Five misconceptions about Michigan education and Betsy DeVos - The Hechinger Report

Five misconceptions about Michigan education and Betsy DeVos - The Hechinger Report:

Five misconceptions about Michigan education and Betsy DeVos

Cutting through the partisan noise

President Trump’s nomination of Betsy DeVos — a Michigan philanthropist and school choice advocate — for Secretary of Education is thrusting Michigan education into the national education debate.

DeVos played a role in Michigan education reform, so in a world of alternative facts, suddenly claims and counter-claims about Michigan schools are all over blogs, social media and mainstream media.

To help cut through the noise, we created this comprehensive fact base about education in Michigan to serve as an impartial resource during the confirmation hearings and beyond.

Related: A shocking number of young people can’t separate fact from fiction online

The facts reveal a complicated story about education reform on the ground in Michigan that bolsters the case both of DeVos’ boosters and her critics.

Michigan has aggressively moved to expand school choice and other reform efforts for more than two decades, but has struggled at times to implement effective oversight of these reforms — especially in Detroit, the nation’s lowest performing, large, urban district.

Michigan does not tell us everything about what DeVos might do or not do as Secretary of Education, but it offers some clues.

Here are five misconceptions we’ve fact-checked about Michigan education during the DeVos debate, from both supporters and opponents of the Secretary of Education nominee:

First claim: Increases in Michigan student achievement are leading to greater college and career readiness among the state’s high school graduates.

The facts: Schools in Michigan have not been performing well in recent years — the state generally ranks in the bottom third in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), and new state assessments show wide achievement gaps across grade levels, especially for low-income students and students of color. While graduation rates have gone up, they still fall below the national average, and when 11th grade students in Michigan took the SAT last year, only 35 percent hit the “college ready” benchmark.

Second claim: Reports that Michigan lacks school accountability are “false news.”

The fact: While Michigan has various accountability mechanisms for schools, those systems have not been very effective, and were under scrutiny even before DeVos’s nomination.

Related: Column What these teens learned about the Internet may shock you!

Responsibility for education in Michigan is shared between the State Board of Education, the state superintendent, the governor, and over 40 charter school authorizers, making it tough to know for sure who is responsible for what. Only in 2014 (after 20 years of charter schools) did the state Department of Education start closely overseeing charter school authorizers’ effectiveness. School accountability systems are being revised at the state and local level in Michigan — the state is putting together a new statewide plan under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), and a recently passed law mandates an A-F grading system for all schools in Detroit, implemented by the governor’s School Reform Office. It will take a few more years to know whether these new systems will yield any Five misconceptions about Michigan education and Betsy DeVos - The Hechinger Report:

Schools Matter: Buffoonery, De Damned

Schools Matter: Buffoonery, De Damned:

Buffoonery, De Damned

Just back from DC, where the Women's March brought out more than a half million people to assert their determination to maintain a constitutional democracy and the civil and human rights that our predecessors over many generations have fought and died for.  If it comes down to it, the millions that gathered around the country this past weekend have declared that they are no less willing to make sure that we continue to protect our Constitution and work toward "a more perfect union."  I feel confident that this Republic will not be usurped by a band of neo-fascists led by a narcissistic buffoon who lied and cheated his way to the highest office of the land.

What impressed me most about this demonstration, besides its sheer size and its peaceful and determined exercise of free speech, was the united front that came together, comprised of so many different pressing concerns and peoples:  immigrants, black and brown citizens, women both too young to walk and too old to walk and every age in between, the LGBT communities, students, retired people, Christian, Islamic, and Jewish, unions, white, Asian, American Indian, and yes, even old white, privileged white guys like myself who reject Trump's false characterizations and racist lies.The sociologists call it intersectionality.  Whatever you call it, it is the first step in the emergent renewal of our democratic aspirations here and abroad.  Trump has, in effect, brought us all together, around the world, which is something Hillary and the neoliberals never could have done.

I'm hoping to get Matt Taibbi's new book this week:Schools Matter: Buffoonery, De Damned:

Schools Matter: Buffoonery, De Damned:

New Reports Reveal The Big Charter School ‘Accountability’ Lie

New Reports Reveal The Big Charter School ‘Accountability’ Lie:
New Reports Reveal The Big Charter School ‘Accountability’ Lie

In one of the testier moments in what was the testiest ever confirmation hearing for US secretary of education, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia questioned if nominee billionaire Betsy DeVos would demand the same kind of accountability from the full range of education institutions she wants included in her program for unleashed “school choice” – public schools, charters, and private schools receiving taxpayer money through vouchers.

The exchange went like this:

Kaine: “If confirmed will you insist upon equal accountability in any K-12 school or educational program that receives taxpayer funding whether public, public charter, or private?”

DeVos: “I support accountability.”

Kaine: “Equal accountability?”

DeVos: “I support accountability.”

Kaine: “Is that a yes or a no?”

DeVos: “I support accountability.”

Kaine: “Do you not want to answer my question?”

DeVos: “I support accountability.”

That DeVos responded to a legitimate – even essential – question with a stubborn, insipid talking point is illustrative of not only her inability to provide an intelligent, straightforward answer to most questions about education policy, but also indicative of the empty rhetoric the well-financed charter school industry uses to respond to any appropriate questioning of the rationale for expanding these schools.

There’s ample evidence – based on both DeVos’ personal efforts to unleash unregulated charter schools in her own state, Michigan, and on evidence from other states that have similar unregulated charter school environments – that much of the vaunted “accountability” of charter schools is an empty promise at best, and at worse, a curtain to hide all sorts of malfeasance and corruption.

Sunshine State Scandal

As a new report from the Center for Popular Democracy documents, “lack New Reports Reveal The Big Charter School ‘Accountability’ Lie:

Charter School Industry raised more than $24 million in 2016 record breaking defeat In Massachusetts - Wait What?

Charter School Industry raised more than $24 million in 2016 record breaking defeat In Massachusetts - Wait What?:

Charter School Industry raised more than $24 million in 2016 record breaking defeat In Massachusetts

The final campaign finance reports have been submitted and the Charter School Industry raised and spent $24,476,132 in its losing effort to raise the cap on the number of charter schools allowed in Massachusetts.

According to the Ballotopia website,

Question 2 would have authorized the approval of up to 12 new charter schools or enrollment expansions in existing charter schools per year.

Organizations in support of Question #2 in Massachusetts	Total Raised
Yes on Two	$710,100
Campaign for Fair Access to Quality Public Schools	$2,418,570
Great Schools Massachusetts	$21,198,748
Advancing Obama’s Legacy on Charter Schools Ballot Committee	$722,040
Expanding Educational Opportunities	$575,002
TOTAL	$25,624,360

An incredible 95 percent of the money that flowed into the Massachusetts charter school campaign came from out-of-state donors, with 84 percent of the total funds coming from New York based Families for Excellent Schools, a dark money charter school group that advocates in New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

According to the official reports filed with the commonwealth of Massachusetts, a total of five political action committees engaged in the effort to fund the ballot proposition aimed at lifting the cap on the number of charter schools allowed in Massachusetts.  Together they reported raising a total of that $25,624,360, but that count reflects money Charter School Industry raised more than $24 million in 2016 record breaking defeat In Massachusetts - Wait What?:

Betsy DeVos’s Institutional Racism Problem | educarenow

Betsy DeVos’s Institutional Racism Problem | educarenow:

Betsy DeVos’s Institutional Racism Problem

As have no doubt heard, the State School Reform Office of the state of Michigan has released the names of the 38 schools that are slated for possible closure. These are schools that have been determined to be among the “lowest performing” schools in the state as measured by “achievement data” for the past 3 years. These are schools that Betsy DeVos, soon to be cleared as Secretary of Education, calls “failing.”

I call B.S.

And, more importantly, I call institutional racism.

Let’s be clear and name this- Betsy DeVos is a huge proponent of institutional racism.

How do you spot institutional racism? It’s pretty easy.

First, here is what you don’t do. You don’t go looking for individual racists. I honestly don’t know DeVos’s personal ideas on race. I am certainly not naming her as a racist. Her intentions are beyond by my ability to determine. More so, as Secretary of Education, I don’t see her personal intentions as particularly relevant. (The same goes for Attonrey General nominee Jeff Sessions. All of these people testifying as to their personal experience in working with him is irrelevant. Who cares if those who know him claim he’s a nice guy? See below.)

What is relevant are the effects and outcomes of the policies that she supports. These are very, very easy to determine. And they clearly, clearly Betsy DeVos’s Institutional Racism Problem | educarenow:

Public Schools “Flush with Cash”? | janresseger

Public Schools “Flush with Cash”? | janresseger:

Public Schools “Flush with Cash”?

In his inaugural address, President Donald Trump declared that public schools are “flush with cash.” That phrase confirms something I’ve always suspected. President Trump has never been inside a public school.

The public schools I know generally have old fashioned waxed tile floors—work done by a custodian after the children leave at the end of the day.  The trash is emptied, and the cafeteria tables are set up for the free breakfast provided these days for hungry children who qualify. Then the tables are folded up and lined tight against the wall to allow the children to have gym class in the all-purpose room before lunch is set up. The stale aroma of fish sticks lingers through the afternoon gym classes and, if the school is in a bit wealthier community, into the band class that is also set up some days every week in the same all-purpose room.

“Flush with cash” describes the people crowding the sidewalk in front of Bergdorf’s on Fifth Avenue and the people in tailored overcoats we keep watching while they ride down the escalator in the gilded Trump Tower.  But referring to any public school as “flush with cash” is one of those falsehoods Kellyanne Conway has taken to calling “alternative facts.”

In his speech Trump trumpeted one of the classic anti-public school talking points of those who want to trash and privatize public schools—that although we are dumping tons of money into our schools, our schools haven’t moved the needle on test scores.

It’s true that overall on the one test that is trusted, the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), scores have not risen astronomically. While the black-white test score gaps have narrowed, the huge gap in achievement among children whose family income is in the top ten percent and those in the bottom ten percent is now 40 percent wider than it was in 1970.  That is surely consistent with the real fact—documented in academic research—that children’s standardized test scores are affected in the aggregate by the wealth or poverty of their families and the economic conditions in their communities.

What about school spending?  Richard Rothstein studied this back in the 1990s in reports published by the Economic Policy Institute.  Here is what he explains in Where’s the Money Gone?, his report on school spending between 1967 and 1991: “(T)he share of expenditures going to regular education dropped from 80% to 59% between 1967 and 1991, while the share going to special education climbed from 4% to 17%.  Of the net new money spent on education in 1991, only 26% went to improve regular education, while about 38% went to special education for severely handicapped and learning-disabled children. Per pupil expenditures for regular education grew by only 28% during this quarter century—an average annual rate of about 1%.”

Rothstein later updated his study to cover the years from 1991-1996.  In Where’s the Money Public Schools “Flush with Cash”? | janresseger:

Bill Ayers believes opposition to Trump should come from the people—not the Democratic Party | Politics | Chicago Reader

Bill Ayers believes opposition to Trump should come from the people—not the Democratic Party | Politics | Chicago Reader:

Bill Ayers believes opposition to Trump should come from the people—not the Democratic Party 

The author and former Weatherman says modern revolutionaries also don't have to look to the 1960s for inspiration.

Bill Ayers

COURTESY HAYMARKET BOOKS

ere's a reason why Donald Trump is barely mentioned in Bill Ayers's new book, Demand the Impossible!: A Radical Manifesto, which calls for a social movement that opposes the neoliberal agenda of the rich and powerful that run our political system. When he was writing it last year, he generally assumed that Hillary Clinton would become the next president of the United States.

But for the 72-year-old activist and retired professor, there's a silver lining to Trump's ascension: the radical ideas in Ayers's pro-revolution manifesto now seem, well, less impossible. "If Secretary Clinton had taken the presidency, it would have been normal. And normal's not good enough," Ayers said in a recent interview. "I'm horrified by the election, but also I think that it's demanded of us to rethink what's going on in this country."

Ayers is no stranger to resistance and rebellion. He openly called for it at the dawn of Richard Nixon's administration nearly five decades ago as a cofounder of an organization of young activists called the Weathermen. The group's opposition to the Vietnam war and American imperialism escalated in 1969 with the Days of Rage, a raucous four-day protest and violent clash with Chicago police in the streets of Lincoln Park that led to 70 arrests and two dozen injured Weathermen.

In 1970, a homemade bomb that the Weathermen were assembling to detonate at the Fort Dix U.S. military base in New Jersey prematurely exploded in a Greenwich Village townhouse, killing three of the group's members. Prompted by that incident, as well as federal charges against two Weathermen, Ayers and his fellow fugitives—including his co-conspirator and now wife, Bernardine Dohrn—went underground. In the early 70s, the Weather Underground took credit for a campaign of bombings that targeted symbolic governmental targets ranging from Chicago Police Department squad cars to military bases to the U.S. Capitol Building and the Pentagon. ("Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon," wrote Ayers in his 2001 memoir Fugitive Days. "The sky was blue. The birds were singing. And the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them.")

The storm calmed for the Weather Underground as the draft and the Bill Ayers believes opposition to Trump should come from the people—not the Democratic Party | Politics | Chicago Reader:

 

Bill Ayers -- Demand the Impossible!: A Radical Manifesto | Haymarket Books -http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Demand-the-Impossible

How Defending Public Schools and the Environment Can Save the Democratic Party - Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association: How Defending Public Schools and the Environment Can Save the Democratic Party by Cheryl Gibbs Binkley:

How Defending Public Schools and the Environment Can Save the Democratic Party 

by Cheryl Gibbs Binkley

Originally posted at: http://3rdmillenniumteacher.blogspot.com/2017/01/how-defending-public-schools-and.html

There has been much speculation about the whys and wherefores of the recent election as to why the Dems lost and the Trumpers won, and there’s been much hand wringing behind the scenes (in between the can-you-believe-he-did-thats) about how the Democratic party will recover from the election. They are fragmented, they are mistrustful of one another, and they are scared.

Right now in Congress the Republicans are ignoring the Dems like they were mailroom boys, while there are 33 Republican Governors, and 25 completely Republican state capitals, with another 20 state legislatures partially controlled by Republicans.  Let’s face it, ALEC is having a field day with state laws! If you wanna see pillaging, look to the states for rampant slash and burn politics from absolutely buzzark Koch legislators who now control our states.

Though there are some not so talked about ways we got to this disastrous place (hint: it’s by being more like the Republicans than like Democrats), I’d really like to present a clear option for getting out of the uncomfortably tight container where way more than half the country are crammed into a fraction of the legislative space.  

All the people issues are good, and as soon as the Dems get back the state houses and Congress they can pay attention to all of them.  But health care and immigration are going to be projects that are not easily solved, though we know we will have to fix them both.  However, there are two other issues that can deliver the country on a plate to the party that realizes it.

Here’s the solution-- Take a firm and strongly progressive stand on Education and the Environment.

First Education-- Yes, Education, and not just free college and more preschools; though loan Badass Teachers Association: How Defending Public Schools and the Environment Can Save the Democratic Party by Cheryl Gibbs Binkley:

Judging Success and Failure of Reforms in Classroom Practice | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Judging Success and Failure of Reforms in Classroom Practice | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Judging Success and Failure of Reforms in Classroom Practice

The dominant standard used by most policymakers, media editors, and administrators to judge success is effectiveness: What is the evidence that the policy has produced the desired outcomes? Have you done what you said you were going to do and can you prove it? In a society where “bottom lines,” Dow Jones averages, Super Bowl victories, and vote-counts matter, quantifiable results determine effectiveness.

Since the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965), federal and state policymakers have relied on the effectiveness standard to examine what students have learned by using proxy measures such as test scores, high school graduation rates, college attendance, and other indicators. For example, in the late-1970s policymakers concluded that public schools had declined because scholastic aptitudes test (SAT) scores had plunged downward. Even though test-makers and researchers repeatedly stated that such claims were false—falling SAT scores fueled public support for states raising academic requirements in the 1980s and adding standardized tests to determine success. With the No Child Left Behind Act (2001-2016) test scores brought rewards and penalties. [i]

Yet test results in some instances proved unhelpful in measuring a reform’s success. Consider the mid-1960s’ evaluations of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). They revealed little improvement in low-income children’s academic performance thereby jeopardizing Congressional renewal of the program. Such evidence gave critics hostile to federal initiatives reasons to brand President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty programs as failures. [ii]

Nonetheless, the program’s political attractiveness to constituents and legislators overcame weak test scores. Each successive U.S. president and Congress, Republican or Democrat, have used that popularity as a basis for allocating funds to needy students in schools across the nation including No Child Left Behind Judging Success and Failure of Reforms in Classroom Practice | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Turtle Learning: World Wide and not just Nation wide revolt against the new POTUS

Turtle Learning: World Wide and not just Nation wide revolt against the new POTUS:

 World Wide and not just Nation wide revolt against the new POTUS

"WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CANNOT REST..."    ELLA BAKER

January 21st was a day of hope -- real hope!  Over 3 - 4 million people world wide demonstrated and marched against the presidency of a man who basically disrespects and wants to deport and or jail anyone who is a white anglo saxon protestant and rich. 

Blogger Patrick James Walsh had this to say about January 21st: 

Nothing like this has ever happened before in American history: one day after the swearing in of a new president, a massive nation wide revolt and rejection.
No American president has ever inspired such a response, but then no American president has so repulsed and frightened and insulted the American people as deeply as does Trump.  .....Mass Revolt Against Trump in New York and Across America

GUARDIAN today said - We Made History.  Apparently these were some of the largest demonstrations ever in our history.  I like this statistical enumeration of our victories: 

Whoops!  Can't find an actual graph or chart. So I'll make one up. 

WASHINGTON D.C.                    500,000

LOS ANGELES                            750,000

NEW YORK CITY                       250,000

CHICAGO                                    250,000   [ALL MY FRIENDS SAY THIS MEANS WAY MORE]

DENVER                                      150,000

SEATTLE                                     130,000

BOSTON                                      150,000

LONDON                                     100,000  

PORTLAND                                 100,000

TORONTO, CANADA                  60,000 

AUSTIN                                         40,000

ST. LOUIS                                     10,000 +

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA               10,000

PALM BEACH                               7,000

SAN FRANCISCO                     150,000

OAKLAND                                 100,000


An article from US Uncut has "official estimates"  = http://usuncut.com/news/official-womens-march-attendance/    
AND
Here's a google doc of estimates: high and low -- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xa0iLqYKz8x9Yc_rfhtmSOJQ2EGgeUVjvV4A8LsIaxY/htmlview?sle=true#gid=0 
It shows Los Angeles low estimate:  200,000 and high:  750,000.  That is kinda crazy -- more accurate I think would be between 500,000 and 750,000.

Worries are that this won't continue. That the DNC types like Debbie Wasserman Turtle Learning: World Wide and not just Nation wide revolt against the new POTUS:

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Seattle Still on Low End for Children for a Major U.S. City

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Seattle Still on Low End for Children for a Major U.S. City:

Seattle Still on Low End for Children for a Major U.S. City

There are several reasons to raise this issue.

One reason is the growing gentrification of this city which is likely to push out groups that traditionally have more children - immigrants (especially Latinos.)  

Another reason is the rising costs of housing in this city as well as the seemingly lack of family-sized apartments/condos being built (at least as being pushed by the Mayor's HALA committee.)

Still another concern is our school district and its inability to be operationally sound and provide good academic outcomes for all children.  If many poorer families get pushed out of the district and wealthier families continue to go private, Seattle Schools may not continue its growth.  Charter schools are likely to influence what happens as well (if the current law doesn't also get overturned.)

The New York Times had a story recently about San Francisco and its lowest-in-the-nation child population. 

As an urban renaissance has swept through major American cities in recent decades, San Francisco’s population has risen to historical highs and a forest of skyscraping condominiums has replaced tumbledown warehouses and abandoned wharves. At the same time, the share of children in San Francisco fell to 13 percent, low even compared with another expensive city, New York, with 21 percent. 

As San Francisco moves toward a one-industry town with soaring costs, the dearth of children is one more change that raises questions about its character. Are fewer children making San Francisco more one-dimensional and less vibrant? The answer is subjective and part of an impassioned debate over Seattle Schools Community Forum: Seattle Still on Low End for Children for a Major U.S. City:

State-level Elected Officials Write Letter of Support for DeVos the Same Day As Her Awful Hearing | deutsch29

State-level Elected Officials Write Letter of Support for DeVos the Same Day As Her Awful Hearing | deutsch29:

State-level Elected Officials Write Letter of Support for DeVos the Same Day As Her Awful Hearing

In a letter dated January 17, 2017, 137 state-level Republicans wrote to Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chair, Lamar Alexander (also a Republican), in support of having Michigan billionaire and former Michigan Republican Party chair and Republican candidate financial supporter, Betsy DeVos, as the next US secretary of education.

This crew wasted no time, given that DeVos’ nomination hearing was scheduled for 5 p.m. on January 17, 2017 (same day as the letter was dated) and lasted 3 1/2 hours.

The letter boasts signatures “represent[ing] elected state offices from all 50 states”; thus, not a single state-level department of education chief is among the entire bunch.

What is also noteworthy is that the letter avoids using the term “Republican” even though all 137 are Republicans. (I checked for any independents. None.)

These “elected leaders” require campaign funding, and DeVos is a billionaire Republican funder. I’m sure this is just coincidence.

Even though the letter notes that “education is critical,” it seems education not critical enough to include support from anyone whose professional career is currently connected to the classroom.

A career in any classroom.

After all, DeVos wants private schools to accept public school students. I wonder how the private schools feel about that.

This support from outside of (above?) the classroom fits perfectly with the likes of Betsy DeVos as US ed sec: Not only does she possess no experience in working with any traditional public school; in her 3 1/2 hours of questioning before the Senate State-level Elected Officials Write Letter of Support for DeVos the Same Day As Her Awful Hearing | deutsch29:

Schooling in the Ownership Society: The language of reform. Corporate 'Collectives' for the Elite.

Schooling in the Ownership Society: The language of reform. Corporate 'Collectives' for the Elite.:

The language of reform. Corporate 'Collectives' for the Elite.

Over the years I've gotten used to the way corporate reformers appropriate the language of radical social change to give themselves a progressive facade.

Take the word, collective, for example, as in socialist collectivism, collective bargaining, collective farming, anarchist or Marxist collectives, which is usually associated with the left-wing, labor movements. In the late 60s and early 70s you also had the rise of feminist collectives and so on. In other words, grassroots organizations synonymous with social change.

Can top-down, corporate reformers now take ownership of the terminology? You bet they can.

Sign of the times... Crain's Chicago Business recently launched its CEO Collective. No, it has nothing to do with socialism, street-protest affinity groups, or going off the the country to start a commune.

Listen to the way they describe it to potential recruits, using lots of ed reform jargon.

An exclusive year-long program for Chicago CEOs and founders, Crain’s CEO Collective offers participants an opportunity to work alongside their new professional network and dive deep into their most pressing challenges – empowering them to transform their organization.

This facilitated peer-learning program will include modules on issue resolution, leadership development, strategic thinking and innovation. Plus, members will be introduced to guest speakers that will enrich, inspire and energize their journey. CEOs will also gain a renewed awareness of issues and opportunities in Chicago.

Wow, peer-coaching, professional development, innovation -- this sounds like it came directly out of the school reform movement of the 1990s.

What they don't offer in their ads, but I'm sure is included in the Collective's membership fee, are workshops of how to undermine unions and get rid of, or Schooling in the Ownership Society: The language of reform. Corporate 'Collectives' for the Elite.: