Sanders And Clinton Clash On Education Seeking AFT Nod

Sanders And Clinton Clash On Education Seeking AFT Nod:

Sanders And Clinton Clash On Education Seeking AFT Nod

Those of us who have spent substantial time as classroom teachers teachers know that when it comes to politicians talking education, as John Mellencamp put it, “it’s what you do and not what you say,” that matters. Paying lip service to “educational excellence” and “high standards” is like saying you love America and support the troops–necessary platitudes that do not clearly illuminate what a candidate will actually do once elected.  As the late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone put it,

“Making students accountable for test scores works well on a bumper sticker and it allows many politicians to look good by saying that they will not tolerate failure. But it represents a hollow promise. Far from improving education, high-stakes testing marks a major retreat from fairness, from accuracy, from quality, and from equity.”

This brings us to the current push by the Democratic Party’s candidates for President to gain the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) endorsement.  On an issue-by-issue basis, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are quite similar in their voting records. Both have voted against private and parochial school vouchers, both have consistently voted to maintain and increase federal funding for public education at the K-12 and university level, and both have received high marks from the National Education Association (NEA) for their voting records, 83% pro-teacher for Sanders and 82% for Clinton.

Since Clinton and Sanders have voted similarly in the past, we must look deeper into their current campaigns to see how they would individually govern on education issues. Hillary’s campaign just announced the creation of a Teacher PAC that will bring reformers and unions together ,” oversimplifying the education debate considerably since “reformer” can mean anything from supporting evaluating teachers on test scores, to charter schools, to private school vouchers, and since there is no such thing as the “union perspective” on improving education. This new Teacher PAC for Hillary also includes reference to not allowing any child to stay trapped in a failing school, which plays right into the hands of those who would replace traditional public schools with charters or private school vouchers. In the post Citizens United age, Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton might have to adjust her education policies to attract the dollars of “reformers” like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, while simultaneously using her history with the AFT to push for support from the teacher’s union.  Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, has been a friend of Hillary’s for years going back to when Weingarten was President of the New York City teacher’s union and Hillary was a New York Senator.  Since Weingarten developed a reputation for being too chummy with billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg and giving in on too many issues of importance to rank and file teachers –like seniority and ability to file grievances against unfair administrative practices–this is a worrisome proposition for teachers in the classroom.

Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, does not have to mince words since he is not seeking the approval of wealthy donors. One of Sanders’ key campaign issues is the rising cost of college tuition, and in Vermont he fought for universal pre-K. Sanders has also spoken out and voted for de-emphasizing standardized testing in No Child Left Behind and using federal programs to recruit more math and science teachers. However, both Sanders and Clinton have used similar rhetoric about educating our children as individuals and not just as little test takers. (In fact Barack Obama said the same when running in 2008, then did the opposite with Race to the Top when in the White House.)  

The main reason to be optimistic about how President Sanders would function on education, is that his campaign funds have always come from small individual donors and labor unions, not from large corporate or billionaire donors. Sanders has repeatedly said that he wants the United States to follow the Scandinavian political and economic model. Finland consistently ranks as the #1 school Sanders And Clinton Clash On Education Seeking AFT Nod:

Common Core Standards SBAC testing, the bully principal…and more | Seattle Education

Common Core Standards SBAC testing, the bully principal…and more | Seattle Education:

Common Core Standards SBAC testing, the bully principal…and more

Public school is based on the the principle of inclusion, not exclusion. Kids are accepted however they arrive through the front door. Different ethnic backgrounds, economic status, personal triumphs or challenges –everyone is on equal footing. Most importantly, serving the needs of each and every students is job one. Excluding children or using them to meet the personal objectives of the adults who run the school or district, violates the core mission of our public schools. That’s why we find two recent events at Denny Middle School so disturbing.

First, Jeff Clark, Principal of Denny International Middle School, made the controversial decision to deny kids –whose parents had opted them out of the SBAC–access to the school carnival. Principal Clark’s decision has provoked understandable outrage in the parent community. This story was first reported by Melissa Westbrook on Save Seattle Schools Community Forum, after a parent contacted her reporting the incident.

Follow up reporting included an explanation by Jeff Clark of his actions and a response by Director Marty McLaren, school board member for District 6, West Seattle.

From Principal Jeff Clark:

The 2015 My Best Performance Carnival at Denny International Middle School

In addition to many special activities throughout the year, for the past ten years, Denny has hosted a carnival at the end of the state testing period for those scholars who have given their best performance. The scholars’ effort is tracked on a form called the “My Best Performance Rubric,” a copy of which is located in their student planners. The rubric includes categories such as:

·        positive attitude

·        time management

·        reading instructions carefully

·        making an attempt on every task and persevering

·        resourcefulness

·        using resources and tools

·        written presentation

After each testing session, scholars fill out their assessment of how they performed in all these areas.

The rubric is then turned into their teacher for review. At the end of the testing period those Common Core Standards SBAC testing, the bully principal…and more | Seattle Education:

4LAKids - AALA: ACSA OPPOSES COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: AALA: ACSA OPPOSES COLLECTIVE BARGAINING:

AALA: ACSA OPPOSES COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

From the Associated Administrators Los Angeles (AALA) Weekly Update for June 8, 2015  ::  http://bit.ly/1EYHhWd

●● NOTE:

•          The Association of California School Administrators (ASCA) was established in 1971. ACSA is the largest umbrella organization for school leaders in the nation, serving more than 14,500 school leaders.
•          The Associated Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA) was formed in 1981 when elementary, secondary, supervisory and adult administrators joined forces to form a single association to represent all middle managers in the Los Angeles Unified School District. During the first ten years membership in AALA was voluntary. In 1991 AALA became the exclusive bargaining unit representing all certificated middle managers except confidential and personal service contract senior staff.
• ·        ACSA is a statewide advocacy organization; AALA is a collective bargaining unit in LAUSD. The two are not affiliated, though many LAUSD administrators are members of both.

June 4, 2015  ::  ACSA, the Association of California School Administrators, has taken a position of opposing AB 575 (Senator Carol Liu-D) and SB 499 (Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell-D) which are scheduled to be heard on the Senate or Assembly Floor no later than Friday, June 5. The identical bills are likely to be merged and will repeal the existing Stull Act of 1971 and establish a best practices teacher and school administrator evaluation system by July 1, 2018, that requires specific components, such as state and local formative and summative assessment data and observations. The new system would have to be negotiated with the local collective bargaining unit. The bills are a response by lawmakers to recent court rulings and public pressure to include student test scores in the evaluation process. While ACSA is strongly opposed to the legislation, neither CTA nor CFT have taken a position.

Under the bills, the teachers’ evaluation system would be based on the California Standards for the Teaching Profession and would include seven objectives on which they will be rated. The section of AB 575 that applies to administrators says that the evaluation system must be based on the California Professional Standards for Educational Leaders and includes these provisions for evaluation:

·         the success by which the administrator facilitates development and implementation of a vision for pupil learning, parent and community communication, advocating and supporting a safe, nurturing school culture that sustains a quality instructional program conducive to pupil learning and staff professional growth, providing ethical and professional leadership.

·          

·         the academic growth of pupils over time, based on multiple measures, which may include pupil work as well as pupil and school longitudinal data.

·         Requires the governing board of a school district to identify who will conduct the evaluation of each school administrator, as specified.

The bill also includes the provision that …certain elements …cannot be negotiated away including: frequency of evaluations; classroom observations from evaluators trained for the task; requiring districts to receive and consider input from parents, students, and community members into the development of the local evaluation process; requiring evidence of teachers’ contribution to students’ academic performance through multiple measures, including summative and formative assessments; requiring that teachers who are evaluated unsatisfactory participate in a district’s Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) program if it has one; and requiring that teachers in charter schools also be evaluated under the new best practices system.

Based on the above analysis of the bill provided by the Appropriations Committee, AB 575 seems to be a bill that administrators and teachers would support. We, at AALA, are disappointed that ACSA, an organization which represents school administrators, would advocate removing evaluations from the negotiating table and permit individual school districts to implement whatever type of evaluative system it desires. ACSA members have been sent an email encouraging them to send letters of opposition to their state representatives saying this legislation will harm students and that standards of acceptable performance should be determined by the governing board rather than as a 4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: AALA: ACSA OPPOSES COLLECTIVE BARGAINING:

Perdido Street School: Zephyr Teachout: Angry New York Teachers Can Get Get More Formal Political Power By Running For Office

Perdido Street School: Zephyr Teachout: Angry New York Teachers Can Get Get More Formal Political Power By Running For Office:

Zephyr Teachout: Angry New York Teachers Can Get Get More Formal Political Power By Running For Office

Alan Chartock in the Daily Freeman: 

Cuomo is known and respected up to now as a take-no-prisoners tough guy, but his political antennae seem corrupted. His picking on the teachers in New York state is dumber than dumb. It appears that he fell in with a crowd of rich potential funders who are always yelling about “educational reform.” Maybe he wanted their money and he became a fierce charter school advocate and then adopted positions which then threatened the hell out of the teachers who are underpaid and overworked. Their tenure is one of the few things they do have going for them, and however Cuomo meant it, the teachers saw him as looking to evaluate them with an eye toward firing them. These are usually people who want nothing to do with Albany politics, but they sure got a wakeup call. I talk to them all the time and they are angrier than I have ever seen them.

Zephyr Teachout has an excellent idea how teachers can take that anger and do something productive with it:

Liberal activist Zephyr Teachout is touring New York starting tonight in Syracuse to try to recruit teachers and women to run for public office in New York.


Teachout, the Fordham Law School professor who ran against Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a Democratic primary last year, said the education policy battles at the state Capitol should spur teachers and parents to run for political office so their voice can be better heard.

“The focus is getting more people into the political process, and the focus here is on teachers and women,” Teachout said in an interview with Gannett’s Albany Bureau. “If there’s a central thrust, it’s educators and parents.”

Teachout, who lives in Manhattan, is partnering with the union-backed Working Families Party and the New York State United Teachers union on the effort.

She said the massive testing opt-out movement in New York in April, as well as protests to new teacher evaluations show that Perdido Street School: Zephyr Teachout: Angry New York Teachers Can Get Get More Formal Political Power By Running For Office:

Judging an Iceberg by the Tip Only: The Cumulative Effects of Opportunities for Students | the becoming radical

Judging an Iceberg by the Tip Only: The Cumulative Effects of Opportunities for Students | the becoming radical:

JUDGING AN ICEBERG BY THE TIP ONLY: THE CUMULATIVE EFFECTS OF OPPORTUNITIES FOR STUDENTS

“[M]ost of what poor people have in common has nothing to do with their culture or dispositions [laziness]. Instead, it has to do with what they experience, such as the bias and lack of access to basic needs” (p. 26).

Reaching and Teaching Students in Poverty: Strategies for Erasing the Opportunity Gap, Paul Gorski

Throughout the first several years as a high school English teacher in rural Upstate South Carolina (in my hometown high school, in fact), I believe I learned far more lessons than I taught.

In those first couple years, I had different ability levels of classes (yes, we tracked every grade with low, average, honors, and Advanced Placement) and multiple grade levels as well—resulting in my juggling as a beginning teacher 13 textbooks among my five courses. Several of the so-called “general” classes were at maximum capacity, 35 students, as well.

One of the most vivid and troubling lessons recurred year after year in my general senior English course: Students, in a burst of maturity accompanied by the realization that adulthood loomed, approached me about taking the SAT and applying to college.

General track students, typically, had been in courses for years specifically designed for students not applying for college; therefore, these students were destined to do poorly on the SAT (because of a combination of their inadequate coursework for many years and their socioeconomic status, mostly working-poor and working-class households) and have their belated motivation squashed.

Although not a popular response, I often replied with: “Well, first go back in time. And then, read, read, read.”

If possible, of course, that solution was and remains quite accurate, but my larger point was addressing the cumulative impact of life and educational experiences that students either have or miss—and that the quality and amount of those experiences are more strongly correlated with the coincidences of those students’ births than with the content of their character.

These students came rushing back to me this spring during my May Experience course on educational documentaries.

My university is a small selective liberal arts environment, and we have a relatively privileged and white student body—despite efforts shared by many universities to increase diversity. One of the unintended consequences of our May X program has been that athletes typically take these courses, and since our student-athletes are more racially diverse than our larger student body, my May X classes have usually been more racially and gender diverse than courses Judging an Iceberg by the Tip Only: The Cumulative Effects of Opportunities for Students | the becoming radical:

Dropout Nation » Wanted: Black Education Systems

Dropout Nation » Wanted: Black Education Systems:

Wanted: Black Education Systems

America’s traditional public education systems has failed the descendants of enslaved Africans. Only 16 percent read at grade level in middle school (and only 12 percent of male African-Americans do so). Just over half of male Black students graduate from high school in four years (as compared to more than three-quarters of male White students). 21 percent of young Black women graduate from college, but only 16 percent of young Black men (compared to 31 percent and 30 percent for White women and men, respectively). As a result of this failure of the public schools to educate Black children, lifetime earnings are reduced on average by over a million dollars, or a total of $5 trillion for this generation of the descendants of enslaved Africans as a whole.

This $1 million individual reduction in lifetime earnings is a quantifiable, continuing, harm resulting from centuries of slavery and an additional 150 years of Jim Crow and its lingering effects. As such it can be taken as one component of the calculation of the figures for restitution.

While the average per student expenditure for Black students is less than $12,000, the amount spent on White students whose families are in the upper 20 percent of incomes can easily reach $30,000. Adding to that the amounts spent by those families on education activities outside of school hours—private lessons of various kinds, tutoring, educational travel—we can estimate the annual monetary educational disadvantage of Blacks students as at least $25,000. Given k-12 Black enrollment of seven million, the total annual shortfall is on the range of $175 billion.

If this $175 billion were available for the education of Black American children, how could it be used to eliminate the educational penalty for studying while Black?

One idea would be to utilize the existing legal framework underpinning the charter school movement (whose schools have been more-successful in improving the prospects of black children) to create a national charter school network for the American descendents of enslaved Africans. I call it the Black American Public School System. We already have such a system in higher education in the form of the nation’s historically black colleges and universities, many of whom still account for the vast majority of black collegians entering professions such as law and the sciences.

These schools would be funded in each locality by the usual local, state and federal contributions, supplemented by a National Black Educational Fund, capitalized with restitution contributions. The total per student expenditure would vary by locality, but would everywhere be sufficient at a minimum for universal pre-kindergarten; all-day, literacy-oriented, kindergarten; challenging, college-preparatory curriculum with after-school, Saturday and summer classes; highly effective teachers supported by on-going subject-area and pedagogical professional development; excellent facilities.

Use of advanced technology would enable geographically neutral delivery of resources, including administration, so that Black students in a small elementary school in the rural South would have educational resources equivalent to those of Black students in Northeastern and Far Western suburban Black American Public School System schools.

Graduates of the Black American Public Schools admitted to college would be provided with full tuition and living expenses. Others would receive support for job training, including apprenticeships.

Increases in Black high school and college graduation rates would result in higher Black annual and lifetime earnings, with consequent improvements in health, family and social life and childhood well-being in the Black community and increased contributions to governmental revenue at all levels. In this way, the education system, the deficiencies of which now drive the Black poverty cycle, would instead serve as a foundation for the prosperity of the Black community.Dropout Nation » Wanted: Black Education Systems:

CURMUDGUCATION: Arizona's Teacher Desert

CURMUDGUCATION: Arizona's Teacher Desert:

Arizona's Teacher Desert

This week in the New York Times, Fernando Santos and Motoko Rich took a look at the continuing teacher shortage in Arizona, where leaders continue to demonstrate that they understand neither education nor the free market forces that they claim to love. 

Arizona's history with reformster nonsense goes way back. Bill McCallum was a professor at the University of Arizona back when he became one of the co-authors of the Common Core. Arizona has long camped out at the bottom of most education lists-- spending, test results, you name it, they've sucked at it. When reformy governor Jan Brewer backed Tea Party fave Doug Ducey all the way to the capital, that was not good news for education. 

Ducey brought in reformsters Paul Pastorek, obliterator-in-chief of New Orleans schools, and Joel Klein, who never met a public school that he didn't want to shut down. Pastorek and Klein showed up to help promote the idea of a charter-choice non-public school system where children carrying tax dollars in their backpacks travel from school to school begging to be admitted. At that same event, Ducey (previous job: CEO of Cold Stone Creamery) declared a need for more positive view of Arizona:

"I believe that too many have fallen into a doom-and-gloom cycle where everything is wrong, where the cynic is winning, telling others that nothing is right," Ducey said. "I say it's time we shed an inferiority complex inside this state."

It's funny-- I would think that an acolyte of Competition and Free Market Forces would recognize that a good way to shed an inferiority complex would be to take steps to stop being inferior.

That has not always been the Arizona way. A year ago their legislature was seriously discussing a bill to shut educators up, barring them from "distributing electronic materials to influence the outcome of an election or to advocate support for or opposition to pending or proposed legislation." (It was shouted down in the 11th hour.) Arizona has also led the country in anti-Hispanic legislation,CURMUDGUCATION: Arizona's Teacher Desert:

The Big Bad Dragon

There are those books you heard about and you thought, "Yeah, I should read that," but you were busy and didn't get around to it and after the initial publicity blast, you don't hear about it much again and so you never get back to it.

Well, I'm here to remind you about Yong Zhao's important book, Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon?The book came out last fall and was reviewed by Diane Ravitch in the New York Review of Bookslast November. Her review is excellent and insightful and will provide you with one more set of reasons that you need to grab and read this book.

Zhao was born and raised in the Sichuan Province of China, coming to the US as a visiting scholar in 1992. He's now a professor at the University of Oregon in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy and Leadership, as well as a senior fellow at the Mitchell Institute of Victoria Institute in Australia. He has also created a college English learning system widely used in China 

The Big Bad Dragon

The Transparent Testing Year

One of the dishonest things that schools do is to fold testing time into the rest of the year.

We get our "testing window" from the state and set the test prep elements of our year as we wish, and so testing appears to be going on while school is happening, suggesting that school and testing are related activities and also hiding from the public just how much time the state is using for the Big Standardized Test.

Imagine what would happen if we were honest about what is actually going on. Imagine this announcement from your state capital:

Next year, the school year will end on April 7. At that time, your local school district will issue report cards for the year. There will be a spring break, and then on April 14, students will report to school for the testing year. Schools will be given approximately two weeks to prepare for the test, and then test administration will begin. Students in non-testing grades will not need to report. At the conclusion of the testing year, students will be released for summer vacation. See you next fall!

There would be considerable advantages. For one, my high school ties itself in knots trying toaccommodate both testing and non-testing students, not to mention bouncing teachers back and 

The Transparent Testing Year

Ms. Katie's Ramblings: It's Time to Bring Charters Back Into the Public Fold

Ms. Katie's Ramblings: It's Time to Bring Charters Back Into the Public Fold:

It's Time to Bring Charters Back Into the Public Fold

Across the country, it is becoming ever clearer that the charter experiment has failed. Every glowing media story highlighting a charter "miracle" has been debunked. The so-called "success stories" are easily exposed to be examples of selectivity, school pushout, discrimination against students with significant special needs, behavioral challenges, or English Language Learners, obsessive test-prep focus, and oppressive "no excuses" discipline.

Charter school teachers in my city are organizing unions. Just this week, the teachers of the Urban Prep Charter Network voted for a union. I am so happy for my brothers and sisters who were being exploited, laboring in unacceptable working conditions, standing up for their students' right to a quality education. I applaud their courage in the face of massive pushback from slimy charter leaders. What they did was right for kids.

Charters, instead of providing quality alternatives by operating outside existing education laws and worker protections, have proven why many of those education laws and protection were passed in the first place.

The charter cheerleaders told us it was unions that were holding back innovation. Turns out, unions were all that were keeping even worse conditions from befalling our schools in the name of austerity-loving, greedy, and racist politicians and leaders. Without unions, charter teachers see how damaging having no protections can be. They work for lower pay, they have even less job security, they have no way to advocate for their students and the resources and time they need to teach well.

We were told charters would cut back on administrative costs. Instead, they duplicated and expanded useless, yet well-paid, administrators in our funding-starved system. Suddenly, instead of just one CEO in Chicago Public Schools, we have dozens, all making exorbitant Ms. Katie's Ramblings: It's Time to Bring Charters Back Into the Public Fold:

Surprise charter school loan program raises new questions

Surprise charter school loan program raises new questions:

Surprise charter school loan program raises new questions

In the final days of this year's legislative session, Republican lawmakers dropped into the massive state budget bill a provision giving charter schools access to $50 million in low-interest state loans.

The measure was a last-minute effort to appease Gov. Mike Pence, who had sought more funding for charter schools, and it received virtually no public scrutiny.

Now some critics — including the Senate's chief budget writer — are sounding an alarm about the new program, given the significant debt of many charter schools.

The main concern: Who will be on the hook if charter schools don't repay the loans?

"Some of these charter schools have some pretty enormous debt pictures right now," said Senate Appropriations Chairman Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville. "I don't think they have the ability to retire that debt. It's really a problem."

Pence dismissed the potential risk to taxpayers. He noted that the new law gives the state a security interest if charter schools use the loan money to build or purchase new facilities.

Charter school officials say the loan program is needed to put them on more equal footing with traditional public schools — and they argue that borrowing to construct new buildings is a better long-term financial deal than leasing.

But if history is any guide, Kenley has reason to worry.

In 2013, the state forgave and paid off more than $90 million in charter school loans. The move drew protests from traditional public schools whose loans were not forgiven and consequently charter schools were no longer given access to the loan money.

Kenley said Pence and House Speaker Brian Bosma plan to do the same thing again with the new loan program — an assertion that neither denied outright.

"It's always a possibility in the future," Bosma said.

Loan program part of compromise

The new program slipped into the budget during the waning hours of the legislative session in late April.

Throughout the session, Pence and Bosma had pushed for a $1,500-per-student grant for charter schools. The intent was to give them money for construction and other capital expenses that traditional public school districts receive through local property taxes.

But the proposal hit a snag in the Senate, where GOP lawmakers balked at the $20 million-a-year price tag.

Ultimately, they settled on a $500-per-student grant and the new loan program, which gives charter schools access to up to $50 million in loans from the state's common school fund.

The fund has about $170 million available — money that would normally be reserved for traditional public school loans for construction and technology purchases. Now, Surprise charter school loan program raises new questions:

Latinos criticize lack of representation on school board | Catalyst Chicago

Latinos criticize lack of representation on school board | Catalyst Chicago:

Latinos criticize lack of representation on school board

A number of prominent Latinos in Chicago are criticizing Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s decision to make an already disproportionately white school board even more ethnically lopsided by removing one of his only two Hispanic appointees.

“We are disappointed that in a school district that is 46 percent Latino -- Latinos being the largest cohort of students now, having exceeded African Americans in the district a number of years ago -- that there was not a Latino named to the school board,” says Sylvia Puente, executive director of the non-partisan Latino Policy Forum. “It feels like it’s a missed opportunity.”

There are now four white board members -- up from three -- while less than 10 percent of children in Chicago Public Schools are white. The remaining two board members are black, compared with nearly 40 percent of students.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Emanuel said his administration "has always been reflective of the citizens we serve, and he will continue to ensure that Latinos are represented in leadership and Board positions."

The statement goes on to name board member and Interim CEO Jesse Ruiz as well as the mayor's top education advisor, Arnaldo Rivera. Ruiz, an attorney and Mexican-American who formerly chaired the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), is currently not a voting school board member in his capacity as interim CEO.

Insiders tell Catalyst that at least one Latino turned down an invitation to sit on the board.

It's unclear whether politics has anything to do with the reduction in Latino representation on the board. The shuffle comes two months after all but one of the city’s Hispanic-majority wards went for Emanuel's opponent, the Mexican-born Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, a Cook County commissioner, in the mayoral elections.

U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez -- by far Emanuel's biggest campaign supporter from Chicago's Hispanic community -- says he sees no problem with the ethnic makeup of the board, given the influence of Ruiz and Rivera on the daily workings of the district.

"I'd rather have somebody be in charge of the School Board every day than to try to reach some symbolic positioning of Latinos," says Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat.

But Miguel del Valle, a former state senator who ran against Emanuel in 2011 and backed Garcia in this year's race, says the ethnic disparity on the school board just doesn't make sense.

“If you can’t find one person in the City of Chicago, given all the Latinos we have out there in different arenas, with the skills and talents and the background to be able to serve responsibly and meet the fiduciary obligations, I have to say that they didn’t try hard enough," he says.

Census data from the 2013 American Community Survey show that Latinos make up just under 30 percent of city residents.

Del Valle, who formerly chaired the Illinois P-20 Council, says he understands that it might be challenging to find someone willing to join the board “under the current circumstances.” CPS faces a $1.1 billion budget deficit next fiscal year and is in the middle of contract negotiations with a teachers union that went on strike last time around.

“Let’s face it: it’s a tough situation to walk into. But you look and you look and you look,” he says.

Reflecting ‘needs and aspirations’

Earlier this week Emanuel announced he was replacing four board members whose terms expire at the end of the month, including Carlos Azcoitia, a former educator and Cuban immigrant. He'd beennamed to the board in 2012 to fill a vacancy left when another Latino board member, Rodrigo Latinos criticize lack of representation on school board | Catalyst Chicago:

30,000 Teachers Walk Out In Protest Of Big Class Sizes | PopularResistance.Org

30,000 Teachers Walk Out In Protest Of Big Class Sizes | PopularResistance.Org:

30,000 Teachers Walk Out In Protest Of Big Class Sizes In WA State

Since late April, Washington state teachers have been striking for reduced class sizes and better funding for classroom programs. (Washington Educators Association / Facebook)

Seattle, WA – On Tuesday, May 19, thousands of demonstrators marched through downtown Seattle to support a rolling strike by public school teachers across Washington state. The teachers are protesting what they say are unacceptably high class sizes and low pay, stemming from their state legislature’s failure to fully fund public education.

Six thousand teachers and supporters from Seattle Public Schools and the nearby districts of Mercer Island and Issaquah shut down intersections for blocks in the largest coordinated action since the rolling walkout began on April 22. In total, at least 30,000 teachers in 65 striking school districts have participated in one-day strikes.

Washington Educators Association (WEA), the statewide teachers union (a National Education Association affiliate), has pointed out that the state has the sixth-highest student-teacher ratio of any state, at 19.4, according to NEA data from 2013. The union calculates that an additional 11,960 teachers would be needed to reduce the student-teacher ratio to the national average of 15.9. Class sizes are typically about nine or 10 students larger than the student-teacher ratio. Teachers say that big class sizes in Washington state result in poor working and learning conditions.

The strike is unusual in that the teachers are not pressuring their respective school districts, but rather targeting the state legislature for its unwillingness to fund education enough to decrease class sizes and increase teacher compensation. Popular signs at rallies across the state have read “Educators care for our kids every day – It’s time the legislature cared” and “On strike against legislature – stop blaming teachers – start funding schools.”

On the class size and funding issue, union members say they have both the courts and the voters on their side. In 2012, the state Supreme Court ruled in McCleary vs. Washington that the legislature had failed in its constitutional duty to “amply provide for the education of all children within its borders” and ordered it to implement adequate funding increases by 2018. Last September, the Washington Supreme Court found the legislature in contempt of court for failing “to provide the court a complete plan for fully implementing its program of basic education,” warning lawmakers that the legislature would be “sanctioned” if it did not develop a plan by the end of the legislative cycle.

Compounding this legal pressure is the binding initiative 1351 approved by voters in November 2014, which calls for a 20 percent reduction in class size and the hiring of 15,000 teachers over the next four years, according to advocates of the initiative.

While both legislatures have put forward proposals to fund class size decreases up to the third grade, none have proposed fully funding initiative 1351. Gov. Jay Inslee has called for two consecutive special sessions to address the funding issue and other budgetary matters before a July 1 deadline. If they don’t resolve the budget, legislators risk a government shutdown.

Jesse Hagopian, a history teacher at Garfield High, says that teachers’ “backs are to the wall,” necessitating collective action.

“The old strategy of supporting politicians and hoping that they will enact pro-education policies has not worked for so long that it has actually caused a state of crisis for our union as a whole,” he says. “It’s reached a level of absurdity. I think [lack of support from the legislature] made [WEA] leadership more willing to back some of our smaller locals that began this one-day strike wave in the state.”

The strikes have been primarily organized by teachers union locals, rather than by the statewide union. On the eve of the first strikes in late April, a WEA spokesperson told Washington’s News Tribune that it was up to locals to “decide how big the protest gets this year.” What began with eight districts has now swelled to 65.

The legislature’s unwillingness to go fully fund I-1351 and adhere to McCleary has 30,000 Teachers Walk Out In Protest Of Big Class Sizes | PopularResistance.Org:

Judge Rules Second Version of New York Teachers’ Exam Is Also Racially Biased - NYTimes.com

Judge Rules Second Version of New York Teachers’ Exam Is Also Racially Biased - NYTimes.com:

Judge Rules Second Version of New York Teachers’ Exam Is Also Racially Biased

A federal judge on Friday found that an exam for New York teaching candidates was racially discriminatory because it did not measure skills necessary to do the job, the latest step in a court battle over teacher qualifications that has spanned nearly 20 years.

The exam, the second incarnation of the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test, called the LAST-2, was administered from 2004 through 2012 and was designed to test an applicant’s knowledge of liberal arts and science.

But the test was found to fail minority teaching candidates at a higher rate than white candidates. According to Friday’s decision, written by Judge Kimba M. Wood of Federal District Court in Manhattan, the pass rate for African-American and Latino candidates was between 54 percent and 75 percent of the pass rate for white candidates. Once it was established that minority applicants were failing at a disproportionately high rate, the burden shifted to education officials to prove that the skills being tested were necessary to do the job; otherwise, the test would be ruled discriminatory.

In creating the test, the company, National Evaluation Systems, sent surveys to educators around New York State to determine if the test’s “content objectives” were relevant and important to teaching. The samples for both surveys were small, however, Judge Wood said.

The judge found that National Evaluation Systems, now called Evaluation Systems, part of Pearson Education, went about the process backward.

“Instead of beginning with ascertaining the job tasks of New York teachers, the two LAST examinations began with the premise that all New York teachers should be required to demonstrate an understanding of the liberal arts,” Judge Wood wrote.

Joshua Sohn, a partner at the firm Mishcon de Reya, who represents the prospective teachers in the case, echoed the that sentiment.

“They started with the conclusion, without any support, that this is what you actually needed to know to be an effective teacher,” Mr. Sohn said.

With this ruling, the LAST-2 meets the same fate of the LAST-1, an earlier version of the test, given from 1993 to 2004, that was also found to be discriminatory.

It was not immediately clear how many people would be affected by the decision or how much this might cost New York City.

So far, about 3,900 people have filed claim forms over the first version of the exam. Mr. Sohn said the compensation is still being litigated. Some of those people worked as substitutes and may now be eligible for full-time positions, while others had already been promoted because they met other hiring requirements.

Mr. Sohn said thousands of people presumably took the second exam version while it was in use, and under Title VII, the federal prohibition on employment discrimination, minority candidates who failed might be entitled to back pay. This ruling applies only to the city, but could have ramifications for the rest of the state, where the test was also used.

Nicholas Paolucci, a spokesman for the New York City Law Department, Judge Rules Second Version of New York Teachers’ Exam Is Also Racially Biased - NYTimes.com: