Sunday, April 12, 2015

Jersey Jazzman: Are Camden's Renaissance Schools Really Serving ALL the Children?

Jersey Jazzman: Are Camden's Renaissance Schools Really Serving ALL the Children?:

Are Camden's Renaissance Schools Really Serving ALL the Children?

One of the big promises of the Camden "Renaissance Schools" was that they would be open to all of the children within a "catchment" area. This was a necessary precondition for the TEAM/KIPP charter chain to take over Lanning Square, which was supposed to be reserved for a district school. From the Philadelphia Inquirer of 2013:

Camden's first privately run and publicly financed Renaissance school project, the KIPP Cooper Norcross Academy, intends to build its first school at the site the state had reserved for the Lanning Square Elementary School and then expand from there.
[...]
KIPP plans to open in fall 2014 with prekindergarten and kindergarten, and add a grade each year, with about 100 students in each grade. A middle school is expected to open in the same building for fall 2017.
All students living within the catchment area would qualify for admission to the charterlike school.

Keep this in mind as we explore the latest controversy over the Renaissance Schools:

Last month, the Education Law Center released data -- obtained from the Camden City School District and well in advance of the regular release of enrollment data by the NJDOE -- that shows that the Renaissance Schools are not enrolling demographically similar populations of students compared to CCSD schools:

The main findings from ELC’s analysis include:
⦁ Mastery enrolled 368 students, 15% below projected enrollment.
⦁ Uncommon enrolled 71 students, 21% below projected enrollment.
⦁ KIPP enrolled 105 students, one above projected enrollment.
⦁ Mastery enrolled 37 English language learners (ELL), one above projected enrollment and comparable to the district’s ELL enrollment.
⦁ Uncommon enrolled no ELLs, and KIPP enrolled five ELLs, well below the district’s 8% ELL enrollment.
⦁ Mastery enrolled 59 special education students, 20 below projection and 3% below the district’s 19% classification rate.
⦁ Uncommon enrolled six and KIPP enrolled seven special education students, below projections and far below the district’s enrollment of students with disabilities.
All of the charter schools’ enrollments exceed the district’s 92% rate of students who qualify for free and reduced priced lunch. However, data from the Camden district does not break out those students who qualify for free lunch, with household incomes below 130% of the federal poverty level, and those who qualify for reduced priced lunch, below 185% of the poverty level or a household income of $44,800 for a family of four. The data does not provide special education enrollment by disability classification, so it is not possible to determine the severity of the disability of those students enrolled in the new charters as compared to students enrolled in the district. [emphasis mine]

Now, there's actually a fair response to this disparity in numbers. That response was released, as reformy talking points in New Jersey usually are these days, through the charters' reliable cheerleaders, Laura Waters and Janellen Duffy. Here's what Duffy, director of JerseyCAN, had to say:

Also, according to the latest data, the renaissance schools are serving rates

- See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2015/04/are-camdens-renaissance-schools-really.html?spref=fb#sthash.6NXLj9b9.dpuf

Seattle King County NAACP Statement on the Common Core Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC) | Seattle Education

Seattle King County NAACP Statement on the Common Core Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC) | Seattle Education:

Seattle King County NAACP Statement on the Common Core Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC)

The following statement was read at the NAACP press conference on the Common Core Standards SBAC test:

It is the position of the Seattle King County Branch of the NAACP to come out against the Smarter Balanced Assessment Tests. Commonly referred to as SBAC.

Seattle and Washington State public schools are not supplied with proper resources and a lack of equity within our schools continue to exist.

The State of Washington cannot hold teachers responsible for the outcome of students test results; when these very students are attending schools in a State that ranks 47th out of 50 States in the Nation when it comes to funding education. That is the 3rd lowest in the U.S. Furthermore, Washington State cannot expect for the majority of students to perform well on increased targeted performance assessments; while the State continues to underfund education in direct violation of a Washington State Supreme Court Order.

The costs tied to the test this year is $200 million. If the State wants students to achieve Seattle King County NAACP Statement on the Common Core Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC) | Seattle Education:

Florida State Senate candidate Rick Roach: Has he finally mastered the FCAT? | BlogTalkRadio

BustED Pencils Online Radio by Busted Pencils | BlogTalkRadio:

Florida State Senate candidate Rick Roach: Has he finally mastered the FCAT?

In this Epsode of the BustED Pencils podcast, Jed and Tim will be talking to Florida State Senate candidate Rick Roach. You might be thinking, "hey I know that name, isn't he the school board member that had some problems taking the FCAT?" http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/revealed-school-board-member-who-took-standardized-test/2011/12/06/gIQAbIcxZO_blog.html Since then Rick has become an advocate for quality schools and jumped into the Florida state Senate race. Listen tonight as we talk to Rick about his journey from school board member who took the FCAT to Florida State Senate candidate. https://rickroachforsenate.com/

BustED Pencils Online Radio by Busted Pencils | BlogTalkRadio:

in Education
today at 3:00 pm
00:45

Where Have All the Teachers Gone and How Do We Get Them Back? | Joseph Bishop

Where Have All the Teachers Gone and How Do We Get Them Back? | Joseph Bishop:

Where Have All the Teachers Gone and How Do We Get Them Back?

Where have all the teachers gone? It's the title of a recent story featured on NPR's All Things Considered, highlighting the political and professional challenges that are likely the explanation for declining enrollment in education preparation programs across the country. In fact, in California, enrollment is down 53 percent over the past five years. New York and Texas are seeing similar declines as well. These numbers don't bode well for the education profession as a whole, but especially for parents with high hopes for their child's future, anxiously awaiting the teacher placement lists posted at the beginning of the school year, the savvy ones jockeying for placement in a favorite teacher's classroom. They know what matters most for the education of their child is not only a safe, supportive school, but also a great teacher in the classroom. They also recognize the importance of a school principal who knows each of her students by name, and who is willing to do anything to support the success of their faculty and staff.

While there's much agreement about how important educators are, there's been nothing but controversy spilling over from debates about how to ensure every child has access to excellent educators - teachers, principals, librarians and other staff who help children learn. This week, Senate leaders from both sides of the aisle released their draft proposal to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It represents a positive shift away from prescribing evaluation systems that rely too heavily on students' standardized test scores as the right medicine for getting rid of bad teachers--a trend that has unfortunately been embraced by many states in response to the Obama Administration's Race to the Top initiative and NCLB waivers. The bipartisan compromise shows progress towards a more comprehensive approach to building the capacity of teachers and principals to be successful on the job.

Some of the most promising aspects of the Senate's most recent NCLB rewrite are intended to address the current obstacles deterring people from pursuing careers in education. And it's no coincidence that key elements of a bill introduced by Senators Casey of Pennsylvania and Jack Reed of Rhode Island are included in the bipartisan agreement. Known as the Better Educator Support and Training (BEST) Act, the bill requires states and districts to develop a broad, coherent strategy for developing and supporting excellent teachers and school principals. It also places a heavy emphasis on clinical training in a real classroom with real students and mentorship for new teachers and principals from accomplished, experienced educators. It requires regular time for collaboration, planning, and feedback from peers and administrators, and opportunities for professional development tied to the needs of the teacher and the school. Most importantly, it encourages opportunities for growth within the profession, so that excellent teachers can become leaders and grow in their careers while still remaining in the classroom.

Unfortunately, a critical element of the BEST Act has been omitted from the bipartisan Senate draft bill. The BEST Act would, for the first time, write into federal law a standard that every teacher and school principal enter the profession "profession-ready." This means that both teachers and principals complete their preparation program, demonstrate content knowledge in the subject taught, and demonstrate effective teaching and school leadership skills, such as through a teacher performance assessment.

Disappointingly, the Senate proposal fails to establish any minimum entry level standard for educators or provide students with any right to be taught by a profession-ready teacher. We know that low-income students, students of color, students with disabilities, and English learners are disproportionately taught by underprepared and inexperienced teachers--and yet these are the students who most need an excellent educator leading their classrooms. It's hard to understand how the Senate could justify giving billions of federal education dollars to states without requiring in exchange that they provide this most basic educational resource to students: a profession-ready teacher.

There is still time to establish clear national benchmarks for teachers and principals before they start working in schools. The United States has clean water standards, auto safety standards, drug safety standards and strict rules for airlines safety, but no common preparation threshold for educators. That has to change immediately, along with a genuine commitment from both parties to elevating the teaching profession through new resources and a new lexicon for teaching at the local, state and federal level. We know it is possible: one need look no further than countries like Finland, or just over the border in Ontario, Canada. Educational experts from across the spectrum have articulated this vision for the United States, including the Coalition for Teaching Quality, an entity representing over 100 civil rights, disability, parent, student, educator, and education policy organizations who have been urging both Where Have All the Teachers Gone and How Do We Get Them Back? | Joseph Bishop:

Amplify's Joel Klein Responds to Bloomberg News Article - Bloomberg Business

Amplify's Joel Klein Responds to Bloomberg News Article - Bloomberg Business:

Amplify's Joel Klein Responds to Bloomberg News Article

To the Editor:

Re the article: News Corp.’s $1 Billion Plan to Overhaul Education Is Riddled With Failures

I’m writing in response to your recent article on Amplify. I believe your piece is riddled with factual errors, inconsistencies and incorrect analysis.

Your story labels our company and our products as “riddled with failure” based on events from over a year and a half ago, which both you and our customers acknowledge have already been turned around.

Though technical and hardware problems did cause us to put our Tablet program in Guilford on hold in the fall of 2013, we partnered with the district, redesigned our product and ultimately turned a setback into a win.

You seem to go out of your way to discount every positive development at Amplify by:

Citing cherry-picked evidence.
Faulting our company for issues with school district network infrastructure.
Presenting past challenges as if they undercut present-day successes.
Confusing correlation with causality.
Drawing false inferences.

Only 10 words (out of over 2,000) are used to describe how the largest part of Amplify’s investment, our digital curriculum, is impacting classroom learning. That seems both unfortunate and unfair. Especially in light of what those words say: “students have increased their reading with the curriculum.”

If we are getting 21st century middle schoolers to read more, then this may be one of the most promising successes in education history, so why describe it as riddled with failure?

Amplify is sticking by its customers, turning setbacks into wins, and delivering groundbreaking curriculum to students whose lives are better for it.

Joel Klein
CEO of Amplify

Editors’ Note: Bloomberg stands by its story published April 7. We found one factual error—about one specific time frame—in the 33rd paragraph of the story. We corrected it. As for inaccurate analysis, the article does not fault the company for issues with school district network infrastructure, nor does it cite cherry-picked information. There is plenty of evidence given on the company’s side, including positive comments from the Guilford County school district in North Carolina and a statement from News Corp. Chief Executive Officer Robert Thomson, who says Amplify is “well-positioned to meet the demand for a world-class curriculum.” Amplify is the digital education unit of News Corp.Amplify's Joel Klein Responds to Bloomberg News Article - Bloomberg Business:

Virginia tops nation in sending students to cops, courts: Where does your state rank? | Center for Public Integrity

Virginia tops nation in sending students to cops, courts: Where does your state rank? | Center for Public Integrity:

Virginia tops nation in sending students to cops, courts: Where does your state rank?

How kicking a trash can became criminal for a 6th grader

Kayleb Moon-Robinson was 11 years old last fall when charges — criminal charges — began piling up at school.

Diagnosed as autistic, Kayleb was being scolded for misbehavior one day and kicked a trash can at Linkhorne Middle School in Lynchburg, Virginia, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. A police officer assigned to the school witnessed the tantrum, and filed a disorderly conduct charge against the sixth grader in juvenile court.

Just weeks later, in November, Kayleb, who is African-American, disobeyed a new rule — this one just for him — that he wait while other kids left class. The principal sent the same school officer to get him.

“He grabbed me and tried to take me to the office,” said Kayleb, a small, bespectacled boy who enjoys science. “I started pushing him away. He slammed me down, and then he handcuffed me.”

In an incident report, a teacher confirmed that the officer spoke to Kayleb, then grabbed him around the chest, and that Kayleb cursed and struggled. School officials won’t comment on this case, but say that police in schools are crucial to providing a safe atmosphere and protecting against outside threats. Stacey Doss, Kayleb’s mother and the daughter of a police officer herself, was outraged.

Educators stood by, she said, while the cop took her son in handcuffs to juvenile court. The officer filed a second misdemeanor disorderly conduct complaint. And he also submitted another charge, a very grown-up charge for a very small boy: felony assault on a police officer. That charge was filed, Doss said the officer told her, because Kayleb “fought back.”

“I thought in my mind — Kayleb is 11,” Doss said. “He is autistic. He doesn't fully understand how to differentiate the roles of certain people.”

To Doss’ shock, a Lynchburg juvenile court judge found Kayleb guilty of all those charges in early April, which could prove life-altering.

The young student’s swift trip into the criminal justice system might seem like a singular case of tough discipline. But he’s not alone.

In fact, U.S. Department of Education data analyzed by the Center for Public Integrity show that Virginia schools in a single year referred students to law enforcement agencies at a rate nearly three times the national rate. Virginia’s referral rate: about 16 for every 1,000 students, compared to a national rate of six referrals for every 1,000 students. In Virginia, some of the individual schools with highest rates of referral — in one case 228 per 1,000 — were middle schools, whose students are usually from 11 to 14 years old.Virginia tops nation in sending students to cops, courts: Where does your state rank? | Center for Public Integrity:

Americans opting out of Common Core tests in droves

Americans opting out of Common Core tests in droves:

AMERICANS OPTING OUT OF COMMON CORE TESTS IN DROVES

People must resist 'state-sponsored child abuse,' says education expert

Across the United States, concerned parents and students are refusing to participate in new tests aligned with the federal government’s Common Core state standards, and international journalist and educator Alex Newman could not be more excited about it.

“The explosive growth of the opt-out movement has been one extremely encouraging development in a sea of bad news when it comes to government education in the United States,” Newman told WND. “As more and more parents and teachers realize what is going on with Common Core, I expect this movement to continue growing by leaps and bounds.”

Newman, the co-author of “Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians are Using Government Schools to Destroy America’s Children,” believes Common Core and its affiliated tests are not just ineffective but dangerous.

“There is no doubt that this Obama scheme to nationalize education is designed not to educate children properly, but to shape their minds with propaganda and reduce their critical thinking abilities for nefarious purposes,” Newman said. “As we show in our new book (“Crimes of the Educators”), rather than improve education, Common Core is the next phase in the education establishment’s destruction of American children. One state lawmaker with an education degree told me this plot was ‘state-sponsored child abuse.’ He is right.”

Read the details about your children’s schools, in “Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians are Using Government Schools to Destroy America’s Children.”

Many parents and students appear to have reached a similar conclusion, choosing to opt out of the Common Core tests. For example, nearly 1,000 students in the Portland, Oregon, Public School District have opted out of taking the new Smarter Balanced tests scheduled for later this month. The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) is one of two federally funded multi-state consortia in charge of developing tests aligned with Common Core standards.

In Pacific Grove, California, one mother told local news station KION that she chose to withdraw her fifth-grade son from this month’s SBAC test upon discovering the test would not affect her son’s grades.

The mother also said she didn’t know she was allowed to opt out until another parent mentioned it. While California parents are allowed to make that choice, school districts don’t generally mention it to them.

That seems to be the case elsewhere as well. In Kennebunk, Maine, several parents complained at a school board meeting that their district did not make it clear their students had a right to opt out of the new SBAC test. The assistant superintendent had sent parents a letter describing the new Common Core-aligned test, but parents claimed the letter didn’t give information on how to opt out.

Newman, who has written extensively on education issues in the U.S. and worldwide, said states have different policies on opting out of the Common Core testing regime. Some claim the exams are mandatory, while others clearly give parents and students the right to refuse. Regardless of what a state’s laws are, Newman believes people always have a right to refuse what he sees as federal encroachment on a child’s education.

“Government does not own your children, so regardless of what bureaucrats and politicians in some especially radical states say, parents need to absolutely stand firm to protect their kids and their privacy,” Newman said. “We cannot allow government to usurp parents’ role in raising children and making decisions on education or anything else.

“Bureaucrats making lawless threats against parents and children who refuse to be subjected to this unconstitutional invasion of privacy are way out of line and need to be held accountable by voters, taxpayers, and our elected officials. Parents should research the law in their state carefully, but we must never allow ourselves to be intimidated by these lawless threats.”

It’s not just parents and students who oppose Common Core. Some teachers oppose it as well, and in one Seattle school district, the students are saving their teachers the trouble of protesting. At Garfield High School, the site of a 2013 testing boycott, roughly half the juniors have refused to take the new Smarter Balanced tests. Therefore, teachers who oppose the tests have said they don’t feel the need to protest this time around.

New York State has seemingly been the center of the opt-out movement. The Washington Post reported that about 60,000 New York students refused to take the state’s Common Core-aligned tests last year, and even more are expected to decline this year.

That anti-Common Core spirit was on display Tuesday in New Paltz, when more than 100 students, parents and teachers held a rally to call on families in their region to boycott the tests.

New York state law makes no provision for parents to opt out of the tests, although some state lawmakers want to change that. Assemblyman Dean Murray, a Republican, recently sponsored a bill to allow students to refuse the tests without negative consequences.

Newman believes students should refuse Common Core tests regardless of any threats of punishment, because he sees the alternative as far worse: a dumbed-down population that lacks privacy.

“These federally funded Common Core tests are being used to gather unimaginable amounts of private data on your child for the federal government – records that will follow him or her from ‘cradle to career,’ as Obama officials put it, and beyond,” Newman warned.

But Newman is encouraged by the opt-out movement, believing it could stop the education

Jacques: BAMN hijacks teachers union

Jacques: BAMN hijacks teachers union:

Jacques: BAMN hijacking teachers union

If Steve Conn isn't careful, he may protest himself right out of a job.

The bombastic Detroit Federation of Teachers president is only a few months into his post, after winning a runoff election in January by 15 votes.

Now, many teachers are having regrets.

One power couple within the DFT is especially displeased.

Ivy Bailey, an executive vice president with the union, and her husband Dominic Bailey, a teacher at Clippert Academy, are both discouraged about the direction the union is heading under Conn.

"We need to step up and not keep going down this road of negativity," says Ivy Bailey. "All this rallying gets us nowhere."

The DFT, an affiliate of AFT-Michigan, has 4,000 members.

As these teachers start getting a taste for Conn's leadership style, they are feeling ostracized. Conn's job is to represent their interests, but union members are getting the impression he cares more about his own agenda.

At the many protests and rallies Conn likes to hold, he's more often seen with his friends from the radical protest group By Any Means Necessary than DFT teachers.

"BAMN has hijacked the DFT for its own agenda," says Dominic Bailey. "What is he [Conn] doing and why is he creating this chaos?"

Conn's penchant for protesting was on full display when he barged in to a meeting regarding the future of Detroit's schools with a few BAMN buddies, disrupting the event.

What was especially puzzling to some union members was that Conn protested a meeting he should have supported. The Coalition for the Future of Detroit Schoolchildren offered its recommendations after working for months, and the coalition's blueprint resembles much of Conn's to-do list.

The coalition called for the end of the Education Achievement Authority and for the state to assume control of Detroit Public Schools' debt—both of which Conn has demanded.

Plus, Ivy Bailey was on one of the coalition's committees, along with some other union representatives and principals. She felt the group listened to her and heard her concerns. AFT-Michigan president David Hecker was one of the co-chairs of the group.

Ivy Bailey acknowledges she occasionally agrees with Conn, but her real concern is style, not substance.

"It's not always his ideas, it's his methodology," she says.

That's why DFT members are concerned their president will make it impossible for them to have the rational conversations they'll need with district leadership over upcoming contract negotiations and other issues.

Conn didn't return requests for an interview.

DETROIT NEWS

Teachers 'fed up,' Detroit teachers union chief says

In his defense, the teachers who voted for Conn knew what they were getting. The 30-year veteran teacher has always been strident, and ran with BAMN at his side.

Ivy Bailey isn't ready to throw in the towel, even though she says there are ways to go about a recall in the union's bylaws. If that were to occur, however, she wants the Jacques: BAMN hijacks teachers union:

NEA: No Child Left Behind rewrite doesn’t level the playing field - The Washington Post

NEA: No Child Left Behind rewrite doesn’t level the playing field - The Washington Post:

NEA: No Child Left Behind rewrite doesn’t level the playing field

The head of the country’s largest teachers union said that her organization does not support a bipartisan proposal in the Senate to replace the nation’s main federal education law because it does not go far enough to create equal educational opportunities for poor children.

“We keep asking ourselves, ‘Does this move the needle for kids? Will a child see something better in his or her classroom?’ ” said Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the 3.2 million-member National Education Association, the largest labor union in the country. “And this bill in the Senate doesn’t do it. We’re not at ‘better’ yet.”

[Lunch lady rises to teachers union leader and takes on all comers, bluntly.]

Garcia’s comments come as the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee begins debate this week on a bipartisan bill crafted by Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the panel, and Patty Murray (Wash.), the ranking Democrat. They have been working for months on a 600-page update of the law known as No Child Left Behind.

The bill does embrace several priorities of the teachers union, such as deleting the federal penalties attached to standardized tests, which Garcia has blamed for warping the classroom experience. It also lets states decide whether and how to evaluate teachers, as opposed to a federal requirement that says they should be graded in part on the basis of student test scores.

But Garcia said Friday that the union wants any new federal education law to address the inequities between high-poverty public schools and those in more affluent communities. Recent government data show that in 23 states, state and local governments are together spending less per pupil in the poorest school districts than they are in the most affluent ones.

When Congress enacted the original federal education law in 1965 as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, it was designed to address funding inequities by sending federal dollars to states to help educate poor and disabled students and those learning English.

But those federal dollars account for about 12 percent of total education spending, and Washington’s role in equalizing resources for schools is limited in a public education system funded largely by local real estate taxes.

The NEA says Congress can address the problem by requiring schools to publish an “opportunity dashboard” that would disclose how much each school spends on teacher salaries, the number of experienced teachers and counselors they employ, access to Advanced Placement and honors courses and other indicators, so that disparity between schools is transparent.

In addition to laying bare the disparities, the union wants any new federal law to hold states responsible for reducing the resource gap between schools, Garcia said.

No Child Left Behind has judged states and school districts based on student outcomes, largely by relying on test scores. But they should also be evaluated based on inputs — whether they are evenly distributing resources from school to school, she said.

“We’ve been talking about this to every senator we can,” Garcia said. “It is time for accountability to mean that all kids are getting what they need.”

She said the union will push hard for changes in a final bill.

“This is not an endgame, this is the beginning of the fight,” she said. “Senators Patty Murray and Alexander really have tried very hard to get this to a better place, and it’s not there yet. We want to work with members of Congress, we want to move this forward . . . we want them to fix some of the things that are egregiously wrong.”

The NEA’s opposition to the bipartisan proposal sets it apart from many other education organizations that have expressed cautious optimism, with the exception of the Heritage Foundation, which also is opposed.

No Child Left Behind was due for reauthorization in 2007, but previous attempts to rewrite the law collapsed amid partisan debates on Capitol Hill about the proper role of the federal government in local schools.NEA: No Child Left Behind rewrite doesn’t level the playing field - The Washington Post:

New York City charters leave thousands of seats unfilled despite exploding demand, study finds - The Washington Post

New York City charters leave thousands of seats unfilled despite exploding demand, study finds - The Washington Post:

New York City charters leave thousands of seats unfilled despite exploding demand, study finds

New York City’s charter schools are leaving thousands of seats unfilled each year despite ballooning demand and long waiting lists, according to an analysis of public data to be released Friday.

The decision not to fill seats that are left vacant by departing students deprives other deserving students of places in the schools, the report argues. It also means that charter schools can appear to be improving, according to proficiency rates on standardized tests, even as the absolute number of children scoring proficient declines each year, it says.

The report, entitled “No Seat Left Behind” and issued by the Harlem-based parent advocacy group Democracy Builders, calls on charter schools to begin voluntarily “backfilling” their empty seats — or admitting new students to replace those who leave.

[Charter schools still a D.C. hot-button issue]

Traditional public schools are required to fill empty seats, often taking in children who are English language learners, or homeless or poor. Some charter schools also backfill, but many do not, allowing new students to enroll only at certain entry points — such as kindergarten, fifth or sixth grade, and ninth grade.

“We love to say charter schools are public schools,” said Princess Lyles, executive director of Democracy Builders. “We have to be who we say are. If we want to proclaim that we are public schools, then we have to do some of the things that traditional public schools have to do.”

In New York City, charter schools lose an average of between 6 and 11 percent of students annually, Democracy Builders found. Since many schools do not replace those students, more than 2,500 seats are left empty in grades 3 through 8 alone, according to the report.

“One seat left open is one too many,” Lyles said, arguing that the 50,000 children on wait lists deserve as much access as possible to the city’s charter schools. The city’s charter schools enroll about 80,000 children.

Charter school critics have long contended that charters’ refusal to backfill has given them an unfair leg up in comparisons with traditional schools because a steady influx of new students — who are often behind grade level — can hurt math and reading proficiency rates.

The new report echoes that criticism but was written by charter school advocates. The founder of Democracy Builders is Seth Andrew, who also founded one of the city’s most vaunted charter school networks, Democracy Prep (which backfills its seats).

[Separating fact from fiction in 21 claims about charter schools]

The report includes interactive charts showing proficiency rates and attrition in grades three through eight for charter and traditional schools.

The data show that attrition has left a considerable number of vacancies at some of the most acclaimed charter schools in the city, such as Success Academy, which is known for producing high test scores even though it primarily enrolls poor children.

Between 2006 and 2014, the proportion of students at Success Academy who scored proficient in math ranged from 94 percent in third grade to 97 percent in eighth grade, according to the report.

But the number of test-takers declined with each passing year, as students departed, and the number of proficient students fell from 88 students in third grade to 31 students in eighth.

By contrast, many traditional schools see their numbers increase in later grades. In District 7, for example, between 2006 and 2014 the average number of test-takers increased from 77 to 109 between third and eighth grade, while proficiency fell from 30 to 28 percent.

“Without backfilling, a school can maintain the illusion of success,” Lyles and her Democracy Builders colleague Dan Clark wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published in February. The organization is supporting a bill before the New York City council that would require schools to make public far more information about student attrition and backfilling.

In a recent WNYC radio interview, Success Academy founder Eva Moskowitz called backfilling a “long, complicated debate” and said her New York City charters leave thousands of seats unfilled despite exploding demand, study finds - The Washington Post:

The Alexander-Murray, Proposed Senate ESEA Reauthorization, Part IV | deutsch29

The Alexander-Murray, Proposed Senate ESEA Reauthorization, Part IV | deutsch29:

The Alexander-Murray, Proposed Senate ESEA Reauthorization, Part IV

This is my fourth post on contents of the Alexander-Murray, Senate reauthorization draft of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) scheduled to be presented to the Senate education committee on April 14, 2015.

( See here my first post, my second post, and my third post.)

Alexander and Murray call their 601-page draft, Every Child Achieves Act of 2015.

My third post brought me to page 269 of those 601.

It is from that page that I now resume my writing:

Page 269: Part B of Title II is entitled, “Teacher and School Incentive Program.” This is a merit-pay “competition”:

(a) PURPOSES.—The purposes of this part are—
(1) to assist States, local educational agencies, and nonprofit organizations to develop, implement, improve, or expand comprehensive performance-based compensation systems or human capital management systems for teachers, principals, and other school leaders (especially for teachers, principals, and other school leaders in high-need schools) who raise student academic achievement and close the achievement gap between high- and low-performing students; and
(2) to study and review performance-based compensation systems or human capital management systems for teachers, principals, and other school leaders to evaluate the effectiveness, fairness, quality, consistency, and reliability of the systems.

Note the language about “closing the achievement gap.” Interesting choice of wording about the “gap” being “between high- and low-performing students. (That’s just funny: By definition, “low performers” do not perform “high.”)

But notice that regarding this “gap,” there is no reference here to race, ethnicity, or economics. Given the undoubted, deliberate choice of words in this document, it seems that the authors are trying to realign the “gap” concept with performance.

Closing the “gap” is now defined as all students performing relatively the same– for better or worse.

Moving on.

The “human capital management system” is defined as “a system by which a local educational agency makes and implements human capital decisions, such as decisions on preparation, recruitment, hiring, placement, retention, dismissal, compensation, professional development, tenure, and promotion; and that includes a performance-based compensation system” (pg. 271).

The “performance-based compensation system” is one that “differentiates levels of compensation based in part on measurable increases in student academic achievement” (pg. 272). Note that the “measurable outcomes” are only “part” of the compensation system and that the language, “increases in student achievement,” leaves room for measures not specifically tied to standardized testing outcomes.

Other factors in determining the levels of compensation include teaching “in high-need schools,” teaching “high-need subjects,” and “taking on additional leadership responsibilities” (pg. 279).

And then comes a typo: “A local educational agency may receive (whether individually or as part of a consortium or partnership) a grant under this part onlytwice once, as of the date of enactment of the Every Child Achieves Act of 2015″ (pg. 273). [Emphasis added.]

Either the local education agency (LEA) is eligible for a grant twice, or once. At any rate, the funded entity cannot depend indefinitely upon the federal government to fund its merit pay system. Receipt of the merit pay grant requires the receiving entity to match federal funds by 50 percent (see page 280).

Page 284: Another competition for the “Teaching of Traditional American History” grant “for the development, implementation, and strengthening of programs to teach traditional American history as a separate academic subject (not as a component of social studies) within elementary school and secondary school curricula….” This grant requires partnership with “an institution of higher education,” “a nonprofit history or humanities organization,” or “a library or museum” (pg. 285). Each of the partner entities could also “compete” for federal funds under the guise of “presidential or congressional academies.” There are also grants available for civic education (see pages 290-92).

Page 292: “Literacy Education for All: Results for the Nation” grants “to improve student academic achievement in reading and writing by providing Federal support to States to develop, revise, or update comprehensive literacy instruction plans that when implemented ensure high-quality instruction and effective strategies in reading and writing from early education through grade 12.”

“Comprehensive literacy instruction” is briefly defined as “instruction that includes developmentally appropriate, contextually explicit, and systematic instruction, and frequent practice, in reading and writing across content areas” and that “links literacy instruction to the challenging State academic standards” (pgs. 293, 95). There is much more to the definition (it is over two pages long). The literacy grants are for The Alexander-Murray, Proposed Senate ESEA Reauthorization, Part IV | deutsch29:

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