edTPA’s threat to student privacy. | Fred Klonsky

edTPA’s threat to student privacy. | Fred Klonsky:

edTPA’s threat to student privacy.

– from More than a Score

Springfield, IL. Tuesday, a representative of the Chicago coalition More than a Score shared disturbing information with an Illinois House education committee concerning new dangers to student privacy. As of September 2015, student teachers in Illinois must now submit videos filmed in public school classrooms to education conglomerate Pearson as part of a standardized assessment. The assessment, known as the edTPA, is required by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) for new teacher licensure.

Parents must grant their consent for children to appear in the videos. The rights to the videos then reside with Pearson—possibly to be used for purposes other than certifying the student teacher. Although the videos are intended to be confidential, numerous examples of the videos are found online, in violation of both the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the guidelines provided by ISBE and Pearson.

The House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee on School Curriculum & Policies held the subject-matter hearing on the edTPA because of the numerous issues this latest high-stakes standardized test presents for the teacher education process in Illinois.

The required video submission pits the interest of student teachers against those of their students. Chicago parent Roberta Salas refused to allow her child to participate in an edTPA video during a pilot program this past spring. “I felt bad for our student teacher, but I encouraged other parents to read these permission slips very closely and to be thoughtful about signing,” said Salas.

“The process to certify teachers in Illinois should not depend on pressuring parents to hand over their child’s personally identifiable information to edTPA’s threat to student privacy. | Fred Klonsky:

Ahead of Departure, Arne Duncan Reflects on Signature Education Programs - US News

Ahead of Departure, Arne Duncan Reflects on Signature Education Programs - US News:

Education Secretary Arne Duncan Assesses Legacy Programs

When Secretary of Education Arne Duncan steps down from his perch in December, he'll bring to a close a seven-year tenure during which he oversaw more change in the K-12 education space than anyone else who has held the post.

On Thursday, speaking at the Jeremiah E. Burke High School in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, Duncan plans to reflect on his work thus far in conjunction with the department's release of two comprehensive assessments of its most significant programs, the Race to the Top competition and the School Improvement Grant.

Since being sworn into office in 2009, Duncan has collected a list of accolades, at least in part due to those two programs.

High school graduation rates are the highest they've even been, at 81 percent, and the number of students taking Advanced Placement exams has increased more than 17 percent since 2011. College enrollment rates for black and Hispanic students have also increased by more than a million since 2008.

In addition, the high school drop-out rate fell from 2008 to 2012 by 27 percent, from more than 1 million to just under 750,000. And the number of so-called drop-out factories plunged from more than 1,800 to roughly 1,000.

But Duncan isn't ready to call them a win, and he certainly isn't convinced the work is done.

The programs' success, Duncan will say, ultimately must be measured by their long-term impact on student learning.

"Because simultaneous change in multiple systems takes time, it is too early to make that determination of success now," Duncan wrote in the two reports. "However, many outcomes are trending in a positive direction."

Whether successful or not, a big driver of the education changes is the $4.35 billion Race to the Top competition, which was baked into the economic stimulus plan and became the Obama administration's signature competitive grant and the hallmark of Duncan's time in Washington.

Duncan argues throughout the report and in advance excerpts of his speech at the Dorchester school, that the administration played a small role in the major education changes that swept across the country over the last several years – a counter to oft-cited criticism, largely from Republicans, that the administration's penchant for competitive grants was an end-run around Congress that forced states to adopt its education agenda.

"Much of this nation has now put the building blocks in place for that kind of transformation — based not on a recipe from Washington, but on ideas and plans developed in states and communities," Ahead of Departure, Arne Duncan Reflects on Signature Education Programs - US News:

Fact Sheet: America's Schools under Race to the Top

Fact Sheet: Empowering States to Transform the Education Landscape | U.S. Department of Education:

Fact Sheet: Empowering States to Transform the Education Landscape

In today's increasingly global, knowledge-based economy, education has never been more important. Students need to master important skills like problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, and team work in order to be prepared for the jobs of today and tomorrow and to lead fulfilling, successful lives. Over the past six years, the U.S. Department of Education has empowered states to develop locally tailored solutions to ensure students—regardless of disability, race, zip code, or family income—graduate from high school ready for college, careers, and life.

The Department is helping to support the transformation of the education landscape by working with states, districts, and educators to put in place the building blocks for schools to provide a world-class education for all students including, students of color, students with disabilities, low-income students, English learners, and other traditionally underserved populations. Over the course of the Obama Administration, the Department has provided states with resources and flexibility aimed at supporting state-level innovation and spurring change at the local level. Today, the Department released two reports documenting how states and school districts have responded to this new way of doing business at the Department of Education through two of the Administration's signature initiatives: Fundamental Change: Innovation in America's Schools under Race to the Top, and School Improvement Grants National Summary: School Year 2012-13.

Race to the Top: Spurring Comprehensive Reforms

Race to the Top supported the most comprehensive, far-reaching reform of public schools in a generation, improving how students are prepared for success in school and in life. With an investment of $4 billion—less than 1 percent of total federal education funding—Race to the Top was a catalyst for change for more than 10 million students and 700,000 teachers in the first two rounds of the grant competition and for many more students and teachers in states that applied for the grant but that did not receive funding.

Fundamental Change: Innovation in America's Schools under Race to the Top focuses on the 11 states (Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Tennessee) and the District of Columbia that received funding in the first two rounds of the competition. Race to the Top enabled these states to transform education by implementing their own ideas and plans in four key areas:

• Establishing high college- and career-ready standards
• Developing and supporting great teachers and leaders
• Leveraging data systems and technology to improve instruction
• Turning around the lowest-performing schools

For example, in southeastern Ohio, 21 rural districts serving 14,000 students formed the Ohio Appalachian Collaborative to improve college readiness. Through training and collaboration sessions, teachers across the districts developed skills to track student progress, use data to tailor their instruction, and design and implement higher-level course content.

Tennessee selected 700 high-performing teachers, called Core Coaches, to lead the state's transition to college- and career-ready standards by providing professional development that reached 45,000 of their colleagues in training sessions over three years.

Delaware teachers took a collaborative approach to professional development. Teachers in every school met weekly for 90 minutes in professional learning communities to analyze student work and share ways to modify instruction to bridge gaps identified in student learning.

Even in states that did not win awards, the work to develop an application and establish the conditions for positive change unleashed an incredible amount of courage and creativity at the local level. According to research from William Howell, a professor at the University of Chicago who has tracked trends in education policy enactment across all 50 states and D.C., after Race to the Top, every state experienced a surge in the adoption of education improvement policies. Between 2001 and 2008, states only enacted about 10 percent of proposed education policies. But between 2009 and 2014, 68 percent of education policy proposals passed and became state law.

In addition to the 12 Race to the Top state grants, students also are benefiting from the Race to the Top Phase 3, Race to the Top—District, and Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge grants. In fact, according to a recently released Department of Education report, states rapidly are improving the quality of early learning programs while enrolling more children, especially from low- and moderate- income families, in the highest-quality programs.

School Improvement Grants: Turning Around our Worst Schools

Since 2010, the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program has provided support to more than 1,800 of the country's lowest performing schools that have demonstrated the greatest need and the strongest commitment to implementing rigorous reforms to raise student achievement. Turning around chronically low-performing schools, which have been failing students for decades and possibly generations, is some of the hardest and most important work in education, with direct impact on the life outcomes of young people.

The new report, School Improvement Grants National Summary: School Year 2012-13, focuses on the 1,399 schools serving more than 800,000 students in the first three cohorts of SIG funding. Key findings include:

• SIG schools are improving faster than other schools.
• SIG schools with available data are making gains in mathematics and reading proficiency. Cohort 1 schools, which have implemented SIG reforms for three years (2010-11 to 2012-13), on average increased the percentage of students who are proficient by 8 points in mathematics and by 6 points in reading.
• Graduation rates are improving in many SIG high schools. Nearly half of Cohort 1 high schools and 38 percent of Cohort 2 high schools increased their graduation rates by 6 or more percentage points from 2010-11 to 2012-13, compared to a quarter of all public high schools.
• SIG schools are providing students with multiple opportunities for increased learning time. Fifty percent of Cohort 1 schools, 54 percent of Cohort 2 schools, and 43 percent of Cohort 3 schools offered more than one type of increased learning time for students in 2012-13.

Making Progress

With new resources and flexibility from the federal government, states and school districts are making unprecedented changes in education. Most importantly, America's students are making progress:

• The high school graduation rate is the highest ever at 81 percent.
• The high school dropout rate is at a historic low, following steady decreases. The greatest progress has been among students of color.
• College enrollment for black and Hispanic students is up by more than a million since 2008.

More than 40 states are moving forward with college- and career-ready standards. These higher standards promote critical thinking and problem solving—skills our students will need for 21st century jobs, and that the American economy will need to grow and stay competitive.

More than 40 states have implemented new policies that incorporate student learning into the definition of effective teaching.

New research from Robert Balfanz at Johns Hopkins University shows the number of so-called "dropout factories" across the nation has been cut in half since 2002—going from 2,000 to fewer than 1,000 today, with the change accelerating since 2008.

Accelerating Educational Innovation and Improvement

While there has been tremendous progress in expanding equity and opportunity in education, more work remains to be done. In order to maintain and accelerate the progress that educators, families, communities, and students are making, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is calling for a strong, bipartisan reauthorization of ESEA. More specifically, Congress should reauthorize the ESEA to:

• Give teachers and principals the resources they need and invest in districts and states to create innovative approaches to improving student outcomes;
• Make real investments in high-poverty schools and districts, and in expanding high-quality preschool;
• Hold high expectations for all students, and require extra supports for groups of students or schools that are not making progress;
• Identify schools that are consistently not making progress and dedicate extra resources and support, including the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools; and high schools where too many students are not graduating; and
• Address funding inequities for schools that serve high proportions of low-income students.Fact Sheet: Empowering States to Transform the Education Landscape | U.S. Department of Education:

Closing the Opportunity Gap in Deeper Learning - NEA Today

Closing the Opportunity Gap in Deeper Learning - NEA Today:

Closing the Opportunity Gap in Deeper Learning

Linda Darling-Hammond, professor of education at Stanford University, made a strong case for “deeper learning” at a panel  discussion last week in Washington, D.C., saying schools must move students beyond rote-oriented test-prep drills and mile-wide, inch-deep curriculum guides. “We can’t just tell (students) to memorize a bunch of information and go on with their lives,” she said.

Darling-Hammond warned, however, that a focus on high-stakes testing and budget cuts is cutting off low-income students’ access to a richer curriculum that can foster deeper learning.

“We need equitable access to deeper learning. Who is going to get access to a thinking curriculum? Poor kids? Right now, it is inequitably distributed.”

At the panel discussion, Darling-Hammond presented these and other findings from a new study she co-authored with Pedro Noguera of New York University and Diane Friedlaender of the Stanford University Center for Opportunity Policy in Education called “Equal Opportunity for Deeper Learning.” The study was published by Jobs For the Future, who co-sponsored the event with the Learning Policy Institute.

With deeper learning skills, students will be able to navigate the terrain of the future, Darling-Hammond said.

“They will be working in a world with knowledge that hasn’t been invented yet. We want them to have transferable knowledge and skills, … that they can apply and use.”

To develop deeper learning competencies, schools will need to initiate curriculum and assessment systems that provide opportunities for students to practice not only Closing the Opportunity Gap in Deeper Learning - NEA Today:

Politico NY Sells Ads to Pro-Charter Advocacy Group but Fails to Label Them As Paid Ads | janresseger

Politico NY Sells Ads to Pro-Charter Advocacy Group but Fails to Label Them As Paid Ads | janresseger:

Politico NY Sells Ads to Pro-Charter Advocacy Group but Fails to Label Them As Paid Ads

Even though I live in Ohio, every morning in my e-mail in-box, I receive and scan an update on news about education from Politico New York. I read it as a summary of public education issues surfacing in the state of New York and because its authors—Eliza Shapiro, Keshia Clukey and Conor Skelding—select and recommend a list of national stories about education.  As a blogger, I use a lot of tools to find current news.

Imagine my surprise when in yesterday’s morning e-mail newsletter from Politico NY, I found the following in a section called “TRACKING EDUCATION” as the second of several blurbs :

** A message from Families for Excellent Schools: New York City’s schools are divided into two separate and unequal systems – one for white, affluent children, and another for low-income children of color. But we can change that. Visit DontStealPossible.org today to take a stand for school equality. **

Then at the end of the newsletter, I discovered a similar message:

** A message from Families for Excellent Schools: 478,000 New York City children — almost all black and Hispanic — are stuck in a network of failing public schools. That’s more children than the entire Chicago Public Schools, and they’re trapped in a separate and unequal education system. Our leaders must do better – especially Mayor de Blasio. It’s time for bold action, not more of the same.

That’s why New Yorkers from every borough are coming together to take a stand for school equality. If you believe EVERY child in New York City deserves a quality education, join Team Possible today: Join us at DontStealPossible.org **

Both of these pieces are highly political.  Both condemn the New York City public schools and Politico NY Sells Ads to Pro-Charter Advocacy Group but Fails to Label Them As Paid Ads | janresseger:

The Challenges of Large-Scale Action for Democratic School Change - Bridging Differences - Education Week

The Challenges of Large-Scale Action for Democratic School Change - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

The Challenges of Large-Scale Action for Democratic School Change

Deborah Meier continues her conversation with Harry Boyte. To read their full exchange, please visit here.

Dear Harry and friends,

Here's where I don't "get it":

What sustains the extraordinary short-lived focused citizen action? What kind of institutional changes might make it more normal, part of the way we do things, common sense, not requiring unusual time and energy?

I think that the kind of exceptional schools that I've called "democratic" have engaged in institutional change that helps make democracy a more reasonable expectation. But such schools are also forced to confront a larger institutional pressure to stay alive and thus rarely grow exponentially. One dies as another begins. 

There's definitely a trade-off, as Mike Miller suggests, between individual experiments that create silos of excellence vs. working at-large. The former is not a "solution," but at best a provocateur, as well as a place to try out some wild ideas. But going from one to two to four to eight to 16 to 32, etc., is not the way of the future. Unless. Unless we simultaneously change the rules, the norms that are counterproductive to democracy. Like voting on Tuesdays. Like limited voting places. Like not allowing mail ballots or increasing the time for voting. Like same-day registration. 

School-family meetings are another example. Once we insisted the child be present it changed its nature. Once we focused on actual student work presented by the student we started a different conversation. 

I wonder how many schools would actually say they do not want more autonomy? I suspect quite a few if we asked parents, fewer if we asked teachers—but maybe it would depend on whose autonomy we focused on. What structures would give the entire school community more autonomy, if they could come to some level of agreement?

That's a structural change that might make a difference.

Some of the charters, like the pilots, have used autonomy well to create an engaged community. But when chartering and piloting don't demand community buy-in, just "allow it" with lots of ifs and maybes, they dwindle away. I just discovered that this has been rapidly happening in Boston with Pilots. In the absence of any institutional body representing Pilots as a bargaining unit perhaps, this may be hard to fight.

Fighting each other, pitting parents against parents, teachers against teachers, teachers' unions against parent unions, is surely not the way. But we too often allow ourselves to release most of our energetic opposition on our closest allies. What institutional changes would make it easier for us to avoid this trap?

Our "enemies" have helped to silo us. My allies are too busy trying to stay in business to take the time to meet with "competitor" allies in ways that might make it easier for us all to stay alive. Competition is inevitable to some degree. As the head teacher at CPE or Mission Hill that was always my immediate pressure. It was hard to expend my finite energies elsewhere. Now that I'm retired it's easier to see where I was wrong!

How can we change this so that being a good citizen is somewhat less difficult?

DebThe Challenges of Large-Scale Action for Democratic School Change - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

The Big Education Fight In The Democratic Party

11/12/2015 – The Big Education Fight In The Democratic Party:
The Big Education Fight In The Democratic Party

THIS WEEK: Dropout Rates Fall … Schools Without High-Speed Internet … Low Pay For Expensive Childcare … Power Of College Athletes … Cheating In Online Classes

TOP STORY

The Big Education Fight In The Democratic Party

By Jeff Bryant

“The ‘big economic fight’ in the Democratic Party that news outlets are reporting isn’t confined to economics … Just as corporate-friendly policies for the economy ‘fared poorly, both as policy and as politics’ … they were a bust on all fronts for education too … The conventional wisdom supporting the market competition of charter schools is being questioned as well, this time from the most unlikely source – presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.”
Read more …

NEWS AND VIEWS

The Nation’s High School Dropout Rate Has Fallen, Study Says

The Washington Post

“The U.S. high school dropout rate has fallen in recent years, with the number of dropouts declining from 1 million in 2008 to about 750,000 in 2012 … The number of ‘dropout factories’ – high schools in which fewer than 60% of freshmen graduate in four years – declined significantly … The new dropout data is not surprising because the nation’s high school graduation rate has been steadily rising … But there are many reasons that graduation rates can rise, and not all of them have to do with stronger schools preparing more students for life after high school.”
Read more …

Fast, Affordable Internet Remains Challenge For Many Schools, Survey Finds

Education Week

“Affordable Internet service and cost-effective access to related infrastructure remain major hurdles for schools … Money is still seen as the biggest barrier to robust school connectivity: 46% of survey respondents identified the cost of monthly recurring charges as their biggest problem, followed by 34% of who cited high upfront capital costs … The country’s rural schools continue to be at a severe disadvantage when it comes to affordable connectivity… Three-fourths of respondents said their districts do not provide any off-campus services to provide connectivity to students.”
Read more …

Child Care Workers Are Paid Less Than Dog Walkers Or Janitors

Vox

“Child care workers – including people who care for children in day care centers, in preschools, as nannies, through religious organizations, and in other facilities – are paid almost 40% less than all other workers … Child care workers make 23% less than other workers who are similar to them but work in other industries. Child care workers are also more than twice as likely to live in poverty, and very few receive benefits like health insurance. More than one-third of them live at twice the poverty level or below … If you work in child care and have a bachelor’s degree, you will be rewarded with about a 40% smaller paycheck than your peers in other fields get … An astonishing 95% of child care workers are women … In most states, child care is more expensive than college.”
Read more …

Upheaval In Missouri Highlights Football Players’ Power

The Chronicle Of Higher Education

“On Saturday, black football players at the University of Missouri announced that they were boycotting practice and even a crucial game if the system’s president, Timothy M. Wolfe, didn’t resign over his response to racist incidents … Monday morning, Mr. Wolfe announced his resignation … The players’ involvement made the story national news. And the outcome is a stark example of the power that athletes can have when they unify behind a broad cause … The question for many now is whether athletes at other colleges can and will use the example at Missouri as inspiration to start protests on their own campuses, and not just on broad social injustice but also to improve conditions for the players themselves.”
Read more …

Cheating In Online Classes Is Now Big Business

The Atlantic

“Today, entrepreneurs and freelancers openly advertise services designed to help students cheat their online educations. These digital cheaters for hire will even assume students’ identities and take entire online classes in their place … One of these companies – the aptly named No Need to Study … guarantee[s] … a B or better … Online education is already poised to be a $100 billion global industry. But it could be even bigger if online degrees earn more clout, especially with employers … The growth in online-degree credibility is already happening as more and more colleges move classes and degree programs online … It’s conceivable that someone could pay an extra $1,000 a class – about $40,000 for an entire 120-credit bachelor’s degree – to simply hire someone to earn the degree for them.”
Read more …

The astonishing amount of data being collected about your children - The Washington Post

The astonishing amount of data being collected about your children - The Washington Post:

The astonishing amount of data being collected about your children

Parental concerns about student privacy have been rising in recent years amid the growing use by schools, school districts and states use technology to collect mountains of detailed information on students. Last year, a controversial $100 million student data collection project funded by the Gates Foundation and operated by a specially created nonprofit organization called inBloom was forced to shut down because of these concerns, an episode that served as a warning to parents about just how much information about their children is being shared without their knowledge.

Here’s an important piece on the issue by Leonie Haimson and Cheri Kiesecker, who were leading advocates against the inBloom project and who then created the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, a national alliance of parents and advocates defending the rights of parents and students to protect their data.

By Leonie Haimson and Cheri Kiesecker

 Remember that ominous threat from your childhood, “This will go down on your permanent record?” Well, your children’s permanent record is a whole lot bigger today and it may be permanent. Information about your children’s behavior and nearly everything else that a school or state agency knows about them is being tracked, profiled and potentially shared.

During a February 2015 congressional hearing on “How Emerging Technology Affects Student Privacy,” Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin asked the panel to “provide a summary of all the information collected by the time a student reaches graduate school.” Joel Reidenberg, director of the Center on Law & Information Policy at Fordham Law School, responded:

“Just think George Orwell, and take it to the nth degree. We’re in an environment of surveillance, essentially. It will be an extraordinarily rich data set of your life.”

Most student data is gathered at school via multiple routes; either through The astonishing amount of data being collected about your children - The Washington Post:

R.I.P.: The Tired Myth of the Apathetic Black Student - Higher Education

R.I.P.: The Tired Myth of the Apathetic Black Student - Higher Education:

R.I.P.: The Tired Myth of the Apathetic Black Student

We should all be finally noticing the new — really the old — Black student activism and it’s been a long time coming.

After watching #BlackLivesMatter blossom among American youth, after watching Black student protest after protest — most recently at the University of Missouri and Yale University — literally sweep the nation over the last few years, we should all be finally noticing the new (really the old) Black student activist.

And I am thrilled. It’s been a long time coming.

Over the last three years, I have had the opportunity to travel around the country and talk about my first book and share the story of the Black Campus Movement from 1965 to 1972. During this national social movement, Black students and their allies at upward of a thousand historically Black and White colleges organized, demanded and protested for progressive Black universities, Black studies, Black cultural centers, Black student affairs officers, and Black faculty, staff, coaches and students — you name it students probably demanded it. The Brown v. Board of Education decision did not integrate higher education. It was the Black Campus Movement that integrated higher education.

But not all Black students powered the Black Campus Movement. A large portion of Black students — especially at colleges with large Black student enrollments — did not support the Black student unions, did not get behind the demands, did notattend the rallies, did not put themselves out there in protest, did not mind spying on the activists for administrators and cops. We forget and marginalize and individualize those apathetic Black students of yesterday, and we highlight and center and generalize those apathetic Black students of today.

So, invariably, wherever I go and speak on the Black Campus Movement, the same question is posed during the question and answer period: “Why are Black students so apathetic today?”

It is always a really difficult question for me to answer. For a long time, I was conflicted on the premise. I was conflicted on whether Black students today are indeed apathetic. The bad historian in me kept comparing today’s Black students to their predecessors in the 1960s. The seemingly logical side of me kept comparing the number of protests today to the number of protests in the 1960s.

For a long time, it made total sense to me that today’s Black student is apathetic (compared to the Afro-donning, Black power-intoning, Black student union-forming, Black studies-demanding, administration building-barricading Black student of 1969).

It is important to learn from the past. Our history is fundamentally our first lesson book. But every good historian will tell R.I.P.: The Tired Myth of the Apathetic Black Student - Higher Education:

Former US Senator Mary Landrieu Works for the Walton Foundation | deutsch29

Former US Senator Mary Landrieu Works for the Walton Foundation | deutsch29:

Former US Senator Mary Landrieu Works for the Walton Foundation

In December 2014, “the last Deep South Democrat in the US Senate,” Senator Mary Landrieu, lost a runoff election to Republican challenger, Bill Cassidy. It was the first time in 138 years that Louisiana did not have a Democrat in the US Senate.

Landrieu had held the Senate seat for 18 years and was particularly influential over the oil and gas industry in her role as chair of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. However, Landrieu had “become the Beltway”; she no longer kept a residence in Louisiana and and used her parents’ residence to qualify for her latest Louisiana run. It turns out her primary residence is in Washington, DC.

Moreover, from her almost-two-decade Beltway vantage point, Landrieu had become a powerful promoter of charter schools and the test-score-based reform. As National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) CEO Nina Rees wrote in the following excerpt regarding Landrieu’s December 2014 Senate loss:

“A Real Loss for Charter Schools” (Originally entitled, “Sen. Mary Landrieu’s Loss: A Real Blow for Charter Schools”)

The recent defeat of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu by Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy means the Senate is losing one of its strongest supporters of education reform, and of charter schools in particular.

Soon after entering the Senate in 1997, Landrieu joined with Democratic colleagues such as Joseph Lieberman, Evan Bayh and John Breaux to reimagine the federal role in education. Their fundamental objective was granting states more freedom and flexibility in exchange for results, a concept that led to the bipartisan passage of what is now known as the No Child Left Behind Act. Landrieu also seized the mantle of public charter schools like no 

Former US Senator Mary Landrieu Works for the Walton Foundation | deutsch29:

Clinton Turns Against Charters - WSJ

Clinton Turns Against Charters - WSJ:
Clinton Turns Against Charters

Randi Weingarten got what her union’s endorsement paid for.

Hillary Clinton has moved to the left of President Obama on trade, energy, immigration, student loans, health care and entitlements. But even we’re surprised by her latest move, which is to turn against charter schools as an engine of education opportunity.

“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,” Mrs. Clinton said last weekend in South Carolina. She also acknowledged that “for many years now” she has “supported the idea of charter schools,” though “not as a substitute for the public schools.”

Well, as Mrs. Clinton used to appreciate, charter schools are public schools—albeit freed from bureaucracy and union work rules. In her 1996 memoir, “It Takes a Village,” she wrote that “I favor promoting choice among public schools, much as the President’s Charter Schools Initiative encourages.” In 2007 she told a teachers-union conference in New York that “I actually do believe in charter schools.”

Why the sudden change? Her press assistant explained to Politico that “Hillary Clinton looks at the evidence. That’s what she did here.” Sorry, that quote is from Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.6 million-member American Federation of Teachers thatendorsed Mrs. Clinton in July, 16 months before Election Day. The National Education Association followed. Unions loathe charter competition, and Mrs. Clinton is returning the favor of these early endorsements.

If Mrs. Clinton had looked at the evidence, she’d have seen a different story about charters and “the hardest-to-teach kids.” Charters don’t exclude difficult students. Like other public schools, they aren’t allowed to discriminate. Nearly every state requires a random lottery to choose students if there are more applicants than openings. The reason some charters turn away students is that they lack the resources to accommodate every desperate family trapped in a teachers-union compound.

Charters serve some of the most troubled students, including a higher percentage in poverty than all public schools, according to Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes. In urban centers in particular, charters serve mostly minority students and include more who are learning English than do public schools as a whole.

Mrs. Clinton knows these basic facts, so she may be tapping into the recent political Clinton Turns Against Charters - WSJ:

Jersey Jazzman: Charter Schools, An Exchange: Part VI (Final)

Jersey Jazzman: Charter Schools, An Exchange: Part VI (Final):

Charter Schools, An Exchange: Part VI (Final)

This is the last installment of an exchange about charter schools between myself and Dmitri Mehlhorn. 

Part I: Mehlhorn's opener.

Part II: My reply.

Part III: Mehlhorn's response.

Part IV: My second reply.

Part V: Mehlhorn's second response.

Part VI (this post): My final reply.

I hope everyone has found this enlightening. My sincere thanks to Dmitri Mehlhorn for engaging me in this debate.

* * *

In his final installment in this debate, Dmitri Mehlhorn posed five questions to me. Here are my responses.

Q: "Jazzman, why don’t TPS (traditional public schools) test results go down as charters expand?"

A: We don't really know that they don't. But even if they don't, there are other pernicious effects for district schools when charters expand. 

As I explained in Part II, the evidence we have about the effects of charterization on neighboring public district schools is quite limited. The Texas study Mehlhorn cited earlier (Booker et. al, 2008) shows a small positive effect for hosting districts; however, the proliferation rate of charters was quite small. In that study, most districts had well under 5 percent of their students in charters, so it's reasonable to think any "cream skimming" -- the process where charters take only those students who are more likely to thrive under a "no excuses" model -- had only a small influence on the district schools.

What happens when the charter enrollments get up to 40 percent, as they are in

- See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2015/11/charter-schools-exchange-part-vi-final.html#sthash.MH27JVjh.dpuf