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Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Hillary Clinton Advocates For Community Schools Model | ThinkProgress

Hillary Clinton Advocates For Community Schools Model | ThinkProgress:

Hillary Clinton Advocates For Community Schools Model

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at the American Federation of Teachers convention at the Minneapolis Convention Center in Minneapolis, Monday, July 18, 2016.
In a recent speech before the American Federation of Teachers, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s voice cracked as she discussed major inequities in the quality of education that students from low-income families receive.
“That’s a stain on all of us. Let’s create more community schools, more partnerships between schools and services and nonprofit organizations. Let’s pledge that we’ll give children who need it the mental health services that they deserve,” Clinton said.
Community schools — which provide social services to students on the school premises and prioritize community and parent engagement — have been around for a long time, particularly in low-income neighborhoods. Baltimore, New York City, and Chicago have almost 400 community schools put together and Oakland has almost 30 of these community hubs. But the concept has only recently gained steam on a national level as a potential solution for the closing opportunity gaps between low-income and middle class and wealthy children in schools across the country.
Advocates for equity in education favor a community schools approach because, by including social services and health services within or near the school building, educators can better address social factors outside of the school’s control. For example, if a student wants to speak with a mental health professional, they can go to an office nearby.
Educators argue that if factors such as illness, hunger, and mental health issues were addressed at school, children would ultimately be more successful.
“If a student is hungry at school, they will not be able to learn. If a student has health issues, of course they won’t be able to learn or perform on tests. None of this can happen unless the fundamental needs of the students and families are met,” said Marina Marcou-O’Malley, policy director for the Alliance for Quality Education of New York’s Public Policy and Education Fund. She added that the goal is to make the school environment “a welcoming and positive place” for struggling students.
Over the past several years, major cities have made huge strides toward developing more community schools.
New York’s Board of Regents, for instance, met earlier this month to discuss how schools can qualify for funding from a $75 million pot set aside for community schools. This $75 million marked major progress for groups pushing for community school expansion, such as Alliance for Quality Education of New York, Coalition for Educational Justice, Make the Road NY, and Hillary Clinton Advocates For Community Schools Model | ThinkProgress:


Is Hillary Clinton’s Pick Of Tim Kaine Another Sign Democrats Are Leaving The ‘Education Reform Camp?’

7/27/2016 – Is Hillary Clinton’s Pick Of Tim Kaine Another Sign Democrats Are Leaving The ‘Education Reform Camp?’:
Is Hillary Clinton’s Pick Of Tim Kaine Another Sign Democrats Are Leaving The ‘Education Reform Camp?’


THIS WEEK: Income Segregation Worsens … How Unions Improve Teaching … Online Charters In Trouble … Colleges Need $30 Billion For Maintenance … Games Charters Play

TOP STORY

Is Hillary Clinton’s Pick Of Tim Kaine Another Sign Democrats Are Leaving The ‘Education Reform Camp?’

By Jeff Bryant

“Hillary Clinton’s picking Virginia Senator Tim Kaine for her vice presidential running mate is not apt to ease the ‘anxiety’ or ‘soul searching’ education reformers feel … In reviewing Kaine’s education policy chops, what’s in his record may not be as important as what isn’t: the current education establishment’s policy checklist … The years progressives have put into organizing, voicing opposition to current education policies, and calling for new directions in education are likely having an effect on a new Democratic Party.”
Read more …

NEWS AND VIEWS

Income Segregation In Schools Found To Rise By 40% Since 1990

Education Week

“Income segregation … in the 100 largest districts …. is about 40% higher than in 1990 … This new level of segregation is not caused primarily by the historical separation between poor families and all others … The middle class has been slipping further behind the upper middle and affluent classes … The growing trends in income-based segregation in schools were also likely due to school-choice policies.”
Read more …

What If Everything You Thought You Knew About Teachers Unions Turned Out to be Wrong?

Edushyster

Freelance writer Jennifer Berkshire interviews an author of a recent study who found, “Highly unionized districts actually fire more bad teachers … By demanding higher salaries for teachers, unions give school districts a strong incentive to dismiss ineffective teachers before they get tenure. Highly unionized districts dismiss more bad teachers because it costs more to keep them … Unionized districts also retain more high-quality teachers relative to district with weak unionism.”
Read more …

Oklahoma Joins Ranks Of States and Agencies Cracking Down On Virtual Charter Schools

Edsurge

“Oklahoma is one of many states investigating and castigating virtual charters … California recently arrived at a disputed settlement with for-profit online charter operator K12 Inc. … Ohio’s largest online charter school operator, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), has failed to stall an audit of its financials and attendance records in court … Of every 100 students enrolled at ECOT, 80 do not graduate.'”
Read more …

Long-Neglected Maintenance Threatens To Further Escalate The Cost Of College

The Hechinger Report

After years of budget cuts and continuing austerity, universities and colleges collectively face a shortfall of a record $30 billion for … deferred maintenance or ‘deferred renewal’ to deteriorating buildings and other infrastructure … The problem is compounded by the fact that they nonetheless continue to build more – spending a record $11.5 billion last year – in the hope of attracting students … Some universities are already adding ‘capital renewal fees’ to students’ bills to help them pay for renovations and improvements.”
Read more …

Why Charter Schools Get Public Education Advocates So Angry

The Washington Post

Former high school principal and current executive director of the Network for Public Education Carol Burris writes, “Charters, regardless of their original intent, have become a threat to democratically governed, neighborhood public schools, and questions about their practices, opacity and lack of accountability are increasing as their numbers grow … Democratic school governance is viewed as an obstacle by many charter school devotees … Charter schools control enrollment … Even after initial enrollment, charters lose students through attrition … Some charters are better, and others are worse … What all share, however, is the ability to use the freedom given to them for innovation to shut out democracy, attract the students they want and hide important information from the public, even as they collect taxpayer funds.
Read more …

EON is taking a break next week. Watch for a resumption of the newsletter on August 11.

7/27/2016 – Is Hillary Clinton’s Pick Of Tim Kaine Another Sign Democrats Are Leaving The ‘Education Reform Camp?’:

Schedule & Speakers | Tuesday, July 26th | 2016 Democratic National Convention

Schedule & Speakers | Tuesday, July 26th | 2016 Democratic National Convention:
Schedule & Speakers | Tuesday, July 26th | 2016 Democratic National Convention

  • TUESDAY JULY 26 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM ET - PENNYSLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, TERRRACE I-IV

    Women’s Caucus

    The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.
  • TUESDAY JULY 26 | 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM ET - PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, 118ABC

    LGBT Caucus

    The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.
  • TUESDAY JULY 26 | 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM ET - PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, 121BC

    Senior Council

    The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.
  • TUESDAY JULY 26 | 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM ET - PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, 122AB

    Rural Council

    The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.  
  • TUESDAY JULY 26 | 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM ET - PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, TERRACE II

    Youth Council

    The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.
  • TUESDAY JULY 26 | 4:00 PM ET - WELLS FARGO CENTER

    Gavel In

  • TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

    Thaddeus Desmond

    Similar to Hillary’s work at the Children’s Defense Fund, Thaddeus is a child advocate social worker in Philadelphia.
  • TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

    Dynah Haubert

    Dynah, of Philadelphia, PA, is a lawyer who works for a disability rights organization and teaches those with disabilities to advocate for themselves.
  • TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

    Kate Burdick

    Kate, originally from Philadelphia, PA,  is a staff attorney at the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia.
  • TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

    Anton Moore

    Anton, from Philadelphia, PA, founded and runs a nonprofit community group that strives to bring awareness and educate youth on gun violence.
  • TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

    Dustin Parsons

    Dustin, from Little Rock, Arkansas,  is currently a fifth grade teacher at an elementary school in his home state.
  • TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

    Jelani Freeman

    Jelani grew up in foster care in Washington, DC and is a former intern in Hillary Clinton’s Senate office. Since receiving his law degree, he has worked to bring opportunity to kids at risk.
  • TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

    Students from Eagle Academy

    As a senator, Hillary Clinton supported the creation of the Eagle Academy to educate at-risk youth in New York City. Eagle Academy was featured in the ad Came Through during the New York primary.
  • TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

    Mothers of the Movement

     SPEAKER: Mothers of the Movement

  • TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

    Joe Sweeney

    Joe, of New York, NY,  was a detective with the NYPD on September 11, 2001. When the towers were hit, he rushed down to the World Trade Center and began digging through the rubble for survivors.
  • TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

    Lauren Manning

    Lauren was a former executive and partner at Cantor Fitzgerald. She is one of the most catastrophically wounded survivors of 9/11. Lauren battled single digit odds of survival, spending more than six months in the hospital and fought recovering through the next decade from an 82.5% total body burn. Lauren asked then Senator Hillary Clinton to support the injured and she has remained unflagging in her commitment and dedication.
  • TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

    Ryan Moore

    Ryan, originally from South Sioux City, NE, has spondyloepiphyseal Dysplasia dwarfism and has known Hillary Clinton since 1994 when his family came to Washington, DC for an event to advocate for health care reform. Brian Moore, Ryan’s father, lost his job when his employer was unwilling to cover treatment for Ryan’s health condition. Ryan has stayed in contact with Hillary ever since.
  • TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

    President Bill Clinton

     SPEAKER: President Bill Clinton


  • TUESDAY JULY 26 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

    Gavel Out

Jersey Jazzman: There Is No Sustained Social Justice In Schools Without Adequate and Equitable Funding

Jersey Jazzman: There Is No Sustained Social Justice In Schools Without Adequate and Equitable Funding:

There Is No Sustained Social Justice In Schools Without Adequate and Equitable Funding



Twitter wars are stupid, and I'm stupid for engaging in them:


Diane Ravitch cares about school segregation now? That's new.
 

If you read "Reign of Error," you will find a chapter on the importance of desegregation. How can you judge without reading?


It's true: Diane did write an entire chapter in Reign of Error about the effects of segregation on schooling. I know because I pointed that chapter out in my review of the book, and included an excerpt:

But the wounds caused by centuries of slavery, segregation, and discrimination cannot be healed by testing, standards, accountability, merit pay, and choice. Even if test scores go up in a public or charter school, the structural inequity of society and systematic inequities in our schools remain undisturbed. For every “miracle” school celebrated by the media, there are scores of “Dumpster schools,” where the low-performing students are unceremoniously hidden away. This is not school reform, nor is it social reform. It is social neglect. It is a purposeful abandonment of public responsibility to address deep-seated problems that only public policy can overcome.
So, from my perspective, Russo is just dead wrong about Ravitch's views. He disagrees:


Over-testing & under-funding are fine but they're not cops out of schools, classroom bias training, etc.

There's really no point in continuing to debate whether Diane Ravitch has adequately addressed segregation -- and other issues related to education, race, and class -- or not. Russo has his opinion and I have mine (not that Diane needs me defending her). I do, however, find it odd that a guy who has publicly admitted he doesn't follow Ravitch's workthinks he has a grasp on her world view:

As you already know, I don't think that's very constructive for CPS over all for Ravitch or anyone else to keep bashing at failed or imperfect reform Jersey Jazzman: There Is No Sustained Social Justice In Schools Without Adequate and Equitable Funding:


Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Somebody help me here. What's up with the 'Let-Trump-Win' strategy?

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Somebody help me here. What's up with the 'Let-Trump-Win' strategy?:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Somebody help me here. What's up with the 'Let-Trump-Win' strategy?


As readers of this blog know, I am a Sanders supporter and have been among the loudest critics of Hillary Clinton and the regular Democratic Party for many years, especially around education reform issues.

I supported Fanny Lou Hamer's Mississippi Freedom Democrats when they tried to get seated at the '64 and '68 conventions. I was one of the thousands in the streets at the 1968 Convention when we faced a "police riot" and turned Chicago and Mayor Daley's Democratic machine upside down protesting the war and racism. The Democrats were definitely the war party back then and the party of racial segregation in the South. Hubert Humphrey was their candidate -- not ours.


Some say our protests handed the election to Nixon. I doubt it. But I'll own part of it.

So why am I having such a hard time understanding some of my die-hard lefty/progressive friends in Philly? (Long sentence coming. Hold your breath). 

1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago
Why would you go into the Democratic Party behind Bernie Sanders' highly successful and dynamic campaign in the first place, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of young activists around key issues (Fight For 15), win significant battles (not all) with DNC regulars in the Platform Committee (including on the education plank), super-delegates, force the removal of the DNC chair, cheer ecstatically the speeches of the party stalwarts (Michelle Obama, Elizabeth WarrenCorey Booker), and then announce to the press that, despite Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Somebody help me here. What's up with the 'Let-Trump-Win' strategy?:

Racial Tensions Flare as Schools Resegregate | US News

Racial Tensions Flare as Schools Resegregate | US News:

The New Segregation

School systems are more segregated than ever in this time of racial tension.



The racial tension and violence that roiled the country this month left politicians, policymakers and protesters of every stripe shocked and exasperated.
Two separate incidents caught on video of white police officers shooting and killing black men, one in Baton Rouge and the other in Minneapolis, resulted in the killing of five Dallas police officers during a Black Lives Matter protest and most recently the killing of three Baton Rouge law enforcement officers – all in a two week span.
“Faced with this violence, we wonder if the divides of race in America can ever be bridged,” President Barack Obama said during the funeral for the Dallas officers. “We wonder if an African-American community that feels unfairly targeted by police, and police departments that feel unfairly maligned for doing their jobs, can ever understand each other's experience.”
As the month’s tragedies rearranged life into a heightened racialized context, the president’s sentiments have been echoed many times over.
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the GOP’s lone black senator, took to the chamber floor to deliver a moving speech about the number of times he’s been stopped by police for driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood.
“I do not know many African-American men who do not have a very similar story to tell no matter their profession,” he said. “No matter their income, no matter their disposition in life."
"We are in the midst of a lynching crisis," charged NAACP President and CEO Cornell Brooks during the organization’s annual conference.
Randi Weingarten, the president of the 1.5 million member American Federation of Teachers, underscored that “the United States has not come to grips with pervasive racism – not even close.”
And perhaps that pervasive racism starts early, in schools.
After all, in some parts of the country schools are more segregated – and white students and students of color more isolated – than they’ve ever been.
A recent report from the Government Accountability Office shows that from school year 2000-2001 to 2013-2014, the percentage of K-12 public schools that were high poverty and comprised of mostly black or Hispanic students grew significantly, from 9 percent to 16 percent. And the number of students attending those schools more than doubled, from 4.1 million to 8.4 million.Racial Tensions Flare as Schools Resegregate | US News:

State ratchets up legal case vs. ECOT online school, seeks court order to see records | cleveland.com

State ratchets up legal case vs. ECOT online school, seeks court order to see records | cleveland.com:

State ratchets up legal case vs. ECOT online school, seeks court order to see records



COLUMBUS, Ohio - The state is seeking a court order forcing Ohio's largest online school, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), to turn over records showing when students logged on to do schoolwork last school year and for how long.
ECOT earlier this month refused to provide log-in and log-out records to the Ohio Department of Education as the state audits the school's attendance. After finding evidence that many ECOT students spent just an hour logged in to lessons each day, the state is trying to determine if the $108 million it paid ECOT in 2015-16 was inflated.
Despite losing an attempt in Franklin County Court to block the audit, ECOT continues to refuse to provide the records. It has instead dug in its heels and told the state it won't provide them without a court order.
"They will need to file other paperwork with the court and make a request to the court that we submit the other data," ECOT spokesman Neil Clark told Ohio Public Radio.
The state is seeking such an order.
In a filing Saturday, the state asked Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Jennifer French to have ECOT provide the records for 1,500 students randomly picked by ODE so that the state can see how well ECOT tracked their schoolwork.
See below for the full filing.
ECOT said it has a 2002 contract with the state that does not require it to provide log-in data.
"ODE is continuing to play politics with this issue and mislead the public instead of sticking to the facts," Clark said.
Barring any changes, the next hearing in the case is scheduled for Aug. 8.
The state requires students at e-schools to spend 920 hours each school year on "learning opportunities" that can include online classes, but also time spent offline doing research or on field trips.
State fights to see if $267M paid to e-schools is justified
The Ohio Department of Education and ECOT, the state's biggest e-school, had a fight in court this week over attendance records. Here's what's at stake.


The state says schools have to show students participated in those "learning opportunities," while ECOT says it only has to offer them.
In the past, the state has allowed ECOT to have a faculty member certify that students were offered "learning opportunities," but never required the school to show that students participated in them, beyond simply logging in regularly.
But House Bill 2, the state's new charter reform law that passed last fall and took State ratchets up legal case vs. ECOT online school, seeks court order to see records | cleveland.com:
 
Big Education Ape: Many ECOT students spend just one hour online for classes each day, state lawyers say | cleveland.com - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/many-ecot-students-spend-just-one-hour.html