How to solve the LAUSD puzzle - LA Times

How to solve the LAUSD puzzle - LA Times:

How to solve the LAUSD puzzle

The Los Angeles Unified School District is seeking a new superintendent, who will oversee a system with a $12.6-billion budget, 650,000 students, 90,000 employees and many challenges. Below, education experts, parents, teachers, students and others discuss what the district's priorities should be.

A community of collaboration

The perennial hope, in Los Angeles as elsewhere, is that Superman or Wonder Woman will come in and increase graduation rates, close the achievement gap, guarantee that all graduates are college or career ready — and will do it overnight.

That's not going to happen. What L.A. schools need isn't a miracle but a system built on trust and professionalism — one that treats teachers as professionals, with opportunities to work together as well as support from coaching and mentoring; that encourages networking among educators and collaboration among schools; that makes smart use of data to flag issues such as chronic absenteeism before they get out of hand; that stresses "soft skills" — what report cards used to describe as "works and plays well with others" — and not just literacy and numeracy; a system in which every school is a community school that, in tandem with other city agencies, nonprofits and businesses, delivers health services as well as after-school and summer programs; that forges close ties with early education providers, community colleges and universities; that delivers a seamless, high-quality education from preschool through high school and beyond.

That's a tall order, but it's doable over time.

David L. Kirp is a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley and a senior fellow at the Learning Policy Institute.

Foster parental involvement

My husband and I have three children who attend LAUSD schools. We believe that public education is a team effort, and we try to do our part. But for eight years, LAUSD has met our involvement with unwavering opposition. When a nonprofit we work with offered free on-campus tutoring, one school principal declined to meet with us and a second made the project unfeasible by requiring thousands of dollars in fees. When a parent group raised money to purchase books, host author talks and reward independent reading, school leaders criticized and impeded our efforts.

Arts programs, small class size and technology are expensive. Volunteer services and parent-led programs can help and are free.

I hope our new superintendent will ask families why they are leaving neighborhood schools and what would entice them to stay.

Anna Parks lives in South Los Angeles.

Don't go the charter way

Public education in Los Angeles is at a crossroads. Which option will the new superintendent endorse?

On one side are Eli Broad, Wal-Mart and other unaccountable billionaires. They are funding a plan to dismantle LAUSD by greatly expanding unregulated charter schools at the expense of neighborhood public schools, which would see a dramatic loss of resources. High-needs students would be left behind and parents would have little guarantee of input.

On the other side are educators, parents and students building sustainable community schools that are accessible to all. These institutions have well-rounded curricula including college prep, the arts and ethnic studies, involve parents deeply, rigorously support and develop educators, and offer wrap-around services and restorative justice programs.

Investing in community schools and scaling them up will improve public education.

The choice for the next superintendent should be clear.

Alex Caputo-Pearl is president of UTLA.

Ensure equitable education

The greatest challenge facing LAUSD and our public education system more broadly is the persistent inequity that has plagued our community for generations. We need a superintendent who will address this problem by making absolutely certain that all students receive the same educational opportunities: STEM classes and arts programs; college and career counseling; special education; a safe and supportive environment; and especially the best possible teaching and administrative staff.

The next superintendent must ensure that our best talent goes where it is most needed: to students from underserved communities. This may mean shifting long-standing policies, including how LAUSD funds individual schools and which campuses receive the most money. It also means allowing high-performing charter schools that are turning around low-performing schools to continue with their important work.

Marco Petruzzi is the national chief executive of Green Dot Public Schools, which runs charter schools in California, Tennessee and Washington.

Upgrade the infrastructure

It's not just curricula and testing regimens that need upgrading, it's the infrastructure. All our classrooms and auditoriums should be safe, structurally sound, temperate and well lighted. At the moment, they're not.

In the middle of our fifth-grade musical production in May, the lights in the school auditorium went out. The plant manager couldn't figure out how to turn them back on. We performed the rest of the show in semi-darkness. The next day an electrician said there was no permanent fix because, "The system is 50 years old, and the needed part isn't made any more." He told me that nearly all the schools on the Westside have antiquated electrical grids, and they continue to function only because of the ingenuity of the electricians. That aging grid is hardly the only sign of decrepitude on our campus. We also have leaky roofs, sketchy plumbing, malfunctioning air-conditioners and "temporary" portable classrooms still in use a decade after they were supposed to be replaced.

Jeff Lantos teaches at Marquez Charter Elementary School in Pacific Palisades.

Build strong relationships

The secret to successful schools is strong relationships up and down the hierarchy — between the superintendent and the administrators, between principals and teachers. When I was a new teacher at Coldwater Canyon Elementary School, I worked for a principal named Marvin Silver. He took the time to get to know each of us, to learn what was important to us, if we had families, if we were having an off day. He made each of us feel that we mattered. Is it surprising that our students prospered and their test scores increased?

Mary Melvin is principal of Porter Ranch Community School

Empower the teachers

I hope that the next superintendent will rethink and reinvent the relationship between teachers and the district. I know many effective educators who feel completely powerless and unappreciated. Outside of our schools we are rarely acknowledged for significant accomplishments, asked for our opinions about district policies or invited to authentically participate in the next stages of education reform.

One step in the right direction would be to regularly survey teachers and publish the results for the public to see. These surveys could help gauge morale at individual schools and the impact of district policies on the classroom. Other worthwhile steps: Creating avenues to help teachers voice their opinions, and ensuring mutual accountability between district level initiatives and teachers.

The new superintendent should also explore creating hybrid roles for highly effective teachers, who would spend part of the day in the classroom and part of it working on policy, curriculum or administrative tasks. Similarly, rather than hire outside consultants to conduct professional development, the district should leverage the talent we have and pay effective teachers to lead these workshops.

By showing teachers that our skills are truly valued, we'll keep more of them in the classroom where they have the greatest impact on student achievement.

Daniel Jocz teaches at the Downtown Magnets High School. He is a 2016 California Teacher of the Year and a nominee for National Teacher of the Year.

Include music and visual arts

My elementary school put together concerts that showcased what we'd been learning in dance and music class. My middle school had poetry slams and film classes. My arts high school has curricula that focuses on dance, music, theater and visual arts. But not everyone's so lucky. I know that students at other schools don't have access to these classes, and that's patently unfair. Every L.A. school should offer instruction in music and the visual arts.

Maya Abee is a senior at Ramon Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts.

Assist the underprivileged

The new superintendent must be someone who not only believes in setting high expectations for all students, but also be someone who is willing to make the investment to support underprivileged students.

My experience is telling. I attended K through 12th grade in L.A. Unified schools in East L.A., an underserved community. I trusted my teachers and advisors to offer the appropriate academic guidance. When I started applying to colleges, however, I realized my district had failed me: My A-G requirements — the sequence of high school courses that students must complete to be eligible for admission to the University of California and California State University — were incomplete.

A new A-G policy goes into full effect in 2017, lowering the passing grade in required classes from "C" to "D." Though the district sees this as a solution for increasing graduation rates, the reality is that it lowers standards and sets students up for failure.

Students will not put as much effort into school if all it takes to graduate is a "D," and universities will not accept such low grades. This will result in even more students of color like me not being able to enroll in a four-year college.

Erika Perez is a senior at UC Riverside and a member of Students For Education Reform

Focus beyond academic needs

The proposal by the Broad Foundation to significantly increase the number of charter schools in Los Angeles has generated a highly polarized debate. Supporters present charter schools as a panacea that will "save" public education; opponents claim such expansion will destroy it.

The next superintendent can't afford to see the issue in such stark terms. He or she should learn from the small number of successful public schools — charter and traditional — that serve poor children. All of them have one thing in common: They are organized to meet student needs.

This sounds simple but it is actually quite complex. In poor neighborhoods, you can't focus on the academic needs of a child and ignore their social needs. You must also find ways to reduce their isolation and provide social services.

Pedro A. Noguera is a professor of education at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Services.

Hire superintendent from within

The next superintendent should be hired from within. Parents are tired of the political-office seekers and overpaid out-of-town administrators who don't know the challenges of this vast district as intimately as those who have worked their way up the ranks from educator to administrator. We need a staunch supporter of public education and not someone who would hand over our public schools to the privatization whims of local billionaires and the graduates of administrative "universities" run by these billionaires, while local media and politicians look the other way.

Debbie Lopez lives in Northridge and her two children attended LAUSD schools.

Next leader should emphasize partnership

The first order of business for the new superintendent is to restore confidence in the district. This will require highly publicized meetings with all stakeholders: parents, teachers and civic leaders in all zones of the district. The most important message the superintendent has to consistently emphasize is that education is a partnership.

We need a standing committee made up of representatives from each zone to chart the district's progress. This committee should issue monthly report cards to the media in the same way that teachers issue report cards about their students. By making all parties partners in the decision-making, everyone will have a stake in creating a better school system.

Walt Gardner, who writes the Reality Check blog for Education Week, taught for 28 years in LAUSD.

Make it easy to follow the money

What the school district needs is financial transparency. All funding coming into the district and to the individual schools and expenditures should be transparent. By making this information available online, the public and students can offer their input on crucial decisions.

Jake Levey, Josh Berman and Freddy Cushnir are 10th-graders at Hamilton High School.

How to solve the LAUSD puzzle - LA Times:

Paris - Lily's Blackboard

Paris - Lily's Blackboard:

Paris

There are no words.  And yet we grasp for words to describe the horror and tragedy and loss that we all feel this week when someone says just the one word:  Paris.

We know in our minds that such heartless, cruel violence against innocent people is possible, but in our hearts it is still inconceivable.  We still struggle to make sense of such senseless evil.  I hope it will always be a struggle to imagine the unimaginable.

Saturday, I was actually flying to Brussels for my first meeting as an officer of Education International when I looked up at the television in the airport tuned to CNN to see that security officers were arresting co-conspirators to the horrendous killings in Paris after raiding homes in Brussels.  My mother called me panicked that I was going to a dangerous place and begging me to cancel the trip.  I calmed her down by telling her I would be as safe in Brussels as anywhere.

It would have been more accurate to say I would be in as much danger in Brussels as anywhere.  There is no place to hide from cowardly political murders of innocent bystanders, chosen specifically for their randomness.  Paris was not safe. New York was not safe.  Mumbai was not safe.  Madrid was not safe.  Oklahoma City was not safe.  And so we will not hide and pretend we are safe.

We will stand.  We will refuse to live in terror.  We will hold each other as we hold our Parisian brothers and sisters in our hearts this week, but we will hold them in solidarity.  Not in fear.

If there is no place that is safe, there is also no place that is not filled with courage and kindness.  There is no corner on earth where we cannot find our brothers and sisters.  They are our human family, and our family is grieving.  Let us hold them in love.Paris - Lily's Blackboard:

CURMUDGUCATION: USED Goes Open Source, Stabs Pearson in the Back for a Change

CURMUDGUCATION: USED Goes Open Source, Stabs Pearson in the Back for a Change:

USED Goes Open Source, Stabs Pearson in the Back for a Change

The United States Department of Education announced at the end of last month its new #GoOpen campaign, a program in support of using "openly licensed" aka open source materials for schools. Word of this is only slowly leaking into the media, which is odd, because unless I'm missing something here, this is kind of huge. Open sourced material does not have traditional copyright restrictions and so can be shared by anybody and modified by anybody (to really drive that point home, I'll link to Wikipedia).

Is the USED just dropping hints that we are potentially reading too much into? I don't think so. Here'sthe second paragraph from the USED's own press release:

“In order to ensure that all students – no matter their zip code – have access to high-quality learning resources, we are encouraging districts and states to move away from traditional textbooks and toward freely accessible, openly-licensed materials,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said. “Districts across the country are transforming learning by using materials that can be constantly updated and adjusted to meet students’ needs.”

Yeah, that message is pretty unambiguous-- stop buying your textbooks from Pearson and grab a nice online open-source free text instead.

And if that still seems ambiguous, here's something that isn't-- a proposed rules change for competitive grants. 

In plain English, the proposed rule "would require intellectual property created with Department of CURMUDGUCATION: USED Goes Open Source, Stabs Pearson in the Back for a Change:

PTA survey finds parents still in the dark on new testing :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet

PTA survey finds parents still in the dark on new testing :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:

PTA survey finds parents still in the dark on new testing

(Calif.) Despite a multi-year effort by the state to prepare for new testing aligned to the Common Core, a survey of parents reasonably engaged in their children’s schooling found a majority still had little or no understanding of the new assessment system.

The self-selected poll of more than 3,000 families conducted in September by the California Parent Teachers Association also revealed more than a third of parents reported getting no information at all from their districts about last spring’s testing while another third said what details they did get were only “slightly helpful and understandable.”

News of the PTA findings comes in the wake of September’s release of the first round of scoring under the new California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress or CAASPP and the arrival of some 3.2 million individual student reports through the mail. PTA officials said last week the results suggest a lot more needs to be done to bring parents up to speed about the new testing and what the scores mean.

“I think there’s probably a lot of parents who heard last spring that their child would be taking new tests but now that the scores have been sent home, they are now sitting up and asking a lot of questions,” Celia Jaffe, PTA’s vice president for education, said in an interview.

“So we have a lot of work to do – no question – but that’s not to say that schools haven’t been trying,” she explained. “Parents don’t necessarily pay attention to everything that comes home and sometimes it’s difficult for state or even local district officials to put on the parent hat and understand which of the nitty-gritty things parents want to know.”

The Common Core State Standards were adopted in 2010 under the Schwarzenegger administration and cover both English language arts and mathematics. Largely because of budget restraints, California was slow to transition to the new curriculum goals but now is recognized as one of the national leaders building the infrastructure needed to fully integrate the standards into day-to-day activities in the classroom.

The new assessment system, piloted in 2014, was administered officially last spring to students in grades three through eight and 11. Although most educators consider the first set of scores as a baseline, the results were somewhat disappointing: only 44 percent of all students met or exceeded the English language arts standard and just 33 percent reached the same benchmark in math.

The education community tried to warn against comparing the new results to scores from the prior statewide assessment system because they were based on a different set of curriculum goals. Most news outlets made the comparison anyway, likely adding to confusion among parents about what the scores mean.

The survey from the PTA suggests most parents were coming into the issue armed with little good information: 54 percent said they had no understanding or only a slight understanding about the CAASPP.

The poll found that 36 percent reported getting no information about the testing and 34 percent said PTA survey finds parents still in the dark on new testing :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:

Trigger Warning: NCLB/ESEA Reauthorization! It Impinges on My Safe Space. » Missouri Education Watchdog

Trigger Warning: NCLB/ESEA Reauthorization! It Impinges on My Safe Space. » Missouri Education Watchdog:

Trigger Warning: NCLB/ESEA Reauthorization! It Impinges on My Safe Space.

TRIGGER WARNING: When the government does not follow the law, ignores research/data, and enacts policies based on theories which reward crony capitalists, it doesn’t make me feel safe and I demand such policies resulting from such behavior to cease.

Such a demand is effective for college students to accomplish their agenda, so it should work for me and other taxpayers who feel marginalized and don’t like the education reform put forth by politicians, bureaucrats and NGOs.  Neal McCluskey writes in NCLB Compromise Looking Pretty Bad:

Is pre-kindergarten part of elementary and secondary education? By definition, no. But according topreliminary reports about what is in a compromise to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act – really, the latest iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) – a preschool “competitive grant” program will be added to the law. And that’s just one of several troubling items that will reportedly be in the final legislation.

One hallmark of good lawmaking are laws that are easily understood by the people, and larding on lots of items not germane to the topic of a law is one way to move away from that democratic ideal. Adding pre-k to the ESEA lards on, though as I’ll discuss in a moment, apparently the preschool addition isn’t all that will heavily complicate the legislation.

The bigger problem with expanding federal funding and reach on preschool is that the evidence is preschoolhas few if any lasting benefits, at least that have been rigorously documented for any large, modern efforts. Infamously, that includes Head Start and Early Head Start, which the federal government’s ownstudieshave found to be largely impotent, and in the case of Early Head Start, potentially detrimental to some groups. The compromise would apparently also keep the 21st Century Community Learning Centersprogram, which federal research has also shown to be impotent or even counterproductive, but at least it isk-12.

The second major strike against this compromise, assuming the early reporting is correct, is that it will apparently be very complex. This is a big problem: Not only is complicated legislation inaccessible to the public, it can enable ambitious executives to exploit impenetrability and essentially write law through regulation. And if we have learned any lesson from the Obama administration’s NCLB waivers – and the

Trigger Warning: NCLB/ESEA Reauthorization! It Impinges on My Safe Space. » Missouri Education Watchdog:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Ithaca College students in 'solidarity walkout'

Ithaca College Student Body President Dominick Recckio

"This movement has taken over the complete educational landscape of the entire institution. It has framed everyone at Ithaca College’s educational experience and will continue to do so." -- Democracy Now

Outgoing I.G. Faisal Khan

"We are the third biggest metropolis in the country. I would describe to you that the oversight in Chicago is comparable to the Wild West -- anything goes....

"...I could not believe how backwards the city was when it came to ethics. It needs to be blown up and started all over again ... I want Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

Schools Matter: Backroom Deals Before and After Spellings Appointment

Schools Matter: Backroom Deals Before and After Spellings Appointment:

Backroom Deals Before and After Spellings Appointment

Corruption seems to accompany Margaret Spellings wherever she shows up.   Within days of her appointment as President of the UNC System, a secret meeting was held to hand out 20 percent raises to 12 of the system's chancellors.  Were these the chancellors who supported her absurd appointment for a whopping $750,000 per year ($150,000 higher than her qualified predecessor)?

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Governors of North Carolina's public university system gave in Friday to legislative demands for details of a closed-door meeting that resulted in big pay raises for a dozen top campus executives, but not before debating whether their job was to insulate the institution from politicians. 

The University of North Carolina's Board of Governors voted to release details of the private meeting two weeks ago that approved pay raises of up to 20 percent for chancellors at 12 of the state's 17 campuses. The board acted after consultants told them the chancellors were underpaid. The raises were retroactive to July 1. 

The decision to turn over details of the private meeting, which some board members called contentious, was opposed by Raleigh lawyer Joe Knott. He said he and fellow board members should insulate the universities from politicians who might want to install supporters and donors in decision-making roles. Putting people in those positions that are not qualified could hurt the universities' excellent reputations. 

"I view this request as a continuation of unusual interruption in our business by the political arm of our state government," Knott said. 

Knott said a powerful politician demanded that their candidate become the next president of the 17-campus system. "A person with power" in the Legislature directed former university board Schools Matter: Backroom Deals Before and After Spellings Appointment:

ESEA Compromise Lacks Attention to Equity, Will Move to Conference Committee This Week | janresseger

ESEA Compromise Lacks Attention to Equity, Will Move to Conference Committee This Week | janresseger:

ESEA Compromise Lacks Attention to Equity, Will Move to Conference Committee This Week

It looks as though, before the end of 2015, Congress will try to vote on a reauthorization of the federal education law we now call No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Alyson Klein, reports forEducation Week, “It’s official: Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Reps. John Kline, R-Minn., and Bobby Scott, D-VA., on Friday announced that they have a framework for moving forward on a long-stalled rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.  The next step: a conference committee which could kick off in coming days. The goal is to pass a bill to revise the ESEA—the current verson of which is the No Child Left Behind Act—for the first time in 15 years, by the end of 2015.”

Klein reports that action will begin immediately: “Expect the conference to kick off next Tuesday night (tomorrow) and conclude by Thursday. And expect the bill to be on the floor of both chambers after Thanksgiving recess.  That will give enough time for rank-and-file lawmakers to read it and make sure they understand what’s in it before they have to vote on it.”

The compromise, according to Klein’s report for Education Week, will prohibit “the education secretary from interfering with state prerogatives on teacher evaluation, testing, standards, school turnarounds, and more.  That part of the bill seems to be a direct rebuke to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who has used waivers to push big changes, especially when it comes to teacher evaluation.”

Klein explains the details of the Senate-House compromise that will be presented to a joint conference committee this week. Annual testing of all children in grades 3-8 and once in high school in reading and math will continue to be required along with disaggregating and reporting the scores.  States will also be required to identify their bottom-scoring 5 percent of schools along with schools that graduate less than two-thirds of their students in four years. However, the compromise bill requires the states themselves to decide what to do: “States would also have to identify and take action in schools that aren’t closing the achievement gap between poor and minority students and their peers. But importantly, the bill doesn’t say how ESEA Compromise Lacks Attention to Equity, Will Move to Conference Committee This Week | janresseger:

From NJ Ed Policy Forum: On Average, Are Children in Newark Doing Better? | School Finance 101

From NJ Ed Policy Forum: On Average, Are Children in Newark Doing Better? | School Finance 101:

From NJ Ed Policy Forum: On Average, Are Children in Newark Doing Better?

Bruce D. Baker & Mark Weber, Rutgers University, Graduate School of Education

November 16, 2015

Baker.Weber.NewarkBetterOff.NJEPF.11_15_15

In this research note, we estimate a series of models using publicly available school level data to address the following question:

Q: Did students in Newark (combined district and charter) make gains on statewide averages (non-Newark) on state assessments, controlling for demographics?

Specifically, we evaluate changes in mean scale scores on state assessments (NJASK) for language arts and math grades 6 to 8.

Newark Reforms Since 2009

Schools in the city of Newark have undergone a series of disruptive reforms since 2009, including substantial increases in the numbers of children served in charter schools, adoption of a unified enrollment system, ratification of a performance based teacher contract, and school closures, reconstitutions and reorganization.[i] Some of these reforms were instituted following the much publicized gift of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, chronicled in Dale Russakoff’s The Prize.[ii]

A commonly asked question in the aftermath of these disruptions is whether students in Newark on the whole are better off than they were before these reforms? That is, were the disruptions and resulting political turmoil worth it? Some have chosen to speculate, based largely on anecdotal evidence, that children in Newark must be better off today than before these disruptive reforms.

Chris Cerf, former NJ Commissioner of Education and current State Superintendent of Schools for the Newark Public Schools, asserts that the past few years have brought significant positive changes for Newark’s schools:

“Whether the measure is graduation rates, improved instructional quality, last year’s improvement in the lowest-performing schools targeted for special intervention, a nation-leading new collective-bargaining agreement, the addition of many new high-quality public schools, increased parental choice, or a material increase in the proportion of effective teachers, the arrow is pointed decidedly up in Newark.

“To be sure, as is always the case, the evidence of improvement is textured and in some respects uneven. The many positive indicators and trend lines, however, paint a picture of hope and progress that is completely at odds with the pessimism that has made its way into the standard storyline.”[iii]

Tom Moran, Editorial Page Editor of the Star-Ledger and a consistent supporter of the Newark reforms, writes: “The growth of charters has not damaged the kids in the traditional system. In fact, they’ve made modest improvements.”[iv] In a post on his Facebook page, Mark Zuckerberg, whose $100 million gift was the catalyst for the NPS reforms, writes: “No effort like this is ever going to be without challenges, mistakes and honest differences among people with good intentions. We welcome a full analysis and From NJ Ed Policy Forum: On Average, Are Children in Newark Doing Better? | School Finance 101

A three-year look at a school trying to turn around - and the kids depending on it - The Hechinger Report

A three-year look at a school trying to turn around - and the kids depending on it - The Hechinger Report:

A three-year look at a school trying to turn around — and the kids depending on it

Hechinger publishes first e-book, a compilation of award-winning series on Newark school's improvement

Erskine Glover helps a kindergarten student with his writing. Photos: Amanda Brown/NJ Spotlight

  2012, a team of reporters set out to chronicle one year at a struggling Newark school striving for a turnaround. Sara Neufeld of The Hechinger Report stayed for three. She was granted extraordinary access to Quitman Street Renew School, witnessing Principal Erskine Glover and his staff tackle one of the hardest jobs in the nation. And she went deep inside the lives of two students, showing their potential and the obstacles to their achieving it.

Her series — which won numerous journalism accolades, including a National Award for Education Reporting from the Education Writers Association three years in a row — is now an e-book, available for a free download here.

PDF version

Epub version

Mobi version

Praise for the “A Promise to Renew” series:

“Incredibly detailed, insightful series on a struggling inner-city Newark school.… Sara Neufeld’s reporting followed a captivating arc.” — Education Writers Association 2014 contest judging

Mom to governor: ‘Please buy my child a teacher’ - The Washington Post

Mom to governor: ‘Please buy my child a teacher’ - The Washington Post:

Mom to governor: ‘Please buy my child a teacher’

Wendy Birket is the mother of three children attending Orange County Public Schools in Florida, which is one of the top dozen largest school districts in the country. In this post, she writes an open letter to Florida Gov. Rick Scott reflecting her deep concern about the priorities of policymakers.

Birket wrote this amid continuing problems in Orange County, as well as in other counties in Florida (and other states), with teacher shortages as well as a growing rebellion against the state’s standardized test-based school and educator accountability system. In September, for example, the Florida Association of District School Superintendents issued a statement saying that superintendents had “lost confidence” in the accountability system and called for it to be suspended.  Activist parents in Florida have organized a number of groups across the state to fight against the privatization of public education and the misuse of standardized tests.

Birket’s letter to Scott speaks directly to these issues. She published it on Facebook, and I am using it here with permission. Here’s the letter:

Dear Rick Scott, Governor of Florida

Please buy my child a teacher.

I pay taxes and send my children to public school.

Please buy my child a teacher. A child whisperer. A trained, energetic, enthusiastic, loving, educated, invested adult to grow a relationship with my child in the pursuit of learning.

Please buy my child a teacher who can see, hear and understand my child in a small group of special, targeted relationships. My child loves learning when learning comes with love.

Buying my child a new curriculum will not improve her relationship with learning.

Buying my child a new test will not improve his relationship with learning.

Buying my child a new computer program will not improve her relationship with learning.

Buying my child all these things reduces funding for what my child really needs: a relationship.

My child needs a person. A crowd.

Please invest my tax dollars in the people surrounding my child.

Buy my child a teacher who is paid so well that he would choose a career in education.

Buy my child a teacher who is trained so well that she can 

Mom to governor: ‘Please buy my child a teacher’ - The Washington Post:

Including Summers “Adds Considerable Measurement Error” to Value-Added Estimates | VAMboozled!

Including Summers “Adds Considerable Measurement Error” to Value-Added Estimates | VAMboozled!:

Including Summers “Adds Considerable Measurement Error” to Value-Added Estimates

A new article titled “The Effect of Summer on Value-added Assessments of Teacher and School Performance” was recently released in the peer-reviewed journal Education Policy Analysis Archives. The article is authored by Gregory Palardy and Luyao Peng from the University of California, Riverside. 

Before we begin, though, here is some background so that you all understand the importance of the findings in this particular article.

In order to calculate teacher-level value added, all states are currently using (at minimum) the large-scale standardized tests mandated by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2002. These tests were mandated for use in the subject areas of mathematics and reading/language arts. However, because these tests are given only once per year, typically in the spring, to calculate value-added statisticians measure actual versus predicted “growth” (aka “value-added”) from spring-to-spring, over a 12-month span, which includes summers.

While many (including many policymakers) assume that value-added estimations are calculated from fall to spring during time intervals under which students are under the same teachers’ supervision and instruction, this is not true. The reality is that the pre- to post-test occasions actually span 12-month periods, including the summers that often cause the nettlesome summer effects often observed via VAM-based estimates. Different students learn different things over the summer, and this is strongly associated (and correlated) with student’s backgrounds, and this is strongly associated (and correlated) with students’ out-of-school opportunities (e.g., travel, summer camps, summer schools). Likewise, because summers are the time periods over which teachers and schools tend to have little control over what students do, this is also the time period during which research  indicates that achievement gaps maintain or widen. More specifically, research indicates that indicates that students from relatively lower socio-economic backgrounds tend to suffer more from learning decay than their wealthier peers, although they learn at similar rates during the school year.

What these 12-month testing intervals also include are prior teachers’ residual effects, whereas students testing in the spring, for example, finish out every school year (e.g., two months or so) with their prior teachers before entering the classrooms of the teachers for whom value-added is to be calculated the following spring, although teachers’ residual effects were not of focus in this particular study.

Nonetheless, via the research, we have always known that these summer (and prior or Including Summers “Adds Considerable Measurement Error” to Value-Added Estimates | VAMboozled!:

Pedro Noguera: LA charter debate offers opportunity to devise ways to ensure all schools succeed | EdSource

LA charter debate offers opportunity to devise ways to ensure all schools succeed | EdSource:

LA charter debate offers opportunity to devise ways to ensure all schools succeed

The proposal by the Broad Foundation to significantly increase the number of charter schools in Los Angeles over the next 10 years is being discussed and scrutinized by policymakers and the general public. It should be. If approved by the school board, the proposal could radically alter the face of public education in Los Angeles. That is perhaps the only issue that both opponents and supporters agree upon.

While Los Angeles is currently the epicenter of the fight over charters, similar battles are being waged in cities throughout California and the country.

Yet, in the highly polarized debate over charter schools, many of the most important and complex issues do not receive the attention they warrant and deserve. In part, this is because the debate over charter schools is typically presented in unreasonably stark terms: advocates portray them as a panacea that will “save” public education; opponents characterize them as a Trojan horse that will be used to privatize and dismantle public education.

Close examination of charter schools reveals that the issues are more complex. Throughout the country, charter schools are incredibly diverse in their character and quality. Some find ways to limit access to disadvantaged children, or have been deliberately designed to segregate and serve the affluent, while others have been created with an explicit commitment to serve the most disadvantaged students. Some receive donations from wealthy philanthropists and spend considerably more per pupil than traditional public schools, while others are community-based and get by with considerably less. Some, like Green Dot, allow their teachers to form or join unions, while others actively oppose efforts at unionization.

Since charter schools are likely to be around for some time, the debate we should have over the Broad proposal, and the expansion of charter schools generally, is: what kinds of charter schools should be encouraged and what kinds should be avoided? Also, if we are serious about using charter schools as a lever to improve public education generally, what lessons should we draw from the best-performing charter and public schools and how can we make sure that these lessons are applied to public schools that serve our most disadvantaged children?

Answering both questions forces us to think more deeply about the role that policy, both local and state, should play in managing and regulating charter schools. To a large degree, the absence of thoughtful, well-conceived policy has contributed to the polarization we are witnessing in cities throughout the country. The absence of good policy is pitting parents, and in some cases teachers and students, against each other. This is not a good thing, and it limits the possibility of using charter schools as a lever for change in public education.

Charter school operators and their advocates and funders should not be expected or allowed to set admissions policies, nor should they determine where a charter school is located. However, because the controls on charter schools are weak, there are numerous cases where students perceived as hard to serve have been pushed out or excluded, where parents have been denied due process when grievances have been filed, and where the rights of teachers have been violated. There have also been several incidents of fraud and financial misconduct involving charter operators, particularly online and for-profit charters.

Furthermore, as those who have read “The Prize” by Dale Russakoff know, a great deal was promised when another wealthy philanthropist, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, donated lots of money ($100 million to schools in Newark – much of which went to consultants and charter schools) but not much was gained for the poorest children in the city. Transparency and accountability in the use of public and private funds are essential to avoid similar mistakes.

As Los Angeles citizens consider the merits and implications of the Broad proposal and the broader public weighs the prospect of allowing charter schools to expand, it would be helpful to reflect on what is presently working in public education and what role charter schools are playing on the educational landscape now. Los Angeles already has a greater number of charter schools than any other U.S. city; how have these schools affected the quality of public education in the city? Moreover, California has undertaken various versions of reform for several decades; what lessons should we extract from these costly endeavors that might help us in guiding future efforts to improve schools?

During the 1980s, George Washington High School in Los Angeles Unified was regarded as an unsafe, dysfunctional school. Under the leadership of former principal (and current board member George McKenna), the school was renamed George Washington Prep, the community was engaged so that gangs no longer posed a threat to students and the school, high-quality academic programs were added, and academic achievement increased so significantly that the school became one of the most consistent producers of African-American students who were eligible for admission to the University of California.

Similar achievements were obtained at Kennedy High School in Richmond during the same period. However, today, neither Kennedy nor LA charter debate offers opportunity to devise ways to ensure all schools succeed | EdSource:

We Kicked the Koch Brothers' A**: How Denver Parents Beat Back Big Money, Charter Schools and Right-Wing Lies | Alternet

We Kicked the Koch Brothers' A**: How Denver Parents Beat Back Big Money, Charter Schools and Right-Wing Lies | Alternet:

We Kicked the Koch Brothers' A**: How Denver Parents Beat Back Big Money, Charter Schools and Right-Wing Lies

The Kochs spent a fortune on a local school board race that was really a national proxy. Then the good guys won.

Although many Democrats are disappointed, even in a “panic,” with the results from last week’s off-year elections, they need to be aware of where progressives won and learn from communities that bucked the influences of big money, especially in contests where education was a top-tier issue.

Most notable of the wins was a school board race in Jefferson County, Colorado, just outside Denver, that many national media outlets had actually hyped but then mostly ignored once the results were in.

The vote, the New York Times reported before Election Day, was about “whether to oust a polarizing school board that has championed charter schools, performance-based teacher pay, and other education measures.”

“The skirmish has been tense,” the Washington Post explained, “with alleged death threats, social media clashes, and attacks on talk radio.”

Both news stories told of a national program bearing down on the school district, with “money pouring in from Americans for Prosperity, the national organization founded by the Koch brothers,” in an effort to impose an agenda from outside the community that included a new history curriculum, new restrictions on teachers’ job security, and more privately-operated charter schools.

Students, teachers and parents were openly revolting against the school board, staging school walkouts, holding boisterous protest rallies and waging a petition campaign to demand an election to recall the school board majority.

The national outlets consistently got the story of the election wrong, adopting a We Kicked the Koch Brothers' A**: How Denver Parents Beat Back Big Money, Charter Schools and Right-Wing Lies | Alternet: