Brian Jones: Time for a New Strategy | Tikkun Magazine

Time for a New Strategy | Tikkun Magazine:

Time for a New Strategy

For those on the front lines of the fight to defend and improve public education, the 2016 presidential election is already a minefield. On July 11, 2015, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten announced that the roughly one-million-member organization would officially throw its weight behind Hillary Clinton’s candidacy for president of the United States. The million members had zero opportunity to discuss or vote on the matter. This was not surprising in the least, given the union’s historic allegiance to the strategy of backing whichever Democrat is most likely to win, regardless of what he or she is likely to do in office.

We’re living through an unprecedented attack on the public schools, on the teaching profession, and on unionized teachers in particular. The AFT could use its collective strength to alter the political landscape. At the very least, it could open up a political discussion in every local about the candidates and their positions. At best, it could do the unthinkable and dare to throw its weight behind “unelectable” candidates who actually support public education and teachers’ unions.

New York politics might offer some lessons for the presidential race. Here, Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo has been a fierce advocate of what many call “corporate education reform”; the governor stoked statewide anger by starving public schools of funding while aggressively promoting charter schools. But when Cuomo faced a progressive challenge from Zephyr Teachout in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in fall 2014, Weingarten lent her voice to a robocall to voters, encouraging support for Cuomo’s rightist running mate, Kathy Hochul (the union didn’t dare openly endorse Cuomo himself). To the union’s most engaged and active members, those who had organized countless forums, town halls, pickets, and protests to save our schools, this was widely perceived as something of a kick in the teeth. Fortunately, after the primary, many of them backed Howie Hawkins’s Green Party bid (I was the candidate for lieutenant governor), which pushed the campaign to a historic 5 percent of the overall vote.

Needless to say, Cuomo and Hochul won the primary and the election. When the dust settled, Cuomo admitted that one of his goals for the next four years was “to break what is in essence one of the only remaining public monopolies”—public schools. So-called “lesser-evil” voting gives the Democrats a free pass. As long as they don’t have an “R” next to their name, there is literally nothing they can do to lose the union’s official support.

Tragically, the Clinton endorsement is a repeat of this approach on the national stage. Clinton is funded by the same banksters who are sinking their fangs into public education coffers. The privatization of public education—through charter schools, standardized testing, and union busting—is not a right-wing Republican conspiracy. It is being carried out by liberals in the Democratic Party. Clinton is a former board member of Walmart, a company owned by a family—the Waltons—deeply invested in privatizing public schools. Hillary Clinton does not represent a genuine alternative, or even necessarily a “lesser” evil.

How to Read the Rest of This Article

The text above was just an excerpt. The web versions of our print articles are now hosted by Duke University Press, Tikkun‘s publisher. Click here to read an HTML version of the article. Click here to read a PDF version of the article.Time for a New Strategy | Tikkun Magazine:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Moskowitz tells her charter students, 'No more foreign languages'

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Moskowitz tells her charter students, 'No more foreign languages':

Moskowitz tells her charter students, 'No more foreign languages'

”We can’t do everything... And by the way, Americans don’t tend to do foreign languages very well.”​ -- Eva Moskowitz  

One can only imagine who Moskowitz is referring to as "Americans". 

Moskowitz, speaking in 2014 at a forum sponsored by the right-wing American Enterprise Institute (AEI) told the audience, ”Something had to go,” Turns out that “something” was foreign language classes. She just doesn't believe that her students, mostly African-American and Latino, are capable of reading and speaking more than one tongue. 

She's most likely the world's greatest --certainly the highest paid-- charter school hustler. She pulls down a cool half-million yearly, running the so-called Success Academy network of charters in New York City. Using her hedge-fund money connections, her political clout and relationship with former MayorMichael Bloomberg, Moskowitz' charter operation grew to the point where she now operates 34 charters with 11,000 students in them.

Unfortunately for those kids, they will no longer be able to learn a language Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Moskowitz tells her charter students, 'No more foreign languages':

Credentialing commission pursuing plan for new longer term teacher permit | EdSource

Credentialing commission pursuing plan for new longer term teacher permit | EdSource:

Credentialing commission pursuing plan for new longer term teacher permit

The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing voted yesterday to move ahead with consideration of a new teacher permit that will replace a decades-old permit that limits the amount of time substitutes can fill in for teachers on medical and other legally required leaves.

Those include extended sick leaves, and leaves under laws such as the Pregnancy Disability Leave Act, which allows teachers to take off for up to four months. The Family and Medical Leave Act, the California Family Rights Act and the Industrial Accident and Illness Act also allow teachers to take a leave of up to 12 weeks.

The current permit that has been used to fill these vacancies only allows substitutes to stay in one classroom for up to 30 cumulative school days, and for only 20 days in special education classrooms. In many cases, that has resulted in students being subjected to a series of rotating instructors, with different levels of ability and knowledge of the materials they are supposed to be teaching.

The new Teacher Permit for Statutory Leave, or TPSL, would allow substitute teachers to stay in their positions as long as regular teachers are on temporary leave, but would require school districts to provide them with 45 hours of professional development and training each year, along with an Credentialing commission pursuing plan for new longer term teacher permit | EdSource:

Gerald Lenoir and Jesse Hagopian: Gentrifying Black History | The Progressive

Gentrifying Black History | The Progressive:

Gentrifying Black History

Thanks to a long history of redlining, formerly black neighborhoods in cities around the country are continuously disappearing under the rapacious churn of financial real estate interests. But city blocks in prime locations aren’t the only things being lost. Gentrification is also happening in our classrooms and books, pushing out the past, erasing the lives and struggles of African Americans from our collective memory.

Take A Birthday Cake for George Washington, for example, a children’s book by Ramin Ganeshram published by Scholastic. In it, smiling, happy slaves wrap their arms around their master, the first U.S. president. In a Texas high school geography textbook published by McGraw-Hill, enslaved Africans are described as “workers,” rather than slaves, and placed in a section titled “Patterns of Immigration”—as if they came here looking for a better life.  In Jefferson County, Colorado, the School Board adopted a proposal to avoid the use of materials in its advanced placement high school history curriculum that “encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard for the law”—banning, of course, any discussion of the lunch counter sit-ins, freedom rides, and other actions causing “social strife” and which are foundational for the Civil Rights Movement.

The Bill of Rights Institute (BRI), which offers whitewashed classroom lesson plans for teachers across the country, is funded by the infamous Koch brothers, Charles and David, who together have more wealth than Bill Gates.  Educator Bill Bigelow describes how the Bill of Rights Institute “cherry-picks” events to hammer home a libertarian message about the sacredness of private property, and also how it offers “quiet cover” for Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman:

One section on the website is “Teaching with Current Events,” and includes a lesson, “Stand Your Ground and Castle Doctrine Laws...” Here’s the lesson’s first discussion

- See more at: http://progressive.org/pss/gentrifying-black-history#sthash.1VWL0pHj.dpuf

Guest: Reforms like charters confront the law of unintended consequences |

Guest: Reforms like charters confront the law of unintended consequences |:

Guest: Reforms like charters confront the law of unintended consequences

Shouldn't we care about those hurt by "reforms"?

 Much has been written about the inability of some to be able to foresee the potential downsides of a decision. Psychology and business publications abound with examples of cognitive dissonance preventing us from truly looking at all possible implications of a decision.  What I am exploring is somewhat more specific to decisions made in education.  More specifically, it is about how a decision affects those who are NOT the target of the particular decision.

There are a couple of decisions in schools I worked in that illustrate this. At my former school, half the students were white and the other half African American.  There was consternation that there were very few students of color in the National Honor Society (NHS).  The cutoff of 3.9 (out of a maximum 4.7) covered about a quarter of the student body.  The decision was made to drop the maximum to 3.6 to allow more students of color to apply for NHS.

On the surface, the decision was quite successful in meeting its aim.   The number of students of color increased from a handful to around 30 students.  The percentage of minority students in NHS more than doubled.  So what could be wrong with this?  The problem is with viewing the problem and the solution solely from the viewpoint of the membership of NHS.  The consequence of lowering the GPA threshold not only brought in about 25 new students of color into NHS, but it Guest: Reforms like charters confront the law of unintended consequences |:

State won't pay for DMV contract upgrade until it is done right… Connecticut? No Kansas - Wait What?

State won't pay for DMV contract upgrade until it is done right… Connecticut?  No Kansas - Wait What?:
State won’t pay for DMV contract upgrade until it is done right… Connecticut?  No Kansas

Certainly not … Over the past three decades, most of Connecticut’s health and human service programs were successfully shifted to community based non-profit providers.  (The very social service agencies that are now being targeted for some of the deepest, most devastating but cuts in Governor Malloy and Lt. Governor’s new proposed state budget.]

But while the rush to hire expensive out-of-state consultants or privatize government services often produces a product that is more expensive and ridden with incompetence, waste and even fraud, Malloy and his administration have spent untold millions of dollars on just these types of efforts and contracts, often with disastrous results.

The problems associated with the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles effort to upgrade their computer system is but one such example.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  In their new proposed state budget, Malloy and Wyman are now proposing to privatize additional services at the Department of Motor Vehicles and planning to end the requirement that motorists are up to date on paying their local car tax in order to register a vehicle.  Malloy’s plan would leave Connecticut’s 169 towns twisting in the wind, left on their own to try and collect the property taxes that are due.

See: Democrats Malloy and Wyman stab state employees in the back – again – and again. (Wait, What?),  Malloy Proposes Bill To Outsource Some DMV Services (CT Newsjunkie);  Malloy: Speed DMV lines by shedding ‘collection agency’ role (CT Mirror) andMalloy Calls For DMV Legislation To Cut Wait Times (Hartford Courant)

It is almost as if the Malloy administration is dedicated to forcing cities and towns to raise State won't pay for DMV contract upgrade until it is done right… Connecticut?  No Kansas - Wait What?:

Political Pawns—The Real Equality Problem Girls Face

Political Pawns—The Real Equality Problem Girls Face:

Political Pawns—The Real Equality Problem Girls Face

A gender-equal society would be one where the word ‘gender’ does not exist: where everyone can be themselves.

Gloria Steinem

To be a girl today is still paved with obstacles due to gender differences. Girls are not always valued for their thoughts and ideas.

While in politics we mostly hear about job and wage inequality, the problems of gender discrimination go much deeper than that. They involve the unwillingness to treat women and young girls with respect.

It starts when girls are very young and follows them throughout their lives. How girls are treated in school and at home by their teachers and parents is a huge part of where they will wind up and their outlook on life.

For example, if a young woman wants to succeed in math, science, public policy or a variety of male dominated careers they still have an uphill challenge. They especially Political Pawns—The Real Equality Problem Girls Face:

CURMUDGUCATION: ME: The Governor Takes Over

CURMUDGUCATION: ME: The Governor Takes Over:

ME: The Governor Takes Over

What do you do if you're the governor of a state and you can't get your choice for head of the Department of Education approved?

You just appoint yourself.

Yup. The Governor of Maine has appointed himself commissioner of the Department of Education. The legislature wouldn't approve his choice, currently acting commissioner William Beardsley. Beardsley will serve the maximum time allowed for an "acting" commissioner (six months) and then he will become deputy commissioner under the governor.

This would be wacky enough, but Maine's governor is Paul LePage, the one governor in this country who could give batshit crazy lessons to Donald Trump.

These are guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty—these types of guys—they come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home. Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue we have to deal with down the road.

Yes, that Paul LePage. The one that Esquire's Charles Pierce called "the insane bowling shoe who somehow got elected governor of Maine." Here are some other LePage classics: 

Said that a Democratic senator "has no brains and a black heart and claims to be for the people but CURMUDGUCATION: ME: The Governor Takes Over:

CURMUDGUCATION: How Scary Can Big Data Get

CURMUDGUCATION: How Scary Can Big Data Get:

How Scary Can Big Data Get

 There are plenty of people talking repeatedly and forcefully about resisting the infection of public education by the many tentacle-like limbs of Big Data. We know that reformsters have been talking for decades about the prospect of a cradle-to-career pipeline in which all manner of data can be collected and crunched and used to determine how best society can use the human beings that the data represents.


But if you want to see a real-world, already-happening demonstration of what this kind of data looks like, check out this article from the Washington Post that ran last month. "The new way police are surveilling you: Calculating your threat score."

Think Minority Report. Except instead of a predictive criminal system based on three psychics floating in a small pool, it's a giant pool of all the data from everywhere.

The article centers on Fresno's Real Time Crime Center, a high tech hub that allows police to access a gazillion data points available on the on-line world-- including feeds from 800 school and traffic cameras. There's also a library of license plate scans. The city is also networked with microphones that can figure out the location of gunshots. And of course there's a program to monitor social CURMUDGUCATION: How Scary Can Big Data Get:

Two 'no-brainers' for fixing Oklahoma's budget crisis - NonDoc

Two 'no-brainers' for fixing Oklahoma's budget crisis - NonDoc:

Two ‘no-brainers’ for fixing Oklahoma’s budget crisis

 The theme of the Oklahoma Policy Institute’s third annual State Budget Summit could have been the exhortation by the institute’s outreach and advocacy specialist, Kara Joy McKee, who urged the audience, “Feel the fear, but do it anyway.”

The institute pulled no punches in documenting Oklahoma’s “full-fledged budgetemergency.”

After adjusting for inflation, the state’s current budget is nearly $900 million, or more than 11 percent below 2009, when Oklahoma was mired in the Great Recession. A mid-year revenue failure has already been declared, forcing most agencies to make deeper cuts, and a second round of mid-year cuts may be coming. Legislators are expected to have $901 million less for next year, and the shortfall could be even greater.

In other words, as the institute’s Gene Perry explains, Oklahoma is a close cousin to Kansas, which dug itself into a financial catastrophe when making extreme tax cuts. Worse, two experts from the Kansas Center for Economic Growth, Annie McKay and Duanne Goosen, explained that the damage Kansas inflicted upon itself won’t be undone “for a generation.” The Oklahoma City audience was taken aback when it was told that Kansas has even addressed its shortfall by imposing enrollment fees for attending public Two 'no-brainers' for fixing Oklahoma's budget crisis - NonDoc:

Magnolia Science Academy - A Gulen Charter School: Magnolia Science Academy OIG (Office of the Inspector General) Audits and Investigations

Magnolia Science Academy - A Gulen Charter School: Magnolia Science Academy OIG (Office of the Inspector General) Audits and Investigations:

The Gulen Movement is fantastic at advertising, PR, and bestwowing fake honors on their students, politicians, local media and academia. The Parents4Magnolia blog is NOT American parents it is members of the Gulen Movement in damage control mode. Magnolia Science Academy, Pacific Technology School and Bay Area Technology is the name of their California schools. They are under several Gulen NGOs: Pacifica Institute, Willow Education, Magnolia Educaiton Foundation, Accord Institute, Bay Area Cultural Connection. Hizmet aka Gulen Movement will shamelessly act like satisifed American parents or students. They will lie, cajole, manipulate, bribe, blackmail, threaten, intimidate to get their way which is to expand the Gulen charter schools. If this doesn't work they play victim and cry "islamophobia". Beware of the Gulen propagandists and Gulen owned media outlets. DISCLAIMER: if you find some videos are disabled this is the work of the Gulen censorship which has filed fake copyright infringement complaints to Utube

Magnolia Science Academy OIG (Office of the Inspector General) Audits and Investigations



Caprice Young thought the worst was behind her, that her group's charter schools would be free to grow steal after straightening out the poor financial record-keeping that prompted a recent state audit.
She was wrong.  
The school district still found fault with her organization's petitions to open new campuses. District officials told her to expect rejection.
Young's group, Magnolia Public Schools, eventually abandoned the effort.<---Good no one wants them.
  

Her experience is becoming more common as the Los Angeles Unified School District's administrators and board of education become increasingly resistant to greenlighting new charter schools.

Charter supporters say the district is unfairly scrutinizing their independently run campuses because it sees them as a threat. 
At Tuesday's board meeting, members are poised to reject two new charters — this in addition to the three charter petitions that Young withdrew from consideration.
Since July 1, L.A. Unified has denied six petitions and approved five others, according to figures from the California Charter Schools Assn. 
That's less than a 50% approval rate. Two years ago it was 89% and last year it was 77%, according to the association.
In a letter emailed to the board Monday, leaders of charter groups accused the district of obstructing their efforts to improve public education:
"We are concerned that this district is looking for reasons to prevent new charter schools from opening, even those proposed by the most respected, successful charter operators. Issues that in the past were seen as minor or correctable are now elevated to significant issues that somehow warrant denial." There is more than a hundred reasons that Magnolia Science Academy should not only be denied but closed down in the State of California.  
Twenty-one charter organizations, enrolling 56,000 students, signed the letter, which continued:
"Given the measurable drop in approvals for new petitions, the inconsistent and non-transparent review processes, and the backroom pressure to abandon our efforts to grow, we all feel it is appropriate to bring these concerns into the light of day." Magnolia Science Academy represents less than 8% of the 21 charter schools. 
The school district has not analyzed its approval rate, said Jose Cole-Magnolia Science Academy - A Gulen Charter School: Magnolia Science Academy OIG (Office of the Inspector General) Audits and Investigations:

With A Brooklyn Accent: Restore Recess Party New York State- Draft of Education Program

With A Brooklyn Accent: Restore Recess Party New York State- Draft of Education Program:

Restore Recess Party New York State- Draft of Education Program

  "Let Kids Be Kids!"

1. Restore Recess. No use of Recess or Physical Education time for Test prep
2. Cut the state testing budget in half and use the money to lower class size and fund arts programs, sports programs and school counselors.
3. No Data Sharing. No information about children can be shared with anyone outside of the school district without parental permission
4 Create a new Education Policy Committee to replace the Education Reform Commission, and require it to have a majority of currently active teachers and parents
5. End the use of student test scores in teacher evaluations.
6. Cancel all State Education Contracts with for profit companies
7. Stop all School Closings- Help Schools in Trouble, Don't Close Them
8. End state support for the Common Core Standards- Leave that decision up to each individual school district.
9. Multiply the number of portfolio schools which require no tests at all. Let teachers and parents form them within the public school system, not as charters
10. Bring back vocational and technical education into every school district if parents and teachers support it
11. Withdraw from Race to the Top and take no Federal Funds that require more testing or adoption of Common Core Standards
12. Make sure all schools, especially those in high poverty areas, have strong after school programs.
13, Make Community History welcome in the schools.
14. Encourage the creation of school farms and gardens.

15. Exempt special needs students from all state tests and require that they get instruction appropriate to their developmental level and aptitudes

 With A Brooklyn Accent: Restore Recess Party New York State- Draft of Education Program:

How Competition Hurts Children in Detroit's Schools

How Competition Hurts Children in Detroit's Schools:

How Competition Hurts Children in Detroit's Schools

 Many charter school advocates -- often guided by a "free market" ideology -- claim that charter schools force traditional public schools to innovate and provide better education. But in Detroit, where teachers and parents this week performed "walk ins" to show support for the city's ailing public schools, the exact opposite has been true.

Detroit's schools are in rough shape. The city's traditional public school district, Detroit Public Schools (DPS), could face bankruptcy by April. On a recent tour of DPS schools, Mayor Mike Duggan found crumbling facilities, dead rodents, and children wearing coats in freezing classrooms.

But even though Detroit's residents elected him, Duggan can't do much to help. DPS has been under state control for seven years, ruled by a series of "emergency managers" with unchecked authority over democratically elected local officials. The same tactic of "running government like a business" played a crucial role in the Flint water crisis. In fact, the same emergency manager who oversaw the switch to contaminated water in Flint -- Darnell Earley -- has been running DPS for a year.

Under emergency management, DPS has lost funding while more and more money has gone to the city's charter schools, which are some of the least regulated in the nation. The Washington Post has described Michigan, along with Florida, as being on the "cutting edge of shifting public education into the private sector." The result: what are essentially two separate school systems -- one traditional, one charter -- in direct competition for students and state funding.

This sort of competition -- a zero-sum game -- only helps some students and the How Competition Hurts Children in Detroit's Schools:

CAROL BURRIS: Common Core will lead to misery, not higher achievement - The Hechinger Report

Common Core will lead to misery, not higher achievement - The Hechinger Report:

Common Core will lead to misery, not higher achievement

A Raging debate over whether Common Core is good or bad for American schoolchildren is intensifying, but in most U.S. schools, the new standards already govern how teachers teach and what students study. In 40-plus states, the math and English guidelines determine the knowledge students have to master by the end of each grade, what they’ll be tested on this year, and in many cases, how teachers and principals will be rated at their jobs once those test scores are released. Teachers are throwing out lesson plans and writing new ones, textbooks have been overhauled and new digital products are being hawked to schools that promise to help them meet the challenge of the new, tougher standards.

And yet too often the political fights over the Common Core exclude the voices of educators who have studied the standards and are grappling with how to apply them. To help fill this void, The Hechinger Report has invited two experienced principals to write a weekly column that will examine the Common Core through the eyes of those who have lived it.

Carol Burris has served as principal of South Side High School in the Rockville Centre School District in New York since 2000. In 2010, Dr. Burris was recognized by the School Administrators Association of New York State as their Outstanding Educator of the Year, and in 2013 she was recognized as the New York State High School Principal of the Year.

Jayne Ellspermann is principal of West Port High School in Ocala, Florida.  She has served as a principal in elementary, middle, and highCommon Core will lead to misery, not higher achievement - The Hechinger Report: 

Opinion: Honest Answers About PARCC Results Versus Scores on NJASK - NJ Spotlight

Opinion: Honest Answers About PARCC Results Versus Scores on NJASK - NJ Spotlight:

OPINION: HONEST ANSWERS ABOUT PARCC RESULTS VERSUS SCORES ON NJASK

What is PARCC telling us about New Jersey schools that we can’t learn from NJASK results? Nothing.

Mark Weber

Are New Jersey’s new state tests more “honest” than its old ones? Now that the data has been released, we can confidently say:

No.

For the last few years, New Jersey’s education policy has been focused on the transition from the old NJASK test to the new PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers), a nationwide test that was created by a consortium that has seen its membership dwindle to half of its original states.

Despite a growing resistance to the Common Core State Standards on which the PARCC is based, and a burgeoning opt-out movement here and around the nation, both the New Jersey Department of Education and a group of education “reform” outfits have declared that PARCC is a better test than the NJASK, and vitally necessary to improve student outcomes.

We can debate whether the content standards of the Common Core are better than those of New Jersey’s previous standards. We can debate whether PARCC is a better assessment of learning than the NJASK. I’m hardly a fan of the old test, which, to my knowledge, was never properly assessed for its validity anyway.

But now that we have PARCC school-level results], it’s quite clear that PARCC isn’t telling us anything we didn’t already know about New Jersey schools. And it only takes a couple of graphs to prove it.

Figure 1 is a chart showing the distribution of each school’s average grade 8 English Language Arts (ELA) score for the 2014 NJASK test. The shape is quite close to what statisticians call a “normal” distribution, commonly referred to as a “bell curve.” A few schools scored, on average, high on the NJASK, a few scored low, and most scored in the middle.

If you look at the scores for any tested grade in either math or ELA, you’ll find the same shape. That’s because the tests are designed to yield these bell curves: they have some easy questions, some hard questions, and some in between. When it comes to test scores, normal distributions are … well, normal.

I’ve included a red line in the chart: it shows the “cut score,” or the test score necessary to get a score that is described as “proficient.” In 2014, about 88 percent of New Jersey’s schools that tested on the grade 8 ELA got an average score that Opinion: Honest Answers About PARCC Results Versus Scores on NJASK - NJ Spotlight:

Does PARCC Still Consider Mitchell Chester the “Real” Chair? | deutsch29

Does PARCC Still Consider Mitchell Chester the “Real” Chair? | deutsch29:

Does PARCC Still Consider Mitchell Chester the “Real” Chair?

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is playing around with information on its website in a manner that makes it appear that PARCC still considers Massachusetts Commissioner of Education, Mitchell Chester, its chair.

First of all, a recent revision on the Massachusetts PARCC page propagates the lie that Massachusetts fully administered the PARCC test in 2015 and will fully administer the PARCC test in 2016:

Here’s what PARCC has to say about Massachusetts:

Massachusetts

MASSACHUSETTS AND THE PARCC ASSESSMENTS

Massachusetts administered the PARCC assessment in 2014-15 and will administer it in 2015-16. Massachusetts is a governing state.

In truth, not all Massachusetts districts administered PARCC in 2015, and as is true for Louisiana, Massachusetts will have a hybrid in 2016– part MCAS and part PARCC.

Still, in February 2016, PARCC is trying to make Massachusetts appear to be all in for PARCC, both in 2015 and 2016.

Even though Chester introduced a “compromise” between PARCC and MCAS, it sure looks bad for Chester– PARCC chair– to be pushing PARCC at all.

And it is possible that Chester’s “PARCC foot in the door”Massachusetts assessment compromise could be used as a means of virtually shutting out MCAS and indeed making Massachusetts “completely PARCC.”

If he wants to promote a quiet transition from MCAS to PARCC, surely it would be to Does PARCC Still Consider Mitchell Chester the “Real” Chair? | deutsch29:

PARCC Website Changes Its Story on 2015 Louisiana Test and Misleads on 2016 Massachusetts Test | deutsch29 http://bit.ly/1O6Pigr

WATCH THIS VIDEO – The Charter School Industry’s abusive “no excuses” approach to education - Wait What?

WATCH THIS VIDEO – The Charter School Industry’s abusive “no excuses” approach to education - Wait What?:
WATCH THIS VIDEO – The Charter School Industry’s abusive “no excuses” approach to education

 Charter Schools – Privately owned, but publicly funded.

Charter schools “pride” themselves on their “no excuses” strategies and techniques.

This time the horrifying video is from one of the infamous charter schools that make up the Success Academy charter school chain in New York City.

However the charter school industry’s “no-excuses” approach, primarily aimed at children of color, is the hallmark of the charter school industry across the nation, including at Achievement First, Inc., the large Connecticut-based charter school chain with schools in Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island.

CLICK TO WATCH IS VIDEO FROM SUCCESS CHARTER SCHOOL

The problems run far deeper than just one video.

This year, Governor Dannel Malloy and Lt. Governor Nancy Wyman have proposed a state budget that increases funding for Connecticut’s charter schools while making the deepest cuts in state history to Connecticut’s public schools.

Since taking office, Malloy and Wyman have doubled the amount of money spent to subsidize Connecticut’s charter school industry.  As a result of their “education reform” initiatives, well over $100 million in taxpayer funds will go to charter schools rather than the state’s local public school system.

A very similar story has been unfolding in New York, where Governor Andrew Cuomo, like Governor Dannel Malloy are charter school loyalists and disciples.  Both governors have refused to adequately fund public schools, which has shifted more and more of the burden for paying for public education onto the backs of local property taxpayers.

Why would any public servant divert scarce public funds to privately owned charter schoolsWATCH THIS VIDEO – The Charter School Industry’s abusive “no excuses” approach to education - Wait What?: 

Report Critiques State Takeover School Districts in LA, TN, and MI; Michigan’s Will Be Dissolved | janresseger

Report Critiques State Takeover School Districts in LA, TN, and MI; Michigan’s Will Be Dissolved | janresseger:

Report Critiques State Takeover School Districts in LA, TN, and MI; Michigan’s Will Be Dissolved

The Center for Popular Democracy released a fine new report earlier this week about three “‘takeover districts’ in which schools that are deemed ‘chronically failing’ are removed from the local school district and placed in a statewide district with a separate governance structure that is far less transparent and accountable to the public.”  The new report covers the Louisiana Recovery District, the Tennessee Achievement School District, and the Michigan Education Achievement Authority.

Such “recovery” or “achievement” school districts are a little different than direct state takeovers of school districts like those in Newark, New Jersey, or Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, or Highland Park, Michigan.  The states operating the “recovery” or “achievement” districts have created a separate statewide school district with the plan of removing particular low-scoring schools from their local district and inserting them into a new statewide governance body.

One of the first things you notice about these so-called statewide districts, however, is that they haven’t really succeeded well enough to operate statewide.  Louisiana’s Recovery School District (RSD) existed before Hurricane Katrina, but the rules for state seizure of schools were expanded immediately after the hurricane to enable state seizure of almost all of New Orleans’ public schools.  The state has added to the RSD several other schools in East Baton Rouge Parish, Point Coupee Parish, and Caddo Parish, but the majority of schools administered by the Louisiana RSD remain in New Orleans.  In Tennessee, according to the new report, “The state has elected to focus on Memphis: 27 of 29 Achievement School District (ASD) schools are located in Memphis; the remaining two schools are in Nashville.”  And in Report Critiques State Takeover School Districts in LA, TN, and MI; Michigan’s Will Be Dissolved | janresseger:

Kenney asked to investigate why Wister went charter

Kenney asked to investigate why Wister went charter:

Kenney asked to investigate why Wister went charter

A coalition of officials, parents, and activists asked Mayor Kenney on Wednesday to direct an investigation into an eleventh-hour School Reform Commission vote to hand Wister Elementary School over to a charter organization.

Councilwoman Helen Gym, chiefs of the unions representing Philadelphia School District principals and teachers, the head of the local NAACP chapter, and others asked Kenney to order the city's chief integrity officer to conduct "a full ethics review" of the school system and SRC.

A spokesman for Kenney said the city's integrity officer lacks investigatory powers, but separately will conduct an ethics review of the district and the SRC.

"Though not in response to today's request, [Chief Integrity Officer] Ellen Mattleman Kaplan does intend to conduct a thorough review of the 2012 Task Force report on Ethics at the Philadelphia School District, particularly as the administration considers future appointments to the SRC," said mayoral spokesman Mike Dunn. "It is a disappointment that the recommendations of that task force have been, thus far, largely ignored."

The SRC issued a statement that said, "We do not understand what Councilwoman Gym is referring to. The SRC has contracted with the city's inspector general to investigate anything in the district that comes to her attention. The councilwoman should direct her questions to the inspector general. The SRC and district will fully cooperate with any investigation the inspector general believes to be appropriate."

Wister, in Germantown, was one of three struggling schools identified for charter conversion in the fall, but Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. changed his mind after new data showed the school had made progress.

The SRC, on Jan. 21, scheduled votes to hand two other schools to charter providers; Wister was not on the agenda. But, after hours of public testimony at an emotionally charged meeting, Commissioner Sylvia Simms offered a resolution giving Wister to Mastery Charter Schools.

She said she had been swayed by parents who said the district had allowed low-income children to languish in failing schools. The resolution passed, 3-1, against Hite's wishes.

Gym and others say the city must look into "potential violations of the state's Sunshine Act, commissioners' potential conflicts of interest, and undisclosed lobbying" on behalf of would-be charter providers.

Simms' sister works for a firm that once counted Mastery as a client. Michael A. Davis,

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20160211_Kenney_asked_to_investigate_why_Wister_went_charter.html#yJY9VghCOAYWz2Dh.99

Virginia Charter School & Reform Status with Rachel Anne Levy | Education Town Hall Forum

Virginia Charter School & Reform Status with Rachel Anne Levy | Education Town Hall Forum:

Virginia Charter School & Reform Status with Rachel Anne Levy 

The Commonwealth of Virginia, for better and worse, has been slow to adopt charter schools and a variety of other education policies common in other states, says Rachel Levy, Virginia resident, teacher, activist, and “All Things Education” blogger. Levy joined the Education Town Hall on February 11 to discuss the status of education and reform efforts in the Commonwealth. Conversation with Levy — who joined the show remotely from the hallways of the Virginia House of Delegates — included the pending “Virginia Charter School Bill,” parental involvement, teacher preparation and related topics. Listen to full discussion below —

Education Town Hall, 2/11/16. Segment begins at 35:30

Rachel Anne Levy lives in Ashland, Virginia, with her husband and three children. She was born in Washington, DC, and is a proud graduate of DC Public Schools. She got her BA from Wesleyan University in 1995 and her master’s degree in education with certification in secondary social studies and pk-12 ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) from The George Washington University in 1999.

She has taught at a private Quaker school in Brooklyn, New York, in DC Public schools, in Albemarle County Public Schools, as an educator in Head Start classrooms for CYFS (Charlottesville Youth and Family Services), in evening classes for adults, and at a private preschool.

As a writer, she started her own education blog, All Things Education, in 2009. Her education writing and commentary has been featured in Blue Virginia, The Core Knowledge Blog, Joanne Jacobs’ Linking and thinking on education, So Educated, the Virginia Education Report, Education Week’s “Teacher in a Strange Land,” on Virginia Charter School & Reform Status with Rachel Anne Levy | Education Town Hall Forum: