Thursday, May 14, 2015

Country research and advocacy on the impact of privatisation in education | Global Initiative

Country research and advocacy on the impact of privatisation in education | Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Country research and advocacy on the impact of privatisation in education |:
Country research and advocacy on the impact of privatisation in education

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The GI-ESCR is currently involved in conducting innovative multi-country research and advocacy on the impact of privatisation in education on the right to education in 9 countries. The research critically examines the global development of privatisation in the light of human rights standards.

For more information on the project and its implementation, check the community group http://privatisationeducationhumanright.ning.com/

Context and history of the research

The GI-ESCR in partnership with partners undertook a research and advocacy project on the topic of privatisation in education and its impact on the right to education in Morocco. The project involved field research and preparation and presentation of Parallel NGO Reports to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) for its review of Morocco in September 2014.

Following the advocacy conducted with the CRC and with other right to education experts engaged in human rights procedures in Geneva in the context of this work on Morocco, there has been a growing awareness and interest in the topic. In particular, the secretariat and members of UN human rights treaty bodies are showing increasing interest in knowing more about the links between privatisation in education and the right to education. In the meantime, organisations such as the Global Campaign for Education, the Privatisation in Education Research Initiative, and regional and national education coalitions have been conducting research and advocacy projects on privatisation, creating a solid body of research and advocacy material.

Building on this, the GI-ESCR has engaged in conducting advocacy on privatisation in education and human rights. From 11th to 14th June 2014, the GI-ESCR organised with partners a workshop to plan future advocacy on privatisation using the human rights framework. As part of this event, the GI-ESCR also organised a side-event at the Human Rights Council on 12th June 2014 (see also the Right to Education’s summary).

The current work

Following this event, the GI-ESCR has started working with a number of partners since August 2014 on a multi-country research and advocacy project,. This project builds on the work conducted in Morocco so as to reproduce it in additional countries. The project is coordinated by PERI, and is run in collaboration with theRight to Education Project, and a number of national partners. It involves to produce research, UN parallel reports, and advocacy, in the following 9 countries, which cover a range of issues and geographical locations:

Brazil
Ghana, with the Ghana National Campaign Coalition
Kenya, with Hakijamii
Nepal, with the Sciences Po Human Rights Clinic
Peru, with the Sciences Po Human Rights Clinic
Uganda, with the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER) and the Forum for Education NGOs in Uganda (FENU)
United Kingdom
Morocco
Pakistan

In each country, we produce with our partners parallel reports to relevant UN or regional human rights bodies. The aim is double: 1/ to do research, mobilisation and advocacy to raise awareness about the impact of privatisation in education at the national level, and 2/ to develop a set of standards and jurisprudence at the international level to clarify States’ obligations with regards to privatisation in education. The Right to Education Project will work in particular on developing international standards, and produce a methodology to support organisations to conduct research and advocacy on privatisation in education, based on the experience accumulated during the project.

We also work closely with a number of other partners, including the Global Campaign for Education, Education International, regional education coalitions, and various other partners working on the impact in terms of social justice of privatisation in education. Another key aim of the project is to build a dynamic network of organisation working on the privatisation, and it is open to everyone. If you’re interested and you’d like to join the group of organisations, or if you’d like to have more information, please email sylvain@globalinitiative-escr.org

See also more information about our work addressing international support to privatisation in education.

Project update and progress

News updates

Summary factsheets on privatisation and human rights by country

4LAKids - City "Ethics" Commission: INDEPENDENT CAMPAIGN EXPENDITURE IN LAUSD BOARD RACES GOES FROM $250K to $2.5 MILLION IN ONE MONTH

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: City Ethics Commission: INDEPENDENT CAMPAIGN EXPENDITURE IN LAUSD SCHOOL BOARD RACES GOES FROM $250K to $2.5 MILLION IN ONE MONTH:

City "Ethics" Commission: INDEPENDENT CAMPAIGN EXPENDITURE IN LAUSD SCHOOL BOARD RACES GOES FROM $250K to $2.5 MILLION IN ONE MONTH

High school sets up autistic kids to fail in college. Here's how to fix the problem. - Vox

High school sets up autistic kids to fail in college. Here's how to fix the problem. - Vox:

High school sets up autistic kids to fail in college. Here's how to fix the problem.

Ever since kindergarten, my son, Archer, has been "in the system." Before he started school, my wife and I notified the district that he'd been diagnosed with autism. Each year since then — Archer is wrapping up eighth grade — we've met with his teachers and school administrators to work out an Individualized Education Program, determining how many hours a week he'd be pulled out of class for one-on-one therapies and how much leeway his teachers should allow him to fidget, pace, or calm himself by humming softly.

Like most other parents of kids with autism spectrum disorders, my wife and I can expect to continue having these meetings until Archer graduates from high school. The Individualized Education Program has changed as he's matured and his social skills have improved, but until Archer turns 18, his teachers will know about his disorder, and we'll have the right to call meetings and make special requests on his behalf. That's the way the system works, and it's been working very well for autism spectrum kids across the country for years now.

"We make the assumption that high schools are getting students ready for college, and they're not"

The bad news is that the familiar patterns of care that have proved so effective at moving autistic students through their primary and secondary education may actually end up hindering them if they choose to go to college — or even into the workforce.

"We make the erroneous assumption that high schools are getting students ready for college, and they're not really," said Dr. Gerard Hoefling, who works with the Autism Support Program at Drexel University. "That's not their primary task. High schools do a wonderful job of getting students ready to graduate from high school."

Fortunately, there are steps that parents, colleges, and autism spectrum students themselves can take to ease the transition from high school to college. Nearly all of them focus on helping students like Archer to become independent self-advocates — the same goal most parents have for their neurotypical kids, too.

The problem with high school

The exact number of men and women on the spectrum attending college today is hard to pin down, because there are few incentives at the moment for those students to register with disability services. Circa 2008, autism researchers estimated that anywhere from 1 to 2 percent of the university population had autism, Asperger's, or some pervasive developmental disorder. Autism spectrum diagnoses have only risen since then.

Jane Brown, co-director of the organization College Autism Spectrum, described the big problem with how students on the autism spectrum transition from high school to college: "Up through high school, parents are advocates and CEO of their child's education."

But not only are universities not inclined to allow parents to stay in that driver's seat, they're legally bound in some cases to shut parents out. Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, once students turn 18, they become the stewards of their own records, from grades to whatever special learning tools and accommodations they might request.

In high school, the laws are geared toward making sure that all children, regardless of any disability, have a right to "a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment."Colleges are under no such obligation to make sure students learn and thrive. They have to provide certain resources for people on the autistic spectrum, but it's not their responsibility to make sure those resources get used.

How to bridge this disconnect between the structure of high school and the expectations of college? Dr. Susan White, co-director of Virginia Tech's Autism Clinic, suggested that while parents of neurotypical kids usually start thinking seriously about college when their children enter their junior year of high school, it would help if parents of children on the spectrum started much sooner, asking the questions, "What are the life skills they're going to need, and how can they start developing more independence?"

Over and over, the people I talked to about the challenges facing autistic and Asperger's students in college said that "self-advocacy" was the biggest issue. Many of these teens have never known what was being requested on their behalf when they were in high school, and so don't know what to ask for in college. Worse, due to the nature of the disorder, they lack the social skills to talk to peers or adapt to their situation.

"Students on the spectrum don't pick things up just from watching," Brown said. "That nonverbal social learning often is not a strength."

There are some scattered materials online about how kids on the spectrum get ready for adulthood. Lisa Goring, the executive vice president of programs and services at Autism Speaks, recommends her organization's online guides to transitioning from adolescence,postsecondary education, and joining the workforce. In an earlier Vox article, I wrote aboutthe 10 things I'm trying to teach my 13-year-old autist: I mainly want him to be able to stay fed, get where he needs to be, and exhibit enough self-awareness about his quirks so he doesn't unnerve the neurotypical.

But according to nearly everyone I spoke to about this topic, the number-one thing I should be doing for Archer is something I hadn't even considered: making sure he's in the room when my wife and I have our annual meetings with his school.

If more kids on the spectrum were aware of how much special leeway they were being given in elementary and secondary school, they'd know themselves what they need to work on. It's hard to have a serious, potentially embarrassing personal conversation with anyadolescent, but it's especially important that parents talk with their autism spectrum children about the nature of their disorder and how they can manage it.

How to improve the transition: start preparing early

When I mention Archer to Brown, she good-naturedly nags, "You're starting to get him ready for college now, right?"

Brown has a 23-year-old on the spectrum, and understands the confusion and frustration parents face when they're handing college freshmen over to institutions that may see them as just another face in the crowd. She estimates that the average university disability services administrator has a caseload of between 150 and 600 students, and can't hover over these kids' shoulders in the way parents were used to in elementary and high school.

That said, she does believe colleges are doing a good job of adjusting to the needs of autistic students. They can't substantially alter the requirements of a class that autists and the High school sets up autistic kids to fail in college. Here's how to fix the problem. - Vox:

How Big Business Has Driven Chicago Public School Reform for Over a Century | Chicago magazine | Politics & City Life May 2015

How Big Business Has Driven Chicago Public School Reform for Over a Century | Chicago magazine | Politics & City Life May 2015:

How Big Business Has Driven Chicago Public School Reform for Over a Century

For generations, Chicago’s private power brokers have tried to shape the school system according to the management principles of the day, whether it’s the hierarchies of 19th-century industry or the disruption of 21st-finance.

WBEZ’s excellent education reporter, Becky Vevea—not surprisingly, an alumna of Catalyst Chicago, Chicago’s excellent education magazine—has a great piece as part of WBEZ’s Curious City series: “Were Chicago’s Public Schools Ever Good?”

It’s a great question, not just because, as Vevea unsurprisingly says, “as an education reporter, I’ve heard many versions of this question during my time covering Chicago Public Schools.” More broadly and philosophically, it’s a good question because nostalgia is a powerful influence on how we think about the systems around us. Survivor bias, in particular—things that are good, from books to ideas to technologies tend to last, and because they last, they connect us to history, and color that history in rose.

And Vevea comes across such memories in reporting the piece. “For me the golden era was my time at Metro High School,” the head of Evanston’s District 65 tells her, about one of Chicago’s early magnet schools. But:

Magnet schools became isolated islands of success, but if you didn’t get into one, public education was a mixed bag.
Among other problems, inequalities persisted. Danns says when schools started to integrate, local trade unions pulled support from Washburne Trade School. An article from the Chicago Tribune in 1986, mentioned that in 1963 fewer than 2 percent of apprentices at Washburne were black.
In other words, even with years of effort on the part of the district, a career-ready curriculum remained out of reach for large swaths of CPS students.

A couple years ago I looked into this question as well. One of the fascinating things I found had to do with the city’s notorious “Willis Wagons,” which live in infamy as a symbol of racism—Benjamin Willis, the school superintendent, crammed black students into aluminum trailers, the kind you see as temporary offices on construction sites.

The Willis Wagons were undeniably bad. Not only did they serve to maintain school segregation, they were aesthetically a symbol of that divide: cheap and temporary structures sitting next to the solid, august, historical school buildings that evoked the city’s commitment to education. But what they addressed, however poorly, was also terrible: massively overcrowded classrooms and the widespread use of split-shift scheduling that deprived students of hours of instruction every day.

Vevea’s piece also reminded me of a fascinating work of history on Chicago’s schools, School Reform, Corporate Style: Chicago, 1880-1920, by Dorothy Shipps, who used to run the Consortium on Chicago School Research. It also traces patterns throughout the system’s history, but specifically about the system—how it was run and the power brokers that ran it. Take this paragraph, which sounds like it could be written about CPS today:

[Commercial] Club members self-righteously believed that the rapidly growing public schools could simultaneously upgrade the masses, preserve order, and provide young workers. They sought to vocationalize, economize, and rationalize schooling, steering it by judicious application of the same governing principles they thought best for their own businesses: keep taxes low, organize the work “scientifically,” and, above all, trust in management. Labor groups provided an alternative version of schooling that emphasized worker democracy in governance, social change through education, and equal access for all students to the highest levels of public schooling. Teachers federations and industrial unions fought to maintain teacher autonomy, union control over workplace skills, and a secure flow of public funding.

Only this was the 1880s, the very beginnings of the city’s public school system. Shipps follows this thread of technocratic, business-inspired management back to the 19th century, when University of Chicago president William Rainey Harper chaired the 1898 Commission on Educational Reorganization. Harper’s commission recommended an “independent business manager” who would “mimic ‘the executive in any well-conducted business enterprise.’” It also recommended “performance-based promotion,” and “established ‘efficiency’ as the primary performance criterion for teachers.”

Generally, the Commercial Club and its ilk were successful in shaping Chicago’s schools through the 20th century. One Chicago superintendent, William McAndrew, who served for four years in the 1920s, described How Big Business Has Driven Chicago Public School Reform for Over a Century | Chicago magazine | Politics & City Life May 2015:

.@TeachForAmerica Ground Offensive Stalling Spectacularly in California | Cloaking Inequity

.@TeachForAmerica Ground Offensive Stalling Spectacularly in California | Cloaking Inequity:

.@TeachForAmerica Ground Offensive Stalling Spectacularly in California

The media (social or traditional) has not reported on the Teach For America ground offensive going on in California. The traditional media has also missed that school boards are turning them away! It all started with an email from a San Francisco Unified School District classified staff member at Everett Middle School a few weeks ago. He notified me that TFA was working behind the scenes in San Francisco to expand their corps there from a base of 15 recruits. I discussed the San Francisco context in the post Will San Francisco Cancel TFA?. That same day, a former California TFA corps member contacted me on Facebook just hours after I received Jose’s letter. Since she was a Bay Area TFA special education teacher, I asked her to write a post describing her experience, she summed up her recent experience (in the same post) teaching special education for TFA as threats, depression, and debt. What did the San Francisco School Board Decide? The SF Gate reported

After a heated debate and a two-week delay, the San Francisco school boardTuesday decided to stick with the status quo, voting to hire 15 Teach for America interns for the next school year, the same number as last year. The vote was a compromise. Superintendent Richard Carranza wanted the board to boost the amount to 24.

800px-Berkeley-downtown-Bay-bridge-SF-in-back-from-Lab

Some people have said that the San Francisco decisions was a disappointment, but note that TFA was lobbying to increase their corps from 15, they weren’t able to do so. Why is Teach For America expanding? Because Arne Duncan and Barack Obama gave them $50 million to do so. From the Mathematica report (which btw the way their study actually inadvertently skewers TFA— though they really don’t want you to know that):

In 2010, TFA launched a major expansion effort, funded in part by a five-year Investing in Innovation (i3) scale-up grant of $50 million from the U.S. Department of Education. Under the i3 scale-up, TFA planned to increase the size of its teacher corps by more than 80 percent by September 2014, with the goal of placing 13,500 first- and second-year corps members in classrooms by the 2014–2015 school year and expanding to 52 regions across the country. While TFA ultimately fell short of the growth goals set in its scale-up application (Mead et al. 2015), by the 2012–2013 school year, the second year of the scale-up, it had expanded its placements by 25 percent, from 8,217 to 10,251 first- and second-year corps members.

In fact, the Washington Post’s Answer Sheet reported that TFA has fallen short 25% on their recruiting recently. As a result— I suspect— TFA has pursued an offensive in California. Not surprisingly this has occurred under the radar .@TeachForAmerica Ground Offensive Stalling Spectacularly in California | Cloaking Inequity:

This Week In Education: Thompson: Why That John Oliver Testing Segment Hit a Nerve

This Week In Education: Thompson: Why That John Oliver Testing Segment Hit a Nerve:

Thompson: Why That John Oliver Testing Segment Hit a Nerve

My wife kept pestering me to watch John Oliver's 18-minute, hilarious indictment of standardized testing on HBO, but I had a long "to-do" list. Skimming the replies by Alexander Russo, Peter Cunningham and others, I thought they were challenging the substance of Oliver's routine. The Education Post, as usual, countered with some out-of-context numbers, disingenuously pretending that low-stakes test score increases in 1999 were attributable to the NCLB Act of 2001. Then, Cunningham concluded with the standard attack on "self-serving union leaders, and the complacent middle class."

When I finally found time to watch the video, it became clear that Oliver had done his homework but that that wasn't what drove reformers up a wall. I had previously joked that reformers should have to watch videos of students reduced to tears and explaining how the testing mania had cost them a chance for a meaningful education. Oliver showed videos of the "human consequences" of test, sort, and punish. And, its not pretty.

The real reason why Oliver hit a nerve, I believe, is that his opening videos were so sickening. Russo, the curmudgeon, sees school testing pep rally videos as "like something you might see on America's Funniest Home Videos." But, to many or most parents and educators, I bet they are viewed as documentation of the repugnant practices that "reform" has inflicted on children.

Oliver hit a nerve by displaying the repulsive unintended consequences of high stakes testing. Under-the-gun (and I believe otherwise decent and caring educators) are shown mis-educating children, training them to be easily manipulated, outer-directed persons. He shows children being indoctrinated into compliance. He shows children being socialized into a herd mentality.

Its hard to say which is more awful - the way that stressed out children vomit on their test booklets or schools trying to root inner-directedness out of children. On the other hand, even reformers should celebrate the way that students and families are fighting back, demanding schools that respect children as individuals. Even opponents of the Opt Out movement should respect the way it embodies the creative insubordination that public schools should nourish.

Before watching Oliver's indictment of high stakes testing, I assumed that it had merely provoked the This Week In Education: Thompson: Why That John Oliver Testing Segment Hit a Nerve:

LIVE BLOG: K-12 education gets $83 billion in revised budget | EdSource

LIVE BLOG: K-12 education gets $83 billion in revised budget | EdSource:

Governor's Revised Budget

Summary PDF
Detail - Coming soon

http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/

LIVE BLOG: K-12 education gets $83 billion in revised budget

K-12 education wins big in the revised budget proposal announced by Governor Jerry Brown today, with $83 billion in total funding.

The “May Revise” included $6.7 billion more in expected revenue than was forecast in the budget proposed in January, meaning $5.5 billion more for K-14 education based on the provisions of Proposition 98, which sets the minimum levels of school funding.

Follow EdSource all day for details of the revised budget, reaction by key players in the education space, and coverage by EdSource reporters that will aim to put the budget in
context.

This live blog is ACTIVE, and it will automatically refresh every minute.

Click Here to Go Live http://edsource.org/2015/live-blog-california-may-revise-budget/79763#.VVTge_lViko

Red Lion Wear Red for Ed - Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association:

Red Lion Wear Red for Ed

written by Karen Wolfe, a member of the BAT Leadership Team

The Red Lion Hotel in Pasco, Washington got more attention last week than, well, maybe ever.

Michael Peña, a Washington teacher, posted on the Badass Teachers Association (BATs) Facebook page an account of Washington State teachers conducting rolling walkouts in protest of the legislature’s consistent underfunding of public schools. They wore “Red for Ed” as a sign of solidarity and support for public education. After a protest on May 8, a group of teachers in Pasco, Washington went into the Red Lion Hotel for a drink in the bar. A local county Republican group was holding an event and a legislator was in attendance who has not supported teachers.

Peña said that the Red Lion management asked the teachers to either remove their red shirts or leave. They left. But that was far from the end of it.

“It's time to reclaim the dialogue,” Peña concluded. “We will not be treated this way any longer without a strong, unified response.”

Within hours, the Red Lion—and anyone reading its Facebook page--was hearing from teachers and public education advocates from all over the country.https://www.facebook.com/redlionhotelpasco?fref=ts

One teacher, John Elyard, posted, “I have taught for 26 years. I have worked hard to educate the youth of America. Treat teachers with respect.”

Another post from Donna Yates Mace, a national coordinator of Wear Red for Ed, read “Just don't ‪#‎WearRed‬...teachers will be asked to leave.”

Three days later, the General Manager of the Red Lion posted this apology:

“I am truly saddened to have offended our guests on Friday night at our hotel and, as a result, teachers in general. I personally am a strong advocate for early childhood education and have the highest respect for this profession, as my mother is an educator, and my daughter would not be who she is today without the special support of the wonderful teachers who worked closely with us through the years. While my intention was to prevent any potential conflict from occurring between our guests, instead I offended a group for whom I have the utmost respect. For that I offer my sincere apology. Although I cannot change the initial outcome of this situation, I can learn from it and make an effort to set it right. I will be working with the local teachers to host a Teachers Appreciation event where I can apologize in person. In the meantime, should you have any questions, feel free to contact me directly at the hotel. - Monica Hammerberg, General Manager”.

Within minutes, the apology was shared widely and was well received by many on BATs’ 55,000 member Facebook page. Now the Red Lion's page includes many postings expressing gratitude for the change of heart.

April Miller posted, “I was one in attendance on Friday night and I appreciate your apology and your willingness to try and make this right. I will pass this on to Badass Teachers Association:

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