NYC Public School Parents: Deborah Meier on the controversy about the principal at Central Park East 1

NYC Public School Parents: Deborah Meier on the controversy about the principal at Central Park East 1:

Deborah Meier on the controversy about the principal at Central Park East 1

Deborah Meier, founder of Central Park East, sent this letter this morning about the ongoing controversy about the principal at CPE 1.  More on this here.  CPE parents demanding the ouster of the principal have a website here.

Dear friends,

I am frequently asked about the situation at Central Park East I that has recently made the news.  Which side am I on, I’m asked.

I’m unequivocally on the side of those who wisely have concluded that the current principal must move on.  She cannot do the job required.  Bringing in someone to “help” her where she is weak is not a solution, but merely a postponing of the inevitable drift into more “standardized”  practice and a more hierarchical school structure. 

What is needed is an interim solution that helps pull the school together, hire new staff, set the tone and continue to improve the practices and approach that has marked CPE I’s 43 year history.  

These include: staff governance, choice for families and staff, strong parental voice and advice, substantial teacher autonomy to develop curriculum,  no admissions requirements re academic or social “fitness”, dedicated to serving predominantly low-income students of color, and the belief that a good open, progressive school should be able to serve all children together without separating them by so-called ability—by tracking in any form including social or racial indicators.   CPE I’s form of progressivism was, on the spectrum, perhaps more inclined to emphasizing “play”—self-initiated cognitive activity--which often includes physical movement, as well as choice, sustained periods for uninterrupted work, peer collaboration, and demonstration versus standardized testing.  Work and Play share common purposes and are, in fact,  hard to distinguish.  Play is at the heart of serious intellectual work, and observation provides teachers with the best means of support for further growth which rests, in professional jargon, in something called self “agency”.

CPE was dedicated to the task of creating a democratic community of citizens with different roles to play--students playing the role of citizens-to-be in some areas and equal citizens in others.  It was based on substantial time set aside for children and their families to meet with their teachers, and open access to classrooms by family members.  

It was also based on an agreement between the staff to meet together several hours a week, mostly during the school day as well as before and after the school year—plus a planning meeting for the fulltime professional staff in mid winter.  If the faculty was responsible for the school’s work it needed time to effectively play such a role—on matters great and small.   

For 32 years this process worked—serving largely District 4 families, plus a very small number of District 5 and others.  We had a commitment not to seek a waiting list!  When we had more applicants than spaces the District agreed to start other schools that worked together with us and had a single application process--thus CPE II and River East.  The teacher-directors (and later principals) of these schools were almost always former teachers in the same or similar schools.

We were just three out of what became a District of 50 small schools during that same period, all with far more autonomy than generally found in urban public schools—including the neighborhood schools (only one was closed due to low enrollment in the district) and the new schools of choice.  

A few years after we opened the District asked us to add white students to help the District to gain access to Federal integration funds—and to NYC Public School Parents: Deborah Meier on the controversy about the principal at Central Park East 1:

Chicago Principals Speak Out on CPS Budget Cuts – Troy LaRaviere's blog

Chicago Principals Speak Out on CPS Budget Cuts – Troy LaRaviere's blog:

CHICAGO PRINCIPALS SPEAK OUT ON CPS BUDGET CUTS

CPS principals respond to the misleading narrative that “principals are relieved” after avoiding “doomsday” budget cuts

What did principals say after Wednesday’s budget meeting?

“This budget will definitely have a negative impact at the classroom level.”

“The papers they gave us did not match the actual deficits when we opened our real budgets.”

“The repeated statement that the cuts are being kept ‘away from the classroom’ is maddening.”

“It’s like being in an abusive relationship.”

“They got a cookie, took a huge bite, left us the crumbs….”

“This budget is just the latest manifestation of a pattern of CPS officials creating ways to take their horrible decisions and make us responsible for them.”

An ABC7 story declared that principals were “relieved” about their budgets. This narrative is far different than the feedback the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association received from our members. “Dejected” & “Insulted” were just two of the Chicago Principals Speak Out on CPS Budget Cuts – Troy LaRaviere's blog:

Ohio Pays Millions While Students at ECOT Average Only an Hour a Day at Online School | janresseger

Ohio Pays Millions While Students at ECOT Average Only an Hour a Day at Online School | janresseger:

Ohio Pays Millions While Students at ECOT Average Only an Hour a Day at Online School

Jim Siegel reported yesterday for the Columbus Dispatch that despite Judge Stephen McIntosh’s refusal to grant the restraining order demanded by the state’s largest online charter school to prevent a state audit of its attendance records, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) continues to refuse to share its records openly with the state’s investigators:

“Despite a judge’s ruling this week, the state’s largest online charter school has apparently declined to hand over all records requested by the Ohio Department of Education so it can conduct an attendance audit.  After a Franklin County judge on Monday denied ECOT’s request for a temporary restraining order to block the state from conducting the audit, state investigators moved into the school’s Columbus headquarters to begin reviewing data. But, according to an e-mail sent Tuesday from the Education Department’s attorney to ECOT’s legal counsel, the information ECOT provided was not complete…. The standoff is the latest development in an ongoing battle between the Education Department and the politically well-connected online school….”

Patrick O’Donnell, the Plain Dealer‘s education reporter shares some of the back story about Ohio’s push to audit attendance at the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, which collected over $100 million last year to educate 15,000 students online. Apparently an initial audit of school attendance records earlier in the spring turned up some shocking news: “An initial review this spring raised red flags that students at ECOT, Ohio’s largest online school, may have done far less work than required.” “‘Those (ECOT’s) records did not substantiate the number of educational hours for which ECOT had billed ODE,’ the state’s lawyers added.”

O’Donnell continues: “Many students at the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) online charter school spend just an hour a day online taking their classes… all the while the state pays the school as if they were full-time students.  That detail was included in a filing for the state in Franklin County Common Pleas Court Monday as the Ohio Department of Education audits the giant charter school’s records.” “Unlike a traditional school, where teachers can take attendance every day, students at online schools like ECOT take classes at home by Ohio Pays Millions While Students at ECOT Average Only an Hour a Day at Online School | janresseger:

In Washington DC ‪#‎PeoplesMarch16‬ By Kelly Ann Braun, BAT Leadership Team - Ohio BAT Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association:

In Washington DC ‪#‎PeoplesMarch16‬

By Kelly Ann Braun, BAT Leadership Team and Ohio BAT



I saw three children with their mom, there for the rally, in the hotel lobby. They taught me that the board there was a touch screen. I forget where they were from, but feel sure of where they are headed.


I saw a child from Chicago step to the mic, and without script or paper, choke up while he realized with deep awareness that he was standing where his great granddaddy had stood. Leading, pleading for still for the same his granddaddy had wanted for him. 

I saw a huge circle of children sitting around a gentleman leading them in simple chants, that they might lead the march.

I saw two children help their daddy take a giant pencil out of a box, and I watched them as they watched him sing out his message once again. The daughter sang every single solitary word right along with him.

I saw two grandchildren there with their activist Florida grandma.

I saw the astute son of twoBadass Teachers Association:

History Social Science Framework - Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education)

History Social Science Framework - Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education):

Superintendent Torlakson Announces Approval 

of History–Social Science Framework 

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today announced that the State Board of Education voted to approve the History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, which will update and upgrade history and social science instruction in California.

"This is a big win for our students," said Torlakson. "This document will improve the teaching and learning of history and social science. It will give our students access to the latest historical research and help them learn about the diversity of our state and the contributions of people and groups who may not have received the appropriate recognition in the past."

The Framework provides guidance to teachers, administrators, and publishers for the teaching of history and social science. It includes more than 20 detailed classroom examples that show teachers how they can integrate their instruction to build students' history–social science knowledge and skills, literacy skills, and English language development.

"The adoption of this Framework today is an important part of our instructional program, said President Michael Kirst of the California State Board of Education. "Hundreds of people representing broad perspectives contributed to the development of this important tool for teachers and classrooms. The new Framework will help guide classroom instruction at each grade level and will be used with other instructional resources to ensure all students have a broad understanding of history."

The Framework adds considerable information on civic learning, consistent with the work of Torlakson's California Task Force on K–12 Civic Learning. In addition, information was added about financial literacy; voter education; genocide; and the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans and people with disabilities to the history of California and the United States.

Many members of the public participated in the development of the Framework, which received an unprecedented amount of public comments. During the online survey period, for example, the California Department of Education (CDE) received more than 700 public comments from more than 480 different submitters. During the second field review, which lasted from December 17, 2015, to February 29, 2016, CDE received more than 10,000 e-mail comments.

"People are passionate about the way they are portrayed in history," said Torlakson. "We are glad so many people and groups participated in our lengthy public comment and review process."

Many topics in the Framework sparked spirited debates, including "comfort women" in World War II, the Bataan Death March and the Battle of Manila, the roles of LGBT Americans in U.S. and California history, the Armenian Genocide, and discrimination faced by Sikh Americans.History Social Science Framework - Year 2016 (CA Dept of Education):

# # # #

Tom Torlakson — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5206, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

Opt-Out: Believe the DNC and Hillary – OR – John King, the Secretary of Education? | Reclaim Reform

Opt-Out: Believe the DNC and Hillary – OR – John King, the Secretary of Education? | Reclaim Reform:

Opt-Out: Believe the DNC and Hillary – OR – John King, the Secretary of Education?

 These are facts, not opinions.

Secretary of Education John King will financially penalize schools and districts when parents opt-out of high stakes standardized testing for their children. John King is appointed by President Obama.

The DNC and Hillary will guarantee the rights of parents opt-out of high stakes standardized tests with no penalty for children, parents, schools or teachers.

“Thanks to collaboration between Clinton and Sanders drafters and platform committee members, the public education plank in the Democratic platform represents a refreshing sea change in its approach to public education, to the students we serve, and to the parents and educators who work so hard to give all our children the opportunity they deserve.”

“We also support enabling parents to opt their children out of standardized tests without penalty for either the student or their school.” See the source and links HERE and HERE.

HOWEVER –Opt-Out: Believe the DNC and Hillary – OR – John King, the Secretary of Education? | Reclaim Reform:

Vocational Training in Blue-Collar Communities Helps Boys, Disadvantages Girls - The Atlantic

Vocational Training in Blue-Collar Communities Helps Boys, Disadvantages Girls - The Atlantic:

How Girls in Blue-Collar Communities Are Being Left Behind

Schools often offer vocational classes at the expense of advanced courses, which can leave young women with few options.

 National debate about where students should go after they finish high schoolgenerally favors college as the path to success. Yet several states have ramped up vocational training in the past several years in an attempt to equip kids with enough skills to land decent-paying jobs right after they pick up their diplomas.

In 2013, Texas made graduation requirements that had previously emphasized college readiness friendlier to vocational education, now typically called career-and-technical education, or CTE. Michigan and Louisiana have also strengthened programs intended to prepare students for lucrative blue-collar jobs. And a bipartisan group in Congress recently backed a bill that would give states more flexibility in how they develop CTE.

While there’s fierce discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of promoting career training in high schools, largely overlooked is whether such training affects girls differently than boys. But according to a new study spearheaded by a sociologist at Cornell University and set to be published in the August issue of the American Sociological Review, high-school training in blue-collar communities disadvantages women.  

April Sutton and her co-authors, Amanda Bosky and Chandra Muller from the University of Texas at Austin, found that high schools in blue-collar communities often offer vocational training in response to the needs of the local labor market. That by itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but schools often focus on vocational or technical training at the expense of advanced math and other courses that are designed to prepare students to succeed in college.

When those college-prep courses are superseded by vocational classes, both young men and women are, predictably, less likely to enroll in a four-year college. Young men seem to fare just fine when this happens. They frequently take the vocational courses that are offered and find jobs in industries like construction or oil that pay well, sometimes even more than work requiring a four-year college Vocational Training in Blue-Collar Communities Helps Boys, Disadvantages Girls - The Atlantic:

After Being Ordered To Consolidate, District Argues It Would Create White Flight | ThinkProgress

After Being Ordered To Consolidate, District Argues It Would Create White Flight | ThinkProgress:

After Being Ordered To Consolidate, District Argues It Would Create White Flight

A five-decade fight to desegregate the schools in a small Mississippi town continues, as the school district is appealing a federal court order for the district to combine its two high schools and two middle schools.

Two of the school district’s schools, a middle school and a high school, are overwhelmingly black. As of May of last year, in fact, every single child enrolled at the Cleveland school district’s high school was black. The federal judge presiding over the case concluded that consolidating schools would allow the “greatest degree of desegregation possible” in the county.

The school district is appealing this decision, however. The school board’s three white board members voted to appeal while its two black board members voted against it, according to the Washington Post. The school board’s lawyer, Jamie Jacks, told the Post that “the district has the most integrated classrooms of any school district in the area,” and that school consolidation would result in white flight from the schools.

Related Post

Bolivar County, Mississippi Fought School Desegregation For 50 Years. It Finally Lost.

Although these two schools continue to be racially isolated, the school district has been ordered to desegregate through various reforms. A 1969 court order instructed the school district to divide into attendance zones to ensure diversity in schools. But in the 1980s, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a complaint claiming some of the school district's policies were still standing in the way of integration.

The Cleveland school district certainly isn't alone. There are a lot of school desegregation cases that remain open decades after they first began. ProPublica took a close look at these desegregation orders in 2014 and found that, although many court orders have been lifted over the past 15 years, some still remain open. The highest number of these cases, both voluntary and court-ordered desegregation cases, were concentrated in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi.

For instance, there has been a lawsuit against the Avoyelles Parish School Board in Louisiana for almost 50 years by now. Last year, a desegregation order from the U.S. Department of Justice laid out the various policies and expectations the Avoyelles Parish school system must meet. Critics of Louisiana's school voucher program say that the program is increasing school segregation.

There were still fairly high numbers of open cases in New York, California, and Connecticut, however. Looking at the national picture, a high percentage of students of color attend segregated schools. A study released in 2012 from the University of California, Los Angeles, found that 43 percent of Latino students and 38 percent of black students in the U.S. attend schools where fewer than 10 percent of their classmates are white. More than one in seven black and Latino students attend "apartheid" schools or schools where less than 1 percent of their classmates are white.

Recent U.S. Supreme Court cases haven’t aided efforts to desegregate. The court ruled public school assignment plans would not “take account of students’ race” in a 2007 case affecting students in Louisville, Kentucky and Seattle, effectively hamstringing many school districts' efforts to make their schools more diverse.After Being Ordered To Consolidate, District Argues It Would Create White Flight | ThinkProgress:

Rally for Education Justice—Are We Winning? | The Progressive

Rally for Education Justice—Are We Winning? | The Progressive:

Rally for Education Justice—Are We Winning?

 With the sound of jet engines booming overhead, a crowd of about 800 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial last week to advocate for “the people’s education.”  The People’s March for Public Education and Social Justice took place in the middle of a political “no-fly” zone in Washington, DC. Democrats and Republicans alike have largely avoided the issues raised by the People’s March. But at the grassroots level, the backlash against bipartisan, corporate education reform has grown too big to ignore.  High-stakes testing, crackdowns on teachers unions, and the massive growth of privately controlled charter schools that undermine local neighborhood schools—especially in low-income, non-white communities—drove hundreds of activists to come out and protest.

Speakers including education historian Diane Ravitch and best-selling author and education justice advocate Jonathan Kozol denounced the assault on teachers and students taking place in schools, calling out a culture of "test and punish" that strips teachers of their professionalism and robs children of the joys of learning.

North Carolina's Reverend William Barber, of the Moral Monday Movement, and Keron Blair, who directs the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools also spoke, placing the fight to save public schools firmly in the intersection of civil rights and social justice movements represented by Black Lives Matter, Fight for $15, and other popular progressive causes.

All agreed that current education policies—often referred to as “reforms”—impose a mandate from policy elites and wealthy foundations that are blind to the impacts  of their ideas on school communities, and deaf to the voices of those who oppose them. The group called for equitable funding across all public schools, an end to high-stakes testing, strong local leadership, and support for professional, qualified, and committed teachers.

Since the early days of the Obama administration, the pushback against prevailing education policies coming from the Beltway has been an inconvenient noise in the Democratic Party. Once it became apparent that the Obama Administration would maintain a “Washington consensus” on the education policies it inherited from George W. Bush, Rally for Education Justice—Are We Winning? | The Progressive:

Amid Changing Mandates, Colorado Schools Work to Get Parents Involved

Amid Changing Mandates, Colorado Schools Work to Get Parents Involved:

Amid Changing Mandates, Colorado Schools Work to Get Parents Involved

 Numerous studies have shown that low-income parents tend to participate less in their children’s educational experience than parents with higher incomes. For more than 50 years, the U.S. government has been trying to change that by offering funding to increase parent involvement in low-income schools. In Colorado, one school district began implementing programs to address the issue after learning it was not in compliance with federal requirements – programs that continue today even as federal legislation evolves.

Since 1965, with the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Act (ESEA), Congress has tied parent involvement to federal education funding. This trend continued with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 and then the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015. While states and counties grapple with changing federal requirements, outreach coordinators in Thompson School District in Loveland, Colo., are primarily focused on building strong, personal relationships with parents and giving them input and leadership opportunities in their local parent-engagement programs.

Low-income parents face demographic and psychological barriers to participating in their child’s education, as well as language and cultural barriers, according to the American Counseling Association.

However, these barriers are not insurmountable. A 2013 literature review by the research institute MDRC.orgconcludes: “Parents from diverse backgrounds, when given direction, can become more engaged with their children.” This review looked at learning activities at home, family involvement in schools, school outreach to engage families and supportive parenting activities.

In the Thompson School District, two schools in particular have used federal funding to engage parents in creative ways. At Truscott Elementary, Spanish-speaking parents started a “Café Con Leche” group to socialize and plan ways to help at school. At Winona Elementary, in the same district, “Padres en Acción” formed to provide training for parents, enabling them to tutor children at home and to serve as tutors inside the school.

Federal parent-involvement funds help to increase parent engagement. One direct way is by outreach staff that help parents support their children’s learning. In 2002, when Congress passed the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) bill, each school district receiving NCLB funds was required to use up to 1 percent of its federal funds for activities, materials and resources that improved parent involvement.

Under the “Every Student Succeeds Act” (ESSA), accountability for those dollars will change from federal hands to state and local hands. Opinions differ on the merits of this change, but the most important thing, according to Michelle Myers, the family outreach liaison at Truscott and Winona Elementary schools in Loveland, is that outreach must be positive and personal to strengthen parent partnerships.

Getting into Compliance

In the first years of NCLB, federal reviewers found that Colorado and other states’ schools were not complying with parent notification and participation requirements. The Colorado Department of Education (CDE) provided support and guidance to help local districts to comply. The first use of parent involvement funds in the early years of NCLB at Thompson School District was for part-time wages to family outreach liaisons who served as Spanish language interpreters at all the district’s Title I schools.

Many schools in the district offered a “menu” of ways for parents to help their children at home and at school. Still, principals found it difficult to recruit diverse and disadvantaged parents to serve on committees or to volunteer in school.

Myers helped the principals of Truscott and Winona Elementary schools to manage parent participation in school planning and decision-making as well as the use of federal parent-involvement funds.

Her teammates, Gloria Major and Claudeth Castellanos, did similar work in other schools within Thompson School District. Their Spanish language fluency and positive relations with parents help them make personal invitations to school events. When they can, they accompany Spanish-speaking parents and call to get feedback, Myers said.

“I spend time with every parent to discuss the school’s responsibility to involve them in the education of their children,” Myers said. “Special education staff and the English language acquisition teachers also look for Amid Changing Mandates, Colorado Schools Work to Get Parents Involved:

San Ysidro School District teachers ripped off? | San Diego Reader

San Ysidro School District teachers ripped off? | San Diego Reader:

San Ysidro School District teachers ripped off?
County education board superintendent suspected of malfeasance

 In 2014, the board of the San Ysidro School District told the teachers it was nearly broke and asked them to swallow a pay cut of 8 percent. The teachers went on strike, then settled for 1 percent, but now they are demanding money back.

In a claim filed July 1, they say that the board hid deep in a books and supplies account some $4 million that would have covered a decent pay hike. Moreover, the county office of education, overseer then of the district's chaotic finances, failed to take notice. In fact, the teachers allege, two top county education officials "purposely hid" the money to make the district financial picture look "more dire than it was."

Such "misleading and deceitful actions," according to the claim filed with the county board of education, forced the strike "when there were funds available to prevent" it.

Randolph E. Ward

As they press for their losses to be restored, members of the teachers' bargaining unit, the San Ysidro Education Association, are calling for the resignations of county school superintendent Randolph E. Ward and a top aide, Lora Duzyk, whom allegedly was directly involved in overseeing district finances. The teachers' association president, Guillermina Sandez, told the school board the two county officials' actions amounted to "institutionalized racism" against poor Latino youth.

Meanwhile, a call for the resignations of Ward and Duzyk came July 7 from another quarter, the California Taxpayers Action Network. As reported in La Prensa, the network filed a lawsuit alleging that superintendent Ward set things up so that he and Duzyk could receive pay raises without performance reviews.

The complaint alleges that the superintendent tied his salary hikes to those of county office of education teachers and, since he negotiated the teachers' contracts, had an inherent conflict of interest. Duzyk, the court filings note, was paid by the San Ysidro district as its overseer from 2013 to 2015 and saw her salary jump 6 percent while she advocated cuts for the San Ysidro teachers.

And a report issued May 24 by the San Diego County Grand Jury calls for an "independent forensic audit" of the San Ysidro School District, noting that hundreds of millions in long-term debt had been amassed "with little to show for it." The grand jury report said the district has ignored citizens' requests made as far back as 1998 to form a bond-oversight panel. Voters in 1997 had approved a $250 million bond issue, and it would not be until three years later before a state law took effect requiring citizen oversight.

Among other irregularities noted by the grand jury:San Ysidro School District teachers ripped off? | San Diego Reader:

Do charter schools have advantages that accelerate brain drain?

Do charter schools have advantages that accelerate brain drain?:

Do charter schools have advantages that accelerate brain drain?

Do more charter schools have certain built-in advantages that lead to socio-economic segregation in public education, thus making the job of traditional public schools that much harder?

Some local school administrators certainly think so, but charter supporters are calling foul.

As families with the economic means and the motivation to enroll and send their child to a charter school that may be located outside the region do so, local superintendents say, it can leave districts with a higher proportion of less-advantaged and poorer children who aren’t able to do the same.

Indeed, the main reason many families who left the Gill-Montague Regional School District for School Choice or charter schools gave for doing so, were concerns about the peer-to-peer interaction between their children and other students, wrote Superintendent Michael Sullivan in a letter to state Senate President Stanley Rosenberg last year urging him to oppose raising the current 120-school limit on new or expanded charter schools in Massachusetts.

Sullivan said that scenario can become cyclical: “My concern is that this dynamic could lead to a negative cycle ... resulting in higher concentrations of underserved students in the districts they leave,” Sullivan said. “This in turn could lead to even greater interest in leaving for schools where parents perceive there will be a higher percentage of students who come from more advantaged circumstances.”

He said that trend could leave his district with a disproportionate number of students who have a harder time doing well in school.

Tamara Grogan, a Greenfield High School French teacher and member of the board at Greenfield’s Four Rivers Charter Public School, doesn’t deny some of those concerns may have validity, especially when it comes to parental motivation and transportation.

Savvy parents

“The place where the playing field is not level is in applications. That’s a valid criticism. If you’re a parent who’s willing to fill out a piece of paper, you’re different from a parent who is not willing to do so,” she said. “(District schools) have to bus everyone in, and (Four Rivers) doesn’t have to. The experience I’ve had though is most parents who are living out of the area are doing things to get there… carpooling… they’re finding ways.”

But Grogan said most local district schools can take advantage of state and federal grant programs to build or repair facilities, and that’s less common in charter schools. Four Rivers had to foot the entire $5.8 million cost of purchasing the campus and constructing its main instructional building, Peter Garbus, the principal, said. The state school building assistance bureau contributes about three quarters of school construction costs.

“Does Four Rivers have a gym? Does it have an auditorium? No,” Grogan said. “Does it have an art studio or a big music room? No. It has a rusty barn with a concrete floor, and that’s where they do all the gym stuff when it’s raining outside.”

Cherry picking?

Beyond just economic stratification, many critics of charters schools also accuse them of being able to artificially “cherry-pick” the students who attend their schools, either reducing the number of special needs students they accept by failing to offer adequate programming for them or by encouraging students with low academic performance to transfer back to their home district through strict discipline policies.

Four Rivers’ wait list currently has 74 students on it.

But according to state education data, that doesn’t appear to be the case in Franklin County, at least.

Garbus said the student demographics at his school largely mirror those of the county at large.

By race, data from DESE for 2015 shows that Four Rivers’ 217-student population included about half as many African American students as the county overall, according to federal census data, but nearly twice the number of both Asian and Hispanic students. Eighty-five and a half percent of the school’s students are white compared to 94.1 percent of the county’s total population.

By educational subgroup, the state’s Charter Analysis and Review Tool shows that Four Rivers, in Do charter schools have advantages that accelerate brain drain?:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Ed activists enter the lion's den, win some important concessions

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Ed activists enter the lion's den, win some important concessions:

Ed activists enter the lion's den, win some important concessions

In an unexpected move, Democrats have revised the K-12 education section of their party’s 2016 platform in important ways, backing the right of parents to opt their children out of high-stakes standardized tests, qualifying support for charter schools, and opposing using test scores for high-stakes purposes to evaluate teachers and students. -- Washington Post

Party platforms mean little and are usually forgotten the day after the election. This year's platform fight within the Democratic Party is more significant than usual because it reflects the struggles of real movements on the ground -- the Fight For 15 Movement, for example -- and because of the realignment of forces within both major political parties.

Dem platform now supports Opt-Out

Throughout the primary campaign, Sanders continually tried to drag Clinton leftward on policy. Leading up to the national convention, Sanders insisted that the party adopt “the most progressive platform ever passed.” That may be a low bar, but it did.

For the first time, after intense internal debate between the Clinton and Sanders factions, the DNC's platform committee backed the unqualified inclusion of the $15 minimum wage as the official policy of the party. They also dropped their statement of support for TPP.

With education activists like Chicago's Troy LaRaviere leading the way, the Sanders forces wrung concessions from Clinton loyalists and came away with an education plank that broke from the current administration's outright support for privately-run charters and high-stakes testing. The party is now on record in its support for the opt-out movement of parents and Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Ed activists enter the lion's den, win some important concessions:

California Floats Multiple Measures for Grading Schools - Living in Dialogue

California Floats Multiple Measures for Grading Schools - Living in Dialogue:

California Floats Multiple Measures for Grading Schools

By Anthony Cody.

This week leaders in the California Department of Education released a new system for “grading schools”that proposes to assign schools a set of colored indicators based on a variety of measurements. This system is intended to replace the old system of performance indicators which gave schools a single numeric score, (the Academic Performance Index, or API) based only on test scores. While this new system brings us elements of that long sought goal of “multiple measures,” I fear that we have yet to escape the box of the “measure to manage” paradigm.

Over the past eight years the state of California has resisted some of the worst aspects of Federal reform. The state resisted federal pressure to tie teacher evaluations to student test scores, and Jerry Brown was a vocal critic of Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top, as indicated by his statement in 2009. In more recent years, Brown has restructured school funding, to direct resources to school districts based on student needs, as influenced by factors such as poverty and the proportion of language learners enrolled.

But the state – and our state teacher union, the California Teachers Association, have also embraced the Common Core (renamed “California Standards” last year.) With cooperation from the state university system, the California Teachers Association and funding from the Gates Foundation, teachers have been treated to days devoted to celebrating the Common Core. This year teachers will get yet another day-long Gates-funded Common Core festival, though once again they are the national standards that dare not speak their name.

California teachers and students have been told that a new and much improved accountability system is in the works, and now the draft has finally arrived. The mandate for this system is in regulations created by the federal Department of Education, which asks states to create a system to show “Measures of School Quality,” described this way:

Increased state flexibility to take a more holistic view of school performance based 

California Floats Multiple Measures for Grading Schools - Living in Dialogue:

The bigot Mike Pence and his neighbor Bruce Rauner. | Fred Klonsky

The bigot Mike Pence and his neighbor Bruce Rauner. | Fred Klonsky:

The bigot Mike Pence and his neighbor Bruce Rauner.

-By John Dillon. John blogs at Pension Vocabulary.

This post from March of 2015 is a reminder of the bizarre political philosophies that drive dangerous characters like soon-to-be-named VP candidate Governor Pence of Indiana and their fellows in other states – like Illinois. 

Governor Rauner’s “role model.”, according to Crain’s editorial board, is Mitch Daniels.   He told them so in March of 2014. In addition, the private equity manager/governor of Illinois has hired the chief legal counsel from Indiana (Jason Barclay) in order to have the same man who whispered in Mitch Daniels’ ear murmuring in his.

Wisely, Rauner is circumspect in emulating his idol Daniels, now the president of Purdue University, where the past governor has been battled for his attempts to remove Howard Zinn’s works from the curriculum…and now, for too swiftly moving the university’s professorial staff into a standardized corporate style testing of students’ growth per year – one linked to performance measurements for them and teachers.

In the last week, Indiana passed into law a religious objections bill, one that has come with some rather unexpected opposition from corporations and The bigot Mike Pence and his neighbor Bruce Rauner. | Fred Klonsky: