Famed researcher Linda Darling-Hammond on the future of New York education — and what she makes of Betsy DeVos | Chalkbeat

Famed researcher Linda Darling-Hammond on the future of New York education — and what she makes of Betsy DeVos | Chalkbeat:

Famed researcher Linda Darling-Hammond on the future of New York education — and what she makes of Betsy DeVos

New York could be on the cusp of “serious changes” to education policy — if the state takes the plunge, according to Linda Darling-Hammond, one of nation’s most influential education researchers.

Darling-Hammond, a Stanford professor emeritus, served as director of President Obama’s education policy transition team and was rumored as a choice for U.S. education secretary under Obama and New York City schools chancellor under Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Now she runs the Learning Policy Institute, an education think tank that is helping a number of states, including New York, implement the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, passed in 2015.

Darling-Hammond has argued that it’s not just students who should be held to rigorous standards. So should teachers, schools, districts and states. The education system must provide students the “opportunity to learn,” she says, and ensure families that schools have enough support.

“They need for you to be able to improve things, not just to measure them,” she told Chalkbeat in an interview this week.

ESSA could allow states to do that in a new way, she said. While No Child Left Behind focused tightly on outcomes such as test scores, ESSA gives states more flexibility to consider “inputs,” such as how much money is spent on each student, as they evaluate schools and figure out how to help them.

New York officials have not yet committed to a plan, but they’ve hinted that equity — in terms of resources, curriculum, and learning outcomes — could be a central focus.

So what exactly would that look like? We talked to Darling-Hammond, one of several experts working with the state, to figure out how New York could use the federal law to measure and promote equity.

Below is a transcript of the interview, which has been condensed and edited for clarity.

What is your take on Trump’s education secretary nominee Betsy DeVos and how she could shift the direction of federal education policy?

The way ESSA was written, it outlines an important federal role, it outlines a state role. It actually prohibits the secretary of education from making a whole set of decisions that are outlined, so regardless of what administration is in Washington, the law really limits the extent of federal involvement.

My suspicion is that states will be able to continue to implement the policies that they were aiming at before. The way the law was drafted, states have a lot of room, within certain parameters, to make their decisions. It’s hard to imagine that changing very much.

Some argue that her nomination changes the political landscape in education. Do you think the battle lines have been redrawn?

I just haven’t really studied what her views are, so I don’t know enough to know whether she falls in a particular camp or what her views on all those issues are … We know that she’s involved in [vouchers and school choice], but I don’t know her views about testing or her views about teachers. So it will be interesting, in a way, because she isn’t someone who’s been involved in the education profession. Probably there are many things that we don’t know her views about, and maybe she has not even yet formulated views on everything.

How much change does ESSA enable? When the dust settles here in New York — even if officials want to make radical change — will we end up with a system that looks similar to No Child Left Behind?

I think ESSA really does enable some serious changes. If a state really wants to develop a plan that looks a lot like No Child Left Behind, they could do that, but if they wanted to think more broadly about accountability measures that include both outcomes for students and learning opportunities that schools provide, they can do that. If a state wants to really evolve the kind of assessments that it uses, they can do that … And if a state wants to really make investments — and more equitable investments — in schools, there are several parts of the law that encourage and allow that to happen as well.

New York officials brought up the idea of creating “equity indicators” at the last Board of Regents meeting. What does that mean?

It could mean being very explicit and attentive to the requirements of the law that require publicizing the spending of different schools, which would highlight where there are adequate resources and where there may be inadequate resources.

The state could use indicators that are equity-oriented that illustrate, for example, Famed researcher Linda Darling-Hammond on the future of New York education — and what she makes of Betsy DeVos | Chalkbeat:

King County Superior Court hears case on When Bill Gates Will Get His Charter Schools | The Seattle Times

King County Superior Court hears case on charter schools | The Seattle Times:

King County Superior Court hears case on charter schools

The ongoing legal battle over the state’s charter-school law continued Friday in King County Superior Court.

 The state’s charter schools are well into their second school year, but they still remain in legal limbo with a lawsuit challenging their constitutionality before a King County Superior Court judge.

Judge John Chun heard oral arguments Friday in the most recent lawsuit filed by a coalition of parents, educators and civic groups. Attorneys for both sides made arguments that echoed the ones made in the first suit, focusing on whether charter schools can receive public funding under Washington’s constitution.

Chun is expected to rule in February, though the decision is likely to be appealed.

Charter opponents won the first lawsuit, with the state Supreme Court ruling in 2015 that the charter school initiative’s funding mechanism violated the state constitution because charter schools don’t fit the definition of “common schools” and thus can’t receive certain state funds.

The state’s eight charter schools are public schools, open to any student, but are run by private organizations, and have much more flexibility than other public schools.

In response to the Supreme Court’s decision, Washington lawmakers passed a new law in March 2016 to fund charters through lottery proceeds.

So charter opponents sued again, led by a coalition that includes El Centro de la Raza, the League of Women Voters and the Washington Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union. The coalition alleges that the new law is still unconstitutional because, they claim, it still diverts restricted common school funds to charters.

While coalition lawyer Paul Lawrence argued that charter schools don’t fit that “definition of a common school,” Assistant Attorney General Aileen Miller argued that charter schools are public schools, and students can move between charter schools and other public schools and usually transfer most, if not all, their credits.

When Chun asked Lawrence if charter schools deny Washington children access to common schools, Lawrence said yes, because charter schools take away resources from other public schools.

Supporters argue that charters help students who have been underserved in other public schools. Parent Shirline Wilson said her son struggled at his past schools, but at Rainier Prep, a charter, teachers focus on his social and emotional needs. The legal battle is frustrating, she said before the hearing, because she would rather be putting all her energy toward campaigning in Olympia for increased funding for all public-school students. But she feels optimistic about charter schools’ survival, especially after seeing how well her own 12-year-old has done.

After the first ruling, charter schools had to scramble to stay afloat financially — and succeeded with help from supporters like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.King County Superior Court hears case on charter schools | The Seattle Times:

Private Christian schools receiving taxpayer-funded school vouchers continue to exclude students on basis of religion, sexual identity :: WRAL.com

Private Christian schools receiving taxpayer-funded school vouchers continue to exclude students on basis of religion, sexual identity :: WRAL.com:

Private Christian schools receiving taxpayer-funded school vouchers continue to exclude students on basis of religion, sexual identity

The following was posted by the A.J. Fletcher Foundation. The original post is available here.

A review of the student handbooks of several private Christian schools in North Carolina that receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer-funded school vouchers finds that attendance at these schools is limited to families who believe in Jesus Christ; families that do not have members who are gay, lesbian or transgender; and families who are willing to have their children undergo physical punishment at the direction of school administrators.

“FCS [Fayetteville Christian School] will not admit families that engage in illicit drug use, sexual promiscuity, homosexuality (LGBT) or other behaviors that Scripture defines as deviate and perverted,” says the school’s handbook, which can be viewed online here.

Heterosexual students who have a family member who identifies as LGBT are also barred from attending the school, the handbook says.

Fayetteville Christian School ranks third in the state in the amount of taxpayer-funded school vouchers, formally known as “Opportunity Scholarships,” that the school has received for the 2016-17 academic school year—$249,708 as of late December 2016. Since the beginning of North Carolina’s school voucher program in 2014, Fayetteville Christian School has received $653,375 from state coffers.

Fayetteville Christian School also bars admission to Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Muslims, non-Messianic Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and “etc.” Students who become pregnant may not attend daily classes, the handbook says—and having an abortion is grounds for expulsion.

Raleigh’s Word of God Christian Academy (WOGCA) bars admission to students who don’t lead lifestyles that reflect Christian standards and requires parents to come to school to paddle their children in the presence of a school administrator if other disciplinary methods administered by teachers prove ineffective, according to the school’s student handbook.

“If the parent refuses to comply with the [paddling] request, the student will be suspended for no more than three school days,” the handbook says, which you can read online here.

WOGCA has received $253,575 in school vouchers to date for the 2016-17 academic school year, according to state records. Since the start of the school voucher program WOGCA has taken in at least $781,575 taxpayer dollars.

Liberty Christian Academy in Richlands, which has received $245,836 to date in school vouchers for 2016-17, also bars admission to students and families that identify as LGBT.

“Living in, practicing, condoning, or supporting sexual immorality, including but not limited to, sex outside of marriage, homosexual acts, bi-sexual acts; gender identity different than the birth sex at the chromosomal level; promoting such practices; or otherwise the inability to support the moral principles of the school (Leviticus, 20:13a, Romans 1:27, Matthew 19:4-6),” are all grounds for expulsion or the denial of admission to Liberty Christian Academy.

Raleigh Christian Academy, which has received $194,466 so far this academic year in school voucher funds, considers “homosexuality, lesbianism and bisexuality” grounds for expulsion, according to its handbook. The school also stands in opposition to what they characterize as a Private Christian schools receiving taxpayer-funded school vouchers continue to exclude students on basis of religion, sexual identity :: WRAL.com:

 

Public education advocates cry foul over legislators' private meeting with controversial school reformer Michelle Rhee - The Progressive Pulse

Public education advocates cry foul over legislators' private meeting with controversial school reformer Michelle Rhee - The Progressive Pulse:

Public education advocates cry foul over legislators’ private meeting with controversial school reformer Michelle Rhee 

Some North Carolina public education activists are crying foul over a private legislative meet state lawmakers are scheduled to attend with controversial school reformer Michelle Rhee next month.

Rhee—the former chief of public schools in Washington, D.C., and, at one time, a rumored pick for U.S. education secretary under President Trump—is a “special guest” for an annual legislative gathering hosted by the lobbying group BEST N.C. on Feb. 7.

BEST N.C. (which stands for Business for Educational Success and Transformation) counts powerful North Carolina business leaders among its membership, including retired Wells Fargo banker Walter McDowell, Ann Goodnight of Cary-based software developer SAS and controversial right-wing philanthropist Art Pope.

During her three-year tenure in D.C., Rhee was a highly polarizing figure who stormed into the spotlight in the late aughts, instituting stiff testing-based accountability measures, firing hundreds of teachers and administrators, closing schools and lobbying for an end to teacher tenure rights.

Since leaving D.C., Rhee has also become an outspoken advocate for charter school expansion and private school vouchers, the latter of which is intensely unpopular among public school backers nationwide and in North Carolina.

Next month’s event will also include George Parker, the former president of a D.C. teachers union who once openly clashed with Rhee over her stringent teacher accountability policies but later joined forces with her in Rhee’s StudentsFirst organization, a nonprofit she began after her D.C. posting to lobby for school choice and teacher accountability measures in state legislatures, many of which are particularly popular with GOP lawmakers in North Carolina in recent years.

This week, Policy Watch requested access to next month’s event, but BEST N.C. President & CEO Brenda Berg said no members of the media will be granted access. Berg said such a rule will allow “candid” conversations between participants, which includes an unspecified number of state lawmakers and school stakeholders.

“The legislative gathering is always closed to media, always has and always will be as a promise to members,” said Berg. “Because they want to feel comfortable asking elected officials and experts candid questions off the record.”

That doesn’t sit well with public education leaders who spoke with Policy Watch Friday.

“All organizations have the right to hold meetings,” said Mark Jewell, president of the N.C. Association of Educators (NCAE), an influential teacher lobbying organization based in Raleigh. “But when you’re having a public dialogue on public dollars and—clearly Michelle Rhee has been a supporter of private school vouchers and that’s a very hot topic here—you would think you would want to have a very open dialogue.”

Natalie Beyer, a Durham school board member and outspoken state public school advocate, called Rhee and Parker “controversial figures, to say the least.”

“I just think it’s alarming and certainly not in keeping with best practices for public engagement,” said Beyer. “Any issues that affect North Carolina public school students should be open for parents and teachers and the press to observe, hear and witness.”

Officials with the N.C. Ethics Commission could not be reached for comment Friday, but, given that state lawmakers are exempted from many of the public gathering requirements imposed on local political bodies, legislators talking education reform at the BEST N.C. forum is not likely a violation of any open meetings laws.

And BEST N.C. is not the only policy organization that holds private gatherings with lawmakers. Berg

- See more at: http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2017/01/27/public-education-advocates-cry-foul-legislators-private-meeting-controversial-school-reformer-michelle-rhee/#sthash.nmQd9Q6F.dpuf

How to Start an ISIS Charter School… -

How to Start an ISIS Charter School… -:

How to Start an ISIS Charter School… 
…and have Department of Education pay for it.

I teach in a public high school in Los Angeles and every time I hear someone extol the virtues of charter schools and vouchers, I cringe. For 13 years, I taught at a charter school near the ocean in a part of town where the median price of a home is more than $3 million. The school’s charter was granted in 1993 for one reason: without it, the school would have closed due to a lack of students – the neighborhood was aging and the kids who did live there were being sent to private schools. In order to save the school, students from more than 100 zip codes were bussed in.  When I arrived, the school’s demographics were approximately 30% white, 30% Hispanic, 30% African-American and 10% Asian. 

The graduation rate was astronomically high, and its graduates were accepted into the best universities all across America. And then in 2007, this charter school decided to leave the school district which had built it in the1960s for $6,000,000. It became an independent charter school, a one-school school district.

Among its first orders of business was to begin to charge for bussing.  

Within a few years, the school became a majority white school for the first time in decades. The students from poor and working class families who had been bussed in to save the school became the the very population that could no longer afford to attend.

I know there are all sorts of reasons to establish charter schools, but mostly I’ve seen charters sprout up across the affluent, liberal Westside of LA and they share the same always unspoken mission: segregation.

Charter schools advertise themselves as independently managed as public schools, but they are in fact more like private schools funded by taxpayer dollars.  After all, they recruit the students they like and they keep out students they don’t want to deal with – just like private schools have always done.

In most high schools, the English Department is the largest department because English is the only subject students must take all four years. But in the non-charter Westside LA public school where I currently teach, the Special Education Department is our largest department because the neighborhood charter high schools have turned away most students with special needs.  They claim they don’t have the means to properly teach them, but we all know that’s only an excuse to keep children with disabilities off their campuses. 

Some of these charter schools also may and do keep out most ESL students as well as those students who have had academic or behavior problems in the past.

There are close to 7,000 charter schools in America, serving almost 3,000,000 students and as Diane Ravitch has so eloquently pointed out, most have not proven themselves to be any better than public schools at educating our youth. (http://www.alternet.org/education/diane-ravitch-charter-schools-are-colossal-mistake-heres-why).

You name it, and there’s a charter school for it.

In addition to brick-and-mortar charters, there are virtual charter schools where students stay home and learn on-line, free of such nuisances as teachers. And there are for-profit charter schools.

There are arts-based charters. All-boy charter schools. All-girl charter schools. Charter schools for environmental studies. There are school-to-work charter schools.  There are charter schools for homeschooled students. There are last-chance charter schools for students who have been expelled from traditional schools.

But with Betsy DeVos running the Federal Department of Education, we can count on an explosion of charter schools and the further erosion of integration and public education.  One of the perks of charter schools is that they are less regulated than How to Start an ISIS Charter School… -:

Meet The Radical Monarchs: Girls with Social Justice In Their Hearts & On Their Minds

Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública: Meet The Radical Monarchs: Girls with Social Justice In Their Hearts & On Their Minds:

Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública:

Meet The Radical Monarchs: Girls with Social Justice In Their Hearts & On Their Minds

Radical Brownies

Berets, badges, Black Lives Matter and social justice: the youth group for activist girls of color

Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública: Meet The Radical Monarchs: Girls with Social Justice In Their Hearts & On Their Minds:

DeVos-Funded Group: How to Indoctrinate Children | Diane Ravitch's blog

DeVos-Funded Group: How to Indoctrinate Children | Diane Ravitch's blog:

DeVos-Funded Group: How to Indoctrinate Children

“Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Lenin: They knew one thing, that to change a culture, to change a country, they had to reach the children,” the speaker said.

This is a very alarming story about a conservative Christian group funded by Betsy DeVos called the “Student Statesmanship Institute.” Open the story to see the video.

A conservative Christian group with ties to Donald Trump education pick Betsy DeVos once released a promotional video that proudly featured a speaker describing how Adolf Hitler and others indoctrinated children.

The undated video by the Student Statesmanship Institute ― which trains Christian kids to bring their “biblical worldview” to politics and media careers ― opens with a speech by Michigan leader Richard Posthumus, who describes how Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin used children to spread their message.

“Sometimes, it seems like it’s very hard to change the world, the world is so big,” Posthumus says in the video, over a dramatic soundtrack. “But what SSI has done is equip young people with the tools to go out and be ready for the competing ideas that’s in this world.”

The video immediately cuts to another comment.

“Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Lenin: They knew one thing, that to change a culture, to change a country, they had to reach the children,” he says.

It’s not clear how Posthumus prefaced those remarks. But the words are included in a montage of SSI’s “favorite and most inspirational moments over the last 20 years,” according to the clip’s YouTube description.”DeVos-Funded Group: How to Indoctrinate Children | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Maher slams Trump’s Education pick: Putting DeVos in charge ‘is like putting Ellen in charge of d*ck’

Maher slams Trump’s Education pick: Putting DeVos in charge ‘is like putting Ellen in charge of d*ck’:

Maher slams Trump’s Education pick: Putting DeVos in charge ‘is like putting Ellen in charge of d*ck’

 ll Maher couldn’t resist taking a shot at two of President Donald Trump’s cabinet picks, which he nicknamed “ill-prepared vs. ill-equipped.”

“As Energy Secretary, Rick Perry goes head to empty head with Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos,” Maher said showing his bracket. He noted last week they had the “Swamp 16” but are now down to the “Hateful Eight.”

“DeVos never attended a public school, has never put her own children in a public and doesn’t support public education,” Maher began. “So, tapping her as Education Secretary is kind of like making Ellen [DeGeneres] the Secretary of D*ck.”

Maher went on to mock Perry showing him dancing on the reality TV show “Dancing with the Stars.”

“Now, that guy is in charge of the nukes!” he exclaimed. “A fact he himself did not know when he accepted the position.”

Watch the rest of Maher’s brutal smackdowns of the two nominees below:

Maher slams Trump’s Education pick: Putting DeVos in charge ‘is like putting Ellen in charge of d*ck’:

We are becoming the America I know, not the America I want! | Opine I will

We are becoming the America I know, not the America I want! | Opine I will:

We are becoming the America I know, not the America I want!

The America I know is a nation with a checkered past. Yes, we are the greatest nation on the face of the earth! Yes, I love our nation and honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect our guiding principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. As true Americans and true patriots we must always strive to make our great nation a place where those guiding principles apply to all.  Unfortunately, the America I know has not been that place.

We should be drawing on our checkered past to protect and practice those guiding principles not bastardize them. Our Founders knew we had flaws and they knew our nation would be facing challenges that would threaten our guiding principles. They created our guiding document, The Constitution, that would ensure our nation would always be governed with those guiding principles. They knew times would change and the Constitution should be a “living document’ that would be amended and changed as needed to ensure the maintenance of our nation’s guiding principles

Unfortunately, we now have a nation that is deeply divided and is at a very dangerous ‘fork in the road”. Will we go down the road towards the America we all know, or towards the America we want?

Will we return down the road of racism, ignorance and fear? I fear President Trump and his supporters are driving us down the road towards the America we know, not the America we should be.

Within a week of taking office we have seen a return towards  taking Native American sacred lands. We have seen an “America First” policy that has closed our welcoming door that repeats our pre WWII actions. We have seen an executive order that has institutionalized discrimination based on religion, much like the Puritans did. We are seeing a return to the Gilded Age where corruption and greed overshadowed the We are becoming the America I know, not the America I want! | Opine I will:

 

Saturday Extra: Read Gail Collins in Today’s NY Times on Trump’s War on Public Education | janresseger

Saturday Extra: Read Gail Collins in Today’s NY Times on Trump’s War on Public Education | janresseger:

Saturday Extra: Read Gail Collins in Today’s NY Times on Trump’s War on Public Education

Gail Collins’ column this morning, The Trump War on Public Schools, begins this way:

“One of the most disturbing things about the Trump administration is its antipathy toward public schools. Perhaps you remember the president’s mini-rant in his inaugural speech about an ‘education system flush with cash but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge.’ Well, Trump’s choice for secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, is responsible for Michigan’s charter school boom, which currently costs the state about $1.1 billion a year…  Thanks in large part to DeVos’s lobbying in the Legislature, there’s virtually no oversight. So much for the young and beautiful students.”

Collins quotes Senator Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee—the committee that will vote on DeVos’s confirmation next Tuesday morning— expressing astonishment at the public outcry Senators are hearing about President Trump’s nomination of Betsy Devos to be our next Education Secretary. Then Collins adds: “It’s not particularly astonishing that a Democratic senator would hear complaints about a Republican president’s nominees. But it is sort of remarkable how much ire, wrath and terror this particular one is causing.”

Collins’ column this morning continues with a lucid, well organized summary of the reasons Betsy DeVos is unqualified to lead the U.S. Department of Education.  Please read it. Then call your Senators again on Monday and tell them to vote “no” on the confirmation of Betsy DeVos. Saturday Extra: Read Gail Collins in Today’s NY Times on Trump’s War on Public Education | janresseger:

CURMUDGUCATION: Friend$ of DeVos

CURMUDGUCATION: Friend$ of DeVos:

Friend$ of DeVos

If you follow the many pieces about Presumptive Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, you will notice that there are folks who stand up for her as a super-duper prospect for Secretary of Education.

For instance, Grand Rapids Public Schools Superintendent Teresa Weatherall Neal spoke up for her hometown girl Betsy, and was, according to released emails, prepared to accept an all-expenses-paid trip to DC to give a public school stamp of approval to the private charter school face of Betsy DeVos. The DeVos organization American Federation for Children was all set to foot the bill-- and at no extra charge, they were throwing in some dandy talking points that Neal could use while in DC. All heart, those AFC folks.

In fact, the talking points were so thorough that if Neal was questioned by reporters about how a public school superintendent from Michigan just happened to be sitting behind DeVos providing helpful optics, she needn't worry about how to respond to that-- just say

I’m proud and honored to be a guest of Secretary of Education-designate DeVos and confident she’ll be an effective, compassionate and innovative Secretary of Education.

The rescheduling of the hearing threw off the travel plans, which included a steak dinner and a night at the Marriot, costs for which fall roughly into the "loose money we dig out of the sofa cushions" category for the DeVos clan.

DeVos friendships often are tied up in money; witness the Senate Democrat's inquiry into the several CURMUDGUCATION: Friend$ of DeVos: