Feds didn’t carefully monitor $3 billion it gave for charters — and it just awarded $157 million more - The Washington Post

Feds didn’t carefully monitor $3 billion it gave for charters — and it just awarded $157 million more - The Washington Post:

Feds didn’t carefully monitor $3 billion it gave for charters — and it just awarded $157 million more

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has been called the most powerful education secretary for a reason.

He has led a department that has been criticized for being “a national school board” because of its micromanaging states on some key education issues. Duncan talks a lot about “accountability” and the importance of making sure that schools are doing right by kids. When the department began its $4.3 billion Race to the Top funding competition among states, it made clear what its priorities for applications were, and when it offered waivers to states from the most onerous parts of No Child Left Behind, there were detailed strings attached. (And when Washington did not evaluate teachers by standardized test scores as the department wanted, it yanked the state’s No Child Left Behind waiver).

But when it comes to its support of charter schools, the department hasn’t been doing all that much to manage the more than $3 billion it has given to charter networks and state education departments for the purposes of creating and expanding existing charters. And it just this week announced that it was awarding $157 million in new grants for charters.

State Educational Agency Grantees:

Grantee Name	FY 2015 Funding	Total Recommended Funding
Arizona Department of Education	$15,709,697	$23,624,997
Colorado Department of Education	$18,179,999	$36,359,999
Illinois Department of Education	$21,143,113	$42,286,226
Office of the State Superintendent of Education (District of Columbia)	$10,083,900	$20,167,800
Ohio Department of Education	$32,556,801	$71,058,319
Oregon Department of Education	$4,180,000	$8,790,931
Nevada Department of Education	$7,896,989	$16,481,251
South Carolina Department of Education	$15,218,801	$30,437,602
Total	$124,969,300	$249,207,125

Replication and Expansion of High-Quality Charter Schools Grantees:

Grantee Name	State	FY 2015 Funding	Total Recommended Funding
Achievement First, Inc.	CT	$3,226,599	$8,453,100
Across the Bridge Foundation	CA	$827,128	$241,6000
Baltimore Curriculum Project	MD	$217,359	$282,720
Einstein Group, Inc.	LA	$2,189,999	$5,000,000
Lawndale Educational and Regional Network	IL	$3,202,879	$6,547,950
Mastery Charter High School	PA	$3,764,836	$9,587,266
Noble Network of Charter Schools	IL	$1,564,999	$8,412,500
RePublic Schools	TN	$3,799,332	$9,599,999
Success Academy Charter Schools, Inc.	NY	$3,794,396	$13,440,000
UP Education Network, Inc.	MA	$2,167,984	$4,335,971
Uplift Education	TX	$4,484,112	$10,330,905
West Denver Prep DBA STRIVE Preparatory Schools	CO	$3,168,894	$6,774,087
Total		$32,408,517	$85,180,498

The largest recipient — getting $32.5 million this year with a recommended multi-year total of $71 million — is the Ohio Department of Education, which runs a charter school program that is among the most troubled in the country.

How troubled? A June story in the Akron Beacon Journal noted that  “since 2001, state auditors have uncovered $27.3 million improperly spent by charter schools, many run by for-profit companies, enrolling thousands of children and producing academic results that rival the worst in the nation.” It also said: “No sector — not local governments, school districts, court systems, public universities or hospitals — misspends tax dollars like charter schools in Ohio.” A Sept. 19 Beacon Journal story had this headline: “Blame and ignorance follow 200th charter school flop in Ohio.”

[Troubled Ohio charter schools have become a joke — literally]

Education Department officials say that they only give grants to high-performing charter school operators but that they don’t have a lot of control over the states. On a press call about the new grants on Monday, Duncan said:Feds didn’t carefully monitor $3 billion it gave for charters — and it just awarded $157 million more - The Washington Post:

CURMUDGUCATION: What Happens After You Blow It All Up

CURMUDGUCATION: What Happens After You Blow It All Up:

What Happens After You Blow It All Up

At the Center for Media and Democracy's PR Watch last week, Jonas Persson unearthed some footage from a panel in New Orleans posted last June, sponsored by the American Federation for Children, a group associated with Betsy DeVos.

Persson's coverage zeroed in on a minute's worth of talk-noises from Rebecca Sibilia from EdBuild, in which Sibilia appears to rather gleefully celebrate just how awesome the bankruptcy of major school districts would be, allowing the new operators to dump legacy debts like building and pension costs.

Sibilia charges that the post "blatantly (and bizarrely) mischarecterizes" what EdBuild is about, and so I figured, what the hell, I'll just watch the whole thing and see if her somewhat awful comments improve with context.

The clip has not been played much (fifty times when I got there), but it's actually pretty good viewing, featuring some familiar reformy names like Andy Smarick, Mike McShane and moderatorDerrell Bradford, plus some folks I didn't know, like Jaime Casap and Katie Beck. We have thirty-five minutes of discussion to get through, and much of it requires some thoughtful consideration, so if you were hoping for a short blog post, you should probably just abandon hope here. So here we go (the whole clip is at the bottom, in case you want to check my work). 

Knocking It Out and Tone

The actual title of the panel is "Knocking Out Yesterday's Education Models," though Persson reports 

Thompson: Jennings's Call for Education Policy Worthy of Our Democracy - This Week In Education:

This Week In Education: Thompson: Jennings's Call for Education Policy Worthy of Our Democracy - Linkis.com:

Thompson: Jennings's Call for Education Policy Worthy of Our Democracy

Jack Jennings's Presidents, Congress, and the Public Schools is a must-read for anyone seeking to improve our public schools. Drawing upon a half century of political and education research, Jennings writes a history of federal involvement in school reform and makes sensible suggestions for the next era of school improvement.

Jennings chronicled the first generation of federal education reforms and their results. The ESEA Act of 1965 had big goals and it was well-funded.  From the mid-1960s to the 1980s, often fragmented federally funded efforts only produced modest improvements and they did not bring equity.  But, those gains now look pretty impressive in comparison to post-NCLB outcomes, especially since their funding did not increase in order to meet the ambitious goal of closing the Achievement Gap. To produce equity for the most disadvantaged students, who disproportionately were concentrated in high-challenge schools, a far greater investment into their entire learning environments would have been necessary.

Jennings then documents how and why NCLB accountability failed. He bluntly reminds us that "Tests do not a good education make.”  Moreover, “When it came to measuring student progress in school, NCLB got it wrong.” Pulling it all together, Jennings’s analysis of NAEP testing results shows:

It is ironic that from the 1970s to the early 2000s. achievement generally rose and achievement gaps generally narrowed, which would seem to refute the Title I evaluation results used to support the shift to test-driven reform.

He also concludes:

The long-term NAEP results showed gains, especially for Black and Hispanic students, until 2008. A disturbing finding, though, is that since 2008, achievement has not increased for students except for 13-year-olds, nor have achievement gaps narrowed between racial/ethnic groups.

Jennings is judicious in summarizing the evidence about the effectiveness of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, telling Lyndsey Layton of the Washington Post  “The record will show these policies brought about minimum improvement. ... They also did considerable harm.”

Then Jennings turns to solutions. First, he calls for a vigorous debate regarding the new direction that federal education policy should take. While I applaud that invitation, teaching in an era of failed test-driven reforms has made me more risk-adverse. But, Jennings’s closing paragraph has finally convinced me:

The biggest lesson I have learned over a half century of involvement in education politics and policy is that if you are not working to implement your own agenda, then you are working off someone else’s This Week In Education: Thompson: Jennings's Call for Education Policy Worthy of Our Democracy - Linkis.com:

Brains At Play: What Do We Know? : NPR Ed : NPR

Brains At Play: What Do We Know? : NPR Ed : NPR:

Brains At Play: What Do We Know?

Why do we humans like to play so much? Play sports, play tag, play the stock market, play duck, duck, goose? We love it all. And we're not the only ones. Dogs, cats, bears, even birds seem to like to play. What are we all doing? Is there a point to it all?

The scientist who has perhaps done more research on brains at play than any other is a man named Jaak Panksepp. And he has developed a pretty good hypothesis.

In a nutshell, he, and many others, think play is how we social animals learn the rules of being social. Sort of counterintuitive when you think about it: Play is how you learn rules.

You might learn what your fellow humans think is fun. And what they think isn't so fun. You might learn what your limits are. Or which of your friends likes what.

In fact, play seems so deeply wired by evolution into the brains of highly social animals that it might not be a stretch to say that play is crucial to how we and they learn much of what we know that isn't instinct. In one experiment (not Panksepp's), kittens deprived of play still could hunt perfectly well when they grew up, but they couldn't read other cats' social cues — they jumped to aggression much more quickly than normally raised cats.

Not surprisingly, Panksepp and others think the lack of play is a serious problem. Especially at younger ages. And particularly in school settings. Without play, we know that other species become quick to aggression and have trouble "fitting in." Panksepp thinks the rising rates of ADD and ADHD may in part be due to this problem. In trials where extra playtime was given to kids showing signs of these disorders, there was marked improvement in their behaviors as reported by teachers and parents.

"It's not just superfluous," says Panksepp. "It's a very valuable thing for childhood development. And we as a culture have to learn to use it properly and have to make sure our kids get plenty of it."

A version of this story was published on NPR Ed in August 2014.Brains At Play: What Do We Know? : NPR Ed : NPR:

LA's 1% Disrupted Democracy and Dismantled the Public School System

LA's 1% Disrupted Democracy and Dismantled the Public School System:

LA's 1% Disrupted Democracy and Dismantled the Public School System

On Sunday, September 20, 2015, the new Eli Broad museum opened in Los Angeles - and nearly a thousand parents, students, and teachers seized the occasion to march against the "philanthrocapitalist's" plan to groom 130,000 public school students in Los Angeles Unified to attend unregulated new charter schools in the district.

Philanthrocapitalism describes a certain kind of "weaponized generosity" where donors offer their self-interested charitable giving to remedy the very lack they create elsewhere. The cultural critic Slavoj Zizek has called this the "chocolate laxative" - the sweet treat that constipates is also the flavor of the cure.

Eli Broad is the city's chief benefactor for numerous charities; his wealth comes from decades of real estate developments in the Midwest, Southern California, and from the insurance industry. He has particular interests in expanding charter schools in Los Angeles and nationwide. He appears to invest a lot in the city of Los Angeles but when you look more closely, his giving defunds the public sector and Broad ends up with the better part of the deal. For example: originally, Broad wanted to lease the expensive downtown Los Angeles parcel the Museum sits on for $1 a year over 99 years. Said one county supervisor, "Instead of a project that generates sales and property taxes, we'll now have an art museum that generates no property or sales taxes and Mr. Broad will get the land for free." It's now leased for $7.7 million a year for 99 years, and the 501c3 Broad Foundation housed inside the museum still doesn't put much by way of revenue back into the city.

A coalition of grassroots groups such as Schools LA Students Deserve, members of United Teachers of LA (UTLA), Vet the Supe, and students and parents spoke to local press about their concerns in a small public park adjoining the new downtown Los Angeles museum.

Alex Caputo-Pearl, head of UTLA, challenged Eli Broad's largesse by pointing out how the wealthy Angeleno publicly backed Proposition 30, a ballot initiative that restored funding to California's schools after the devastation of the Great Recession, but in private donated money to defeat Prop 30 and impose a separate union-busting ballot initiative targeting the state's unions. Broad funded out-of- state groups that then funneled the money to anti-tax and anti-union groups in violation of the state's LA's 1% Disrupted Democracy and Dismantled the Public School System:

Louisiana Educator: The Governance of Louisiana Education: What it Now Is and What it Should be

Louisiana Educator: The Governance of Louisiana Education: What it Now Is and What it Should be:

The Governance of Louisiana Education: What it Now Is and What it Should be

Click Here to Follow Flip BESE on Facebook 

LEE P.BARRIOS FOR BESE 1 Web Site

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MIKE KREAMER FOR BESE 7 Web Site

Louisiana now operates under the mushroom theory of education..

In this setup, the educators and the students are treated as though they were growing on a mushroom farm.

On that farm,  the boss and his overseers keep em in the dark and feed em manure.

But educators and students are more like sunflowers than mushrooms.  They deserve to be growing on a sunflower farm. On a sunflower farm the crop is given lots of sunlight, water and plant food.

In this environment the sunflowers both large and small, thrive and follow the movement of the life-giving sun every day, until they produce a wonderful crop that can feed humanity in so many ways..

That's what we need in Louisiana. . .  to be treated as though we are living on bright sunny sunflower farm.

Instead we have a Superintendent that withholds vital testing data for the better part of a year but then expects the educators to somehow find a way to prepare students for the next set of tests. That's the mushroom farm treatment.

He tells everyone that the student raw scores are not suitable for showing to the parents and not even to the teachers, and that the scale scores are so much better. Yet a student who makes a raw score of zero on the PARCC test still gets a scale score of 650 out of 850, even though he/she got absolutely nothing right, and that score is supposed to be so much more helpful to parents and teachers. It's kind of like sugarcoating a terrible bitter pill, but that's the mushroom farm treatment.

The district superintendents are told that they much come, hat in hand, and beg for their raw scores so that schools can prepare kids for the next tests. But the raw scores they get come without the critically important report of what questions and what standards the students got wrong. That's the mushroom farm treatment.

The superintendents have an advisory council meeting that is designed to give the overseers real feedback from the field. But when they have serious concerns they want to express they are told that they can't discuss or ask about anything that is not on the prepared agenda. That's the mushroom farm treatment.

Principals are told that from this year on, they must improve Louisiana Educator: The Governance of Louisiana Education: What it Now Is and What it Should be:

Schools Matter: Murdoch Dumps Klein's Amplify: Stock Worth Minus 42 Cents Per Share

Schools Matter: Murdoch Dumps Klein's Amplify: Stock Worth Minus 42 Cents Per Share:

Murdoch Dumps Klein's Amplify: Stock Worth Minus 42 Cents Per Share

After Rupert hired NYC's former chancellor and education profiteer, Joel Klein, News Corps spent a billion dollars to promote Amplify's digital education solution, which amounts to cheap laptops loaded with an endless supply digital worksheets for schoolchildren of the poor.  

This week Murdoch fired Klein and sold what remains of a busted company, taking a beating in the process. That's what I call a serious feedback issue.

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Max Mason
Published: October 1, 2015 - 4:02PM

News Corporation has sold its digital education play Amplify for an undisclosed sum after the loss-making business laid off 500 employees, or about 50 per cent of its workforce.

The sale was flagged at News Corp's financial results in August, where Amplify was the driving force behind the media conglomerate's $US149 million full-year loss, thanks to a $US371 million write-down in the digital education business.

News Corp said Amplify had been sold to a management team supported by a group of private investors.

Amplify was born from the purchase of Wireless Generation for around $US390 million in 2010.

News Corp originally bought Wireless Generation, expanded and relaunched the business as Amplify with the former chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, Joel Klein, as chief executive.

Larry Berger, the co-founder of Wireless Generation, who was president of Amplify Learning, will reportedly become chief executive of Amplify.

Mr Klein will remain on the board of News Corp.

Deutsche Bank estimated that Amplify would have made a $US117 million loss in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation Schools Matter: Murdoch Dumps Klein's Amplify: Stock Worth Minus 42 Cents Per Share:

WARNING – Parents of High School Students – Especially Juniors – Beware! - Wait What?

WARNING – Parents of High School Students – Especially Juniors – Beware! - Wait What?:

WARNING – Parents of High School Students – Especially Juniors – Beware!

Starting in March 2016, students taking the SAT College Admission Exam will be given the NEW Common Core aligned SAT test rather than the version that students have been taking over the years.

David Coleman, who was the primary “author” of the Common Core, is now the President of the College Board, the organization that develops and overseas the SAT.  Last Spring, Coleman announced that a new SAT would be introduced in 2016.  According to Coleman and the College Board,

“The SAT and SAT Subject Tests are designed to assess your academic readiness for college. These exams provide a path to opportunities, financial support, and scholarships, in a way that’s fair to all students. The SAT and SAT Subject Tests keep pace with what colleges are looking for today, measuring the skills required for success in the 21st century.”

In other words, according to this gigantic standardized testing company that collects hundreds of millions of dollars a year from students, parents, schools, school districts and state and local governments, getting a high score on the SAT is the key to getting into and paying for college.

What Coleman and the Education Reform Industry is not telling parents is that the NEW Common Core aligned SAT, like the Common Core Smarter Balanced Consortium SBAC test and other Common Core Testing schemes will include content that most students have not been taught.

The truth is that many students who take the NEW SAT may be stunned when they receive WARNING – Parents of High School Students – Especially Juniors – Beware! - Wait What?:

“Lead Bravely.” Julian Vasquez Helig on How To Change the Story About Community-Based Education | The Progressive

“Lead Bravely.” Julian Vasquez Helig on How To Change the Story About Community-Based Education | The Progressive:

“Lead Bravely.” Julian Vasquez Helig on How To Change the Story About Community-Based Education

Just as the Progressive launched its new "Education Fellows" project, as a way to refocus education policy on democratic, child-centered principles, one of those fellows--California professor Julian Vasquez Helig--came to Minnesota to talk about community-based education reform.

Vasquez Helig spoke at the University of Minnesota on September 24 to a late afternoon crowd of around 100 people. Outside the elegant, refurbished halls of the University's historic Northrup Auditorium, rain clouds threatened to explode, but inside, Vasquez Helig warmed the audience with his insistence that they, too, can help determine what happens in our nation's public schools.

University of Minnesota professors Mary Vavrus and Roozbeh Shirazi introduced Helig. Vavrus and Shirazi have been studying how the mainstream media helps push a negative story about public schools--that they are failing because of union policies and bad teachers.

"Our emotions are being weaponized," Shirazi said, describing pro-charter school films Waiting for Superman and Won't Back Down. Both films--the former non-fiction and the latter fiction--have a school choice lottery scene as their climax. Each has a storyline about a fed-up, downtrodden parent whose child attends a miserable, failing public school. The child's only hope is to get a seat in a stellar, "high-performing" (according to standardized test scores) charter school, which is painted as every child's educational salvation.

These films are part of a massive attempt to win our "hearts and minds," Shirazi pointed out, by depicting an overflowing, unmet demand for charter schools. Left out of the picture is the information that charters exclude students who need extra services like special ed, and results are mixed. Some schools serve some kids exceptionally well. Others have been mired in fraud and abuse. None can replace a democratically controlled, universal public school system.

Vavrus noted that the media have been complicit in promoting charter schools, high stakes

- See more at: http://www.progressive.org/news/2015/10/188339/%E2%80%9Clead-bravely%E2%80%9D-julian-vasquez-helig-how-change-story-about-community-based#sthash.KxnUWNPx.dpuf

10/1/2015 – A Misdirected War On Mayor De Blasio

10/1/2015 – A Misdirected War On Mayor De Blasio:

Education ‘Reformers’ Wage A Misdirected War On Mayor De Blasio

By Jeff Bryant

“If you listen to advocates for ‘education reform,’ New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and his education plans are to be regarded with high suspicion, at best, or flat out rejected … Regardless of what critics of de Blasio and his education plan say, this is not an argument ‘about the kids.’ It’s about money.
Read more …

NEWS AND VIEWS

Why Is Spending On The Elderly Protected, But Spending On Children Always On The Chopping Block?

Think Progress

“The United States government will soon spend more on servicing the national debt than it does on its children … Kids will see an even smaller share of total spending in the coming years … This paltry allocation comes amid ample evidence that American kids need more help, not less … Stagnant and declining federal investment in young people is hard to understand in the context of the data about American children’s economic outlook. The trend stems in part from a structural bias in our public policymaking toward spending on adults at the expense of programs that invest in the future … Programs for the elderly, by contrast, have baked-in structural protections from political turbulence.”
Read more …

Experts Predict The Opt-Out Movement Will Get Some Of What It Wants

The Hechinger Report

“A survey conducted this month … revealed that education policy and political ‘insiders’ think that the opt-out movement will likely sway many state legislatures, but will struggle to change things in Washington… Only 47% of those surveyed … expect to see any change to federal law … 70% say they think the thousands of students refusing to take exams will force states to rethink what tests they give and how they use the results … 3% think more students will opt out next year and 62% think the opt-out movement represents a significant challenge to current systems … Many states have already set out to cut the number of tests students have to take and the number of hours students spend taking the tests.”
Read more …

Boosting Educational Attainment And Adult Earnings

Education Next

A new research study finds “compelling evidence that money does matter, and that additional school resources can meaningfully improve long-run outcomes for students … Increased spending induced by school finance reforms positively affects educational attainment and economic outcomes for low-income children … For low-income children, a 10% increase in per-pupil spending each year for all 12 years of public school is associated with roughly 0.5 additional years of completed education, 9.6% higher wages, and a 6.1-percentage-point reduction in the annual incidence of adult poverty … To put these results in perspective, the education gap between children from low-income and non-poor families is one full year. Thus, the estimated effect of a 22% increase in per-pupil spending throughout all 12 school-age years for low-income children is large enough to eliminate the education gap between children from low-income and non-poor families … these results highlight how improved access to school resources can profoundly shape the life outcomes of economically disadvantaged children and thereby reduce the intergenerational transmission of poverty.”
Read more …

Black Males Struggle In Segregated Schools

The Washington Post

“Black students who attend schools that have a majority of black students score lower on achievement tests than black students who go to school with fewer other black students. The findings held true after researchers accounted for family income, level of parent education and other factors … The overall black-white achievement gap on the NAEP 2013 math test for eighth-graders was 31 points – equivalent to three years of schooling. That gap has not changed from 2007 to 2013 … The achievement gap between average white males and black males attending a ‘high density’ black school was 25 points, compared to a gap of 17 points for black males who attended schools where blacks made up 20% or less than the student body.”
Read more …

When Schooling Meets Policing

The Atlantic

“In settings where schooling and policing intersect, the disciplining of students – often for behavior as innocuous as school-age pranks or as commonplace as temper tantrums, and in some cases including children who are so young they still have all their baby teeth – can extend beyond the purview of principals and school staff to law-enforcement … over three in four high schools and the vast majority of large schools … have armed security staff … But there is great variation based on race and class: Schools where at least half of the children are nonwhite, as well as high-poverty schools … are home to the highest percentages in the country … Police in educational institutions exaggerates how school misbehavior, much of it involving minor infractions, is interpreted … These tendencies result in arguably unnecessary arrests that increase the likelihood that a child will end up in the juvenile-justice system – and later, as a byproduct of these experiences, adult prisons.”
Read more …

10/1/2015 – A Misdirected War On Mayor De Blasio:

Karen Wolfe: Was This Eli Broad’s Push Poll? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Karen Wolfe: Was This Eli Broad’s Push Poll? | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Karen Wolfe: Was This Eli Broad’s Push Poll? 

Karen Wolfe is a public school parent in Los Angeles. a friend of hers received what sounds like a “push poll.” A push poll is a telephone call that begins by asking innocent questions but then turns into advocacy for an issue or a candidate. You assume it is a poll, but it is actually an effort to shape your opinion.

Wolfe writes:

“Are pollsters calling Los Angeles residents to shape opinion about Eli Broad’s Privatization Plan?

“It sounds that way. One teacher, I’ll call her Ms. R, asked yesterday in a facebook group, “Did anyone else in the LA County area get that ‘research gathering’ call about charter schools?”

“Ms. R gave me permission to share the details of the call.

“She was asked which of 12 issues was most pressing to her.

Ms. R answered ‘infrastructure’ because, she said “I live downtown and the roads need a lot of work. Then BOOM, a question about my opinion of Eli Broad.”

Then about the union.

She then listened to several misleading statements like, “Charter schools with donors like Eli Broad will be able to raise money for charter schools so students have more access to arts programs which are being cut from public schools,” and was asked, “After listening to these opinions about charter schools, are you more likely or less likely to support the increase of charter schools in LA County?”

“I actually told the lady these questions offended me. But it was designed to get me to say I would be more likely to support the charter school increase. ‘I think they are info gathering in order to justify the push.’”

“At least 5 statements, I was so pissed I said something about it out loud to the woman. There was one point where she typed why I was against charters word for word. She read it back to me and kept messing up where I had to correct her a few times to make it make sense.”

Ms R finished,“AND I was told the session may be recorded for quality purposes.”

Whose quality?”Karen Wolfe: Was This Eli Broad’s Push Poll? | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Milwaukee Community Protests State Takeover Tucked into State Budget without Debate | janresseger

Milwaukee Community Protests State Takeover Tucked into State Budget without Debate | janresseger:

Milwaukee Community Protests State Takeover Tucked into State Budget without Debate

Milwaukee’s public schools typify the kind of school district now undergoing state takeover in a wave of such imposition of “recovery” or “achievement” districts being rushed through state legislatures. The bills are often fast-tracked without legislative debate and without input from the communities where the takeovers are being imposed.   The Milwaukee Journal Sentineldescribes the provision—log-rolled into Wisconsin’s state’s budget when it passed on July 12, that grants Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, “broad authority to oversee a special district in Milwaukee for the city’s most troubled public schools…. The Program, devised by Republican state lawmakers from the suburbs, is designed to take some of the district’s lowest performing schools from the control of the Milwaukee School Board and put them under the control of Abele and a commissioner he selects, or directly under MPS Superintendent Darienne Driver, if she chooses to use that authority.”

But the Milwaukee community is pushing back.  On September 18, the Journal Sentineldescribes protesters “walking in” (instead of walking out) at 100 public schools across the city. At one of the rallies, Lukas Wierer, a public school civics teacher, declared: “We live in a representative democracy.  We get to elect our leaders who make decisions for us.  What these actions (legislative takeover) are saying is, ‘You the people of Milwaukee are not capable of choosing your own leaders, that representative democracy is not for you.'”

Kim Schroeder, president of the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association, dissected the history of the state’s intervention in the  Milwaukee School District for Jeff Bryant, who describes the conversation in the newsletter of the Education Opportunity Network: “He (Schroeder) argues that funding what are essentially three separate school systems—the private voucher schools, the privately operated charters, and Milwaukee Public Schools—is driving the district toward financial insolvency. ‘We’re reaching a tipping point.  If more of our schools are chosen for privatization, MPS won’t exist in three to fine years.’  His concerns echo the MPS board president’s warning earlier this year that, according to an independent news outlet, the Walker-devised plan ‘would bankrupt the district by hijacking money and facilities from the district and into private but taxpayer-supported schools.'”

The Milwaukee “walk in” on September 18 was organized by a coalition of school and community organizations: Centro Hispano, Parents for Public Schools, Voces de la Frontera, Wisconsin Jobs Now, NAACP Milwaukee Branch, Milwaukee Teachers Education Association, Milwaukee Inner-City Congregations Allied for Hope (MICAH), and Schools & Communities United.  In their statement, published in the Journal Sentinal, leaders of these organizations declare: “The plan threatens the entire Milwaukee school district—not just the schools identified for takeover.  More than 40% of children in Milwaukee already attend privately run charter or voucher schools.  When taxpayer money is taken away from public schools to fund privately run charter and voucher schools, public school students lose funding and opportunities… The takeover plan offers no new ideas or resources to help children succeed.  Milwaukee already has 25 years of experience with a failed voucher school program…. The takeover schools will leave students without critical services… School takeovers will eliminate good jobs in our city—particularly for African-Americans and Latinos…. Most significantly, Milwaukee Community Protests State Takeover Tucked into State Budget without Debate | janresseger:

What Is Democratic Education -- and Education for Democracy? - Bridging Differences - Education Week

What Is Democratic Education -- and Education for Democracy? - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

What Is Democratic Education -- and Education for Democracy?

Dear Harry and friends, 

So what do I know from experience, observation and research about the essentials of schooling for democracy?    I know that education which prepares the young to join and even surpass the adult world, where learning sticks with them, happens best (maybe only)  when the novice is in the company of experts who accept the child as is and takes it for granted that she will become an expert over time.  It requires that the adults demonstrate their expertise in action, and the novice can observe, ask questions, and try out new knowledge in a setting where he/she can fail without shame.  That's the setting children find themselves in at birth, with a ratio generally of several experts per novice.

 What are the special features of such learning?  The novice is accepted lovingly, is assumed to be able to become an expert (an adult), has many chances to observe and to experiment, and has good reason to trust the setting and the people there. Adults delight in children's early mistakes because we can see the beginning of understanding and competence.  We even cherish their mistakes.

 Most rarely reach such a space again in life which rich and poor share. 

 In schools everything described above is absent.  There are 20-30 novices and only one expert. The expert is not in a position to "show" but only to "tell."  There is no reason for the child to trust others in the setting--peers or experts. In fact there are lots of reasons for the child to distrust them.  More so for some children than others.

 I start with this question:  How can I create school settings that optimize the child's chance for success? Multi-age classrooms help, additional adults and smaller class sizes help, different activities that appeal to and engage a child's interests help, timely feedback without judgment and few interruptions help.  And more. We need a school--not just a classroom--that is trustworthy, where adults of many sorts, as well as fellow students younger and older, are inclined to be supportive.   We need teachers who respect their own judgment and their own ability to experiment, change their minds, act like adults.  There need to be reasons for the child to believe he or she is in a place that respects their family and community, where the child can freely share experiences in both domains--school and home--with teachers and parents. Young people have an uncanny awareness of when they or their family is disrespected.

 If we have in mind that children should spend a minimum of 13 or 14 years in such institutions in order to come out respecting democracy--even to recognize it --all these and more should be in place. 

 Am I being utopian?

 Deb

Deb and colleagues,

 Your description of democratic education is full of insight. I would say your elements of education encourage the development of agency in children, especially individual agency. You remind me of Nelson Mandela's "I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul," from the poem "Invictus."

 I've been learning about what's called "Executive Function" from child development scientists like Phil Zelazo and Stephano Carlson at the University of Minnesota. Executive function involves children's skills of mobilizing emotional and cognitive resources for intentional, self-directed action. They've found that executive function depends on a sense of agency. A sense of agency grows from experiences where children have opportunity to self-direct their efforts, with support, coaching, and encouragement. Just what you're describing.

 Let me emphasize another element. If education is not only democratic but also for democracyWhat Is Democratic Education -- and Education for Democracy? - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

Hedge Funds Attack American Neighborhoods Again | PopularResistance.Org

Hedge Funds Attack American Neighborhoods Again | PopularResistance.Org:

Hedge Funds Attack American Neighborhoods Again

A new report by our colleagues at the Center for Popular Democracy and the ACCE Institute uncovers how hedge funds and private equity firms have quietly amassed mortgage notes to 200,000 homes in communities around the USA — and they’re getting special treatment from the government to aid their conquests.  

Hedge funds and private equity firms are getting big discounts when they buy the rights to collect homeowners mortgage payments – discounts from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) – the two government agencies that have refused to give similar discounts to homeowners that aren’t billionaires.

» read more

The billionaire private equity and hedge fund managers snapping up America’s homes from government lenders want to maximize their profits – and they’re set to make big bucks off the backs of regular middle-class homeowners, including many who were victims of predatory loans prior to the 2008 financial crisis. 

One large mortgage investor, The Loan Star Fund is offering only 5-year “interest only” modifications to borrowers, a mortgage type that was often cited as contributing to the subprime mortgage crisis. 

The CPD/ACCE Institute report details how fund managers are revictimizing borrowers in other ways, by failing to maintain rented properties or aggressively pursuing evictions and foreclosures.

In some cases, the institutions seeking to profit from homeowners are the very same ones who helped cause the financial crisis. 

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which has purchased 5,000 non-performing home loans was found in May of this year to have mislead Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by selling them mortgage bonds backed by improperly-underwritten loans. As an investor in these non-performing loans, RBS stands to profit doubly from the housing crisis.

There is a better way. 

As the authors of the report note, HUD and FHFA can sell these mortgages to Consumer Financial Development Institutions, community non-profits who can help homeowners stay in their homes and repay their mortgages. 

As the titans of finance strengthen their stranglehold on the American economy, the report’s clarion call is a message that needs to be shared. 

HEDGE CLIPPERS IS HAPPY TO PRESENT THE FIRST IN A SERIES OF “PARTNER PAPERS” FROM COLLEAGUES IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE HEDGE FUND INEQUALITY EXPLOSION.  

Download the paper here:  Do Hedge Funds Make Good Neighbors REPORT June 2015

Take action here:  http://bit.ly/StopWallSt

Hedge Funds Attack American Neighborhoods Again | PopularResistance.Org: