Yes, some charter schools do pick their students. It’s not a myth. - The Washington Post

Yes, some charter schools do pick their students. It’s not a myth. - The Washington Post

Yes, some charter schools do pick their students. It’s not a myth.

This is a rebuttal to a recent column by The Washington Post’s Jay Mathews, who has long written in support of charter schools and who, last month, penned a piece calling it a myth that charter schools can pick and choose students.

The issue is part of a long-running national debate on charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated and are a key part of the school choice movement. Critics say that some charter schools limit access to students who they believe can succeed in their schools. Mathews and many other charter school boosters say these schools don’t do that.

This piece, which notes that at least one charter network conceded doing it, was written by Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Welner is the co-author of several books on school law, including the 2019 law school casebook “Education and the Law.” He is also author of “NeoVouchers: The Emergence of Tuition Tax Credits for Private Schooling,” and he co-wrote, with Wagma Mommandi, a book that will be published in the fall titled, “Controlled Access,” which investigates student access to charter schools.

By Kevin Welner

Washington Post columnist Jay Mathews recently published a piece he titled, “Can charter schools pick the best students? No, but many believe the myth.” Matthews is wrong. Charters’ cherry-picking of students is reality, not myth — as his own article demonstrates. And this cherry-picking can take many forms.

In a nutshell, Mathews contends that charters can’t pick their students, since applicants to over-enrolled schools are almost always chosen via lotteries. But the piece fails to address the truth that such lotteries involve just one small part of the enrollment process.

Charter schools, like other businesses, have many different models for influencing the composition of their customers, and these approaches become more dominant (and creative) as the incentives to shape CONTINUE READING: Yes, some charter schools do pick their students. It’s not a myth. - The Washington Post

Treating public schools like businesses is only making them worse | Salon.com

Treating public schools like businesses is only making them worse | Salon.com

Treating public schools like businesses is only making them worse

Schools have come to resemble businesses, with corporate metrics for measuring success and worse outcomes for kids

In the early 2000s, the U.S. adopted a model of education that promised to jumpstart the performance of failing students and hold teachers and administrators accountable. While well-intended, the means they employed were rooted in a market-based strategy that didn't recognize, much less address, the profound structural causes of school and student underperformance.  The three most formative pieces of education legislation of this era were the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001; the Race to the Top Act (RTTT), signed in 2009 by President Obama; and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015, also signed into law by Obama. Each one doubled down on a pay-for-performance model that robs teachers of their ability to be creative and dehumanizes students.

In a recent chapter in education legislation, President Trump signed an Executive Order authorizing the use of funds from the Community Services Block Grant by students who are denied in-person learning. The order permits the use of money for a wide range of private school opportunities. This may appeal to some who are frustrated with the state of education, but it risks further draining funds from the public school system and harming the common good that is public education.

No Child Left Behind was signed into law in 2002 and used student test scores to gauge which schools were performing at acceptable levels. The concept of "teaching to the test" was born. And later on, Race to the Top (RTTT) was a competitive grant implemented by the Obama administration, in 2009-2010 only, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. RTTT solidified the reliance upon student test scores as a condition for increased funding. While these flagship pieces of legislation relied on components of a capitalist market supply and demand model to produce innovation, they ultimately fostered a climate of toxic competitiveness and anxiety. Sadly, in 2015 NCLB was re-authorized for 50 years as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), further cementing an educational climate of test and punish with regards to funding.

The incoming Biden administration is facing unrivaled crises of humanity. It needs to CONTINUE READING: Treating public schools like businesses is only making them worse | Salon.com

Biden Announces: Science and Facts Are Back! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Biden Announces: Science and Facts Are Back! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Biden Announces: Science and Facts Are Back!

After four years of science-denial, Biden is introducing a new era. Science and facts are in again. Truth matters. No alternative facts. Ignorance and stupidity are no longer honored or tolerable.

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. said on Saturday that he was “always going to lead with science and truth” as he announced top science and technology officials on his White House staff, reaffirming trust in the kind of expert research that the Trump administration often ignored or disdained.

Extolling what he called “some of the most brilliant minds in the world,” Mr. Biden said his new team’s mission would be to ask: “How can we make the impossible possible?” He vowed to elevate scientific research and thinking on topics like the coronavirus, cancer research, climate change, clean-energy jobs, artificial intelligence, 3-D printing and other fast-advancing technologies.

The appointees included Eric S. Lander, whom Mr. Biden will nominate to be director of the White House Office of CONTINUE READING: Biden Announces: Science and Facts Are Back! | Diane Ravitch's blog

NANCY BAILEY: Endgame! Using Covid-19 to Permanently Transform Schooling!

Endgame! Using Covid-19 to Permanently Transform Schooling!

Endgame! Using Covid-19 to Permanently Transform Schooling!

Funding technology seems unchecked in some places as teachers are driven out of their classrooms due to the virus. The more teachers prematurely retire, the more easily school districts can justify replacing them with technology.

And think long term. Teachers have been so mistreated in this country that no one wants their child to become a public school teacher, so getting a qualified teacher who has actually studied how to teach will be difficult in the future.

Technology is on the road to becoming the endgame for schooling, whether Americans like it or not. There’s no research to indicate all or mostly online instruction is better than face-to-face, in-person classes. Yet there’s a giddiness on the part of some that after Covid-19 takes its leave, online will be a wonderful way to do schooling.

But an all-tech curriculum wasn’t proven before Covid; it wasn’t great during Covid, so why would it be a panacea after Covid? At best, tech is useful for teachers to supplement CONTINUE READING: Endgame! Using Covid-19 to Permanently Transform Schooling!

CURMUDGUCATION: Moral Distress and Teaching

CURMUDGUCATION: Moral Distress and Teaching

Moral Distress and Teaching

I've run across this new-to-me term several times in the past few months-- moral distress. It wasn't developed for the teaching profession, but lots of teachers are going to recognize what is being described here.

Andrew Jameton gets most of the credit for drawing the moral distress picture, looking at the world of nursing. This piece from the AMA Journal of Ethics lays out his ideas pretty succinctly and points the way to broadening them. Here's the basic definition:

Moral distress, according to Andrew Jameton’s highly influential definition, occurs when a nurse knows the morally correct action to take but is constrained in some way from taking this action.

This is immediately recognizable for anyone who has been in the teaching world for the past few decades. "Stop teaching all those full literary works," some of us were told, "and start drilling these short excerpts with multiple choice questions instead." Pull these kids out of their electives and put them in test prep classes instead. Stop worrying about their education and their life after school, and start worrying about their test scores instead. 

Honestly, moral distress in teaching can't be blamed solely on education reform. There have always been those moments. The time a supervisor told you that you needed to stop counting spelling for a student's work--including his spelling tests. The students you were required to pass because the front office wanted that kid out of there. I was in a meeting with a special ed supervisor once, debating the scores for a student in my class, and I lost my cool and snapped, "Look, why don't you tell me what grade you expect the student to get in my class, and I'll just fudge the numbers to get that." Without a hint of irony, she told me that would be very helpful. Beyond the special events, CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Moral Distress and Teaching

MLK and “the Guaranteed Income” – radical eyes for equity

MLK and “the Guaranteed Income” – radical eyes for equity

MLK and “the Guaranteed Income”

“President-elect Joe Biden will seek to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour as part of his relief bill,” reported Alina Selyukh for NPR.

Across social media, people began doing calculations of what $15/hour translates into for annual salaries, and here are a couple responses from white Christian conservatives:

McChristian, personifying the relationship between a McNugget and real chicken, seems to be aware that teachers are underpaid, but lacks any Christian compassion for other workers also being underpaid (such as minimum-wage workers often constituting the working poor and living without healthcare or retirement—or job security).

Rachel, hollow mouthpiece for the equally vapid TPUSA, doesn’t just lack compassion; she also lacks any grasp of basic facts, embodying not only the hypocrisy of the Christian conservative movement but also the complete misunderstanding of how the free market works.

Note that “[r]aising wages for fast-food workers to $15 an hour would lead to a noticeable but not substantial increase in food prices, according to a new study by Purdue University’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management,” as reported by Sally French at Market Watch.

Social media, as well, was quick to point out that in areas such as DC and the San Francisco Bay, where the minimum wage is already $15 and above, Taco CONTINUE READING: MLK and “the Guaranteed Income” – radical eyes for equity

Shawgi Tell: Cyber Charter Schools: Neoliberals Determined to Commodify More Students | Dissident Voice

Cyber Charter Schools: Neoliberals Determined to Commodify More Students | Dissident Voice

Cyber Charter Schools: Neoliberals Determined to Commodify More Students

The parasitic seizure of social wealth by the rich has intensified in recent years and promises to increase in 2021. While the stock market soars to artificial new heights, the productive sector of the economy continues to steadily disintegrate, leaving the financial oligarchy with fewer options to maximize profit over time. This in turn is causing the rich to engage in more stock market gambling, private lending, bankruptcies, and restructuring of the state in order to funnel more public funds into private hands (e.g., through more “public-private-partnerships”). As the law of a falling rate of profit invariably intensifies, the nexus between the rich and the state will become more critical to analyze in the months and years ahead. Left unchallenged, state-organized corruption to pay the rich will be strengthened well beyond 2021, leaving society, the economy, and the environment worse off, and making it harder for the New to emerge.

In the sphere of education, given the increased obsession with technology and screen-based instruction, the rich are more aggressively striving to seize public funds, impose user fees, and maximize profits through a dramatic expansion of “virtual learning,” especially through cyber charter schools, which have consistently low graduation rates and are regarded by many as a scam. The rich are extremely eager to commodify as many students as possible, at home and abroad. To be sure, the charter school phenomenon is reducing more and more students, parents, and teachers to fend-for-yourself consumers entangled in commodity logic, which in turn degrades the integrity of human CONTINUE READING: Cyber Charter Schools: Neoliberals Determined to Commodify More Students | Dissident Voice

Chicago teachers continue to protest in-person classes; parents question status of locked-out teachers - The Washington Post

Chicago teachers continue to protest in-person classes; parents question status of locked-out teachers - The Washington Post

Chicago teachers continue to protest in-person classes; parents question status of locked-out teachers

CHICAGO — Brian Yuhas was one of the teachers who was ordered back into his Chicago classroom on Monday as the nation's third-largest school district began opening campuses for the first time since March. But he didn't go. He wasn't comfortable going back, and besides, his students had chosen all-remote learning.

But on Tuesday morning, when he went to sign in to the district platform, he was locked out.

The same thing happened to other teachers who refused to go back as Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) carried out the first part of her school reopening plan, despite fierce resistance from the Chicago Teachers Union. The school district is requiring all teachers in the tier that started offering in-person instruction on Monday to teach from their schools if they did not have preapproved accommodations, even if their students had opted for remote learning.

It started disciplinary procedures early in the week on more than 140 employees for not reporting to schools in person and has withheld pay and locked them out of the school system’s accounts, deeming them absent without leave. By Friday, the number of designated AWOL employees dropped to 87. But 901 of the 3,787 employees did not report on Friday, including 479 teachers, according to Chicago Public Schools data.

After being locked out, Yuhas said he called parents and relayed lesson plans to some of them, and he spoke to a case manager at a long-term skilled nursing-care facility, where five of his eight students live, that helps individuals with developmental disabilities.

“I was the only person outside of the building that would actually see them without looking in the window,” he said about the students in the care facility. “I was the only person that had contact with CONTINUE READING: Chicago teachers continue to protest in-person classes; parents question status of locked-out teachers - The Washington Post

EdAction in Congress January 17, 2021 - Education Votes

EdAction in Congress January 17, 2021 - Education Votes

EdAction in Congress January 17, 2021

EdAction in Congress January 17, 2021 - Education Votes

Biden Pledges Critical Investments in Public Education to Combat COVID-19 Crisis

President-elect Joe Biden unveiled an ambitious plan on Thursday to help the nation emerge from the economic and public health wreckage that has devastated millions of lives across the country. He called on Congress to provide the necessary investments to help reopen schools safely, save educator jobs and attack the crippling inequities the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated.

These proposals are key components of the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion emergency legislative package. Biden delivered the speech one day after the United States reported 4,320 COVID-19 fatalities – the highest daily toll yet. “The crisis of deep human suffering is in plain sight and there’s no time to waste,” Biden said. “We have to act and we have to act now.”

The plan has three primary goals: a national vaccination plan that will contain the virus, deliver emergency relief to working families and support communities hardest hit by the crisis. Read more

---

House impeaches Trump; no Senate trial until after the inauguration

On a bipartisan vote of 232-197—every Democrat and 10 Republicans—the House impeached Donald Trump for inciting the violent insurrection against the U.S. Capitol that cost five people their lives. He is the third president to be impeached in the 244-year history of the United States, and the only one to be impeached twice.

“NEA members teach students about the beauty and power of our Constitution and democracy every day, and they know that our students are watching what you do now,” NEA President Becky Pringle said in a letter urging representatives to vote to impeach Trump.

Without evidence, the insurrectionists claimed the election had been corrupted in key battleground states, especially urban areas with large populations of people of color. They sought to throw out the results in those states, and then have the House anoint Trump winner of the election he clearly lost. It wasn’t even close—Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the popular vote by 7 million and the Electoral College by the same margin as Trump in 2016.

State and federal judges appointed by both political parties dismissed dozens of lawsuits challenging the outcome of the election. Their opinions often seethed with anger over frivolous claims, error-ridden documents, and the blatant lies promulgated by Trump and enablers that included far-right extremists, armed militias aiming to overthrow the U.S. government, and conspiracy mongers like QAnon. The Supreme Court refused even to grant a hearing.

“There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution,” said Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the third most powerful Republican member of the House.

Many of those who voted against impeaching Trump voted against certifying the victory of Biden and Harris after joining lawsuits to overturn the election and disenfranchise their constituents. Publicly, they said they opposed impeachment because it would further divide the nation. Privately, many admitted the real reason was fear of retaliation against themselves, their families, and their staffs.

The next step, a trial in the Senate, won’t take place until after Jan. 20, when Joe Biden is inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States.

---

Educators urge Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act

Last week, NEA Aspiring Educators across the country engaged in different actions each day to demand that Black Lives Matter in our schools and communities. On Wednesday, Jan. 13, the focus was the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. The House passed the bill in 2020 but it must be reintroduced in the 117th Congress sworn in Jan. 3, 2021.

The act is a first step to enacting meaningful reforms to end police brutality and restore faith in law enforcement agencies. Specifically, it prohibits discriminatory profiling, bans chokeholds, and requires federal and state police to use body cameras—important steps to help ensure police officers treat EVERYONE with dignity and respect. 

Cheers and Jeers

The 232 Democrats who voted to impeach Donald Trump and the 10 Republicans who joined them: Reps. Liz Cheney (WY), Anthony Gonzalez (OH), Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA), John Katko (NY), Adam Kinzinger (IL), Peter Meijer (MI), Dan Newhouse (WA), Tom Rice (SC), Fred Upton (MI), and David Valadao (CA). 

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) reintroduced the Census Improving Data and Enhanced Accuracy (Census IDEA) Act (S. 358) to ensure that untested and last-minute changes to the decennial census do not impact its accuracy.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) reintroduced the Public Service Appreciation Through Forgiveness Act (H.R. 251), which would allow employees who enter public service to be eligible for increased student loan forgiveness under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.

197 Republicans who voted NOT to impeach Donald Trump.

EdAction in Congress January 17, 2021 - Education Votes

Education Matters: CDC puts Duval County in Red Zone, DCPS says things are just fine.

Education Matters: CDC puts Duval County in Red Zone, DCPS says things are just fine.

CDC puts Duval County in Red Zone, DCPS says things are just fine.

The CDC says Florida is in real trouble that we do need to do something quickly. Juxtapose that with DCPS, which is encouraging some and cajoling others to return to the schools. What we are doing is reckless, and DCPS should know better.

For a district that has gotten rid of latex and peanuts in some schools and limited field trips in an abundance of caution, we have thrown caution to the wind as putting people in danger is the order of the day.   

From News4Jax.

Florida is in “full COVID-19 resurgence,” according to the White House Coronavirus Task Force’s latest report, which also predicts more deaths to come.

The report, which was sent Sunday to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, also said most areas of the state are seeing an increased spread of the virus. The report puts Duval County in the red zone, meaning Jacksonville, like most of the state, is seeing more than 100 cases per 100,000 population.

"Florida has seen an increase in new cases, test positivity, and hospitalizations and is in full COVID-19 resurgence,” the report said. “Nearly all metro areas over 500,000 persons are in full resurgence and CONTINUE READING: Education Matters: CDC puts Duval County in Red Zone, DCPS says things are just fine.

Traitors or Heroes: Ben Franklin | Live Long and Prosper

Traitors or Heroes: Ben Franklin | Live Long and Prosper

Traitors or Heroes: Ben Franklin

Traitors or Heroes: Ben Franklin

Today is birthday number 315 for Benjamin Franklin. He was born in Boston on January 17, 1706.

Franklin is the only founding father to have signed all four of the key documents establishing the U.S.: the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Treaty of Alliance with France (1778), the Treaty of Paris establishing peace with Great Britain (1783) and the U.S. Constitution (1787).

Most people know about Franklin, the statesman and philosopher. Here are some relevant Franklin quotes for today…

THE NEWS MEDIA

Apology for Printers

If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.

ON COMPROMISE

Queries and Remarks Respecting Alterations in the Constitution of Pennsylvania

Has not the famous political Fable of the Snake, with two Heads and one CONTINUE READING: Traitors or Heroes: Ben Franklin | Live Long and Prosper

The Teacher Trauma of Repeatedly Justifying Your Right To Life During Covid | gadflyonthewallblog

The Teacher Trauma of Repeatedly Justifying Your Right To Life During Covid | gadflyonthewallblog

The Teacher Trauma of Repeatedly Justifying Your Right To Life During Covid

I am a public school teacher and my life has value.

That shouldn’t be controversial.

But every few weeks in 2020-21 as the global Covid-19 pandemic continues to spread unabated, I have to go to a staff meeting and justify my right to continue breathing.

Administration and the school board want to stop distance learning and reopen the school for in-person classes.

Yet the Pennsylvania Department of Health recommends all schools be fully remote in any county with a substantial level of community transmission of Covid-19. As of today, that’s every county in the whole state.

Allegheny County – the area near Pittsburgh where I live – has averaged about 600 new cases a day since the beginning of December. More than 1,100 people have died – 149 just in January, alone.

Meanwhile, teachers and other frontline workers have to wait to get vaccinated CONTINUE READING: The Teacher Trauma of Repeatedly Justifying Your Right To Life During Covid | gadflyonthewallblog

Education with the Biden Team | tultican

Education with the Biden Team | tultican

Education with the Biden Team

By Thomas Ultican 1/16/2021

Joe Biden has garnered wide spread praise for his choice of Miguel Cardona as Secretary of Education; maybe too wide. The co-founder of Bellwether Education, Andrew Rotherham says Cardona is “a Goldilocks on charter schools.”  However, Goldilocks was a fairy tale and Rotherham is a well known neoliberal who campaigns for “school choice.”

At the Democratic convention in 2008, the largest groups of delegates cheering the loudest for their new standard bearers were teachers. They saw in Barack Obama and Joe Biden leaders who would end the destructive nightmare, No Child Left Behind. Linda Darling-Hammond the progressive education scholar advising Obama was viewed as someone who would bring professional sanity to national education policy and end the unjustifiable attacks on public schools and their teachers.

They were not aware of a pre-convention seminar billed “Ed Challenge for Change.” This seminar sponsored by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and real estate mogul Eli Broad included a new group of young wealthy hedge fund managers named Democrats for Education Reform (DFER). They had previously established a relationship with Senator Barak Obama. He seemed to share their ideas on education issues like charter schools, performance pay, and accountability. DFER, Gates and Broad viewed Darling-Hammond as a touchy-feely anti-accountability figure and believed she would destroy any chance that Obama would follow through on any of their education reform initiatives.

The seminar group began subjecting Darling-Hammond to withering criticism. They championed the non-traditional (meaning no education background) leader of the Chicago school system, Arne Duncan, to be the next Secretary of Education. Darling-Hammond was berated as favoring the status quo in CONTINUE READING: Education with the Biden Team | tultican