Thursday, June 9, 2016

Mapped: The students missing from America’s schools — Quartz

Mapped: The students missing from America’s schools — Quartz:
Mapped: The students missing from America’s schools

Debates in education often have to do with insufficient resources, whether it be the proper materials, the teachers, or the time to ensure quality learning for all students. Of course, those issues don’t arise if students themselves don’t show up—as is the case in much of the US right now.

According to a huge swath of data (pdf) released this week by the US Department of Education, roughly 6.5 million students, or a full 13% of the 50 million students enrolled in K-12 public schools in the country, are chronically absent from school. The government defines chronic absenteeism as missing 15 or more days of each school year, whether or not there’s an official excuse.

Using data from 95,000 public schools in the 2013-14 school year, the department found a range of absentee rates across the country, with some regions like the country’s capital of Washington posting rates as high as 31.5%.

Why are so many kids ditching school? For starters, attendance often has to do with income levels poorer students are more likely to miss school, for reasons such as ill health, unreliable transportation, or unstable family financial situations.

But steady attendance is proven to be a huge factor in academic success—so educators might do well to keep a closer eye. In China, where schooling is of utmost importance to many families, some teachers will go as far as tracking absent students down at their homes.

The US government will release more specific data on absentee rates, as well as other topics such as staffing quality and student suspensions, towards the end of the year.Mapped: The students missing from America’s schools — Quartz:

A look at chronic absenteeism across America - http://go.shr.lc/1tkmC1w

Black students more likely to be suspended: U.S. Education Department - http://go.shr.lc/28nCGPO

Chronic Absenteeism Is A National Crisis - http://go.shr.lc/24CSjOH

States scramble to protect student data and privacy | PBS NewsHour

States scramble to protect student data and privacy | PBS NewsHour:

States scramble to protect student data and privacy

What if a child’s performance in a fifth-grade gym class could be used to set the rate for a life insurance policy when they’re 50? What if a computer program advertised interactive tutoring when your child struggled with long division?

Privacy advocates worry these scenarios could become reality as schools increasingly rely on outside companies to collect, manage and analyze the massive amount of data gleaned from standardized tests, transcripts, individual education programs and even cafeteria purchases.

This subcontracting is not new or uncommon, but it has often left school districts without explicit control over students’ personal information. And it has left some parents, administrators and privacy advocates worried that those companies might one day sell or mine the data for a profit.

With few protections on the privacy of student data beyond a decades-old federal law, states have been scrambling to regulate how student data is collected and stored. More recently they’ve begun governing how third-party companies can use student information.

In 2014, 21 states passed 26 student data laws mostly targeted at states and school districts. Many echoed a 2013 Oklahoma law that requires state approval to release student data and mandates that only aggregated data — no data tied to individual students — can be released.

By last year, lawmakers had shifted their focus to third-party companies. They passed 28 student privacy laws, in many cases mirroring a California statute that prohibits service providers from using data to target ads to students, selling student information, and creating student profiles for commercial purposes.

This year nine states — Arizona, Connecticut, Hawaii, Kansas, New Hampshire,Tennessee, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia — have added 11 new student data laws, mostly based on the California standard. A similar proposal is awaiting the signature of Colorado’s governor.

It’s impossible to know how companies could or would use the information they collect, said Joel Reidenberg, a privacy expert and law professor at Fordham University.

“What are they going to do with it? Are they going to use it for experimentation? Data analytics?” he said. “Will it wind up 10 years down the road being used in an insurance underwriting decision?”

School districts and their vendors are required to keep educational records confidential, under the 1974 federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. But the law, written at States scramble to protect student data and privacy | PBS NewsHour:

A flood of campaign spending has paid off for the California Charter Schools Association | SanDiegoUnionTribune.com

upset on county ed board | SanDiegoUnionTribune.com:
Changes coming to education board
County school races pit charters against labor

SAN DIEGO — A flood of campaign spending has paid off for the California Charter Schools Association, which helped usher in at least one new candidate to the County Board of Education in Tuesday’s election.

The race for four seats on the board pitted organized labor against charter school advocates, which invested in the elections for the first time this year amid a rocky time for the industry. The county board has been seen as increasingly crucial in the effort to expand charters since members serve as the appellate for charter petitions rejected by their resident school districts.

With unsolicited support from charters, Mark Powell took 52 percent of the vote to unseat Gregg Robinson in the race to represent District 1 for the San Diego County Office of Education. The district covers coastal and central communities in of the city of San Diego.

Powell was the target of attack mailers from the local chapter of the American Federation of Teachers representing the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College Districts. He called the negative campaign disappointing.

“That campaign makes this win all the more substantial,” said Powell, a adjunct education professor at National University. “I will not rubber stamp charters. I don’t expect a big influx of charters coming in and taking over. What charters and parents can expect from me is fair, objective and reasoned decisions that put students, parents and teachers first.”

Guadalupe Gonzalez was re-elected with 55 percent of the vote with support from AFT, staving off former trustee Jerry Rindone’s bid to take her seat representing the southwestern swath of the county in District 2.

The contest to represent northern and eastern stretches of the county in District 4 was too close to call late Wednesday. Some 285,000 mail and provisional ballets were uncounted countywide. Incumbent Mark Anderson had the narrowest lead (by 451 votes) over Paulette Donnellon, a sitting member of the Escondido Union School District board who was backed by charter advocates. Donnellon also was the subject of AFT upset on county ed board | SanDiegoUnionTribune.com:

Big Education Ape: Analysis: EdVoice with an IE for Dodd; Educational Reform Group Has Ties to Vergara Suit and Wa... http://bit.ly/1SJq26U

Big Education Ape: News Analysis: Education fight ‘over shades of Democrat’ | CALmatters http://bit.ly/25csc6L

Big Education Ape: Local legislative races become battleground in statewide fight over educationhttp://bit.ly/1WMlJKA

Big Education Ape: Edvoice pumps cash into Assembly campaign | News | Palo Alto Online | http://bit.ly/1s8OhSi

Big Education Ape: Charter school groups spending big in California legislative races | 89.3 KPCChttp://bit.ly/1TYIvJj

Fewer field trips mean some students miss more than a day at the museum | Brookings Institution

Fewer field trips mean some students miss more than a day at the museum | Brookings Institution:

Fewer field trips mean some students miss more than a day at the museum

Elementary school students visit the Crystal Bridges Art Museum in Arkansas

As every good teacher knows, education is not just about academics. It is about broadening horizons and discovering passions. (The root of education is the Latin e ducere, meaning “to draw out.”) From this perspective, extra-curricular activities count for a great deal. But as Robert Putnam highlights in his book Our Kids, there are growing class gaps in the availability of music, sports, and other non-classroom activities.

Fewer field trips?

Schools under pressure may also cut back on field trips outside the school walls to parks, zoos, theaters, or museums. In the 2008-09 school year, 9 percent of school administrators reported eliminating field trips, according to the annual surveys by the American Association of School Administrators (AASA). That figure rose through the recession:Fewer field trips mean some students miss more than a day at the museum | Brookings Institution:

Fewer field trips mean some students miss more than a day at the museum | Brookings Institution:

Will Trump and Charter Schools Be Another Scam? Just Look at Pal Carl Icahn's Lucrative School 'Charity' | Alternet

Will Trump and Charter Schools Be Another Scam? Just Look at Pal Carl Icahn's Lucrative School 'Charity' | Alternet:

Will Trump and Charter Schools Be Another Scam? Just Look at Pal Carl Icahn's Lucrative School 'Charity'

There are troubling parallels between Trump and Icahn, who used his charity to turn a profit while enjoying massive tax savings.

Most people know Carl Icahn as a real-life Gordon Gekko—the investor who helped drive Trans World Airlines to bankruptcy, selling the company’s prime routes and saddling it with debt, while pocketing millions for himself. Today, Icahn is once again in the national spotlight with Donald Trump, his former business associate, floating the possibility of making him Treasury Secretary.

Like Trump, Carl Icahn has also named a school after himself—seven charter schools in New York City to be exact (Icahn Charter School 1, Icahn Charter School 2, Icahn Charter School 3, etc.). And as with Trump University, the money trail suggests the organization running these schools may have served to enrich its billionaire founder, Icahn, at the expense of its own students. An AlterNet investigation finds that Carl Icahn appears to have treated his charity like a personal piggy bank, using it to make potentially tens of millions for himself while benefiting from tens of millions in tax deductions.

In 1997, Carl Icahn made a $100 million tax-deductible “contribution” to his public charity, the Foundation for a Greater Opportunity, scoring about a $45 million income tax reduction, according to an estimate by Gregg Polsky, a law professor at UNC. In January 2006, Icahn’s foundation suddenly sold back the stock gift to an Icahn corporation, Modal LLC. The $100 million gift in American Railcar Industries Inc. shares was conspicuously sold three days before the company was to go public, a process that often sparks a short-term hike in share value. The convenient date of the sale strongly suggests Icahn knew his limited liability corporation, rather than his educational charity, would make a killing off the public offering.

Three days after the sale was inked, American Railcar Industries went public, opening at $23.60 a share and jumping up almost 40 percent in a month. As of 2016, Icahn holds a majority stake in ARII and the company’s shares are upnearly 70 percent more than when Icahn reacquired them. Thus, even if his LLC held onto his foundation’s former shares, rather than selling in the initial surge, Icahn would be in line for tens of millions in profit.

“When he donates the $100 million, it’s not his asset anymore,” explains Marc Owens, a tax expert with the law firm Loeb & Loeb. “It can’t be transferred back other than as a sale at true fair market value. So Icahn basically induced the charity, presumably ignorant of the impending company’s public sale, into selling him the stock at an artificially low value.”

Since the profits off the IPO surge went to Icahn, rather than his educational charity, Icahn was liable for a 25 percent “excess benefit” tax for that profit, potentially another 10 percent because of his role as director of the charity, and Will Trump and Charter Schools Be Another Scam? Just Look at Pal Carl Icahn's Lucrative School 'Charity' | Alternet:

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Whatever Happens To Teachers Of Color Happens To All [The Progressive] | The Jose Vilson

Whatever Happens To Teachers Of Color Happens To All [The Progressive] | The Jose Vilson:

Whatever Happens To Teachers Of Color Happens To All [The Progressive]

In my latest article at the Progressive, I write about my visit to the US Department of Education fortheir first-ever Teacher Diversity Summit:

William A. Smith calls this “racial fatigue”— the mental and physical weariness of having to navigate personal and professional spaces that often favor white people. The educational subset of racial fatigue often posits educators of color as both the problem and solution to improving failing (read: failed) schools. No wonder teachers of color are coming in at higher rates than ever before, but also leaving faster than their white counterparts. As working conditions in places like Detroit, Newark, and Los Angeles continue to depreciate, leaders continue to push educators to do more with less (and even work for nothing).
Since the advent of No Child Left Behind, we’ve seen countless instances of teacher bashing, but the coded language used against educators has particular educational ramifications. For example, the old southern strategy, a technique used by politicians to appeal to disaffected white people, has historical ties to school desegregation.

Yes, I went in. Please read and let me know what you think.

photo c/o

About Jose Vilson

José Luis Vilson is a math educator, blogger, speaker, and activist. For more of my writing, buy my book This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education, on sale now.

Whatever Happens To Teachers Of Color Happens To All [The Progressive] | The Jose Vilson:

New Rules for the New Deal | Roosevelt Institute

New Rules for the New Deal

Rewriting the Racial Rules: Building an Inclusive American Economy

New Rules for the New Deal - Roosevelt Institute - http://go.shr.lc/1tiJGOa

Streamed live 8 hours ago

On June 8, 2016, the Roosevelt Institute will host a discussion with Roosevelt Institute Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz, Alicia Garza, Melissa Harris-Perry, and more about two new reports that look at how to curb the power of the economic elite and create a more inclusive society.

2016 Summer Meal Service Sites - Food Programs (CA Dept of Education)

2016 Summer Meal Service Sites - Food Programs (CA Dept of Education):

2016 Summer Meal Service Sites

Provides parents and referral agencies with a list of locations where children may receive free nutritious meals during school vacation and off-track periods. Please call site contact to confirm participation.

Entities wishing to serve meals under the Summer Food Service Program should contact the sponsor listed.

Search

Use search to find the nearest Summer Meal Service Site. Search results will be in a map that opens in a new browser tab or window.
Once you have found the nearest site on the map, select the corresponding map pointer to get the site name and address:
Site details will open in a dialog box above the selected site.
To get directions to the site, select/click the site address.
Google Maps will open with the selected site's address pre-filled as the destination. Enter your starting location and select "Get Directions".

Image Map

Select a county to display a list of locations for that county, or choose from the list of counties in alphabetical order.

List of Counties in Alphabetical Order

Complete List

2016 Summer Meal Service Sites (XLS; 1MB)

Program Information

For program information, please visit Summer Food Service.

Questions: Nutrition Services Division | 800-952-5609

State Schools Superintendent Tom Torlakson Announces Statusof Teacher Recruitment and Training Bills at State Capitol

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced today that legislation is advancing at the state Capitol to help address a growing shortage of teachers in California.

Several bills moved forward last week as the Legislature faced a bill deadline. Torlakson spoke in favor of the legislation at a Capitol news conference earlier in the year, when legislators introduced new measures to recruit more educators and help them earn teaching credentials.

"I will continue to work with all members of the Legislature who want to help talented and committed people enter this rewarding profession," said Torlakson, who started his career as a science teacher and coach. "I am spreading the message when I speak at the state Capitol and at schools and events all around the state: California needs more teachers. Teaching is a wonderful profession with challenges—but also great rewards. Teachers have the opportunity to have a profound positive impact in a young person's life."

Enrollment in California's teacher preparation programs fell from more than 40,000 students during the 2008–9 school year to less than 20,000 in 2012–13.

In 2014–15, the Commission on Teacher Credentialing issued 15,000 credentials, while the California Department of Education (CDE) projected the need for California schools to hire 22,000 teachers.

The Legislature last week had a "house of origin" deadline, which means legislation introduced in the Senate in 2016 had to pass to the Assembly, and Assembly bills needed to pass to the Senate.

The Legislature has until August 31 to pass any bills in the 2015–16 session, and Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. must sign or veto bills by September 30.

Bills that Torlakson supports include SB 915 by Senator Carol Liu, D-La Canada Flintridge. This bill re-establishes the California Center on Teaching Careers (Cal Teach) to recruit qualified individuals into the teaching profession. The program boosted teacher recruitment through outreach campaigns in the 1990s but was discontinued due to state budget cuts. SB 915 passed the Senate 28-8 and is pending in the Assembly.

SB 933 by Senator Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, would create a California Teacher Corps program that provides matching grants to local school districts to create or expand teacher residency programs. SB 933 passed the Senate 37-0 and is also pending in the Assembly.

Torlakson also sponsored SB 62, by Senator Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, to reinstate and improve a phased-out state program to provide student loan forgiveness to new teachers. Under the Assumption Program of Loans for Education (APLE), a new teacher would teach for four years at a school with large numbers of disadvantaged students or at a rural school. This bill was introduced last year and is pending in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Torlakson also supports several other bills to expand and increase funding for teacher training. Information is available at the Legislative Information

Web site. In addition, those seeking more information about how to become a teacher can find it at Teach California

# # # #

Tom Torlakson — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5206, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

Teacher Recruitment and Training Bills - Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education) - http://go.shr.lc/1rdQkTT

Privatization of public education is a failure

Privatization of public education is a failure:

Privatization of public education is a failure

This election cycle has been heavy on rhetoric and light on policy. Given that nearly 50% of Americans consider themselves angrier than a year ago - with white Republicans being the angriest - it’s no wonder that rather than having substantive discussions, most solutions being offered currently are knee jerk reactions that have little to no factual support. A prime example of this are the changes many conservatives endorse for “fixing” public education.

Consider for example the panacea of conservative school improvement ideas - charter schools. The most recent data show that around 25% outperform their local public school counterpart. This means that around 75% of charter schools are no better or actually worse than the local public school. Essentially, in locations where charter schools exist they are on average no better or worse than the average public school. If the goal is to improve education, getting the same results as local schools, deemed failing by charter school advocates, is a shockingly disappointing outcome.

Of course it should be noted that charter schools never get a foothold in areas where the schools are already high performing. Given that charters can’t even outperform average public schools the fact that some of the country’s best schools aren’t included in this analysis only makes the results for charter schools that much more disconcerting. Perhaps, instead of spending tax dollars to spread charter schools that don’t improve outcomes, we should take the model used by some of the thousands of exceptional public schools and disseminate that to the lower performing schools.

Having said that, the goal of the majority of charter schools and the politicians that support them isn’t to improve student achievement. It is to siphon taxpayer money out of public schools and into the hands of wealthy donors. Because these politicians understand that the only thing that matches the Republican base’s hate of government spending is their unwavering belief in the magical powers of capitalism. This mentality is why military spending accounts for 54 % of the Federal Government’s discretionary spending, (more than that of the next 10 countries combined), and why few industries turned out better profits during the Great Recession than the Defense industry.

Ironically, many of the people who think that the potentially cozy relationship between some school board members and the teachers’ union leads to sweetheart deals seems unfazed by the reality that corporations outspend unions 15 to 1 when it comes to political contributions. If union spending buys special treatment, then spending 15 times as much should certainly result in some ill-gotten gains for corporations.

Based on the amount of money that corporation are pouring into political coffers, it should come as no surprise that other faux-solutions to improve education such as privatization of public schools’ services are on the docket for school boards across the country. While the companies offering these services and the politicians they have bought will argue that this is a way for schools to save money, the data show that in nearly every case it costs taxpayers more when a public service is privatized.

The reason private services typically cost more is that you are inserting a highly paid middle man into the process. Obviously the goal of any for-profit company is to make a profit, which means they will either cost more or they need to find savings elsewhere. These companies will try and sell schools on the idea that there are savings to be had which will come from eliminating inefficiencies; however, the reality is the reduction in cost will likely come from lowering employee wages and Privatization of public education is a failure:

Governor “Charter School” | tultican

Governor “Charter School” | tultican:
Governor “Charter School”

I recently commented on a Diane Ravitch post writing, “I love Governor ‘Moon-beam’; I detest Governor ‘Charter-School;’” referring to Governor of California, Jerry Brown.

Ed Source recently reported:

“Brown started two charter schools in Oakland when he was mayor of the city, and has fought, through vetoes, attempts to encroach on their independence or dilute protections in the state’s charter school enabling law. This year, he vetoed AB 787, which would have banned for-profit charters, which operate primarily online charter schools. Brown said proponents failed to make a case for the bill, and the bill’s ambiguous wording could have been interpreted to restrict the ability of nonprofit charter schools to continue using for-profit vendors.”

Two consistent features of modern education governance are that politicians and business men who have power enforce their own particular biases even though lacking both educational experience and knowledge. The second feature is education policy is NOT based on research. As Anthony Cody describes, “Sadly, Lubienski, Debray, and Scott discovered that ‘research played virtually no part in decision making for policymakers, despite their frequent rhetorical embrace of the value of research.’”

Governor Brown (in the face of mounting evidence) is more concerned about the future of the charter industry than he is about fraud and the diminution of public schools. He obviously believes that public schools are failing and that privatized schools are the path to better education. Neo-liberal philosophy increasingly embraced by the Democratic party postulates that “private business will always outperform government institutions.”

Is it Cyber-Charter or Cyber-Fraud?

The private businesses being protected by Brown, cyber-schools, are increasingly seen as extremely poor quality and more fraud than education alternative. In February Steven Rosenfeld reported, “For the second time in three months, the Walton Family Foundation—which has spent more than $1 billion to create a quarter of the nation’s 6,700 public charter schools—has announced that all online public school instruction, via cyber charter schools, is a colossal disaster for most K-12 students.”

Steven Singer an education commentator and activist from Pennsylvania stated it succinctly, “If you’re a parent, you’d literally be better off having your child skip school altogether than sending her to a cyber charter. LITERALLY! But if you’re an investor, online charters are like a free money machine. Just press the button and print however much cash you want!”

The nation’s largest cyber-charter chain is Michael Milken’s K-12 Inc. (remember his junk bond fraud conviction) The state legislation, AB 787, that Brown vetoed Governor “Charter School” | tultican:

Jersey Jazzman: Does Opting-Out "Punish" Schools? Not As Much As Serving High-Needs Students

Jersey Jazzman: Does Opting-Out "Punish" Schools? Not As Much As Serving High-Needs Students:

Does Opting-Out "Punish" Schools? Not As Much As Serving High-Needs Students

The opt-out scolds -- those who spend their days tut-tutting at parents who've decided to take their children out of high-stakes standardized tests -- having been warning over and over that there will be serious financial consequences for schools that do not have high test participation rates.

Could they actually be right?

BROOKLYN — The state has penalized 16 high-performing city schools — potentially costing them each up to $75,000 in grant money — because of their exam opt-out rates, DNAinfo New York has learned.
These schools were on track to win recognition from the state as “Reward Schools" — an annual honor that makes schools eligible to apply for grants — but were not included in the list because they failed to meet a 95 percent participation rate on the exams, state education officials confirmed.
“While U.S. Department of Education [USDE] guidelines allow states to impose sanctions on districts specifically for failure to meet participation requirements [of the tests], including the withholding of state funds, New York State has not taken such action against any district or school,” State Education Department spokeswoman Jeanne Beattie said.
“However, under New York’s flexibility waiver approved by USDE in 2010, a
Jersey Jazzman: Does Opting-Out "Punish" Schools? Not As Much As Serving High-Needs Students:

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