Seattle Schools Community Forum: Check Yourself Screener for Middle School Youth; Cracks Starting to Show

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Check Yourself Screener for Middle School Youth; Cracks Starting to Show

Check Yourself Screener for Middle School Youth; Cracks Starting to Show

I have been reporting on the issue of the middle school mental health screener, Check Yourself, being used in some SPS middle schools as well as middle school throughout King County.  It comes to districts via King County's levy, Best Starts for Kids, and involves screening students for issues and then referring them, via a practice called SBIRT (Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment) to treatment.  The screener, which longer than almost any other of its type, is also not been validated.  My earlier stories are here and here.

There are new developments.


One is a story out of Oregon where Portland State University researchers doing a similar kind of screening to King County's, were outed by a whistleblower in the form of a grad student in the teaching program.  Portland State University houses Reclaiming Futures and they are King County's SBIRT program contractor.  Here's the story from OPB, dated March 10, 2018:

In allegations first reported in Willamette Week this week, grad student Ezra Whitman accused professors in Portland State University’s Graduate School of Education of requiring students to break the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, by collecting students’ race, gender and other data.

PSU professors acknowledge the assignment pushed boundaries and delved into sensitive areas around race and student achievement, but contend there was nothing improper in the assignment.

The focus on “equity” called for students to document performance CONTINUE READING: Seattle Schools Community Forum: Check Yourself Screener for Middle School Youth; Cracks Starting to Show

The American Federation of Teachers Is Gearing Up for 2020

The American Federation of Teachers Is Gearing Up for 2020

America’s Second-Largest Teachers Union Is Trying Not to Make 2016’s Mistake

The nation’s second-largest teachers union is getting ready for 2020. On Tuesday evening, the American Federation of Teachers rolled out its candidate endorsement process to approximately 30,000 members in a tele–town hall, its first major foray into the nascent Democratic-primary race. As outlined on a new website, the process for this presidential cycle will differ in some respects to the union’s previous approach. This year’s approach, which is more transparent and emphasizes internal democracy, indicates that the union intends to take its time before endorsing a candidate. That’s a change from 2015, when the AFT endorsed Hillary Clinton nearly a year before the Democratic National Convention officially crowned her the nominee. The move angered many on the left, who viewed it as a premature display of support for a candidate who ran to the right of her challenger, Senator Bernie Sanders. Clinton, for example, has long supported the charter-school movement, which the union says it opposes. Sanders’s views were murkier during his first primary run, but he’s since emerged as a consistently vocal supporter of the teachers’ walkout wave, which was spurred, in part, by the proliferation of charter schools.

With a plethora of Democrats running in this year’s primary race, AFT’s rank-and-file members are even likelier to split their support among the available options, and the union seems to anticipate that possibility. Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, told New York on Tuesday evening that the union’s endorsement would unfold as a “four-step process,” partly in response to earlier controversies; she spoke of “trust issues,” which arose from the union’s handling of its 2015 endorsement. “Some of it may be Russian bots, some of it may be from the Bernie camp, because our endorsement was earlier than what is typical,” she speculated.

This year, an official summary states, the first step will be to seek “input” from members, via polling and town halls. Candidates will then interact directly with members. “Members get engaged and get involved. We ensure that people see the candidate and have a candidate who will walk in the life CONTINUE READING: The American Federation of Teachers Is Gearing Up for 2020

Big Education Ape: Hey, Teachers’ Unions, Let’s Get This One Right – No Early Presidential Endorsements & Lots of Membership Engagement | gadflyonthewallblog - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/02/hey-teachers-unions-lets-get-this-one.html

Mike Rose's Blog: New Report from UCLA: “School and Society in the Age of Trump” | National Education Policy Center

Mike Rose's Blog: New Report from UCLA: “School and Society in the Age of Trump” | National Education Policy Center

Mike Rose's Blog: New Report from UCLA: “School and Society in the Age of Trump”

Schools are porous institutions—what happens in society at large plays out in classrooms and hallways—so the disturbing findings of a masterful new report “School and Society in the Age of Trump” should not surprise. But they do, in their scope and severity. John Rogers and his colleagues (Michael Ishimoto, Alexander Kwako, Anthony Berryman, and Claudia Diera) at UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access surveyed a representative sample of over 500 public high school principals from across the country and found that 89% report that “incivility and contentiousness in the broader political environment has considerably affected their school community.” Eight-three percent of principals note these tensions are fueled by “untrustworthy or disputed information,” and over 90% report students sharing “hateful posts on social media.”

Almost all principals rate the threat of gun violence as a major concern, and one in three principals report that their school received in the previous year threats of mass shooting or bombing or both. In schools with a sizable immigrant population, principals report the significant negative effects that federal immigration policy and its associated anti-immigrant rhetoric have on student performance and family stability. And schools that are in the areas of the country hardest hit by the opioid crisis are directly affected by addiction, overdose, and family devastation.

These extraordinary challenges interact and are cumulative. Over 90% of principals report confronting at  CONTINUE READING: Mike Rose's Blog: New Report from UCLA: “School and Society in the Age of Trump” | National Education Policy Center

1. Political division and hostility; 
2. Disputes over truth, facts, and the reliability of sources; 
3. Opioid misuse and addiction; 
4. The threat of immigration enforcement; 
5. The threats of gun violence on school campuses. 

Our findings make clear that in the age of Trump, America’s high schools are greatly impacted by rising political incivility and division. 

• Eighty-nine percent of principals report that incivility and contentiousness in the broader political environment has considerably affected their school community. 
• Eighty-three percent of schools see these tensions intensified and accelerated by the flow of untrustworthy or disputed information and the increasing use of social media that is fueling and furthering division among students and between schools and the communities. 
• Sixty-two percent of schools have been harmed by opioid abuse. 
• Sixty-eight percent of the principals surveyed say federal immigration enforcement policies and the political rhetoric around the issue have negatively impacted students and their families.  
• Ninety-two percent of principals say their school has faced problems related to the threat of gun violence

Reasons Children Have Reading Problems that Corporate Reformers Don’t Talk About

Reasons Children Have Reading Problems that Corporate Reformers Don’t Talk About

Reasons Children Have Reading Problems that Corporate Reformers Don’t Talk About

We know of many variables that help children learn to read. But well-designed peer-reviewed research continues to be ignored when it comes to these variables. At the same time, states and school districts continue to promote destructive school policies. We know such policies fail. So, why are they still being used?

Here’s why some children might not read and learn well.

• Large Class Sizes: We’ve known for years that lowering class sizes in K-3rd helps children learn. Project STAR, a study done in Tennessee, found that students in smaller K-4th grade classes had better long-term learning outcomes in grades four, six, and eight. For more information about the importance of lowering class size check out Class Size Matters. Smaller class sizes, especially for young children are what’s needed. Teachers learn more about students and tailor reading instruction to their needs. Teachers get to know students and parents and can better address any reading difficulties that arise.
• Inappropriate Reading Expectations: Since NCLB, kindergarten has become the new first grade. Parents and educators have been led to believe children must read earlier than ever before! Developmental researchers like Jean Piaget, Maria Montessori, Erik Erickson, Lev Vygotsky, and others emphasize the importance of play. But worksheets and testing have replaced play at this critical stage. Children start school under severe pressure to read. Pushing young children to read before they’re developmentally ready must end. It can damage a child’s love for reading. Check out Defending the Early Years and the Alliance for Childhood.
• Retention: The research surrounding retention is clear. It doesn’t work! It could lead to students dropping out later. It’s damaging to a child. So why do states like Florida and Michigan keep promoting it, or debating it like it does work? Instead of putting money into holding children back, fund smaller class sizes, multi-age grouping, and looping for children who would benefit.
• Loss of Libraries and Librarians: Some schools no longer have school libraries, or they have old books, no librarians, and share space with the maker CONTINUE READING: Reasons Children Have Reading Problems that Corporate Reformers Don’t Talk About

How Charter Schools Became Such a Big Player in California's Education System | The California Report | KQED News

How Charter Schools Became Such a Big Player in California's Education System | The California Report | KQED News

How Charter Schools Became Such a Big Player in California's Education System

In the recent school walkouts in Oakland and Los Angeles, striking teachers and their unions took particular aim a charter schools, accusing them of stripping traditional public schools of crucial resources.

Both cities have higher concentrations of students enrolled in charters than nearly anywhere else in California. And in the deals that ultimately ended both labor disputes, each district agreed to consider moratoriums on new charters.

Oakland's school board is expected to vote on a measure this week that would put a pause on approving any new charters in the city.

For the last two decades, Oakland has been a veritable charter boomtown: There are now 45 charter schools attended by about 30 percent of the city's K-12 students, up from 13 charters in 2003. Largely as a result, the district lost about 17,000 students in those 16 years.

The first charter school in Oakland, and one of the first in the California, opened in 1993 in the Fruitvale neighborhood, just a year after the state Legislature gave charters the green light. Oakland's public school system had long struggled academically and financially, and with residents eager for better educational options for their children, the city became fertile ground for new charters to take root.

Fueled by a large influx of outside funding from wealthy donors and a succession of charter-friendly district superintendents and city and state officials, new charter schools in Oakland proliferated, particularly in the decade after 2000, when the number of charter schools in the city more than tripled.

Graphic: A steady decrease in public school enrollment is matched by a similar steady increase in charter school enrollment. (Elena Lacey/KQED)

And while certainly not the sole cause of Oakland Unified’s perennial budget woes, it's a factor that has undeniably contributed to the district's fiscal distress. Because OUSD receives per-pupil state funding, having fewer students means a lot less money for the district, even as its CONTINUE READING: How Charter Schools Became Such a Big Player in California's Education System | The California Report | KQED News

Is Recess Mandated? – Educate Louisiana

Is Recess Mandated? – Educate Louisiana

Is Recess Mandated?

I have been writing this blog for just over three years, now. While I occasionally write about things that are specific to my school district, I generally try to provide information about laws and policies implemented at the state level that affect our teachers, schools and students, globally. Sometimes, I get questions from people that lead me to a blog topic. Some questions reveal themselves to be a problem that is specific to a school district, but most relate to all of Louisiana.

Rep. Beryl Amedee

Today, rather than being asked a question, I stumbled into a conversation where a parent asked if recess was mandated for kindergarten, or was it a local district/school decision? Admittedly, I heard this question asked before, but never gave it much thought. This time, it occurred to me that in the 2018 Regular Legislative Session, Representative Beryl Amedee introduced a bill mandating a 30 minute recess everyday for K-12. (Click here to read HB-842) I wasn’t sure what had happened to the bill, but a quick look revealed that while the bill made it out of the education committee, it died on the House floor with 52 nays and 44 yays.

I read through the bill quickly to see why such an idea wouldn’t be a slam dunk. I found that it was very straight forward and simply mandated 30 minutes per day for recess. I vaguely remember some of those who spoke in committee against the bill complaining that mandating 30 minutes out of the school day would reduce instructional time, which would affect test prep, which would blah, blah, blah.

I decided to do some research to see what the current laws and BESE policies actually say about recess. What I found made me realize that there was no need for the bill submitted by Amedee. I also found a few things related to this question that parents would be interested to know.

In 2004, the Louisiana Legislature passed a bill that requires that requires physical activity in schools. (Click here to read the law) In the very first section of the statute, it states:

§17.1. Required physical activity in schools CONTINUE READING: Is Recess Mandated? – Educate Louisiana

The Real Scandal Over Buying an Education | Cloaking Inequity

The Real Scandal Over Buying an Education | Cloaking Inequity

THE REAL SCANDAL OVER BUYING AN EDUCATION

The recent college admissions scandal reaffirms that in the United States you can buy better education—legally and illegally.

While financial resources and a better education share an obvious connection, for decades a small but powerful cadre of researchers has argued that money doesn’t matter for educational success. This trope has been music to the fiscal conservatives’ ears. The usual suspects pulled in to testify against funding increases for public education include Eric Hanushek from the conservative Hoover Institute at Stanford. Hanushek has served as an expert witness in state school finance lawsuits, for example, arguing that money makes no difference in improving outcomes and opportunities.

But momentum is growing to change the conversation about school finance in American education. A recent report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that protests by teachers and others last year helped lead to substantial increases in school funding, although that funding increases may be short lived, and are still well below 2008 spending levels. In Texas, which leads the nation in the post-recession school finance spending gap, general education funding is a full 20 percent below where it stood in 2008.

Predominantly white school districts receive $23 billion more than predominantly non-white districts—an average of $2,200 per student.

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 access to. While conservative politicians and a group of influential researchers were claiming that money didn’t matter for educational success, in practice, states spent less on the education of poor and minority students on purpose, while the wealthy enjoyed better-funded schools.

A recent study by the nonprofit EdBuild found that predominantly white school districts receive $23 billion more than predominantly non-white districts—that’s an average of $2,200 per student. Wealthy districts have even grabbed 20 percent of the Title I funds that were meant for low-income districts.

The implications of these cuts are lifelong for the students. A groundbreaking 2016 Northwestern study on school spending and student outcomes found that low-income children whose schools received a 10 percent increase in per pupil spending each year for all twelve years of public school had a higher school completion rate, and that students earned 7 percent higher wages once they’d joined the workforce, and experienced a reduction in the incidence of adult poverty. They also determined that funding increases have a more pronounced positive impact for children from low-income families. The increased funding, according to the study, was associated with reduced student-to-teacher ratios, increased teacher salaries, and more extended academic semesters.

The education policy discourse in the Trump era has been focused on empowering school choice while remaining silent about the intentional inequality of financial resources that plagues low-income schools in the United States. Now, at least, the latest research reveals the inequality and the positive impacts of properly funding schools.

The wealthy have had too much influence and have stacked the deck against low-income districts, schools, and students. We must substantially change the political conversation about education policy away from school choice to resource inequality if we are to offer a quality education to every student in the United States.

This article appeared here in The Progressive magazine. For all of my articles in the The Progressive, click here.

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The Real Scandal Over Buying an Education | Cloaking Inequity 

Education Law Center Criticizes Equity Practices in Philadelphia Charter Sector | Diane Ravitch's blog

Education Law Center Criticizes Equity Practices in Philadelphia Charter Sector | Diane Ravitch's blog

Education Law Center Criticizes Equity Practices in Philadelphia Charter Sector

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 rights of students.

I urge you to read the report in full.

When charters take the students who are least challenging to educate, the traditional public schools are overburdened with the neediest students but stripped of the resources required to educate them. It is neither efficient nor wise to maintain two publicly funded school systems, one of which can choose its students, leaving the other with the students it doesn’t want.

Once again, we are reminded that charter schools ignore equity concerns in their pursuit of test scores, that they enroll proportionately few of the neediest students, and that they intensify segregation even in cities that are already segregated.

Here is a summary of its findings:

• As a whole, traditional charter schools in Philadelphia are failing to ensure equitable access for all students, and the district’s Charter School Performance Framework fails to provide a complete picture of this concerning reality.
• Annual compliance metrics and overall data on special education enrollment mask high levels
  of segregation between district and traditional charter schools. Traditional charter schools serve proportionately high percentages of students with disabilities, such as speech and language impairments, that typically require lower-cost aids and services. However, they benefit financially from a state funding structure that allocates special education funding independent of student need, leaving district schools with fewer resources to serve children with more significant special education needs.
• District schools on average serve roughly three times as many English learners as traditional charter schools, and there are high levels of language segregation across charter schools.Roughly 30% of traditional charters have no English learners at all. In addition, nearly all of the charters at or above the district average of 11% are dedicated to promoting bilingualism, suggesting the percentages at the remaining charter schools may be even further below the district average.
• Despite provisions in the Charter School Law permitting charters to target economically disadvantaged students, traditional charters, in fact, serve a population that is less economically disadvantaged than the students in district-run schools.
• Students in Philadelphia charters are more racially isolated than their district school counterparts. More than half of Philadelphia charters met our definition of “hyper-segregated,” with more than two-thirds of the students coming from a single racial group and white students comprising less than 1% of the student body. This is roughly six times the rate for district schools. Conversely, 12% of traditional charters in Philadelphia enroll over 50% white students in a single school. This is more than twice the rate of district schools (5%). iii

We know from other research that certain underserved student populations – such as students experiencing CONTINUE READING: Education Law Center Criticizes Equity Practices in Philadelphia Charter Sector | Diane Ravitch's blog

Ohio’s Poorest School Districts Need Support Instead of Punitive HB 70 State Takeover | janresseger

Ohio’s Poorest School Districts Need Support Instead of Punitive HB 70 State Takeover | janresseger

Ohio’s Poorest School Districts Need Support Instead of Punitive HB 70 State Takeover

Ohio is in the midst of a big fight about the state takeover of its lowest scoring school districts.  If a school district gets an “F” grade for three years running on the state’s school district report card, the state takes over the district under House Bill 70 and appoints an Academic Distress Commission, which appoints a CEO. The CEO, with almost complete control of the district, can fire and hire at will.  He or she is supposed to turn around the district. The community continues to elect a school board, but the elected school board has no power.

Youngstown and Lorain, the two school districts taken over three years ago, are still earning “F” ratings. Today in Lorain, there is a state of emergency because the community has entirely lost confidence in the CEO, David Hardy.  He has arrogantly refused to bring his family to live in the school district, and he has refused even to meet with the elected board of education. Peter Greene, who once taught in Lorain, has traced some of this ugly history in his blog and in Forbes Magazine.

The 2002, federal law, No Child Left Behind imposed a regime of standardized testing on America’s public schools. It outlined punishments for the schools that could not raise scores, with some pretty serious punishments if, after several years, a school could not demonstrate improvement. These prescribed punishments were called “turnarounds,” and the assumption was that it is possible just to turn around a school in a relatively short time. The federal turnaround sanctions included firing the teachers and half the staff, charterizing the school, turning the school over to an Education Management Organization (EMO), or closing the school.  Arne Duncan, who became Education Secretary in 2009, intensified emphasis on turnarounds in programs like Race to the Top.

While state takeover was not one of the  prescribed turnarounds in federal law, it has been a favorite in many states. Like many of the other turnaround strategies, it imposes a change in school governance. The assumption behind governance changes is simple: The people running the so-called failing school or so-called failing school district don’t know what they are doing and must be replaced by the appointees of federal or state politicians who know better. State takeover incorporates another assumption: The voters in the so-called failing school districts CONTINUE READING: Ohio’s Poorest School Districts Need Support Instead of Punitive HB 70 State Takeover | janresseger

NYC Educator: The Ghost of Campbell Brown

NYC Educator: The Ghost of Campbell Brown

The Ghost of Campbell Brown

No more shall it haunt working teachers day to day.Washed-up newscaster Campbell Brown's final attack on teacher tenure looks like it's dead in the water in Minnesota, after having failed in California. In fact, it appears she may have given up on reforminess altogether and gone to work for Facebook or something.

I don't know why the reformies don't hang around these days. Maybe, after a while you just get bored of saving the world from those awful people who spend their days teaching America's children. I mean, what kind of person would do that when you could work for CNN, or wherever it was Campbell Brown worked before her services were no longer required?

What do you do after having been a reformy? And even if the news media writes daily articles about how reformy you are, and how all the teachers suck, does it pay? Well, you can start a reformy website or something and get extensive coverage over at Chalkbeat, but where do you go from there? Once the last remnant of your effort to kill teacher tenure goes down in Minnesota, and the papers are no longer coming to you to ask which teachers suck, how much they suck, and why they suck, the novelty is worn out.

Uber-reformy Michelle Rhee is now selling fertilizer, which is pretty much what she was always selling anyway. A bunch of the teachers she fired have gotten their jobs back. It looks like they're getting over 5 million in back pay too. And what's going on with StudentsFirst? You barely even read about them in reformy Chalkbeat anymore.

Now every teacher knows what students first means. It means teachers last. It means go work for a charter school with no union, no job security, no rights, take home a cell phone, answer questions about homework until 11 PM, then get two hours sleep and go back at 5 AM or CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: The Ghost of Campbell Brown