CURMUDGUCATION: 6 Guidelines for Extracurricular Advisers

CURMUDGUCATION: 6 Guidelines for Extracurricular Advisers:

6 Guidelines for Extracurricular Advisers

I have been an extracurricular activity adviser for as long as I've been a teacher. I have been the faculty adviser for class councils, student council, radio club, and a few school magazines. I have been the assistant director for the marching band and every kind of director for school plays. I am the adviser for yearbook and stage crew.

I'm pretty committed to extracurriculars in part because they were a big influence in my own high school years. I learned plenty of things in the classroom, but I learned a lot about leadership and responsibility and working with other people and just generally how to get things done in band and on yearbook staff.

School activities can be enormously empowering for students, but they can also be an avenue for just wringing the power right out of them, and it is a real challenge for teachers to stay on the path that allows students to find and exercise their own voice.

Here are the things I try to stay mindful of when working as a faculty adviser.

1) What Are the Actual Stakes?

I have seen adults act as is getting decorations properly assembled for a school dance was going to decide the Fate of Western Civilization As We Know It. But as it turns out, almost nobody has ever died because tissue poms were not fluffy enough. Prom decorations are almost never a life or death issue.


This does not mean you set slack, half-baked standards for your students. But your most important CURMUDGUCATION: 6 Guidelines for Extracurricular Advisers:

Democracy and the common good | Deborah Meier on Education

Democracy and the common good | Deborah Meier on Education:

Democracy and the common good

Dear friends and colleagues,

Well, it’s been nearly three months since I have written here.  But I am about to change my ways.

I am debating/discussing structural vs cultural change with Harry Boyte on Bridging Differences.  Tune in.

I am thinking a lot about math education since reading a pre-publication of Andrew Hacker’s The Math Myth.  I can’t wait until it hits the stands.

I am taking note of all the ways we are privatizing our society and abandoning our belief in democracy,  the “common good”, the public space, call it what you will. The New York Times (Nov 2^nd) had a front page headline on the “Privatization of the Justice System.” We have always known it helps sway the judge and jury if you are rich, have top lawyers, etc. But this is about the many areas in which people often unwittingly agree to give up their right to ever see a judge and jury if they have a grievance, but are forced to use private arbitrators and cannot sign on to any class-action suit.

The more egalitarian our definition of citizenship the more concern there is by some about the “idea” of one person, one vote.  Too many of the choices the privatizers are now suggesting open up more possibilities for some than others.  The choice of going to a private school with a voucher is not actually a choice if you haven’t the means to Democracy and the common good | Deborah Meier on Education:

Conference Meeting on S. 1177, “Every Child Achieves Act of 2015”

Hearing | Hearings | The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions:

Conference Meeting on S. 1177, “Every Child Achieves Act of 2015”

Agenda

• S. 1177, “Every Child Achieves Act of 2015”

Click here to watch a video of the first day of the conference meeting.

Click here to download all amendments offered.

Drinking Charter Kool-Aid?: Here is Evidence | Cloaking Inequity

Drinking Charter Kool-Aid?: Here is Evidence | Cloaking Inequity:

Drinking Charter Kool-Aid?: Here is Evidence

So you might have had a chance to hear what charter proponents (lobbyist, talking heads etc) think about Hillary Clinton’s recent comments (See A WOW from @HillaryClinton on Charter Schools) on charters schools (i.e. Dear Hillary, Here’s where you’re wrong on charter schools: Column and Clinton’s Charter School Exaggeration). The Hillary campaign recently responded to these critics (See Yes, Hillary Clinton supports charter schools. She also supports equity and inclusion)

Hillary’s comments were about asking hard questions of a movement she has and will continue to support. That’s real leadership — it is how we make our public schools stronger and it is how we ensure they live up to the potential of every child.

Diane Ravitch then weighed in (See Hillary Aide Insists that Hillary DOES Support Charters, if They Are Equitable and Accountable),

Why should we eliminate public schools and replace them with privately managed, unaccountable charter schools? No high-performing nation in the world has charter schools.

When reading the popular media responses to Clinton’s original statement, my impression was that proponents were largely dealing with talking points rather than research and data deep dives.

In fact, the US has so drunk the Kool-Aid on charters, that the Broad Foundation recently has floated the non-brilliant plan to turn every school in Los Angeles into a charter school (and kept a straight face).

Considering this context, I contacted prominent researchers from across the nation who have published peer reviewed research on school choice to crowd source a charter research reading list.

I simply asked them to recommend a few peer reviewed papers that the public could consider in the debate surround charters success, access Drinking Charter Kool-Aid?: Here is Evidence | Cloaking Inequity:

#TeachStrong Strikes a Macho Pose - Living in Dialogue

#TeachStrong Strikes a Macho Pose - Living in Dialogue:

#TeachStrong Strikes a Macho Pose

By John Thompson.

Educators now have to endure another wave of kinder, gentler soundbites by the corporate-funded the “Third Way.” The new spin, called “TeachStrong,” isn’t much different than the old song and dance. Perhaps, this time, corporate reformers will be a little less devoted to test, sort, reward, and punish, but the new initiative’s agenda comes from the same place as the old public relations campaigns. The Billionaires Boys Club hires top-dollar market experts and then they push a campaign driven by polling numbers, not a diagnosis of education’s problems and solutions.

You can call it the “Third Way” or “TeachStrong” but it is still the same Sister Soljah tactic. Corporate-funded Democrats try to appeal to swing voters by looking macho. Democrats still assume that voters are so angry about the decline in their economic prospects that they have to show that progressives aren’t wimps. Democrats then demonstrate their toughness by beating up loyal allies such as teachers and unions. Of course, this new coalition includes organizations, like the Broad Foundation and the TNTP, that would use disruptive and transformational change to destroy unions, local school governance, university education departments, and the due process rights of teachers. The Third Way will just take a lower profile stance as the overt teacher-bashing of the last decade as TeachStrong is recast as “‘modernizing and elevating’ the teaching profession.”

At the risk of annoying some allies, I would also add that the hands of union leaders are tied. They must participate in the process and seek to steer it away from the catastrophic competition-driven policies of the Duncan administration. Regardless of how the market-driven reformers behave, teachers and unions must play as constructive of a role as possible. In doing so, we must explain to the non-education press and to patrons how corporate reform became the new “status quo,” how it failed, and why it is doomed. They used test and punish to create the education version of the Model T assembly line speed up. Rather than use incentives and disincentives to recreate the world of Henry Ford, we need schools to prepare children for the 21st century.

The Billionaires Boys Club got plenty of mileage out of their charter school narrative, for instance. We must #TeachStrong Strikes a Macho Pose - Living in Dialogue:

Educators Release Updated VAM Score for Secretary Duncan - Living in Dialogue

Educators Release Updated VAM Score for Secretary Duncan - Living in Dialogue:

Educators Release Updated VAM Score for Secretary Duncan

By Educators for Shared Responsibility.

In 2012, concerned that accountability for US student outcomes was being unfairly characterized as the sole responsibility of classroom teachers, a group called Educators for Shared Accountability emerged from the classrooms of the heartland and made a bold statement with a single press release. These educators didn’t accept the bald conceit of education reformers and Department of Education functionaries that teachers alone should be branded when American children struggle to meet learning and growth targets. These teachers wanted badly to share the accountability that had been hung around their necks with decision-makers who not only earned more money than them but who also had their hands on levers of educational influence that the teachers would never come near. After describing the harsh accountability environment that existed for teachers in 2012 (and remains little-changed today), the press release said this:

Strangely missing in all of this, of course, is any sort of mechanism for holding people like Arne Duncan publicly accountable for student-level data attributable to their performance in an important position of leadership.

Educators for Shared Accountability contended that the provision of a quality education for America’s schoolchildren was the responsibility of many, not just the burden of the men and women standing in front of classrooms. Policymakers, federal and state politicians, appointed officials, taxpayers, voters, lobbyists, and activist philanthropies—all these players have an effect on what happens in classrooms. All of them have fingerprints on the children and, as such, none of these actors should be held more or less accountable than the others. They all work in concert to craft the practices that ultimately drive student-level outcomes.

If our children are failing to meet academic expectations, Educators for Shared Accountability believed it to be tremendously dishonest—though politically useful—to pretend that teachers alone bear the fault. Instruction is not the only input affecting the education of children. Is funding equal from school to school? Teachers have no say over this. Are resources sufficient? Teachers have no say. Are schools crumbling? Are libraries stocked? Are nurses available? Are there arts or other creative opportunities available to the children? Extracurricular activities? Are adequate social supports in place for students?

Teachers have no say.

Yet until 2012, teachers alone enjoyed “accountability.”

Operating under the belief that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, Educators for Shared Educators Release Updated VAM Score for Secretary Duncan - Living in Dialogue:

School Daze: The long-running battle between charter schools and traditional public schools KCET

School Daze | Cakewalk | Departures Columns | KCET:

School Daze

The long-running battle between charter schools and traditional public schools has heated up nearly to a boiling point, with business magnate Eli Broad recently unveiling a campaign to charter-ize public ed in L.A. once and for all. The drama is happening mostly at the top between the Broad camp and public school advocates--notably the teacher's union, which has stepped up protests and criticism of Broad and his so-called reforms. But beneath the drama is the story of one campus's attempt to resist the takeover of a charter school, a story that illustrates the political complexity of the battle--the limitations of both sides, and how what almost always gets sacrificed in the struggle is what's best for students.

The campus is Emerson Adult Learning Center, a dedicated adult-school campus that sits at a dead end of a leafy block off of Manchester Boulevard in Westchester. Because it's an adult-school campus and not elementary or secondary, it tends to get overlooked--adults just aren't as compelling as kids as characters in the ongoing education wars. In fact, adult schools are de facto stepchildren of Los Angeles Unified; the campuses have been decimated by cutbacks in recent years, with Emerson's teaching staff shrunk down to 15 from a peak of 150. The school has practically no office staff. Yet in this still-unforgiving economy, the services offered by Emerson, which include classes in GED and pharmacy training, is perhaps greater than ever. Emerson is at capacity and California has an adult-ed wait list of 14,000, with the bulk of that number waiting in L.A. Unified. 

Patrick Meyer is a teacher and reading lab director who's spent his entire 28-year career here. Like so many other students and staff, he calls Emerson a special place where a highly motivated, tight-knit community of learners and teachers function as a family. (I wrote about Emerson a while back when I profiled the unique, enduring friendship between Patrick and a career student, Phil Sparks). The majority of students here are black and Latino and many hail from other, less affluent parts of town: Inglewood, Long Beach, South Central. That's in stark contrast to the population of Westchester itself, which like many beachside communities is chiefly white and increasingly gentrified. More on that in a bit. 

Emerson student Phil Sparks and teacher Patrick Meyer. Photo by Erin Aubry Kaplan.

The trouble started a couple of months back, when Patrick noticed a crew of facilities workers from L.A. Unified walking around Emerson, sizing up the place. When he asked what they were doing, he got no answers. He asked his principal and got the same. Eventually he circulated a petition amongst Emerson students demanding information from the district about what was afoot. School board member Steve Zimmer, who represents Westchester, admitted there was a crush of school space on the westside, but told Patrick not to worry about the adult classes. Unconvinced, Patrick persisted in trying to get more specific information, though with little luck. "There was secrecy on all sides," he says.

Then, district superintendent Ramon Cortines showed up suddenly at school, though not to reassure Patrick and the Emerson community. Quite the opposite. Cortines didn't talk to any students, and in response to questions from Patrick only said there was "a shortage of classroom space 'in the area.'" Patrick kept pressing with questions, insisting that students at such a critically important adult campus that's been around 35 years deserve to know its fate.

Finally he got an answer: Emerson was going to be displaced by a charter school operation known as WISH or Westside Innovative School House. WISH had been operating at Orville Wright Middle School and Cowan Elementary, two of several School Daze | Cakewalk | Departures Columns | KCET:

Farewell, NCLB, We Won’t Miss You | Diane Ravitch's blog

Farewell, NCLB, We Won’t Miss You | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Farewell, NCLB, We Won’t Miss You

 The House-Senate conference committee overwhelmingly (39-1) endorsed an overhaul of the No Child Left Behind, which was the latest (and worst) revision of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The new ESEA, which still must be approved by both houses of Congress, is called the Every Student Succeeds Act.

The ESSA limits the federal role, a direct rebuke to Arne Duncan’s belief that he was the national superintendent of schools. The law retains a large chunk of George W. Bush’s legacy, including annual testing, a practice not found in any high-performing nation. The law no longer requires teacher evaluation by test scores.

The Republicans wanted to restore state and local control, while the Democrats ironically defended Bush’s accountability emphasis. The outcome is a compromise.

Most everyone seems to have forgotten that the original purpose of ESEA was equity for the neediest students, meaning federal dollars to high-poverty schools. Don’t you long for the day when laws were given descriptive titles, rather than aspirational ones? “Every Student Succeeds” is the flip side of “No Child Left Behind.” What was wrong with “the Elementary and Secondary Education Act”?

I don’t want to sound cynical, but I’m prepared to wager any sum that 7 years, 10 years, or 15 years from now, no one will say that every student is now succeeding. So long as nearly a quarter of our nation’s children live in poverty, “success” will remain elusive. So long as experienced teachers are underpaid and disrespected, so long as the anti-teacher lobby files lawsuits to strip teachers of their rights, “success”will escape our grasp. So long as jobs continue to be outsourced and eliminated by technology, we must continue to worry about whether and how young people will be motivated to “succeed.”

But for the moment, let’s celebrate the demise of a terrible law that saw punishment as the federal strategy for school reform. Let’s celebrate that no future Secretary of Education will have the power to impose his or her flawed ideas on every public school and teacher in the nation. Let’s thank Senator Lamar Alexander and Senator Patty Murray for finally ending a failed and punitive law.Farewell, NCLB, We Won’t Miss You | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Good News About Long-requested Improvements

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Good News About Long-requested Improvements:

Good News About Long-requested Improvements

One of the recurring themes among the criticisms of Seattle Public Schools centers on annual reports. These reports are required by policy but either the reports simply are not made, such as the report required by Policy 3208, Sexual Harassment, or the reports clearly fail to meet the requirements listed in the policy, such as the quarterly and annual reports required by Policy 2200, Equitable Access to Programs & Services.

You should all be familiar with the routine. Each year the superintendent and staff submits a woefully inadequate report. Each year I complain about it and beg the Board to demand a compliant report. Each year the Board accepts the report without complaint. Each year the culture of non-compliance is strengthened and transparency is weakened.

But this year there's something new. This year the superintendent and the staff are bringing forward a different kind of report for Policy 2090, Program Evaluation & Assessment.



Take a look at the agenda for the Board Curriculum and Instruction Policy Committee meeting of November 9. Scroll all the way down to page 163 - five pages from the end - and you will see the draft of the annual report.

The staff has taken a few important steps:

1. They have acknowledged that the policy requires a report.
2. They have acknowledged the value of such a report.
3. They are working on a plan to deliver a report.

Now, before we go out and get all mushy with gratitude, please remember:

• The District staff are not providing a report that meets the requirements of the policy this year. They continue to be out of compliance with the policy.
• The staff haven't promised that they will deliver this report next year either. They will continue to be out of compliance with the policy for at least another year.
• The staff has promised to provide this report in previous years; a Seattle Schools Community Forum: Good News About Long-requested Improvements:

Congratulations to our 2015 candidates! - NPE Action

Congratulations to our 2015 candidates! - NPE Action:

Congratulations to our 2015 candidates!

This past election season saw some wins for wonderful pro-public education candidates.

All of the candidates endorsed by Network for Public Education Action oppose the status quo. They have solid records of working for better schools for all children and they challenge those who want to turn our schools into profit-making test centers. We are happy to announce the NPE endorsed candidates that won.

Congratulations to NPE Action’s successful candidates!

Wendy Vogel handily won her seat on Douglas County School Board with 58% of the vote. Wendy is one of the original, founding members of Douglas County Parents, an organization whose goal is to “inform the community on the issues facing our schools and how the destructive policies of the DCSD Board of Education are affecting our children.”

Wendy was one of three candidates who took back the Douglas County School board from the Koch backed team. Her opponent was part of the DCSD board majority that supported the district’s scholarship program, a voucher program funded with district funds.

Wendy Vogel is opposed to the use of vouchers and systems that allow tax dollars to follow students to private schools.

Score 1 for our side!

Helen Gym won a city council-member at large seat in Philadelphia. Helen is a longtime advocate for public education. She is a fighter for students, teachers, and better public schools. She is a founder of the national organization, Parents Across America.

Here is a quote from Councilwoman-Elect Helen Gym’s victory statement:

“Everywhere I went in this campaign, voters demanded a City Council that focused on public education and a growing, sustainable economy for all Philadelphians, especially our most vulnerable. Those voices were heard.

These communities that carried me on their shoulders to victory will be walking through the doors of City Hall with me in January. Our work has only just begun.”

Kathleen Gebhardt won in Boulder Valley, Colorado. In his endorsement of Kathleen, Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said:

“If school board members were hired through a normal application process, based on qualifications, Kathy would be hired immediately. No person in the state of Colorado is better qualified for such a position. She has worked tirelessly for two decades to get our children the supports and resources they need for their educations.”

Kathy is a creative and insightful thinker who will be an independent voice on the board.

Suzie Abajian won a seat on the South Pasadena Unified School District Board. As Diane Ravitch wrote, “Dr Suzie Abajian is exactly the kind of person who should run for school board and be elected to serve. She is a well-informed advocate for students and for educational change.”

Jose Lara is a current school board member that NPE also endorsed when he ran for the El Rancho Unified School Board. He describes Suzie as “a champion for students and educators from many years now.” Lara added, “She has been an advocate for equitable funding of public school and maintaining essential programs like Adult Education, music, arts, and expanded Pre-K education.”

The common thread that runs through these candidates is their passion for improving and protecting public education. Being an advocate for public education isn’t something for the faint of heart or for those that need instant gratification. We are often pitted against candidates backed by deep-pocketed vulture philanthropists with limitless bank accounts and narrow agendas. As a result, we often don’t have victories to celebrate.

NPE Action congratulates our other candidates, too!

This election was no exception, and a few of the candidates we endorsed lost their races. We simply can’t match the big money many of our candidates are up against. Three candidates we endorsed for Louisiana’s State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) were in races where their opponents were propped up by $3.5 million dollars from the likes of Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, and the Waltons.

NPE Action endorsed BESE candidate Jason France wrote that he and the other BESE candidates were outspent “in the 100’s to one range, to fabricate and promulgate lies about us, and to actually adopt OUR platforms to defeat us.”

NPE Action has endorsed two additional candidates for BESE who have run-off elections in the upcoming general election on November 21st. You can read more about them here. 

We still have a lot more work to do!

Since we can’t match the kind of spending power unleashed in the BESE election, we must fight back with people power at the ballot box. In future elections it’s not enough for pro-public education allies to just vote. Please seek out candidates that support public ed, and do whatever you can to help out on their campaigns by putting up a sign, canvassing, making phone calls, or donating.

As NPE President Diane Ravitch says, “We are many. There is power in our numbers. Together we will save our schools.”

Congratulations to our 2015 candidates! - NPE Action:

Demands made for probe into Success Academy charter schools - NY Daily News

Demands made for probe into Success Academy charter schools - NY Daily News:

Education group seeks probe into claims that Success Academy charter schools pushed out difficult students

Amid accusations that Success Academy charter schools have used harsh discipline to weed out difficult students, a group of school activists is calling for a federal investigation into the practices.

The teachers union-backed Alliance for Quality Education made their demand with a petition with nearly 35,000 signatures delivered to the U.S Department of Education Thursday.

Success Academy is the city’s largest charter school network, and its students perenially score well on state exams. But the allegations suggest a system that excludes many problem students.

Alliance for Quality Education Advocacy Director Zakiyah Ansari said those allegations should be investigated by the U.S Department of Education’s office of Civil Rights.

EVA MOSKOWITZ VOWS LEGAL BATTLE WITH NYC OVER PUBLIC FUNDS FOR CHARTER SCHOOL PRE-K

“There’s too much evidence that Success Academy is and will continue to push students out,” Ansari said. “If Success Academy is to receive public funding they should not be able to pick and choose which students they want.”

Ansari was joined by reps from a number of the progressive groups, including Million Hoodies for Justice, Justice League NYC, and The Black Institute. Launched on the activist website, Color of Change, the petition was also endorsed by several civil rights and education advocacy groups across the country.

But Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz, a longtime foe of the teachers union, has denied allegations of pushing students out. She said the petition is a sham.

“Instead of addressing the city’s massive educational failure perpetuated by union-run schools, the Alliance for Quality Education is spending resources on a bogus petition that aims to deny children of color access to some of the best schools in New York,” Moskowitz said.Demands made for probe into Success Academy charter schools - NY Daily News:

Connecticut Public Financing Program “Safe”, For Now … But... - Wait What?

Connecticut Public Financing Program “Safe”, For Now … But... - Wait What?:

Connecticut Public Financing Program “Safe”, For Now … But…

As CT Newsjunkie reported late yesterday,

“By the end of the day Thursday, both House and Senate Democrats who proposed suspending Connecticut’s landmark public financing system in 2016, had withdrawn their proposals.

Senate President Martin Looney, D-New Haven, made the announcement early Thursday afternoon and House Speaker Brendan Sharkey and Majority Leader Joe Aresimowicz agreed to find the money elsewhere later Thursday afternoon. The news of the reversal came part way through a press conference held by ConnPIRG, Common Cause, lawmakers and other defenders of the clean election system.”

As reported in yesterday’s Wait, What? post entitled, Connecticut’s Democratic Legislative Leaders call for suspending elections to save money…,

The Democratic leaders of the Connecticut General Assembly proposed suspending Connecticut’s public financing system, thereby allowing legislators to transfer about $11 million toward the $254 million budget deficit in this year’s state budget.

Their plan would roll back the campaign finance system that Connecticut adopted after former Governor John Rowland resigned in disgrace and was sent to prison.

Instead of keeping Connecticut’s Clean Election Program in place, Democratic 

Connecticut Public Financing Program “Safe”, For Now … But... - Wait What?:

A Vote for David Vitter is a Vote for John White and Common Core | Crazy Crawfish

A Vote for David Vitter is a Vote for John White and Common Core | Crazy Crawfish:

A Vote for David Vitter is a Vote for John White and Common Core

As you go to the polls tomorrow, I want you to keep this thought fixated in your mind.  A vote for David Vitter is a vote for Common Core.  Vitter has recently been proudly endorsed by all the John White and Common Core supporters in our state, the ones that rigged out BESE elections statewide.  LABI and Lane Grigsby have endorsed Vitter.  Grigsby, who has run the most despicable and deceitful ads against BESE candidates opposed to John White and Common Core  recently even sent an e-mail to all of his employees at his various companies telling them they had to vote for Vitter.

Stand for Children, stands with Vitter.  They are the ones responsible for running afake newscast ad (WBRD instead of WBRZ) against Carolyn Hill accusing her of having committed crimes and having outstanding bench warrants for her arrest – none of which were true, but which was just enough to elect LABI backed Jada Lewis over Carolyn Hill.

Stand has been creating fake polls showing complete support for Common Core by parents and teachers statewide.  One of the people on the short list for Vitter’s education policy director is none other than Stand’s very own self-styled “data A Vote for David Vitter is a Vote for John White and Common Core | Crazy Crawfish:

Another Incisive Critique of Venture Philanthropy | janresseger

Another Incisive Critique of Venture Philanthropy | janresseger:

Another Incisive Critique of Venture Philanthropy

This post is about today’s venture philanthropy, a world so foreign to most of us that I think we need a frame to help us get our bearings.  Here with some familiar principles is the gifted preacher, and longtime pastor of New York City’s Riverside Church, the late Rev. William Sloane Coffin:

“The way we are cutting taxes for the wealthy and social programs for the poor, you’d think the greedy were needy and the needy were greedy.” (CREDO, p. 61)

“One of the attributes of power is that it gives those who have it the ability to define reality and the power to make others believe in their definition. Thus it is that private property in America has come to be considered all but sacred. Obviously this makes its redistribution difficult, even through taxation.” (CREDO, p. 60)

“Given human goodness, voluntary contributions are possible, but given human sinfulness, legislation is indispensable.  Charity, yes always; but never as a substitute for justice.” (CREDO, p. 56)

These statements speak to the operations of today’s mega-foundations, the recipients of the fortunes of the super-rich.  Donations to philanthropic foundations are tax-free, the counter-democratic idea being that the rich can define, with the assistance of the staff they employ, what’s good for the rest of us. These days mega-foundations are defining the “solutions” to some of the world’s greatest challenges—global agriculture, global health, and in our own country, public school reform—in ways that many of us do not understand.  Foundations are defined as charities, but increasingly they influence the legislation that shapes our primary institutions and they drive the policies of international agencies like the World Health Organization.  According to Lindsey McGoey’s new piece in the fall Jacobin magazine, The Philanthropy Hustle, they blur the lines between between charity and business.  McGoey’s subject is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s biggest philanthropy, whose endowment is $42 billion, and which every year makes grants of $3 billion.

“(M)ore and more, corporate philanthropy is not about corporations giving money to charity,” explains McGoey. “Corporate philanthropy today is about private, tax-exempt donors such as the Gates Foundation giving their charity to corporations.”  McGoey continues: “(I)t’s not true that foundations must direct grants only to charitable entities.  They are free to offer donations to for-profits that fulfill the foundation’s charitable mission—an extremely permissive criterion that donors such as the Gateses are interpreting in novel and unprecedented ways.” Much of McGoey’s  discussion is unrelated to education—the Gates’s Foundation’s gift of $11 million in 2014 to Mastercard to create a wireless payment system in Another Incisive Critique of Venture Philanthropy | janresseger:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rising student homelessness not an 'excuse' but a brutal fact of life at CPS

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rising student homelessness not an 'excuse' but a brutal fact of life at CPS:

Rising student homelessness not an 'excuse' but a brutal fact of life at CPS

Last night I was watching CBS News Chicago. I was surprised when I saw their report on the city's homeless children, putting the number at 11,447. It sounded low to me. I assume it's from the latest report by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. But that number includes only young people aged 14-21. ABC 7 reports that there are more that 20,000 homeless students in Chicago Public Schools.

To put that in perspective, that's about one in every 20 CPS students, the great majority being African-American or Latino.

CPS's Nancy B. Jefferson school and the Juvenile Detention Center, is packed with homeless kids, many of whom have committed no crime other than being homeless.

The number of homeless families in Chicago has tripled over the last dozen years, says CCH.

Corporate school reformers love to talk about their so-called, "no excuses" schools. But homelessness is not an excuse, but a fact.

There's only a  small body of academic research and literature that focuses on the academic achievement of homeless children. But everything I've read points to the Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rising student homelessness not an 'excuse' but a brutal fact of life at CPS:

Cartoons: Charles Schulz and Peanuts on Schooling | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Cartoons: Charles Schulz and Peanuts on Schooling | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Cartoons: Charles Schulz and Peanuts on Schooling

The 65th anniversary of Peanuts is upon us. Cartoonist Charles Schulz has had an extraordinary hold on U.S. popular culture with his characters of Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Snoopy, et. al.  I have gathered here a few of the Peanuts panels that Schulz drew about his characters either in school or talking about school. For those who wish to read more about Schulz and the gang, see here and here. Enjoy!

More cartoons at  Cartoons: Charles Schulz and Peanuts on Schooling | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Perdido Street School: Be A Teacher ! Read A Script! Administer Tests! Fear For Your Job At All Times!

Perdido Street School: Be A Teacher ! Read A Script! Administer Tests! Fear For Your Job At All Times!:

Be A Teacher ! Read A Script! Administer Tests! Fear For Your Job At All Times!

That's the message that young people have gotten in the Era of Education Reform about the teaching profession according to Stephen Mulcher, director of the Bard College Master of Arts Teaching Program in Los Angeles:

Finding candidates to fill this role, especially good candidates, may be more difficult than policymakers are willing to admit. Despite their clear interest in public service, the students I meet betray little enthusiasm for teaching as it now exists. And I see even less indication that major trends in public education—standardization, the proliferation of testing, the elimination of tenure and seniority, and expansion of school choice—have made teaching any more attractive as a career option.  Prospective teachers, much like the young educators already working in schools, are especially skeptical of accountability measures that tie a teacher’s job security or pay grade to student test scores. And many are bothered by the way teachers are blamed for much broader social problems.

As a result, today’s college students, including those currently marching on campus, are significantly less likely than their parents to see teaching as a viable way to become agents of social change. Of all age groups, voters 18-29 are the most pessimistic about the teaching profession. Only 24 percent are “very likely” to encourage a friend or family member to become a K-12 teacher today.

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In a comparison across 14 professions, teaching ranked last Perdido Street School: Be A Teacher ! Read A Script! Administer Tests! Fear For Your Job At All Times!: