Jeff Bryant: Community School Approach Shows Great Possibility - LA Progressive

Community School Approach Shows Great Possibility - LA Progressive

Community School Approach Shows Great Possibility

n the 2017-2018 school year, Gibsonton received a grade of “D” on the Florida’s annual report card which assesses elementary schools on the basis of their scores on standardized achievement tests. In 2018-2019, Gibsonton raised its grade to a “C.”

While Gilmore welcomed the progress, she warned against overemphasizing these assessments, calling them “lagging indicators.”

“State standardized testing mostly just identifies student demographics,” she told me, an observation that is validated by research. “Sure, we use data, including test scores. But we use data to drive for the right things rather than letting data get in the way.”

The “right things,” in her view, are the factors—what she spends her time on—that she believes tend to correlate with test scores but are often ignored by school improvement approaches that tend to blame educators when test scores are low.

Every two months, the school sends out fliers asking families what they need and in one month they helped 644 families with a range of needs.

Often, what can lead to low test scores may have nothing to do with academics. For instance, making sure students are well-fed seems self-evident because students who are hungry aren’t going to do very well at schoolwork. Making sure students have clean clothes seems a little less obvious.

But, streetlights?

What Gilmore is practicing is an approach to school improvement that is getting more attention—and perhaps a lot more money—as schools reopen from the pandemic; and policy experts, CONTINUE READING: Community School Approach Shows Great Possibility - LA Progressive

Black Student Struggle: 2021 Study Exposes the Gap - LA Progressive

Black Student Struggle: 2021 Study Exposes the Gap - LA Progressive

Black Student Struggle: 2021 Study Exposes the Gap

For more than a year health experts, researchers and sociologists have loudly proclaimed the obvious: The COVID-19 pandemic has unequally affected people and communities of color in the United States, causing disproportionately higher rates of infection and death. It’s a conclusion so clear that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dedicates part of its website to this reality.

“Racism is a serious public health threat that directly affects the well-being of millions of Americans,” CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement distributed by the agency last month. “As a result, it affects the health of our entire nation.”

Equally obvious, though, is that the pandemic’s ravages are illuminating problems of inequity that already were long in existence. It’s the urgency of the fight against disease that has given those problems a new currency. And long after COVID-19 is no longer a subject of daily conversation, the issues will remain.

A new report from the University of California, Los Angeles, brings this notion into close focus. Produced by UCLA’s Center for the Transformation of Schools, the report makes it clear that the consistent underperformance of Black public school students in the L.A. area is directly tied to economics, environmental and living conditions, a lack of strategic planning by school districts and administrators, and the same structural inequities that beset other areas of life.

“Much of what we saw prior to the pandemic has only been exacerbated,” Dr. Stanley Johnson Jr., CONTINUE READING: Black Student Struggle: 2021 Study Exposes the Gap - LA Progressive

How Racism Affects Children of Color in Public Schools - LA Progressive

How Racism Affects Children of Color in Public Schools - LA Progressive

How Racism Affects Children of Color in Public Schools

he unaffected parts of the world refuse to acknowledge that racism is alive and kicking even when it stares us all in the face. The truth is, we have to eventually face and deal with this monster, even if it means tearing down fickle castles we have built in the air for centuries. Only when we accept that children of color get a lower quality of education when compared to their Caucasian counterparts and find a way to rectify this can we say we are finally working on racism. This is long overdue, of course.

Although many people are blind to it, racism is still a big issue in learning institutions. Many essay writers have penned papers and opinion pieces with examples on how this issue has been affecting – and continues to affect – children of color. There are so many racism essay topics online that show the unseen extents of this practice. Poor representation in gifted programs and significantly lower quality of education are results of those in power refusing to acknowledge racism.

When you withhold quality of education from children of color high, they will forever lag behind and eventually believe that they are indeed inferior to their Caucasian counterparts.

One of the reasons most people refuse to see racism is in the way it is packaged. It’s in disparities in the disciplinary measures taken against students of different ethnicities, less funding for some school districts, and subtle segregation. Research has shown children of color in US public schools have to do with less than their white counterparts in most parts of the country.  

What Is Racism in the Modern World?

Just like a virus, racism mutates. These days, it presents itself in subtle ways where if one is not keen, they might miss it completely. It is in people of one race avoiding contact with those of a CONTINUE READING: How Racism Affects Children of Color in Public Schools - LA Progressive

Teacher Says Charter Schools Should Get Zero Federal Dollars - LA Progressive

Teacher Says Charter Schools Should Get Zero Federal Dollars - LA Progressive

Teacher Says Charter Schools Should Get Zero Federal Dollars

The U.S. Department of Education’s Charter School Program (CSP) wasted more than a billion dollars on charter schools that never opened or opened for a very brief period before closing, according to two reports published by the Network for Public Education in 2019. CSP has provided close to $4 billion in seed funding to charter schools since 1995, but lax oversight of funds has resulted in a 37 percent national failure rate. The three states that wasted the most funds on charter schools are Louisiana (48 percent failure rate, $27 million lost), Florida (37 percent failure rate, $34 million lost), and, with the “most astounding loss,” California (37 percent failure rate, nearly $102 million lost).

As a former charter school teacher in Los Angeles, I saw federal dollars being wasted on dysfunctional schools that never should have been started in the first place. Westchester Secondary Charter School, the school where I taught in the 2016-2017 academic year, was launched with a $375,000 CSP grant. It opened in September 2013 and closed in June 2017. The Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) cited several concerns in its detailed rejection of the school’s charter renewal petition including an “unsound educational program,” a failure to “meet its enrollment projections,” “the lack of appropriate school facilities,” “issues related to special education,” and a discipline program that may cause “physical, educational, or psychological harm to the affected pupils.”

While I was teaching at Westchester Secondary Charter School, City High School—a charter that received a $575,000 CSP grant and was also struggling with facility and enrollment issues—closed “a month into its second year,” according to the Los Angeles Times. Soon after, in September 2016, Westchester Secondary Charter School took in a few of its 116 students, and my colleagues and I embarked on the challenging task of catching them up when they’d already missed a month CONTINUE READING: Teacher Says Charter Schools Should Get Zero Federal Dollars - LA Progressive

Revisiting California's Battle of Hastings - LA Progressive

Revisiting California's Battle of Hastings - LA Progressive

Revisiting California’s Battle of Hastings

Courtesy of re:publica/flickr.

The 2005 Sacking of the Netflix CEO as State Education Board Chief Looks Different Now

After long days supervising my children in their struggles with the miseries of distance learning and hybrid school, I try to relax by watching Netflix. As I do, I often find myself thinking about a state legislative hearing from 2005, and how different California education might be if it had gone differently.

The hearing, in a committee of the State Senate, was supposed to be routine. I, an L.A. Times reporter at the time, didn’t even bother to cover it. The subject was reappointment of the president of the State Board of Education. The president, Reed Hastings, was thought to be a shoo-in.

After all, Hastings, a tech entrepreneur and Democratic donor from Santa Cruz, had put together a successful ballot measure to make it easier to pass school bonds, launching a new era of school construction statewide after decades of neglect. He’d supported the state’s accountability system for schools, and backed the establishment of public charter schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Hastings also had bipartisan support—he’d been appointed four years earlier by a Democrat, Gov. Gray Davis, and was nominated for re-appointment by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican.

But the hearing went sideways. Some education groups didn’t like charter schools, or his blunt interest in transforming education systems. Hastings himself suggested that he was felled by CONTINUE READING: Revisiting California's Battle of Hastings - LA Progressive

Why Parents and Students in Los Angeles Won't Go Back + What You Need to Know about Distance Learning in 2021 - LA Progressive

Why Parents and Students in Los Angeles Won't Go Back - LA Progressive

Why Parents and Students in Los Angeles Won’t Go Back

The exact figures may change slightly over the next few weeks, but for the most part, parents and students in the massive Los Angeles Unified School District have had their say. In overwhelming numbers, it appears, they’re not going back to the classroom this school year.

It’s not for a lack of effort on the part of the LAUSD, the nation’s second-largest school district with more than 600,000 students. Quite the opposite: After spending many months describing why it wasn’t safe for students to return to class, district administrators have launched a recent media blitz aimed at convincing parents and students it’s OK to send their children back to campus — an effort that includes detailed explanations of the mitigation and sanitizing measures in place at every school.

But the reluctance is real. It is borne out by LAUSD’s own survey data, which indicates that as of April 1, only about 38% of elementary school children will return to campuses when they reopen in mid-April. Among middle schoolers, the figure drops to 25%, and among high school students it plummets to 16%.

Because those survey figures assume that any nonresponding family is going to remain in distance learning, there’s some wiggle room in the CONTINUE READING: Why Parents and Students in Los Angeles Won't Go Back - LA Progressive

What You Need to Know about Distance Learning in 2021

Introduction

Distance learning has existed long before COVID-19 was unleashed on the world, beginning in 2020. In 2017 alone, an estimated 6.6 million students depended on online platforms to receive their education. Distance learning has always been advancing; the pandemic only boosted its growth as it forced the world to acclimatize to e-learning school education. 

Distance learning may be here to stay

Initially, everyone doubted that e-learning and education in classrooms could yield similar results to traditional methods of learning. In fact, most institutions gave no credence at all to the idea; however, in order to maintain continuity in learning, educators and institutions were left with little choice in the matter. As a result, as lockdowns took hold across the world, soon everyone became acquainted with the benefits of e-learning school education.

Although a quick retreat back to more conventional methods of learning could occur, the shift to an online education e-learning method was destined to become a reality.

Now, world leaders are beginning to speculate what education will look like in a post-COVID-19 era. Although a quick retreat back to more conventional methods of learning could occur, the shift to an online education e-learning method was destined to become a reality. It has become clear that e-learning will likely continue to be adopted as the go-to learning method for the foreseeable future. Throughout this article, we’ll give you some tips on how to benefit from online distance learning — dubbed “distance learning 2021.” Be sure to keep reading for more CONTINUE READING: What You Need to Know about Distance Learning in 2021

JEFF BRYANT: Yes, Biden Promised to End Standardized Testing in Schools - LA Progressive

Yes, Biden Promised to End Standardized Testing in Schools - LA Progressive

Yes, Biden Promised to End Standardized Testing in Schools

But It Was Never Going to Be Easy

Barely a month after President Biden was inaugurated, educators and public school advocates reeled in dismay when his administration announced it would enforce the federal government’s mandate for annual standardized testing in public schools. During the Democratic Party’s presidential primary, Biden had expressed strong opposition to the tests. In a video taken at a December 2019 forum for public school teachers, Biden, when asked, “Will you commit to ending the use of standardized testing in public schools,” replied, “Yes… You’re preaching to the choir.”

Although the decision was made before he took office, Miguel Cardona, Biden’s secretary of education, confirmed the Biden administration would not allow states to skip the exams.

So what happened to “the choir”?

It’s not like there was a groundswell from across the country to resume the tests.

Prior to the Biden administration’s announcement, Chalkbeat’s national correspondent Matt Barnum reported, “Several states, including California, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York, [had] already asked for or said they planned to request a waiver from this year’s testing requirements entirely.” As of March 29, three states—Georgia, Oregon, and South Carolina—that had requested to offer alternatives to a statewide standardized test were denied, according to a later report by Barnum, but Colorado will be allowed to cut the number of tests it administers CONTINUE READING: Yes, Biden Promised to End Standardized Testing in Schools - LA Progressive

Florina Rodov: What Turned Me Against Charter Schools - LA Progressive

What Turned Me Against Charter Schools - LA Progressive

What Turned Me Against Charter Schools

I fell for the charter school hype. I agreed with former President Obama’s education secretary Arne Duncan who advocated for “school choice.” I trusted the research that said charters “close [the] achievement gap” for Black and Latino students.

When I saw “Waiting for ‘Superman,’” I rooted for the kids in the documentary to escape their failing public schools by snagging spots at charter schools. And though I encountered very few bad teachers in my four years teaching and 12 years learning at public schools, I never questioned why Time published stories about “Rotten Apple” teachers being swept out of classrooms by wealthy education “reformers.”

I believed the hype so much that in 2012, knowing almost nothing about charter schools and having no administrative experience, I joined a friend in submitting a half-baked petition to the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) with the intention of starting our own charter school. When LAUSD denied it, we presented it to the Culver City Unified School District, which also, rightfully, rejected it.

Still intrigued by charters, in 2016 I interviewed for an English teacher position with a woman I’ll call Ellen Peters, the principal and co-founder of Savior Academy, a charter school serving grades six through 12. (The names of the school, administrators and students have been changed for this story.)

Her assertion that the close bond between students and staff made it feel “like a family” inspired me to sign a non-union contract on the spot, though the school had recently lost its co-founder Cathy Reynolds (name changed), who stepped down from the board, and several teachers, who CONTINUE READING: What Turned Me Against Charter Schools - LA Progressive

Los Angeles Teachers, Parents Stand Up Against Politicians' Threats - LA Progressive

Los Angeles Teachers, Parents Stand Up Against Politicians' Threats - LA Progressive

Los Angeles Teachers, Parents Stand Up Against Politicians’ Threats

Despite pressure from local politicians, businesses, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Mayor Eric Garcetti, and the Los Angeles Times, teachers throughout California—and especially in Los Angeles—have mobilized to demand vaccinations before school reopening.

The teachers, backed by parents, have actively responded to this attack on their United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) union for demanding a full complement of safety measures. They note that this is the same lineup of forces who opposed the teachers strike 18 months ago that transformed UTLA into a much stronger union and won important victories.

On Saturday, February 20, a 100-car caravan stretched through downtown Los Angeles—sponsored by Students Deserve, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, Los Angeles Alliance for New Economy, Eastside Padres Contra Privatization, Reclaim Our Schools, and UTLA.

Cars were adorned with bilingual signs saying Not My Child, Schools Are Not Safe; End Educational Racism; Teachers Lives Matter; AND Don’t Save the Economy by Risking a Child’s Life.

Teachers, backed by parents, have actively responded to this attack on their UTLA union for demanding a full complement of safety measures.

The February 17 Los Angeles Times editorial denounced the teachers for not returning to work without vaccinations and also attacked LA school superintendent Austin Buettner for not forcing the teachers back.

The editorial also said “the union is jeopardizing its own popularity. If it continues to put the needs of students and families last.” Such hypocrisy from a newspaper that attacked the strike by teachers for improved conditions and reduce class size in the schools.

As a 17-year veteran teacher, I agree with other teachers by saying that we shall not lose our CONTINUE READING: Los Angeles Teachers, Parents Stand Up Against Politicians' Threats - LA Progressive

Thoughts on the Legacy of Karen Jennings Lewis - LA Progressive

Thoughts on the Legacy of Karen Jennings Lewis - LA Progressive

Thoughts on the Legacy of Karen Jennings Lewis

When I think of Karen Jennings Lewis, I not only think of someone who led the most important teacher’s strike in modern US history, but someone who did more to undermine the Obama Administration’s attacks on teachers unions and public schools than any other person in the country.

By going head to head with Rahm Emmanuel, Obama’s first chief of staff before he became Mayor of Chicago, and Obama Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who stood behind Emmanuel one hundred percent, Karen Lewis, a beloved chemistry teacher as well as union leader, challenged the “civil rights rationale” for school privatization head on.

Karen Lewis, a beloved chemistry teacher as well as union leader, challenged the “civil rights rationale” for school privatization head on.

For those who don’t remember, the Obama administration, almost immediately after the President’s inauguration, launched a broad-based attack on public education with three key components:

• promotion of the Common Core Standards and universal testing

• the implementation of “test based accountability: for teachers, schools and entire school districts; and

• preferential funding for charter schools over public schools.

These measures were promoted with the argument that public schools had failed students of color CONTINUE READING: Thoughts on the Legacy of Karen Jennings Lewis - LA Progressive

Jeff Bryant: Voucher Programs and Charter Schools - LA Progressive

Voucher Programs and Charter Schools - LA Progressive

Voucher Programs and Charter Schools

Betsy DeVos Is Gone, But Her Education Agenda Is Rolling Out Across the Country

Supporters of public education and school teachers were relieved to see Betsy DeVos leave her job as head of the Department of Education, knowing full well the education policies she and former President Trump supported would go nowhere in a President Biden administration. But they should remain incensed over how her efforts to privatize public schools are being rolled out in state legislatures across the country.

In states as politically diverse as Washington, Arizona, Georgia, Virginia, and New Hampshire, state legislators are introducing bills to increase the number of charter schools and create new school voucher programs or greatly expand current ones.

According to the Educational Freedom Institute (EFI), a think tank that advocates for vouchers, charter schools, and other forms of “school choice,” there are at least 14 states actively considering legislation to pour greater sums of taxpayer dollars intended for public education into privately operated schools. Many of the bills have been introduced since the November 2020 CONTINUE READING: Voucher Programs and Charter Schools - LA Progressive

School Community Led by People, Not Billionaires - LA Progressive

School Community Led by People, Not Billionaires - LA Progressive

School Community Led by People, Not Billionaires

As soon as Anna Grant’s busy workday at Forest View Elementary School in Durham, North Carolina, ended, she would head toward the next school where she was needed. “I would get off work and immediately drive to meetings, press events, whatever we had organized [for the school],” she recalls.

Her second school of concern was Lakewood Elementary, where Grant now works. In 2017, Lakewood was a flashpoint of grassroots protest due to a threat by the state to take over the school.

“Roughly 200 protesters, parents and neighborhood residents” rallied at Lakewood Elementary to keep the school out of the state’s new Innovative School District (ISD), reported NC Policy Watch, a media project of the North Carolina Justice Center. The ISD was created by the state legislature to take over low-performing schools and transfer governance from the local school board to charter school management companies. Lakewood, along with Glenn Elementary in Durham and three other schools in the state, was on the shortlist of schools at risk of being transferred into the ISD.

“It’s a takeover,” NC Policy Watch quoted Bryan Proffitt, then-president of the Durham Association of Educators. “I don’t intend to allow a terrible legislative idea to ruin our neighborhood school,” CONTINUE READING: School Community Led by People, Not Billionaires - LA Progressive

Will Public School Budget Cuts Boost Charter Movement? - LA Progressive

Will Public School Budget Cuts Boost Charter Movement? - LA Progressive

Will Public School Budget Cuts Boost Charter Movement?

The Charter Schools Movement Sees Public Schools Preparing for Deep Funding Cuts as a Growth Opportunity

Apromotional message on the website of the Minnesota Math and Science Academy (MMSA), a K-12 charter school in Saint Paul, Minnesota, boasts that since the school was founded in 2014, it has been “growing exponentially.”

In the span of just a few years, the school has built up significant enrollment numbers. Currently, more than 500 kids attend MMSA, according to the school’s website—where the school appears eager to take on even more students, with a bright green banner inviting parents to “Enroll Now” and complete an online form.

The school’s determination to expand has landed it before the Saint Paul City Council. In an effort to add more kids, MMSA has asked city council members to approve its request for $15 million in tax-exempt conduit bonds, as a means to help the school pay for construction costs associated with its growth, according to reporting by the Saint Paul Pioneer Press.

At a city council meeting in November, MMSA received preliminary approval for the conduit bond request on a 5-2 vote. At the same meeting, Hope Community Academy—another rapidly growing Saint Paul charter school—requested and received initial approval for $23 million in conduit bonds from the city.

Desperate parents and a new funding mechanism boost school privatization schemes across the country.

Hope Community Academy’s request was formally approved at a December city council meeting, while a decision on MMSA’s bond application has not yet been made.

All of this comes on the heels of another conduit CONTINUE READING: Will Public School Budget Cuts Boost Charter Movement? - LA Progressive

Are Charter Schools Making Their Move on the Suburbs? - LA Progressive

Are Charter Schools Making Their Move on the Suburbs? - LA Progressive

Are Charter Schools Making Their Move on the Suburbs?

As the COVID-19 pandemic began closing school buildings and forcing schools to quickly ramp up online learning programs in April, an op-ed by Alex Medler, the executive director of the Colorado Association of Charter School Authorizers, made an appeal to Betsy DeVos’s Department of Education to change the guidelines of her department’s grants for new charter school startups to allow the money to go to existing charter schools. Medler justified the request to address “immediate needs during the pandemic.”

But when Chalkbeat broke the story that DeVos would agree with Medler and approve Florida’s request to repurpose about $10 million in grant money for new charter schools to be redirected to existing charters, Medler made the curious admission to Chalkbeat reporter Matt Barnum that another reason for the need to change grant requirements was because “there aren’t enough new [charter] schools being created across the country to spend all the… money on the one purpose of funding the start-up of new charters.”

Is the charter school industry, even before the current crisis, really on the skids?

The annual rate of charter school growth nationwide from 2014 to 2016 was half of what it was between 2008 and 2014, according to a 2019 report from pro-charter nonprofit Bellwether Education Partners. And in some states where charters have proliferated, these schools are seeing student enrollments drop.

Many communities that have been reliable markets for the charter industry are now CONTINUE READING: Are Charter Schools Making Their Move on the Suburbs? - LA Progressive

Jeff Bryant: School Board Elections Swamped by Outside Money - LA Progressive

School Board Elections Swamped by Outside Money - LA Progressive

School Board Elections Swamped by Outside Money

Worse Than Betsy DeVos

When a Biden victory in the 2020 presidential election became certain, supporters of public education gleefully took to social media to say good riddance to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. DeVos came into office with an agenda to further the privatization of public education by expanding charter schools and by encouraging families to opt out of public schools by any means possible.

During her tenure, she effectively used her bully pulpit to cheer on efforts by Republican state lawmakers to expand various forms of voucher programs that give parents public money to homeschool their children or send them to private schools.

She awarded many of the nation’s largest charter school chains with millions in federal funding, and she used the pandemic as an opportunity to redirect emergency funds for public schools to private schools and internet-based instruction—all the while refusing to even visit struggling public schools.

Narrowing the conversation to ideological issues backed by outsiders risks crowding out more research-based approaches to school improvement.

Biden is expected to oppose voucher programs and limit the growth of the charter school industry. But despite the promising prospect of a transition from DeVos to a Biden administration, progressive public school advocates can’t afford to overlook a threat to democratically governed schools that preceded DeVos and will continue when she is long gone.

In midsized metropolitan areas like Indianapolis and Stockton, California, parents, teachers, and public school advocates warn of huge sums of money coming from outside their communities to influence local politics and elections, and bankroll school board candidates who support school privatization. CONTINUE READING: School Board Elections Swamped by Outside Money - LA Progressive