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Monday, November 11, 2019

In Memoriam of WWII Latino Veterans and Their Families | Cloaking Inequity

In Memoriam of WWII Latino Veterans and Their Families | Cloaking Inequity

In Memoriam of WWII Latino Veterans and Their Families
Thank you to all of the veterans who have courageously served our country. This post is dedicated to my tía Minnie Cadena who recently passed and was a participant in the University of Texas Voce Oral History Project and my tío John G. Reyes who was KIA 1944.
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This post is also dedicated to the all of the Heilig, Scott, Vasquez and Cadena who have served our country bravely.
In a new chapter we honor the memory of Latino veterans and their families. This chapter was recently published in the new book Latina/os and World War II: Mobility, Agency, and Ideology.
The citation for our chapter is:
Rodríguez, A. A., Vasquez Heilig, J. & Prochnow, A. (2014). Higher Education, the G.I. Bill, and the Post-War Lives of WWII Latino Veterans and Their Families. In M. Rivas-Rodriguez & B. Olguin (Eds.), Latina/os & World War II: Mobility, agency and ideology, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Higher Education, the G.I. Bill, and the Post-War Lives of WWII Latino Veterans and Their Families
In 1897, a federal district court in Rodriguez v. Texas declared that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and subsequent federal policies, conferred upon Mexican Americans a “White” racial status for naturalization and classification purposes. Thus, despite the “separate but equal” decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, Latina/os should have had equal access to the same public schools as Whites. However, racial bias was pervasive. Mexican American “greasers” faced cultural prejudices analogous to the racial animus suffered by African Americans, with several high profile lynchings, and city governments like Houston actively encouraging repatriation during the Great Depression.[i] Professor E. E. Davis of the University of Texas, asserted in a 1923 publication that White American children did not want to attend school with, “the dirty ‘greaser’ type of Mexican child,” and should be required to do so. Instead, Davis advocated that Mexican children be placed in separate schools until they were able to contribute positively to society.[ii]    It is within this context that we will explore the experiences of Latino WWII veterans in U.S. schools pre- and post- war.
This chapter begins by briefly reviewing established scholarship on the structural racism that Latina/os faced in the U.S. educational system. It then describes the elementary and secondary educational experiences of several Latino veterans from The University of Texas WWII oral history project database. We conclude with profiles of three WWII Latino veterans derived from follow-up interviews[1] that focused specifically on their higher education experiences pre- and post- war. Little has been written about the lived experiences of Latino veterans who returned from service to enter the hallowed gates of the academy. We ultimately show the survival heuristics and pathways to success of several Latino veterans despite living in the midst of racism within the broader society.
Latino Education in the World War II Era
The highly racialized educational contexts that denigrated the culture, heritage, and language of Mexican Americans was evident through the system of schooling in Texas, California and other states where large concentrations of Latinos were living. World War II ushered in a new era of American society, one with increased economic prosperity and with new educational possibilities to some Latinos who previously would not have had the opportunity to participate in secondary schooling and beyond.[iii] In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, known colloquially as the G.I. Bill (P.L. 78-346, 58 Stat. 284m). This Act provided a path for WWII veterans to access higher education, an institution that was once the playground of the rich.[iv] Created as a measure to inoculate the U.S. from another financial disaster, as when World War I veterans returned to the home front with a “$60 allowance and a train ticket,”[v] the G.I. Bill, unexpectedly, helped create a highly educated citizenry, and a powerful economic and technologically advanced society.[vi]
Of those impacted by the passage of the G.I. Bill were African American, Latino, and low-income servicemen in general, students who otherwise would have had little chance of accessing higher education. Provisions of the G.I. Bill had the United States government provide financial assistance for tuition, fees, books, and supplies, as well as a stipend, for WWII veterans to pursue their education,[vii] reduced the “opportunity costs” of attending higher education.[viii] Research has demonstrated the African American veteran participation in higher education due to the G.I. Bill helped create a Black middle class[ix] and increased civil participation, including Civil Rights Era activism.[x]
Early Education Experiences of WW II Veterans
Many Latinas and Latinos of the World War II generation attended segregated schools where they faced prejudice and limited educational opportunities. Several veterans recounted the difficult environments in which their elementary CONTINUE READING: In Memoriam of WWII Latino Veterans and Their Families | Cloaking Inequity



Valerie Jablow: D.C. Ripped Off By Charter Real Estate Deals | Diane Ravitch's blog

Valerie Jablow: D.C. Ripped Off By Charter Real Estate Deals | Diane Ravitch's blog

Valerie Jablow: D.C. Ripped Off By Charter Real Estate Deals

Valerie Jablow is a parent in D.C. whose blog follows the ethical scandals of public officials and the charter industry in her hometown.
It is so crazy that I can’t summarize it.
Somewhere in this Pink Panther-style story are the moneymakers.
The guys who finance the real estate: Turner Agassi.
Tennis star Andre Agassi opened his own charter school in Las Vegas. He promised that every student would be accepted by a four-year college. Agassi donated $18 million to his school. The school was a disaster. Staff turnover was high. It was the worst performing charter in the state. It charter was turned over to NYC-based Democracy Prep.
Then equity investor Turner Capital offered to create a partnership with Agassi to build charter schools. That’s a lucrative business. Turner and Agassi hit the jackpot.
Disruption!  That’s the means and the end!
Valerie Jablow: D.C. Ripped Off By Charter Real Estate Deals | Diane Ravitch's blog

How ZIP codes determine the quality of a child's education

How ZIP codes determine the quality of a child's education

How ZIP codes determine the quality of a child’s education

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Students at Allentown’s Harrison-Morton Middle School look forward to hearing the squeaky wheels of the technology cart approaching their classroom, though the iPads they hold may not be the latest models and time with them is limited.
A luxury in Allentown schools, such technology has become a necessity for many suburban students — something they’re accustomed to tapping at-will and often.
Technology is one of the many things that separate students in Pennsylvania’s school districts, where wealth equates to quality.
Food is another. That’s why the staff at Donegan Elementary School on Bethlehem’s South Side sends students home with a bag of healthy snacks on weekends.
Because clothing also can divide students who have from those who have not, the Bethlehem Area School District installed a washer and dryer at Donegan, ensuring children have access to clean clothes.
Language sets students or schools apart, too. And so do ZIP codes, education reformers say, effectively segregating students by income and race.
The problem
Where you live determines what type of education you receive in the Lehigh Valley and elsewhere in Pennsylvania.
Where the tax base is high, the educational offerings tend to be many. Where it is low, the options decline.
The gap isn’t just between districts but sometimes between schools in the same district.
Joan Preston, who has been teaching science in Allentown for more than two decades, tries to put CONTINUE READING: How ZIP codes determine the quality of a child's education

Oakland school board closes meeting to public, citing protests | EdSource

Oakland school board closes meeting to public, citing protests | EdSource

Oakland school board closes meeting to public, citing protests
Open meetings expert says shutting out the public runs against spirit of state’s law.

When the Oakland school board meets next Wednesday, it may again decide to ban the public from its meeting due to fears that protesters who have disrupted previous meetings will return. 
But an expert warns that meeting in a room separated from the public may be legal, but does not appear to adhere to the spirit of the state’s Brown Act open public meeting law.
The Oakland school board Wednesday closed its meeting to the public amid fears that opponents of the district’s plan to close schools would attend and disrupt it as occurred on Oct. 23. Officials said the board may similarly close its meeting next Wednesday.
David Snyder, executive director of the nonprofit First Amendment Coalition, said the Brown Act allows school boards to hold public meetings via teleconference as long as the public has an opportunity to see and hear the board and to participate in the public comment section as they would in an ordinary meeting. But Snyder, who is a Brown Act expert, said he had never heard of any elected body using the teleconference rule to meet separately from the public.
“I don’t think this is what the Legislature had in mind,” he said, adding that the provision is usually used to allow some board members to participate in meetings remotely when they can’t attend in person. “The board would be ill-advised to continue to do this regularly, because it removes the public from the action in a way that’s probably technically permissible under the Brown Act, but at a minimum, it CONTINUE READING: Oakland school board closes meeting to public, citing protests | EdSource

John Thompson: 'Home is here': DACA walkout features love for Oklahoma

'Home is here': DACA walkout features love for Oklahoma

‘Home is here’: DACA walkout features love for Oklahoma

Given the criticism of immigrants these last few years, one might be surprised by the message Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals students are delivering to our city. But the “home is here” message DACA students preached during Friday’s OKCPS walkouts exemplifies the best of Oklahoma and our nation. In fact, DACA students said the word “Oklahoma” over and over, as they committed themselves to make their community and state better.
On Friday, Nov. 8, hundreds of students from Capitol Hill High School, U.S. Grant High School and Southeast High School peacefully participated in a nationwide walkout in support of undocumented immigrants and youth — called “dreamers” — authorized to stay in America under DACA. I attended the walkout at Capitol Hill.
A dreamer who immigrated to America in 2003 set the tone of the event while students held signs proclaiming, “home is here.” And here, they committed to “unity,” “freedom,” “love,” “respect,” “family,” “community,” and to “thrive.” The most repeated word was “Oklahoma.”
As the name of their families’ chosen home was repeated over and over, I almost expected to hear the lyrics of our state song, “Brand new state, gonna treat you great….”
Seriously, the multiracial crowd reminded me of the best of the Oklahoma of my childhood. Like the earlier immigrants to Oklahoma — and the generation who survived the Great Depression, won World War II and committed to a better life for Baby Boomers like me — dreamers seek to do more than just survive. Their goal is to thrive, and they are dedicated to bringing our community up with them.

DACA walkout: ‘No human is illegal’

During Friday’s DACA walkout, student leaders offered a range of civics lessons, first being CONTINUE READING: 'Home is here': DACA walkout features love for Oklahoma

Betsy DeVos Might Outlast Them All | HuffPost

Betsy DeVos Might Outlast Them All | HuffPost

Betsy DeVos Might Outlast Them All
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is one of the Trump administration’s most reviled Cabinet members. Here’s why she’s here to stay.

Betsy DeVos’ confirmation hearing in January 2017 made her a universal punchline. When asked about her thoughts on guns in school, she famously pointed to the need to protect students from grizzly bears. When asked about her opinions on exams that measure proficiency versus those that measure growth, she could barely stammer out an answer. In a Republican-majority Senate, the billionaire mega-donor was barely confirmed to her position, a humiliating turn that required Vice President Mike Pence to cast the tie-breaking vote.
Two years later, DeVos remains among the least popular Cabinet members in a historically unpopular administration. Yet, somehow, even as her peers dropped like flies — former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — the education secretary has remained standing. 
HuffPost spoke with over a dozen people about DeVos’ longevity, including former colleagues at the Department of Education, former co-workers in the advocacy space, and several political opponents who continue to root for her downfall.
For the most part, despite her wild unpopularity, they chalk up DeVos’ success to President Donald Trump’s relative disinterest in education, her comparative lack of ethical conflicts and scandal, and her connections to the evangelical community, a group that serves as an important voting bloc for the president. 
But they also point to her wholehearted belief in the righteousness of her agenda and persistence in seeing it through. Many of both her supporters and opponents say they’re not surprised she’s lasted this long, describing her in similar terms ― determined, dedicated, CONTINUE READING: Betsy DeVos Might Outlast Them All | HuffPost

NYC Educator: What Better Measures Student Achievement--Teacher Grades or Crappy Tests?

NYC Educator: What Better Measures Student Achievement--Teacher Grades or Crappy Tests?

What Better Measures Student Achievement--Teacher Grades or Crappy Tests?

The NY Post is on the case of students who pass English and math but fail state tests. Evidently the only conclusion they can reach is that this is grade inflation. As usual, neither City Councilman Robert Holden, the fraud-alleging complainant, nor the paper has bothered to examine what is actually on those state tests.

The assumption, as usual, is that the state tests are the gold standard. This is odd, since just a few weeks ago, the Post was calling the NAEP the gold standard and saying its results were "final proof" of de Blasio's educational failure.

It's not surprising when a paper's editorial staff is out of sync with its reporting staff. I see it all the time. Daily News and NY Times editorials are generally no kinder to us than those of the Post. But the more I read the editorials, the more I think people who write them just ignore current events and grasp at whatever to support their already well-established prejudices. Good reasons, bad reasons--who cares as long as the points they wish are made?

I don't know very much about math, and I don't know very much about state math exams either. Perhaps the state math exams are the best standardized exams on earth. I doubt it, though, since they're based on Common Core, exemplified by David Coleman's core philosophy, "No one gives a shit what you think or feel." I won't begin to speculate what that portends for math, but it's extremely hard to see how that philosophy motivates living, breathing students. (People are not very important in David Coleman's world, and I can see why. I, for example, don't give a crap what he thinks or feels, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn he met many people with that opinion in his formative years.)

I'm a lot more familiar with English exams. The NY State English Regents is total crap. It doesn't measure reading or writing. I know students who've passed it with scores in the high 80s. Teaching them, I learned they were patently unable to construct a coherent sentence in English. I know students whose strategy to ace the multiple choice sections is to avoid the reading passage altogether and simply hunt for the answers.

It's hard for me to lend credence to an examination that actively discourages reading. It's hard for me to imagine any worthwhile writing being created by anyone who followed the CONTINUE READING:
 NYC Educator: What Better Measures Student Achievement--Teacher Grades or Crappy Tests?


School Closures Threaten to Destroy Neighborhoods, This Time in Cleveland | janresseger

School Closures Threaten to Destroy Neighborhoods, This Time in Cleveland | janresseger

School Closures Threaten to Destroy Neighborhoods, This Time in Cleveland

Right now in Cleveland, Ohio we can watch the latest battle in a war that has spread across the nation’s big city school districts.  It is a fight about the definition of a high school—a misunderstanding between the technocrats who have imposed something called “portfolio school reform” school choice and the families who want their children to have a high school experience in a neighborhood where they feel comfortable.
Cleveland’s Collinwood neighborhood was defined through much of the twentieth century by the huge New York Central railroad yards. And today’s high school battle in Cleveland is between a mayoral appointed school board and the families, teachers, and community residents who understand a neighborhood high school tradition defined by the football rivalry between the Collinwood Railroaders and the Glenville Tarblooders. Glenville, one of two remaining comprehensive high schools in Cleveland, is the school into which today’s mayoral-appointed board of education is folding Collinwood.
Portfolio School reform was formalized in Cleveland in December of 2012 in a four-year transformation plan that emphasized school choice, innovation, and student-based budgeting. High school in Cleveland is all about school choice—with the money following the students who choose a particular school. Cleveland’s high school choice book advertises small schools featuring specialties:
  • New School Models—early college, international high school, aerospace & maritime, college & career, and environmental studies.
  • Academies—business careers, tech, and environmental studies.
  • New Tech—four schools which are part of a national New Tech Network.
  • Two comprehensive high schools.
Cleveland’s high school choice guide identifies 18 of the high schools across the these categories as innovative. These schools are designated by their specialization: early college, CONTINUE READING: School Closures Threaten to Destroy Neighborhoods, This Time in Cleveland | janresseger
Debunking the Myths of School Closures | Schott Foundation for Public Education - http://schottfoundation.org/node/3762

La. Schools Graded F for 4+ Years Mostly Serve Low-Income Students of Color | deutsch29

La. Schools Graded F for 4+ Years Mostly Serve Low-Income Students of Color | deutsch29

La. Schools Graded F for 4+ Years Mostly Serve Low-Income Students of Color

On November 06, 2019, Louisiana’s 2019 school and district grades were made public.
To herald the occasion, the Baton Rouge Advocate published an article entitled, “44% of Louisiana Public Schools Need Major Improvements; 45K Students Attend F-Rated Schools.”
This headline comes one week after Louisiana’s 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and ACT scores were released.
The results were not pretty and do nothing to support the argument that corporate-styled, test-dependent ed reform works and serve as a blatant indictment of the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) led since 2012 by Louisiana’s ed-reformer-in-chief, superintendent John White.
According to the “F-Rated Schools” Advocate article, White says, “This can and must change.”
According to LDOE’s outdated page on “school redesign,” one can read the following nebulous info on “struggling schools and ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act)”:

ESSA PROGRESS TO DATE:

In 2017-2018, the first year under ESSA, 85 school systems submitted plans to improve their struggling schools to the state through the school redesign process, and as a result, school systems are implementing high-quality plans to improve 274 schools in 2018-2019.
Of course, if “school redesign” does not work, there are always warmed-over, No Child Left Behind (NCLB)-styled solutions, which include converting traditional public schools to charter schools:

FTC poised to remove parent consent, weaken children’s privacy law. COPPA – Missouri Education Watchdog

FTC poised to remove parent consent, weaken children’s privacy law. COPPA – Missouri Education Watchdog

FTC poised to remove parent consent, weaken children’s privacy law. COPPA

The Federal Trade Commission is considering several changes to this law that protects children’s online information.  The FTC is accepting comments from the public, deadline December 9, 2019.  Let them hear from you; tell the FTC:  Do NOT Weaken COPPA. Do NOT Give Edtech a Consent Exception.  See Sample letters hereherehere, and here.
With the ever expanding use of computers, online curriculum, apps, videos, social media in the classroom, kids deserve to be protected at school

Join us.

Tell the FTC to strengthen COPPA; do not exempt edtech from parent consent.

U.S. Senators, Privacy Advocates, Education Advocates, The New York Times say:

 Contact your Congressperson  https://www.contactingcongress.org/
Submit a comment to FTC by Dec 9                                             https://tinyurl.com/COPPAcomment
COPPA is the only federal law that protects children’s privacy online.
…If you are not familiar with COPPA, this November 3, 1999 notice in The Federal Register summarizes the intent and purpose of COPPA when it CONTINUE READING: FTC poised to remove parent consent, weaken children’s privacy law. COPPA – Missouri Education Watchdog