Louisiana Educator: Louisiana Accountability System Changes to Reflect Political Goals

Louisiana Educator: Louisiana Accountability System Changes to Reflect Political Goals:

Louisiana Accountability System Changes to Reflect Political Goals

Note to Readers: The following post by Herb Bassett traces the history of test-based accountability in Louisiana from 1999 to the present. Mr Bassett's analysis demonstrates that the grading and ranking of our schools and teachers based on student test scores is purely arbitrary and is constantly being manipulated by our State Superintendent to produce whatever results suits his objective at the time. 

Several years ago reformers chose to portray a large number of our schools as failures so that there would be an excuse for "reforms" such as school privatization and reductions in teacher job protections. Now that the reformer policies have been in effect for a number of years, the testing data is being manipulated to demonstrate "improvement". But such alleged "improvement" is not supported by the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests (NAEP).  These test results show that since 2005, Louisiana students have achieved only small improvements in national test results, and have actually lost ground compared to all other states in three out of the 4 categories tested. 

Test based accountability in Louisiana has failed to make any significant improvement in student performance. At the same time our students' futures have become more limited because of the increasing emphasis on college prep for-all, at the expense of vocational prep opportunities. 

The scapegoating of teachers for low student performance that has been an inherent part of the reforms has demoralized and de-professionalized the teaching profession in Louisiana. Many highly respected teachers have retired early. Meanwhile the natural joy of teaching and learning has been replaced by a constant, dull, non productive, test-prep exercise with no end in sight.

Mr Bassett's analysis

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires us to revamp our school accountability system. As we decide what changes to make, we should examine our current status, take lessons from the history of our statewide tests, and recognize how politicized our accountability system has become. It is imperative that we bring nuanced understanding to the decision making process.

History warns that the results of a single summative measure can be shaped by political considerations.

My hope here is to restore history that John White has removed from public view and reveal the current strategy to produce an illusion of ever-improving student performance by changing the metrics. This linkis to the GEE 21, LEAP/iLEAP, LAPARCC and EOC data I compiled for this study.

I. The politicization of the accountability system:

Louisiana set up its accountability system even before No Child Left Behind. The first school performance Louisiana Educator: Louisiana Accountability System Changes to Reflect Political Goals:

U.S. Department of Education Finally Begins to Regulate Charters: Thank You Sen. Sherrod Brown | janresseger

U.S. Department of Education Finally Begins to Regulate Charters: Thank You Sen. Sherrod Brown | janresseger:

U.S. Department of Education Finally Begins to Regulate Charters: Thank You Sen. Sherrod Brown

Charter Schools are defined by their freedom from regulation and oversight, but that freedom has been so regularly abused by unscrupulous operators that it seems the U.S. Department of Education is finally deciding to crack down, under pressure in this case from Ohio’s U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown.

Three months ago, on June 20, 2016, Senator Brown wrote a letter to John King, now U.S. Secretary of Education, demanding increased oversight of a large grant—$71 million—the federal Department of Education made to Ohio on September 28, 2015 to expand charter schools.  The grant application had been written by David Hansen, who, by September, had already been fired by the Ohio Department of Education for hiding the abysmal academic record of the state’s so-called “dropout recovery schools” and omitting their scores from a system he was creating as the Ohio Department prepared to begin holding charter schools more accountable. Hansen had also bragged in his federal grant application that Ohio had already begun more aggressively regulating charters. After the U.S. Department of Education awarded Ohio the $71 million grant at the end of September 2015, however, it was pointed out that the Ohio legislature had not yet passed the regulations for which Hansen (in July) had given the state credit. (The Ohio Legislature later adopted the most basic and minimal charter school oversight when it passed Ohio House Bill 2 on October 7, 2015).

When Ohio Senator Brown wrote to U.S. Secretary John King in June, 2016, the $71 million Ohio grant had been put on hold for months, as the U.S. Department of Education investigated Ohio’s dealings with charter schools. In his June 20 letter, Senator Brown wrote: “In your November 2015 response letter to the members of the Ohio Congressional delegation, you outlined a number of steps ED has taken and will continue to take to verify the accuracy and completeness of ODE’s grant application. I appreciate these steps, but more must be done to provide order to the state’s chaotic charter school sector. In light of this report, I ask that you examine the performance of Ohio charter schools who have received CSP (federal Charter Schools Program) grants to determine whether grant recipients are failing or closing at a higher rate than those in other states and how the academic performance of CSP grant recipients in Ohio compares to CSP grant recipients nationwide. I further ask that when Ohio U.S. Department of Education Finally Begins to Regulate Charters: Thank You Sen. Sherrod Brown | janresseger:

Teaching Advanced Placement Composition: Technology Integration | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Teaching Advanced Placement Composition: Technology Integration | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Teaching Advanced Placement Composition: Technology Integration

Room 409 at Los Altos High School in the south San Francisco Bay area is one of the most spacious for an academic subject —nearly the size of two regular classrooms–I have ever seen in the many schools I have visited over the years. I marveled at its carpeting, recliner chairs near the teacher’s desk and horseshoe arrangement of 3- and 4-desk clusters facing a table in the center of the room where Michael Moul, a 12 year veteran teacher, presides over his AP class.

Well over six feet tall, the stocky and goateed Moul is wearing a blue shirt, and dark slacks. He looks out on the 32 students in the room. He is also faculty adviser for the Talon, the school newspaper. Twelve desktop computers sit on the ledge below a wall and tall windows in the rear and side of the room that Talon staff use.

Los Altos High School is a Bring-Your-Own-Device school. * The high school district adopted BYOD two years ago for its three schools after teacher- and administrator-initiated pilot projects established that well over half of the students had laptops or tablets they could use for their classes and enough teachers were sufficiently skilled to integrate the hardware and software into their daily lessons. For students who lack a device, forget theirs, or if one dies suddenly in school, students can easily get a device elsewhere in the school. Teachers decide how to weave technologies into their lessons; there is no district prescribed one-best-way for teachers to follow.

The lesson I observed on September 6, 2016 is the final part of a four and a half week unit on the Narrative Essay that began with the first day of school on August 15th.. In this unit, Moul spent the first two weeks of the semester on Teaching Advanced Placement Composition: Technology Integration | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Business groups warn Regents on Common Core | Crain's New York Business

Business groups warn Regents on Common Core | Crain's New York Business:

Business groups warn Regents on Common Core

Opponents of tougher education standards cannot be placated, so state education officials should not bother trying, a letter to the Board of Regents argues

 As the state Board of Regents prepares to tweak New York's version of Common Core, business groups and other supporters of the tougher educational standards are urging the board not to dumb them down to appease opponents.

Critics of Common Core will never be appeased, so there is no point in trying—and limiting students' potential in the process, the supporters argue in a letter being sent to the board Tuesday.

"Opponents of the standards...won’t be satisfied with thoughtful changes and improvements," writes High Achievement New York, a statewide coalition of educators, parents, civic leaders, employers and advocates. "They are only interested in a full repeal of the standards or an outright moratorium—without considering the consequences."

One organization, Stop Common Core in New York State, calls the standards "a federal takeover of the [sic] education."

Common Core is a national set of standards, but the federal government does not require states to adopt them. However, it does incentivize adoption, on the premise that all children in the U.S. should be expected to attain the skills and abilities to prosper in the economy of today and tomorrow, given the impact of automation and foreign competition. States and individual school districts and schools are to design their own curriculums to reach the standards, although Common Core is often mistakenly viewed or erroneously portrayed as a national curriculum.

Business groups tend to support Common Core because too many schools have been producing graduates not prepared for the modern workforce, which is less reliant on manufacturing—and the manufacturing jobs that remain require more knowledge and expertise than they once did.

The opposition is a mix of odd political bedfellows, including conservatives who do not want federal interference in education, and liberals who associate Common Core with standardized testing (although the controversy over testing predated Common Core by many years).

But opponents gained traction in New York, particularly in affluent suburbs, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo responded by suspending plans to link teacher performance reviews to Common Core tests and promising other changes, although he remained a supporter of the idea of Common Core and of standardized testing in general.Business groups warn Regents on Common Core | Crain's New York Business:

HANY Letter Regents

Business groups warn Regents on Common Core | Crain's New York Business:

Audio: Envisioning a 'leaner' LA Unified HQ, superintendent asks for plan to cut central office by 30 percent | 89.3 KPCC

Audio: Envisioning a 'leaner' LA Unified HQ, superintendent asks for plan to cut central office by 30 percent | 89.3 KPCC:

Envisioning a 'leaner' LA Unified HQ, superintendent asks for plan to cut central office by 30 percent

Superintendent Michelle King has asked managers in the Los Angeles Unified School District's central offices to submit plans outlining how they would slash their departments' budgets by 30 percent in the coming fiscal year, according to a memo obtained by KPCC.

For now, it's just a planning exercise. But top district officials say the aggressive cost-cutting target — the reductions would total more than $112 million if fully implemented — falls in line with King's vision for a slimmed-down headquarters and a district in which school sites are given greater control over their own budgets.

"It's not just another 5 percent drill," said L.A. Unified Chief Financial Officer Megan Reilly. (Some central office departments took a 5 percent cut this year, saving a total of $11 million.)

For managers to hit their cost-saving targets of 30 percent, they couldn't simply close open positions or pick off other similar low-hanging fruit in their budgets. The idea behind the exercise, Reilly said, is to prompt central office mangers to completely rethink how they operate as declining enrollment in L.A. Unified kinks the district's revenue stream.

"You can’t get to 30 percent without really reinventing yourself or basically talking about consolidation in other types of functions," Reilly said.

"I call it an exercise," Reilly added later, "but this is, in reality, something we will be going through … to look at how do we work effectively with a smaller, leaner kind of headquarters."

L.A. Unified’s own projections show an operating shortfall of up to $663 million in the 2017-18 budget year. If that holds true, the long-term fiscal stabilization planapproved in June calls for $60 million in cuts to central office departments next year.

That grim projection, however, does not factor in new revenues the district could see Audio: Envisioning a 'leaner' LA Unified HQ, superintendent asks for plan to cut central office by 30 percent | 89.3 KPCC:

Schools Matter: Understanding KIPP Model Charter Schools: Part 9 (TFA)

Schools Matter: Understanding KIPP Model Charter Schools: Part 9 (TFA):

Understanding KIPP Model Charter Schools: Part 9 (TFA)

Teacher attrition is high enough that "No Excuses" charter schools could not keep their doors open without a constant infusion of new blood from Teach for America and penal preparation programs like Relay.  In the chapter below from Work Hard, Be Hard . . . contributed by Dr. Barbara Veltri, who published a book about TFA in 2010 entitled Learning on Other People's Kids: Becoming a Teach For America Teacher, Veltri provides an encapsulation of TFA's place in keeping corporate ed reform dreams alive.

Chapter 9

Teach For America’s Socialization and Manipulation

by Barbara Veltri

It’s like the Peace Corps. But, you know, creepier. --D. Chernicoff, Yale Daily News, (2006)

This chapter chronicles the evolution of Teach For America’s (TFA) rebranding, from a teaching-as-service non-profit, to a leadership network with a voracious appetite for expanding and creating new revenue streams.  I examine how Teach For America’s corps members are selected and socialized to support the organization’s revamped trajectory away from teacher supply to leadership expansion. Data for this chapter included a range of sources, from insider interviews to TFA annual reports, business plans, tax returns, web sites, public records, and other documents. A cautionary tale illuminates how private venture philanthropy and “public good” corporate education reform initiatives[i] are managed and manipulated.  

The Mission Design of America’s #1 Educational Non-Profit

Twenty-five years ago Princeton University Sociology major, Wendy Kopp, founded Teach For America. It’s mission: recruit, train, and place recent college graduates without education credentials into poor rural and urban schools for two-year teaching commitments (Kopp, 2003). The new non-profit organization, subsequently dubbed America’s National Teaching Corps (Veltri, 2010) was charged with addressing the shortage of qualified teachers in underserved regions of the U.S. (Kopp, 2003; Veltri, 2010).  In 1994, Teach For America was granted 501(c)(3) status as a non-profit organization, which permitted donors to claim exemptions from income taxes, too.

Teach For America targeted areas to field-test the education reform agenda in America’s poor communities, where high populations of children of color reside. These urban and rural areas were never properly funded in any way imaginable, and they had gone mostly unnoticed by the business community until Ms. Kopp recruited recent grads from select colleges to begin teaching there.

With substantial financial support from corporations and foundations in hand by the mid-1990s, Ms. Schools Matter: Understanding KIPP Model Charter Schools: Part 9 (TFA):

Special Ed. Irony: CT Gov. Malloy and Judge Thomas G. Moukawsher

Special Ed. Irony: CT Gov. Malloy and Judge Thomas G. Moukawsher:

Special Ed. Irony: CT Gov. Malloy and Judge Thomas G. Moukawsher

In every state we see an erasing of services for students with disabilities. Consider howTexas managed to omit an appropriate education for students with special needs.  My guess is that in whatever state you live, special education is in trouble.

How many children will not get the schooling they need to realize their dreams? How many parents will not get the support required to assist their children the best way possible?

In Connecticut, Judge Thomas G. Moukawsher has ruled in a decades old school funding case, and while he recognized problems that exist when it comes to school funding and poverty, he slammed public schools badly. The expected changes to schooling and for teachers is worrisome.

But the Judge’s statement about instruction of the profoundly disabled was especially egregious. His statement calling the funding of special education “irrational,” should raise concerns for everyone.

In discussing Connecticut, not long after I started tweeting (Twitter is still a bit of a Special Ed. Irony: CT Gov. Malloy and Judge Thomas G. Moukawsher:

No charter schools, lots of play: the secrets of Europe’s top education system | Education | The Guardian

No grammar schools, lots of play: the secrets of Europe’s top education system | Education | The Guardian:

No grammar schools, lots of play: the secrets of Europe’s top education system

In Finland children don’t start school until they are seven, but what happens before that is even more important

 Gaining on the swings: Franzenia daycare centre, Helsinki, where the emphasis is on creative play. Photograph: Karin Hannukainen/University of Helsinki

It’s a warm September afternoon in the Kallio district of Helsinki. Out in theFranzenia daycare centre playground, groups of four- and five-year-olds roam contentedly. “Would you like an ice-cream?” asks one, having set up her elaborate “stall” on the edge of the sandpit. Kindergarten staff move among the children, chatting, observing and making written notes.

There is nothing outwardly distinctive about the centre, though with 200 children, it is the city’s largest. It is a tall, somewhat dour former university building, built in the 1930s and converted to its present role last year. Yet it is in places such as this oddly homespun centre with its strange echoes of bureaucracy, walls plastered with children’s art and piles of play paraphernalia, that the Finnish education “miracle” starts to take shape.

Finland ranked world's most literate nation

 

Read more

In Finland, whose comprehensive school system has sat at the top of Europe’s rankings for the past 16 years, the narrow, heated debates on school governance and structure that obsess the UK – free schools, academies, grammars – do not exist. Schools ultimately deliver academic success, the Finns would agree - and there has been intense worldwide interest in how they manage it (see below) – but they would also argue that groundwork for good school performance begins earlier, long before children enter formal school, and arguably while their future pupils are still in nappies.

Central to early years education in Finland is a “late” start to schooling. At Franzenia, as in all Finnish daycare centres, the emphasis is not on maths, reading or writing (children receive no formal instruction in these until they are seven and in primary school) but creative play. This may surprise UK parents, assailed as they are by the notion of education as a competitive race. In Finland, they are more relaxed: “We believe children under seven are not ready to start school,” says Tiina Marjoniemi, the head of the centre. “They need time to play and be No grammar schools, lots of play: the secrets of Europe’s top education system | Education | The Guardian:

As if being 12-years-old wasn't hard enough, a new study confirms many schools make it even harder because of the theory of top dog, bottom dog — Quartz

As if being 12-years-old wasn't hard enough, a new study confirms many schools make it even harder because of the theory of top dog, bottom dog — Quartz:

As if being 12-years-old wasn’t hard enough, a new study confirms many schools make it even harder

The transition from elementary school at about age 11, to middle school, is notoriously hard, and researchers have documented that a lot of kids take a hit academically from which they don’t recover for years.

It’s difficult to pinpoint what drives the drop in performance. Adolescence is in full swing, social anxiety and bullying spike, and social media appears to more often than not, amplify the period’s unpleasantness. One untested theory suggested that there is a top dog/bottom dog (TDBD) phenomenon at work. Those at the top of the age/grade hierarchy have better experiences than those at the bottom. In other words, the transition from top dog in elementary school to bottom dog in middle school is so bad that a kid’s performance suffers.

It’s a hard theory to test, considering all the variables involved. A kid’s grades may tank because he had a bad teacher, or faced personal trauma, or decided Xbox was a lot more interesting.

A group of researchers, including Amy Ellen Schwartz at Syracuse University, have found a way to pick apart the top dog theory, looking at 90,000 kids in 500 New York City public schools. The kids were divided into two big groups: those in K-8 schools, where kids remain the top dog all the way through the dicey adolescent years, and those in a more traditional structure of middle school (sixth to eighth grades) moving to high school. Using a treasure trove of data from student surveys, they were able to follow them for three years to find out who fared better.

They found being in a K-8 school, where kids were top dogs for longer created a better learning environment, marked by less bullying, and better academic results. They write:

“Top dogs are less likely to report bullying, fights, and gang activity and more likely to report feeling safe and welcome in school than bottom dogs due to their top dog status. In contrast, bottom dogs report higher rates of bullying, fighting, and gang activity and lower rates of safety and belonging than top and middle dogs.”

In an era when school reform debates are mired in everything from teacher quality and training to accountability and funding, this solution seems oddly easy: If K-8 schools help kids feel like top dogs for longer, enabling them to stay put for a few years, it might offer a philosophically simple, if logistically challenging solution.

Many will no doubt dismiss the top-dog theory as a reason to reorganize schools as new-age coddling. Surviving a move to middle school is a right of passage, an act of collective right of suffering without which, who could possibly comprehend the true meaning of angst? Study author Michah W. Rothbart at Syracuse University told NPR Ed:”Someone has to be the bottom at some point. That is the nature of the system.”

But the actual consequences of moving from elementary to middle school are pretty dire. According to Guido Schwerdt, from the University of Konstanz and Martin R. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, students moving from elementary to middle school suffer a sharp drop in student achievement in the year they move, which persists through tenth grade (transitions to high school in ninth grade cause a smaller one-time drop in achievement, but the effect does not persist).

Taking that into account, Rothbart suggested to NPR that the solution might be letting those poor middle schoolers, in all their awkward wonder, stay top dogs while pushing the pressure onto the ninth graders.

They, no doubt, have all the confidence in the world.As if being 12-years-old wasn't hard enough, a new study confirms many schools make it even harder because of the theory of top dog, bottom dog — Quartz:

What rights does a disabled child have at school?

What rights does a disabled child have at school?:

What rights does a disabled child have at school?

Lyle Denniston, Constitution Daily’s Supreme Court correspondent, looks at a case under consideration for the Supreme Court that could clarify national educational standards for disabled children in the public school system.

Over a period of more than four decades, the national government has moved deeper and deeper into the realm of education for disabled children, but it still is not clear what the ultimate goal is supposed to be.  Federal funds now are provided to promote an “appropriate” education for each disabled child, but what would that be?

The federal government is now asking the Supreme Court to clarify what Congress has had in mind since the lawmakers took the initiative in 1975 to set policy, with the aim of relieving parents of disabled children from the burden of having to win, one constitutional case at a time, a right to attend public school.

Before Congress passed the first federal law to assure access to public schools, the pattern across the country was either to bar students with disabilities entirely from public schools, or to let them attend with little more to do than wait until they were old enough to quit school.  Tens of thousands were kept in institutions with little preparation for when they might emerge.

Because education is traditionally, and by constitutional understanding, governed by state and local officials, Congress used the one workable means to influence policy: it made federal funds available to induce the nation’s school systems to open their doors to disabled children.

In the beginning, the goal was mainly to assure access.  In those days, the science was not yet well developed on how to educate children with autism and related disabilities, so the emphasis had to be on simply getting those young ones into classrooms.  The specific hope was that they could learn while attending classrooms along with other students who were not disabled, rather than being taught separately in isolated “special education” environments.

Congress wrote a phrase to express its ultimate aspiration: each disabled child was to have a “free appropriate public education.”  The taxpayers of the nation, not of the states, would pay the bill for developing the means specifically to educate the disabled.  There is no question that many of those children have special needs, but, as much as possible, they were to have those needs met by the public schools.  But what was “appropriate” in the education of a disabled youngster?

Under the federal law, each disabled child was to have an educational plan, tailored to that child specifically.  School officials were required to work out each such plan with the parents of the child, and the parents were given a right to sue their school district if the discussions over the plan broke down.  (If a school district could not provide an adequate plan, the parents could choose send the child to a private school, and the school district would reimburse them for the tuition.)

This was the scheme that replaced the pre-1975 situation, when parents had to bring individual lawsuits, claiming access for their child as a constitutional requirement of either “due process” or equal legal opportunity.  A few of those lawsuits had succeeded, but they remained an isolated answer to the educational challenge.  Under the new legal regime that Congress provided, parents could still sue on behalf of their children specifically, but such cases were directly tied to the formation of education policy in general.

The meaning of what an “appropriate” education is, and what an “appropriate” individual plan for a child would be, reached the Supreme Court for the first time in 1982, in the case of Board of Education v. Rowley.  In that ruling, the court provided a partial definition and refused to make it more specific.  Since then, it has never returned to the issue.

The court declared then that public schools did not have to maximize the potential of children with disabilities to learn, because Congress did not aim at “strict equality of opportunity or services” in the public school setting.  But, it said, each child’s plan must be “reasonably calculated to enable the child to receive educational benefits.”  While it said the benefit had to be “meaningful,” it What rights does a disabled child have at school?:

White House Looks to Battle Sexual Trauma in K-12 Schools | US News

White House Looks to Battle Sexual Trauma in K-12 Schools | US News:

Battling Sexual Trauma in K-12 Schools

As researchers study why girls of color are disproportionately suspended, one issue stands out: sexual trauma.

Her mother had just dropped her off at school when second-grader Irma Lopez turned to see law enforcement agents take her into custody for having expired immigration documents – an event that eventually led to her mother's deportation back to Mexico.

Three of Lopez's younger brothers and sisters – ages 6, 4 and 5 months – were still in the back of the beat-up van she had jumped out of minutes earlier, and it would be up to Lopez, the oldest, to help raise them. It wasn't long after that, living in a small apartment with her grandfather and nearly a dozen people total in the rural farming community of Immokalee, Florida, that her stepfather, an alcoholic, began sexually abusing her.

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Peer Pressure, Stereotypes Fuel Minority Students' Struggles

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"I had a lot of anger issues growing up," Lopez said, speaking at an event at the White House on Monday. "I was very traumatized so I was always angry. I really didn't take much from anybody. Growing up, I was always suspended for threatening teachers, fighting boys, fighting girls – anyone who would come up to me."

A significant amount of research focuses on the education challenges facing boys and young men, particularly male students of color, and it's fueled an uptick in state and federal programs, including the Obama administration's hallmark My Brother's Keeper initiative, that aim to address drop-out rates and halt the school-to-prison pipeline.

But amid mounting criticism that girls of color are being ignored, policymakers are now beginning to take a hard look at the obstacles girls face when it comes to education. And those obstacles took center stage Monday during the White House event, which brought together administration staff, policymakers, teachers, school administrators, counselors and doctors.

"Frankly, far too often, [girls] have waited in the shadows for their time to come," said Jeannette Pai-Espinosa, president of The National Crittenton Foundation, an organization that helps girls impacted by childhood adversity.

Just like for male students of color, girls and young women of color who are suspended are more likely to drop out of school, enter the juvenile justice system and add to the school-to-prison pipeline. They're also at a much greater risk of becoming pregnant.

The problem is most severe for African-American girls, who represent 20 percent of preschool enrollment, for example, but account for more than half of all preschool children suspended, according to the Department of Education's Civil Rights Data Collection, which gathers information on the nation's public schools. They also represent8 percent of enrolled K-12 students, but account for 14 percent of students that received more than one out-of-school suspension.

"Far too many schools have harsh, zero-tolerance policies that are disproportionately applied," said Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to President Barack Obama. "Too many black girls, in particular, are suspended at higher rates than any other girls of race or ethnicity. This is a tragedy."

For her part, Lopez constantly faced suspensions in grade school – in periods ranging White House Looks to Battle Sexual Trauma in K-12 Schools | US News:

Will school libraries soon be gone?

Will school libraries soon be gone?:

Will school libraries soon be gone?

Teachers and librarians from across the state gathered in Howell Township over the weekend to discuss how to advocate funding for a new legislation that could affect the future of school libraries.

Over the past 15 years, school libraries have suffered due to the No Child Left Behind Act. School library funding was left out of the act, said Kathy Lester, former president of Michigan Association for Media in Education.

In 2015, Congress passed a new legislation called the Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaced the No Child Left Behind Act. While the new law has been signed into law at the federal level, states are now coming up with their own plans, which are expected to be available next year.

School districts want to make sure they are prepared to have funding options to keep school libraries.

Here is the Michigan ESSA State Plan. Story continues below document.

However, as a result of the lack of funding from No Child Left Behind, several districts have been forced to close libraries or asked teachers to pick up those responsibilities.

"This has hurt the state and schools because school libraries aren't supported in the state of Michigan," Lester said. "Currently, only 8 percent of libraries have a full-time certified librarian staffing them."

The decline first started in 2003 and has steadily been on a downward slant ever since, Lester said.

"This hasn't been a good thing for the state because Michigan currently ranks 41st in Will school libraries soon be gone?:

Want to be able to buy a house in California? Don’t become a teacher. - The Washington Post

Want to be able to buy a house in California? Don’t become a teacher. - The Washington Post:

Want to be able to buy a house in California? Don’t become a teacher.

Teachers’ salaries have been rising in California, but not nearly fast enough to keep up with soaring housing prices, according to a new analysis that could shed some light on one reason why the Golden State is having trouble finding enough qualified educators for its public school classrooms.

Redfin, a national real estate brokerage, examined California’s 31 most-populous counties, from Sonoma Valley wine country in the north to the agricultural towns of the Central Valley to the sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles to the south. Just 17 percent of homes for sale in those counties were affordable on the state’s average teacher salary of $73,536, Redfin found.

That’s a marked decline from 2012, when 30 percent of homes for sale in those counties were affordable on the average teacher’s salary at the time: $70,487. “Affordable” means the monthly mortgage payment would eat up less than 30 percent of a person’s gross monthly salary.

Lindsay Katz, a Redfin agent in the San Fernando Valley, said one of her clients is a teacher who lives an hour from her school and wants to move closer. But she hasn’t been able to find anything affordable. It’s hard to find any home under $400,000, Katz said: “It’s a tough market. … Everything that’s in the lower price range you have to compete with developers who come in with all-cash offers. You keep getting beat out.”

The outlook is bleakest for teachers in Silicon Valley, home to countless tech millionaires — and billionaires — whose money has transformed the housing market. In San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, exactly zero homes for sale on Sept. 6 — the day Redfin chose for its analysis — were affordable for the average teacher. Things weren’t much better in nearby San Francisco (where 1 of 571 homes for sale were affordable for teachers), Sonoma or Santa Cruz.Want to be able to buy a house in California? Don’t become a teacher. - The Washington Post:

Michigan teachers demoralized, union survey says

Michigan teachers demoralized, union survey says:

Michigan teachers demoralized, union survey says

A first-time combined survey by the state’s two teachers unions reveals widespread disappointment, demoralization and discontent among their members.

The results were consistent from Detroit to Grand Rapids and the Upper Peninsula.

The presidents of AFT Michigan and the Michigan Education Association say it is the first time, to their knowledge, that a joint survey of this magnitude has been attempted. And the turnaround time for responses, they say — one week — was extraordinary.

“Nothing surprised us, but I wish I had been surprised,” AFT Michigan president David Hecker said Monday during a conference call with reporters. “This just shows how pervasive the issues are, or how longstanding because they are consistent throughout the state of Michigan.”

Hecker said some of those issues include dissatisfaction with standardized testing and with the new statewide teacher evaluations.

Those evaluations are required under a state law passed by the Michigan Legislature in 2011 that makes it easier to remove ineffective teachers from the classroom.

“The teacher evaluations are their version of the Hunger Games,” said Hecker. “They are inconsistent at the very best and it’s more about punishing teachers than improving their teaching abilities.”

He said 7 percent thought the changes to the evaluations had a positive effect, while 60 percent said the changes had a negative impact on their teaching.

“This reflects the state of extreme fear,” said Hecker. “We need to refocus from punishment and fear to improvement and excellence.”

He also said safety and building issues also drew numerous complaints.

“Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they worked in buildings with unstable heating and cooling,” Hecker said. “Thirty-nine percent said they’re dealing with damaged walls, 35 percent said poor air quality, 32 percent complained of rodents and insects, while 34 percent said poor water quality is an issue.”

Both Hecker and MEA president Steven B. Cook say the survey results demonstrate the need for major change in Lansing.

“The key takeaway is there is widespread discontent among public school employees and if lawmakers don’t act quickly to address broken funding, then changes need to occur,” said Hecker. “There is a universal feeling that public school employees are not respected when policies are being crafted by policymakers.”

The Michigan Association of School Superintendents did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cook said the general election in November is an opportunity for voters to change control of the state House, which is controlled by Republicans.

“We would like more legislators to care what educators think — that’s been our theme,” he said. “We would like to see the political makeup of the House change and see Speaker (Tim) Greimel instead of House Democratic Leader Greimel.”

slewis@detroitnews.com

(313) 222-2296Michigan teachers demoralized, union survey says:

 

Livermore charter schools, school district trade barbs over rumors

Livermore charter schools, school district trade barbs over rumors:

Livermore charter schools, school district battle over rumors

LIVERMORE — The Tri-Valley Learning Corp. and the Livermore school district have begun a back-and-forth battle as each claims the other is spreading false rumors.

Earlier this month, TVLC, via its Menlo Park-based Procopio law firm, sent a cease-and-desist order to the school district, claiming the district was intentionally spreading false rumors about its Livermore charter schools and creating unfair competition.



“Your harassing conduct taken in bad faith is an intentional interference with the TVLC schools’ attendance and a serious violation of parents’ right to school of choice,” the letter stated.



Last month as school began, the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District reported that it gained 500 new students, most of them former charter school students who were fleeing Livermore Valley Charter School and Livermore Valley Charter Preparatory.



TVLC, the company that runs the charter schools, is facing allegations of financial mismanagement, illegally charging foreign exchange students tuition and transferring them to a school in Stockton against their will, and recently, hiring a principal who made an online reference to empathizing with mass shooters.



Former TVLC employees or those associated with the organization were charged last month by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office on suspicion of child cruelty and failing to report suspected child abuse.



In their letter, the TVLC’s lawyers stated they had evidence school district officials are meeting with parents to persuade them to pull their children out of the charter schools.



One day later, the school district responded with its own cease-and-desist letter, stating that no district officials were present at such a meeting. The letter states that if such a meeting did occur, “it is even more troubling that TVLC is attempting to suppress their (parents) discussion.”



Chris Van Schaack, the associate superintendent of the school district, said that even if the district had a meeting, it would be within their rights.



The district’s letter, written by its attorney John Yeh, also states that TVLC is making “fabricated and false allegations” against the district, which does a disservice to both the district and the charter schools.



“One would hope that TVLC would focus its energies on addressing its serious institutional deficiencies … instead of sending baseless legal accusations against the district and suppressing its own parents’ constitutional rights to meet and discuss their public school options,” Yeh wrote.



Livermore Valley Charter School sent a letter to parents earlier this month letting them know at least seven teachers had to be laid off because of declined enrollment and “the prior administration’s deficit spending.” Other teachers have resigned, as the letter cites a first-grade teacher who is no longer with the charter school.



Eric Dillie, a former principal for both of the charters, and former vice principal Randy Taylor,  were charged by the DA’s Office for failing to report suspected child abuse. They resigned last month.Livermore charter schools, school district trade barbs over rumors: