Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

WEEKEND QUOTABLES



Mercedes Schneider

America needs less of Pearson. A lot less. -- Deutsch29

NEA president Lily Eskelsen Garcia

“I don’t know anyone who doesn’t think Arne is decent and honest,” says National Education Association president Lily Eskelsen Garcia, whose union has called for Duncan to resign. “But his reforms are so ridiculous, he’s uniting teachers, PTA’s, principals, everyone. We’re writing each other’s talking points!” -- Politico: Arne Duncan Wars

Rosenbaum

R.I.P Terry Rosenbaum

“My goal was to be a teacher of history in the New York City high schools. Which I did. I loved teaching.” -- NYT: Teacher Who Was Fired After Defying McCarthy, Dies at 97

Bob Quellos, one of the founders of No Games Chicago 

“They were there early, they were bulky guys, and they just didn’t fit the activist profile.” -- THE WATCHDOGS: Spy cops: Chicago police routinely spied on protesters

Rebecca Sibilia, CEO of Edbuild

“When you think of bankruptcy … this is a huge opportunity. Bankruptcy is not a problem for kids; bankruptcy is a problem for the people governing the system, right? So, when a school district goes bankrupt all of their legacy debt can be eliminated . . . Look, if we can eliminate that in an entire urban system, then we can throw all the Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

Michelle Obama Wants Your Next Selfie to Support Girls’ Education | TakePart

Michelle Obama Wants Your Next Selfie to Support Girls’ Education | TakePart:

Michelle Obama Wants Your Next Selfie to Support Girls’ Education

The First Lady’s 62 Million Girls campaign asks people to answer the question, ‘What did you learn in school?’

After Beyoncé informed tens of thousands of people that “girls run the world” at the Global Citizen Festival, First Lady Michelle Obama took to the stage to encourage the audience to take steps to ensure that girls can do just that.

“Right now 62 million girls are not in school...they deserve the same chances to get an education as my daughters and your daughters and all of our children,” Obama told the crowd at the fourth annual event aimed at ending extreme poverty by 2030. The First Lady asked the audience to speak up for those girls by tweeting photos of themselves with the hashtag #62MillionGirls, along with something they learned in school.

Obama’s new campaign is part of the Let Girls Learn initiative, which focuses on “community-led solutions to reduce barriers that prevent adolescent girls from completing their education.” Girls face more roadblocks to education than their male peers, including forced early marriage and gender-based violence. Boys’ education is often prioritized ahead of girls’ in low-income households where money for supplies and tuition is tight, with families sending their male children to school while the girls handle household duties.

Higher education leads not just to girls’ success, but also to the success of all members of society. Schooling allows girls to grow into women with higher-paying jobs and help support their families and communities.

RELATED:   Michelle Obama to Disadvantaged Schoolgirls: I Fought Your Fight

“Giving [girls] that chance is at the core of our work to end global poverty,” said Obama. She kicked off the campaign by adding what she learned in school: how to speak up for Michelle Obama Wants Your Next Selfie to Support Girls’ Education | TakePart:

Indiana schools chief Glenda Ritz seeks advice from feds on charter school cuts

Indiana schools chief Glenda Ritz seeks advice from feds on charter school cuts:

Indiana schools chief Glenda Ritz seeks advice from feds on charter school cuts

A third of charter schools in Indiana saw big cuts in Title I poverty aid but were given no explanation for why the funding decreased.

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State Superintendent Glenda Ritz announced Friday that she is seeking guidance from the U.S. Department of Education over how to handle steep funding cuts to charter schools that local policymakers say might violate federal law.

At issue is the charter schools’ share of federal poverty aid known as Title I funding. This year, a third of charter schools in the state saw large cuts in that pool of funding, throwing off budget projections and riling up school leaders who are confused about why the cuts were made, said Michelle McKeown, director of the Indiana Charter School Board.

“We just want transparency and consistency” around how the funds are doled out to schools, McKeown said.

The amount of federal poverty aid sent to school districts is largely determined by census data measurements of poverty in each county. When that data shows changes in the poverty levels, schools can get more or less aid.

“The Department is inquiring about the calculation of Title I funds for charter schools in light of an overall reduction of Title I dollars and a significant decrease in the Census Poverty Count for several charter schools,” said a news release from the Indiana Department of Education.

That doesn’t necessarily mean schools are dealing with less poverty — it might just be an issue with reporting. If families don’t complete the surveys and indicate their income, they don’t get counted.

But McKeown said the education department’s reasoning is confusing because charter schools don’t get census poverty counts.

“The U.S. Department of Education assigns a census poverty count to all (traditional public school districts),” she said. “They don’t do that for charter schools because charter schools don’t have a geographic boundary.”

Charter schools can enroll students from just about anywhere, space permitting, and their Title I funding relies on the traditional districts their kids come from, McKeown said.

For example, Avondale Meadows charter school on the city’s Eastside has 100 percent of its students coming from within IPS’ boundaries, she said. Once IPS gets its Title I funding handed down from the federal government through the Indiana Department of Education, a portion is redirected to Avondale Meadows for its students who qualify for that aid. That is generally based on the number of students whose families are eligible for free and reduced-price lunch.

But this year, the school saw a federal poverty aid drop of about $129,000, despite the fact that IPS received about $1.5 million more in federal aid, even while its enrollment dropped.

Avondale Meadows, McKeown said, had stable enrollment with between 75 and 80 percent of students coming from families that are poor enough to qualify for free and reduced-price lunch for the past two years.

Earlier this month, the Indianapolis Business Journal reported charter schools were seeing even steeper federal poverty aid cuts than their traditional public school counterparts, despite few changes to the population the schools serve.

On Monday, U.S. Reps. Luke Messer and Todd Rokita sent a letter to Ritz asking for an explanation, saying the inequality in funding violates state and federal laws that aims to stabilize district and charter school Title I poverty funding from year to year.

“According to reports, charter schools in our state saw a $2.3 million dollar decline in Title I funds in FY2016,” the letter said. “At the same time, some traditional public school systems, like Indianapolis Public Schools, for example, received an additional $1.5 million in Title I funds despite a decline in enrollment.”

The U.S. Department of Education states that any “state education agency” (in this case, the Indiana Department of Education) cannot reduce the amount of Title I funding for a “local education agency” (a school district or individual charter school) by more than a certain percentage from the prior year.

These “hold harmless” rules attempt to keep schools from seeing shocks to their budgets that could compromise the schools’ staff and day-to-day operations. McKeown said 22 of the state’s 59 charter schools saw funding cuts that were more than what the “hold harmless” rules allow.

Going to the U.S. Department of Education might hopefully resolve the questions about federal law, McKeown said.

Carey Dahncke, director of the Christel House Academies charter school network, said Indiana schools chief Glenda Ritz seeks advice from feds on charter school cuts:

Bill de Blasio Allies Call Charter School Ad ‘Racist’ | Observer

Bill de Blasio Allies Call Charter School Ad ‘Racist’ | Observer:

‘Racist to the Core’: Bill de Blasio Allies Blast New Charter Schools Ad

A couple of Democrats close to Mayor Bill de Blasio blasted a new pro-charter schools television ad today, calling the spot “racist to the core.”

The slickly-produced ad attacks Mr. de Blasio, a liberal Democrat, for dooming minority schoolchildren to lousy public schools.

“They’re racist to the core. They know they are,” Bertha Lewis, the founder of the Black Institute, a civil rights nonprofit, told the Observer. “What the mayor needs to do, and I would stand right beside him, is call them out for the racists that they are. He needs to be able to do that. He needs to fight back.”

Families for Excellent Schools, a powerful pro-charter group which has relentlessly criticized Mr. de Blasio for failing to advocate for charters, released the 30-second spot. Produced by Jimmy Siegel, a noted political adman, the ad cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and comes as charter operators are set to hold a large rally on September 30, according to Politico New York.

The ad, entitled “Tale of Two Boys,” features two young boys, one white and one black.

“Because he lives in a wealthy neighborhood, this 6-year-old will attend a good school,” the ad’s narrator says as the young white boy is walked to school by a white parent.

When the black boy appears on the screen, the narrator says, “Because he lives in a poor neighborhood, this 6-year-old will be forced in a failing school.” The two boys pass each other on the street as the narrator claims that the white child will likely go to college, while the black boy has little chance of ever attaining a college degree.

“Mayor de Blasio, stop forcing kids into failing schools,” the narrator says. “Half a million children need new schools, now.”

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, a Democrat, said in a statement that charter operators are “diverting money, resources, and space from our public schools.”

“The rhetoric of this ad, and the people and money behind it, are part of the problem,” she said.

Luis Garden Acosta, the founder of El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice and the father of a child who attended a charter school, said FES was “race-baiting.”

“‘Race baiting’ like ‘red baiting’, exploiting the values and legitimate concerns of our city’s communities of color, for whatever political purpose, is abhorrent and posits a dangerous and expanding wedge in a city all to segregated by class, color and community,” Mr. Acosta stated, noting that Roberto Perez, a City Hall staffer, encouraged him to speak out. “It is abhorrent that a movement that emerged as a demand to tell the truth is used to obfuscate, divide and attempt to denigrate New York City’s progressive agenda”.

While Mr. de Blasio is enlisting surrogates to fight back on his behalf, his office was a bit less hostile, though it called the ad “crass.” “Our students and our families need solutions, not another crass political ad. That’s why Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Farina are focused on ensuring that every child, in every classroom, has a future that isn’t limited by their ZIP code,” said Wiley Norvell, a spokesman for the mayor.

Since failing last year to halt the expansion of Success Academy Charter Schools, run by his old political foe Eva Moskowitz, Mr. de Blasio has softened his rhetoric toward charter schools, even as Bill de Blasio Allies Call Charter School Ad ‘Racist’ | Observer:

Her son began hating school. What happened when she found out why. - The Washington Post

Her son began hating school. What happened when she found out why. - The Washington Post:

Her son began hating school. What happened when she found out why.

The movement among parents to refuse to allow their children to take Common Core-aligned standardized tests has been growing for several years in states around the country, with some 20 percent of eligible students refusing to take them this past spring in New York and tens of thousands more sitting out the exams in other states as well. Here’s why and how one mother began the opt-out movement in New York.

This was written by Carol Burris, the executive director of the nonprofitNetwork for Public Education Fund. Burris retired in June as an award-winning principal at a New York high school, and she is the author of numerous articles, books and blog posts (including on The Answer Sheet) about the botched school reform efforts in her state. She was named New York’s 2013 High School Principal of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York and the National Association of Secondary School Principals. In 2010, she was selected as the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State.

By Carol Burris

Jeanette Deutermann did not intend to become the leader of the most effective testing opt-out organization in the United States. She was a suburban mom trying to figure out why her son no longer wanted to go to school.

The year that Long Island Opt Out began, Tyler Deutermann was an unhappy fourth grader with school anxiety that was increasing every day. During February 2012, Jeanette Deutermann began investigating why her son who once loved school so much now hated it.

“I saw it emerge a little bit during testing season in third grade,” Deutermann said. “But then the test anxiety became constant in fourth grade. After speaking with teachers and parents, I knew it was the testing.”

The 2011-12 school year was the first year that teachers in New York State were to be evaluated by the test scores of their students. Anxiety across the board was running high. She read a letter signed by over one-third of New York’s principals that explained why evaluating teachers by test scores would have unintended negative consequences on students. Jeanette began to connect the dots, and she realized that high-stakes testing was the reason that her child and his education were falling apart.

“I had to speak out and let other parents know. I felt like a whistleblower—I did not have a choice,” she explained.

Tyler, she decided, would not take the test. In order  to organize other like-minded parents, she began a Facebook group—Long Island Opt-Out. It started out small—the first year, 1,000 students on Long Island refused the test. Membership in the group ballooned to over 16,000 in year two. Today, Long Island Opt Out has over 23,000 members.

Opt Out has spread across the state of New York like wildfire. In the spring of 2014, between 55,000 and 65,000 students refused to take the Grades 3-8 Common Core tests, with about half of those numbers coming from Long Island. In 2015, the number was in excess of 200,000 test refusals—which meant that 20 percent of all possible test takers’ parents said, “not my child.”

New York is not alone in test resistance. Opt out in Florida began when teacher Ceresta Smith, joined five others from Florida, Colorado, Maryland, Her son began hating school. What happened when she found out why. - The Washington Post:

In this school, children will grow up believing bathrooms have no gender - Quartz

In this school, children will grow up believing bathrooms have no gender - Quartz:

In this school, children will grow up believing bathrooms have no gender

On her first day of Pre-K, my four-year-old daughter used a bathroom that was simply labeled “bathroom.” She will, I hope, grow up in a world where bathrooms—like people—no longer exist along a simple gender binary. If only every school could be this enlightened.

In a recent NPR interview, Anna Allanbrook, principal of the Brooklyn New School where my children attend, stated that because society has evolved to such a place where children should be allowed to use the bathroom of the gender that they identify with. This is a rather radical albeit simple way of looking at gender identity.

The issue came to a head in Brooklyn after a transgender New School student requested to use the boys’ bathroom. The New York City Department of Education actually already has its own transgender guidelines, guidelines that support the rights of student to use the bathroom of his or her choice. “I went to a meeting this summer where they were actually discussing this at a pretty high level in The Department of Education,” Allanbrook told Quartz. “I think it’s become an issue across the grades in the public schools in general, not just in the Brooklyn New School.”

Q, as the student is known, is now in the fourth grade, but he has known he was transgender for several years. Q’s mother, Francisca Montana, told Quartz that the role of the gendered bathroom has long been something of a barrier. “Since the second grade when he started transitioning, the bathroom has been a big deal,” she told Quartz. “He was wearing girls clothes, but he wanted to go to the boys bathroom, because he is a boy. But kids in the boys bathroom would say ‘what are you doing here?’ Sometimes he would pee on himself.”

Allanbrook knew that something had to be done. The school explored different options before ultimately deciding to take matters into its own hands. Allanbrook decided to change the way that incoming students were introduced to the bathrooms.

“It just made sense with our little ones [PreK and Kindergarten] from the start of the school year to just cover the sign that says boys and girls and just say bathroom,” she said. “And that’s what we did. My idea is to de-emphasize it and just say, okay these are the bathrooms.”

Already, the change has made a big difference in the life of Q, according to his mother. But as a parent of two Brooklyn New School children who do not identify as transgender, I too am grateful that my children have the opportunity to learn in such a welcoming and progressive environment. (This isn’t the case everywhere: Recently in Missouri atransgender student was met with backlash from fellow students after requesting to use the girls’ bathroom.)

Ultimately, a bathroom is a bathroom. There are stalls, which give students the privacy they need to do what they need to do. Plus, having a family bathroom in school teaches children to be respectful of one another. A child will learn that when a stall is locked they must wait their turn, regardless of the gender of the person inside it.

At the end of her first day, I asked my daughter if the class used the same bathroom. She nodded enthusiastically. “Girls and boys?” I In this school, children will grow up believing bathrooms have no gender - Quartz:

The Classrooms We’re Fighting For | The Opt Out Florida Network

The Classrooms We’re Fighting For | The Opt Out Florida Network:

The Classrooms We’re Fighting For

Parents opt out of high stakes testing for many different reasons. Among the reasons I hear most often – teaching to the test, narrowed curriculum, too much stress, developmentally inappropriate, data collection, profiteering, the high stakes of retention and remediation, Common Core, and on and on and on…

What I believe most parents are in agreement about, is that school is no longer a place where children feel emotionally safe. They don’t feel safe being curious, creative, or daring. Failing, instead of being an opportunity to learn what doesn’t work, opening a window to other possibilities, has become a label to be feared and dreaded, because there is too much at stake to allow children to fail at anything anymore. Our children don’t always feel emotionally safe just being kids in school.

In the blog, Round the Inkwell, NPE Executive Director and lifelong educator, Carol Burris writes about a question posed to teachers by Jeanette Deutermann, the founder of Long Island Opt Out.  She asks:

If you knew that nearly all of your students were opting out, what would your classrooms be like?

Teachers’ responses included:

– I would re-engage my creative talents to tailor this year’s goals in the most appropriate manner for each of my students … and to once again make school a place of adventure, warmth and consistency.

– Listen longer to the children and let them tell their stories of life.

– I will do more hands on projects they will really remember when they get older!

– I would do more music, poetry and plays.

– Get back to creative teaching and allowing my students to enjoy learning!

The teachers’ responses are poignant and, I believe, are the heart of why so many parents fight so hard in the opt out movement. We grieve this version of school as a critical loss for our children, especially if we remember loving school and loving learning. We know that, for the most part, the way our children experience school, is but a shadow of what teachers imagine here, or of what we remember fondly.

I read this post with my eleven-year-old daughter. She is now in the sixth grade – a middle school student, with all that that implies. She is a typical tween – sweet, moody, sensitive, sour, dour.  Yet, having been exposed to and engaged in my activism for years, she is also not your typical tween. She is mature, strong, strong-minded,  informed and she has always taken her education very seriously. In our family, we ask hard questions, and we listen to each other.

Our family has recently moved from one school district to another, where the testing culture, although a part of public education as we know it, is tempered with more compassion for children and where the district leadership seems to be more willing to listen and respond to the concerns of parents. It isn’t perfect, and there is still much work to be done, but for us, school is better than it has been for years.

My daughter had this to say about Carol Burris’ blogpost,

“I agree with all of that. School isn’t like that for me, but I wish it were. 

School was great until third grade.  But when I was in grades three, four and five, I felt like when we went over material, we were supposed to understand it right away – even if we didn’t. I never felt like I could ask The Classrooms We’re Fighting For | The Opt Out Florida Network:

USC Poll: Californians Don’t Know Much About Common Core

SCVNews.com | USC Poll: Californians Don’t Know Much About Common Core | 09-27-2015:

USC Poll: Californians Don’t Know Much About Common Core

As Californians get their first look at new test results since 2013, a new poll shows state voters have mixed views on the Common Core State Standards, and their views shift with the way questions about the standards are posed.

Levels of support for the Common Core are generally higher — and levels of opposition are lower — in California than in the rest of the nation. The PACE/USC Rossier School of Education Poll shows a strong majority still know little or nothing about the new standards, however, and many voters are misinformed about the details. More than one in four California voters (26 percent) had not heard of the Common Core State Standards, the poll showed.

The PACE/USC Rossier Poll randomly asked voters several differently worded questions about Common Core support, reflecting the different questions included in other national and California polls. The results of the poll showed the wording of the question can dramatically affect responses.

Approve or disapprove?

When asked simply to what extent they approve or disapprove of the Common Core, 26 percent of California voters said they approve, while 31 percent said they disapprove and 17 percent had no opinion. Opposition among parents was higher: 38 percent said they disapprove of Common Core, while 31 percent said they approve and 16 percent had no opinion.

When the poll asked voters whether they support or oppose “having the teachers in your community use the Common Core State Standards to guide what they teach,” as the recent PDK/Gallup Poll posed the question, the percentage who support Common Core fell to 24 percent. The percentage that opposed the new standards also fell, to 27 percent.

When the question presented more information about the Common Core, however, support for the new standards was much higher. Support for the new standards rose to 52 percent when California voters were asked the following question, which was included in a recent Education Next poll:

As you may know, over the past few years states have been deciding whether or not to implement the Common Core State Standards, which are national standards for reading, writing and math. In the states that have these standards, they will be used to hold public schools accountable for their performance. To what extent do you support or oppose the use of the Common Core Standards in California?

“Even after four years of implementation and a great deal of political controversy, most Californians simply don’t know or don’t care much about Common Core,” said Morgan Polikoff, assistant professor of education at USC Rossier and an expert on Common Core standards. “Their views depend to a surprising extent on the questions they are asked about the new standards.”

Knowledge of the standards

The PACE/USC Rossier Poll also found that nearly six in 10 voters (59 percent) said they knew “a little” or “nothing” about the Common Core State Standards, with 41 percent of voters who said they knew “some” or “a lot” about them.

Reported knowledge of the standards was greater among parents, 54 percent of whom said they knew “a lot” or “some” and 46 percent of whom said they knew “a little” or nothing, according to the poll.

A plurality of voters also had misconceptions about several tenets of the standards: 34 percent of voters said Common Core requires more testing than California’s previous standards (17 percent said this was false and 49 percent were unsure); 25 percent said the federal government required California to adopt the Common Core (20 percent said this was false, 54 percent were unsure); and 30 percent said the statement that Common Core only applies to English and math is false (20 percent said this was true and 49 percent were unsure).

Parents were more likely to have misconceptions in these areas: 41 percent said Common Core requires more testing than California’s previous standards (18 percent said this was false and 42 percent were unsure); 34 percent said the federal government required California to adopt the Common Core (21 percent said this was false, 46 percent were unsure); and 35 percent said the statement that Common Core only applies to English and math is false (28 percent said this was true and 37 percent were unsure).

Voters who claim to have more knowledge of the standards are often considerably more likely to hold misconceptions about the standards than those who claim to have less knowledge. For instance, 52 percent of voters who report knowing a lot about the standards think Common Core applies in subjects other than math and English, and 57 percent believe Common Core requires more testing, both of which are incorrect.

“There remains a great deal of misinformation about the standards, and this is almost certainly driving some portion of the opposition here in California,” Polikoff said.

Key election issue?

Republicans were more likely than Democrats to be misinformed about what subjects were included in Common Core, 34 percent to 29 percent. Democrats were more likely to be wrong about whether Common Core required more testing, 38 percent to 32 percent.

But the Common Core is unlikely to be an important election issue, with a plurality (34 percent) saying they would be no more or less likely to support a presidential candidate who strongly supported Common Core. Twenty-four percent of voters said they would be less likely to support such a candidate, and 19 percent said they would be more likely to support that candidate.

“California’s policy leaders have been very deliberate in their implementation of the Common Core, which has short-circuited much of the political controversy that has emerged in other states,” said David Plank, executive director of PACE. “California’s teachers unions and other education organizations are united in their support for the state’s new standards, and the opponents of Common Core have not found a way to make it a significant statewide issue.”

Voters strongly support state testing policies

When asked to guess how long they thought California students spend taking state tests in a school year, voters on average said more than 23 hours, the poll showed.

After being told that California students spend 8 to 10 hours taking standardized tests SCVNews.com | USC Poll: Californians Don’t Know Much About Common Core | 09-27-2015:

Florida Superintendents Join the Voices of Parents & Teachers | The Opt Out Florida Network

Florida Superintendents Join the Voices of Parents & Teachers | The Opt Out Florida Network:

Florida Superintendents Join the Voices of Parents & Teachers

The Opt Out Florida Network, and its 40 Opt Out groups across the state, would like to thank the Florida Association of District School Superintendents(FADSS) for making a bold statement about the failures of our education accountability system.

Excerpt from the Superintendents’ statement:

The superintendents of Florida acknowledge the Commissioner’s role and the difficulty of the tasks set before her. Florida superintendents have consistently defended and supported accountability, the new Florida Standards, and the need to accurately measure student performance. At this time, FADSS is compelled to provide a position regarding the recent actions of the Department of Education (DOE) and the State Board of Education (SBE).

Florida district school superintendents have lost confidence in the current accountability system for the students of the State of Florida.

FADSS Recommendations:

1. Suspend any application of the results from the spring 2015 administration of the FSA to students, teachers and schools.
2. Issue an “I” (Incomplete) if necessary, to all Florida schools for 2014-2015, based upon the availability of limited and flawed data.
3. Reject the concept that the standards set for the FSA mirror the levels of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Teachers, parents and students have been experiencing this crisis first hand and are grateful that the Superintendents have added their voices to the outcry for a complete overhaul of how we test and how we use that data.

We ask that FADSS further their inquiry into the validity study and that they urge Legislators to release the burden of high stakes in their test and punish policies;  not just this year, but permanently.

To read the full statement from FADSS (September 25, 2015):
FLORIDA SUPERINTENDENTS HAVE LOST CONFIDENCE IN THE ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEM

To learn how you can become a stronger advocate for your child’s education by understanding your parental rights and options, please join us at The Opt Out Florida Network on Facebook.

To find your district Opt Out group, please click HERE.

Short Link:  bit.ly/1FyTuYZ

Actually, Boehner's Resignation Doesn't Change the Odds on ESEA - Rick Hess Straight Up - Education Week

Actually, Boehner's Resignation Doesn't Change the Odds on ESEA - Rick Hess Straight Up - Education Week:

Actually, Boehner's Resignation Doesn't Change the Odds on ESEA

On Friday, House Speaker John Boehner announced that he'll be stepping down at the end of October.  This decision concluded five long years of caucus clashes between Boehner and the House's Tea Party wing and, in edu-world, occasioned much speculation about what this means for ESEA. After all, for the first time since 2001, the House and Senate have both passed reauthorization legislation which they're now working to reconcile.  The conventional wisdom was that Boehner's announcement makes the odds of ESEA reauthorization much longer.

I see things a little differently.

First, keep in mind that 99.9% of the currents buffeting House Republicans have nothing to do with education. They have to do with more fundamental fights, some rational and some less so. Whether the outcome of these fights helps or hurts education legislation is purely incidental. Nobody knows how all the leadership shuffling or budget fights will play out, or what that'll mean for the policy agenda.  

Second, as I've noted time and again, the odds have been against reauthorization all along.  Even after the House and Senate passed their respective bills in July, the odds of getting a bill done were never higher than 25% or maybe 30%. Getting things this far is a credit to Kline, Alexander, Murray, and their staffs— but don't overestimate how close they are to the finish line. The House's Student Success Act (SSA) barely made it through on a 218-213 vote, and any House-Senate compromise is going to include Senate provisions that will alienate some House conservatives. Meanwhile, with Secretary Duncan denouncing key elements of the SSA as unacceptable, it's long been unclear whether a conference committee satisfy both House Republicans and the Obama administration.

Third, it's not clear that Boehner's departure will matter much for ESEA's chances one way or the other. The conventional wisdom was that Boehner would help bring a conference bill and persuade Republican members to vote for a compromise bill. There are a couple problems with that take. For one thing, it's not like Boehner has had a lot of success steering the caucus or that his imprimatur on a conference bill was going to be a huge plus. He's been at loggerheads with the 40 or 50 members of the House Freedom Caucus for years and his bringing a conference bill to the floor was going to be one more round in that fight. For another, the odds are that Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy will be the next Speaker— and McCarthy has a much better relationship with the Freedom Caucus than Boehner has. He might also catch a break from some members simply because he's not Boehner. (Don't misunderstand me: the schism in the House GOP is deep, real, and going to persist. But the shift from Boehner to McCarthy could make it a bit more likely that a few things happen in the short term.)

Fourth, most House Republicans didn't go to Washington to wrestle with the details of education legislation. They're focused on reducing the size of the federal government, reversing the Actually, Boehner's Resignation Doesn't Change the Odds on ESEA - Rick Hess Straight Up - Education Week:

NY Times Hypes Charter Schools - Again and Again | Alan Singer

NY Times Hypes Charter Schools - Again and Again | Alan Singer:

NY Times Hypes Charter Schools - Again and Again

A front-page article in the weekend Metropolitan section of The New York Timestakes readers "Inside the three-year effort to open an economically diverse, academically rigorous charter in Brooklyn." One big problem with the Times' campaign to hype charter schools is that this school just opened the week before with 135 kindergarten and first grade children so no one had any idea how economically diverse and academically rigorous the school would actually become. The article was purely speculative, barely more than an advertisement for charter schools.

The article, which continued to two more pages inside the section, was really about the quest of some rich guy to open and control his own "public" school. In the print edition the Times headlined the article, "Mr. Levey's Dream School."

But just who is this Mr. Levey and why should he be in charge of a quasi-public charter school? According to his Linkedin page, Matthew Levey is a former McKinseyconsultant. He worked there from 1999 to 2002 after he left a job with the United States State Department. McKinsey is the world's largest management consulting firm with a foot in nations around the world. Levey claims that at McKinsey he "worked with financial services clients to improve business unit performance in a range of different strategy engagements." Among other things, critics charge that McKinsey's main advice is often to maximize profits by laying off workers. Levey was also managing director of Kroll Inc from 2002 to 2011, a "risk-management" company that provides internal security for major corporations.

I am not sure if this is an impressive resume or not, but I did find two things very puzzling. Levey studied economics at George Washington and finance at Columbia University. According to the New York Times, Levey, who lives in the affluent Upper East Side of Manhattan "has never taught a classroom of elementary school students, never written a lesson plan, never sent anyone to the principal's office." Times editors must figure he is qualified to run a charter school because he is the father of three teenagers and his wife is a language instructor in a private school. They did not say.

The other puzzling thing is that Levey does not seem to have had a job since 2011. He has been too busy setting up his charter "dream." I would like to know how he made a living, helped support his family, and prepared to send those three teenagers to college. Where did his money come from and where did the money to set up the dream charter school come from? Surprisingly, the Times did not report this information.

But hey! Levey probably is a good guy. The Times says he served on volunteer school committees and he really believes children in the pre-k through fifth grade need to know how Sir Francis Bacon developed the scientific method in the 16th century, the importance of Aristotle about 300 BC, and whyNY Times Hypes Charter Schools - Again and Again | Alan Singer: