Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 2/19/17

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 2/19/17

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Ed Notes Online: DeVos to Tour Schools With Randi - Marshals Doubled to Protect Randi From Union Members' Outrage

NYC Public School Parents: Update on Lead - what's going on?

by mike simpson / 16min

NYC Public School Parents: Update on Lead - what's going on? : Update on Lead - what's going on? On Thursday night, I gave a presentation on the capital plan to District 6 CEC. Since many of the parents in the district at the meeting were understandably concerned about the high levels of lead reported in the water of some of their schools -- including a finding of 6,620 parts per billion (ppb) an

On 2/19/17, the 75th Anniversary of the Japanese Internment Order | Bill Ayers

11by mike simpson / 2h

On 2/19/17, the 75th Anniversary of the Japanese Internment Order | Bill Ayers : On 2/19/17, the 75th Anniversary of the Japanese Internment Order https://monthlyreview.org/2003/07/01/construction-of-an-enemy/ Remember that the US Supreme Court upheld the internment orders in Korematsu v. US., convicting US citizen Fred Korematsu for refusing to comply with the order. The Korematsu decision has l

Decaying Buildings and the Rise of Digital Education – Wrench in the Gears

by mike simpson / 4h

Decaying Buildings and the Rise of Digital Education – Wrench in the Gears : Decaying Buildings and the Rise of Digital Education “DeVos doesn’t think we should be funding school buildings as much as students.” The line caught my eye as I scrolled through social media this weekend. How could it not? I’ve been working hard over the past year to try and convince other education activists that the t

CURMUDGUCATION: Toomey Doesn't Get It

by mike simpson / 5h

CURMUDGUCATION: Toomey Doesn't Get It : Toomey Doesn't Get It Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey's office was one that was bombarded with phone calls, faxes, texts, tweets, emails, and messages strapped to the backs of delivery hamsters during the run up to the Betsy DeVos confirmation. At one point he was targeted as one of the GOP senators who might change his mind, which struck me as odd because

BustED Pencils Trending News: Resistance! | BustED Pencils

by mike simpson / 5h

BustED Pencils Trending News: Resistance! | BustED Pencils : BustED Pencils Trending News: Resistance! Stark. Bleak. Depressing. etc. Have you used any of these words to describe your sense of the world lately? Hey it’s hard not to. But let’s not forget that the solutions we seek and the remedy for this malaise is within each of us. So in that spirit here are three stories of resistance —with end

Michigan students sliding fast toward the bottom

by mike simpson / 5h

Michigan students sliding fast toward the bottom : Michigan students sliding fast toward the bottom Michigan, already sliding toward the bottom nationally for fourth-grade reading performance on a rigorous national exam, is projected to fall to 48th place by 2030 if the state does nothing to improve education. That finding is included in a report out today from Education Trust-Midwest, a nonparti

KJ's No Accountability Charter School Chickens Coming Home to Roost? | The Sacramento Bee

by mike simpson / 6h

Del Paso Heights adult charter school under investigation for overcharging state | The Sacramento Bee : Del Paso Heights adult charter school under investigation for allegedly overcharging state Highlands Community Charter School is under investigation for allegedly enrolling adult students in primary grades, double-charging the state and claiming a full year of funding for students who attended

Civil Rights Project: Charters Worsen Segregation in D.C. - The Atlantic

by mike simpson / 7h

Civil Rights Project: Charters Worsen Segregation in D.C. - The Atlantic : What Could Reverse D.C'.s Intense School Segregation? Not more charter schools Last week, a group of Washington, D.C., parents and teachers stopped Betsy DeVos, the new secretary of education, from entering a D.C. middle school. Several conservative pundits compared DeVos , an outspoken school-choice advocate , to Vivian M

US: Remembering Japanese internment camps 75 years on

by mike simpson / 7h

FDR Called Them Concentration Camps: Why Terminology Matters : FDR CALLED THEM CONCENTRATION CAMPS: WHY TERMINOLOGY MATTERS Boys Behind Barbed Wire (Norito Takamoto, Albert Masaichi, and Hisashi Sansui), 1944, Manzanar concentration camp (Photo Credit: Toyo Miyatake) As we approach February 19th, the 75th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066, now referred to as the Day of Remembranc

Ed Notes Online: DeVos to Tour Schools With Randi - Marshals Doubled to Protect Randi From Union Members' Outrage

by mike simpson / 7h

Ed Notes Online: DeVos to Tour Schools With Randi - Marshals Doubled to Protect Randi From Union Members' Outrage : DeVos to Tour Schools With Randi - Marshals Doubled to Protect Randi From Union Members' Outrage With Betsy DeVos mocked throughout the nation and on the run, Randi Weingarten has legitimized, or normalized, her by arranging to go visit public schools with her. Some people are speec

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Extra Homework Edition (2/19)

by mike simpson / 8h

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Extra Homework Edition (2/19) : ICYMI: Extra Homework Edition (2/19) It's a big list this week. As always, remember to share, pass on, and amplify what speaks to you and provide that writer with a wider audience. Betsy DeVos Broke the Ed Reform Coalition-- For Now Daniel Katz with a good historical overview of how we ended up where we are in the ed debates, and what a DeVos

In Annual Newsletter, Gates Goes Silent on Education | deutsch29

by mike simpson / 8h

In Annual Newsletter, Gates Goes Silent on Education | deutsch29 : In Annual Newsletter, Gates Goes Silent on Education Each year, the Gates Foundation issues an annual newsletter touting what it perceives as the gains make by its spending. In 2015, the education focus of the newsletter was, “Better software will revolutionize learning.” The 2015 Gates ed celebration includes the following commen

Resistance Sunday. | Fred Klonsky

by mike simpson / 8h

Resistance Sunday. | Fred Klonsky : Resistance Sunday. In neighborhoods across Chicago with large immigrant populations, people are banding together to form rapid response networks to support their neighbors in the event of expected deportation raids by President Donald Trump’s administration. In the 35th Ward on the city’s Northwest Side, Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa has started what he calls the Co

Schools Matter: Let's Slow Down the Faster Future

by mike simpson / 8h

Schools Matter: Let's Slow Down the Faster Future : Let's Slow Down the Faster Future Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future , Joi Ito, Director, MIT Media Lab & Jeff Howe Grand Central Publishing 2016 Kirkus calls this book “exhilarating and authoritative,” two cybergurus offering a “user’s manual to the twenty-first century.” As a longtime teacher, I find the manual to be flawed. I was inte

A View of the Long Game: Where Art Thou Public Education? | educationalchemy

by mike simpson / 8h

A View of the Long Game: Where Art Thou Public Education? | educationalchemy : A View of the Long Game: Where Art Thou Public Education? The privatizers are busy at work. Unless you live under a rock (a tempting thought lately…) you probably feel like I do every time you turn on the news; the sensation of riding the Tilt a Whirl while taking ‘shrooms. It’s exhausting at best, and terrifying at wo

Get over it? No freaking way! | Opine I will

by mike simpson / 8h

Get over it? No freaking way! | Opine I will : Get over it? No freaking way! We have been told over and over again “get over it!” I won’t get over it, I won’t sit back quietly, I won’t stand idle while our country is in trouble. How can we stand by when our illegitimate Commander in Chief puts our nation’s standing in the world at risk every day? On Thursday, his Ambassador to the United Nations

Facts? We Don't Need No Stinking Facts by Dr. Michael Flanagan - Badass Teachers Association

by mike simpson / 8h

Badass Teachers Association: Facts? We Don't Need No Stinking Facts by Dr. Michael Flanagan : Facts? We Don't Need No Stinking Facts by Dr. Michael Flanagan I recently read an article on the ways that teachers are trying to combat "fake news" and it directly related to what I have been teaching in my government and economics classes. Research and cite your sources before you debate an issue. As a

YESTERDAY

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 2/18/17

by mike simpson / 23h

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 2/18/17 Featured Post DeVos criticized teachers at D.C. school she visited — and they are not having it - The Washington Post CURMUDGUCATION: Evidence by mike simpson / 6min 

Top Posts This Week

• Why Teachers Are So Tired ~ Teacher Habits
• 

  DeVos criticized teachers at D.C. school she visited — and they are not having it - The Washington Post
• Betsy DeVos called me. I sent her this letter - Lily's Blackboard
• 

  Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 2/13/17
• Teachers union president backs Ellison for DNC chair | TheHill
• 

  DeVos to tour schools with teachers union head | TheHill
• 

  DeVos: Critics want to ‘make my life a living hell’ - The Washington Post
• 

  What To Make Of Bad News Betsy’s Letter About ESSA To Chief State School Officers – Exceptional Delaware 2017
• 

  UPDATE: Please Respond to My Poll | Diane Ravitch's blog
• 

  Three global indexes show that U.S. public schools must be doing something right - The Washington Post

NYC Public School Parents: Update on Lead - what's going on?

NYC Public School Parents: Update on Lead - what's going on?:

Update on Lead - what's going on?

On Thursday night, I gave a presentation on the capital plan to District 6 CEC.  Since many of the   parents in the district at the meeting were  understandably concerned about the high levels of lead reported in the water of some of their schools -- including a finding of 6,620 parts per billion (ppb) and 493 ppb at the building shared by Muscota and Amistad, as well as elevated levels at P.S. 98, I.S. 52  and Washington Heights Academy, I also provided an update on this critical issue.

As I pointed out in this DNAinfo article, DOE officials had dragged their feet ever since the lead scandal erupted in Flint Michigan, which drew attention to this issue for the first time in years.   In its first round of testing last year, DOE refused to follow the recommended protocol and instead flushed out the water from pipes first before gathering samples which tends to diminish lead levels. This discredited method was also used by the government officials in Flint to minimize the problem of lead and also violated recommended EPA guidelines. Initially,  DOE also refused to test the water in schools built after 1986-- even though most experts advised all schools should be tested.  As Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech expert who brought national attention to the crisis in Flint said, “The results should be thrown into the garbage, and the city should start over."

Then in June 2016, the NY legislature passed a new law requiring that lead at all schools be tested with the “first draw” of water to more accurately assess the dangers, as recommended by experts and the EPA.  Outlets found to have water with lead more than 15 parts per billion would have to be shut off and the sources of lead identified and remediated until levels fell below this limit. 

Though Governor Cuomo didn't sign the legislation until September, many districts started retesting the water over the summer in expectation that the law would take effect soon.  The NYS Department of Health released an memo in late August to school districts, informing them of the urgency of this issue; and emergency regs were issued Sept. 6.  calling for a deadline for retesting the water in all schools by October 31, 2016.  (You can check out the DOH documents here.)

Parents and others were supposed to be informed of the results within six weeks of testing, and districts mandated to report all results to the state no later than November 11, 2016.

Even after law passed, DOE refused to adopt the new protocols and insisted on testing lead as previously.  Inexplicably, NYC officials didn't even NYC Public School Parents: Update on Lead - what's going on?:

On 2/19/17, the 75th Anniversary of the Japanese Internment Order | Bill Ayers

On 2/19/17, the 75th Anniversary of the Japanese Internment Order | Bill Ayers:

On 2/19/17, the 75th Anniversary of the Japanese Internment Order

https://monthlyreview.org/2003/07/01/construction-of-an-enemy/

Remember that the US Supreme Court upheld the internment orders in Korematsu v. US., convicting US citizen Fred Korematsu for refusing to comply with the order.  The Korematsu decision has long been viewed as one of the “ante-canon” landmarks of constitutional law, along with Dred Scott and Plessy v Ferguson.  But it has never been overruled by the Supreme Court, so in a sense it lies in wait…

Korematsu’s conviction was finally overturned in 1998 by a California federal court that found that the Supreme Court decision was based on a fraudulent military report, and Clinton gave him a presidential medal of honor.  The dissent of Robert Jackson (former chief US prosecutor in Nuremberg) in Korematsu is worth revisiting today:

“But once a judicial opinion rationalizes such an order to show that it conforms to the Constitution, or rather rationalizes the Constitution to show that the Constitution sanctions such an order, the Court for all time has validated the principle of racial discrimination in criminal procedure and of transplanting American citizens. The principle then lies about like a loaded weapon, ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need. Every repetition imbeds that principle more deeply in our law and thinking and expands it to new purposes. All who observe the work of courts are familiar with what Judge Cardozo described as “the tendency of a principle to expand itself to the limit of its logic.” ^[*] A military commander may overstep the bounds of constitutionality, and it is an incident. But if we review and approve, that passing incident becomes the doctrine of the Constitution. There it has a generative power of its own, and all that it creates will be in its own image. Nothing better illustrates this danger than does the Court’s opinion in this case.”On 2/19/17, the 75th Anniversary of the Japanese Internment Order | Bill Ayers:

Decaying Buildings and the Rise of Digital Education – Wrench in the Gears

Decaying Buildings and the Rise of Digital Education – Wrench in the Gears:

Decaying Buildings and the Rise of Digital Education

“DeVos doesn’t think we should be funding school buildings as much as students.” The line caught my eye as I scrolled through social media this weekend. How could it not? I’ve been working hard over the past year to try and convince other education activists that the true endgame of the reform movement is to make school buildings obsolete. So I listened to the video of DeVos speaking to attendees of the Magnet Schools of America National Policy Training Conference in Washington, and there it was at timestamp 11:40: “I don’t think we should be as focused necessarily on funding school buildings, as much as we should be having a conversation around funding students.”

DeVos, being from Michigan, surely knows the deplorable conditions students in Detroit face daily trying to access a free and appropriate public education. And Detroit is not alone. Parsons completed a Facility Condition Assessment for the School District of Philadelphia last month identifying $4.5 billion in deferred maintenance. Over $1 billion of that total involves life safety, code compliance, health hazards, accessibility, and security issues. Think about that. We are asking vulnerable children and school staff to enter buildings that are not safe five days a week, while at the same time the Secretary of the US Department of Education is proclaiming we should not be funding school buildings.

This week I also came across a legislative forecast for Educational Savings Accounts (vouchers) prepared by Jeb Bush’s group Excellence in Education. The info-graphic accompanying the report indicated that my home state of Pennsylvania was one of 13 states identified as having a 75+% chance of implementing ESA legislation in the coming year. Our schools are already in an incredibly precarious financial position after Decaying Buildings and the Rise of Digital Education – Wrench in the Gears:

CURMUDGUCATION: Toomey Doesn't Get It

CURMUDGUCATION: Toomey Doesn't Get It:

Toomey Doesn't Get It

Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey's office was one that was bombarded with phone calls, faxes, texts, tweets, emails, and messages strapped to the backs of delivery hamsters during the run up to the Betsy DeVos confirmation. At one point he was targeted as one of the GOP senators who might change his mind, which struck me as odd because I've met Toomey and heard him talk about school choice and I don't think he'll be abandoning that drum any time soon. That's okay-- it couldn't have hurt for him (or at least some member of his staff) to hear from actual constituents.

That may be why Toomey (or at least some member of his staff) took the time to write a Betsy DeVos mash note that appeared at PennLive this week. It doesn't make his support of DeVos any more palatable, but it does at least show in brief, painful detail why Toomey is not a supporter of public education.

Toomey opens with what is one of my least favorite pro-charter-choice lines:

No child should be forced to stay in a failing school.

Can anybody, anywhere, find me the person who wants to force a child to stay in a failing school? Nobody anywhere disagrees with this statement. There's considerable disagreement about the definition of a failing school, but let's let that slide for a moment and accept that pretty much everyone believes that there are some schools failing to get the job done. The disagreement starts immediately after that period at the end of this statement. 

For modern charter-choice advocates, the next sentence is "That's why we're going to allow maybe five percent of those students to leave that school for some other school that may or may not be any CURMUDGUCATION: Toomey Doesn't Get It: