Breakfast on the Floor. Poof. Gone. | BustED Pencils

Breakfast on the Floor. Poof. Gone. | BustED Pencils:

Breakfast on the Floor. Poof. Gone.

On August 10th I posted a blog detailing the breakfast situation at my former school, Jewell Elementary. Feel free to read to catch up.

Within less than 24 hours of posting the blog the breakfast policy was changed. Poof. Gone.  Social media is very useful in exposing bad policies, which then require people to acknowledge the policy, and make a shift – quickly.  As you recall, the options for breakfast were for teachers to give up planning time to allow students to come in early to eat in the classroom or NOT give up planning time and allow them to eat on the hallway floor outside the classroom.

The next morning, August 11th, a  “stand up” meeting was called for the staff. A “stand up” meeting is an impromptu meeting that is called unexpectedly and typically creates quite a few nervous jitters because there is no knowledge of the purpose of the meeting.  This particular meeting was called to announce a change in the breakfast policy. No longer would there be any option of children eating on the hallway floor. The teachers were tasked with discussing how to go about organizing eating in the classroom in the mornings. The teachers were told that the monthly average of planning time being taken from them, for other purposes than planning (data meetings, prof. dev.), was indeed, within the allowable minutes.  Therefore, it was okay and supposedly “contractually legal” to require teachers to give up ten minutes of planning every morning for breakfast.

I have a lot of questions about this idea of a monthly average of minutes that are “allowable.”  Why are we averaging allowable minutes over a month? What happened to consistent and daily planning? Does this mean that if teachers were to lose almost all their planning for one week (which does happen), and then get buckets of minutes the next week for planning, that this is okay? What happens to the week with no planning? Do teachers just wing it that week? Or do they stay up until midnight on their own time, while being required to ignore their family and their own personal needs?

Considering that these teachers are already losing planning time for required data meetings, loss of one day of specials, and more, I find this monthly averaging to be bogus.  How can this be contractually legal? But teachers are expected to just nod, smile, and say, okay. Then they go home and work their asses off planning in the evenings and on the weekends. Workhorses. And eventually, more Lucys.

Teaching requires a continual cycle of gathering information about our children and then Breakfast on the Floor. Poof. Gone. | BustED Pencils:

Restorative Discipline Makes Huge Impact in Texas Schools

Restorative Discipline Makes Huge Impact in Texas Schools:

Restorative Discipline Makes Huge Impact in Texas Elementary and Middle Schools

Theft is a major offense — in or out of school — and students caught stealing usually face suspension or other tough discipline measures. But when a theft occurs in a school that has adopted restorative discipline practices, the outcome looks very different.

Consider this scenario from a Dallas, Texas, middle school.

A mobile phone goes missing during an all-female dance class. The owner of the phone reports the theft to her teacher, saying she suspects it was stolen in the locker room while the girls were changing. The teacher must then report the theft to administrators, but what happens next is what distinguishes restorative discipline from resorting to more severe consequences.

Rather than searching out the suspect, assigning blame, and doling out a punishment, the teacher and an administrator gather all the girls in a circle to discuss what happened. Each girl speaks about how she felt sitting in a circle with a student who would steal from someone in their class. They shared what they’d like to say to that student, and what they thought the consequence should be if that person decided to return the phone.

At the end of the circle discussion, the girl whose phone was stolen was asked if she’d like to add anything. She said she needed the phone because her parents work late and she meets her younger sister after school every day to walk home together. If anything goes wrong, the phone is the only way she has to reach her parents.

The next day, the phone turns up in the principal’s office. No one is suspended or otherwise severely disciplined and the phone is returned to its owner.

This effort has focused on students building relationships with teachers in the hopes that in these relationships, problems can be addressed and solved before they become bigger issues” – David Griffin

“This practice is called ‘classroom circling’ and it’s a key element to restorative practice,” says William Jay Sheets, Restorative Practices Coordinator for the Dallas Independent School District. “The foundation is being proactive in the classroom, investing time into your students and really listening to them.”

Dallas-NEA, the Dallas affiliate of the Texas State Teachers Association, collaborated with Dallas Independent School District to pilot restorative discipline programs in six Dallas elementary and middle schools – Caillet Elementary, Dunbar Learning Center, and Medrano, Gaston, Hood and Boude Storey middle schools. A grant from the National Education Association helped fund teacher training in the practice.

The results speak for themselves: Last year, in-school suspensions at the piloted schools dropped by 70%. Out-of-school suspensions dropped by 77%. The number of students sent to alternative school was cut in half.

“This effort has focused on students building relationships with teachers in the hopes that in these relationships, problems can be addressed and solved before they become bigger issues,” says David Griffin, teacher leader with Dallas ISD and a member of the NEA-Dallas board of directors.

Cutting Off the School-to-Prison Pipeline

Like many urban districts, Dallas has a history of harshly disciplining young black Restorative Discipline Makes Huge Impact in Texas Schools:

The Idiocy of AYP Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association:

The Idiocy of AYP

By:  Dr. Mitchell Robinson, Member BATs Blogging/Research Team

Originally published on his blog here http://www.mitchellrobinson.net/2016/08/24/the-idiocy-of-ayp/

 AYP, or "Adequate Yearly Progress", is one of those seemingly benign terms that pops up in the educational lexicon every few years. AYP sounds...friendly. Unassuming. Who could argue with a reform initiative based on kids, teachers, or schools making "adequate yearly progress"? What are we, communists? Of course we want our schools to make progress...and insisting it be "adequate" doesn't sound too demanding, does it? I mean, how hard could it be to make "adequate" progress? Cmon...


And yet the truth is much harsher. AYP has become an albatross around the neck of school districts rich and poor. It requires that schools demonstrate inexorable, upward rates of progress, no matter their actual measures of success. While AYP may have been intended to exert pressure on "low performing schools," in practice it has created unreasonable pressures and stresses on all kinds of schools, students, teachers, and administrators, and is the policy lever behind much of the cheating that has characterized the worst of the "accountability era" in American education.

At the core of AYP is the notion of accountability--another seemingly benign concept that has taken on draconian undertones when applied to public education. But the blade of accountability seems to only be targeted on those with the least amount of power in the educational equation: children and teachers. How are education policy decision makers, who dream up increasingly punitive measures, held accountable? How are our political leaders, who pass the legislation recommended by these policy makers, held accountable?

Why is the idea of Adequate Yearly Progress only aimed at the recipients of these policies, Badass Teachers Association:

Lawsuit Revisits the Question of Education As a Fundamental Right Under the U.S. Constitution, But Is There More To It Than That?

Education Law Prof Blog:

Lawsuit Revisits the Question of Education As a Fundamental Right Under the U.S. Constitution, But Is There More To It Than That?

Plaintiffs in Connecticut have filed a new lawsuit against the state challenging the "inexcusable educational inequity and inadequacy" in its school "that prevent inner-city students from
accessing even minimally acceptable public-school options."  The complaint argues that these problems are a result of:

First, Connecticut has instituted a moratorium on new magnet schools (Conn.
Gen. Stat. § 10-264l(b)(1); Public Act No. 09-6, § 22 (Spec. Sess.); Public Act No. 15-177, § 1), despite the fact that a large majority of Connecticut’s magnet schools consistently outperform inner-city traditional district schools.

Second, Connecticut’s arcane and dysfunctional laws governing public charter
schools (Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 10-66ee(c)-(d), 10-66bb(a), 10-66bb(g)) prevent high-performing charter schools from opening or expanding in the State, despite the fact that Connecticut’s few charter schools consistently outperform inner-city traditional district schools.

Third, Connecticut’s inter-district Open Choice enrollment program (Conn. Gen.
Stat. §§ 10-266aa(c), 10-266aa(e), 10-266aa(f), 10-266aa(g), 10-266aa(h)) penalizes school districts that accept students from inner-city school districts, thus dooming the viability of the very program ostensibly designed to provide Connecticut’s students with quality public-school options.

As a remedy, plaintiffs ask:

for a simple declaration that would have immeasurable benefits for many thousands of children: By forcing Plaintiffs and thousands of other students to attend public schools that it knows are failing, while impeding the availability of viable public educational alternatives through the Anti-Opportunity Laws, Connecticut is violating students’ federal due process and equal protection rights. Connecticut should be required to take any and all steps necessary to ensure that neither Plaintiffs nor any other students within its borders are forced to attend a failing public school.

The case is a hard one to pigeonhole.  On the one hand, it attempts what I and others have long advocated for: a reconsideration and overturn of San Antonio v. Rodriguez.  As the Connecticut Mirror reports, 

Forty-three years have passed since the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly ruled in the landmark San Antonio v. Rodriguez school-funding case that education was not a constitutional right and that the disparate spending on education for students from low-income neighborhoods was not a violation of the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.

"The time has come for the federal courts to recognize a federal constitutional right to some minimal, adequate level of education. We felt Connecticut was a very good place to bring it," said Theodore J. Boutrous, one of the attorneys representing the seven student plaintiffs from low-income families.

Boutrous told reporters during a Wednesday conference call that the Rodriguez decision "left open the possibility that a claim like ours could succeed" since that case focused on school funding disparities while this lawsuit focuses on the limited options students have to leave failing schools.

. . .

Experts observing this case say a lot is at stake.

On the other hand, the case takes a factual angle in making out this claim that sounds a lot like free market thinking in education.  Moreover, Students Matter, the group that has lead the constitutional challenge to teacher tenure, is backing the case.  As a factual matter, the case would appear to be about student choice.  It holds up the interdistrict magnet schools created as a result of the Sheff v. O'Neill litigation, which are designed to further integration, as important models for improving educational opportunities for minority student, but argues those type of magnets are not the only viable option.  More charter schools, it argues, could create similar options to escape currently unconstitutional traditional public schools.  In this respect, the plaintiffs are trying to, in effect, piggy back off of the success of Sheff.  

My initial response is that there is a big gaping hole in this use of Sheff magnets.  Sheff magnets are an integrative cure to a segregative injury.  It is not clear that charters are a proportional or analogous remedy to anything, nor Education Law Prof Blog:

A Math Teacher Remembers Her Students (Education Realist) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

A Math Teacher Remembers Her Students (Education Realist) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

A Math Teacher Remembers Her Students (Education Realist)

This abridged post comes from the blog Education Realist. The teacher who writes this blog prefers to remain anonymous. I have observed this teacher teach math and social studies lessons; we have also met and had lunch discussing many issues in public schools.

In the fall of 2012, I began my first year at this school. I met a group of 29 freshmen in their first high school math class: geometry.  From the beginning, we all clicked. A new school didn’t seem quite so intimidating because every day of that first semester started with camaraderie and good times–and some learning, too.

Of the 26 who stayed the whole year, all but one passed. Nearly half Asians (from every part of the continent), over half the rest Hispanic, and seven whites, and one African American. Ten athletes, including two who turned their ability into scholarships. The eventual senior prom queen. All those who passed made it through trigonometry, at least. Most made it to pre-calculus. Only a few made it to Calculus or Advancement Placement Statistics.  They reflected the school’s population writ large: diverse, athletic, not overly focused on academics, but smart enough to get it done.

A few others were never in one of my classes again, but I saw them frequently; they’d always shout a greeting across the quad, identifying themselves because they know I never wear my glasses.

The remaining saw me in at least one subsequent math class. None seemed to mind.

When we talked, as we did often, we’d regularly refer to “that first geometry class”.  Our touchstone memory, kept alive through four years of their education.

One of my “three-timers”, a sweet, tentative young man who never had another math teacher until pre-calc, stopped by with his yearbook. As we thumbed through the senior pages, calling out familiar faces, he suddenly said, “Man, I bet you’ve taught most of the seniors at least once.”

We counted it together—of the 93 rows of four students each, I’d taught 288 of them, or roughly 75%. Many more than once.

In the face of that percentage, I decided it was time to work around my dislike of crowds, speeches, and heat in order to represent on their big night. So at 4:30, I showed up at the stadium to help assemble them for the procession.

At first, the seniors were gathered in informal groups outside the staging area, taking pictures, talking, dancing about impatiently. Many called me over or waved, shouting out their names.

As they moved into the cafeteria for the staging, I wandered around, touching base, asking about plans, saying goodbye. As I’d expected, they needed teachers to organize the alphabetized lines for the procession, so I took a list of twenty. Rounded them up, hollered them into line, while the fourteen students I’d taught A Math Teacher Remembers Her Students (Education Realist) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

John Oliver Slams Charter Schools And His Critics Totally Miss The Point

8/25/2016 – John Oliver Slams Charter Schools And His Critics Totally Miss The Point:

John Oliver Slams Charter Schools And His Critics Totally Miss The Point

 August 25, 2016, 2016 Subscribe

THIS WEEK: How Schools Ruin Testing … Teachers Win Tenure Case … Head Start Works … Threats To Schools Increase … Secret Procharter Money

TOP STORY

John Oliver Slams Charter Schools And His Critics Totally Miss The Point

By Jeff Bryant

“British comedian John Oliver devoted a ‘Back to School’ segment on his HBO program Last Week Tonight to examining the rapidly growing charter school industry and what these schools are doing with our tax dollars … None of Oliver’s critics seriously refuted the crux of his argument that there might be something fundamentally wrong by design, rather than by implementation or intent, with the idea that a ‘free market’ of privately operated and essentially unregulated schools is a surefire way to improve education opportunities for all students.”
Read more …

NEWS AND VIEWS

How Schools That Obsess About Standardized Tests Ruin Them As Measures Of Success

Vox

“A look at the data combined with some basic principles of social science suggests that the practices of no-excuses charters are undermining the very foundation of data-based education reform … A test that overshadows the ultimate outcomes it is intended to measure turns into an invalid test … Many charter schools, under pressure to deliver unrealistic gains in test scores, are contorting themselves to get the numbers they’ve promised. They’re being rewarded for doing so.”
Read more …

In A Major Win For Teachers Unions, California Supreme Court Lets Teacher Tenure Ruling Stand

Los Angeles Times

“A landmark California case challenging tenure and other traditional job protections for teachers … let stand an appeals court ruling that preserved an array of employment rights … The assault on these protections is part of a broader approach to reforming education that would make schools more like the private sector, which relies on competition, measurable results and performance incentives … The Legislature remains the most logical place to determine such employment rules, some advocates on both sides said.”
Read more …

Research On Tulsa’s Head Start Program Finds Lasting Gains

NPR

“Children who attended Head Start had higher test scores on state math tests [by eighth grade]. They were less likely to be retained and less likely to display chronic absenteeism. These are highly consequential outcomes that we know are predictive of high school graduation, college enrollment, even earnings … The Head Start model, with its strong family support component and comprehensive services for children, can give children a strong pathway through school and hopefully out of poverty in their adult lives.”
Read more …

When Schools Are Threatened, Untold Learning Time Is Lost

Associated Press

“Violent or disruptive threats are increasing nationwide … blamed sometimes on local students and sometimes on outsiders … cause disruptions or a big emergency response … There’s no formal accounting of the collective costs … but the learning time lost to evacuations and cancellations adds up … The number of school bomb threats the last academic year alone, based on media reports, was at least 1,267, roughly twice as many as in 2012-13.”
Read more …

Donors Behind Charter Push Keep To The Shadows

Boston Globe

“A new $2.3 million ad boosting the expansion of charter schools in Massachusetts lists the campaign’s top five donors on screen … Four of the five donors to the procharter committee are nonprofit groups that do not, under state law, have to disclose their funders … The cloak of secrecy surrounding the financing of what could be the most expensive ballot campaign in state history has frustrated election officials and underscored the proliferation of untraceable money in political races across the country … The ballot campaign known as Question 2 – which would allow for the creation or expansion of up to 12 charter schools per year in low-performing districts.
Read more …

8/25/2016 – John Oliver Slams Charter Schools And His Critics Totally Miss The Point:

Opt Out - California Teachers Association

Opt Out - California Teachers Association:

Opt Out 

As standardized testing is under way or about to begin in schools across California, many parents are reaching out to teachers with questions about these tests and asking if they can opt out of the testing for their child. California is one of handful of states that has a law allowing all parents to opt out of state-mandated standardized testing. At the same time there are also California regulations governing what educators can say to parents and families. CTA has put together a number of resources to help educators have these conversations.

Opt Out Resources

For educators:
School Employees’ Rights Regarding Opting Out of Testing
Must Read: Cut & Share

For parents:
You can Opt Out - Parents Know your Rights - English (abbreviated version to come)
- Arabic
- Armenian- Cambodian
- Chinese
- Hmong- Korean
- Russian
- Spanish
- Thai
- Vietnamese

Sample Parent Letter - English

Join the Movement

Sign the NEA Petition to End High Stakes Testing
Fair Test (Just Say No to the Test)
Parents Across America
United Opt Out
Citizens for Public Schools
Sample School Board Resolution (San Diego Education Association)

Related News Stories

NEA Today Survey of Educators
Parents, Educators Stand Together Against Test Stress
Is Education Being Measured to Death?

CTA weighs in

Letter to Gov. Jerry Brown
Letter to Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson

 Opt Out - California Teachers Association:

Kobe's China Play Is No Slam Dunk - Bloomberg Gadfly

Kobe's China Play Is No Slam Dunk - Bloomberg Gadfly:

Kobe's China Play Is No Slam Dunk

By Tim Culpan

 American venture capitalist Kobe Bryant may soon learn that a drive to the basket doesn't always end with two points.

Bryant, an 18-time NBA All-Star and co-founder of venture capital firm Bryant Stibel, this week announced he's investing some of his firm's cash in Chinese education-technology company VIPKID. The move comes weeks after Sequioa Capital and Jack Ma's Yunfeng Capital led a $100 million round of funding.

Like New Oriental, VIPKID is focused on the increasingly crowded market for foreign-language (read, English) learning in China. As Bryant Stibel says:

VIPKID is bringing the North American elementary school experience to Chinese children.

At first glance, the market potential looks to be there. China has a huge population with a hunger to get ahead. Jack Ma, himself a former English teacher, is the poster child for a simple kid who became a billionaire through education and hard work. 

“It’s a no-brainer for me," Bryant, who holds the record for the most seasons with the same team, told the Los Angeles Times. "We have to look for companies adding value to society, helping kids learn and grow.” It apparently took Bryant less than the span of a half-time break to make the decision.

But as Educated Ventures partner Todd Maurer wrote recently, a note of caution ought to be sounded on the billions of dollars pouring into China's edtech sector, given a likely peak in the number of children going to school.

World Bank data show gross primary school enrollment jumped from 92.1 percent in 2001 to 114 percent in 2009 before falling off again. It's probably no coincidence that companies such as New Oriental made their mark during this boom, leading to U.S. listings. With a lag of about six years between primary and secondary school, we can expect that later-year enrollments and the accompanying revenue have already topped out.Kobe's China Play Is No Slam Dunk - Bloomberg Gadfly:

School groups denounce potential closure of Michigan schools - KTAR.com

School groups denounce potential closure of Michigan schools - KTAR.com:

School groups denounce potential closure of Michigan schools

Ray Tellman, executive director of the Middle Cities Education Association, expresses opposition to the potential closure of low-performing Michigan public schools on Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016, at the Michigan Association of School Boards office in Delta Township, Mich. At left is Don Wotruba, executive director the school boards group. At right is Chris Wigent, executive director of the Michigan Association of School Administrators. (AP Photo/David Eggert)

DELTA TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — It would be a mistake for state officials to start closing underperforming Michigan schools for academic reasons because it would devastate communities while not improving student achievement, concerned educators said Wednesday.

Associations representing school boards, school administrators and urban districts spoke out before the impending release of a statewide list, issued annually, of the bottom 5 percent of public schools. The rankings are based on test results, students’ improvement over time, and the gap between the best and worst pupils.

The officials said that Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration told some school leaders this month that if their schools are on the list for three straight years — which will be clearer once another is made public this fall — they may be subject to closure for the 2017-18 academic year.

“There is no data that shows that moving a child from one school to another school against their choice has any positive impact on student achievement. Quite frankly, it has a negative impact on the children,” Chris Wigent, executive director of the Michigan Association of School Administrators, told reporters during a news conference near Lansing.

In March of 2015, the Republican governor took control of an office charged with turning around the lowest-performing schools by transferring its functions to an agency whose director reports to him instead of the state Board of Education. He cited unsatisfactory progress and said no schools had been placed in Michigan’s turnaround district as authorized under a 2009 law.

That law lets the state impose one of four intervention models, including closure, if a school’s “redesign” plan isn’t working.

Caleb Buhs, a spokesman for the state school reform/redesign office, said suggestions that School Reform Officer Natasha Baker threatened schools with closure in recent meetings are “absolutely 100 percent false.” He said no decisions have been made.

Buhs acknowledged, however, that closures are under consideration, saying it is “one of the few tools” to address chronically low-performing schools in addition to appointing CEOs to oversee schools or placing them in a special state district. He said it is a “tragedy” that some schools continually advance students who fall behind and ultimately are ill-prepared upon graduation.

“That’s failing our children,” said Buhs, adding that “we don’t take the power to close a school lightly and understand the ramifications that that may have.”

There have been indications that Snyder wants to more aggressively address the worst schools.

In June, he signed a Republican-backed state bailout of Detroit’s school district that also orders the closure of any traditional or independent charter school in the city that is among the lowest-achieving 5 percent of schools statewide for the preceding three years. Baker can exempt schools from being closed if she determines it would place an “unreasonable hardship” on students.

There were more than 125 schools in the bottom 5 percent for the 2013-14 academic School groups denounce potential closure of Michigan schools - KTAR.com:

LGBTQ History Comes out of the Shadows, into K-12 Classrooms | San Jose Inside

LGBTQ History Comes out of the Shadows, into K-12 Classrooms | San Jose Inside:

LGBTQ History Comes out of the Shadows, into K-12 Classrooms

Forest Stuart didn’t have many resources to learn about LGBTQ history in high school, but future students will. (Photo by Jessica Perez)

 Certain topics were off limits when Forest Stuart attended high school. Civil rights were covered, but rarely did classes take a deep dive into the contributions of minority communities. Stuart first learned about the LGBTQ community from Tumblr. One teacher, however, a field hockey coach at Monta Vista High School, encouraged Stuart to learn about the group’s history and other topics deemed too risque.

“She was always really great at bringing in the history of minority groups that are usually lost or not discussed in class,” Stuart says. “The other teachers covered little to nothing.”

Stuart identifies as trans, non-binary and queer. Family was supportive from the start, beginning when they—Stuart uses “they/them” pronouns to identify as both masculine and feminine—started to question gender and sexuality in middle school and high school, all the way through coming out last year.

“[My family has] been really receptive in me teaching them and bringing them up to speed on all the terms,” Stuart says.

Not everyone has been so supportive, though. Stuart faced harassment from some classmates on social media after becoming heavily involved in the Gender Sexuality Alliance (GSA).

“The general school population who was vocal was really accepting and excited for me, and that was nice,” Stuart says. “Being pretty out there and outspoken meant that whenever people could voice their opinions anonymously they did take that chance.”

Not long after this time, Stuart found the LGBTQ Youth Space, a resource center for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning youth and young adults ages 13 to 25. A staff member from the Youth Space was the first non-binary adult Stuart had met.

“The power and importance of queer and LGBTQ people coming together and providing for our own is huge, creating a space that is so vibrant and energetic where people can thrive and learn about themselves,” Stuart says.

Other than learning about Bayard Rustin in U.S. history junior year, Stuart has no recollection of classroom lessons about other LGBTQ leaders. Rustin, a civil rights leader and advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr., practiced non-violent protests and worked to advance rights for the African American and LGBTQ communities.

“Being a queer person in a school, anything that is said [about LGBT figures] really stands out,” Stuart says. “It’s so different having these subjects in a classroom setting.”

Stuart will soon attend West Valley College to study in the Women and Gender Studies program. College has often been the first place students begin to learn about sexuality and LGBTQ issues, but that’s about to change.

In 2010, state Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) introduced Senate Bill 48, also known LGBTQ History Comes out of the Shadows, into K-12 Classrooms | San Jose Inside:

Mississippi Parents Demand an Answer: Are Charter Schools Constitutional? | Common Dreams

Mississippi Parents Demand an Answer: Are Charter Schools Constitutional? | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:

Mississippi Parents Demand an Answer: Are Charter Schools Constitutional?
Plaintiffs say privately-run, publicly-funded, corporate institutions do not qualify as "free" schools and shouldn't get taxpayer money

 Mississippi parents are challenging the public funding of charter schools on the grounds that it's not constitutional.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an advocacy group, filed a motion for a summary judgment this week on behalf of the parents, for a speedy answer to this question.

The only debate in the case is that of constitutionality, which makes it prime for answering, SPLC told Hinds County Chancery Judge Dewayne Thomas. The SPLC in July backed the lawsuit by several parents against Governor Phil Bryant, the Mississippi Department of Education, and the Jackson Public School District that challenged the funding of state charter schools.

Plaintiffs say that because the privately-run, publicly-funded, corporate institutions are not overseen by the state or local superintendents, they do not qualify as "free" schools and therefore shouldn't be eligible for taxpayer money. Three charter schools in Jackson are currently slated to receive $4 million in public funds this year.

According to the Jackson Free Press, about a third of that will come from taxes on property, vehicles, and equipment.

The Free Press reports:

The challengers say charter schools are barred from getting state money because they are not overseen by the state superintendent or a local school superintendent, and thus under previous state Supreme Court decisions, don't qualify as "free schools." The state Constitution says only "free schools" can get public money. That part of the constitution is in a section banning public money for religious schools.

The plaintiffs also say a 2007 Supreme Court decision bars the transfer of property tax collections from one school district to another. Each charter school is technically set up as separate district in Mississippi, meaning the three schools now operating in Jackson are not part of that district.

 As taxpayers in Jackson, we expect our property taxes to support public schools in Jackson," plaintiff Charles Araujo said. "I believe that in order for children to receive a quality education in Jackson public schools, Jackson public schools must have sufficient funding."

Araujo, a retired social worker, said he feared that if funding continues to get redirected from public schools to charter schools, the public institutions will be forced to cut programs for gifted students, special education for students with needs, and other services like buses and counseling.

As Louisiana educator and researcher Mercedes Schneider explained in July, the state's Mississippi Parents Demand an Answer: Are Charter Schools Constitutional? | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:

How John Oliver and Charter Schools Show Education Reform Lost Its Mojo | US News Opinion

How John Oliver and Charter Schools Show Education Reform Lost Its Mojo | US News Opinion:

How Education Reform Lost Its Mojo
Today's reformers don't know how or when to fight.

It's been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad summer for education reform. After many years of bipartisan support, key elements of the reform agenda – higher standards, better teachers, test-based accountability, parental choice – are starved for oxygen in both the Republican and Democratic party platforms. Earlier this month, the NAACP further upset the reform apple cart with a call for a moratorium on new charter schools. Not to be outdone, a "platform" released by the Movement for Black Lives, a group of organizations organized by Black Lives Matter, issued a scorched earth condemnation of every aspect of the ed-reform agenda, which it characterized as "a systematic attack … coordinated by an international education privatization agenda, bankrolled by billionaire philanthropists … and aided by the departments of education at the federal, state, and local level."

Response to this series of stunning attacks and political reversals has overall been mild to muted. The usual groups have told journalists where and how they disagree with the antis, but there's been no outcry of support for the agenda items under attack, and certainly not from any political leaders, prominent columnists, etc.

This week, however, by marked contrast, the atmosphere inside the edu-bubble was set alight by – wait for it – John Oliver. Yes, that John Oliver, British comedian and host of a faux HBO news show, who did a "takedown" of charter schools that was quickly and correctly dismissed by Nick Gillespie of Reason as "clever, glib and uninformed." From the reactions of education reformers, however, you'd think Oliver was Edward R. Murrow, and that the expose had appeared on "60 Minutes," not a late-night comedy show.

The National Alliance of Public Charter schools issued a defensive statement contending the Oliver's piece was "not representative of charter schools nationwide." The ed reform news site The 74 ran pieces bemoaning that the selective anecdotes in Oliver's negative spiel ignored "the vast majority of charter teachers and administrators go to work each morning prepared and determined to do right by their students." On social media, the gnashing of teeth and rending of flesh threatened to reach apocalyptic levels. The American Enterprise Institute's Rick Hess spoke for nearly no one when he tweeted that "It's hard to convey how little I worry about Oliver's views."

I'm with Hess. Armchair psychology is a dangerous game, but my best hunch is that a kind of moral panic has set in among reformers (on both sides of the aisle but particularly on the left) who have suffered – and suffered mostly in silence – a series of stinging rebukes from those, particularly in the civil rights community, who ought to be their most stalwart champions, yet who cannot be comfortably challenged. It's deeply odd, if you think about it: reform, long marked by a pugnacious, crusading rhetorical style may be losing both its will to fight and its ability to differentiate between genuine threats and mere irritants.

As my Fordham colleague Chester Finn recently observed, longstanding bipartisan support for the education reform agenda has collapsed: "As Democrats pander to teachers' unions and minority grievances and Republicans focus on social issues and culture wars, little energy remains for school reform." The Wall Street Journal recently noted that Hillary Clinton "used to support charters. Now she's for the union agenda." Left-leaning reformers are clearly reluctant to defend their agenda or push back against their standard bearer, let alone throw a bone to the lifeless campaign of Donald Trump, who for all his manifold faults, did give a speech last week that argued for "school choice, merit pay for teachers, and to end the tenure policies that hurt good teachers and reward bad teachers."

Thoughtful arguments can be made about the efficacy of these and other elements of the reform agenda over the last several decades. But if there's one clear, unambiguous victory that reformers can rightly claim, it's urban charter schools, which, in the main, have served How John Oliver and Charter Schools Show Education Reform Lost Its Mojo | US News Opinion: