Pondering Charters: False Markets & Liberty as Substitute for Equity? | School Finance 101

Pondering Charters: False Markets & Liberty as Substitute for Equity? | School Finance 101:

Pondering Charters: False Markets & Liberty as Substitute for Equity?

Today’s musing:

It is important to acknowledge that charter school market shares are not, in recent years, expanding exclusively or even primarily because of market demand and personal/family preferences for charter schools. Traditional district public schools are being closed, neighborhoods left without options other than charters, district schools are being reconstituted and handed over to charter operators (including entire districts), and district schools are increasingly deprived of resources, experience burgeoning class sizes, reductions in program offerings sending more families scrambling for their “least bad” nearest alternative. [i] These are conscious decisions of policymakers overseeing the system that includes district and charter schools. They are not market forces, and should never be confused as such. These systems are being centrally managed without regard for equity and adequacy goals or the protection of student, family, taxpayer and employee rights, but instead, on the false hope that liberty of choice is a substitute for all of the above (including, apparently, loss of individual liberties). [ii]

NOTES

[i] See, for example:

Mezzacappa, Dale (2015, Oct. 1) Hite Plan: More charter conversions, closings, turnarounds, and new schools. Philadelphia Public School Notebook. http://thenotebook.org/blog/159023/hite-plan-more-renaissance-charters-closings-turnarounds-new-schools

Weber, Mark (2015) Empirical Critique of “One Newark”: First Year Update. New Jersey Education Policy Forum. https://njedpolicy.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/weber-testimony.pdf

Weber, Mark (2015, Jun. 5) Camden’s “Transformation” Schools: Racial & Experience Disparity in Staff Consequences. https://njedpolicy.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/weber_camdentransformationsfinal.pdf

[ii]   Green, P.C.; & Baker, B.D.; & Oluwole, J. (2015, forthcoming). The Legal Status of Charter Schools in State Statutory Law- University of Massachusetts Law Review.

Green, P.C., Baker, B. D., & Oluwole, J.O. (2013). Having it both ways: How charter schools try to obtain funding of public schools and the autonomy of private schools. Emory Law Journal, 63, 303-337.

Mead, J.F. (2015). The Right to an Education or the Right to Shop for Schooling: Examining Voucher Programs in Relation to State Constitutional Guarantees, 42 Fordham Urban Law Journal 703.

Civil Rights Suspended: An Analysis of New York City Charter School Discipline Policies (2015). Advocates for Children of New York.http://www.advocatesforchildren.org/sites/default/files/library/civil_rights_suspended.pdf?pt=1

Achievement First Inc. pledged to do better with special education students but didn’t - Wait What?

Achievement First Inc. pledged to do better with special education students but didn’t - Wait What?:

Achievement First Inc. pledged to do better with special education students but didn’t

Last week, Achievement First Inc. the large charter school chain with schools in Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island was hit with a lawsuit about its failure to fulfill its legal obligation to special education students at its Crown Heights, New York Charter School.

It was only two years ago that a Hartford Courant headline read, “Achievement First Pledges To Do Better With Disabled Students.” The paper added, “Civil Rights Complaint Said Too Often Students With Disabilities Suspended, Given Demerits.”

The complaint against Achievement First Hartford was filed by Greater Hartford Legal Aid against Achievement First’s Connecticut operation.  The lawsuit alleged;

“Achievement First’s failure to provide accommodations, modifications, and specialized instruction per 504 plans or IEPs, and AF’s pervasive discriminatory discipline practices violated violate federal and state law.”

The specific allegations included Achievement First’s violation of Title II of the American with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the federal Rehabilitation Act.

Following a federal investigation, Achievement First, Inc. signed a “Voluntary Resolution Agreement” on May 30, 2013 in which it promised to do a better job providing students with services and improving training for administrators, teachers and staff to ensure with special education requirements were treated appropriately.

Among the long list of action items in the Resolution Agreement was the overhaul of Achievement First Inc.’s “School Culture Manual” so that parents not only understood their Achievement First Inc. pledged to do better with special education students but didn’t - Wait What?:

Los Angeles Unified School District Suspension Ban: Teachers Complain of Constant Disruptions

Los Angeles Unified School District Suspension Ban: Teachers Complain of Constant Disruptions:

Repeatedly Suspending Defiant Students Is Horrible. But So Is Dumping Them on Untrained Teachers.

Superintendant Ramon Cortines agrees that many LAUSD schools haven't gotten the supports they need to implement "restorative justice."

David McNew/Getty Images

It’s one of the biggest debates in education today: What do you do with the unruly students who make learning difficult for the rest of the class? Do you sit them in the corner with a dunce cap, or do you refer them to the counselor down the hall, or do you eject them from school altogether?

Over the last few years, there’s been a nationwide backlash against out-of-school suspensions, which have been shown to affect minorities at a disproportionate rates and fast-track some already at-risk children on the school-to-prison pipeline. More and more schools are trying out a more progressive approach to school discipline, with Minnesota and Seattle schools experimenting with bans on out-of-school suspensions for elementary-school students accused of nonviolent offenses. The Houston Independent School District is currently considering a similar ban for students in second grade and below.

As the Los Angeles Times reported over the weekend, the Los Angeles Unified School District was a leader in this movement when it banned out-of-school suspensions for “willful defiance” two years ago. Last year, suspensions in LAUSD hit an impressive low of .55 percent, compared to 8 percent in 2007-2008.

But—yes, there’s a big, big but—teachers have also reported an increase in in-class disruptions. It turns out that deciding not to suspend students does not lead to a magical improvement in student behavior. From the Los Angeles Times story:

It's another day of disruption on this campus in the Los Angeles Unified School District, which has been nationally hailed by the White House and others for its leadership in promoting more progressive school-discipline policies. The nation's second-largest school system was the first in California to ban suspensions for defiance and announced plans to roll out an alternative known as restorative justice, which seeks to resolve conflicts through talking circles and other methods to build trust…. But many teachers say their classrooms are reeling from unruly students who are escaping consequences for their actions.

If repeatedly sending kids home forLos Angeles Unified School District Suspension Ban: Teachers Complain of Constant Disruptions:

Phoenix police release 1996 recording of Kevin Johnson phone call to teenage accuser | The Sacramento Bee

Phoenix police release 1996 recording of Kevin Johnson phone call to teenage accuser | The Sacramento Bee:

Phoenix police release 1996 recording of Kevin Johnson phone call to teenage accuser

Phoenix police recorded this telephone call between Amanda Koba, then 16, and Kevin Johnson, at the time a 30-year-old basketball player for the Phoenix Suns. The Sacramento Bee in November 2015 obtained the audio after filing a public records request with the Phoenix Police Department. Police redacted the audio file, recorded the evening of July 23, 1996, to exclude portions in which Koba and Johnson discussed specific allegations of sexual acts, though those parts of the conversation appear on a transcript obtained earlier by The Bee. The call came four days after Koba, in an interview with a Phoenix police detective, accused Johnson of molesting her. Johnson was never charged and has denied the allegations. This is the first time the audio file has been made public. The Sacramento Bee

The Sacramento Bee has obtained a recording of a 1996 telephone conversation between Mayor Kevin Johnson and the teenage girl who accused him of molestation in Phoenix nearly two decades ago.

The July 23, 1996, conversation between Amanda Koba and Johnson was recorded by Phoenix police as part of their investigation into Koba’s claim that Johnson molested her at his home. Johnson has repeatedly denied the allegations and Phoenix prosecutors did not file charges against him.

Redacted audio files of the telephone conversation were provided Monday by the Phoenix Police Department in response to a public records request The Sacramento Bee made last month. It is the first time the audio file has been made public.

The Bee filed its request after the website Deadspin posted a video recording of Koba being interviewed by a Phoenix police detective on July 19, 1996. The Bee on Monday also received a heavily redacted version of that video with Koba’s face blurred out, unlike the Deadspin version. Koba, now 36, confirmed to Deadspin in September that she was the teen who told Phoenix police Johnson had molested her.

Police redacted the audio and video files to exclude specific allegations of sexual acts, though those parts of the conversation appear on a transcript obtained by The Bee in 2008 when Johnson ran for mayor.

“The facts today remain the same as they did almost 20 years ago,” said Johnson spokesman Ben Sosenko in a statement. “Law enforcement had this material, investigated and did not pursue the matter. No video nor audio from two decades ago will change that.”

