Michael Bloomberg has invested heavily in promoting charter schools in California | EdSource

Michael Bloomberg has invested heavily in promoting charter schools in California | EdSource

Michael Bloomberg has invested heavily in promoting charter schools in California

f there is one issue on which Michael Bloomberg and Donald Trump agree, it is on the value of charter schools.

One difference is that Bloomberg does not appear to back using taxpayer funds to underwrite tuition for private and parochial schools, as Trump does. Another is that Bloomberg has actually been able to implement his pro-charter agenda, when he was mayor in New York City, and in backing pro-charter causes and candidates in other states, most notably in California.

He has been one of a cadre of billionaires who have poured money to expand charter school in the state — including Reed Hastings, the founder and CEO of Netflix, L.A. philanthropist and businessman Eli Broad, and Walton family members associated with the Walmart empire.

California is the state with the largest number of charter schools (just over 1,300 at latest count), and they account for a disproportionately large share of charter school students nationally. Just over 1 in 5 of the 3.2 million children enrolled in charter schools in the U.S. are in California.

Bloomberg has also spent heavily on other issues involving children. He has contributed tens of millions of dollars in California to local initiatives related to CONTINUE READING: Michael Bloomberg has invested heavily in promoting charter schools in California | EdSource

Andrea Gabor: Betsy DeVos’s Voucher Obsession Could Boomerang on Republicans | Diane Ravitch's blog

Andrea Gabor: Betsy DeVos’s Voucher Obsession Could Boomerang on Republicans | Diane Ravitch's blog

Andrea Gabor: Betsy DeVos’s Voucher Obsession Could Boomerang on Republicans

Veteran journalist Andrea Gabor explains that Betsy DeVos got the Trump administration to commit fully behind her voucher obsession, rolling some 29 or 30 programs into a block grant, including the toxic federal Charter Schools Program. In exchange, the Trump administration is seeking $5 billion for national voucher program. It is certain not to be approved by Congress, but meanwhile the Supreme Court is considering a case (Espinoza v. Montana) that could eliminate all state bans on public spending for religious schools. This would have a devastating fiscal impact on public schools.

But, she warns, the voucher idea is an expensive failure and politically toxic. Based on recent electoral results, she predicts that it could blow up in the faces of Republican candidates. The overwhelming majority of American children attend public schools, including the overwhelming majority of children of Republican voters.

Despite DeVos’s enthusiastic support for vouchers, it may turn out to be a losing issue:

K-12 schooling remains a hot issue especially in local elections; thus, the combination of block grants and CONTINUE READING: Andrea Gabor: Betsy DeVos’s Voucher Obsession Could Boomerang on Republicans | Diane Ravitch's blog

Growing Awareness of "Period Poverty" in Schools - NEA Today

Growing Awareness of "Period Poverty" in Schools - NEA Today

Growing Awareness of “Period Poverty” in Schools

Delaware high school teacher Kerry Stahl keeps a stash of tampons and menstrual pads—which she pays for herself—in her classroom for students. This way, she says, students can grab one, run to the bathroom, and be back in class in five minutes.

Otherwise, Stahl’s students would have to trek to the nurse’s office (their school has one, but many don’t), wait for the nurse to triage the sick kids, and possibly miss a whole class. Even worse, because of lack of access to period products, some of her students might simply stay home.

It’s called “period poverty,” and according to a national study, one in five teens said they have struggled to afford period products, or haven’t been able to purchase them at all. As a consequence, 84 percent say they’ve missed school, or know somebody who has.

That’s why Stahl, who also is vice president of the Delaware State Education Association (DSEA), is excited about legislation that would require Delaware’s middle and high schools to have free tampons and pads in middle and high school bathrooms. “It’s a common sense law,” she says. “Especially in low-income communities, if these things are free and accessible, it could encourage students to CONTINUE READING: Growing Awareness of "Period Poverty" in Schools - NEA Today

CURMUDGUCATION: Avoiding Teacher Compensation

CURMUDGUCATION: Avoiding Teacher Compensation

Avoiding Teacher Compensation

Erik Hanushek has been at this for a while, and his shtick is pretty well polished. With Raj Chetty, he's been making the assertion that having a good teacher will make a student wealthier. While he can occasionally seem like a champion of teachers and teaching, he also lapses often into the old reform whinge that teachers don't really want to be held accountable for their performance, and that such strict, measurable accountability is possible because teaching's not really any different than any other job. What he mostly means is good old value-added test scores. Hanushek, it turns out, also helped cook up the idea of "days of learning" aka "change in test score" which was popularized by CREDO (Hanushek is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, a right-tilted thinky tank housed at Stanford, while CREDO is an ed reform-tilted research group at Stanford; it is also run by Hanushek's wife).

Did I mention that Hanushek is an economist? I'm not sure what strange attraction the world of education holds for economists, but Hanushek most often seems to be trying to solve a problem popular with economists-- how can we get more education and pay less for it.

Hanushek often turns up on op-ed pages, but this time he's issuing a full-on policy analysis from the Hoover Education Success Initiative-- "The Unavoidable: Tomorrow's Teacher Compensation." The Initiative is a gathering of the usual suspects-- the executive committee is Hanushek, Chester Finn (Fordham Institute boss-emeritus), Paul Peterson, and Margaret Raymond (CREDO chief and Hanushek's wife). It's a good solid summary of Hanushek's CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Avoiding Teacher Compensation

Don’t Mess with Texas’ Schools – Have You Heard

Don’t Mess with Texas’ Schools – Have You Heard

Don’t Mess with Texas’ Schools

Have You Heard heads to fast-growing north Texas for a first-hand look at how support for public education is upending the state’s politics. Spoiler: GOP candidates are scrambling to paint themselves as lovers of public schools and their teachers. But does their new-found love translate into actual policy? And will former GOP voters who prize public education end up changing the way they vote?  Part of our series on education and politics in 2020, this episode captures a trend with major implications for Texas and beyond. Transcript available here.

And if you like what you hear, consider supporting Have You Heard on Patreon. The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going and enables us to hit the road to do original reporting.

Don’t Mess with Texas’ Schools – Have You Heard

¡Prop 13 Is Not About Property Tax! (But It Is About Funding Schools) – Los Angeles Education Examiner

¡Prop 13 Is Not About Property Tax! (But It Is About Funding Schools) – Los Angeles Education Examiner

¡Prop 13 Is Not About Property Tax! (But It Is About Funding Schools)

In 1978 Californians voted to limit their personal tax liability. The ballot initiative approved at that time was titled and summarized by the CA Secretary of State as “Proposition 13, Tax Limitations Initiative (1978)”. Click here for a terrific retrospective (or primer, depending on your age).

This is not the Proposition 13 on March 3, 2020’s primary ballot.

We are currently voting (yes, the vote has started already, and will be ongoing now through 3/3/20) on a ballot initiative to authorize $15b in bonds for school and educational facilities throughout California. This current state measure is also termed “Proposition 13”, but its official summary title is “School And College Facilities Bond (2020)”.

While it is true this Proposition 13 will cost taxpayers money ($750m spread over 35 years in exchange for $15b to use for immediate costs now), indeed our schools are crumbling and in dire need of infrastructural attention. Where once California’s schools were the pride of the nation, draw of the world; today they are among the worst-funded K12 schools and the allure of our post-secondary institutions is also at risk. We cannot just let the infrastructural surrounds of Pat Brown’s seminal vision of Education melt CONTINUE READING: ¡Prop 13 Is Not About Property Tax! (But It Is About Funding Schools) – Los Angeles Education Examiner

New flyer for the Feb. 28 class size hearings; please come! | Class Size Matters

New flyer for the Feb. 28 class size hearings; please come! | Class Size Matters  | A clearinghouse for information on class size & the proven benefits of smaller classes

New flyer for the Feb. 28 class size hearings; please come!

Here and below is the updated flyer for the Feb. 28 class size hearings at City Hall, starting at 10 AM.  Please share widely, and sorry for all the confusion.

Please come to show your support for smaller classes, even if you don’t choose to testify.  If you can’t be there at 10 AM, don’t worry; public testimony won’t start till about 11 AM and then will likely continue till at least 1 PM.

We have updated talking points, though it’s always best to speak from the heart and from your own experience as a parent or former teacher.  (Most working teachers unfortunately won’t be able to attend.)

We weren’t able to hold a rally beforehand, so we’ll hold a silent rally inside the Committee room.  Bring signs!

Thanks, Leonie

Download (PDF, 740KB)

New flyer for the Feb. 28 class size hearings; please come! | Class Size Matters  | A clearinghouse for information on class size & the proven benefits of smaller classes

CURMUDGUCATION: Shoving Babies Into The Pipeline

CURMUDGUCATION: Shoving Babies Into The Pipeline

Shoving Babies Into The Pipeline

I knew I was going to be cranky after the very first sentence:

The workforce pipeline begins with quality early education.

This is Gil Minor, a retired CEO of a Fortune 200 company; he's also the chair of the Virginia Higher Education Council and vice-chairman of the group he's plugging in this op-ed, E3: Elevate Early Education. And not everything he has to say is odious claptrap, but that first sentence really sets the wrong tone.

This attitude pops up from business guys with depressing regularity. In 2013, it was Allan Golston of the Gates Foundation writing, "Businesses are the primary consumers of the output of our schools..." Back in 2014, Rex Tillerson, then Enron chief, said, "I'm not sure public schools understand that we're their customer--that we, the business community, are your customer. What they don't understand is they are producing a product at the end of that high school graduation."

Yes, that looks like a great place for a child

This too-pervasive belief that the main purpose of public education is to run human capital through a pipeline so that meat widgets pop out the other end, ready for the consumption of business is bunk. Public education does not exist to serve the needs of business; it exists to serve the students, their families, the community, and society as a whole. Absolutely, part of serving students is to help them become self-supporting and employable-- but the idea is to serve the needs of the students, not the needs of the businesses.

But Minor is going to take this belief about CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Shoving Babies Into The Pipeline

NYC Public School Parents: Update: Class size hearings to be held on Friday Feb. 28, 10AM at City Hall!

NYC Public School Parents: Update: Class size hearings to be held on Friday Feb. 28, 10AM at City Hall!

Update: Class size hearings to be held on Friday Feb. 28, 10AM at City Hall!

Our class size hearings have been rescheduled again, and will now be held on Friday February 28, at 10AM at City Hall in the Committee Room. 

We really need parents, teachers, and concerned citizens to come out and show their support for this event. You can come to testify and/or bring signs to show your support for smaller class sizes.

If you cannot attend, you can also send written testimony or a statement of support to jatwell@council.nyc.gov by March 4, which will be shared with the Education Committee members.

If you do plan to testify or send a statement, is always best to speak from your own experience as a parent or teacher. But additional points you could make are provided in our Class Size FAQ here.

These rescheduling issues are out of our hands, but we apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this causes. Thank you for your patience, and for your continued support for NYC students.

 And if you haven’t already, please also call Speaker Corey Johnson at 212-564-7757 or 212-788-7210 and your own Council Member – you can find out their contact info at https://council.nyc.gov/districts/ 

Urge them to allocate at least $100 million in next year’s budget for class size reduction. 

Then follow up by letting us know at our quick survey. Thanks so much to those of you who’ve done this already.


NYC Public School Parents: Update: Class size hearings to be held on Friday Feb. 28, 10AM at City Hall!

Project-Based Learning, #3 | The Merrow Report

Project-Based Learning, #3 | The Merrow Report

Project-Based Learning, #3

Recently in this space I have been praising project-based learning, because it enables students to become producers of knowledge, not merely consumers (and sometimes regurgitators).  As noted earlier, the best projects are ones where the teacher or teachers do not know ‘The correct answer’ because they also are engaged in the journey of discovery. 

In the end, students own the work they have done; school is no longer just about tests, test scores, and the question teachers dread, “Will this be on the test?”

The first two projects I wrote about involved water and air; this one gets students out in their communities, which means it will also introduce adults who don’t have school-age children to the wonders of what is possible in public education.  

Done well, this work enables young people to develop at least six skills that will serve them well throughout their adult lives.

          1) working together with peers;

         2) communicating across generations;

          3) specific production CONTINUE READING: Project-Based Learning, #3 | The Merrow Report

The Real Reading Debate and How We Fail to Teach Reading – radical eyes for equity

The Real Reading Debate and How We Fail to Teach Reading – radical eyes for equity

The Real Reading Debate and How We Fail to Teach Reading

Sometimes cliches hit the nail on the head: It’s deja vu all over again.


Sometimes hackneyed metaphors paint the best picture: When you find yourself in a hole, keep digging.


And that brings us to the “science of reading” version of the Reading War.


Here, I want to address the often misunderstood real reading debate as well as outline how there has been a historical failure in teaching reading that continues today.


First, let’s clarify some facts about reading.


For over a century, measurable reading achievement (test scores) has been mostly correlated with socio-economic factors (the students home, community, and school) and not significantly correlated with how students are being taught to read.


In that same time period, there has never been a moment when the U.S. hasn’t declared “reading crisis.” And as a result of this myopic view of reading achievement, the U.S. has a recurring Reading War; some notable moments include the 1940s, the 1950s-1960s, and the 1990s (see especially McQuillan).


Throughout the history of reading instruction, phonics instruction has always been a key component of how students are taught to read in school. The Urban CONTINUE READING: The Real Reading Debate and How We Fail to Teach Reading – radical eyes for equity

Report Shows Racial Divide in Academic Success

Report Shows Racial Divide in Academic Success

Report Shows Racial Divide in Academic Success in Progressive Cities

The American education system is rife with problems. Schools go underfunded, teachers barely can make a living wage and students have to worry about either getting shot at or body-slammed by school resource officers. While many of those problems tend to be attributed to schools in lower-income areas, a study shows that’s not quite the case.

NBC News reports that in some of the nation’s most progressive cities, academic success is divided across racial lines. Cities such as San Francisco, Minneapolis and Oakland have some of the worst gaps in success between white students and their black and Latino counterparts. In San Francisco, 70 percent of white students are proficient in math while only 12 percent of black students can claim the same. In Washington D.C, 83 percent of white students are reading at a proficient level as opposed to black students who are ranking at 23 percent.

In comparison, some of the most conservative cities in the country have closed if not eradicated the gap completely. While this is not a good look, it’s a problem that can be fixed. Some solutions proposed were politicians allocating more funds into their school systems, more interaction between teachers and the parents of students and programs that will track the year to year progress of minority students.

It’s no secret that American education tends to favor whiteness. This report isn’t so much a shocking exposé as it is a confirmation of what we already knew. I would like to see meaningful change come as a result of this study though I find it highly unlikely. 

Report Shows Racial Divide in Academic Success

Standardized tests voided at three dozen New Orleans schools due to irregularities | The Lens

Standardized tests voided at three dozen New Orleans schools due to irregularities | The Lens

Standardized tests voided at three dozen New Orleans schools due to irregularities

Thirty-four New Orleans public schools had at least one state standardized exam voided last school year due to test policy violations or suspected cheating, according to the Louisiana Department of Education’s annual testing irregularities report. 

Across the state, 1,497 exams at 299 schools were voided for a variety of reasons, ranging from administrative errors, such as an administrator giving students extra time, to suspected cheating. In total, 134 exams, at 34 public schools, were voided in Orleans Parish, out of about 80 public schools in the city.  Last year, 26 New Orleans public schools had 225 voided tests. Of those, 144 were from John F. Kennedy High School.

The majority of this year’s voids, both statewide and in the NOLA Public Schools district, were a result of testing policy violations rather than suspected cheating. 

In New Orleans, 17 tests were voided due to plagiarism and seven due to abnormally high numbers of wrong-to-right answer changes. 

Nearby Jefferson Parish public schools had 218 exams voided overall, St. Tammany public schools saw 30 exams voided, and the St. Bernard Parish school district had 5 exams voided.

Test security has been a focus in New Orleans since increased test scores from Landry- CONTINUE READING: Standardized tests voided at three dozen New Orleans schools due to irregularities | The Lens

Agency saved by DeVos appears to have accredited a college with no students, faculty or classrooms | Salon.com

Agency saved by DeVos appears to have accredited a college with no students, faculty or classrooms | Salon.com

Agency saved by DeVos appears to have accredited a college with no students, faculty or classrooms
A joint investigation by USA Today and The Argus Leader calls the ACICS' ability to vet schools into question

The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges & Schools (ACICS) accredited a college which appears to have no faculty or students after Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos reversed an Obama era decision to shutter the federal agency after it accredited colleges that defrauded students, according to a new investigation. 

The ACICS, which accredited now-shuttered for-profit schools, including ITT Tech, Corinthian Colleges, and Brightwood College, was shut down by former President Obama's administration in 2016. The department argued at the time that the agency, which oversaw 725 schools and more than $3 billion in federal financial aid, "exhibited a profound lack of compliance" with the "most basic" responsibilities of an accreditor.

A judge allowed DeVos, who has often sided with for-profit institutions, to reinstate the ACICS in 2018, The Washington Post reported. A former Obama administration official told the outlet that Devos "ignored her career staff's 57 findings of ACICS's noncompliance." The education secretary similarly came under fire for ignoring career staff when she gutted a debt relief program for students defrauded by the for-profit colleges accredited by ACICS.

After losing dozens of colleges and their membership fees after it was shut down, the agency had a need for new members. It accredited institutions with dubious operations, including a South Dakota "university" which does appears to have "no students, no faculty and no classrooms," according to the joint investigation by USA Today and The Argus Leader.

With its membership down from 290 institutions to just 63, the ACICS accredited Reagan National CONTINUE READING: Agency saved by DeVos appears to have accredited a college with no students, faculty or classrooms | Salon.com

Amplifying Profits Selling Harmful Pedagogy | tultican

Amplifying Profits Selling Harmful Pedagogy | tultican

Amplifying Profits Selling Harmful Pedagogy

By Thomas Ultican 2/19/2020

Amplify education Inc. has a two decade history of trying to profit by selling education technology. The bottom line is even if their pedagogy was good – which it is not – it would be unhealthy for children. The big dream of replacing teachers with digital screens and making gobs of money has a fatal flaw. The last thing 21st century children need is more screen time. It is dangerously unhealthy and delivers low quality teaching.

A History of Profiteers and Disrupters

Greg Gunn a former associate of the Carlyle Group who had earned a Masters of Electrical Engineering from MIT joined with Larry Berger to found Wireless Generation. Berger was a graduate of Yale University with a BA and had been a White House fellow working on Educational Technology at NASA during the Clinton administration. In 2010, News Corporation paid $360 million dollars to acquire Wireless Generation and renamed it Amplify Education, Inc. Including performance incentives, Larry Berger pocketed $40 million and agreed to stay on as head of curriculum.

Amplify a Commercial Venture Profiteering off Public Education

The mogul, Rupert Murdoch, proposed buying a million I-Pads for delivering classroom instruction. However, the Apple operating system did not allow the flexibility needed to load the Wireless Generation software. Amplify chose a CONTINUE READING: Amplifying Profits Selling Harmful Pedagogy | tultican

Food Fight: How 2 Trump Proposals Could Bite Into School Lunch | 89.3 KPCC

Food Fight: How 2 Trump Proposals Could Bite Into School Lunch | 89.3 KPCC

Food Fight: How 2 Trump Proposals Could Bite Into School Lunch

Two pending rule changes meant to reduce what the Trump administration calls abuse of federal benefit programs could also mean hundreds of thousands of children lose access to free school meals.

The first proposed change: The Trump administration wants to tighten states' standards for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. States have long been able to simplify enrollment in SNAP, allowing families who live near poverty to apply for the benefit with less paperwork and somewhat more flexible rules to qualify. But the administration believes some households are getting benefits they don't deserve.

"Too often, states have misused this flexibility without restraint," said U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue in July, when the change was proposed. "That is why we are changing the rules, preventing abuse of a critical safety net system, so those who need food assistance the most are the only ones who receive it."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's proposal would force states to tighten SNAP enrollment standards. As a result of the proposed change, USDA estimates more CONTINUE READING: Food Fight: How 2 Trump Proposals Could Bite Into School Lunch | 89.3 KPCC

Public Schools Are a “Pillar of our Democracy.” Trump and DeVos Declare Them “Antiquated and Oppressive.” | janresseger

Public Schools Are a “Pillar of our Democracy.” Trump and DeVos Declare Them “Antiquated and Oppressive.” | janresseger

Public Schools Are a “Pillar of our Democracy.” Trump and DeVos Declare Them “Antiquated and Oppressive.”

If you are going to read one article about public education this week, I recommend Derek Black’s commentary in last Friday’s USA Today, Trump’s ‘Education Freedom’ Plan Is an Attack on Public Schools. That’s Un-American.  Derek Black is a professor of law at the University of South Carolina.

Black begins by challenging what he calls the coded language being used by President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to pitch DeVos’s one program idea—the one she has pitched unsuccessfully to Congress now for three years running and the program she is pitching again this year.  This is, of course, her idea for a kind of federal private school vouchers at public expense, a $5 billion plan for tuition-tax-credits.

Black explains: “‘Education freedom’—the Trump administration’s new buzzwords—is not about good education for the public. It’s about ending all that public education stands for. The administration won’t claim that precise goal because it’s politically toxic, including with a huge chunk of its own base. Instead, President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have carefully aimed at core aspects of public education without ever formally declaring war. But peel away the coded language and convoluted tax schemes, and the only thing left is an agenda incompatible with public education.”

In his State of the Union message, Trump described “American children trapped in government schools.”

Black responds: “‘Government schools’ refers to public schools in general…  (T)he point is to equate public schools with all the negative connotations government conjures—waste, CONTINUE READING: Public Schools Are a “Pillar of our Democracy.” Trump and DeVos Declare Them “Antiquated and Oppressive.” | janresseger

School Reforms That Are Persistent and Admired But Marginal (Part 4) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

School Reforms That Are Persistent and Admired But Marginal (Part 4) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

School Reforms That Are Persistent and Admired But Marginal (Part 4)

Every school reform is a solution to a problem. How a problem is identified (e.g., unilaterally, multilaterally) and who does the framing of it (e.g., policymakers, practitioners, parents), of course, matters. The cartoonish superintendent (or elected official) sees the problem in test scores declining the longer students are in school. His solution: allow 3 year-old toddlers to start school.

Poking fun at the screwy logic of this solution to an identifiable and well-known problem is easy to do. What’s harder is to figure out amid the never-ending flood of school reforms past and present, why some are adopted by districts but stayed mired in a protected corner of the system. And other adopted reforms spread to all schools in a district.

District officials are on the look out constantly for reforms that solve problems they face in school governance, organization, curriculum, and instruction. But these niche-based adopted programs (e.g., charters, Montessori schools, problem-based learning, competency-based learning, International Baccalaureate) persist over time, are admired in what they do–which is why districts embrace them–yet remain marginal to what other schools in the district do daily. It is puzzling.

Before offering my explanation for why this situation is common nationally, past and present, I want to take a crack at the common myth (neither my first nor last CONTINUE READING: School Reforms That Are Persistent and Admired But Marginal (Part 4) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice