Look at Me! The Problem with Quotas, Caps, and Disparaging Special Education

Look at Me! The Problem with Quotas, Caps, and Disparaging Special Education

Look at Me! The Problem with Quotas, Caps, and Disparaging Special Education

Special education, which includes gifted education, is about helping students who learn differently. It’s distressing when a student needs academic support and there is none, or when quotas and caps get in the way of a child’s needs.

It’s also concerning when special education is made to look like a bad placement option. It stigmatizes children who learn differently. It keeps them from getting the truly individualized assistance that they need.

When schools focus on quotas and caps for services instead of looking at the individual child, something is amiss. It means that we can’t rely on school officials and our legislators to do the right thing. They are looking at numbers and data instead of children.

Much of this accelerated with NCLB and standardized testing. It’s also used to deny children services through special education.

The Texas Education Association provides a good example of this. They set an 8.5 percent cap on special education, shutting out many students who deserved services! As the Houston Chronicle stated, The cap wasn’t just illegal, it was morally  CONTINUE READING: Look at Me! The Problem with Quotas, Caps, and Disparaging Special Education

Education Gurus 30 - Global Gurus

Education Gurus 30 - Global Gurus

Education Gurus 30 - Global Gurus

Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education. She is also president and co-founder of the Network for Public Education, with 350,000 followers. She blogs at dianeravitch.net, Her blog has had more than 32 million page views since she started it April 26, 2012. From 1991 to 1993, she was Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. She was responsible for the Office of Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education. As Assistant Secretary, she led the federal effort to promote the creation of voluntary state and national academic standards. From 1997 to 2004, she was a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal testing program. She was appointed by the Clinton administration’s Secretary of Education Richard Riley in 1997 and reappointed by him in 2001. From 1995 until 2005, she held the Brown Chair in Education Studies at the Brookings Institution and edited Brookings Papers on Education Policy. Before entering government service, she was Adjunct Professor of History and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. In 2011, She was honored to receive the Daniel Patrick Moynihan award from the merican Academy of Political and Social Sciences. Her last two books were national bestsellers. And she received the Grawemeyer Prize in 2014 for “The Death and Life of the Great American School System. She has received 12 honorary degrees.

READ ABOUT THE OTHER GURUS: Education Gurus 30 - Global Gurus

GURU #4

DEBORAH MEIER

GURU #23

LARRY FERLAZZO

GURU #25

RANDI WEINGARTEN

Great News! Two Civil Rights Legal Teams Join to Fight Theft of Public Schools! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Great News! Two Civil Rights Legal Teams Join to Fight Theft of Public Schools! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Great News! Two Civil Rights Legal Teams Join to Fight Theft of Public Schools!

This is great news! The Education Law Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center have joined to fight privatization.

AMICUS BRIEF SUPPORTS APPEAL CHALLENGING MICHIGAN’S UNCONSTITUTIONAL DIVERSION OF PUBLIC FUNDS TO PRIVATE SCHOOLS

Public Funds Public Schools (PFPS), a new unitiative of Education Law Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center, has filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”)briefurging the Michigan Supreme Court to strike down a state law that blatantly violates the Michigan Constitution’s prohibition on public funding of private schools.

PFPS is a national campaign to ensure that public funds for education are exclusively used to maintain and support public schools. PFPS opposes all forms of private school vouchers, including education savings account vouchers and tax credit scholarship vouchers, as well as direct aid to private schools and other diversions of public funds from public education.

In 2017, several groups supporting Michigan public schools filed a lawsuit,Council of Organizations & Others for Education about Parochiaid v. State, to oppose a statute that would divert millions of dollars in taxpayer funds from Michigan’s public education budget to reimburse nonpublic schools for so-called health, safety, and welfare expenses. Michigan’s Court of Claims invalidated the law, ruling that it violated the “no-aid clause” in the state constitution, which expressly forbids any payment of public funds to nonpublic schools. The Court of Appeals reversed the lower court, holding that the law did not violate this constitutional provision. The plaintiffs now seek leave to appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court.

The PFPS amicus brief supports the plaintiffs’ request that the Supreme Court grant review of the case and reverse the Court of Appeals’ erroneous ruling. In addition to explaining why the appellate decision meets the criteria for Supreme Court review, the amicus brief provides crucial context about Michigan voters’ approval of the no-aid clause in response to a strained public education budget and the continuing underfunding of Michigan’s public schools.

The brief explains that when voters approved the no-aid clause in 1970 as an amendment to the Michigan Constitution, a central motivation was to protect funding for public education and improve the State’s underfunded and underperforming public school system. The brief offers extensive research evidence, including from studies commissioned by the State itself, that Michigan’s public schools remain severely underfunded and that chronic funding shortfalls are most harmful to high-need students across the State. The challenged statute would exacerbate the lack of public school funding while diverting scarce public dollars to private schools.

“Public school underfunding informed voters’ approval of the Michigan Constitution’s no-aid clause, and that underfunding has only worsened,” said ELC Senior Attorney and PFPS Director Jessica Levin. “Our brief aims to bring this crucial information to the Court’s attention as it considers taking up the case and interpreting this vital constitutional protection.”

“The state constitution is clear on this issue: public dollars cannot be used to fund private schools,” said Zoe Savitsky, Deputy Legal Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “If Michigan intends to improve education for all students, which is the primary objective of the 1970 amendment passed by voters, it is vitally important that public dollars must remain with public schools.”

PFPS was represented pro bono in this amicus filing by the law firm Paul Weiss and local counsel Salvatore Prescott & Porter.

Education Law Center Press Contact:

Sharon Krengel

Policy and Outreach Director

skrengel@edlawcenter.org

973-624-1815, x 24

Great News! Two Civil Rights Legal Teams Join to Fight Theft of Public Schools! | Diane Ravitch's blog

The Growth Mindset Problem (Carl Hendrick) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The Growth Mindset Problem (Carl Hendrick) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The Growth Mindset Problem (Carl Hendrick)

This appeared in Aeon, March 11, 2019

“Dr Carl Hendrick is the co-author of What Does This Look Like In The Classroom: Bridging The Gap Between Research And Practice(2017). He holds a PhD in education from King’s College and lives in Berkshire, England where he teaches at Wellington College. He is currently writing a book with Professor Paul Kirschner on foundational works in education research.”

Over the past century, a powerful idea has taken root in the educational landscape. The notion of intelligence as something innate and fixed has been supplanted by the idea that intelligence is instead something malleable; that we are not prisoners of immutable characteristics and that, with the right training, we can be the authors of our own cognitive capabilities.

Nineteenth-century scientists including Francis Galton and Alfred Binet devoted their own considerable intelligence to a quest to classify and understand human cognitive ability. If we could codify the anatomy of intelligence, they believed, we could place individuals into their correct niche in society. Binet would go on to develop the first IQ tests, laying the foundations for a method of ranking the intelligence of job applicants, army recruits or schoolchildren that continues today.

In the early 20th century, progressive thinkers revolted against this idea that inherent ability is destiny. Instead, educators such as John Dewey argued that every child’s intelligence could be developed, given the right environment. The self, according to Dewey, is not something ‘ready made’ but rather ‘in continuous formation through choice of action’. In the 1960s and ’70s, psychologists such as Albert Bandura bridged some of the gap between the innate and the learned models of intelligence with his idea of social cognitive theory, self-efficacy and motivation. One can recognise that there are individual differences in ability, CONTINUE READING: The Growth Mindset Problem (Carl Hendrick) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Repenning edges closer to facing Goldberg in runoff for L.A. school board seat - Los Angeles Times

Repenning edges closer to facing Goldberg in runoff for L.A. school board seat - Los Angeles Times

Repenning edges closer to facing Goldberg in runoff for L.A. school board seat

With nearly all votes tallied for a pivotal Los Angeles school board seat, Heather Repenning holds second place by 31 votes, a margin that is probably enough to get her into a runoff against Jackie Goldberg, election officials said.

The counting period officially ends Wednesday, and there might not be any additional votes. Currently there are no more to count, although 47 voters whom officials have tried to contact could come forward and correct problems that kept their ballots from being tallied. A few missorted ballots also might turn up.

But the math is strongly working against Graciela Ortiz, who is just behind Repenning — especially because nearly half of all voters chose Goldberg. Repenning’s campaign declared victory Friday — suggesting that she had secured the second spot in the runoff.

If Repenning’s lead holds, Ortiz could challenge the results by paying for a recount. Both the Ortiz and Repenning campaigns have requested and received the small list of voters whose ballots need to be “cured” before they can be counted, said Alex Olvera, the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s division manager for election information and preparation.

A special election was held last week to fill the vacant District 5 seat on the seven-member Board of Education. In recent years, the board has been split over key issues, including how best to oversee privately operated charter schools and how to deal with looming financial problems. The board also was divided over the hiring last year of Supt. Austin Beutner.

Goldberg finished far ahead of nine other candidates in the March 5 election, claiming more than 48% of the vote. But because she did not win a majority, she has to face the second-place finisher in a May 14 runoff.

A longtime teacher, Goldberg previously served eight years on the school board before moving on to the L.A. City Council and the state Legislature.

Repenning, a former longtime senior aide to L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, resigned as a city public works commissioner to run for office. Ortiz is a school counselor and member of the Huntington Park City Council. Huntington Park is within the L.A. school district. CONTINUE READING: Repenning edges closer to facing Goldberg in runoff for L.A. school board seat - Los Angeles Times

CURMUDGUCATION: OK: The Four Day Week

CURMUDGUCATION: OK: The Four Day Week

OK: The Four Day Week

Oklahoma has been a great demonstration of what happens when state leaders decide that they just don't want to spend money on education. Oklahoma has led the nation in education spending cuts, and schools and teachers have paid the price.

But Oklahoma performed an interesting little experiment, one that is apparently about to end. The path was cleared by a rule that measures the school year in hours rather than days. And so, Oklahoma became the home of the four day school week.

The reasoning was that a four-day week would save school district's money, particularly in very rural districts where hundreds of expensive miles have to be traveled by school bus each day. Maybe, the reasoning went, this will save money.

It mostly didn't. But something else happened instead-- it helped with one of Oklahoma's other self-inflicted problems. 91 of the over-500 districts went to the four day week and discovered they were suddenly attracting teachers to fill openings. And older, more seasoned veterans at that. In a state that has lost 30,000 teachers in the last six years, these districts were getting to pick and choose from among dozens of applicants.

Why? Some cited the three day weekends for family time. That may be, though it only skims the CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: OK: The Four Day Week

What We Lose By Commodifying Education – redqueeninla

What We Lose By Commodifying Education – redqueeninla

What We Lose By Commodifying Education

I’m frustrated by the howls of shocked people across this country following Tuesday’s College Admissions scandal. There are so many layers of context, missed, when we focus merely on privilege and its purchases.

This is a scandal that every family of children in America’s cities, at least, feel every single day.  It’s not a scandal limited to the wealthy or the elite or the transition from secondary to post-secondary school; it’s a story of pressure and manipulation and usury with victims in all directions of all ages at all stages of life. It’s a story of a country of inequality and the vast, wide-spread hurt and injustice this exerts up and down the social scale on all its denizens. Mindful of false equivalencies it’s a mistake to consider the alleged perpetrators independent of the system that supports them.

One of my earliest memories from within our American school system was a mother, eyes crazed with emotion, lecturing me with increasing hysteria that my one-year-old needed to have had an application submitted for preschool already. “You have to do this right now; what are you going to do?” she insisted, while I turned and comforted myself silently with the fantasy that ‘what I was going to do was not listen to her’.

That joke was always on me because resist as one might against externally instigated and fomented pressure, we are bathed in it day in and day out.  Our children raised among it as fish are immersed in water and we in air, absorb the commodification of education as an acquisition of status and certification, not of physical or intellectual development.

I am not surprised at these parents aiding their children in this way.  It is their job; it is our job. The only difference between me and them is that they have more money to do the job we are all exhorted to do, to scrub the path for our CONTINUE READING: What We Lose By Commodifying Education – redqueeninla

TFA CEO’s Recent Podcast Interview | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

TFA CEO’s Recent Podcast Interview | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

TFA CEO’s Recent Podcast Interview

For the past six years, Elisa Villanueva Beard has been a CEO of Teach For America.  Over the years I have followed her various speeches and interviews to get a sense if TFA is evolving at all about its historically distorted view of education in this country.

In a podcast called SwampED, hosted by former Obama staff members, and leaning heavily in the ‘reform’ camp and Arne Duncan idolizing, they interviewed Villanueva-Beard the other day.

Villanueva-Beard starts with a story I’ve heard before about how she was the number one student in her high school in Texas yet she struggled to adjust to DePauw University.  She uses this story to support her claim that she makes in nearly every speech and interview that teachers in this country have low expectations for low-income students.  Her own high school teachers had low expectations for her and that’s why she was not prepared.  Those teachers, apparently, don’t deserve any credit for the great success that she has enjoyed throughout her life with the exception of maybe her first semester in college.

As always, Villanueva-Beard gets some ‘status quo’ references.  In response to a question about how TFA corps members fit in with the staff at their schools, she says:

We are bringing a type of person who is unafraid to challenge the status quo, whose on a mission to deliver for children and brings an energy to that.

Later on she get’s her second ‘status quo’ in:

You emerge from this … with a deep personal commitment to want to do something about this and then just really resolved to be part of the solution, challenge the status quo.

About TFA, she repeats the misleading claim that 85% of alumni are still working in CONTINUE READING: TFA CEO’s Recent Podcast Interview | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Who’s Afraid of Public Schools? | gadflyonthewallblog

Who’s Afraid of Public Schools? | gadflyonthewallblog

Who’s Afraid of Public Schools?

Public schools are the bogeymen of American life.

We so often hear the bedtime story of “Failing Schools” that it’s no wonder some folks will do anything to ensure their kids get in elsewhere.

And let’s be honest. It’s the same impulse behind the latest college admissions cheating scandal.

A group of wealthy – though not too wealthy – parents thought their children should be able to enroll in the most prestigious schools.

So they bribed college admissions officers, cheated on standardized tests or paid coaches or other officials to accept their children as college athletes even if their kids had never played the sport.

We see the same kind of thing everyday in public schools – a confederacy of white parents terrified that their kids might have to go to class with black kids. So they dip into their stock portfolios to pay for enrollment at a private or parochial school.

Or they take advantage of a tax scholarship or school voucher to avoid an institution with low test scores by enrolling in one where students don’t have to take the tests at all.

Or they cross their fingers and enter their kid in a lottery to a charter school praying CONTINUE READING: Who’s Afraid of Public Schools? | gadflyonthewallblog

NYC Public School Parents: Mayoral control hearings and video: It's time for a change

NYC Public School Parents: Mayoral control hearings and video: It's time for a change

Mayoral control hearings and video: It's time for a change

I just came from the NY Senate hearings on mayoral control, where Senator Shelley Mayer, chair of the Education Committee, Senator John Liu, chair of the NYC Education Committee, and Senators Robert Jackson, Velmanette Montgomery and others asked piercing questions of parents, advocates, community members, as well of Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Carranza.

To cut to the chase: the Mayor said that he and the Chancellor are "working on being more responsive to parents" and  plan to be more systematic about this in the "next couple of weeks."  This is after he has been in office for five years.

Meanwhile he insisted on a three-year extension of mayoral control to the end of his term; no change in the composition of the Panel on Educational Policy, no change in his ability to fire PEP members at will, and no change in the selection process of the Chancellor to make it more transparent or provide more public input.

Several times the Mayor claimed he had never fired a PEP member for disagreeing with him, which is untrue.  Elzora Cleveland was fired last year as reported here and in City Limits below, for voting against school closures.

Both the Mayor and the Chancellor said they had made terrific progress in "empowering" parents and "listening to them," though no specific examples were given in terms of new policies adopted or decisions made.

Jumaane Williams, our new Public Advocate-elect, spoke concisely and well about the need for municipal control - meaning that the City Council should be empowered to provide checks and balances when it comes to our schools, as they do with all other city agencies but DOE.

Brooke Parker of NYC Kids PAC and I spoke after Jumaane; my testimony is below.  We agreed that municipal control would be an improvement,  as well as giving more authority to CECs to approve school closings and co-locations and changing the composition of the PEP.

After me, Community Education Council District 3 President Kim Watkins and Shino Tanikawa, the co-chair of the Education Council Consortium, the collective of all the CECs, CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Mayoral control hearings and video: It's time for a change

Education Reformers Keep Pushing the Same Old Stuff | Teacher in a strange land

Education Reformers Keep Pushing the Same Old Stuff | Teacher in a strange land

Education Reformers Keep Pushing the Same Old Stuff

One of the people I respect most, in edu-journalism, is Joan Richardson. Mostly, this is because I used to read her fine pieces in the Detroit Free Press, and later, her work as editor of Kappan magazine, and she always seemed like the epitome of a concept that gets lots of lip service but is rarely achieved: fair and balanced.  Plus—she once met me for coffee, and afterward, sent lots of questions and even some writing assignments my way, looking for the perspective of an actual teacher.

So when I saw her applauding Mike Petrilli’s overblown puff piece about what education reformers believe, I was surprised:

This piece is written by a conservative with whom I rarely find common ground. But he’s done a stunning job of capturing the key issues in education reform today. While I remain fervently opposed to charter schools, I agree with virtually everything else in this essay, and would love to hear others talk about this.

You asked for it, Joan.

Petrilli starts strong, with a list of universal beliefs about education: Education is key to a truly democratic nation, every child deserves a good school, teachers are important and worthy of gratitude, and post-secondary education does not necessarily need to involve a college degree for success in life.

Bravo. But in the very next paragraph he goes directly to the Reformers’ Motto: There are only two perspectives around educational change—the (noble, innovative) ed reformers’ and the (recalcitrant, bottom of the barrel) status quo.

The counter-principle has been expressed ad nauseum, in books, articles and panel discussions for two decades, but I guess it must be said again: Most current educators—the ones who want to see their schools change, improve and thrive—cannot be included in that ‘status quo’ bucket. Andrea Gabor just wrote a book with multiple examples of how teachers and school leaders did just that—innovated with positive, CONTINUE READING: Education Reformers Keep Pushing the Same Old Stuff | Teacher in a strange land

Teachers union votes to authorize strike against Sacramento City Unified #Unite4SACKids #WeAreSCTA #WeAreCTA #strikeready #REDFORED #SCTA #CTA

Teachers union votes to authorize strike against Sacramento City Unified

Teachers union votes to authorize strike against Sacramento City Unified

The teachers union at Sacramento City Unified School District announced Friday that its members have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike.

The Sacramento City Teachers Association spent three weeks collecting votes, and said turnout was 70 percent. According to the union, 92 percent of its 2,500 members voted to approve the strike.

The move adds to the challenges faced by the district, which is under the threat of state takeoveras it wrestles with a $35 million budget gap.

The teachers union said it will call for a strike if Sacramento City Superintendent Jorge Aguilar, board President Jessie Ryan and the district “persist in their unlawful behavior and avoid taking measure to correct their unlawful behavior,” according to a statement.

The union accuses the district of refusing to honor their collective bargaining agreement, making unilateral changes, failing to send representatives to the bargaining table and meeting at unreasonable times and places.

The union also called the district’s recent decision to potentially lay off hundreds of employeesunlawful and in violation of California’s open-meeting law, the Brown Act. The union says many of its decisions happened in closed sessions and the Brown Act guarantees the public’s right to attend and participate in meetings of local legislative bodies.

The district in a statement to The Sacramento Bee called the grounds for the strike “unfounded.” CONTINUE READING: Teachers union votes to authorize strike against Sacramento City Unified

Southwest Key, Known for Migrant Shelters, Cashes In on Charter Schools - The New York Times

Southwest Key, Known for Migrant Shelters, Cashes In on Charter Schools - The New York Times

Southwest Key, Known for Migrant Shelters, Cashes In on Charter Schools
The schools are struggling with debt even as the charity sits on tens of millions.

At East Austin College Prep in Texas, raccoons and rats invade offices and classrooms. When it rains, the roof of the main building leaks. Room 106 was so rickety a chair leg fell through the floor. Yet for all this, the secondary school pays almost $900,000 in annual rent.

It has little choice: Its landlord is also its founder, Southwest Key Programs, a charity that is the nation’s largest provider of shelters for migrant children. The nonprofit says it formed the charter school and three others to help disadvantaged students get to college, but Southwest Key has financially benefited from the schools. Not only does it collect rent, but it has forced them to hire its for-profit companies, which have charged high fees for everything from maintenance to school lunches.

“We don’t even have a cafeteria — we eat in our gym,” said Yamilet Perez, 18, the student council president at the Austin secondary school. “You’re sitting there eating your lunch, and you can still smell the sweat of the class before.”

The operations of the charter schools, serving about 1,000 students, show how Southwest Key profits off public money, boosting compensation for charity leaders and stockpiling tens of millions of dollars.

The charity has been awarded almost $1.8 billion to run migrant shelters over the last decade, but is now under federal investigation for possible financial improprieties, prompted by an article last December in The New York Times. Two top officials, including the founder, Juan Sanchez, have stepped down. And a complaint about mismanagement at the schools, which have received more than $65 million in government money over the last decade, is under review by the Texas Education Agency. CONTINUE READING: Southwest Key, Known for Migrant Shelters, Cashes In on Charter Schools - The New York Times

Testimony at California SBOE about Gülen charter school | Cloaking Inequity

Testimony at California SBOE about Gülen charter school | Cloaking Inequity

TESTIMONY AT CALIFORNIA SBOE ABOUT GÜLEN CHARTER SCHOOL

On Thursday I went to the California Board of Education to offer public testimony about the California SBOE approval of Magnolia Science Academy Santa Ana. Here is my testimony:

I am Julian Vasquez Heilig, Professor and Education Chair for the California NAACP.

Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos have become the nation’s most prominent supporters of privately-managed charter schools and have proposed billions to open more.

The Gülen Organization runs the second largest network of charters— more than 200 schools, teaching over 80,000 students.

Last week, when Melania Trump visited Dove School of Discovery, a Gülen Organization school in Tulsa, a headline read: First Lady Visits a Gülen School Which Prefers to Hire Alien Teachers.

Why? Because all 200 Gülen schools have recruited H1-B visa teachers from Turkey thereby replacing fully qualified American teachers. Pay to play accusations have been made regarding these teachers.

In 2017, the California NAACP passed a resolution concerning Gülen charter schools. We call for federal, state and local authorities to conduct independent financial investigations of California Gülen Organization schools, because prior audits in other states have shown a pattern of accounting irregularities.

In fact, a former principal of Gülen Oakland’s BayTech school accused the Gülen Organization of using the school as a piggy bank. The principal is also accused of financial impropriety and fled to Australia.

After our resolution, by invitation, I visited Magnolia Science Academy-3 in Southern California. I was specifically disappointed by the class sizes and curriculum.

Considering our resolution, and the fact the California State Board of Education (SBOE) authorized charters have a nearly 40% failure rate over time (through 2018, 18 of 48 SBOE authorized charters had failed or closed), we concur with the local district and urge denial of the Magnolia Science Academy Santa Ana charter.

.

The SBOE voted 7-1 to reapprove the Gülen charter in Santa Ana.

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Testimony at California SBOE about Gülen charter school | Cloaking Inequity