Koba declined to comment on the recording when reached Monday via an email address listed on her website.

The 1996 phone call came four days after Koba met with the police detective in the videotaped interview, according to the transcript. It was set up by police as a “confrontation call,” an opportunity for detectives to have Johnson confirm Koba’s allegations on tape.

Koba had left messages for Johnson earlier in the day, and Johnson called her back at approximately 6:08 p.m. at a number Koba gave for a phone in a Phoenix Police Department interview room, according to the transcript.

Early in the 39 minutes of audio provided by police, Johnson tells Koba, “I miss you bad.” Johnson asks Koba what she’s told her therapist about what happened between them. “I haven’t told her anything because I pinky promised I wouldn’t,” Koba says.

Johnson says he and Koba had a hug that was “more intimate than it should have been.” He also tells Koba that “I apologize again to you for using bad judgment.” But he disputes herPhoenix police release 1996 recording of Kevin Johnson phone call to teenage accuser | The Sacramento Bee:

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/city-beat/article43903551.html#storylink=cpy

Labor union dissenters influence political speech more than shareholders: law profs to SCOTUS

Labor union dissenters influence political speech more than shareholders: law profs to SCOTUS:

Labor union dissenters influence political speech more than shareholders

Reuters) – Scathing commentary about the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has tended to focus on the court’s refusal to restrict corporate political spending. As you know, the justices struck down campaign finance reforms as an unconstitutional violation of corporations’ free speech rights, triggering an avalanche of predictions that corporate donors would wield outsized political influence. The other free speech beneficiaries of Citizens United – labor unions also subject to the invalidated campaign finance restrictions – haven’t been the subject of nearly as much fear and loathing.

That’s going to change, at least a little, later this term when the Supreme Court hears Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. As the merits brief from Rebecca Friedrichs and several of her fellow California teachers and school administrators explains, state law requires that public school educators either join the union or pay “agency fees” they contend are roughly the equivalent of union dues. Friedrichs and the other plaintiffs, represented by Jones Day and counsel of record Peter Fagen of Fagen Friedman & Fulfrost, contend that the law requires them to subsidize the union’s political pronouncements, in which their brief calls “the largest regime of compelled political speech in the nation.” They want the Supreme Court to hold that the First Amendment prohibits agency fees or, at the very least, prohibits fees used for political speech unless non-union members explicitly authorize that spending.

The union and its counsel of record, David Frederick of Kellogg Huber Hansen Todd Evans & Figel, argue the Supreme Court established in the 1977 Abood v. Detroit Board of Educationthat unions can collect agency fees from non-members who benefit from collective bargaining agreements and other union procedures. In Abood and subsequent decisions, the union brief said, the Supreme Court has endorsed frameworks permitting non-union members to opt-out from union fees unrelated to collective bargaining and other common benefits. California has just such an opt-out regimen for non-union teachers, the brief said, so they’re not compelled to pay for political speech at all.

This case is obviously of huge consequence for unions, especially because the non-union teachers want the Supreme Court to roll back its own Abood precedent on agency fees. But a really interesting amicus brief Friday by an illustrious bunch of corporate law professors explains why the teachers’ First Amendment litigation should inform future consideration of corporate free speech and political spending.

The essential message of the brief is that the Supreme Court equated political spending rights of corporations and unions in Citizens United, yet has not treated equally those who actually Labor union dissenters influence political speech more than shareholders: law profs to SCOTUS:

Pedagogy and Poverty Taken Up by Teachers’ Union in One WV County | Nonprofit Quarterly

Pedagogy and Poverty Taken Up by Teachers’ Union in One WV County | Nonprofit Quarterly:

Pedagogy and Poverty Taken Up by Teachers’ Union in One WV County

The editor of the Washington Monthly’s “Political Animal” blog, Ed Kilgore, writes about a partnership of nonprofit and public sector entities to attack poverty in McDowell County, a very poor part of Appalachian West Virginia, through the use of schools. Kilgore’s subject is the Reconnecting McDowell project, described by Emma Caitlin at Politico as “an organization trying to break the poverty cycle in the region by providing students with everything from a better education to mentoring to dental care.”

Kilgore discusses the project, led by the American Federation of Teachers, as beyond mere education. He notes that McDowell, long “emblematic of entrenched American poverty,” faces a rising poverty rate, a declining coal industry, significant population decline, and more. Importantly, he points out that “of the 353 most persistently poor counties in the United States—defined by Washington as having had a poverty rate above 20 percent in each of the past three decades—85 percent are rural.” These are rural poverty conditions that, sadly, have persisted since the publication of Michael Harrington’s The Other America.

The point is that educational improvements in McDowell County are not simply a matter of teaching technique, if they ever were at all. The education reformers’ fiction that there are changes in technology and teaching methodologies that can reverse conditions in desperately poor places like McDowell simply doesn’t relate to reality. As the Reconnecting McDowell project knows, the response requires taking up the conditions of poverty as well as the pedagogy of K-12 education.

For example, Florisha McGuire, the principal at McDowell’s Southside K-8 elementary school, says that the school is the “poster child for bad health” due to conditions of type 2 diabetes, weight problems, and other factors. As a result, Greg Cruey, a teacher at Southside and the head of the local teachers’ union, emphasizes the objective of creating a school-based health clinic. A Reconnecting McDowell effort to boost third grade reading levels depends in part on getting kids to school, which means giving them the healthcare and other supports they need to be successful pupils. According to Gayle Manchin, the chair of Reconnecting McDowell, “It takes wraparound services. It takes economic development. It takes transportation. It takes our career tech centers. It takes people from all walks of life.”

The Kilgore article and the example of Reconnecting McDowell demonstrate a few key points about education and poverty.

• First, the teachers’ unions have a role to play, since their members are in touch with kids every day and see what the children need in order to function in school. In poor places like McDowell, the teachers know that health issues and other responses to poverty are critical obstacles to be overcome. This is in some ways a new kind of behavior, which should serve as an example to their urban and rural union counterparts.
• Second, responding to poverty, whether urban or rural, means addressing issues that affect more than just the children. For example, as Kilgore notes, one of the problems McDowell faces is a shortage of rental housing for teachers. Another is the significant increase in drug abuse in regions whose coal industries are in decline, affecting the Pedagogy and Poverty Taken Up by Teachers’ Union in One WV County | Nonprofit Quarterly:

Hillary Clinton rebukes charter schools - POLITICO

Hillary Clinton rebukes charter schools - POLITICO:

Hillary Clinton rebukes charter schools

The decades-long proponent of charters criticizes the schools for cherry-picking kids.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sounded less like a decades-long supporter of charter schools over the weekend and more like a teachers union president when she argued that most of these schools “don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids, or, if they do, they don’t keep them.”

Her comments in South Carolina came straight from charter school critics’ playbook and distanced her from the legacies of her husband, former President Bill Clinton — credited with creating a federal stream of money to launch charters around the country — and President Barack Obama, whose administration has dangled federal incentives to push states to become more charter friendly.

The change in tone on charter schools mirrors other moves Clinton has made to nail down the support of liberal blocs in the face of the progressive challenge of Bernie Sanders, including her recent decision to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And like her reservations about free trade, her new rebuke of charter schools suggests she’ll be less willing to challenge core Democratic constituencies than either her husband or Obama.

Teachers unions have been early and enthusiastic supporters of Clinton. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, a noted opponent of many education reform efforts, is a longtime friend and informal adviser to her campaign. Unions say they aren’t anti-charter but often attack the schools, a majority of which employ teachers who aren't unionized, accusing them of siphoning off money from traditional public schools.

"Hillary Clinton looks at the evidence. That's what she did here,” Weingarten told POLITICO. “She called out that many charters don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids or don’t keep those with academic or behavioral issues.”

 In contrast, the Democratic advocacy group Education Reform Now posted a statement from Director Charles Barone, who wrote that Clinton’s recent comments were “highly disappointing and seemed to reinforce fears about how her endorsements from both major teachers unions would affect her K-12 platform.”

Unions, along with some traditional school administrators and parents, have long charged that charter schools too often reject or push out special needs students or other kids perceived to be troublesome. The issue exploded recently in New York City when high-profile charter operator and former council member Eva Moskowitz conceded that one of her Success Academy campuses was found with a “got-to-go” list naming children considered to be difficult.

Jesse Ferguson, a Clinton campaign spokesman, did not address the evolution in Clinton’s views, but instead said Monday that she had for decades “been a strong supporter of both public charter schools and an unflinching advocate for traditional public schools.”

Clinton won endorsements from the country’s two major teachers unions over the objections of some rank-and-file members who questioned her education priorities, including her long history of support for charter schools. The backing of the AFT and especially the 3-million-strong National Education Association — the nation’s largest union — gave her a welcome boost ahead of the Democrats’ first debate, as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was gaining momentum and Vice President Joe Biden was seriously considering a run.

Clinton has shied away from campaigning on K-12 issues, which tend to divide crucial elements of her party — unions and education reformers. But her newest

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/hillary-clinton-charter-schools-education-215661#ixzz3r6QetXQV

Ohio school boards want to ban ads for bad charter schools | cleveland.com

Ohio school boards want to ban ads for bad charter schools | cleveland.com:

Ohio school boards want to ban ads for bad charter schools

School board members from across Ohio want to ban charter schools like Imagine Cleveland, which was forced to close this summer by the state, from advertising.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The state may have just passed a major overhaul in its charter school laws, but school board members from across Ohio want more restrictions on charter school advertising and funding.

Members of the Ohio School Boards Association updated their "legislative platform" at their annual conference Monday by seeking more charter school rules and changes to state funding of busing. Board members want the state to ban charters with bad grades or finances from advertising and want to require all charter school ads to list details about student performance in school.

The OSBA left it up to the Ohio Department of Education to decide which schools need to be blocked from advertising, but wants all charter ads to list the school's graduation rate and its "Performance Index," the state's composite of student test scores in multiple grades and subjects.

School board members also want charters and their operators, plus any private school receiving state voucher money, to have to report student performance the same way as a traditional public school.

And OSBA members opposed an item passed in this year's state budget that makes $25 million in state money available to strong charter schools to build or renovate facilities. Members don't want any money for facilities to go to any charter school.

The requests come a month after the state legislature passed a comprehensive charter school reform bill that made Ohio's first substantial changes in charter school law in years.

Damon Asbury, OSBA's director of legislative services, said he understands the group missed the window where legislators were focused on changes to charter law. But he said charter school issues will be debated again this year and going forward.

"We still think it's important that we be on record where we stand on those issues," Asbury said. "It reinforces our advocacy efforts and it reminds our legislators where 3,500 school board members stand."

And he added: "We don't want to see any backtracking."

Whether these requests will gain any traction in the legislature is unclear. State Rep. Andrew Brenner, chairman of the House Education Committee, declined to comment until he can look at what members passed.

Darlene Chambers, CEO of the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools, Ohio's major charter school advocacy group, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Other items sought by OSBA leaders include:

Should charter schools be allowed to advertise? Tell us below.

• Separately awarding all lottery profits to districts on a per-pupil basis, instead of just including that money in the school aid pool;

• Having the state give districts "sufficient funding for every child who rides a school bus;"

• Encouraging districts to transport students residing more than one mile from school, instead of two miles as required now;

• Fully compensates districts for transporting students to schools that are not part of the district;

• Reinstating state funding for bus purchases; and

• Having the state give more money to rural districts with low density and low wealth.Ohio school boards want to ban ads for bad charter schools | cleveland.com:

THE DEBATE OVER CHARTER SCHOOLS

• Ohio school boards want to ban ads for bad charter schools
• Ohio Superintendent Ross says his retirement was delayed - not forced - by charter school data-rigging controversy
• Ohio has some explaining to do before receiving $71 million in federal charter school grants
• Kids in online schools fall way behind others in Ohio and nationwide, Stanford's CREDO finds
• E-schools still in the crosshairs of state charter school ratings, national study
• Panel re-doing illegal charter school evaluations is meeting in private
• State school board votes to keep a single, partial e-mail about illegal charter ratings from state auditor
• Ohio's entire Democratic Congressional delegation has questions about $71M charter school grant
• State school board president sees no need to turn over confidential charter school evaluation records to Ohio Auditor Dave Yost
• Ohio passes major charter school reform bill; pension controversy to have more study

Mayor’s office calls ‘Esquire’ article on his charter school stance ‘untrue and unsourced’ - Education - Boston.com

Mayor’s office calls ‘Esquire’ article on his charter school stance ‘untrue and unsourced’ - Education - Boston.com:

Mayor’s office calls ‘Esquire’ article on his charter-school stance ‘untrue and unsourced’

On Monday, Esquire’s political blogger Charles P. Pierce accused Boston Mayor Marty Walsh of pulling a “full Scott Walker”—in other words, changing his position on an issue once he got elected. In this case, Pierce wrote Walsh “Scott-Walkered” his charter-school stance.

Later Monday, Walsh’s office vehemently refuted Pierce’s argument in a statement to Boston.com, calling it “untrue and unsourced.”

Pierce’s assertion is based off a blog post from Mary Lewis-Pierce, who goes by the name “Public School Mama.” The local blogger and Boston public school parent filed a “freedom of information act” request to obtain documents from Boston Compact, an organization created in 2011 to encourage collaboration among district, charter, and Catholic schools.

In her post, Lewis-Pierce wrote the organization is currently working to determine which public school buildings should be handed over to charter schools.

“In off the record meetings with parents, BPS officials have intimated that the mayor wants to get the Boston Public Schools down to 90 buildings,” she wrote in her post. “BPS currently has 126 schools. Mayor Walsh plans to close 36 BPS schools, ¼ of the district.”

This plan, Pierce wrote, directly opposes Walsh’s stance during his campaign in 2013. Pierce points out that, when he was campaigning for mayor in 2013, Walsh said that his opponent John Connolly, a vocal advocate for education reform by increasing the number of charter schools, was trying to destroy the public school system.

“[Walsh has] cut a deal with some of the most odious practitioners of the school ‘reform’ grift, including the Walton Family of Wingnuts, and he did so under the radar,” Pierce writes.

The mayor’s office, however, took issue with the article, and the original sourcing.

“The Mayor has never said, nor does he have a plan to close 36 schools,” Laura Oggeri, Walsh’s chief communications officer, said in a statement. “Mayor Walsh has proven his dedication to Boston Public Schools by, in the past year alone, providing unprecedented budgetary support, extending learning time for students, adding 200 pre-kindergarten seats to the district, and hiring a first-class Superintendent.”

Pierce did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Boston.com about the statement from Walsh’s office.

Oggeri also pointed to the mayor’s multi-year educational and facilities master plan, which was released this fall. In the plan, Walsh does say that he expects some schools will merge. However, there are no specific figures for the number of schools to close.

“The Esquire article is untrue and unsourced, and references meetings that the Mayor has never had,” Oggeri said. “We are extremely disappointed at the spread of misinformation.”

Update: Pierce responded to the mayor’s office in an email to Boston.com Monday night:

The Mayor “has never said, nor does he have a plan to close 36 schools.” The Mayor has said that he plans to “consolidate” schools. How can he consolidate schools if he does not close some? Oh, wait—if he leases some of the “consolidated” school buildings to charter schools then the buildings will technically remain open. They just won’t be Boston Public Schools. Despite the expressed concerns of 

Mayor’s office calls ‘Esquire’ article on his charter school stance ‘untrue and unsourced’ - Education - Boston.com:

Teach Strong: More of the Same, But with a Game Board | deutsch29

Teach Strong: More of the Same, But with a Game Board | deutsch29:

Teach Strong: More of the Same, But with a Game Board

A group of 40 organizations, including many that are chiefly test-score-driven, corporate-reform- bent, is launching an effort to prompt the 2016 presidential contenders who are saying little about educational issues (as though they all met together and agreed, “Let’s just not talk much at all about American public education”) to agree to a nine-point plan to supposedly improve the teaching profession.

The campaign is called Teach Strong (#teachstrong) and is led by Center for American Progress (CAP). Amazingly, the teacher temp agency, Teach for America (TFA), is also in on this nine-point push, even though TFA president Elisa Villanueva Beard told Washington Post that TFA has no plans to modify its instant-oatmeal, five-week “great, very rigorous pretraining” of its turnstile teachers.

This coalition is a real corporate reform nest (e.g., Education Trust, Council of Chief State School Officers, National Council on Teacher Quality, Relay Graduate School of Education, The New Teacher Project, Education Post) plus education groups that have origins outside of corporate reform but who want (ahem) “a seat at the table” bad enough to go along with corporate reform, including both national teachers unions. (Click image to enlarge):

So, what is focus of the Teach Strong campaign? Why, its that same global competitiveness that gave us untested Common Core, but instead of focusing on Teach Strong: More of the Same, But with a Game Board | deutsch29:

Hillary Clinton’s Charter School Problem | gadflyonthewallblog

Hillary Clinton’s Charter School Problem | gadflyonthewallblog:

Hillary Clinton’s Charter School Problem

Good news! Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton just admitted there are significant problems with the nation’s charter schools!

Bad news! She has no interest in solving them! In fact, she thinks charters are just great.

Here’s Clinton criticizing charter schools:

Most charter schools — I don’t want to say every one — but most charter schools, they don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids, or, if they do, they don’t keep them. And so the public schools are often in a no-win situation, because they do, thankfully, take everybody, and then they don’t get the resources or the help and support that they need to be able to take care of every child’s education.

And all over the country, teachers, parents and students rejoice. Someone actually notices our problem!

Charter school scandals seem to hit the paper with the regularity of a grandfather clock. Charters cut student services and boost overhead to produce profit. Chartersrack up debt and then sell it for a profit. Charters fudge the paperwork so they get Hillary Clinton’s Charter School Problem | gadflyonthewallblog:

DIARY OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER!: How Will Your Students Remember You?

DIARY OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER!: How Will Your Students Remember You?:

How Will Your Students Remember You?

I have taught for 30+ years, and over the years, I have connected with former students.

On the street, their jobs, emails, and visits. Last year, 3 siblings surprised me with a visit. I had each of them in my classroom. One had graduated from college and was working in D.C, one was in college, and one had just graduated from high school.They not only thanked me, but they talked to my students, gave them some of their wisdom and let them know how fortunate they were to have me.:) A student from one of my 3rd grade classes in the 80's, found me on Facebook, and remembered her experience in my classroom.

Hearing about the impact I have had on their lives makes me proud. Proud as in "I am so happy that I have made a difference", not "look what I've done."

Presently, I work with one of my former 5th grade students, she is a para in my classroom.She told my husband that I was good, because I was the only teacher she still remembered.

Here are some things I have done over the last thirty years that I believe has affected the relationship I had with my students.

I was not mean.
This does not mean I never raised my voice, or laid them out. It doesn't mean that I never let loose with sarcasm,(I have really become a lot better at controlling this!). It means what it saysDIARY OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER!: How Will Your Students Remember You?:

Houston Board Candidates Respond to their Teacher Evaluation System | VAMboozled!

Houston Board Candidates Respond to their Teacher Evaluation System | VAMboozled!:

Houston Board Candidates Respond to their Teacher Evaluation System

For a recent article in the Houston Chronicle, the newspaper sent 12 current candidates for the Houston Independent School District (HISD) School Board a series of questions about HISD, to which seven candidates responded. The seven candidates’ responses are of specific interest here in that HISD is the district well-known for attaching more higher-stakes consequences to value-added output (e.g., teacher termination) than others (see for example here, here, and here). The seven candidates’ responses are of general interest in that the district uses the popular and (in)famous Education Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS) for said purposes (see also here, here, and here). Accordingly, what these seven candidates have to say about the EVAAS and/or HISD’s teacher evaluation system might also be a sign of things to come, perhaps for the better, throughout HISD.

The questions are: (1) Do you support HISD’s current teacher evaluation system, which includes student test scores? Why or why not? What, if any, changes would you make? And (2) Do you support HISD’s current bonus system based on student test scores? Why or why not? What, if any, changes would you make? To see candidate names, their background information, their responses to other questions, etc. please read in full the article in the Houston Chronicle.

Here are the seven candidates’ responses to question #1:

• I do not support the current teacher evaluation system. Teacher’s performance should not rely on the current formula using the evaluation system with the amount of weight placed on student test scores. Too many obstacles outside the classroom affect student learning today that are unfair in this system. Other means of support such as a community school model must be put in place to support the whole Houston Board Candidates Respond to their Teacher Evaluation System | VAMboozled!: