CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Some Must-Reads for June

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Some Must-Reads for June:

ICYMI: Some Must-Reads for June

And not a word here about Brexit.  

The Importance of Parent Voice

Talking about the co-opting of language and  parent voice in Nashville and elsewhere.

The Reading Rules We Would Never Follow As Adults

Those rules we impose on student readers that, as adults, we would never stand for, and what that tells us about the authenticity of reading instruction. 

School Reform Is Really about Land Development

Somehow this sat and stewed for about a month before it got traction. It is an absolute must-read. If you only read two pieces on this list, this should be one of them.

What's Wrong with Christie's Wrongheaded School Aid Plan?

The spectacle of Tom Moran actually calling Christie really wrong.

Failure

You can't go wrong with Alfie Kohn, who may not blog often, but every time it's well thought out and deeply important.

CBE and ALEC Preparing Students for the Gig Economy

Competency based education is perfect grooming for the gig economy, where nobody ever has a steady job.

America's Not-So-Broken Education System

This would be the other must-read post from the week. Jack Schneider puts the whole picture in perspective and goes back to the fundamental flawed premise of reform.

North Carolina: The Ongoing Destruction of Public Education

Every so often, it's worth taking a moment to just step back and take in the full breadth of North Carolina's continuing attack on public schools and the teachers who work in them 

When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers

Not directly about education, this looks at how Wall Street is taking over basic services like health care, and the miserable side effects for people who depend on those services. It will all seem distressingly familiar.

No Words Can Charm a Computer

A student writes a letter to the editor that beautifully outlines why computer-based scoring is a stupid idea.

Politicians Say They Care About Education: Now Public School Advocates Are Putting Them To the Test

The education planks that should be in every party's platform

Vivian Connell: Her Last Post

Of all the voices that Diane Ravitch has amplified, none has been more moving and heart-wrenching than Vivian Connell, the teacher blogging about her long fight with ALS. This week she made her final post.

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Some Must-Reads for June:

The Truth Behind Grit

In 1955, researchers Emmy Werner and Ruth Smith approached every family on Kauai, HI, who had a child that year. 698 families said yes, beginning one of the longest studies of childhood development and childhood adversity ever conducted.The study is featured in a fascinating article at Mosaic Science by Lucy Maddox. The piece never uses the word "grit," but it looks at the question of re

5 by Peter Greene / 24min hide  //  save

Time To Speak Up on ESSA Regulations

While the new education law is on the books, it still remains to follow ESSA:The Law with it's even-more-important sequel ESSA: The Regulations. It's the body of regulations that determines exactly what the law means, how exactly the law will influence day to day life in Educationland.So the writing of ESSA regulations is Really Important, and it's an especially big deal this time because Secretar

53 by Peter Greene / 3h 

CBE: Personalized Education & The Indexing Problem

There are plenty of reasons not to like Competency Based Education, which can be found these days shambling about under the nom de guerre "personalized education." It's an appealing name, as it evokes images of a student with her own personal tutor and guide, her own educational concierge. Instead, it's actually a student strapped to a personal computer screen watching a parade of adapti

27 by Peter Greene / 13h 

PA: Cybers Are Delusional

It's been little more than a week since the bricks and mortar portion of the charter school industry took a big, hard swipe at their cyber-siblings. As you may recall, three major charter school groups released a "report" that was basically a blueprint for how to slap the cyber-schools with enough regulation to make them finally behave. The report was rough, noting all of the worst findi

6 by Peter Greene / 1d 

MD: State Super Gets Writing Lesson

Les Perelman is one of my heroes. For years he has poked holes in the junk science that is computer-graded writing, bringing some sanity and clarity to a field clogged with silly puffery.We are all indebted to Fred Klonsky for publishing an exchange between Perelman (retired Director of Writing Across the Curriculum at MIT) and Jack Smith, the Maryland State Superintendent of Schools. Maryland is

26 by Peter Greene / 1d 

JUN 24

OK: An Example for All of Us

Oklahoma has taken its share of lumps in the ed debates. Their legislature is not quite as determined to burn public education to the ground as are the legislatures of North Carolina or Florida. It's not quite as committed to cashing in on the charter revolution as Ohio. But Oklahoma remains in the grip of reformster baloney, and teachers are tired and frustrated. The word 'frustrated" comes

100+ by Peter Greene / 1d 

School Accountability Camps

Now that ESSA has opened the door (maybe, kind of) to new approaches to school accountability. What are the possibilities? Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Institute has outlinbed four possibilities in a list calculated to help us all conclude that only one of the possibilities is really legit. The list apparently grows out of the Fordham contest to design a compatibility system; I entered that compet

16 by Peter Greene / 1d 

Do Interim Tests Help?

You know the drill. We have to take the Big Standardized Tests in the spring, so in the fall and winter, maybe multiple times, we're going to take the pre-test, or practice test, or interim test, or testing test test.The plan is that this will get the students ready for the BS Test (because it is such an artificial, inauthentic task that it doesn't resemble any other activity except taking similar

57 by Peter Greene / 1d 

JUN 23

Intangible Greatness

You may have heard by now the satisfying news that the Supreme Court spanked Abbie Fisher in a decision that provides, as Salon put it, "A massive blow to mediocre white people coasting on their racial privilege." Fisher (and her lawyer, notorious affirmative action combatant Edward Blum) argued that as a mediocre white person, she should automatically get preference over a mediocre blac

42 by Peter Greene / 2d 

Attacking the Public in Public Education

Many parts of the attack on US public education have not been subtle or hard to detect. The refrain "our schools are failing" has been so steadily repeated for the past few decades that it is now accepted uncritically, independent of any evidence other than "Hey, I keep hearing people say it, so I guess it must be true." Now we hear it just tossed off as an aside, an assumption

51 by Peter Greene / 2d 

JUN 22

Charterista Faux Teacher Programs Make ESSA Demands of Feds

The damndest things turn up on Twitter some days. Take this document. Entitled "Joint Statement Calling for Transparency of Outcomes to Improve Teacher Preparation and Better Serve Students and Districts," this is a fairly transparent demand by several "alternative path" teaching programs that new regulations give them a better advantage in the Brave New ESSA World.Urban Teache

18 by Peter Greene / 3d 

PA: A Curious Online Learning Bill

I'm not honestly sure what to make of this one, but this bill has actually passed in the PA House, so we should probably pay a little bit of attention. It deals with online learning, so that demands attention as well.House Bill 1915 doesn't even have a snappy name, but its purpose is to establish the Online Course Clearinghouse.The bill was put out there by Rep. Jason Ortitay (R) who indicated tha

11 by Peter Greene / 3d 

JUN 21

Twenty Two Years & Lost Possibilities

Our local newspaper runs a "22 years ago today" item most days, a quick snapshot of what people were up to 22, 44 and 66 years ago. This morning I picked up the paper and saw a name I think about every year.The student was in my class, long long ago. He was what we like to call an "at risk" student, which is such a professional term to use, when the human reality of at risk stu

46 by Peter Greene / 4d 

JUN 20

Live Blogging Ed Reform Marriage Counseling Session

A few weeks ago, Robert Pondiscio wrote what seemed to me to be a fairly well-measured piece about the uneasy and possibly-unraveling collaboration between reformy conservatives and reformy liberals. I even wrote a vaguely thoughtful response. But lots of folks absolutely lost their heads, and the post and various responses to it bounced all over the reformy side of the blogoverse.That seems to ha

11 by Peter Greene / 5d 

Mexico: How Bad Can the Ed Debates Get?

I try to be careful with word choice. I've been reluctant to call the reformster-driven ed debates in this country a "war" or even an "assault" because when we inflate the nature of some conflict, we dilute the meaning of words, words that we may need when something that does more closely resemble an actual war, with fighting and shooting and killing. Which takes us to Mexico.N

100+ by Peter Greene / 5d 

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Some Must-Reads for June:

IT TAKES WORK…. with B.Keller | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing

IT TAKES WORK…. with B.Keller | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:

IT TAKES WORK…. with B.Keller

We think it’s time we spoke honestly about education and the role of the student in it. For the past two decades, many so called “experts” have absolved students of any responsibility in the education process. From telling students they don’t have to do homework, to lowering the passing grades and watering down curricula and tests, and most egregiously, to contending that students are incapable of staying focused longer than ten minutes at a time, the student has been removed from education’s equation. We believe this egregious assumption has been mostly about those students “experts” have low expectations of …mostly urban street kids.

Many of today’s students have a very hard time having to overcome the difficulty that usually accompanies learning new things. Many just say, “I can’t do this” and quit. The truth of the matter is that everything is hard when you start. Riding a bicycle is hard when you start, so is shooting a basketball, tying your shoes or learning the times table.

Quitting because it is difficult or because it doesn’t come easily is NOT how learning happens. In fact, learning, much like being successful in any other endeavor you can think of, doesn’t start off easily. The beginning of everything is a challenge, a battle, something unfamiliar. When things are unfamiliar, they are hard. That’s just how things are, that’s how they have always been. The fact is that the more you become with anything, the better you will get at that unfamiliar task and the “easier” it becomes.

We know this. We’ve seen it happen time and time again in classrooms. Over and over again, We all have had students complain that something we were trying to teach them, something with which they were totally unfamiliar orIT TAKES WORK…. with B.Keller | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing: 

Doctors and Their Relationships with Patients (Joel Merenstein) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Doctors and Their Relationships with Patients (Joel Merenstein) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Doctors and Their Relationships with Patients (Joel Merenstein)

Over the years I have written this blog, I have posted comparisons of medical clinicians and public school teachers. The substantial differences between the two helping professions (e.g., doctors work one-on-one, teachers in groups; doctors’ decisions can have immediate consequences for life and death, much less so for teachers; differences in salaries; social status, etc.) seemingly made comparisons far-fetched. What I focused on, however, was the centrality of the relationship between teacher and student, doctor and patient, as the core of both helping professions, one for learning in school and the other maintaining good health for patients (see here and here).

In this post and others to come, I offer examples of such a relationship between doctor and patient that captures the depth, breadth, and importance of that relationship  to both clinician and patient. Such accounts are uncommon in medical literature.

Joel Merenstein retired in 2005 from his family medicine practice in Pittsburgh (PA). He wrote this article for The Journal of Family Practice in 2010. He and two colleagues have recently published essays about family practice in The Human Side of Medicine.*

Being in practice for 42 years was like running a marathon. Things seem easy and pleasant at first, but then as time goes by, you hit the “wall” and you feel like you can’t go on. “It’s just too hard,” you think. And you wonder: “What am I doing here?”

In an actual marathon, you hit that wall somewhere around the 20-mile mark. (At least that’s what my son tells me.) But in my family medicine practice, I hit the wall at the 10-year mark.

If, like me, you decide not to quit, the endorphins kick in. You feel a high and know you could go on like this forever. You wonder to yourself: “Can life really be this good?”

And then, as the years pass by, you and your patients change and you know the race is coming to an end. It’s time to stop running. Yet, there are many losses in Doctors and Their Relationships with Patients (Joel Merenstein) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Killed for Being a Teacher – Mexico’s Corporate Education Reform | gadflyonthewallblog

Killed for Being a Teacher – Mexico’s Corporate Education Reform | gadflyonthewallblog:

Killed for Being a Teacher – Mexico’s Corporate Education Reform

In Mexico, you can be killed for being a teacher.

Correction: you can be killed for being a teacher who opens her mouth and speaks her mind.

You can be killed, kidnapped, imprisoned – disappeared.

That’s what happened to approximately six people a week ago at a protest conducted by a teachers union in the southern state of Oaxaca.

The six (some of whom were teachers) were gunned down by police and as many as 100 more people were injured near the town of Nochixtlan, about 50 miles northwest of Oaxaca City.

Conflict between teachers and governments has become commonplace across the globe as austerity and neoliberalism have become the policies du jour. Tax cuts for the rich lead to shrinking public services. And investment in the next generation through public education becomes a thing of the past.

Even here in the United States, educators are taking to the streets to protest a system that refuses to help students – especially poor and minority students – while blaming all deficiencies on one of the only groups that actually show up to help: teachers.

Though in America educators have been ignored, unjustly fired and even arrested for such protests, the Mexican government has resorted to all out murder.

How did it come to this? Follow the trail backwards to its source.

The activists in Oaxaca were protesting because several union officials had been Killed for Being a Teacher – Mexico’s Corporate Education Reform | gadflyonthewallblog:

Language and privilege make Detroit schools debacle worse

Language and privilege make Detroit schools debacle worse:

Language and privilege make Detroit schools debacle worse

Words can be used to show the same disrespect as a literal slap in the face, or worse.

As a writer, I know that all too well.

But what I can’t figure out, for the life of me, is why Republicans in the Michigan Legislature and the highly financed charter school lobby feel compelled to use the most insulting language to describe the recasting of public education here in Detroit. It has become so common that even press reports now refer to the legislation as a bailout.

Though, I’m pretty sure it boils down to two things: privilege and manipulation.

Why else, for instance, is the package of bills signed by the governor last week still being referred to as a bailout — as if the money included to retire public school debts were some sort of gift to rash, harebrained Detroiters?

The truth is that the vast majority of the debt being relieved — hundreds of millions of dollars — was racked up while the state was supposed to be righting the school district’s financial ship.

And to boot, it’s operating debt — short-term bonds sold to fill year-to-year budget holes.

DETROIT FREE PRESS

In Michigan, it's not just Detroit schools that are in trouble

Ostensibly, the very point of state intervention in the Detroit Public Schools, indeed the very reason our constitution gives the state ultimate authority over local governance, was to make things better. To balance the district’s books. To stabilize the population. To increase quality outcomes.

And I’m someone who fully understands how desperate that need has been in Detroit for a long time. I covered the public schools in Detroit back in the mid-1990s, back before anyone would dare raise a peep about state intervention, and I wrote no small number of stories about the gawking, lousy outcomes, the shameless corruption and the deep resistance to change.

But of course, the ostensible promises of a better future with state management never came to pass, for many reasons. And the end result, after nearly 17 years of in-and-out state oversight, was a fresh mound of debt tearing away at the funds that are supposed to go toward actually educating students.

And it’s not just that the state was responsible on the front end for that debt. As with all debt incurred by school districts in the state of Michigan, this borrowing would have been the state’s responsibility on the back end, too. In fact, had the Legislature not decided to pay it now, and the district fallen into default, the cost to the state would have been more by orders of magnitude.

So calling this a bailout of Detroit serves only to inflate the false sense of privilege that folks in other school districts (and many of their Lansing representatives) often express when they talk about the city, its problems, and how they connect to everyone else in the state.

And it’s an attempt to manipulate the conversation, to say that those of us in the city should somehow be thankful that this was done, rather than relieved that the state decided to clean up its own mess.

It’s not the only example.

Gov. Rick Snyder crows about the legislation’s provision to bring back the elected school board as if it’s a favor. But again, the whole point of state intervention is to be temporary and to provide a stable foundation for the return of elected governance. Talking about it in magnanimous terms pushes the privileged idea that, somehow, Detroiters deserve less than what all other Michiganders have.

I’ve also, over the years, been a harsh critic of Detroit’s elected school board. When I covered the district in the mid-1990s, I wrote about board members paying for Language and privilege make Detroit schools debacle worse:

 

Why San Francisco stopped teaching algebra in middle school - Business Insider

Why San Francisco stopped teaching algebra in middle school - Business Insider:

Why San Francisco stopped teaching algebra in middle school

San Francisco in the twenty-first century is the town that STEM built.

A city increasingly synonymous with startup culture and tech-centric innovation, its rapidly growing economy speaks to the value of studying science and mathematics.

Which is why it came as a surprise when the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD)-the central office of which occupies the same rarified square mile as the corporate HQs of Twitter, Uber, and Square-announced in 2014 that it would no longer offer Algebra I to eighth graders.

Instead, under the district's new mathematical course sequence, students would not be introduced to the joys of polynomials until high school.

Scale back math education in San Francisco? Why not cut Bible study at the Vatican while we're at it?

Such was the tenor of the response from irate parents who took to local radio and social mediato voice their disapproval. Under the city's previous standards, precociously numerate middle schoolers had been allowed to skip ahead to Algebra or Geometry.

While SFUSD insists that its new approach does not compromise the rigor of its education, but ensures that all students enter high school with the same mathematical foundation, many parents see the district's new standards as a dumbing down of the curriculum. As one angry commenter asked on an online petition website: " All the talk about American kids being behind in math and science, and now SFUSD makes a move to keep the most advanced math students from making progress?"

The battle over eighth grade algebra playing out in San Francisco is neither isolated nor new. Education experts have long considered Algebra a "gatekeeper" course that divides the more advanced mathematics of the college-bound set from the no-frills, computational arithmetic of general math.

The question of whether students should be ushered through that gate in the eighth or the ninth grade may seem like a small one, but it touches on a fundamental question in education policy: should schools push over-achievers ahead if that means leaving some students behind?

Algebra: "The New Civil Right"

It is telling that one of the first people to push for universal enrollment in algebra was a Why San Francisco stopped teaching algebra in middle school - Business Insider:

This School District Is Defying North Carolina's Transphobic HB2 Law in the Best Way Possible

This School District Is Defying North Carolina's Transphobic HB2 Law in the Best Way Possible:

This School District Is Defying North Carolina's Transphobic HB2 Law in the Best Way Possible

One school district is reopening in August with measures designed to support students of all genders and sexual orientations while giving the middle finger to HB2.​

North Carolina is currently a scary place to be LGBTQ. The state's transphobic HB2 bill — which prevents people from using bathrooms that do not match the sex they were assigned at birth, among other things — has put a spotlight on how tough the state is on people who aren't straight and cisgender. One North Carolina school district is taking important strides to change that. 

When Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools re-open in August, all transgender students will be called by their preferred names and pronouns. Their gender identity will be affirmed in restrooms, locker rooms, yearbooks, and graduation ceremonies, according to new guidelines released in a press conference on Monday, the Charlotte Observer reports. 

Class rosters will be updated with students' preferred names and all students will be able to access screened-off changing areas in locker rooms or single-stall bathrooms on request. Gender-specific activities that have no educational purpose (like separating girls and boys into two lines to go out for recess) will be phased out.

Official transcripts will still carry the names and genders on students' birth certificates. 

"This is about courage, understanding and compassion," CMS Superintendent Ann Clark told the Observer. "These are our children. These are the community's children."

According to the Charlotte Observer, experts estimate that just 0.3 percent of the population is transgender, but in a district of CMS's size (146,000 students), that amounts to more than 400 affected students.

A teacher training held on Monday helped educate faculty around issues uniquely faced by LGBTQ students.

"Until you really take some time to understand what it is to be transgender, you're just going to miss some things," Myers Park High School Principal Mark Bosco told the Charlotte Observer. 

Governor Pat McCrory responded to CMS's news by slamming the district for "purposely breaking state law," the Charlotte Observer reports (they're not).  This School District Is Defying North Carolina's Transphobic HB2 Law in the Best Way Possible:

 This School District Is Defying North Carolina's Transphobic HB2 Law in the Best Way Possible - http://www.seventeen.com/life/school/news/a41387/schools-are-defying-north-carolinas-transphobic-hb2-law-in-the-best-way-possible/

A bill that could silence teachers | The Charlotte Observer

A bill that could silence teachers | The Charlotte Observer:

A bill that could silence teachers

One provision, however, could punish teachers for protesting in favor of better classrooms and resources

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article85880232.html?ref=yfp#storylink=cpy

Last week, a group of three dozen teachers marched in Raleigh in an effort to draw attention to the appalling lack of basic educational materials available in their classrooms. When Governor McCrory refused to meet with them, 14 of these dedicated educators were arrested for sitting down in the street in protest. Under a new Senate bill, teachers who are arrested for failure to disperse could potentially lose their teaching licenses.

Senate Bill 867’s intent is stricter background checks for teachers applying for teaching licenses in North Carolina. Its current language requires the Department of Public Safety to provide criminal histories on individuals who apply for licensure to the State Board of Education. The board then makes a determination on whether the aspiring teacher has the “moral character required for professional educators” before issuing the teaching license.

Parmenter Nancy Pierce

The majority of the crimes listed in the bill make perfect sense if the goal is – as it should be – to keep our students safe. Few would argue that individuals who have been convicted of homicide, arson, prostitution, or misconduct in public office should be allowed to mold the young minds of tomorrow.

But the inclusion of Article 36A, which includes the act of remaining “at the scene of ... disorderly conduct by an assemblage of three or more persons, following a command to disperse,” departs from that sincere desire to protect our children. It means that individuals who have been arrested for protesting the lack of textbooks and toilet paper in North Carolina schools could be denied teaching careers, and those already teaching could potentially have their licenses revoked due to such an arrest.

Imagine the cruel irony of social studies students who are learning about the Greensboro sit-ins losing their teacher in such a manner.

NCAE President-elect Mark Jewell believes that the State Board would handle such decisions in a nonpartisan way, and he may be right. But why leave the power to end careers over the expression of free speech in the hands of a board that has been appointed by Governor McCrory?

Senate Bill 867 needs to be amended to ensure that it is not used to silence courageous teachers who simply want every student in our state to have access to the highest quality education possible.

Parmenter is a Waddell Language Academy 7th grade Language Arts Teacher and 2015-16 CMS Teacher of the Year for South Learning Community.A bill that could silence teachers | The Charlotte Observer:

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article85880232.html?ref=yfp#storylink=cpy

Big Education Ape: North Carolina Teachers Arrested After 20-Mile March To Governor's Office - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/06/north-carolina-teachers-arrested-after.html

So, You Have The Summer Off, Right? (Wrong) - Forbes

So, You Have The Summer Off, Right? (Wrong) - Forbes:

So, You Have The Summer Off, Right? (Wrong)

Ah, summer – such a beautiful, fleeting, catch-as-catch-can time of year. Especially for those of us who live north of the 45^th parallel, most of us have a pent up demand for what the summer season has to offer and therefore try to take at least a week off here and there to enjoy the experience.

During this time, I’m often amazed at how many people ask me whether I have the entire summer off. I wish! Over the years, I’ve heard everything from ‘You’re not really working, right? You just teach once in a while and since it’s summer you must be off’ to ‘Well, you help out with the business once in a while, but I mean, you can just hang out with the kids this summer, right?’

These types of comments, usually from well-meaning friends, happen on a surprisingly regular basis and have left me sensitive to and more understanding of other people out there who don’t fall into well-defined job descriptions…like other entrepreneurs and their spouses.

So for any of you out there who may be in a similar situation, you might relate to our situation. In our case, I grant you that my husband is the ‘classic entrepreneur’ and I readily acknowledge that I’m not; nor do I like to be in the limelight of our business. That said, since my early twenties, I’ve always worked long hours – including working pretty much every summer. I started off doing my MBA at night while I worked full-time during the day; I had two babies within 13 months when I started my Ph.D.; during the latter 5 years of completing my Ph.D., Charlie and I started our business together; then, once I took on a full-time academic position, I still maintained a part-time role at the company.

It may seem on the surface that professors are ‘off’ for the summer, but except for a few weeks of vacation, most of the profs that I know, spend much of the summer working. Not only are we getting ready for all of our students coming back in the late summer to our campus, by reading through new books to decide on potential course adoptions, re-working course syllabi or sometimes developing completely new courses, but it’s also ‘research central’. Most academics are responsible for conducting So, You Have The Summer Off, Right? (Wrong) - Forbes:

 

Science suggests genes can hugely influence academic performance — Quartz

Science suggests genes can hugely influence academic performance — Quartz:

Science suggests genes can hugely influence academic performance

Research shows that a student’s genetic makeup can have a strong influence on their academic performance.

Some interpret this to mean there is little that can be done to help those who struggle academically—and that spending extra money on these students to help them succeed is pointless.

But is this the case?

A major misconception is that genes are destiny. This is wrong because genes are never the full story. Environmental factors (“nurture”) also play a role in levels of academic achievement. Well-designed and well-delivered remediation can also help struggling students even in cases where genetic factors (“nature”) may be the source of the difficulties.

What we know about genetic influence

We know about strong genetic influences on academic skills primarily through the use of the twin method, where the genetic makeup of identical twins is compared with non-identical twins. Evidence of genetic influence emerges if identical twins are more alike in terms of academic performance than non-identical (“fraternal”) twins. Identical twins share all their genes, while “fraternal” twins share half of their genes, but both types share homes and schools.

Thus, researchers can estimate the degree to which genes affect academic achievement over and above the effects of homes and schools: that is, they can estimate how much ability is inherited. And because non-identical twins can be opposite-sex, researchers can also identify if nature and nurture play out differently with males and females.

For the most part the same genes appear to affect boys and girls, and in general gender effects are in danger of being exaggerated in public discourse.

Studies with twin children have been conducted worldwide, including inAustralia, the US, the UK, continental Europe, Asia, and Africa, with an emphasis on the core areas of literacy and numeracy. Estimates of genetic influence vary somewhat among subjects and locations, but range from near 50% to as high as 80%. The studies have used standardised tests as well as school-administered tests.

Less is known about creative and technical subjects, where particular talents clearly exist.

What about environmental influence?

Twin studies can also parse environmental influence into factors that twin children mostly share, such as home socio-economic status (SES) and school attended. There are also those that are unique to each child Science suggests genes can hugely influence academic performance — Quartz:

Stakeholder Input for State ESSA Plans - Capturing the Spark: Energizing Teaching and Schools - Education Week Teacher

Stakeholder Input for State ESSA Plans - Capturing the Spark: Energizing Teaching and Schools - Education Week Teacher:

Stakeholder Input for State ESSA Plans

It's easy to complain about laws and policies we don't like, much harder to craft policies that make complicated systems function effectively. When it comes to federal education law and policy, we're beginning the transition from No Child Left Behind to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The new federal act calls on states to gather stakeholder input as they develop a state plan for ESSA implementation, and last week, I had the opportunity to participate in that process. At the end of this post there's more information for Californians who want to be involved.

Here are some of my takeaway thoughts and observations from the experience.

Where are the teachers?

At the start of the meeting, our facilitator from the California Department of Education (CDE), Barbara Murchison, asked the 40-50 people present about our job description. There were only two teachers in the room. Later in the event, the number of attendees had grown with some late arrivals, so I don't know if the number of teachers increased, but it still wasn't enough. Most of the participants were district level staff and administrators, those who have the direct responsibility for following the laws and reporting to the CDE. I was glad to see that one of the questions from the CDE was how to improve outreach, and I hope they'll follow some of our suggestions. Those of us in attendance had learned about the meeting through an email from the CDE, and I would imagine very few teachers subscribe to CDE email lists. We suggested that the CDE needs to reach out directly to stakeholder groups through our professional associations and unions.

As for parent and student input and feedback, we asked if and when that would be part of the process, and were assured that the CDE has heard about the need to expand its stakeholder dialogue as the process continues.

I would also suggest to my teaching peers that more of us need to be proactive in seeking opportunities to influence policy, and participate in policy discussions at every level.

The California Way

In recent years, California has adopted or held on to a variety of education policies that have put our state at odds with federal education policy and priorities coming out of the Obama administration, especially during Arne Duncan's leadership at the Education Department. Race to the Top and NCLB waivers pushed states to pursue a variety of policies - mainly around testing and the use of test scores - that California resisted, and wisely so. My fellow EdWeek blogger, Charles Taylor Kerchner, writes the "On California" blog and has written frequently about "The California Way" - education policy that has emerged during the leadership of three top officials in the state: Governor Stakeholder Input for State ESSA Plans - Capturing the Spark: Energizing Teaching and Schools - Education Week Teacher:

Charter school association draws financial battle lines in Assembly race

Charter school association draws financial battle lines in Assembly race:

Charter school association draws financial battle lines in Assembly race

WATSONVILLE >> As the dust settles on the primaries, Anna Caballero’s 20-point lead over Karina Cervantez Alejo in the race for the 30th Assembly District stands out as one of the few unexpected outcomes of the June 7 vote.

Despite receiving a host of key early endorsements, including a nod from the California Democratic Party, Cervantez Alejo only received 25 percent of the vote in comparison to Caballero’s 45 percent.

Although it is difficult to discern the precise reasons for this outcome, it is clear the race was affected to some degree by a committee called Parent Teacher Alliance, sponsored by California Charter Schools Association Advocates Independent Expenditure Committee, which poured $948,432 into Caballero’s campaign in the months leading up to the election.

As the political arm of the California Charter Schools Association, California Charter Schools Association Advocates promotes charter schools in the public policy arena by supporting candidates who they believe will prioritize their mission in Sacramento.

“We look at individuals whose backgrounds are diverse and have a broad perspective; candidates who are champions of students and have experience serving the community,” said Richard Garcia, campaign election communications director for the California Charter Schools Association.

While Garcia said that the California Charter Schools Association is funded by “a broad coalition” of contributors, five people are responsible for more than 80 percent of the association’s donations since July 2015.

Those contributors are Netflix CEO Reed Hastings of Santa Cruz, GAP co-founder Doris Fisher, entrepreneur Eli Broad, former hedge fund manager John Arnold, and Carrie Walton Penner, heir to the Wal-Mart fortune.

“I’m not sure what assumptions the billionaires spending money to defeat me made about my position on charter schools because I was never interviewed by them,” said Cervantez Alejo. “And if they had, they would have learned that I have worked with teachers and students from local charter schools such as Ceiba and Allianza. And as a legislator, I would always perform my due diligence in investing in strong quality education for all of our students.”

Caballero said she was unaware of the California Charter Schools Association’s support until it created the independent expenditure committee. She said the campaign contributions would not affect her voting record if she is elected.

“There’s an implication that if someone supports you financially, you are going to vote their way. That’s not the case. I have an open door policy. Everyone gets in. I listen, I study the facts and I decide how I’m going to vote based on that,” Caballero said.

So why has education come to define the battle lines of California’s legislative races?

“That’s a little unclear, but education represents a huge piece of the spending in California’s budget and these parties want to decide how that spending is done,” said Rob Pyer, research director of California Targetbook, which performs a nonpartisan review of legislative races.

What is clear is that the strategy is not isolated to the 30th Assembly District. A similar dynamic played out in 17 other Assembly races across the state.

“We saw (California Charter Schools Association) back the more moderate candidate in a lot of Charter school association draws financial battle lines in Assembly race: