CURMUDGUCATION: Back To School List

CURMUDGUCATION: Back To School List:

Back To School List

I'm a little late on this, since most retailers rolled out Back to School displays months ago and are currently starting to clear those out so that they have room for Christmas Sale displays. But I always mean to write about this because like so many things from which people can make a buck, Back to School shopping has gotten out of hand.

So as a father and a professional educator of several decades, I have an important message to parents about your back to school shopping.

Chill.

People are trying to get you to panic. Do not do it.

In some cases, the pitch is strictly commercial. Which is fine. That's what businesses do. Work your way into Office Depot's Back to School offerings. Everything you could conceivably or inconceivably need is here, with the exception of the Winnebago needed to cart all of this stuff to school, because for a place like Office Depot, Back to School is Christmas and Mother's Day wrapped up in one revenue generating package.

But here's the non-business Great Kids website, offering parents a list of Back to School necessities that may also necessitate a second mortgage (if, as a parent, you are able to afford a house in the first place).

Back to School supply lists seem to have the longevity of cockroaches, surviving unchanged over centuries. For instance, like many other sources, Great Schools includes this on their list of "basics."

Scissors (blunt ended for younger kids, pointed for older ones)

Um, no. Do not send your older children to school with pointy-ended scissors. And while Great Kids recommend highlighters, they do acknowledge that these "are probably unnecessary for kids in kindergarten through second grade." Yes, because five-year-olds have a tendency to highlight walls and desks and their own faces.

What about a site like Real Simple, the website/magazine devoted to helping wealthy folks make their consumption less conspicuous?  Their "essentials" list includes an art smock for elementary and pre-school students. Okay, fine. My own children had art smocks at home (from the popular dad's Old Shirts brand). But essential for school? I'm imagining twenty-five children arriving on the first day and asking the teacher, "Where do I put my smock."

And glue. Specifically glue sticks. Every single list has glue sticks on it. Do we have a national epidemic of Unglued Things in Schools?

Oh-- and these. I see them on lists, in stores, in the mall. Everywhere, in fact, but in actual classrooms:

The worst notebooks ever! You can't make mistakes, and when you rip one page out, another one falls out, too. And if you've taken important notes elsewhere, you can't add them to this, unless-- oh, wait!! NOW I understand the glue sticks!

Backpacks, folders, organizers, twelve different kinds of writing utensils, seventeen different kinds of bound and unbound paper, lunch boxes, a dictionary and a thesaurus!! Cozi gets a bonus point for putting a flash drive on their list, but most lists are composed of the same classic items that Great-Great-Grandma's mom was guilted into buying for Back to School.
So, parents, here's my Back to School to-do list for you.

Step One: Wait

Prior to the first day of school, do not buy anything except things you want your child to have. If your child is organizationally challenged and needs the world's most aggressive trapper-keeper, go ahead and get it. If you and your child agree that a Phineas and Ferb lunchbox is essential to get off CURMUDGUCATION: Back To School List:

More Bad News for SAT/ACT

The George Washington University will no longer require most undergraduate applicants to submit SAT or ACT test scores, effective Aug. 1.

With one sentence, the folks at GW made life just a little bit harder for standardized test manufacturers.


It's not just that another college has dropped the popular testing product requirement. Doing so touched off the usual round of press. The folks at FairTest reminded us that over 850 colleges and universities no longer require students to jump through the old hoops. Valerie Strauss helpfullybroke out some striking lists of top-ranked (well, top-ranked by the not-entirely-believable US News ranking system) schools that don't require students to plunk down good money for a bad evaluation of their post-secondary prospects. Bowdoin! Bryn Mawr! Wake Forest! Hey, even my own alma mater—way to go, Allegheny!

It's not just that this calls up all the old objections, all the things we already knew about the tests. Cue the regular research showing cultural and racial bias in the tests. Trot out the 2014 research showing that high school grades are better predictors of college success than SAT's. Discuss the validity of tests so game-able that an entire industry has sprung up around gaming them.

But the bigger problem is the continued drawing of blood. Like the god-king who is nicked by a spear, the SAT and ACT are most hurt by the wound that reveals they are not what they say they are.
For generations here in the East, the SAT was just something you do. In the seventies, my classmates and I didn't even ask where the SAT came from—as far as we knew it was some sort of government-college co-operative, mandated and required, like a driver's test or vaccinations. Even "College Board" sounds like some sort of official regulatory agency.

The testing companies have fought to maintain that illusion. David Coleman and the College Board can still magically turn a drop in market share into a referendum on America's education system. They've worked to market a racially biased instrument as a tool for social justice. And Coleman has stumped hard for the virtues of his new, improved version of the SAT, continuing his work to

More Bad News for SAT/ACT

Why school districts like Michael Brown’s have suffered ‘rapid resegregation’

Why school districts like Michael Brown’s have suffered ‘rapid resegregation’:

Why school districts like Michael Brown’s have suffered ‘rapid resegregation’

GWEN IFILL: For the first time this school year, nonwhite children made up more than half of the country’s public school students. But the country’s schools have grown only more segregated since 1988.

The most recent data shows the average white student goes to a school that is more than 70 percent white. And less than a quarter of black students go to majority white schools.

Jeffrey Brown takes a look at whatever happened to integration.

JEFFREY BROWN: One metropolitan area where schools are largely segregated is Saint Louis. And one year after the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, it’s an issue that continues to resonate there and beyond.

New York Times magazine writer Nikole Hannah-Jones has reported on the situation in Ferguson and elsewhere in the country. Her work has appeared in ProPublica and on the radio program “This American Life.” Also joining us is Sheryll Cashin, a law professor at Georgetown University who writes on desegregation efforts. Her latest book is titled “Place, Not Race.”

And welcome to both of you.

Nikole Hannah-Jones, let me start with you.

Give us a quick overview of what you saw in Ferguson and its schools. What struck you most forcefully there?

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES, The New York Times Magazine: Well, the thing that strikes you most is, this is the most segregated, impoverished districts in the entire state.

There are 520 districts in Missouri, and this district ranked dead last. It was stripped of its accreditation, and in the classrooms, sometimes, there’s very minimal amount of teaching occurring.

JEFFREY BROWN: And there was even a short-lived effort, I gather, there to bring some of the students from that school district to another suburb, which was mostly white.

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES: Yes, it was because of the Missouri transfer law. I call it accidental integration, because the law was never intended as an integration statute.

But because Normandy is almost entirely black and lost its accreditation, it, under the law, was given the right to send its students to an accredited district. And in this case, the accredited districts are mostly heavily white.

JEFFREY BROWN: Sheryll Cashin, it is more, not less common that American schools are segregated, are more segregated these days.

SHERYLL CASHIN, Georgetown University Law Center: Right.

In the ’70s and ’80s, many school districts around the country were under court order to desegregate. And in the ’90s, the Supreme Court basically signaled it was time for courts to stop policing desegregation, and two-thirds of the school districts that had been under desegregation orders have come out from under them. And we have had a rapid, massive, resegregation since 1998.

JEFFREY BROWN: And have we largely given up on the idea of integration?

SHERYLL CASHIN: Well, I hope that’s not true.

There are about 80 school districts in this country that voluntarily have school integration plans. They tend to use economic integration as their model, rather than Why school districts like Michael Brown’s have suffered ‘rapid resegregation’:

New charter schools face daunting task of attracting enough students to stay afloat | The Lens

New charter schools face daunting task of attracting enough students to stay afloat | The Lens:

New charter schools face daunting task of attracting enough students to stay afloat

Pac-Man Takeover Defense Tactic

The head of one of New Orleans’ newest charter schools spent the last year taking care of nearly everything needed for the first day of school Tuesday — leasing buildings, drawing up a budget and hiring teachers.

But one thing remained uncertain as Tuesday approached: how many seats would be full.

Foundation Preparatory Charter Schoolplanned to open with a kindergarten class of 108. At a minimum, it needed 40 students, Myrialis King, founder of the school in in eastern New Orleans, said in July. Ideally, 75.

By late July, just 20 students had committed.

So the school suddenly changed plans. Tuesday, as kindergartners were getting acquainted with their new school, the Orleans Parish School Board announced that Foundation Prep would add first grade. It will start next week.

New Orleans’ nearly all-charter school system is built on competition, and for new schools, that means competing with established schools for students.

It’s a daunting task for leaders of new schools. They don’t have a school letter grade or test scores to boast of. They must build relationships in the community and convince parents to take a chance on an unproven school.

“It’s hard for new schools. It’s hard for kindergarten.”
—Myrialis King, Foundation Prep founder

“It has been hard,” King said about the recruiting process. “It’s hard for new schools. It’s hard for kindergarten.”

A lot rides on enrollment figures. Considering that state money brought in by six students can pay a teacher’s salary, falling short could mean a newly hired teacher must look for another job.

A unified school district or large charter organization, on the other hand, is better equipped to absorb the financial impact of an enrollment shortfall.

108	Kindergarten students in Foundation Prep’s original plan

20	Had committed by late July

Attracting students is just the first step. At all but a handful of charter schools, interested parents can’t simply sign their kids up. Instead, they’re instructed to choose the school on OneApp, the centralized application system for nearly all schools in the city.

If new schools have trouble filling seats, they may be encouraged to change plans.

Cypress Academy also opened Tuesday. It planned to open with four kindergarten classes. When it couldn’t fill them, school leader Bob Berk replaced two with first-grade classes, which had more demand.

“We said, ‘Sure, we’ll take first grade,” he said.

BUILDING A NAME

A study released earlier this year found that most charter leaders in New Orleans compete for students by marketing their schools: attending school fairs, hiring marketing consultants and buying ads.

Foundation and Cypress have followed suit.

Foundation has recruited students by “knocking on doors, passing out flyers, having information sessions at pre-K and Head Start programs,” King said. Berk has made the rounds at daycares and Head Start early-childhood programs.

Foundation has advertised in Spanish-language and Vietnamese publications and on Facebook. Cypress has advertised in various publications and websites. Both have advertised at bus shelters.

On paper, these schools are blank slates.

The New Orleans Parents’ Guide is an inch-thick guide to navigating schools in the city. It lists locations, teacher-student ratios, amenities such as after-school care, state-assigned rankings and standardized test performance.

On the pages for Foundation Prep and Cypress Academy, almost everything is blank. In large letters over empty charts, it says,“PAST PERFORMANCE DATA NOT AVAILABLE FOR THIS SCHOOL.”

STANDING OUT FROM THE CROWD

Foundation and Cypress emphasize reading skills. That sort of specialization — by curriculum, teaching methods or neighborhood — is another common tactic New Orleans charters use to stand out, according to the Education Research Alliance study.

King said it was by teaching fifth-grade English that she came to believe that “the opportunity gap, or achievement gap as some folks call it, is really a literacy gap.”

She decided to put the school in eastern New Orleans because “we didn’t want to come into a place that was already saturated with schools. … And New Orleans East, when we applied [for a charter], had two students for every one seat available.”

“They are really connected to the community and it’s a safe place for my kid to go … We trust them.”
—Joshua Tran, who enrolled his son at Foundation Prep

This part of the city is far from the historic neighborhoods typically associated with New Orleans. Originally developed in the 1960’s, it’s made up of subdivisions squeezed between Lake Pontchartrain and marshes.

“Everything that we’ve done has come back to the community,” King said.

Foundation’s location was one reason Joshua Tran decided to enroll his son Joshua Jr. there. He lives nearby, knows a few of the employees and has talked with King several times.

“They are really connected to the community and it’s a safe place for my kid to go,” he said. “We trust them.”

Tyshanisha Henry enrolled her son Ty’shawn in Foundation’s kindergarten after meeting King at a school fair. She was drawn to the New charter schools face daunting task of attracting enough students to stay afloat | The Lens:

Teacher: Why ‘I just can’t work in public education anymore’ - The Washington Post

Teacher: Why ‘I just can’t work in public education anymore’ - The Washington Post:

Teacher: Why ‘I just can’t work in public education anymore’

Stephanie Keiles has worked as a public school teacher for a dozen years in Michigan. She loves her students — but she just made what she called “one of the hardest decisions” of her life: to quit her job and start teaching at a private school. In this post, she explains why she feels like she has been driven out of public education. Her story strikes the same notes sounded by many other teachers in public schools who are finding their jobs being made increasingly difficult because of school reforms that have limited teacher autonomy, over-emphasized standardized tests and underfunded public education. A version of this first appeared on the webpage of the Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education, and I am republishing it with permission.

By Stephanie Keiles

I am sitting here in my lovely little backyard on a beautiful Michigan summer day, drinking a Fat Tire Amber Ale, and crying. I am in tears because today I made one of the hardest decisions of my life. I resigned from my job as a public school teacher. I didn’t want to leave — but I feel like I had no choice.

First, a little background. I didn’t realize that I wanted to be a math teacher until I was 28. As a kid, I was always told I was “too smart” to be a teacher, so I went to business school instead. I lasted one year in the financial world before I knew it was not for me. I read a quote from Millicent Fenwick, the (moderate) Republican Congresswoman from my home state of New Jersey, where she said that the secret to happiness was doing something you enjoyed so much that what was in your pay envelope was incidental. I quit my job as an analyst at a large accounting firm, determined to find my passion. I floundered for a while, and then eventually got married and decided to be a stay-at-home mom until my kids were in school. Then I would need to find that passion.

I was pregnant with my oldest child, sitting on a sofa in Stockholm, Sweden, when I had my epiphany — I would be a math teacher. A middle school math teacher! I thought about it and it fit my criteria perfectly. No, I wasn’t thinking about the pension, or the “part-time” schedule, or any of the other gold-plated benefits that uninformed people think we go into the profession to receive. Two criteria: I would enjoy it, and I would be good at it.

Nine years and four kids later, I enrolled in Eastern Michigan University’s Post-Baccalaureate teacher certification program, and first stepped into my own classroom at the age of 40. I was teaching high school, because that’s where I had my first offer, and I was given five classes of kids who were below Teacher: Why ‘I just can’t work in public education anymore’ - The Washington Post:

School voucher backers had one of their silliest arguments destroyed - by Jeb Bush - Orlando Sentinel

School voucher backers had one of their silliest arguments destroyed - by Jeb Bush - Orlando Sentinel:

School-voucher backers get one of their silliest arguments destroyed - by Jeb Bush

There are a lot of fiery debates where I truly understand both sides of an issue – and can even respect both sides.

School vouchers are one of those issues. I get it.

But there are also issues where it’s hard to take debaters seriously, because they are more interested in manipulating words than having honest debates.

School vouchers are one of those issues as well.

Ever since Florida implemented school vouchers under Jeb Bush, many of Bush’s “reform” disciples have been on a crusade to try to stop people from calling them vouchers.

Instead, they have insisted they were “scholarships.”

Now, I’ve always been of the opinion that you can call a pile of dog poop a tricycle. It’s still a pile of dog poop.

But Florida’s voucher disciples have been relentless about this, chasting anyone who tried to use the word.

(Evidence No. 1: “Why it is wrong and misleading to call FL’s tax credit scholarship a ‘voucher.”)

See what they did there? You can’t have a "voucher" debate if we don’t have vouchers.

Anyway, this silly debate is now over – because Bush himself ended it.

I don’t know whether it was an accident or not. But when Bush was trying to burnish his conservative credentials during last weeks Republican debate on Fox News, he declared the following:

“I created the first statewide voucher program in the country. The second statewide voucher program in the country and the third statewide voucher program in the country.”

That’s right. After more than a decade of Bush’s education errandboys trying to manipulate words, Bush  said what everyone knew all along – that they were full of it.

As I said at the beginning, folks are still free to debate the merits of vouchers. It's a fair one.

But I hope this puts to bed any further silliness about how Florida’s program is really just a “scholarship.”School voucher backers had one of their silliest arguments destroyed - by Jeb Bush - Orlando Sentinel:

Chicago Teachers Union Pissed at Tucson Writer Over Political Erotica Novel | The Range: The Tucson Weekly's Daily Dispatch | Tucson Weekly

Chicago Teachers Union Pissed at Tucson Writer Over Political Erotica Novel | The Range: The Tucson Weekly's Daily Dispatch | Tucson Weekly:

Chicago Teachers Union Pissed at Tucson Writer Over Political Erotica Novel

The Chicago Teachers Union is pissed at a Tucson writer—who goes by the pseudonym Gabby Matthews—over a political erotica novel he wrote about a teachers strike that shut down part of Chicago's public school system for about a week back in 2012. 

The union has told the author they do not want to be associated with this "spanking novel," titled The Teacher's Strike, citing alleged trademark violations, according to the author. CTU’s communications director, Stephanie Gadlin, says a fictional Teachers Union logo on a shirt worn by the teacher’s character on the cover should be removed from both print and online copies, because it is way too similar to the union's actual logo. The union also demands that any copies of the book already printed be recalled, a letter from the union's attorney says.

The publisher and author have until Aug. 14 to comply, or the union will "take steps" to ensure they do obey, the letter says.

"I think the union is widely overreacting. It's just a book...I wish they'd recognize it is a political satire and just have a good laugh at it," Matthews says. He'd prefer not to reveal his real name, but he's a local activist and educator, as well. "I expected more open-minded sentiment about sexuality and gender from a union that purports itself to be liberal and progressive" 

The book, which was released in July, tells the story of an "illicit romantic affair" between a male student of legal age and his early-20-something-year-old female teacher. It takes place during the teachers' strike from three years ago. 

The novel is described as work that "takes a sympathetic perspective on the Union’s struggle over educational policy inside Chicago schools. The main and supporting characters take part in the high-profile labor battles against city policies, personified in the book’s unseen antagonist, 'mayor of the 1 percent,' the unflattering title used by activists to describe Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel...At one point in the story, the book title’s double meaning becomes clear when the teacher spanks (or 'strikes') the student’s bare behind (and vice versa) in a romantic act of affection during intercourse."

Matthews says he, as a writing tutor, and the CTU fight for the same things: education equality and labor rights, so why are they so mad?

An attorney with the union says they reserve the right to seek damages and relief from the profit that comes from book sales—in the case the logo is not removed, that is.Chicago Teachers Union Pissed at Tucson Writer Over Political Erotica Novel | The Range: The Tucson Weekly's Daily Dispatch | Tucson Weekly:

KJ-Marcos Breton Bromance Counselling UPDATE:: The trouble with Kevin Johnson? Himself | The Sacramento Bee

Marcos Breton: The trouble with Kevin Johnson? Himself | The Sacramento Bee:

Marcos Breton: The trouble with Kevin Johnson? Himself

The definition of good government is transparency, but how can you be transparent if you meet in secret?

This question and many others elicit silence at City Hall in what has been a peculiar summer.

At this point, Mayor Kevin Johnson and members of the City Council should be basking in the city’s resurgence. On Tuesday, The New York Times took note of Sacramento’s new energy, publishing a complimentary story on how the downtown arena has spurred a flurry of development in long-dormant buildings.

It’s a true story. It’s a great story. But it’s also a complicated story.

Johnson is the driver behind the city’s new vigor – the key player in the good and the bad. The good in Sacramento is as exciting as the bad is disappointing. The good could not have happened without Johnson; the bad didn’t have to happen at all.

He’s a man you want to root for, but who trips over the same flaws that have dogged him for years. Without Kevin Johnson, the Kings would be gone. Sleep Train Arena would be a dump surrounded by land controlled by rich people who cared nothing about Sacramento. The downtown would still be anchored by a dying mall flanked by abandoned buildings.

More than anyone else, Johnson has promoted the idea of Sacramento as a place where good things are happening – and he has helped make that idea a reality. He’s been the right person at the right time for Sacramento.

But a part of Johnson always shrouds his moves in unnecessary secrecy. A part of him always demands absolute loyalty from those closest to him. It’s a culture that has grown more pervasive at City Hall as Johnson has grown more powerful.

It’s why Johnson’s answer for critics who call for ethics reforms at City Hall is an ad hoc committee that meets in secret. Good government debated in secret. It would be funny if it wasn’t sad, and if a majority of the council favorable to Johnson hadn’t gone along despite the glaring irony.

It’s one thing for city officials to negotiate with the Kings, or any other private business, behind closed doors before the details are debated in public. Even if you took the Kings out of the equation, no company seeking to do business with Sacramento would want to conduct its initial dealings out in public. You let city negotiators hammer out the details in private and then you present them to the public for a debate and a vote. Every city in America does it this way.

But an ethics committee has nothing to do with private business. It’s the work of the people. It’s an extension of the public trust. You close it to the public and you create questions instead of providing answers. You create a perception problem when one doesn’t need to exist.

The other perception problem the mayor created was his use of city staff to help him wrest control of a national group of African American mayors. Again, Johnson could have defused this situation if he had come forward himself and spoken plainly about this – instead of letting spokesmen do the talking for him.

It would have been much more powerful if Johnson, an African American leader, had spoken directly about his desire to take over National Conference of Black Mayors, a civil-rights-era group that had fallen on hard times. What’s the worst anyone could have said about this? That he shouldn’t have used staffers for this work?

Such a critique made mostly by a bunch of white people in Sacramento would have sounded small if Johnson had faced this issue head-on instead of seeming like he was sneaking around.

I never will understand this side of a hugely successful native son of Sacramento – the best prep athlete this city has ever seen and a child of poverty who used his athletic skills to build a life of achievement.

Johnson has been quiet since he was accused of sexual harassment a few months ago. The case was found to have no merit by the city, but questions remained about whether JohnsonMarcos Breton: The trouble with Kevin Johnson? Himself | The Sacramento Bee:

​Kevin Johnson's St. Hope nonprofit names its first CEO since ... Kevin Johnson

St. Hope, a community organization founded by Kevin Johnson, has named its first CEO since Johnson stepped down in 2008 to run for mayor.

Jake Mossawir, 33, currently is executive director of the nonprofit City Year program in Sacramento.

St. Hope, also a nonprofit, runs several Sacramento charter schools and a development business. Its mission is to direct revenues from that work into the schools and other arts and social programs in the Oak Park neighborhood, said Mossawir.

At St. Hope, he will work alongside three other full time executive staff members. His start date is Oct. 1.

Mossawir said he hopes to improve operations and possibly expand the organization outside of Oak Park. “My role is to make us as efficient as possible,” he said. “The more we can operate efficiently and effectively, the more folks we can serve.”

Johnson started St. Hope in 1989 as an after-school program serving Sacramento High School. He expanded the program into a charter school that took over Sacramento High in 2002. St. Hope now includes four separate nonprofit entities, each one with its own board and CEO.

In addition to operating five schools, the organization owns the Guild Theater and Underground Books, both located in Oak Park, and manages other residential properties. It employs about 300 people, mostly teachers and staff in its charter schools.

Mossawir was a Sacramento Business Journal 40 Under 40 honoree in 2012. He comes from City Year, a nonprofit tutoring company that is affiliated with the AmeriCorps program.​Kevin Johnson's St. Hope nonprofit names its first CEO since ... Kevin Johnson

Jake Mossawir

• VICE PRESIDENT AND ​EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CITY YEAR SACRAMENTO

A former appointee of the Governor of California, Mossawir has over a decade of experience in the public affairs sector representing a wide variety of clients. Mossawir now serves as Executive Director of City Year Sacramento, prior to which he spent numerous years as Communications Director at Moroch in Sacramento, where he oversaw McDonald's public relations strategies and execution for Northern California and Northern Nevada. Mossawir spearheaded efforts primarily in the areas of nutrition education, food quality and sustainability. Mossawir also served on McDonald’s National Public Relations Roundtable and Western Government Relations Board. Prior to Moroch, Mossawir managed multiple public affairs campaigns at Randle Communications for a variety of trade associations, corporations and individuals throughout California. In addition to his professional role, Jake dedicates countless hours to the community serving on multiple boards including Ronald McDonald House Charities, the Historic California Governor's Mansion Foundation, Sacramento Asian Chamber of Commerce, MLK365 and is the past CEO of the California Winter Games Committee. Named one of Northern California’s 40 under 40 by the Business Journal, Mossawir is a graduate of Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose and attended UC Davis for his undergraduate degrees. While at Davis, he earned degrees in both Political Science and African American Studies and was named an Academic All-American while serving as captain of the UC Davis football team. He is currently pursuing his MBA at Drexel University.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/marcos-breton/article30793584.html#storylink=cpy

Sacramento City Councilman Says City Isn’t Doing Enough To Prevent Harassment « CBS Sacramento

Sacramento City Councilman Says City Isn’t Doing Enough To Prevent Harassment « CBS Sacramento:

Sacramento City Councilman Says City Isn’t Doing Enough To Prevent Harassment

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A Sacramento City Councilman says the city isn’t doing enough to prevent sexual harassment after three cases of allegations recently made headlines.

City Councilman Steve Hansen’s comments come after allegations against Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson and City Councilman Allen Warren. While the mayor’s allegations were not substantiated, Warren’s allegations are under investigation.

Hansen is on a mission to shore up the city’s sexual harassment policy in the wake of the allegations.

“I think these allegations, while I won’t comment on them, have raised questions about how we can be doing things better,” he said. “I spent most of last week talking to different experts, researching what we had and what other cities have and I came to the conclusion that we could do a lot better.”

Hansen says the city’s policy is outdated. A paragraph on the city’s human resources website has a link to read more, but the link doesn’t seem to work.

“Our policy doesn’t say we have no tolerance for this behavior, it doesn’t explicitly say that it’s illegal which it is,” he said. “San Jose’s policy is 11 pages long, but it also deals with if an elected official does something that is inappropriate how to report it.”

Hansen is expected to ask the city auditor to evaluate the city’s policy over the next 30 days. It’s a move that seems to be frustrating the mayor’s office.

“As far as Mr. Hansen’s comment, disappointing that he didn’t come directly to council to have any of these discussions, but instead you know decided to go right to the media, and frankly exploit two ongoing investigations,” said Johnson spokesman Ben Sosenko, referring to comments about the allegations, as well as allegations City Councilwoman Angelique Ashby mistreated a staff member who needed time off.

Employment attorney Robert Bowman says strict policies keep cities protected.

“You should have your managers trained in the policy, your supervisors, and have your employees knowledgeable about what the policy is and where to complain,” he said.

Hanse has also suggested Warren and Ashby step down from a city ad-hoc committee reforming city business and fostering good government.Sacramento City Councilman Says City Isn’t Doing Enough To Prevent Harassment « CBS Sacramento:

Councilman Steve Hansen to Suggest Sexual Harassment Policy Review | FOX40 http://bit.ly/1JTQqqt

Teach For America Corps Numbers Decline Again Amid Criticism, Recession Rebound

Teach For America Corps Numbers Decline Again Amid Criticism, Recession Rebound:

Teach For America Corps Numbers Decline Again Amid Criticism, Recession Rebound

Participation in Teach for America, a nationwide program that recruits recent college graduates for short teaching stints in urban schools, has dropped over the past year. Numbers released Tuesday by the nonprofit organization showed that new teachers for the 2015-2016 academic year totaled 4,100. Last year, new membership was 5,300.

The new class was one of the most diverse in Teach for America history, with about half of participants being people of color or from low-income families. They studied at about 830 different colleges across the U.S., and their collective GPA was 3.4, according to a news release.

But only about 44,000 people applied, down from 50,000 the year before. In fact, application numbers have been dropping since 2013, when more than 57,000 people requested to be a part of the teaching corps. Some have theorized that as the economy has recovered from the Great Recession, more job opportunities have opened up for college graduates.

"Persuading young Americans to choose this work is tougher than ever," co-CEOs Elisa Villanueva Beard and Matthew Kramer wrote in a blog post earlier this year. "In the shadow of the recession, college graduates are moving away from public and service-oriented work and gravitating towards professions they perceive as more stable and financially sustainable. The polarized conversation around education isn’t helping either."

Teach for America has faced complaints from critics and alumni who argue it's too politically connected, doesn't prepare its teachers well enough, enables rapid turnover at needy schools and doesn't generate long-term teachers, the Huffington Post reported. Potential applicants were apparently listening, as about 70 percent of people who considered joining Teach for America but didn't said they were dissuaded by the controversy, according to a February 2015 report from the nonprofit Bellwether Education Partners.

To fix its sliding numbers, Teach for America planned to switch up its recruiting strategies. It will start finding "more emerging leaders, including engaging prospective corps members earlier in their college careers," and help them connect with current corps members and alumni "to get a firsthand sense of their daily work," according to the release. The first application deadline to join next year's corps was set for Aug. 21. Teach For America Corps Numbers Decline Again Amid Criticism, Recession Rebound:

Teachers are losing their jobs, but Teach for America’s expanding. What’s wrong with that? - The Hechinger Report

Teachers are losing their jobs, but Teach for America’s expanding. What’s wrong with that? - The Hechinger Report:

Teachers are losing their jobs, but Teach for America’s expanding. What’s wrong with that?

For the second week in a row in his new home, Kenneth Maldonado’s evening ritual began with lumping sweaters and sleeping bags into the shape of a mattress in his otherwise empty bedroom. It was late September of 2011, the end of his first month as a Teach for America instructor. Having been only recently approved to teach in the Seattle school district, he was broke. But Maldonado and his two roommates — also TFA teachers — were among the lucky ones. Just a few weeks earlier, a half-dozen of their fellow recruits had been camped out on the hardwood floor of the unfurnished common area, homeless and unemployed.

The Teach for America program, now 24 years old, selects and sends young college graduates (referred to as “corps members”) to teach in schools serving primarily disadvantaged children of color, after giving its recruits five intensive weeks of training over the summer. Like the Peace Corps, TFA is a résumé booster, and its alumni have gone on to successful careers from the White House to Wall Street.

The 2011–12 school year was the organization’s fledgling year in Seattle, and Maldonado, then 24, initially felt excited to be one of the first 38 recruits. His family didn’t have much when he was growing up in Los Angeles — his father, a former teacher in Guatemala, took on maintenance jobs after fleeing to the United States to escape the country’s civil war. But Maldonado excelled in school, graduating from the University of California Santa Cruz, with a theater major and an education minor. He soon got a job with a San Jose–based nonprofit that helps people find low-income housing.

Although TFA requires only a two-year commitment, Maldonado was serious about a teaching career, and he saw the program as a guaranteed way into the profession without the time and expense of grad school. He especially appreciated its focus on disadvantaged schools. So when he learned of his acceptance into the program, he quit his job in California and prepared to move to the Pacific Northwest. “I wasn’t stressed out, I wasn’t worried,” he said. “I fully trusted Teach for America had everything figured out.”

It hadn’t. In 2009, the Seattle school district was hardly in the grip of a teacher shortage: 13,800 teachers had applied for just 352 full- and part-time positions. But the schools were facing a $25 million deficit, and TFA was asking for a $4,000 annual fee per recruit (area philanthropists would later cover it; on average, schools contracting with the organization pay $5,000 a year for headhunting and support costs). So the district’s decision to pursue a contract with TFA quickly became controversial. In board meetings that were sometimes standing room only, dozens of community members — including parents, teachers and high school students — signed up in record numbers to testify against the district’s contract with the organization, urging the administration to hire more experienced local teachers. Several people even brought homemade signs with slogans like NO TFA NEEDED!

The aspiring teachers, who arrived in Seattle in June 2011, found themselves in limbo. “Everyone was freaking out about money,” Maldonado recalls. In the end, he was one of 13 recruits — out of the original 38 — who’d landed a job by October. (One dropped out later that year.) Applying for every open position, the TFA recruits were hired by 10 schools — only three of which served the high-needs population (determined by whether 80 percent of the students receive a free or reduced-price lunch) that TFA claims to target exclusively in its federal grant applications.

Eric Scroggins, who oversaw the move into Seattle as the Teachers are losing their jobs, but Teach for America’s expanding. What’s wrong with that? - The Hechinger Report:

Can We Interest You In Teaching? - The New York Times

Can We Interest You In Teaching? - The New York Times:

Can We Interest You In Teaching?

Teaching can’t compete.

When the economy improves and job prospects multiply, college students turn their attention elsewhere, to professions that promise more money, more independence, more respect.

That was one takeaway from a widely discussed story in The Times on Sunday by Motoko Rich, who charted teacher shortages so severe in certain areas of the country that teachers are being rushed into classrooms with dubious qualifications and before they’ve earned their teaching credentials.

It’s a sad, alarming state of affairs, and it proves that for all our lip service about improving the education of America’s children, we’ve failed to make teaching the draw that it should be, the honor that it must be. Nationally, enrollment in teacher preparation programs dropped by 30 percent between 2010 and 2014, as Rich reported.

To make matters worse, more than 40 percent of the people who do go into teaching exit the profession within five years.

To make matters worse, more than 40 percent of the people who do go into teaching exit the profession within five years.

How do we make teaching more rewarding, so that it beckons to not only enough college graduates but to a robust share of the very best of them?

Better pay is a must. There’s no getting around that. Many teachers in many areas can’t hope to buy a house and support a family on their incomes, and college students contemplating careers know that. If those students are taking on debt, teaching isn’t likely to provide a timely way to pay it off. The average salary nationally for public school teachers,including those with decades in the classroom, is under $57,000; starting salaries in some states barely crest $30,000.

There’s also the issue of autonomy.

“The No. 1 thing is giving teachers a voice, a real voice,” Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said to me this week.

Education leaders disagree over how much of a voice and in what. Weingarten emphasizes teacher involvement in policy, and a survey of some 30,000 teachers and other school workers done by the A.F.T. and the Badass Teachers Association in late April showed that one large source of stress was being left out of such decisions.

Others focus on primarily letting teachers chart the day-by-day path to the goals laid out for them, so that they’re not just obedient vessels for a one-size-fits-all script. Hold them accountable, but give them discretion.

The political battles over education, along with the shifting vogues about what’s best, have left many teachers feeling like pawns and punching bags. And while that’s no reason not to implement promising new approaches or to shrink from experimentation, it puts an onus on policy makers and administrators to bring generous measures of training, support and patience to the task.

Teachers crave better opportunities for career growth. Evan Stone, one of the chief executives of Educators 4 Excellence, which represents about Can We Interest You In Teaching? - The New York Times: