to join the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization and The Coalition to Revitalize Dyett High School. There I found hope again and a team of likeminded good people (parents, educators, organizing partners and community leaders) creating a world class plan with 2 common interests: the children and the community by which they live.

I feel like I’ve been robbed of my tax dollars therefore my children have been robbed of their education. I can’t get that time lost back. That’s why I’m committed to the fight for a community-driven Dyett Global leadership and green technology high school.

Our schools and communities are impoverished and becoming more impoverished due to the misappropriation of tax payer’s dollars as Parents risk dying for Dyett and neighborhood public schools #FightforDyett #WeSupportDyett12 | Cloaking Inequity:

How an Area’s Union Membership Can Predict Children’s Advancement - The New York Times

How an Area’s Union Membership Can Predict Children’s Advancement - The New York Times:

How an Area’s Union Membership Can Predict Children’s Advancement

It is well established that unions provide benefits to workers — that they raise wages for their members (and even for nonmembers). They can help reduce inequality.

A new study suggests that unions may also help children move up the economic ladder.

Researchers at Harvard, Wellesley and the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, released a paper Wednesday showing that children born to low-income families typically ascend to higher incomes in metropolitan areas where union membership is higher.

The size of the effect is small, but there aren’t many other factors that are as strongly correlated with mobility. Raj Chetty of Stanford and Nathaniel Hendren of Harvard, who pioneered this method of examining economic mobility, established five factors that are strongly correlated with a low-income child’s likelihood of making it into the middle class: the rate of single motherhood in an area, the degree of inequality, the high school dropout rate, the degree of residential segregation, and the amount of social capital, as measured by indicators like voter turnout and participation in community organizations.

Single motherhood is the most strongly correlated factor with mobility. The latest study, which relied on the Chetty/Hendren data, says union membership is roughly as strongly correlated with mobility as the other four factors.

“It’s a striking relationship,” said Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary and Obama economic adviser, who is participating in a discussion with some of the study’s authors on Wednesday. “It’s further grounds for concern about the decline of unionism in the United States.”

The authors posit a variety of reasons for why higher rates of unionization tend to coincide with greater mobility, beyond the effect on parents’ wages, which would seem to be the most obvious way unionization could matter.

Their most interesting explanation is that unions are effective at pushing the political system to deliver policies — like a higher minimum wage and greater spending on schools and other government programs — that broadly benefit workers. Perhaps not surprisingly, three cities that appear to reflect the union effect — San Francisco, Seattle and New York — are all jurisdictions where the minimum wage is rising substantially (though for New York it is only for workers in fast-food chains.).

The researchers looked at the expected income of people ages 29 to 32 whose parents were at the 25th percentile of income nationally when they were teenagers. They found that a 10-percentage-point increase in the rate How an Area’s Union Membership Can Predict Children’s Advancement - The New York Times:

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Dorn Calls for Special Session

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Dorn Calls for Special Session:

Dorn Calls for Special Session

This is one of the funnier press announcements I have read in a long time.

In a ruling Sept. 4, the Washington State Supreme Court declared the initiative that established our state’s charter schools to be unconstitutional.

This ruling potentially affects more than 1,000 students who have already started the 2015-16 school year.

“Even before the initiative was finalized, I warned the drafters it was unconstitutional,” State Superintendent Randy Dorn said. “And after the initiative was passed, I sent a letter to key education leaders in the state legislature expressing my concerns.

“But now that school is in session, we need to do everything we can not to disrupt the education of the students caught in the middle of this argument.”

This is the second time in two months that the state Supreme Court has ruled on the constitutionality of our current education system. Dorn urges the governor to call a solution-oriented special legislative session to fix the charter school law and to address the lingering McCleary contempt order. 

As I said in my Tweet:  Easy peasy, let me get my wand.


As a matter of fact, I did speak to Dorn in his office during the I-1240 campaign and he was not for it.  My impression is that after charters did win, he got a lot more pragmatic.  What makes that puzzling is that his own role is Seattle Schools Community Forum: Dorn Calls for Special Session:

Tweets from District Press Conference on Teacher Contract Negotiations

From KPLU's Kyle Stokes:

“A contract that is not fiscally sound will hurt” our district, says@seapubschools spokeswoman 
(note: that would be Stacy Howard).

At this point, there is no timeline for legal action says @seapubschoolsspokeswoman Stacy Howard.

In two years, our district needs to start offering more credits to HS students.”  (probably from Ballard principal on negotiating team)

District proposal on pay increases: Year 1: 2.0% Year 2: 3.2% Year 3: 4.0% for teachers, 3.75% for classified staff. 

Last night, @seapubschools negotiators say @SeattleEA team walked away from table right after district left them alone with a counteroffer. 

The @seapubschools negotiators say they found out @SeattleEA had walked out when they saw they had walked down to board room …where press had assembled.

 I'll be interested to see what the SEA has to say.  I'd be willing to bet the SEA did not just walk away from the table without looking at the offer.  They probably looked at it and THEN walked.

Tweets from District Press Conference on Teacher Contract Negotiations

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Charter School Strikedown Gets National Attention

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Charter School Strikedown Gets National Attention:

Charter School Strikedown Gets National Attention

Two stories from two noted national newspapers.

One is from the New York Times and is one of the most objectively written stories on public education that I have read in a long time.  Its overview is the turmoil in public education in Washington State, including the Seattle teachers strike but is mostly about the Supreme Court decision on the charter law.

About the charter ruling;

We are now firmly on that chess table,” said Thomas Franta, the chief executive of the Washington State Charter Schools Association.

But he said the political terrain had gotten tricky because with two giant education issues facing the Legislature, the pressure would be immense to tackle them at the same time in a special session. “And doing them both at the same time is going to be more difficult,” he added.

But David Sciarra, the executive director of the Education Law Center, which advises lawyers on education financing cases, said the Washington ruling could foreshadow fights over charter school funding and how it affects traditional public schools. Particularly in communities with large numbers of charter schools, legacy school districts struggle with declining enrollments that can lead to school closings and leave the remaining schools with students who often are the most difficult to educate.

The other story is from the Washington Post ( I am quoted in it):

But the ruling also highlights a question that has spurred much debate in education circles as charter schools — which are funded with taxpayer dollars, but run by independent organizations — have expanded rapidly Seattle Schools Community Forum: Charter School Strikedown Gets National Attention:

Blame the Billionaires, Not the Teachers - Slog - The Stranger

Blame the Billionaires, Not the Teachers - Slog - The Stranger:

Blame the Billionaires, Not the Teachers

Let's briefly take note of the fact that back in May, when school was suspended and Seattle teachers walked off the job for a single day, the Seattle School District and the local teachers union were singing a different tune. Superintendent Larry Nyland sent a note to parents reminding them that the walkout wasn't about the district—it was "a statement to the state legislature about the current lack of adequate state funding for basic education." The head of the Seattle Educators Association went on the radio and emphasized that the district and the teachers agreed about this.

There was unity in hatred for Olympia.

Clearly, the relationship between the district and the union has soured since May, and there are vast differences in their positions on pay, standardized testing, and a range of other district-centric issues. But as Jen pointed out yesterday, the unconstitutional underfunding of Washington schools looms over all of this. And last night, the divide between those who believe in a robust public school system and those who don't give two shits about it, or want to see it replaced with a system of charter schools run by businesses and churches, could be seen even in the dimly-lit Seattle school board chambers, as the board voted on a resolution condemning the strike and giving Nyland the power to seek a legal injunction blocking the strike.

Only Sue Peters, who The Stranger endorsed in 2013, voted against the injunction-seeking resolution—out of seven board members. In an interview today, she said it sends the wrong message and, to boot, the teachers could choose to ignore an injunction anyway, as striking teachers did in Pasco earlier this year. "A sure way to end the strike is not with a court order," she said, "but with an agreement."

Peters never would have been on the board to begin with if billionaires Nick Hanauer, Steve Ballmer, and the Seattle Chamber of Commerce's political arm had had their way. All of them poured money into her opponent's campaign coffers. Hanauer financed slimy attack mailers against Peters.

And while Peters was the lonely voice of dissent yesterday, the moneyed education "reformers" are surely scrambling to figure out their next move after a surprise blow to their efforts from the Washington State Supreme Court came late last Friday when the court ruled unanimously that public funds cannot be used for charter schools, effectively invalidating Initiative 240. Washington voters had rejected charter schools three times, but in 2012, Initiative 240 squeaked through. Here were the major donors to that campaign,according to the Washington Post:

*Microsoft founder Bill Gates, with more than $3 million

*Alice Walton of Walmart Stores (who, unlike Gates, doesn’t live in Washington state), with about $1.7 million.

*Entrepreneur Nicolas J. Hanauer of Seattle, with $1 million.

*Jackie and Mike Bezos, about $750,000. (They are the parents of Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com and the owner of The Washington Post.)

"The Supreme Court has affirmed what we’ve said all along," said Washington Educators Association (the parent organization of the Seattle teachers union) in a statement last week. "Charter schools steal money from our existing classrooms, and voters have no say in how these charter schools spend taxpayer funding."

And it is the Bezoses and the Hanauers and the Gateses and the big companies of the state (with the complicity of spineless Democrats like Frank Chopp) who have also fought efforts to create a progressive income tax, leaving us with the paltriest, most Blame the Billionaires, Not the Teachers - Slog - The Stranger:

CURMUDGUCATION: Coleman's New SAT

CURMUDGUCATION: Coleman's New SAT:

Coleman's New SAT

The unveiling of David Coleman's New, Improved SAT Suite is just around the corner, and that means its time to ramp up the marketing blitz for this great new product.

The College Board website is freshly festooned with a festive font that shows that the new SAT Suite is ready to hang with the cool kids. I mean, you can follow the SAT on twitter! All the young persons are following the twitter, right?

The whole business seems charmingly cheesy in its commercial crassness, but it stands as one more part of David Coleman's crusade to redefine what it means to be an educated person in this country.We've been watching this come down the pike for a while; what can we spot now that it's almost here?

I Can Has Skillz

The new SAT comes complete with a new motto-- "skilled it." And copywriters have made sure that theme permeates the site. "Bank on skills." "Show off your skills." "Let's talk skills." "Skill Mail." "Calling all skills." "U of Skill."  "Skilled in class. Skilled for college." "Take the test that measures the real skills you've learned in class to show colleges you've got what it takes." Can you spot the unifying feature here? Only one of the blurby graphics mentions the K word-- "Show off the skills and knowledge colleges want most."

The SAT suite has been brought in line with the many unappealing qualities of the Common Core-- a disregard bordering on antipathy when it comes to actual content knowledge.

Granted, the SAT has always been a soul-sucking hypocrite when it comes to this issue, subjecting generations of students to verbal tests that claimed to measure reasoning while actually just being expensive, complicated vocabulary tests. But our new goal seems to be to turn the SAT into PARCC's step-brother. I could, if I wished, prepare my students for the Big Standardized Core test by doing nothing all year but reading newspaper articles and pages from storybooks, followed by multiple CURMUDGUCATION: Coleman's New SAT:

Charter School Commission preparing to close down | The Columbian

Charter School Commission preparing to close down | The Columbian:

Charter School Commission preparing to close down

OLYMPIA — The state commission overseeing Washington’s fledgling charter schools began shutting itself down Wednesday in response to a Supreme Court ruling that the schools are unconstitutional.

In a telephone conference call, the Washington State Charter School Commission directed the executive director, Joshua Halsey, to begin the wind down process for the commission, and also passed a motion to have him work with the Attorney General to explore legal remedies that could give charter schools more breathing room. The commission also directed Halsey to develop an official position on the court ruling that it can adopt and use in its efforts.

Steve Sundquist, the commission’s chairman, said that he was “deeply disappointed” by the court ruling.

“We’re very supportive of the families affected, the schools affected,” he said during the call. “And that’s where we find ourselves, in a very tough spot.”

The move by the board comes a day after the chief executive of the charter schools association, a separate advocacy group for the schools, said that all nine current schools have committed to remaining open for the year, even if that means relying on private donations. The state had been expected to spend about $14 million a year to operate the schools, which are in Spokane, Tacoma, Kent, Highline and Seattle.

In a 6-3 ruling issued late Friday afternoon, the high court said that the privately operated, publicly fundedcharter schools that were created under a voter-approved initiative do not qualify as common schools under Washington’s Constitution and thus cannot receive public funding.

The decision, which came nearly a year after oral arguments in the case and just after eight new charter schools opened, did not specify what will happen to the schools or the students who attend them. Instead, the justices sent the case back to King County Superior Court “for an appropriate order.”

The high court’s opinion takes effect later this month, barring any reconsideration by the court. The charterschools association has said it would ask the court to reconsider its ruling and, failing that, lobby Gov. Jay Inslee to call a special session of the Legislature.

David Postman, a spokesman for Inslee, said Wednesday that the governor had no comment on the charterschool issue at this time.

“The governor and his staff are consulting with the AG’s office and others before there is anything further,” he said.

Initiative 1240 passed with 50.7 percent of the vote in 2012, making Washington the 42nd state to approvecharterschools. The measure provided for the opening of as many as 40 charter schools within five years. The first opened last Charter School Commission preparing to close down | The Columbian:

Malloy playing key role in the effort to unseat Pedro Segarra and install Luke Bronin as Hartford’s Mayor - Wait What?

Malloy playing key role in the effort to unseat Pedro Segarra and install Luke Bronin as Hartford’s Mayor - Wait What?:

Malloy playing key role in the effort to unseat Pedro Segarra and install Luke Bronin as Hartford’s Mayor

With “challenger” Luke Bronin’s campaign on track to become the most expensive mayoral campaign in Connecticut history, the Hartford Democratic primary has become much more than simply a battle between the two opposing candidates – Mayor Pedro Segarra and political newcomer Luke Bronin.

Of the many interesting factors impacting next week’s Democratic Primary for Mayor in West Hartford is the role Governor Dannel Malloy is playing on behalf of his former aide, Luke Bronin.

In addition to anti-Segarra comments Governor Malloy’s spokesperson has made about Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra, a review of Luke Bronin’s campaign finance reports reveal that while Bronin has raised considerable amounts of money from out-of-state and from his hometown of Greenwich, Bronin’s massive financial advantage is due, in no small part, from the money Bronin has raised from Malloy’s gubernatorial staff, former members of Malloy’s campaign staff, Malloy’s political appointees and Malloy’s campaign contributors.

From a national perspective, the connection between Malloy and Bronin’s successful campaign fundraising is particularly noteworthy since Pedro Segarra is the only Puerto Rican mayor of a large city in the continental United States.

In addition to his duties here in Connecticut, Governor Dannel Malloy will become the Chairman of the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) in just a few months.   In that role Malloy’s duty will be to raise money for the various Democratic candidates running for governor in 2016, while helping to get out the vote on behalf of the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. Malloy has already been to New Hampshire to campaign for Hilary Clinton.

Considering the incredible importance of Hispanic and Latino voters across the nation, Malloy’s involvement in helping to take down a major Latino leader will certainly not go unnoticed.

While Malloy claims to be neutral in the Hartford mayor’s race, the list of Bronin’s donors speaks volumes about the connection Malloy and his campaign operatives have been playing in the Hartford race thus far.

The latest campaign finance reports from Hartford’s mayoral candidates are due today, but as of the July 1, 2015 report, Luke Bronin had raised $611,000.

Bronin’s donors list includes many individuals who presently work in Governor Malloy’s Malloy playing key role in the effort to unseat Pedro Segarra and install Luke Bronin as Hartford’s Mayor - Wait What?:

First Year of CAASP Results - Year 2015 (CA Dept of Education)

First Year of CAASP Results - Year 2015 (CA Dept of Education):

First Year of CAASP Results

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today unveiled the results of new online assessments administered to about 3.2 million students last spring to gauge their progress in learning new, more rigorous academic standards designed to prepare them for college and careers in the 21st century.

Because 2015 is the first year of the new tests and because they are substantially different from their predecessors, Torlakson said the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) results will serve as a baseline from which to measure future progress and should not be compared to results from the state's previous assessments, the Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) program.

CAASPP includes a number of assessments, but the most widely given are the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments, which evaluate student progress on the California standards in mathematics and English language arts/literacy, often referred to as the Common Core.

"The results show our starting point as a state, a window into where California students are in meeting tougher academic standards that emphasize critical thinking, problem solving, and analytical writing," Torlakson said. "California's new standards and tests are challenging for schools to teach and for students to learn, so I am encouraged that many students are at or near achievement standards. However, just as we expected, many students need to make more progress. Our job is to support students, teachers, and schools as they do."

Preliminary figures indicate that less than 1 percent of California students did not take the assessment resulting from a parental exemption. That shows, Torlakson said, that there is a high level of commitment to the new standards among parents, teachers, students, and business and community leaders.

The new standards and tests enjoy widespread support from leaders in K-12 and higher education who believe they can improve college readiness. California's state universities and most community colleges use the eleventh grade results as an early signal of readiness to take college courses. In English language arts/literacy, 56 percent of the eleventh graders tested are ready or conditionally ready for college work, while in math 29 percent are ready or conditionally ready.

The CAASPP tests for English language arts/literacy and mathematics were given to students in grades three through eight and grade eleven. They consist of two parts. First, is an adaptive test taken on a computer that gives students different follow-up questions based on their answers, thereby providing a more refined picture of a student's abilities. Second, is a performance task that challenges students to apply their knowledge and skills to real-world problems. The two parts measure depth of understanding, writing, research, and problem-solving skills.

In contrast, STAR was a multiple-choice, paper-based test in which students, for the most part, filled in bubbles on paper and could more easily guess correct answers.      

On CAASPP, students' scores fall into one of four achievement levels: standard exceeded, standard met, standard nearly met, and standard not met.                                         

Statewide in all grades, 44 percent of students met or exceeded the English language arts/literacy standard and 33 percent met or exceeded the mathematics standard. (Table 1)

For English language arts/literacy statewide in all grades: 16 percent exceeded standard, 28 percent met standard, 25 percent nearly met standard, and 31 percent did not meet standard. For mathematics statewide in all grades: 14 percent exceeded standard, 19 percent met standard, 29 percent nearly met standard, and 38 percent did not meet standard. Attached (Tables 2 and 3) provide a breakdown grade by grade in each subject.

The CAASPP Results Web site contains the results for all counties, districts, and schools across the state, broken down by grade, gender, ethnic groups, and demographics. In addition, the Web site allows users to download results and search individual categories.

The baseline scores reflect, in part, the rigor of the state's new academic standards, Torlakson said. CAASPP focuses on assessing crucial abilities, such as analyzing problems, thinking independently, and writing clearly with evidence. Those skills take time and effort to master but are essential to succeed in today's world.      

"California is in the process of transforming its schools with increased funding, higher academic standards, more local control, and additional support for students and schools with the greatest needs—and this will take time," Torlakson said. "This is our first academic check-up on how that work is going, and so I ask parents and educators to take that into account, use this information wisely to help their students, and understand this is a baseline that we will build upon."

One concern, Torlakson said, is the results indicate the state has a persistent achievement gap—significant differences in scores—among students from low-income families, English learners and some ethnic groups when compared to other students. Overall, 31 percent of students in all grades from low-income families met or exceeded standard in English language arts/literacy and 21 percent met or exceeded standard in math, compared with 64 percent and 53 percent for the subjects, respectively, among other students. (Tables 4 and 5)

Overall, 11 percent of English learners in all grades met or exceeded standard in English language arts/literacy and 11 percent in math, compared with 69 percent and 55 percent for those subjects, respectively, for students proficient in English.

As for scores among all grades for ethnic groups, 72 percent of Asians met or exceeded standard in English language arts/literacy and 69 percent in math, while 28 percent of African Americans met or exceeded standard in English language arts/literacy and 16 percent in math. Other ethnic groups fell between the two. See attached. (Tables 4 and 5)

"Clearly, we must continue working to eliminate these gaps," Torlakson said. "Much work needs to be done, but we are moving in the right direction with our efforts to provide extra resources and services for students and schools with the greatest needs."

The results also show that teachers, schools, and districts need more time, training and resources to improve student outcomes overall and to meet the high standards California has set, Torlakson said.

Toward that end, CDE helped develop a digital library for districts that contains information to help teachers improve their teaching and to collaborate with each other. In addition, teachers can use interim tests to help them get immediate information about their students' performance so they can adjust teaching during the year.

"Assessments are like satellite photos — they are snapshots taken at one moment in time," Torlakson said. "There are many positive changes underway in California's schools, and I expect CAASPP scores to rise in coming years as students and teachers get more support and more experience with these new standards and assessments."

The CDE also released results of the California Standards Test for science, which is administered to students in grades five, eight, and ten. These tests are not aligned with California's recently adopted Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Assessments based on these standards are currently being developed. Overall, the percentage of students proficient and above dropped from 61 percent in 2014 to 57 percent in 2015. (Table 6)

In addition, the CDE released results from the optional Standards-based Tests in Spanish (STS) for reading language arts. (Table 7)

California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress Results for 2015

Table 1: Percentage of All California Students by Achievement Level for English Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics

Content Area	Number of Students Tested	Number of Students Receiving Parental Exemption1	Percent of Students who Exceeded Standards	Percent of Students who Met Standards	Percent of Students who Nearly Met Standards	Percent of Students who Did Not Meet Standards
English Language Arts/Literacy	3,154,463	19,070	16	28	25	31
Mathematics	3,169,239	19,311	14	19	29	38

1 Parental exemptions pursuant to Education Code Section 60615 and Section 852 in Title 5 of the California Code of Regulations. These counts are preliminary as local educational agencies have until September 15 to report parental exemptions.

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Table 2: Number and Percentage of Students by Grade and Achievement Level for English Language Arts/Literacy (ELA)First Year of CAASP Results - Year 2015 (CA Dept of Education):

You are invited to a Community Meeting to support the Seattle educators’ strike | Seattle Education

You are invited to a Community Meeting to support the Seattle educators’ strike | Seattle Education:

You are invited to a Community Meeting to support the Seattle educators’ strike

City Councilmember Kshama Sawant invites you to:

Community Meeting to Support the Seattle Educators Strike

Thursday, Sept. 10, 6:00 PM 

City Hall Council Chamber, 2nd floor

600 4th Ave (between Columbia & Cherry)

Downtown Seattle, WA 98104

After months of negotiations, the Seattle Public Schools District has failed to deliver a fair contract to the Seattle Education Association (SEA). The SEA, which took a historic unanimous vote last week to strike, have set up picket lines starting today.

I appeal to the community to stand with teachers and join us at the picket lines this week and also at the community meeting Thursday at 6 pm,” said Councilmember Sawant. Please find a picket line to join at your neighborhood public high school. For more info, visit the SEA website.

The union is on strike for the first time in 30 years. Councilmember Kshama Sawant, a teacher and member of the American Federation of Teachers Local 1789, strongly supports the union’s struggle for a fair contract and their stand for high quality education and equity for all of Seattle’s children. To help build support for educators, City Councilmember Sawant invites you and the public to a community meeting this Thursday, Sept. 10 at 6 pm.

“I am proud to donate $500 from my salary to the SEA strike fund, and I urge others who can to do so as well.  The teachers are on the front lines in the struggle to ensure all our children are receiving the high quality education they deserve.”

“The educators’ demands are completely reasonable. In the face of skyrocketing rents and increasing costs for basic needs, the teachers have sacrificed for 6 years with no pay raises from Olympia. As a former adjunct professor without job security, I understand too well the difficulty teachers have making ends meet. I fully support their demand for 6% raises over 3 years to make up for the loss in pay,” said Councilmember Sawant.

“For too long the legislature has ignored the needs of our children and bent over backwards to give corporations handout after handout.  Boeing executives got a special session. Where is the special session for education? Teachers are faced with stagnating salaries, overcrowded classrooms, too many standardized tests, and inadequate resources. It’s high time the legislature did their job, stop ignoring the 3 ballot initiatives by state voters to lower class sizes and raise teachers’ pay. Fully fund education now!” remarked Councilmember Sawant.You are invited to a Community Meeting to support the Seattle educators’ strike | Seattle Education:

Alfie Kohn: Why those annoying ‘helicopter parents’ aren’t so bad after all - The Washington Post

Why those annoying ‘helicopter parents’ aren’t so bad after all - The Washington Post:

Why those annoying ‘helicopter parents’ aren’t so bad after all

You’ve heard about them for years (and may have been accused of being one): a helicopter parent who hovers over his/her children to such an extent that the kids never learn to be independent, to think for themselves, or to clean up their own messes. Articles and books have been devoted to the so-called epidemic, warning how dangerous these parents are to their children’s development.

But what if it turns out that the helicopter parenting epidemic isn’t real? What if the hysteria over the phenomenon is misplaced? Writer Alfie Kohn makes that case in the following post. Kohn is the author of 14 books on education, parenting, and human behavior, including, most recently, The Myth of the Spoiled Child (Da Capo Press) — from which this article is adapted — andSchooling Beyond Measure (Heinemann). A version of this article appeared earlier on www.alfiekohn.org. I am republishing it with permission.

By Alfie Kohn

Parents who are overly involved in the lives of their college-age children are the folks we love to scorn. A steady stream of articles and blog posts bristle with indignation over dads who phone the dean about a trivial problem or moms who know more than we think they should about junior’s love life. But now that a new school year is starting, it’s a good time to ask just how common such incidents really are — and whether “helicopter parenting” (HP), when it does occur, is as damaging as we’ve been led to believe.

Even monographs on the subject that appear in academic journals tend to begin with sweeping generalizations drawn from popular media coverage — coverage that, in turn, relies mostly on anecdotes. When you track down hard data, the results contrast sharply with the conventional wisdom. Yes, most parents are in touch with their college-age kids on a regular basis. But communicating isn’t the same thing as intervening on a child’s behalf, and the latter seems to be fairly rare. The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), which reached out to more than 9,000 students at 24 colleges and universities, found that only 13 percent of college freshmen and 8 percent of seniors said a parent had frequently intervened to help them solve problems.

As one university administrator told the Chronicle of Higher Education, “The popular image of modern parents as high-strung nuisances who torment college administrators doesn’t match reality.” In any case, the students Why those annoying ‘helicopter parents’ aren’t so bad after all - The Washington Post:

Washington State Charters Vow to Remain Open Via Private Funding | deutsch29

Washington State Charters Vow to Remain Open Via Private Funding | deutsch29:

Washington State Charters Vow to Remain Open Via Private Funding

On September 04, 2015, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in League of Women Voters vs. State of Washington that charter schools are unconstitutional in Washington State.

The majority opinion centered upon the fact that the voter-approved Charter School Act of 2012 (I-1240) would have allowed for the creation of up to 40 charter schools within five years– and would have been financed using public funds but without oversight by a publicly-elected board:

…Because charter schools under 1-1240 are run by an appointed board or nonprofit organization and thus are not subject to local voter control, they cannot qualify as “common schools” within the meaning of article IX [of the Washington State Constitution].

…Charter schools do not qualify as common [public] schools.

Moreover, the majority opinion noted that charter schools in Washington State are not eligible for funding from the general fund, and since the Act hinges upon public school funding as its funding source, the Court declared the entire Act unconstitutional:

The [Charter School] Act unconstitutionally reallocates these restricted funds to charter schools, which do not qualify as common schools.

Compounding this problem, the State does not segregate constitutionally restricted moneys from other state funds. Nor can it demonstrate that these restricted moneys are protected from being spent on charter schools. Given this absence of segregation and accountability, we find unconvincing the State’s view that charter schools may be constitutionally funded through the general fund. Historically, the state common school funds were maintained in a separate public school account and distributed to the common schools by the Superintendent. … While some other constitutionally restricted state funds continue to be maintained in separate accounts (e.g., common school construction fund…), since at least 1967, the constitutionally restricted common school property levy revenues have been deposited in the State’s “general fund,” which is used for the basic education allocation. … There is no way to track the restricted common school funds or to ensure that these dollars are used exclusively to support the common schools. …

We also disagree with the State’s view that the Act’s remaining provisions are saved because funding “follows the student” and in any event charter schools could be funded out of the state general fund. … The fact that public school money distributions are generally based on per capita student attendance does not mean that common school funds are available for students who do not attend common schools. Where a child is not attending a common school, there can be no entitlement to “an apportionment of the current state school fund, to a credit predicated on attendance of children at such … school.” …

Further, as discussed above, the Act designates and relies on common school funds as its funding source. Without those funds, the Act cannot function as intended. …

The portions of I-1240 designating charter schools as common schools violate article IX, section 2 of the Washington Constitution and are invalid. For the same reason, the portions of I-1240 providing access to restricted common school funding are also invalid. These provisions are not severable and render the entire Act unconstitutional.

Thus, the nine charter schools in Washington State in 2015-16 will almost certainly Washington State Charters Vow to Remain Open Via Private Funding | deutsch29: