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Thursday, March 28, 2019

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all



Diane Ravitch's blog 
 A site to discuss better education for all



A Teacher in Arizona Reports on the Slow Strangulation of Public Schools

by dianeravitch / 10min
An Arizona Teacher left this comment: “I teach in an AZ public school–title 1 school. The poverty in this school is astonishing. This is my first year teaching in AZ after moving here from another state. I taught almost 20 years in a public school that was also a Title 1 school before moving to AZ. I have a lot of experience teaching in poverty schools. I have never seen anything as dysfunctional
John Merrow: Eight Fixes for the College Admissions Mess

by dianeravitch / 1h
John Merrow noted the intense media attention on the recent college admission scandal, where rich parents found ways to buy higher test scores or pay for guarantees of admissions by pretending they were star athletes or paying off coaches to ask for them to be admitted or hiring a ringer to take the SAT for them. He offers eight ways to repair the college admissions process. Here are a few of his
Tennessee Decides About Vouchers Today

by dianeravitch / 1h
Today is V-day in Tennessee. The Shelby County Board of Education (Memphis) opposes the plan, accurately protesting that the plan would divert dollars from their already underfunded schools. Meanwhile, six charter schools in Memphis have made a deal with the Catholic church to lease space, while pledging not to teach anything contrary to Catholic teaching. ”The Compass Community Schools network s
Texas: New Study Finds That Readability Levels on State Tests are Misaligned

by dianeravitch / 2h
A new study of the STAAR tests in Texas finds that the readability levels are far above the grade levels tested. Professor Susan Szabo and Professor Becky Barton Sinclair of the Texas A&M at Commerce reviewed STAAR tests and report that readability levels were 1-3 years above the grade level tested. Why is the state giving children tests that are above their grade levels? Is it trying to fail chi

YESTERDAY

Anthony Cody At DeVos Hearing

by dianeravitch / 11h
Anthony Cody, co-founder of the Network for Public Education, arrived at the DeVos budget hearing very early. He was there at 7:30 am and chose a seat directly behind where the speaker would be. He was directly over her left shoulder, scowling. I remembered the guy in the plaid shirt at a Trump rally, similarly located, shaking his head no and making quizzical expressions. Anthony did not hear an
BREAKING: Los Angeles Times Exposes Charter School Fraud and Profiteering

by dianeravitch / 21h
Anna Phillips of the Los Angeles Times has written a powerful expose of California’s “Wild West” charter industry. This is the first of three articles. The article is titled: “How a couple worked charter school regulations to make millions” The article begins: “The warning signs appeared soon after Denise Kawamoto accepted a job at Today’s Fresh Start Charter School in South Los Angeles. “Though
DeVos Wants to Defund Special Olympics, Boost Funding for School Choice

by dianeravitch / 22h
Betsy DeVos was grilled yesterday in Congressional hearings about her budget proposals. She was repeatedly questioned about her desire to increase charter school funding from $440 million to $500 million a year. The Network for Public Education report on the waste, fraud, and abuse in this program was cited. While increasing the charter budget, DeVos wants to cut $18 million from the Special Olym
Muncie, Indiana: Voucher School for 6 Students Condemned, Deplorable Conditions

by dianeravitch / 23h
Fire and building inspectors condemned the Delaware Christian Academy after entering the building and finding its six students huddled around a heater for warmth. Betsy DeVos always says that parents always know best, but why did these parents send their children to school in an unsafe building? ”Fire and building inspectors say they found six students at the private Delaware Christian Academy “h
Kentucky: Parents and Teachers Confront a Hostile GOP Legislature and State Commissioner

by dianeravitch / 1d
Gay Adelmann, Parent Activist in Jefferson County and Leader of Save Our Schools Kentucky, writes about the hostile actions of the Kentucky Legislature: Privatization or Potential Punishment: Are Louisville Teachers Being Forced To Choose The Lesser of Two Evils? “The beatings will continue until morale improves,” seems to be the mantra of the Kentucky GOP when it comes to public education. In th
Tom Ultican: Atlanta School Board Votes for Privatization

by dianeravitch / 1d
Tom Ultican has been writing about differentcities where the Destroy Public Education Movement has made extraordinary gains. Atlanta has fallen into the clutches of the DPE as a result of Teach for America’s success in electing its alumni to the school board, which hired a superintendent committedto the DPE agenda. Ultican writes : “On March 4, the Atlanta Public School (APS) board voted 5 to 3 t
Valerie Strauss: Is It Time to Dump the SAT and ACT?

by dianeravitch / 1d
Reflecting on the recentmassive scandal of rigging college acceptances, Valerie Strauss discusses the debate about whether the SAT and ACT are necessary. Research indicates that a student’s four year record reveals more about his or her college readiness than either of the two big standardized tests. Wealthy parents have always had advantages, including the ability to pay tutors to help their chi

MAR 26

Join the Network for Public Education: It Is Free and Gives You Power

by dianeravitch / 1d
If you liked the NPE report ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL, released today by the Network for Public Education, please consider joining. It is free. We rely on donations. We believe in the power of numbers, combined with a small but amazing staff. If you sign up, you will get alerts about what is happening in DC and in your own state, where your participation can make a difference. You will be asked to send
John Rogers: School and Society in the Age of Trump

by dianeravitch / 1d
John Rogers and his research team at UCLA have completed a valuable study of the effect of Trump and his ideology on schools, students, and society. If you go to the link, you can open the report. Here is a summary: “This study examines how a broad set of social issues at the forefront of the Trump presidency are felt and affect students and educators within America’s high schools. We look closel
A Student in Kansas Writes about How Standardized Testing Makes Her Feel

by dianeravitch / 2d
Kevin Bosworth, a teacherat Olathe East High School in Olathe, Kansas, wrote to tell me about a class discussion of grades and tests. A student sharedher poem with the class, and Kevin shared it with me. The reformers and disrupters now say they are intrigued with social and emotional learning. Let them read this and see what they have learned. Hello my name is worthless Name number and date Stat
Jose Luis Vilson: NYC’s Exam for Specialized High Schools Is Racist

by dianeravitch / 2d
New York City has a peculiar high school admissions system. To gain admission to the city’s five most elite high schools, one must excel on a highly competitive examination called the Secondary High School Admissions Test. Nothing else counts but that one score on one test. I am not aware of any selective institution in the nation that relies on only one score for admission. Every year, the media
Bombshell Report: Congress Wastes Nearly $1 Billion on Defunct Charter Schools

by dianeravitch / 2d
The Network for Public Education released a shocking report about waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal charter school program. This year, Congress handed out $440 million to charter schools, many of which will never open or quickly close. Trump and DeVos want to increase the annual sum to $500 million. The Washington Post covered the findings. Valerie Strauss writes: ”The U.S. government has wa

MAR 25

Rhode Island: About the Charter School That Will Offer a Master’s Degree

by dianeravitch / 2d
How great is a Charter School that is given permission by the state to offer a master’s degree in education? I decided to check out the Learning Community Charter School in Central Falls, which just got the go-ahead and $500,000 to train teachers and award master’s degrees. Surely this must be an extraordinary school, or you would expect the Providence Journal to let you know whether it’s up to t
Rhode Island Allows Charter School to Award Master’s Degrees

by dianeravitch / 2d
The Providence Journal asked me to remove this story because it is copyrighted. I was asked to replace it with a summary. Summary: A charter school called The Learning Community is creating a phony graduate school of education, where students will pay $35,000 to get a phony master’s degree. Philanthropists have agreed to underwrite scholarships. First the charters undermine public schools by comp
Philadelphia: It Takes Years and Millions to Close Failing Charter Schools and the Public Pays for Everything

by dianeravitch / 3d
Lisa Haver, Parent Activist in Philadelphia, writes here about how it takes years and millions of dollars to close failing charter schools. The public must pay the cost of challenging the charter and pay the cost of defending the charter. The charter operator gets a free ride for failing. Only the taxpayers and students lose. Why is it easy to close a public school but hard to close a charter sch
Public Schools Week Starts Today! Support Our Public Schools!

by dianeravitch / 3d
Public Schools Week is March 25-29. Download the toolkit of the Network for Public Education and do your part to support public schools! The forces of privatization are rising up, making promises and failing to keep any of those promises. Public schools are the bedrock of democracy, doors open to all. Certified teachers in every classroom. Public schools strive for equality of educational opportu
Stephen Dyer: Ohio’s Failing Charter Sector Wants a 22% Funding Increase

by dianeravitch / 3d
I remember when the charter idea was first launched, in 1988. Al Shanker thought charters would be schools-within-schools, that they would be started by teachers, that they would be approved by the other teachers in the rest of the school and the local board, that they would be unionized, and that they would collaborate, not compete, with the existing schools. More than three decades later, we kn

MAR 24

NPE Action Endorses Pam Harbin for Pittsburgh School Board

by dianeravitch / 3d
The Network for Public Education Action fund is happy to endorse Pam Harbin for Pittsburgh school board! She is running in District 4. Pam has a long history of supporting public school students and public schools. She has been working on the ground for twelve years in the fight to improve and save public education in Pittsburgh as a parent, community organizer and a long-time disability rights a
California: An Alert for Supporters of Public Schools!

by dianeravitch / 3d
A reader in California asks for help to fix one of the charter reform bill that has a big loophole. He writes: “Thank you for all you do for public education. In California right now are 4 assembly Bills – AB-1505 – AB-1508. “AB-1508 in particular is intended to enable local school districts to consider the financial, program and facilities impacts when approving/denying new charter petitions. Th
Billionaire Charter Founder Michael Steinhardt Accused of Sexual Harassment

by dianeravitch / 4d
Billionaire Michael Steinhardt, founder of a charter school chain called “Hebrew Language Academies,” was accused by multiple women of sexual harassment. A story in the New York Times began: “Sheila Katz was a young executive at Hillel International, the Jewish college outreach organization, when she was sent to visit the philanthropist Michael H. Steinhardt, a New York billionaire. He had once b
Tony Thurmond: “Without Public Schools, I Might Not Be State Superintendent Today”

by dianeravitch / 4d
TonyThurmond, elected as California’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction last fall, spoke out strongly on behalf of public schools at a recent public event. He also insisted that the state must fund its pension promises and invest more in education. Competition doesn’t work in education, he said. The goal of education must be to help every student must develop his talents, not to spur com
Stuart Egan: Sanders’ EVASS Has Lost in Court, But NC Won’t Let It Go

by dianeravitch / 4d
William Sanders was an agricultural statistician who developed a secret, patented formula for measuring teacher effectiveness. It’s call EVASS. It was tossed out by a Houston judge who said it was wrong to judge teachers by a secret algorithm that they could neither examine nor question. As Stuart Egan reports , North Carolina clings to EVASS, no matter how many times it has been discredited (by

MAR 23

SomeDAM Poet on the Rallying Cry of the California Charter Schools Association

by dianeravitch / 4d
The California Charter School Association recently held a rally in front of the State Capitol and declared that its motto was “Stand for All Children.” Only 10% of children in California are enrolled in charter schools. Our blog poet, SomeDAM Poet, wrote a poem to go with the CCSA slogan: “Stand for All (10% of) Students” (SAP) Stand for ten percent Stand for self-dealt rent Stand for charter sca
Arizona Republic Wins Prestigious George Polk Award for Education Reporting for Expose of Charter School Corruption

by dianeravitch / 4d
A crack investigative team at the Arizona Republic won the prestigious George Polk Award for their fearless expose of charter school corruption in the state . Now we might wonder where are the think tanks like the Center for American Progress and the Brookings Institution, which never utter a critical word about charter school corruption and malfeasance. CAP and Brookings are supposedly “liberal”
Steven Singer: Accountability Begins at the Top, not in the Classroom

by dianeravitch / 5d
Steven Singer has a straightforward and sensible proposition: accountability should begin with the people who make the rules and allocate resources. Instead they have created a blame game for those who try to play by the rules they created, not matter how wrong those rules are. Read the following and read his post to learn the Code of Conduct he has devised for those who make the rules. He writes
Texas: Can the State Afford to Buy One Snickers Bar Per Student?

by dianeravitch / 5d
This is a clever and short video explaining the magnitude of Texas’s school finance problem. Texas has more than 5 million students. Its schools are perennially underfunded. They took a big hit in 2011 when the legislature cut their budget by more than $5 BILLION dollars, which the schools have never recovered from. For the past several years, the State Senate and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick have tr
Defending the Early Years: Kisha Reid Explains How Little Children Learn Best

by dianeravitch / 5d
As the tentacles of Ed Reform reachdown into the earliest years, forcing standardized tests on young children, Defending the Early Years is there to block the monster from strangling the children’s loveof learning. In this short video , early childhood educator Kisha Reid explains what young children need most to thrive. Play. When children play together, they collaborate. They solve problems. No

MAR 22

Watch the Videos of the Jackson Heights Parents for Public Education (and Meet AOC)

by dianeravitch / 5d
Michael Elliott, professional videographer and ally of every New York parent group that opposes high-stakes testing, filmed the events on March 16, when AOC joined a community discussion in Jackson Heights, Queens, about public education. With the help of Kemala Karmen, he has broken up the day into segments that you can watch at your leisure. Each of them is short–mostly 3-5 minutes. PUBLIC EDUC
Karen Francisco: Portait of a Lifelong Teacher

by dianeravitch / 6d
Karen Francisco, editorial page editor of the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, wrote a moving tribute to our dear friend Phyllis Bush. She called Phyllis “a lifelong teacher.” She taught for 32 years. When she retired, however, she never stopped teaching. Francisco quotes some of Phyllis’s former students, who describe how Phyllis Bush changed their lives. The editorial includes a photograph that catc
Arizona: Acclaimed BASIS Charter Schools Are $44 Million in Red, Audit Shows

by dianeravitch / 6d
US News & World Report and Newsweek ranked BASIS charter schools in Arizona as the best high schools in the nation, without noting their dramatic attrition rates and demographics that heavily favor whites and Asians. But a new audit shows that BASIS is in deep financial trouble. “The globally renowned BASIS charter school system is nearly $44 million in the red, according to a recent report from
Fred Smith Explains That AOC was Right, and I Was Wrong, About the Test She Took

by dianeravitch / 6d
At the meeting of Jackson Heights Parents for Public Schools on March 16, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes said that she took a high-stakes standardized test, and her teacher told her she was in the 99th percentile. I thought she must have taken an Iowa Test of Basic Skills since NCLB test scores are not reported as percentiles but as 1-4 or “below basic, basic, proficient, advanced.” That sent the far-r
Mercedes Schneider On Campbell Brown’s Short But Rewarding Life as an Education Reformer

by dianeravitch / 6d
Ah, Campbell Brown, we hardly knew ye! Brown blazed across the Deform firmament like a shooting star, fighting sexual predators in the classroom, unions, tenure, and all other things that crossed her fevered brow. She raised millions, and now she’s off to a new life at Facebook. Gone and forgotten. Mercedes Schneider tells the story here.

MAR 21

Right-Wing Blogs Spread Lies about AOC Appearance in Jackson Heights Public Education Forum

by dianeravitch / 6d
I wrote a post about my very pleasant experience meeting the wonderful, charming, brilliant Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Jackson Heights, and I described her as “warm, comfortable in her skin, somewhat taken aback by her sudden fame, and unpretentious.” I said that she paid attention, and that she came to listen and learn. Everyone at the meeting was thrilled to meet her, and she took the time to
Rhode Island: New Commissioner Pledges Dramatic Improvements

by dianeravitch / 6d
Governor Gina Raimondo selected the deputy commissioner from New York to lead Rhode Island. She is a Reformer, already chosen by Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change as a future member of their group. “PROVIDENCE, R.I. — When Gov. Gina M. Raimondo began her search for the state’s next Education Commissioner, her conversations with experts, teachers, and other leaders in the field of education kept coming
California: Parent Opposes Berkeley’s Choice of Wendy Kopp as Commencement Speaker

by dianeravitch / 6d
Jane Nylund is a Parent Activist in Oakland who has fought the privatization machine. She wrote an open public letter opposing Berkeley’s selection of Wendy Kopp as its commencement speaker. UC Berkeley should not support and condone school privatization : Rescind your offer to TFA Wendy Kopp as commencement speaker As a public school advocate, and a product of California public schools (father a
Do You Want an Out-of-State Billionaire to Put Money into Your Local School Board Election?

by dianeravitch / 7d
Three political scientists have written a book about billionaires putting money into local school board elections. Typically, the wealthy are not writing checks for their own school board elections, but even if they were, they are able to swamp the spending of others. The book is titled Outside Money in School Board Elections: The Nationalization of Education Politic s. It was published by Harvar
Julian Vasquez Heilig: The Real Scandal Over Buying an Education

by dianeravitch / 7d
Julian Vasquez Heilig writes in The Progressive about a scandal bigger than buying seats in college. What we read about in the headlines was illegal. What we don’t see in the headlines is education that is legally purchased. He writes: “Research is catching up to what is not exactly a well-kept secret: the nicer house an American family can buy, the better public school that family will have acce
Leonie Haimson: Why Is NYC Chancellor Carranza Sending Struggling Schools into a Death Spiral?

by dianeravitch / 7d
Leonie Haimson questions why NYC Chancellor Carranza sent a letter to every parent in schools rated CSI (Comprehensive Support & Improvement) by the state to let them know that they could transfer to another school. Although he claimed otherwise, he was not required to do so. Some schools are on the list because of opt outs. Carranza is destroying schools instead of supporting them. No school eve

MAR 20

New Zealand Bans Military Assault Weapons

by dianeravitch / 7d
The latest news: New Zealand will ban military style semi-automatics and assault rifles and establish a nationwide buyback of the weapons in the wake of a terrorist attack on two mosques that left 50 people dead. The ban takes immediate effect to prevent the stockpiling of weapons while the legislation is being drafted, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told reporters Thursday. “I strongly believe th
Shawgi Tell: The Issue Is Not Standardized Test Scores But the Theft of Public Property

by dianeravitch / 7d
Shawgi Tell is a professor of education at Nazareth College in Rochester, New York. In this post , Shawgi Tell describes the massive misuse of standardized tests created by mega-corporations. He writes: Charter school supporters and promoters have long been severely obsessed with comparing charter school and public school students’ scores on expensive curriculum-narrowing high-stakes standardized
AOC Did Not Disappoint

by dianeravitch / 8d
Last Saturday, I attended a forum on public schools organized by Jackson Heights Parents for Public Schools. Thanks to the appearance of superstar Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes, the event drew some of the city’s leading education stars, such as State Senator Robert Jackson, who has been leading the fight for increased state funding for the city’s public schools for many years. There were
Edward Johnson: Does the Atlanta School Board Know Who Dr. Alonzo A. Crim Was?

by dianeravitch / 8d
Ed Johnson fights day after day to try to budge the Atlanta School Board, which is following the disastrous path of corporate reform, which has failed everywhere. The Atlanta School Board is controlled by individuals who formerly were part of Teach for America, and it is their dream to turn Atlanta in a portfolio district with many privately managed schools. He writes: Does pursuing “Excellent Sc


Education Law Center Criticizes Equity Practices in Philadelphia Charter Sector

by dianeravitch / 8d
The Education Law Center is one of the nation’s leading legal organizations defending the civil rights of students. In this important new report, it presents a critical analysis of Philadelphia’s charter sector and its indifference to the civil 
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