Sacramento City Unified wants to cut benefits in exchange for higher raises | The Sacramento Bee

Sacramento City Unified wants to cut benefits in exchange for higher raises | The Sacramento Bee:

Sacramento City Unified wants to cut benefits in exchange for higher raises

 The Sacramento City Unified School District and its teachers union generally agree that their teachers deserve higher salaries, considering that counterparts in nearby districts receive larger paychecks on average.

But there is disagreement over whether increasing pay means the district should reduce the teachers’ health and welfare benefits, which are the most generous in the Sacramento region. The district in 2014-15 spent $20,638 on average for each of its more than 2,300 teachers, according to School Services of California, which advises school districts on budget matters.

The dispute comes as Sacramento City Unified administrators and the Sacramento City Teachers Association discuss the size of a retroactive raise for the current school year. The pay bump was triggered by an increase in state funding that enables the district to provide higher salaries to teachers.

The district offered a 2.5 percent retroactive raise. Teachers asked for 5 percent. Superintendent Jose Banda said in an interview that the district is willing to pay 5 percent – but only in exchange for limits on post-retirement health care benefits for future hires. The school district currently provides lifetime health care for employees who work enough years to qualify.

“They’re focused on pay increases,” Banda said Friday. “We’d love to give pay increases. Even though we’re not at the top in salary, we’re at the very top in terms of health benefits. It’s all cyclical.”

Teachers in Sacramento City Unified earn less in pay than teachers in most other comparable districts in the region, according to School Services data.

The district’s average teacher salary for 2014-15 was $67,009. That ranked Sacramento City Unified teachers fourth from the bottom out of 14 comparable districts in the region. It also fell below the statewide average of $73,687.

“The district’s finances are probably better than they have been in a generation,” said SCTA Executive Director John Borsos. “They are making these decisions that are crippling. The 5 percent (SCTA proposes) doesn’t put us at the top on wages. It’s modest compared to what others are making.”

Borsos said the salary disparity worsened since July 1, the start of the current school year. SCTA members received a 1 percent pay increase at the start of the fiscal year. Teachers in the San Juan district received 3.25 percent. And Folsom Cordova teachers received 4.5 percent.

Banda contends that the district’s generous benefits package makes up for the salary lag. In total compensation, School Services data show that Sacramento City Unified teachers ranked among the highest in the region in 2014-15.

“We totally agree we want our teachers to be well-compensated, and we want them to be inSacramento City Unified wants to cut benefits in exchange for higher raises | The Sacramento Bee:

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/investigations/the-public-eye/article57510648.html#storylink=cpy

In a first, New York’s state ed commissioner will attend charter rally | Chalkbeat

In a first, New York’s state ed commissioner will attend charter rally | Chalkbeat:

In a first, New York’s state ed commissioner will attend charter rally

 In a first, State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia will attend a rally held by charter-school advocates next week, officials confirmed Friday.

The annual rally is smaller than the massive events that another pro-charter group, Families for Excellent Schools, has held in years past. The event, hosted in part by the New York City Charter Center, typically attracts politicians who support charter schools, but not state education commissioners — which could turn Elia’s appearance into a political football.

“We invited her and she’s coming and we’re delighted,” said Charter Center CEO James Merriman, who said he expects next Tuesday’s event to draw about 1,000 parents, teachers and students. He noted that even the former state education commissioner John King, a steadfast charter school supporter, did not attend the event.

The choice drew quick criticism from the state teachers union.

“This signals misplaced priorities on the commissioner’s part,” said Carl Korn, the spokesperson for the state’s teachers union.

The focus of the rally will be to demonstrate public support for lifting the freeze on New York City’s charter-school funding. The city teachers union, a longtime foe of the charter sector, has already signaled that one of its own priorities is to push legislation that would sanction charter schools that do not serve enough high-needs students. Mayor Bill de Blasio, a close ally of the union, asked lawmakers Tuesday not to lift the freeze.

The education department did not clarify Elia’s position on the freeze on Friday.

Elia supported the development of magnet schools when she worked in Florida and was president of Magnet Schools of America. Charter advocates supported her appointment last year, calling it the start of a strong working relationship.

But Elia, who is in her first year as state education commissioner, has also been treading carefully. Facing a large and growing movement pushing families to opt out of state tests, she has promised to reduce their length and supported the temporary removal of the state tests from teacher evaluations, though she has long been a strong proponent of maintaining high academic standards.In a first, New York’s state ed commissioner will attend charter rally | Chalkbeat:

When Test Scores Are Meaningless Why Subject Your Child to the Test? Missouri Education Watchdog

When Test Scores Are Meaningless Why Subject Your Child to the Test? It’s the “Why are Fire Trucks Red” Illustration. – Missouri Education Watchdog:

When Test Scores Are Meaningless Why Subject Your Child to the Test? It’s the “Why are Fire Trucks Red” Illustration.

 Common sense and the rule of law long ago flew out the window when the Common Core State Standards Initiative was adopted before the standards were written and implemented in school districts without the knowledge of the taxpayers who paying were for these mandates.  The transformation of public education has been set to morph speed toward a centralization of learning, teaching and assessing for the sake of equity.  Increased academic excellence is not a goal of the Initiative.  Measuring academic assessments to determine increased equity on unvalidated assessments is the data dream of the reformers.  It doesn’t matter that the data is based on unvalidated assessments/research, it’s a financial bonanza for data mining companies/repositories and third party researchers.   It’s job security for local, state and federal bureaucrats compelled to gather the data under the threat of withholding of funding to continue meaningless data.

Not only do the data miners/bureaucrats gather meaningless data, if that data can be construed as problematic for the bureaucrats, then enact a law withholding poor results to minimize dissatisfaction and questions on why the test results are so dismal.  This data gathering of meaningless information and withholding of this data if it doesn’t fit into preconceived talking points is apparent in the latest published (or not) test results  coming from from Indiana.  From Only a small share of Indiana schools earned higher A-F grades in 2015 (updated):

…when the Indiana State Board of Education released grades for the 2014-15 school year this morning, it seemed clear that many schools benefitted from a “hold harmless” bill that Gov. Mike Pence signed into law Thursday. That law, prompted by tougher standards that triggered a dramatic drop in 2015 ISTEP test scores, barred the board from giving schools grades for 2015 that were lower than the ones they received the year before.

With that law in place, the grades released by the board today reflected new grades for a fraction of Indiana schools that took last year’s test. Since most schools’ test scores dropped between 2014 and 2015, just 120 of more than 2,000 schools that took ISTEP saw their When Test Scores Are Meaningless Why Subject Your Child to the Test? It’s the “Why are Fire Trucks Red” Illustration. – Missouri Education Watchdog:

Assigning Letter Grades to Schools? The Danger of a Single Performance Indicator – The Progressive Educator

Assigning Letter Grades to Schools? The Danger of a Single Performance Indicator – The Progressive Educator:

Assigning Letter Grades to Schools? The Danger of a Single Performance Indicator

We recently published a commentary in Teachers College Record that revisits a topic we took up in 2014 – the decision by the Arkansas legislature to require the “grading” of schools.   You can read the first portion of the commentary below and finish it up on the Teachers College Record website.  Free access is available for a limited time.

Assigning Letter Grades to Schools?  The Danger of a Single Performance Indicator

Sixteen states require their Departments of Education to assign a single performance indicator such as a “letter grade” to schools within those states. We take a look at the relationship between school grades and poverty in one of these states. Our analysis indicates that there is a moderate negative correlation between poverty and school performance indicators. We discuss the implications for communities and structural poverty and make a plea to reconsider the manner in which single performance indicators are determined. 

In 2013, the Arkansas legislature passed two pieces of legislation requiring the state Department of Education to assign a single indicator of performance to schools in the form of an A through F letter grade. This decision was met with consternation by those who argued that the system represented an unfair oversimplification of the process of schooling. Christian Z. Goering, Associate Professor of English Education at the University of Arkansas wrote,

“Grading schools based on achievement (or growth) will actually be Assigning Letter Grades to Schools? The Danger of a Single Performance Indicator – The Progressive Educator:

The Sub-Prime Education Crisis Part 2: It’s All About The Bubble - Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association:

The Sub-Prime Education Crisis Part 2: It’s All About The Bubble

By Terri Michal

 Many people are asking themselves, what is happening that would lead elected officials from all over the country to create, and/or vote for, such harmful and anti-public school legislation?

To understand it, I feel we need to take a step back and look at the larger machine at work. For a moment we need to stop debating charters, vouchers, tenure, merit pay, test scores and data collection, and instead look at the current education reform movement as a whole.

In doing so I realized that the same ideals, methods, and hidden agendas that are driving the current education policies have already left a big ugly scar on the American people. We all know it as the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

Simply change a few of the player’s names, substitute the word education for housing, and everything becomes clear.

Let’s start with the housing bubble:

In 1977 Lewis Ranieri worked with members of the Federal Government to create a system that would make far more money available for home mortgages, hoping to give every American an opportunity to own a home.

For 30 years, through both Republican and Democrat leadership, the concept put in place by Ranieri and our Federal Government continued to morph. Under influence of the traders, mortgage companies, the banks and our Government, this program went from a well-intentioned thought to one of the worse financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Believing that the ‘housing bubble’ would never pop, these financial entities became increasingly bold in their efforts to amass wealth by granting riskier mortgages and eventually crossing the line into illegal activities. The Government was complicit in the finance world’s actions by creating policies to expand home ownership that had no regard for proper lending principles.

Under these risky loans, made possible by American businesses and our Federal Government, we, the American people, were being set up for failure. No one seemed too concerned however, fortunes were being made and the government looked great under the Badass Teachers Association:

TERRI MICHAL FIGHTING THE FIGHT FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS, EQUITY, AND EQUALITY IN ALABAMA

You can see Part 1 of this series here http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-sub-prime-education-crisis-part-1.html

Who is Dr. Marzano? – Save Maine Schools

Who is Dr. Marzano? – Save Maine Schools:

Who is Dr. Marzano?

 Meet Dr. Robert Marzano.

Dr. Marzano calls himself an education expert.  His specialities include competency-based education and teacher observation. He was never a teacher, but he’s done enough “research” to know what it takes to transform your classroom.

(Sign up for more information on his website to can get more information, and a representative will get back to you right way with a cost estimate.)

Dr. Marzano, who has long been in the education reform business, recently acquired the Reinventing Schools Coalition.

According to the recently revamped Reinventing Schools website (they dropped the “Coalition” because “RISC” sounded too risky), their “story begins in the early 1990s in a rural Alaskan school district comprised of a native population as well as other groups.”

All sorts of miracles happened, “news about the dramatic success in a small Alaskan town traveled far and fast and Chugach received the Who is Dr. Marzano? – Save Maine Schools:

Unions Can’t Just Be About What We’re Allowed to Do: Social Justice Unionism | gadflyonthewallblog

Unions Can’t Just Be About What We’re Allowed to Do: Social Justice Unionism | gadflyonthewallblog:

Unions Can’t Just Be About What We’re Allowed to Do: Social Justice Unionism

If labor unions were an animal, they’d be an old hound dog napping on the porch.

They’re slow to get up and chase away burglars but they do like to howl at night.

Most of the time you don’t even know they’re around until the dinner bell rings. Then that ancient mutt is first to bolt into the kitchen to find a place at the table.

It’s kind of sad really. That faithful old dog used to be really something in his youth.

He was fierce! He’d bark at trespassers even tearing them apart if they threatened his patch of land.

Old Uncle Sam used to yell at him and even threaten the pooch with a rolled up newspaper, but that dog didn’t care. He had a sense of right and wrong, and he didn’t mind getting into deep trouble fighting for what he thought was fair.

Today, however, the only thing that really riles him is if you threaten to take away his ratty old bone.

Let’s face it. Unions have become kind of tame. They’re housebroken and not much of a threat to those people waiting in the shadows to rob us blind.

Some people say we’d be better off without them. But I don’t agree. Even a decrepit Unions Can’t Just Be About What We’re Allowed to Do: Social Justice Unionism | gadflyonthewallblog:

A Poisonous Approach to Governing | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

A Poisonous Approach to Governing | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:

A Poisonous Approach to Governing

Band-Aid solutions such as the ones seen in Flint or the push to privatize advocated by ALEC and its corporate cronies stem from a larger crisis—inadequate federal funding

Flint resident Otis Powell, 56, sheds a tear as he stands in below-zero-degree temperatures with heavy wind during a protest of the city's water quality on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2015 while marching up and down Saginaw Street in downtown Flint. "This water situation, I can't stand," Powell said. "It's saddening that we don't have clean water." (Photo: Jake May | MLive.com)

The Flint water crisis is a disaster on all levels, and many factors are to blame—austerity measures imposed by emergency management, the Snyder administration’s gross mismanagement, EPA’s failure to step in. It is also a consequence of a poisonous trend—running states like corporations. Flint reminds us yet again that corporations and their political front groups have hijacked our democracy—with real and lasting impacts on our water and public health.

In Michigan, the governor has the power to appoint emergency managers who assume complete control over municipalities, stripping elected officials of their ability to govern. Emergency managers may as well be called “emergency dictators.” They can make decisions about every aspect of a city’s governance, including firing elected officials or determining the fate of a water system. Much like a corporate CEO, their eye is usually on the bottom line.

But states are not corporations. While conservatives often claim that experience as a corporate executive qualifies them for high office, the analogy fails when put into action. Government works best when decisions are made in the public interest; cutting costs almost always means cutting corners, which is exactly what happened in Flint. Health experts recommend that every child in Flint under the age of six— over 8,000 children—be considered exposed to lead poisoning. We don’t yet know the full extent of this public health crisis, but many lives have been forever marred because a government bureaucrat opted to cut corners.

"We don’t yet know the full extent of this public health crisis, but many lives have been forever marred because a government bureaucrat opted to cut corners."

Unfortunately, this is not the first time that a water system has been sacrificed in the name of cost-cutting measures, nor is it likely to be the last. That’s due in part to a heightened new trend of conservative influence over many of our nation’s policies, particularly on the state level.

Rightwing free market think tanks like the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, funded by billionaire Charles Koch, have been major forces in undermining democratic control on the state level, particularly in their support of emergency management. The Mackinac Center aggressively pushed for expanded emergency management powers in Michigan, and its former director of municipal finance, Louis Schimmel, served as emergency manager in Pontiac, Michigan.

The Mackinac Center is also a member of the rightwing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a policy organization that seeks to rewrite state laws to give more power to corporations. ALEC has been a major force behind this trend to undermine democratic control of water, thereby threatening its integrity as a public good.

The group has written model legislation intended to starve states of funding for water A Poisonous Approach to Governing | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:

An Epic Battle for Public Education: A Front Line View | LucidWitness.com

An Epic Battle for Public Education: A Front Line View | LucidWitness.com:

An Epic Battle for Public Education: A Front Line View 

Governor Tom Wolf is battling for fair funding for Public Education. It’s an epic battle in Pennsylvania and part of the war on Public Education across America.  It involves us all.

In spite of the facts that legislators have failed to propose an acceptable budget, and that the budget is 7 months overdue, Governor Wolf is standing strong against politicians’ attempts to further slash public education.  Seven long months.  Education operations are still decimated from hundreds of millions of dollars cut by the previous governor.

The issues go deeper than money. They include how the budget is allocated to districts.  They also include politicians trying to increase their own micromanagement of individual schools.

Politicians have failed in Philadelphia Schools.  So…close schools?    

State-­level politicians have a clear, 15-year track record since they took over the School District of Philadelphia.  Their record is one of stunningly consistent academic starvation with simultaneous fiscal disaster.

Fifteen long years ago, the State created the ‘School Reform Commission’ (SRC) to eliminate local control in Philadelphia.  The State appoints the majority of SRC members.  The SRC has hired multiple “outsider” CEOs with multiple organizational structures.   CEOs have come.  CEOs have gone.   Teaching staff is at all-time lows.   Vacant positions remain unfilled.   Teachers have been An Epic Battle for Public Education: A Front Line View | LucidWitness.com:

CURMUDGUCATION: CCSS: Safe and Secure

CURMUDGUCATION: CCSS: Safe and Secure:

CCSS: Safe and Secure

 The Collaborative for Student Success is yet another Common Core shilling group, supported by folks like the Gates Foundation, the New Ventures Fund, and the Fordham. It has to be lonely over there, standing up for the Common Core when nobody will even mention its name unless they're paid to do so.


Election Doesn't Matter

Last week executive director Karen Nussle issued a memo declaring Common Core a non-issue in the race for President, and she has a legitimate point. At this point Common Core lacks support among Presidential candidates as surely as roasting and eating baby pandas does. But Nussle sorts out the different types of non-support.

Many of the contenders have a complicated relationship with the standards marked by inconsistencies and shifting positions, while others have staked out governance positions on standards that are unconstitutional. 

I think "complicated relationship" is a nice way to put it. There are, for instance, the flip-floppers. She calls out Rubio, who used to brag about his role in getting CCSS adopted in Florida. And Chris Christie and Fiorina and Huckabee (and Jindal and Walker) who are all for Common Core before they were against it. Nussle does not dig further, considering that this might be a result of selling the Core, not on their merits as educational standards, but on their merits as a good political posture. I suppose you can argue that the flip floppery is a sign that these candidates are unprincipled, but I think it's also a sign that Common Core was never a matter of principle to begin with. The Core were sold as politically expedient and politically sale-able. These deserters of the Core deserted the standards as soon as it became evident that they did not possess the only qualities that ever made CCSS in the first place.

Nussle's "unconstitutional" crack is for Cruz and Trump, both of whom have promised to undo the federal Common Core laws, and while I hold the feds responsible in large part for the Core's CURMUDGUCATION: CCSS: Safe and Secure:

New York City Rejects Federal Findings That Many Elementary Schools Defy Disabilities Law - The New York Times

New York City Rejects Federal Findings That Many Elementary Schools Defy Disabilities Law - The New York Times:

New York City Rejects Federal Findings That Many Elementary Schools Defy Disabilities Law

The administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio, left, has taken issue with an investigation into access by disabled students at city schools by the office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, center. Credit Mike Segar/Reuters

 The administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio has rejected federal government findings that the vast majority of New York City’s public elementary schools are not “fully accessible” to children with disabilities, in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Last month, the office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said that a two-year investigation had shown that six school districts, serving more than 50,000 elementary students, lacked a single school that was fully accessible. Mr. Bharara’s office gave the cityDepartment of Education a month to respond with proposals to “remedy this unacceptable state of affairs.”

In a letter released late on Friday, senior officials of the city’s Law and Education Departments rejected the federal government’s criticism, contending that Mr. Bharara’s office, in its Dec. 21 letter detailing the findings, “inaccurately characterizes the number and geographic distribution of accessible schools, and erroneously concludes that the D.O.E. is not providing program access to students with disabilities.”

“We believe the D.O.E.’s elementary schools, when viewed in their entirety, provide full program accessibility for all elementary students,” the city said in an eight-page response, which was dated Jan. 20 and addressed to Mr. Bharara and two lawyers in his civil rights unit.

The city did offer to “work collaboratively” with the Justice Department to develop “a reasonable and feasible plan” and listed nine proposals. Its letter was signed by Georgia Pestana, the second-ranking lawyer under Zachary W. Carter, the city corporation counsel, and by Courtenaye Jackson-Chase, the Education Department’s general counsel. Mr. Bharara’s office declined to comment on the city’s response.

In rejecting the findings, the city noted that Mr. Bharara’s office said the city “should, at a minimum, make the first floor of every elementary school building accessible.”

But, the city wrote, “Making every first floor of every school accessible is neither feasible, required by the A.D.A., nor a warranted allocation of resources.”

The disabilities law was intended to ensure broad access to public services,New York City Rejects Federal Findings That Many Elementary Schools Defy Disabilities Law - The New York Times: 

Portland Public Schools shortchanges low-income students in classes and class time: Editorial Agenda 2016 | OregonLive.com

Portland Public Schools shortchanges low-income students in classes and class time: Editorial Agenda 2016 | OregonLive.com:

Portland Public Schools shortchanges low-income students in classes and class time

All sixth graders in Portland Public Schools take a test to measure readiness for algebra. But even those who pass might not be able to access the class at some schools. (Oregonian/OregonLive file photo)

Jane, a sixth-grader at the largely low-income King K-8 in Northeast Portland, does well on a grade-wide math assessment that shows she's ready for algebra. Jack, another sixth grader, doesn't perform quite as well but attends the higher-income Laurelhurst K-8 a few miles away. Which student gets to take algebra in seventh grade?  

The answer should be both, of course. Algebra – otherwise called compacted math – is considered part of Portland Public Schools' regular curriculum for those students who test into it. But for years, unfortunately, some PPS schools decided they didn't have enough students to justify teaching it. Those students instead were generally given the choice of commuting to another school for the one class or doing without. The schools not offering the class? High-poverty schools including King, Woodlawn, Scott and Vernon, according to data compiled by school board member Paul Anthony. 

That some schools would repeatedly put the burden on low-income students to access a class that the district considers part of its core curriculum amounts to a dereliction of its basic duty to educate students. Sadly, it's far from the only example of how the district that preaches equity fails to practice it.  

Take, for instance, recent data showing that middle-school students at Chief Joseph/Ockley Green K-8, another school with a large low-income population, receive as much as 55 minutes to 85 minutes of instruction a week less than their counterparts at stand-alone middle schools, according to a spreadsheet compiled by Ockley Green parent Gabrielle Mercedes Bolivar. If the district truly wants to close the "achievement gap" between low-income students and the population at large, why would it allow those students to be shortchanged in instruction time, she asks. Could that be part of the reason some schools don't have a larger group of students ready for algebra?  

 For its part, the district says the difference in instructional time at some K-8s stems from running a schedule that gives parents a single drop-off and pick-up time for elementary and middle-school kids. As for compacted math, the district is now looking at how a teacher can differentiate math curriculum for students. So even if only a few students at school qualify for compacted math, they can be taught in their home school, said district spokesman Jon Isaacs.  

That's good news, but years late. Consider that parents like Nicole Markwell at Scott K-8 had to press for her son to receive a class that was routine at other schools. Although he was recommended for algebra, he and several others at Scott were told that their math class would be a self-directed course on the computer, she said. Eventually, her son transferred to Access, the district's alternative program for accelerated learning. 

Certainly, Superintendent Carole Smith has not had it easy as superintendent, Portland Public Schools shortchanges low-income students in classes and class time: Editorial Agenda 2016 | OregonLive.com:

NYC Educator: Eva Doesn't Need No Stinking Rules

NYC Educator: Eva Doesn't Need No Stinking Rules:
Eva Doesn't Need No Stinking Rules

Eva Moskowitz is pissed off that mean old NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio is demanding she sign a contract over her pre-K classes. So what if 277 other pre-K programs have signed it? She's Eva Moskowitz, dammit, and rules don't apply to her. If you, a lowly public school teacher, made kids sit in chairs until they peed their pants, you'd be subject to CR A-420, corporal punishment, and if you kept treating kids like that you'd find yourself fired.

But those rules don't apply to Eva. In fact, chancellor's regs don't apply to any charters. They can make their own rules. Verbal abuse? No problem. Harass families until they withdraw their inconvenient low-scoring kids? That's fine, and an added bonus is their low scores can be counted against those awful public schools. You know, the ones with unions and stuff.

So now Eva is reaching out to reformy MaryEllen Elia, our esteemed education commissioner, and letting her know she's had it with all these stinking rules. Now it's one thing to apply them to public schools, but quite another when they come to her and her BFFs. For example, mayoral control was a fantastic thing when Michael Bloomberg was in charge. Eva had a hotline to Joel Klein, and could push for whatever she needed back then.

When that Bill de Blasio came in, though, things got ridiculous. First of all, he was elected. That sucked, because Joel Klein was appointed by Mike Bloomberg, who pretty much gave Eva carte blanche. Second, he ran on a platform of support for public schools and opposition to charters, and those stupid NYC voters actually chose him overwhelmingly. Who the hell do those people think they are?

Eva was having none of that, so she went to Governor Cuomo, who had taken millions from her reformy BFFs and had had it up to here with that "democracy" nonsense. Cuomo pushed a state law saying that de Blasio would have to either approve Eva's schools or pay rent for them. Now NYC Educator: Eva Doesn't Need No Stinking Rules:

Kludge: A Metaphor for Technology Use in Schools | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Kludge: A Metaphor for Technology Use in Schools | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Kludge: A Metaphor for Technology Use in Schools

Kludge

1. (electronics engineering) An improvised device, usually crudely constructed. Typically used to test the validity of a principle before doing a finished design.
2. (general) Any construction or practice, typically inelegant, designed to solve a problem temporarily or expediently.
3. (computing) An amalgamated mass of totally unrelated parts forming a distressing whole.

Any definition of “kludge” that you pick among the three above–I lean toward the second one but I do like the third as well–fits what has occurred over the past three decades with the introduction of desktop computers into schools followed by laptops, tablets, and hand-held devices with scads of accompanying software. Computing devices and accompanying software have been (and are) adds-on to education; all were initially introduced into U.S. manufacturing and commerce as productivity tools and then applied to schooling (e.g., spreadsheets, management information systems). Software slowly changed to adapt to school and classroom use but the impetus and early years applied business hardware and software to schooling. That birth three decades ago of being an add-on tinged with business application has made it a “kludge.”

The initial purposes over thirty years ago for buying and distributing desktops to schools were to solve the nation’s economic problems: U.S. students performing at levels lower than students in other countries. Teachers teaching an outmoded curriculum in traditional ways that failed to exploit the wealth of information available to them and their students electronically. Unpreparedness of students entering the job market in an economy that shifted from industrial- to information-based (see the 1983 report, A Nation at Risk). These were problems that higher standards, better teaching, and new technologies could solve. To end those problems, solutions of stiffer graduation requirements (e.g., four years of each academic subject), uniform and tougher curriculum standards (e.g. Common Core), and, yes, lots of electronic devices and software (e.g., computer labs, 1:1 laptops and tablets) were adopted to speed along more efficiently the improvement of U.S. schools to strengthen the economy. The push for more Kludge: A Metaphor for Technology Use in Schools | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

The Retroactive Lowering of the GED Cut Score | deutsch29

The Retroactive Lowering of the GED Cut Score | deutsch29:

The Retroactive Lowering of the GED Cut Score

On January 20, 2016, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution carried a story about the possibility that the GED Testing Service would retroactively lower the cut score for passage of its revised GED.  That same day, EdWeek picked up the story, and on January 26, 2016, GED Testing Service confirmed that the GED cut score would indeed be retroactively lowered from 150 to 145 but that states would be left to decide to follow such advice:

GED Testing Service …recommends that states apply retroactively the 145 passing score to test-takers who have tested since January 1, 2014. When a state approves applying the passing score retroactively, students who earned scores between 145-149 on the new GED test launched in January of 2014 would be eligible for their state’s high school equivalency credential.

“The scoring enhancements are based on an extensive analysis of test-takers’ performance data from the past 18 months, conversations with state policymakers and elected officials, and external validation with experts,” said GED Testing Service President Randy Trask. “This is part of our ongoing commitment to make data-based decisions, and continually improve the efficacy of the GED program.”

Even as GED Testing Service promotes this change as positive because it is based on research showing that GED students were faring better than traditional high school grads on that all-too-oft-heard “college readiness,” what it also reveals is the power of cut scores to drive individuals’ lives.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes that if Georgia follows the GED Testing Service recommendation for states to retroactively issue GEDs based on the lowered passing score of 145, then approximately 1,900 Georgians will be awarded GEDs after being told they failed– and likely adjusting their lives to that failure.

High-stakes cut scores profoundly affect peoples’ lives.

While my view of the value of standardized testing in general has waned sharply over The Retroactive Lowering of the GED Cut Score | deutsch29:

Michael J. Kennedy, Lawyer for Underdogs and Pariahs, Dies at 78 - The New York Times

Michael J. Kennedy, Lawyer for Underdogs and Pariahs, Dies at 78 - The New York Times:

Michael J. Kennedy, Lawyer for Underdogs and Pariahs, Dies at 78

Mr. Kennedy, right, at a news conference in 1982 with his client Bernadine Dohrn and her fellow former Weathermen member William C. Ayers, whom Ms. Dorhn married that year.CreditDavid Handschuh/Associated Press

 Michael J. Kennedy, who as a criminal lawyer championed lost causes and deeply unpopular defendants — including John Gotti Sr., Huey P. Newtonand Timothy Leary — and finally won freedom for Jean S. Harris, the convicted killer of Dr. Herman Tarnower, the Scarsdale Diet doctor, died on Monday in Manhattan. He was 78.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, which developed while he was being treated for cancer, his wife, Eleanora, said.

A steadfast defender of the underdog and the First Amendment, Mr. Kennedy represented radicals including Rennie Davis, Bernardine Dohrn and Mr. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party. His clients also included the Native American protesters at Wounded Knee, S.D., the family of the rogue real estate heir Robert A. Durst; Mr. Leary, the LSD guru; and Mr. Gotti, the mob boss.

He also represented High Times magazine from its inception (and was later an owner) and shared its agenda to decriminalize marijuana possession. As matrimonial counsel for Ivana Trump in 1991, Mr. Kennedy publicly rejected as insufficient a divorce settlement — trumpeted by her husband, Donald J. Trump — in which she was to receive more than $10 million and their Connecticut home and Manhattan apartment. The settlement was renegotiated.

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Mr. Kennedy, right, at a news conference in 1982 with his client Bernadine Dohrn and her fellow former Weathermen member William C. Ayers, whom Ms. Dorhn married that year.CreditDavid Handschuh/Associated Press

Mr. Kennedy prided himself on membership in a reviled circle of radical lawyers from the 1960s on, including William M. Kunstler, Gerald B. Lefcourt and Michael E. Tigar, who could often afford to represent shunned clients at a discount because of the hefty fees they collected from defending organized crime figures. (Mr. Kennedy was said to have been paid $250,000 in the mid-1980s Pizza Connection drug-smuggling case; his client, a former Sicilian Mafia don, was convicted.)

Mr. Kennedy was so aggressive as a guardian of constitutional rights that he sometimes needed a lawyer himself.

In 1968, he was ejected from a congressional hearing investigating the violent demonstrations during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The next year he was held in contempt with three other lawyers byJudge Julius J. Hoffman for failing to appear at the trial of eight leaders of the previous summer’s protests, including Mr. Davis.

Mr. Kennedy was even the stuff of fiction. The actor Raul Julia consulted Michael J. Kennedy, Lawyer for Underdogs and Pariahs, Dies at 78 - The New York Times:

Detroit Teachers Explain Why They’re ‘Sicking-Out’ - Yahoo News

Detroit Teachers Explain Why They’re ‘Sicking-Out’ - Yahoo News:

Detroit Teachers Explain Why They’re ‘Sicking-Out’

Thousands of people have fled the Detroit public schools, but Alise Anaya decides every day to do the opposite, commuting from the suburbs to teach in one city school and drop her children off at another.

It's a surprising choice. Anaya grew up in Southwest Detroit, but many of the families she was raised alongside have left the city’s public schools in part because of conditions like those Anaya and hundreds of her colleagues have highlighted in a recent series of protests and sickouts — dead rodents, rotting floors and overcrowded classrooms.

The sickouts have shuttered dozens of schools on several days this month including on Jan. 20 – the day President Obama was in town – when 88 of the city’s 100 schools were closed. The teacher’s union took their complaints even further on Thursday, filing suit against the district to demand building repairs and the removal of the state-appointed emergency manager who runs the system.

The teacher’s frustrations reflect the alarming realities of a district struggling to survive after losing the bulk of its students. As Detroit's population has plummeted and its schools have faced new competition from suburban and charter schools, the city's public schools have gone from educating nearly 300,000 students in 1966 to just under 48,000 today. The district now carries an estimated $3.5 billion in debt.

And families are not the only ones leaving. Many of Detroit’s teachers have left, too, in search of better pay and cleaner, safer conditions in charter schools or the suburbs.

But Anaya, 32, is among those who’ve doubled down. Not only has she remained committed to the school system where she and her mother have both taught for years, she has chosen Detroit schools for her own kids, driving them in every morning from her home in suburban Allen Park.

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The teacher-led protests have closed dozens of public schools

Her son, Victor, 10 and daughter Analise, 8, attend the Academy of the Americas in Southwest Detroit, where classes are taught in both English and Spanish. Anaya teaches English as a Second Language at Clippert Academy, a middle school a few blocks away.

“My neighbors think I’m crazy,” she said of her decision to bypass a solid public school in Allen Park in favor of schools in a district that ranksdead last — or near the bottom — on most national measures. But Anaya said those statistics can obscure the caliber of teachers who remain committed.

“Because of all the cuts that have happened and so many teachers have left, the teachers that stay are really motivated. They really are staying out of the goodness of their hearts and they feel that this is where they need to be,” Anaya said. “Those are the kinds of people I want in front of my kids in the classroom.”

When teachers started calling in sick to protest deteriorating conditions in recent weeks, critics — including Emergency Manager Darnell Earley — accused them of harming children by depriving them of crucial learning time. The district has sought temporary restraining orders to block future sickouts. So far, judges have refused to grant the injunctions.

"Detroit Public Schools is a district that has been going through some very difficult financial challenges over the last number of years and we've worked very hard over the last year to get our internal house in order," said Michelle Zdrodowski, a spokesperson for the district. "We're getting resources into the classroom and school buildings. But while we do understand their frustrations, we don't agree with their method of voicing those frustrations. Students need to be school every day and to take a day of instruction away is not necessarily appropriate in our Detroit Teachers Explain Why They’re ‘Sicking-Out’ - Yahoo News:

 

Alfie Kohn: ‘Hand’s not raised? Too bad. I’m calling on you anyway’ - The Washington Post

‘Hand’s not raised? Too bad. I’m calling on you anyway’ - The Washington Post:

‘Hand’s not raised? Too bad. I’m calling on you anyway’

Do you remember sitting in class, trying to be inconspicuous so that the teacher wouldn’t call on to answer a question you couldn’t answer, or were too shy to express yourself well in front of the class? Here’s a piece about the practice of calling on students who aren’t offering to contribute to a lesson. It was written by Alfie Kohn, author of 14 books on education, parenting and human behavior, including, most recently, The Myth of the Spoiled Child (Da Capo Press) and Schooling Beyond Measure (Heinemann). This first appeared on www.alfiekohn.org. I am republishing it with permission.

By Alfie Kohn

Doctors in training call it “pimping.” A medical student or junior resident is abruptly put on the spot, sometimes during patient rounds, as an instructor fires off difficult questions about anatomy, diagnostic protocols, or surgical procedures.[1] The practice is defended in pretty much the same way that other forms of humiliation, bullying, hazing, or punishment are defended: Keeps ’em on their toes! Shows ’em I mean business! Toughens ’em up for when other people abuse them later! And of course that old chestnut: Isuffered through it; why shouldn’t they?[2]

Children in school are rarely questioned with such ferocity, but similar moral and pedagogical concerns arise — with particular urgency, in fact, precisely because they are younger: Should teachers call on students who haven’t indicated they want to talk and, in fact, have tacitly indicated they don’t want to talk?

I recently suggested on Twitter that this practice — “cold-calling” — is so fundamentally disrespectful of students that I’d be disinclined to take advice about anything from someone who endorsed it. Reactions to my tweet fell into three clusters. The first group basically agreed: “It’s a great way to shame a kid.” “Too many teachers actually believe it is a trait of a good teacher, that ‘Hand’s not raised? Too bad. I’m calling on you anyway’ - The Washington Post: