Charter Schools’ 25th Anniversary: Why This Reform Has Lasted (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Charter Schools’ 25th Anniversary: Why This Reform Has Lasted (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Charter Schools’ 25th Anniversary: Why This Reform Has Lasted (Part 2)

In investigating school reforms that have taken place over the last century and a half, I have divided them into incremental and fundamental changes (see hereand here). Incremental reforms are those that aim to improve the existing structures of schooling; the premise behind incremental reforms is that the basic structures are sound but need improving to remove defects. The car is old but if it gets fixed it will become dependable transportation. It needs tires, brakes, a new battery, and a water pump–incremental changes. Fundamental reforms are those that aim to transform, to alter permanently, those very same structures; the premise behind fundamental reforms is that basic structures are flawed at their core and need a complete overhaul, not renovations. The old jalopy is beyond repair. We need to get a completely new car or consider different forms of transportation–fundamental changes.

If new courses, new staff, summer schools, higher standards for teachers, and increased salaries are clear examples of enhancements to the structures of public schooling, then the introduction of the age-graded school (which gradually eliminated the one-room school) Progressive educators’ broadening the school’s role to intervene in the lives of children and their families (e.g., to provide medical and social services) in the early 20th century, and more recently the introduction of charter schools in the 1990s are examples of fundamental reforms that stuck.

The platoon school, classroom technologies from film and radio to laptops and tablets, project-based learning, and charter schools, however, are instances of attempted fundamental change in the school and classroom since the early 20thcentury that were adopted, incorporated into many schools, and, over time, either downsized into incremental ones or slipped away, leaving few traces of their presence. Why did some incremental reforms get institutionalized and most of the fundamental ones either became just another part of the “system” or simply disappeared?

Some scholars have analyzed those hardy reforms that survived and concluded that a number of factors account for their institutionalization (see here andhere).

They enhance, not disrupt existing structures. Many prior reforms added Charter Schools’ 25th Anniversary: Why This Reform Has Lasted (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

WalletHub: Ranking “Best”/”Worst,” and Valuing Education on the Cheap | deutsch29

WalletHub: Ranking “Best”/”Worst,” and Valuing Education on the Cheap | deutsch29:

WalletHub: Ranking “Best”/”Worst,” and Valuing Education on the Cheap

 WalletHub is an organization that has taken to rating and ranking many issues, including those related to education.

One of its postings that has received some press of late is this August 01, 2016, piece, entitled, “2016’s States with the Best and Worst School Systems.

Let me note right off that I do not like WalletHub’s reports because the reporting is superficial, and WalletHub does not link to detailed, professional-quality reports. Instead, WalletHub produces research snippets that make for easy headlines, and those who wish for anything resembling a professionally-researched report are out of luck.

In its 2016 “best and worst” states, WalletHub somehow decided, for example, that completion of an AP exam was worth twice as much as the high school grad rate for low-income students. Moreover, it does not clarify if the grad rate is a four-year cohort rate. Also, it gives points for something called “bookworm ranking” (no details), and it accords “double weight” to the percentage of students completing the SAT and/or ACT.

As one might expect in this era of test-centric ed reform, the “best and worst” rankings rely heavily on test scores, some of which are vaguely defined as “math test scores” and “reading test scores.” These could be NAEP scores, and they could be from 2015. The point is that readers should not have to guess what exactly was measured, and they should not have to guess the reasoning behind WalletHub’s weighted ratings– but guess, they must.

And readers should not have to guess about the study’s limitations. Each study should include a section for discussing limitations.

So much for “should.”

One of the obvious limitations of ranked data is that some data point must be last. Too, it is possible for an entity to seemingly “rise” in the rankings not because of any WalletHub: Ranking “Best”/”Worst,” and Valuing Education on the Cheap | deutsch29:

Choice and Segregation | The Patiently Impatient Teacher

Choice and Segregation | The Patiently Impatient Teacher:

Choice and Segregation

This blog is also posted in a shorter version with the Education Post.

Charter school advocates have recently expressed frustration in the final charter language in the Democratic party platform as well as a new NAACP resolutionconcerning charter schools and a platform produced from Black Lives Matters activists that raise concerns about charters “destabilizing” and “resegregating” traditional public schools. I can provide a well-documented example the legitimacy of these concerns in the district I have worked in for 16 years, Durham Public Schools in Durham, NC.

Though Faulkner’s words are misquoted, his sentiment is very true: in the South, the past isn’t history, in fact, it isn’t even the past yet. Like all Southern cities, Durham has its own unique and complex history of segregation and desegregation If you really want to understand the history of Durham, and by extension, of many of the challenges of race relations throughout the South, please watch this excellent documentary.

Durham’s two public school districts were fully desegregated by court order in 1970. White flight from the city to county schools was the result. The two districts coexisted for decades, the city district overwhelming black (including school board, administrators, and teachers as well as students) and the county district overwhelmingly white—though each individual district was technically “integrated.” Despite regular joint school board meetings and reoccurring productive conversations about merger starting in the 1970s, the two districts did not formally merge until 1992.

Through a variety of measures — magnet programs, equitable funding, new school construction and redistricting, urban planning and housing programs — the community successfully diversified most of its schools at that time. However, care was taken to honor and preserve the community’s beloved historically black high school, Hillside. Hillside is the oldest and one of only five historically black high schools that still survive in North Carolina (from 300 that existed prior to desegregation).

Throughout the early and mid-2000’s, DPS worked to maintain the delicate balance necessary in a diverse Southern school system. Using testing data and diverse community input, the district developed an ambitious 10-year plan starting in 1997 to attack various achievement gaps. Throughout the early and mid-2000’s, DPS worked to maintained the complex and delicate balance necessary in a diverse Southern school Choice and Segregation | The Patiently Impatient Teacher:

The First Amendment Can't Save You From Your Homework - Bloomberg View

The First Amendment Can't Save You From Your Homework - Bloomberg View:

The First Amendment Can't Save You From Your Homework

YOU CAN'T MAKE ME DO THIS.

PHOTOGRAPHER: JOHN MOORE/GETTY IMAGES

The First Amendment protects students against being forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. So how was it legal for a Texas teacher to require students to recite the Mexican pledge of allegiance, as a federal appeals court held this week? The answer lies in the difference between compelled symbolic speech and compelled class participation.

The events underlying the case attracted national attention of the Glenn Beck variety when they occurred in 2011. Brenda Brinsdon was then a high school sophomore in McAllen, Texas, a town near the Mexican border. The teacher of her Spanish class gave students the assignment of facing the Mexican flag with a 45-degree salute and reciting the Mexican pledge of allegiance. The assignment was intended both to teach Spanish language and to give students the “cultural” experience of imitating another nation’s pledge.

Brinsdon, whose mother is from Mexico, objected, explaining that she believed “pledging her allegiance to a different country was wrong.” Notably, she also thought none of the students should have to participate. The teacher told her that the assignment was graded and mandatory. Ultimately, after the principal’s intervention, Brinsdon was given an alternative assignment. She got a C, whereas other students mostly got A’s on the pledge assignment.

This being America, Brinsdon sued for violation of her constitutional rights. A federal district court rejected her claims. And the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit on Tuesday upheld that judgment.

To win a lawsuit against public officials for infringing your constitutional rights, you first have to show that the officials violated clearly established law.

Brinsdon’s best argument was that it’s clearly established law that school officials can’t compel students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

That’s true, of course -- and has been since 1943, when the U.S. Supreme Court reversed an earlier decision and held that there was a constitutional right against compelled speech that allows students to exempt themselves from saluting the flag and reciting the pledge.

That decision, West Virginia v. Barnette, is one of the most remarkable constitutional decisions in the court’s history. I teach it on the first day of my First Amendment class. The court’s opinion, by the great Justice Robert Jackson, has several highlights. Probably the most quoted is this winner:

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.

But the 5th Circuit correctly noticed that the issue in Brinsdon’s case isn’t whether she could be compelled to recite the U.S. pledge, but whether she could be required to recite the Mexican pledge as part of an educational exercise. And it held that because this was a different circumstance from the one discussed in the Barnette case, Brinsdon The First Amendment Can't Save You From Your Homework - Bloomberg View:

South Carolina schools often criminalize black students. The ACLU is fighting back. - Vox

South Carolina schools often criminalize black students. The ACLU is fighting back. - Vox:

South Carolina schools often criminalize black students. The ACLU is fighting back.

As America’s criminal justice system became more punitive over the past few decades, so did school discipline. In fact, school discipline became so harsh that it became tied to the criminal justice system — getting students sent to jail for infractions that may have gotten them detention before.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Thursday announced that it’s suing South Carolina to fight laws that fuel this "school-to-prison pipeline." According to the ACLU,the "disturbing schools" law "allows students in school to be criminally charged for typical adolescent behaviors including loitering, cursing, or undefined ‘obnoxious’ actions on school grounds." The organization is also going after a vague "disorderly conduct" law, which "prohibits students from conducting themselves in a ‘disorderly or boisterous manner.’"

The ACLU found that these laws have been used on hundreds of students — some as young as 7 years old. And black students are nearly four times as likely to be targeted under the law.

These laws came under some public scrutiny last year when a police officer at Spring Valley High School was fired after he brutally arrested a black student. Richard County Sheriff Leon Lott questioned at the time whether the deputy should have been called into the classroom at all: "I think that's one of the problems that we've got. If we have a child that's not following the rules, deputies are getting called in to handle that. And that's really not our role in the school. And I think sometimes the teachers and administrators should be handling things like this."

One of the students involved in the ACLU lawsuit witnessed and tried to protest the brutal arrest in Spring Valley High School. She was then arrested. The ACLU explained:

Plaintiff Niya Kenny, 18, is a former student at Spring Valley High School in Columbia. As a student last October, she witnessed a violent, headline-grabbing altercationin her classroom when a school resource officer flipped a classmate over in her desk and dragged her across the room.

Kenny, who is African-American, spoke up against the officer’s actions, recounting, "I was in disbelief and I started praying out loud. I said, ‘Isn’t anyone going to help her?’" Kenny was in turn arrested and hauled off to a detention center.

How South Carolina’s "disturbing schools" law works

The "disturbing schools" law is incredibly vague — students can be charged for "acting in an obnoxious manner" at school. It carries a hefty punishment: a fine of up to $1,000 or 

South Carolina schools often criminalize black students. The ACLU is fighting back. - Vox:

Why the Black Lives Matter Movement Has to Take on Charter Schools

Why the Black Lives Matter Movement Has to Take on Charter Schools:

Why the Black Lives Matter Movement Has to Take on Charter Schools

Education reform’s race problems mirror unequal treatment in the criminal justice system.

People take part in a Black Lives Matter rally on April 29, 2015, at Union Square in New York City.EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

 ack school systems are treated like black men and women in America. Urban schools are broken up, experimented on and policed in efforts to improve them. The reformers expect students, teachers and parents to be grateful and accept test score growth in return, just as black communities were expected to be grateful when crime dropped even as incarceration rates rose.

But finally, the same voices decrying the unequal treatment of black communities by the criminal justice system are turning to the unequal treatment of black communities in school reform.

The Black Lives Matter collective—representing approximately 50 organizations—released an official platform last week titled “A Vision for Black Lives.” Its education section called for an end to the privatization of education and petitioned for more community control of schools. A list of demands included “a moratorium on charter schools and school closures.” The NAACP also took a stand against charters at their annual national convention by approving a resolution that calls for a moratorium on the expansion of privately managed charters. It has yet to be approved by the national board.

Zero-tolerance policies in the criminal justice system are the first cousins of zero-tolerance policies in schools. African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites. African-American public school students are suspended three times more than their white counterparts. So it’s ironic many in the current reform movement actually believe they should be embraced by Black Lives Matter and the NAACP, even though many of the theories and practices many of us are fighting against in the criminal justice arena are still openly embraced by many charter schools: Sweating the small stuff, walking on white lines and no-tolerance discipline, all of which are not exclusive to charter schools, but have certainly characterized the sector.

What took black activists so long to turn their attention to how black lives are discounted in school reform? One reason: the imposition of charters—which have expanded much faster in cities than in suburban and rural areas—undermined the power of black communities to fight back.

The charter takeover of New Orleans is a case in point.

When I accepted a role to run a charter schools network in New Orleans, I hitched a wagon to an existing effort of the University of New Orleans to live up to its urban mission to build capacity in its neighborhood. Equipped with a college of education faculty, student-teachers and external support, UNO was positioned to uplift struggling schools in the neighborhood we shared—Gentilly. As the first organization under new takeover legislation to convert a traditional public school into a charter in 2004, the university agreed to return the school back to the New Orleans School District after five years with lessons learned. We were one of five charter schools that existed before the storm.

Hurricane Katrina upended this limited and careful foray into chartering public schools to see if it could improve outcomes. In the wake of the storm, the state legislature passed a bill (Act 35), which changed its earlier definition of an academically unacceptable school, allowing for a radical expansion of the number of charter schools in New Orleans. In September of 2005, the board placed all school employees on disaster leave, meaning they would receive no pay or benefits until the schools reopened.

Then in December of 2005, 7,500 school district employees were officially terminated, and because of their varied evacuations, many did not receive official notification. Based on 2000 census data, nearly 5 percent of New Orleans blacks lost their jobs with that decision. On June 30, 2006, the UTNO collective bargaining agreement with the district expired, and the school board did not vote to renew the contract in a city with extensive union membership.

In December 2007, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Doris and Donald Fisher Fund, and the Broad Foundation announced their plans to provide several grants for three years to New Schools for New Orleans, New Leaders for New Schools and Teach for America of Greater New Orleans. Instead of fixing the teacher pipeline problem that existed before the storm, the decision to expand these organizations made it worse.

The percentage of white teachers and leaders who were less likely to stay in the city increased dramatically. The Louisiana Department of Education eventually lifted the five-year requirement to Why the Black Lives Matter Movement Has to Take on Charter Schools:

Cesar Chavez: The Life Behind A Legacy Of Farm Labor Rights : NPR

Cesar Chavez: The Life Behind A Legacy Of Farm Labor Rights : NPR:

Cesar Chavez: The Life Behind A Legacy Of Farm Labor Rights

Cesar Chavez, the head of the United Farm Workers Union, calls for the resignation of Walter Kintz, the first legal counsel for the state Agriculture Labor Relations Board, in Sacramento, Calif., on Sept. 16, 1975. Chavez's efforts in California culminated in landmark legislation that protected the rights of the state's farmworkers and created the ALRB.

AP

Half a century ago this summer, labor activist Cesar Chavez joined thousands of striking farmworkers in Texas as they converged on Austin, the state capital, to demand fair wages and humane working conditions.

Their march, which started from the punishing melon fields of South Texas, was his march, too. It was a deep and abiding understanding of the challenges of the farmworker's life that drove his commitment to labor rights. The life of Cesar Chavez mirrored that of the people he was trying to help. Their cause — La Causa — was his.

Born into a Mexican-American family of migrant farm laborers and a life of grinding poverty, Chavez dedicated his life's work to improving conditions for the legions of farmworkers who kept fresh food on the tables across America — while they often went hungry, living and laboring in abysmal conditions and being paid unlivable wages.

"Without a union, the people are always cheated, and they are so innocent," Chavez told The New Yorker's Peter Mathiessen in 1968.

AROUND THE NATION

In South Texas, Fair Wages Elude Farmworkers, 50 Years After Historic Strike

Chavez modeled his methods on the nonviolent civil disobedience of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. — employing strikes, boycotts, marches and fasts — to draw attention to La Causa. And he drew inspiration from the social teachings of the Catholic Church and from the life of St. Francis. An Italian nobleman who lived in the 12th and 13th centuries, Francis of Assisi renounced his wealth after a period of captivity during war and illness. He became a champion of the poor, living his life in solidarity with them.

Even in the face of threats and actual violence — be it from police or other unions, such as the Teamsters — Chavez never wavered from his commitment to passive resistance.

At the end of his first fast — which ended in 1968 after 25 days — Chavez was too weak to speak, but a speech was read on his behalf:

"When we are really honest with ourselves, we must admit that our lives are all that really belongs to us. So it is how we use our lives that determines what kind of men we are. It is my deepest belief that only by giving our lives do we find life. I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness, is to sacrifice ourselves Cesar Chavez: The Life Behind A Legacy Of Farm Labor Rights : NPR:

The ACLU says 8 O.C. charter schools wrongly limit enrollment - The Orange County Register

The ACLU says 8 O.C. charter schools wrongly limit enrollment - The Orange County Register:

The ACLU says 8 O.C. charter schools wrongly limit enrollment

Two Orange County charter schools said they will make changes to their websites, and other campuses are reviewing their policies in light of a recently released report from the American Civil Liberties Union that claims hundreds of California charter schools create unfair hurdles for underprivileged students.

The advocacy group’s report accuses eight Orange County schools – more than a quarter of the charter schools here – of having illegal policies.

The O.C. schools targeted: the Orange County Educational Arts Academy, the Orange County School of the Arts, the Samueli Academy, the Santiago Charter Middle School, the Capistrano Connections Academy, the Nova Academy Early College High, the El Rancho Charter School, and the Journey School.

The ACLU accused the public charter schools across California of establishing a variety of barriers for underprivileged students, which might include, depending on the campus:

• Excluding students based on academic performance

• Requiring cumbersome pre-enrollment essays or interviews akin to those at private schools

• Requiring guardians to volunteer or donate money

• Discouraging undocumented students

Many schools said that the ACLU mistakenly used outdated information on their websites that doesn’t reflect the school’s current practices, while other said they would review their policies to ensure inclusion of disadvantaged students.

“It’s a little concerning to us, because those are the same policies students and parents see when they choose what schools to apply to,” said Victor Leung, one of the authors of the report and a staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California.

Ralph Opacic started the Orange County School of the Arts nearly 30 years ago, and said the school created admissions policies that would ensure admitted students could be successful in the campus’s tough arts environment.

With the recent report, Opacic said administrators would ensure disadvantaged students aren’t being left out.

“In light of (the) ACLU’s recent concerns, we will carefully review our policies to ensure that they enable equity and access for all students,” Opacic said in a statement.

At Journey School, a K-8 canpus in Aliso Viejo, a representative said it would change the language on its website so parents can use documents other than a birth certificate for students to be admitted to the school.

The civil rights group said requiring a birth certificate creates an unfair and illegal barrier against undocumented students attending school. The 14th Amendment guarantees undocumented students access to education, the ACLU said.

Charter schools receive state funding like traditional public schools, but many also raise additional funds. Charters have greater control over The ACLU says 8 O.C. charter schools wrongly limit enrollment - The Orange County Register:

Community Schools — and the organizing it will take to build them | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Community Schools — and the organizing it will take to build them | Schott Foundation for Public Education:

Community Schools — and the organizing it will take to build them

Netroots Nation [link] is 10 years old, and over the past decade has become a preeminent gathering point for people at the intersections of progressive politics, social change, and technology. As such, it’s been interesting to watch various aspects of the conference shift — from keynote speakers, to panel topics, to vendors — as the larger progressive movement has shifted.

Nowhere is that more stark than education. Writers like Jeff Bryant point out how for many years, education wasn’t even on the radar of many progressive activists and organizations — and when it was, they would usually gravitate to the well-funded outreach of corporate reform outfits like Students First and Stand for Children.

But the crisis in public education worsened and the broader progressive community began to see the effects of an inherently conservative ideology in practice, often in the hands of otherwise liberal policymakers: mass school closures in low-income, Black, and Latino communities; slashed K-12 funding, hitting poor districts hardest; the shine wearing off the charter school model as scandals piled up; the astonishingly high rate of Black, Latino, LGBT and disabled students being pushed out of their classrooms and into the criminal justice system; and reformers’ insistence on blaming teachers, parents, and students — anyone but themselves.

Recent Netroots conferences have highlighted inequities in school funding, the school-to-prison pipeline, and this year featured a session on the community schools model led by Schott Foundation grantees and partners: “The Real Progressive Solution: How the community schools model supports students and revitalizes entire neighborhoods.”

Community schools across the country are already proving themselves to be better solutions to underserved districts than private charter conversions or undemocratic state takeovers. As moderator Kyle Serrette of the Center for Popular Democracy[link] pointed out, cities are finding out that community schools improve the lives of students, teachers, and Community Schools — and the organizing it will take to build them | Schott Foundation for Public Education:

Seattle Schools Community Forum: McCleary Talk From Two Good Thinkers

Seattle Schools Community Forum: McCleary Talk From Two Good Thinkers:

McCleary Talk From Two Good Thinkers

Yesterday, Rep Reuven Carlyle had an opinion piece at Publicola.  He says that Sound Transit and public education funding cannot be done at the same time.  In 2015, he says he supported the financing for the light rail system.  (partial)

And yet, as I review the updated financing plan in more depth, I continue to grapple on a deeply personal level with the genuine burden the Sound Transit proposal places on public education. It is unsettling at best to serve as a state legislator while Olympia is under a contempt order by the Supreme Court for failing to meet the state’s paramount duty of fully funding public education. This is historic and unprecedented and we are recreating our educational finance plan for the next generation in real time. After putting an additional $2.5 billion into K-12 funding over the last three legislative sessions since the McCleary ruling, Democrats and Republicans are struggling to find a final path forward for the last $3.5 billion approximately. It’s virtually impossible to reach that level of new education funding without reform to the state property tax and local school levies. The transportation finance plan makes that difficult but essential project dramatically more complex.

As a state legislator with a passion for building the best education system in the nation, I am unsettled that the package consumes the oxygen in the room on taxes for virtually all other public services at all levels of government for years to come. The plan moves to among the very highest sales tax in the nation along with a major property tax increase. We need to be honest that the ability of cities, counties and the state to utilize the sales tax in the future as a new revenue source is effectively ended with this plan. The impact on property taxes at the city and county level is more uncertain but clearly substantial. In economic terms, the opportunity costs are extraordinary for years to come.

 Robert Cruickshank replies to Carlyle in this piece from The Urbanist.(partial)

As a parent who lives in the 36th District, and therefore a Seattle Schools Community Forum: McCleary Talk From Two Good Thinkers:

How Success Academy Pulled the Wool Over Everyone’s Eyes to Get What They Wanted | Diane Ravitch's blog

How Success Academy Pulled the Wool Over Everyone’s Eyes to Get What They Wanted | Diane Ravitch's blog:

How Success Academy Pulled the Wool Over Everyone’s Eyes to Get What They Wanted

If you recall, Eva Moskowitz was locked in a fierce battle with Mayor de Blasio and the City of New York over a pre-kindergarten program. The city said that the Success Academy charter chain could not have $700,000 in funding unless it signed the city contract, giving the city the right to oversee the program. Eva refused to sign the contract. She said that the city had no power over her charter schools, and that she should get the money without signing the contract. She sued the city, and the city won in court. Thirteen other charter schools signed the city’s contract without complaint.

But all was not lost. Eva still had a powerful friend in Albany: Governor Cuomo. It turns out that in the closing moments of the legislative session, Eva got what she wanted.

The New York Times reported today:

What the Success Academy charter school network could not get through the courts or from the New York State Education Department, it may get from the governor: the ability to run prekindergarten programs without oversight from New York City.

In the final hours of the legislative session this summer, as Mayor Bill de Blasio and the Assembly were pushing to get mayoral control of the city’s schools extended, the Republican-controlled Senate demanded some concessions for charter schools. It introduced a vague provision that appeared to grant the charter schools committee of the State University of New York’s board of trustees new powers to regulate the charter schools it oversees. Charter school supporters claimed that the provision would allow SUNY to waive requirements that limit the number of uncertified teachers that charter schools can employ.

But it turns out that the Senate Republicans, who have received substantial support from wealthy charter school supporters, had other goals in mind, as well.

In a letter to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo dated June 20, and not previously reported, the Senate majority leader, John J. Flanagan, wrote that the intent of the provision “was to provide SUNY with statutory authority to exempt charter schools from rules and regulations that were hampering innovative teaching and learning.”

He urged Mr. Cuomo to direct the SUNY Charter Schools Institute — the administrative entity that supports the work of the charter schools committee — to act quickly to take advantage of the provision. (Mr. Cuomo effectively controls the institute and the committee because he appoints a majority of the SUNY trustees.) Specifically, Mr. Flanagan How Success Academy Pulled the Wool Over Everyone’s Eyes to Get What They Wanted | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Parents sue when third-grade honors students are not promoted to fourth grade - The Washington Post

Parents sue when third-grade honors students are not promoted to fourth grade - The Washington Post:

Parents sue when third-grade honors students are not promoted to fourth grade

President Obama, accompanied by former Florida governor Jeb Bush, right, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, attend an event at Miami Central Senior High School on in March 2011. (AP File Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

This belongs in the you-can’t-make-up-this-stuff category:

In Florida (you knew it was Florida, didn’t you?), some third-graders — including honor students — are being forced to retake third grade because their parents decided to opt them out of the state’s mandated standardized reading test this past spring.

An undetermined number of third-graders who refused to take the Florida Standards Assessment in reading have been barred from moving to fourth grade in some counties. A lawsuit filed by parents against state education officials as well as school boards in seven Florida counties says counties are interpreting the state’s third-grade retention law so differently that the process has become unfair. Test participation, therefore, is more important than student class academic achievement.

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On Friday, Leon County Circuit Court Judge Karen Gievers held a hearing in the suit about the third-grade retention law, which was passed years ago, when Jeb Bush was governor of Florida and at a time when there was no movement among parents to opt their children out of standardized tests. Now the opt-out movement is growing, and officials in Florida as well in other states are trying to figure out how to handle students who won’t take mandated standardized tests. It is unclear how many students in Florida opted out of the 2016 test, though in New York state, 21 percent of public school students did.

Gievers said she may rule as early as next week in the suit, which was brought by parents against Florida Education Commissioner Pam Stewart, the State Board of Education, and the school boards in Orange, Hernando, Osceola, Sarasota, Pasco, Broward and Seminole counties. Other counties in Florida did not interpret the law as to mean that students had to be retained if they didn’t take the test, and the Florida Department of Education has said it never mandated that students be held back if they opt out of the FSA.

Children and their families learned in June, when they received report cards, that they would be held back, and over the summer, parents organized and raised money so they could file a lawsuit challenging the third-grade retention law. School has started in some parts of Florida, and is about to start everywhere across the state.

That this is happening in Florida is not entirely a surprise, given that the Sunshine State was the leader, under Bush as governor, of test-based accountability systems that made standardized test scores the most important measure of student achievement and school success.

The lawsuit says:

Parents of students who received report cards with passing grades — some of whom were honor roll students — seek emergency declaratory and injunctive 

Parents sue when third-grade honors students are not promoted to fourth grade - The Washington Post: 

 

Go to: 

THE OPT OUT FLORIDA NETWORK

Big Education Ape: What's Driving the Opt-Out Movement? | Teachers College Columbia University - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/08/whats-driving-opt-out-movement-teachers.html

Teachers union blasts Walmart for its back-to-school promotion - The Washington Post

Teachers union blasts Walmart for its back-to-school promotion - The Washington Post:

Teachers union blasts Walmart for its back-to-school promotion

Elizabeth Davis, the head of the Washington Teachers’ Union, speaks Friday at a D.C. news conference criticizing a Walmart back-to-school promotion. (Perry Stein/The Washington Post)

Retail giant Walmart is running a back-to-school promotion this summer, encouraging customers to nominate their favorite teachers to win school supplies and a $490 gift card — the estimated amount public school teachers spend out of pocket each year on their classrooms.

On Friday morning, members of the Washington Teachers’ Union slammed the competition as “deceitful” and “bogus.” They argued that the Walton Family Foundation, the charitable organization started by Walmart’s owners, has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into backing charter schools, which they say are undermining traditional public schools.

“It’s a cynical coverup,” WTUP President Elizabeth Davis said at a news conference outside Moten Elementary School in Southeast Washington.

The union’s criticism of the Arkansas-based retailer stems from its concerns with the Walton foundation, one of the country’s biggest financial supporters of charter schools. The foundation says it has poured $1.3 billion into K-12 education over the past two decades, and it announced in January a commitment of $1 billion to help expand charter schools and other school-choice options nationwide.

[Walton family steps up support for school choice with $1 billion pledge]

Critics of charter schools say the foundation is fueling the privatization of public schools. The teachers union represents teachers in D.C. Public Schools.

Davis said the robust charter sector in the District — nearly half the city’s students attend charters — is stripping taxpayer dollars from traditional public schools. She and other teachers argued that if charters weren’t so influential in the District, perhaps the city’s traditional public schools would have enough money to pay for all the supplies classrooms need.

“Walmart is privatizing all sectors, and we need to put a stop to it,” Davis said.

Walmart and the Walton Family Foundation did not respond to requests for comment Friday.

The District’s charters — public schools that are independently operated — have long said they Teachers union blasts Walmart for its back-to-school promotion - The Washington Post:

 

The Sun Also Rises | BustED Pencils

The Sun Also Rises | BustED Pencils:

The Sun Also Rises

What an inspiring country!!!!

Guess where I’ve been the last couple weeks. Let me give you a hint: There is virtually no litter, no profanity, no violent crime, no graffiti, and no public smoking. And I’m not talking about just those civil middle class folks (although this country claims that 90% of its people are middle class). Even the homeless people who sleep in the parks make sure to pack up their gear and move to the shadows before the businessmen and tourists pass through in the morning.

Here’s the giveaway: At this moment, I’m riding a Bullet Train (Shinkansen) zipping along at about 170 MPH.

Yes, I’m in Japan! The zoo of the Faithful Elephants, the gardens, the glitz of Ginza, the Cat Cafe, the Owl Cafe; it’s like one big theme park. And everyone is soooo nice. It’s like the Midwest on steroids, if you know what I mean.

Some of you might have been a bit offended (above) by my use of the word, “businessmen.” C’mon people; get with the 21st Century! Here in Japan, there is an order that transcends political correctness. There is beauty, more than beauty, a divinity in the structure of a functional, orderly society. Everywhere we look here in Japan, we can see quiet women enjoying their supportive roles keeping themselves attractive to their soul mates, covering their alabaster skin from the harmful rays of the sun, donning false eyelashes, minding their children and patiently awaiting their men’s return from the bars after a grueling day’s toil and labor at the office.

Even the children here adhere to a strict code of obedient cheerfulness. We found that whenever we lost our way in Tokyo’s throngs, all we need do is find a flock of teenage girls, cheerfully clad in their school uniforms. We ask them the way to such-and-such and presto, they change course from their appointed destination to lead us 10 blocks out of their way to our trivial tourist spot. They giggle as we walk along while showing off all the English vocabulary they’ve learned through rote school lessons. I swear on a stack of Geisha Memoirs this actually happened to us on our way to Sunshine City, a popular shopping mall in the heart of Tokyo. Yes, the name of the mall is “Sunshine City” where we found the Pokemon superstore. Is this a great place to raise a kid or what?!

At this point, you all should be thinking, “Golly gee wiz, what can we do to make America The Sun Also Rises | BustED Pencils: