Beyond integration: How teachers can encourage cross-racial friendships | 89.3 KPCC

Beyond integration: How teachers can encourage cross-racial friendships | 89.3 KPCC:

Beyond integration: How teachers can encourage cross-racial friendships 

LA JOHNSON/NPR

There's a reason Jose Luis Vilson's students learn in groups: He wants them to feel comfortable working with anyone in the classroom, something he's realized in his 11 years of teaching doesn't always come naturally.

"I don't really give students a chance to self-select until later on, when I feel like they can pretty much group with anybody," he says.

Vilson teaches math at a public middle school just north of Harlem in New York City. Most of his students are Latino and African-American, and Vilson pays close attention to the fact that their racial identities affect their experiences in the classroom.

Children entering adolescence, he knows, are less likely to maintain cross-racial friendships as they grow older. But teachers like him may be able to help change that, according to a new study led by researchers from New York University.

In past decades, it's become increasingly clear that diversity in classrooms isn't just a buzzword. A growing body of research points to classroom diversity as an important aspect of childhood development. Kids who make friends with kids of other races tend to be more socially well-adjusted, more academically ambitious and better at interacting with people who are different from them.

The NYU researchers knew of these findings and wondered if just putting kids of different races in classrooms together is enough to foster lasting connections. Their hypothesis was that, as kids grow into early adolescence, they increase their same-race friendships and decrease their cross-race friendships.

So they looked at data from the Early Adolescent Development Study (EADS), a longitudinal survey where researchers questioned more than 500 elementary- and middle-schoolers over the course of two academic years: fall 1996 to spring 1998. The students in the study all went to school in one district in the American Beyond integration: How teachers can encourage cross-racial friendships | 89.3 KPCC:

20 reasons to vote no on Pa. HB 530 charter school reform STOP #hb1606! #phled #pabudget #hb530

20 reasons to vote no on Pa. HB 530 charter school reform:

20 reasons to vote no on Pa. HB 530 charter school reform

Pennsylvania taxpayers now spend more than $1.4 billion on charter and cyber charter schools annually, in addition to funding the state’s traditional public schools.  The current “rob from public school Peter to pay charter school Paul” system drains money from traditional public schools, forcing districts to cut programs and services for the students who remain. In 2011, the charter reimbursement line was eliminated from the state budget. It provided state funding to districts for the costs and financial exposure resulting from the addition of charter schools.  

Legislators are now considering House Bill 530, which would bring much-needed reform to the charter school law that was written in 1997. The bill has several helpful provisions, but the harm that it does far outweighs the good. Here are 20 reasons that the legislature should vote against this measure.

• #HB530 does not provide significant accountability to taxpayers for payments made to charter school entities. 
• #HB530 would create a Charter School Funding Commission that would consider establishing an independent state-level board to authorize charter school entities, bypassing any local decision-making by school boards and their communities.
• #HB530 further limits the ability of communities to negotiate the role of charters locally. The decisions about how, when, and where to expand them should be made by those who have the information and expertise to do so in ways that improve education.
• #HB530 is an entirely unwarranted intervention in the local governance of school districts. It would remove local control of tax dollars from Pennsylvania taxpayers and their elected school directors.
• #HB530 sets no limits to money that charters can drain from local school districts, eliminating districts' capability to plan and budget.
• #HB530 is a vehicle for the Pennsylvania legislature to have local taxpayers pay for unlimited charter expansion.
• #HB530 would let charter operators expand and add grades without any local input or authorization, regardless of performance.
• #HB530 would let charters expand by enrolling students from outside of the district in which it is located.
• #HB530 does nothing to address the enormous drain of tax dollars from all 500 school districts for chronically underperforming cyber schools that were authorized by the state. Nearly every national study of virtual schools' performance has found it lacking, including studies by “pro school choice” organizations.
• #HB530 does not address the poor performance of cyber charters by creating a task force or a commission to study student outcomes in these schools. Not one Pennsylvania cyber charter has achieved a passing score of 70 on the state’s School Performance Profile in the three years that it has been in use. Most cybers never made Adequate Yearly Progress under all the years that No Child Left Behind was in effect.
• #HB530 sets no annual limits on the amount of taxpayer dollars that can be spent on charter advertising.
• #HB530 proposes a new 14-member Charter School Funding Advisory Commission without including a single one of the state’s 4,500 locally elected school directors who are responsible for raising revenue in their school districts.
• Even though more than 90 percent of Pennsylvania kids are educated in district schools, #HB530 stacks the Charter Appeals Board in favor of charter schools.
• If charter schools are public schools, why should they have different methods of evaluating the schools and their teachers, as proposed in #HB530?
• #HB530 requires use of a performance matrix that makes it impossible to compare charters’ performance with their sending school districts’ performance.
• #HB530 creates a separate evaluation system for charter school teachers instead of using the existing state system.
• #HB530 would let charters keep your tax dollars to accumulate fund balances that are 4 percent to 8 percent higher than their respective school districts.
• All of the accountability provisions in #HB530 can be easily bypassed if a charter school contracts with a management company to operate the charter. Chester Community Charter School, the state’s largest charter, is the poster child for this with Charter School Management Inc., founded and run by Republican powerbroker Vahan Gureghian.
• If a charter is run by a management company, the public has zero information on how their tax dollars are spent. #HB530 does nothing to require any fiscal transparency or reporting from charter management companies.
• #HB530 would divert an additional $25 million in tax money to unaccountable private and religious schools through the Educational Improvement Tax Credit program.

Lawrence A. Feinberg is the founder and co-chair of the Keystone State Education Coalition, a non-partisan, grassroots public education advocacy group.  He is currently serving his 17th year as a school director in Haverford Township.

 

Prescott, Ohanian: How the Golden State lost its luster - San Jose Mercury News

Prescott, Ohanian: How the Golden State lost its luster - San Jose Mercury News:

Prescott, Ohanian: How the Golden State lost its luster

By Edward C. Prescott and Lee E. Ohanian, Special to The Mercury News

Last month's $167 billion dollar budget deal forged by Gov. Jerry Brown and California lawmakers is four times as large in per capita terms as it was in the early 1960s under Brown's father, Gov. Pat Brown. But despite spending less, the budgets of yesteryear contributed considerably more to economic growth.

State governments of the 1950s and 1960s were an integral part of California's postwar boom, when the state grew from 11 million in 1950 to 30 million in 1990.

The budgets of yesteryear provided a blueprint for how government can promote growth by making investments in education, water and transportation infrastructure.

These investments were made at a challenging time. The baby boom and immigration from other states more than doubled California's population between 1940 and 1960. State resources were strained by the fact that 44 percent of the state's population was 24 years or younger, providing little tax revenue but requiring considerable investments in schools.

Rapid population growth in Southern California highlighted the importance of investing in water and highway infrastructures. Pat Brown's budgets were based on themes of creating opportunities and providing excellence in government. In his 1960 budget statement, Brown argued that "Democracy has come to mean equality of opportunity. Access to education has the highest place."

Pat Brown would undoubtedly be disappointed with today's California education system. A recent UC Berkeley report estimates that over half of California schools do not adequately repair their physical plants. California's K-12 education is now regarded as among the worst in the country.

Brown's 1960 vision of hiring the best teachers and allowing them to excel is hamstrung by teacher unions, particularly the 325,000-member California Teachers Association. The CTA has blocked important education reforms, including modifications to teacher tenure rules that would facilitate removing poorly performing teachers. The state's teacher dismissal rate is about .003 percent per year, reflecting a time-consuming process that can cost as much as $200,000 per case.

Protecting poorly performing teachers is very costly. Stanford University economist Eric Hanushek finds that removing the bottom 5-10 percent of K-12 teachers would raise our student achievement from well below the average of the developed world, to near the top.

California also made remarkable transportation and water infrastructure investments in the 1960s, but those investments are not being adequately maintained nor expanded. The Reason Foundation ranks California roads as the second worst in the country. The Road Information Program estimates that bad roads coststate drivers $44 billion per year, despite the fact that California gasoline taxes are 40 percent higher than the national average.

California's water infrastructure situation is no better. The last major water infrastructure was the 1960 California Water Project. But as state capital spending declined, the California Water Project never realized the capacity that its planners envisioned. Most of the project was completed by the early 1970s, but California's population has grown by 18 million since then.

The failure to expand water infrastructure is not because voters were unwilling to pay. Since 1970, voters approved 15 of 16 state water bonds, yet this did not deliver major new water storage or canals nor maintain existing infrastructure.

California's capital outlays have declined from about 20 percent of the state budget in the 1960s to about 3 percent today. California's political leaders once agreed that substantial infrastructure investment was a major obligation of state government.

This principle, which created so many opportunities that helped generations of Californians succeed, now sadly appears to be lost.

Edward C. Prescott, a 2004 Nobel Laureate in Economics, is a professor of economics at Arizona State University. Lee E. Ohanian is a professor of economics at UCLA and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. They wrote this for the Mercury News.Prescott, Ohanian: How the Golden State lost its luster - San Jose Mercury News:

Chicago charter schools tied to fraud of Concept Schools

Chicago charter schools tied to fraud of Concept Schools:

ONGOING FEDERAL INVESTIGATION ON CORRUPTION IN CHICAGO CHARTER SCHOOLS

 Days after federal agents swept into the headquarters of Concept Schools and a charter school it operates in Rogers Park in June 2014, top Chicago Public Schools officials took notice of the raids on the taxpayer-funded charter operator but decided to steer clear.

Jack Elsey — the CPS official in charge of overseeing publicly financed, privately run charter schools like those run by Concept — emailed the district’s top lawyer at the time, James Bebley, and copied then-schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett about the federal investigation.

“James, any guidance on how we should react?” Elsey wrote, attaching a link to news coverage of the raids at Concept’s main offices in Des Plaines and its Chicago Math and Science Academy, at 7212 N. Clark. “My inclination is to see how this plays out.”

“At this point, I don’t know what we would be reacting to,” Bebley replied. “There is really nothing to say except that we will monitor events as they play out.”

“Good, just wanted to confirm my ‘gut’ on this one,” Elsey wrote back.

Byrd-Bennett responded, “Jack, Jack … Jack,” and closed her email with a backwards smiley face emoticon — (: — as she often punctuated more light-hearted email exchanges with other CPS officials. Elsey replied with a correctly executed smiley face: “:)”.

Byrd-Bennett quit as Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s top schools official last year amid an unrelated bribery scandal, pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges and awaits sentencing.

More than two years since the FBI raids brought the still-ongoing federal investigation involving Concept to light, the charter operator has continued to do business with contractors identified in court documents as allegedly having been involved in defrauding a U.S. Department of Education grant program, records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show.

The charter-management organization — which runs four taxpayer-funded charter schools in Chicago and dozens more across the Midwest — has paid more than $519,000 since the raids to companies federal authorities said were involved in the corruption probe and their subsidiaries, according to documents the newspaper obtained from individual Concept schools.

There has been no correspondence between CPS and Concept Schools — which gets Chicago charter schools tied to fraud of Concept Schools:

Ohio Public School Students Outscore Private School Voucher Students | News One

Ohio Public School Students Outscore Private School Voucher Students | News One:

Ohio Public School Students Outscore Private School Voucher Students

School choice advocates are shocked, but see the glass half full.

Scores of Ohio parents are using public-funded vouchers to pull their kids out of low-performing public schools and give them a private education. Many of those parents now feel disappointed.

A new study found that Ohio public school students outperform their private school peers on state reading and math exams, reports The Columbus Dispatch.

“Those students, on average, who move to private schools under the EdChoice (voucher) program tend to perform considerably worse than observationally similar students who remained in public schools,” the report stated, according to The Dispatch.

The results are “disappointing,” Chad Aldis, a vice president at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, told the newspaper. His organization, which supports school choice, commissioned the study.

According to The Dispatch, researchers compared voucher students to their “closely matched peers” who stayed in public schools that were eligible for vouchers. The study covered the 2003-04 school year to the 2012-13 school year.

Ohio’s EdChoice voucher program launched in 2006 and provides vouchers to 20,000 low-income students. The program costs taxpayers $94.6 million. It pays up to $4,650 a year for K-8 students and as much as $6,000 for high school students, the newspaper reports.

Although Aldis is disappointed, he and many others in the school choice camp are looking at the glass half-full.

“For years, voucher critics have argued that students staying in public schools were hurt by voucher programs. It’s heartening to see that healthy competition can improve achievement,” he told The Dispatch.

It’s validation to them that competition improves education outcomes. Ohio has about 40,000 fully funded but unused vouchers. Many families have declined the offer. That suggests to school choice supporters that the flight of some students created competition that encouraged the public schools to improve.

SOURCE: Columbus Dispatch | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty 

SEE ALSO:

Nation’s Largest School Desegregation Program To Phase Out

Virginia Middle Schooler Removed From Private School Over Dreadlocks

Ohio Public School Students Outscore Private School Voucher Students | News One:

Parents, Stop the Corporate Takeover of Public Ed … Opt-Out!

Parents, Stop the Corporate Takeover of Public Ed … Opt-Out!:

Parents, Stop the Corporate Takeover of Public Ed … Opt-Out!

EDUCATION POLITICS--Many parents and educators are outraged by the over-testing and misuse of testing that has been embedded in federal policy since the enactment of No Child Left Behind in 2002. No high-performing nation in the world tests every child every year in grades 3-8, as we have since the passage of NCLB.

Young children sit for exams that last up to 15 hours over two weeks. The fate of their teachers rests on their performance. Parents remember taking tests in school that lasted no more than one class period for each subject. Their tests were made by their teachers, not by a multinational corporation. Parents can’t understand how testing became an endurance trial and the goal of education.

Politicians claim that the tests are necessary to inform parents and teachers and the public how children in one state are doing as compared to their peers in other states. But this information is already reported by the federal test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Parents have figured out that the tests don’t serve any purpose other than to rank their child. No one is allowed to see the test questions after the test. No child receives a diagnosis of what they know and don’t know. They receive only a score. In every state, the majority of children have been ranked as “failures” because the testmakers adopted a passing mark that was guaranteed to fail close to 70% of children. Parents have learned that the passing mark is not objective; it is arbitrary. It can be set to pass everyone, pass no one, or pass some percentage of children.

In the past 14 years, parents have seen the destruction of neighborhood schools, based on their test scores. They have seen beloved teachers fired unjustly, because of their students’ test scores. They have seen the loss of time for the arts, physical education, and anything else that is not tested. They have seen a change in their local public schools that they don’t like, as well as a loss of control to federal mandates and state authorities.

In the past, testing companies warned that tests should be used only for the purpose for which they were designed. Now, these corporations willingly sell their tests without warning about misuse. A test of fourth grade reading tests fourth grade reading. It should not be used to rank students, to humiliate students, to fire teachers and principals, or to close schools. But it is.

Communities have been devastated by the closing of their neighborhood schools.

Communities have seen their schools labeled “failing,” based on test scores, and taken over by the state or national corporate charter chains.

Based on test scores, punishments abound: for students, teachers, principals, schools, and communities.

This is madness!

What can we as citizens do to stop the destruction of our children, their schools, and our dedicated educators?

Opt out of the tests.

Use the power of the powerless: Say NO. Do not participate. Withdraw Parents, Stop the Corporate Takeover of Public Ed … Opt-Out!:

CURMUDGUCATION: IL: State Finds Worse Tool Than PARCC

CURMUDGUCATION: IL: State Finds Worse Tool Than PARCC:

IL: State Finds Worse Tool Than PARCC

Well, it's a good day for the SAT marketing team, which has now conned the state of Illinois intoreplacing PARCC with the College Board's flagship Big Standardized Test (or you can follow this link to the state board of education's own website, because the folks at the State Journal-Register have just gone ahead and run the ISBE press release verbatim. Because reporting is hard).

“District and school administrators overwhelmingly agree with ISBE that every high school junior should have access to a college entrance exam, a policy that promotes equity and access and that provides each and every student with greater opportunities in higher education,” State Superintendent of Education Tony Smith said in a statement. “The SAT is aligned with the Illinois Learning Standards and will continue to empower educators to measure college and career readiness.”

Yes, the Illinois State Board of Education is just doing this because everyone asked for it. Also, if you're an anti-CCSS Illinois resident, please note that the SAT can only be aligned with the Illinois Learning Standards if those standards are exactly the same as the Common Core.

Folks indicated that students didn't take the PARCC seriously (which is understandable), though it's not clear why they would take the SAT seriously.On the other hand, it's crystal clear why the College Board would take seriously the opportunity to supplant (not supplement) the PARCC-- big, fat honking market share. Why do all the hard work of selling tests to one customer at a time when you can con a state into buying a round for everyone in the house?

There are, however, several huge problems with this idea.

Some are left-over problems. The SAT can't remotely measure the college-and-career readiness of student whose heart is set on a career in welding or running hotels or the ministry. But neither could the PARCC. But there are other new, special problems that come with substituting the SAT. 

First, it's not remotely what the SAT was 

K-12 Amendments to Dem Platform: Charters, Testing, Curriculum, and Discipline – Cloaking Inequity

K-12 Amendments to Dem Platform: Charters, Testing, Curriculum, and Discipline – Cloaking Inequity:

K-12 Amendments to Dem Platform: Charters, Testing, Curriculum, and Discipline

Will Senator Clinton really support what Democrats set out in the platform for K-12 Education? Does this allow us to read the tea leaves for what kind of person she will pick for Secretary of Education or will the US be stuck with education reformer favorite John King if Senator Clinton wins the election?

Karen Wolfe posted yesterday several platform measures that passed relating to Charters, high-stakes testing, restorative justice and curriculum. You can watch the full discussion on the C-SPAN link.

Usually the platform is quite meaningless and it is not even debated all that much publicly, but at least Bernie appears to have positively impacted the outcome in a variety of areas. Here is what was added for K-12.

AMENDMENT 76 – Testing – passed unanimously

We are also deeply committed to ensuring that we strike a better balance on testing so that it informs but does not drive instruction. To that end, we encourage states to develop a multiple measures approach to assessment and we believe that standardized tests must meet American Statistical Association Standards for reliability and validity. We oppose high-stakes standardized tests that falsely and unfairly label students of color, students with disabilities, and English Language Learners as failing; the use of standardized test scores as a basis of refusing to fund schools or to close schools; and the use of student test scores in teacher and principal evaluations, a practice which has been repeatedly rejected by researchers. We also support enabling parents to opt their children out of standardized tests without penalty for either the student or the school. 

Amendment #77 – A comprehensive curriculum – passed unanimously

We will invest in high quality STEAM classes, community schools, computer science education, arts education, and expand linked learning models and career pathways. We will end the school to prison pipeline by opposing discipline policies which disproportionately affect students of color and students with disabilities and by supporting the use of restorative justice practices that help students and staff resolve conflicts peacefully and respectfully while K-12 Amendments to Dem Platform: Charters, Testing, Curriculum, and Discipline – Cloaking Inequity

Hillary And The Education History That Teachers Can't Forget - Linkis.com

Hillary And The Education History That Teachers Can't Forget - Linkis.com:

Hillary And The Education History That Teachers Can’t Forget

When Hillary Clinton was booed at the National Education Association annual convention for a pro-charter statement, teachers weren’t attacking the precise wording of her sentence. They were booing the fact that the candidate was repeating the latest corporate reform soundbite. Moreover, the NEA enthusiastically responded to Hillary’s bridge-building, and it heard her promise to do what teachers want the most from officeholders. We want to be partners. We want to be re-invited by a president to our “seat at the table.” We want a president — not just a presidential candidate — who says and believes, “I have this old-fashioned idea that when we are making decisions about education, we actually should listen to our educators.”

As the Atlantic Magazine’s Emily Deruy explains in the aptly titled “Hours Before Campaign with Obama, Clinton Tries to Distance Herself on Education,” Hillary correctly said “‘We’ve got no time for all these education wars,’” But “the line didn’t go over so well.” By now, we should all agree with the candidate that standardized testing “should go back to its ‘original purpose’ of helping teachers and parents figure out which kids need support,” but we can’t forget the last eight years when bubble-in scores were used as ammunition in an assault by charters and corporate reformers on traditional public schools, the teaching profession, and teachers unions.

To understand why teachers unions, despite our long history as team players in the quest for civil rights, equality, and justice are so worried that we, once again, will be thrown under the bus by Democrats, a little history must be recalled. This tragic story of Democrats caring more about corporate interests than public education unfolded gradually over the last two decades.

In 1999, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke at the NEA and “received wild applause for virtually every point she made and received several standing Hillary And The Education History That Teachers Can't Forget - Linkis.com:

Teaching about race, racism and police violence: Resources for educators and parents - The Washington Post

Teaching about race, racism and police violence: Resources for educators and parents - The Washington Post:

Teaching about race, racism and police violence: Resources for educators and parents

Protesters make peace signs during a rally in Huntington Beach, Calif., last week following a string of nationwide police shootings and the slaying of police officers in Dallas. (Eugene Garcia/EPA)

Teaching Tolerance was founded in 1991 as a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center and is dedicated to reducing prejudice and supporting equitable school experiences for all children in America. It provides free educational materials, and its magazine is sent to nearly every school in the country. Teaching Tolerance materials have won two Oscars, an Emmy and dozens of REVERE Awards from the Association of American Publishers. Below is a list of resources that teachers and parents can use to help educate children about race, racism and police violence at a time when the country is reeling from a string of killings of black men at the hands of police in cities across the country, as well as the killing of five white police officers by a black gunman in Dallas. Anyone can access the program’s website here. It is reprinted with permission of Teaching Tolerance.

Editor’s note: This Web package was originally published in December 2014 under the title “Teaching About Ferguson: Race and Racism in the United States.” In the months since we first shared this resource, the number of people of color killed by the police has risen and the number of resources that support teaching about these incidents has grown. In light of this month’s shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, we updated this Web package to include external resources and newer Teaching Tolerance resources that address institutional violence more broadly. If you have suggestions for additional resources, please forward them to editor@tolerance.org.

The deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., Eric Garner in New York City, Tamir Rice in Cleveland and too many others — along with the grand jury decisions in the earlier two cases — have caused waves of nationwide protest and appeals for stronger protections against police brutality. These events have also caused educators to seek resources on how to address these subjects in the classroom. These resources can help spur much-needed discussion of implicit bias and systemic racism, but they can also empower your students to enact the changes that will create a more just society.

Teaching Tolerance Blogs

• When Educators Understand Race and Racism. What is the fundamental outcome of educators growing their racial competence? Learning.

• Talking With Students About Ferguson and Racism. This teacher believes it’s crucial for white teachers like her to seek out productive ways to talk about race and racism with students.

• Students Are Watching Ferguson. At a time like this, educators can’t afford not to discuss Ferguson in the classroom.

• #dontshoot. The tragic loss of Michael Brown presents an opportunity to help students connect with our collective humanity.

• On This Day. As an organization committed to justice and equity, the similarities between Teaching about race, racism and police violence: Resources for educators and parents - The Washington Post:

Are We Being Duped? Why Not End Tax-Supported Charter Schools?

Are We Being Duped? Why Not End Tax-Supported Charter Schools?:

Are We Being Duped? Why Not End Tax-Supported Charter Schools?

I just returned from Washington DC where I marched for Save Our Schools (SOS), and where I was honored to speak on a panel with two individuals whom I respect as experts about special education needs. I mingled with many great educators and parent activists who I consider friends. We stood side-by-side to support great public schools.

But while we stood sweating in the hot DC sun for the cause that we believe in deeply, the teachers union (which helped support the SOS meeting), Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic Party were cheerleading for charter schools.

As Schools Matters blogger and author Jim Horn, who has been critical of charters, unions, Republicans and Democrats, and SOS stated yesterday, “What a hangover it must be to wake up in DC this morning to find the privatization protest that you attended yesterday was undercut by the same people who funded the protest. Wow.”

Well, for the record, I paid my own way to the conference, and I donated a little more to Are We Being Duped? Why Not End Tax-Supported Charter Schools?:

Wendy Lecker: A blind acceptance of the robot teacher - StamfordAdvocate

Wendy Lecker: A blind acceptance of the robot teacher - StamfordAdvocate:

Wendy Lecker: A blind acceptance of the robot teacher

Connecticut seems to accept a constricted vision of education for its neediest children that is never imposed on more affluent districts. The most recent example of this disparity is the recent partnership between the New Haven Public Schools and an outfit called Relay Graduate School of Education, to provide alternative certification for would-be teachers.

Relay was founded by representatives of three charter school chains, Achievement First, KIPP and Uncommon Schools — chains with a troubling record of suspensions, harsh discipline and attrition. It was founded to train charter school teachers. Relay employs not one professor of education.

The Relay vision of teaching is narrow. Its primary goal is to train teachers to raise test scores. Consequently, Relay focuses on giving its trainees a prepackaged set of “skills” that focus mainly on classroom management and getting students to do what teachers want. The contrast between Relay’s methods and goals and those of existing Connecticut schools of education is stark.

For example, UConn’s teacher education program strives to “establish a safe and positive learning environment” and “promote democratic participation and community. UConn’s core practice principles focus on helping prospective teachers learn to use their professional judgment, and to help students develop into independent thinkers. UConn’s principles help teachers develop “strategies, activities and approaches that are responsive to cultural, linguistic, ability and other student differences,” “plan learning opportunities that teach content through inquiry” and “use knowledge of students as individuals and members of cultural and social groups to inform instruction.” The aim is to help teachers meet students where they are and develop each student’s capabilities.

Relay employs the principles of one of its “star” faculty, Uncommon Schools’ Doug Lemov. Those principles focus on control and compliance. For instance, Lemov instructs trainees that “(a) sequence that begins with a student unwilling or unable to Wendy Lecker: A blind acceptance of the robot teacher - StamfordAdvocate: