Eye See Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

Eye  See Diane Ravitch's blog 

A site to discuss better education for all

Ohio: Do You Want to See a Politician Blasting Charter Fraud? Watch Here

by dianeravitch / 16min

Bill Phillis of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy forwarded links to Dennis Kucinich’s town hall meetings, where he blasted charter school fraud. Watch and enjoy! Is he running for governor? Let’s hope so. https://youtu.be/bbgnZ9LorEk https://youtu.be/UHHaKdAuGJg

A Dialogue Between Two Scholars: Critical Pedagogy Meets Libertarianism

3by dianeravitch / 1h

You might enjoy this discussion between two retired scholars who entered the dialogue believing they were divided by great differences. Eventually they concluded that there was more that unites them than divides them. But the 

The Great Retreat Now Begins: Choice is No Longer About “Saving Poor Children from Failing Schools”

by dianeravitch / 4min

Do you remember back in the old days when the privatization movement began that choice was going to “save poor children from failing schools”? Well, that slogan is now obsolete. Now the advocates say that the purpose of choice is 

Los Angeles: Karen Wolfe Unravels the Unified Enrollment Scam

9by dianeravitch / 1h

Karen Wolfe is a parent activist in Los Angeles who fights for public schools against the behemoth that is the California Charter Schools Association and even against the Los Angeles Unified School District. She recently discovered that the school district was considering spending $24 million to install a Unified Enrollment system. She became curious and began digging. After all, Los Angeles was

Tennessee: The Much Hyped “Achievement School District” in Trouble Again

16by dianeravitch / 1h

Tennessee created the so-called “Achievement School District” in 2012, to take over schools in the lowest 5% of the state, based on test scores, and hand them over to charter operators. The head of the ASD at the time, Chris Barbic, who had run the YES Prep charter chain in Houston, promised that these low-performing schools would be in the top 20% within five years. The five-year mark is approac

A Teacher in Newark Writes: “Chaos by Design” Is Not Good for Students or Teachers

4by dianeravitch / 3h

Ryan Heisinger is teaching in Newark. He is in his fourth year. He loves teaching. He wants to spend his career as a teacher. But he and everyone else in Newark has been subjected to constant disruption, on purpose . For me, this year is mainly speeding by because of how much I’ve enjoyed it. This school year has reinvigorated me, further convinced me that I want to spend my career around kids. B

YESTERDAY

More About That Alabama Charter Law

5by dianeravitch / 18h

Earlier I posted Larry Lee’s post about the overwhelming defeat of a charter bill in Alabama. I asked him for more details on charters in the state because I knew that Alabama already passed a charter law. Why was this bill defeated? This was the response I received: “What did the bill propose? “The bill proposed several changes to the original law passed in 2015 – a law that was touted as one of

Teachers at Sacramento Charter Chain Founded by Kevin Johnson and Michelle Rhee Want to Unionize

6by dianeravitch / 20h

Nationally, more than 90% of charter schools are non-union. That is the main reason that the Walton Family Foundation (of non-union Walmart) subsidizes so many of them. So, it is newsworthy when charter teachers ask to join a union. But in this case, it is newsworthy for other reasons. The Los Angeles Times reports that a majority of teachers at the St. Hope charter chain in Sacramento have signe

Audrey Amrein-Beardsley Reviews the Court Decision Slamming VAM in Houston

7by dianeravitch / 22h

Audrey Amrein-Beardsley of Arizona State University is one of the nation’s most prominent scholars of teacher evaluation. She is especially critical of VAM (value-added measurement); she has studied TVAAS, EVAAS, and other similar metrics and found them deeply flawed. She has testified frequently in court cases as an expert witness. In this post, she analyzes the court decision that blocks the us

New York City: Principal Under Investigation, Suspected of Being a Communist

11by dianeravitch / 22h

Shades of McCarthyism. The principal of a small high school in Brooklyn is under investigation after someone tipped off the Department of Education’s Office of Special Investigations that she might be a Communist. “It was early March when a representative from the New York City Department of Education’s Office of Special Investigations sat down with Jill Bloomberg, the longtime principal of Park

Dallas: Vote for Lori Kilpatrick for School Board!

8by dianeravitch / 1d

Saturday is the election for school board in Dallas. Dallas is a rich city that has many impoverished students and English language learners in its public schools. It needs a school board committed to these children. If you live in Dallas in District 2, I urge you to vote for Lori Kirkpatrick. She is the mother of a child in second grade in DISD. She believes in public education. She believes in

Alabama: Charter Bill Crashes and Burns

17by dianeravitch / 1d

Alabama has a solid Republican majority in its legislature. Yet, Larry Lee reports , an effort to expand the number of charters in the state was overwhelmingly defeated. Alabama has a lot of small towns and rural districts, represented by Republicans. They know the public school is part of the fabric of their community. They don’t want charters, though they are fine with opening them in Birmingha

South Carolina: School Calls Police to Intimidate Parent Who Wanted His Son to Opt Out

23by dianeravitch / 1d

A few days ago, I posted a letter that James Kirylo and his wife wrote to school officials in South Carolina to explain why they were opting their children out of testing. Kirylo is a professor of education; the letter laid out the reasons why standardized testing was wrong and provided a bibliography of research to support the parents’ decision. But it turns out that South Carolina does not resp

Why For-Profit Education So Often Fails

16by dianeravitch / 1d

This is an interesting article by Jonathan A. Knee of the Columbia Business School about the perils of making a profit in the education sector. I note that he has a book coming out, fleshing out his case studies and arguments about for-profit investing in education. Knee describes the many visionaries who saw the possibilities of transforming education into a for-profit bonanza but lost their shi

MAY 04

George Will: Trump Has a Dangerous Disability

74by dianeravitch / 1d

George Will is a conservative columnist with a deep reverence for history and tradition. He is probably the most serious and respected conservative intellectual in the nation. On Thursday, he wrote a column called “Trump Has a Serious Disability” that was widely read. It was trending on Twitter. “Trump does not know what it is to know something.” He writes: “It is urgent for Americans to think an

AFT Kills VAM in Houston! Major Victory for Common Sense!

28by dianeravitch / 1d

Today, teachers in Houston won a major court victory against the discredited teacher evaluation method called VAM, or “value-added measurement.” The court battle was led by the AFT and the Houston Federation of Teachers. VAM was originally developed by an agricultural statistician, William Sanders, who believed that the rise or fall of student test scores can be attributed to the students’ teache

Teacher: Most Members of Congress Could Not Pass the Math Test My Fifth Graders Took

14by dianeravitch / 1d

Ralph Ratto teaches fifth grade in New York. The state math tests are ending today. His students spent nine (9) hours being tested about math and reading. This is child abuse. Why should students spend more than an hour on a math test or a reading test? The tests, he says, are ridiculously hard for fifth graders. He thinks that most members of Congress could not pass the tests. He can’t post any

DeVos Will Visit Christian School Today

4by dianeravitch / 1d

Politico Education reports that Betsy DeVos will visit a Christian school today. DEVOS TO VISIT PRIVATE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL IN D.C. THIS MORNING: The Trump administration’s campaign to promote D.C.’s voucher program continues this morning as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos visits Cornerstone, a private school that says on its website it provides a “Christ-centered” education. President Donald Trump

Carol Burris: Three Problems with School Choice That Advocates Won’t Talk About

10by dianeravitch / 2d

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, wrote an analysis of the major problems with school choice that advocates refuse to address. She begins by writing that privatized school choice directly threatens public education: Privatized school choice is the public financing of private alternatives to public schools. Examples include charters run by corporate boards, priv

Jeannie Kaplan: Denver’s Corporate Reformers Try to Distance Themselves from DeVos

18by dianeravitch / 2d

Jeannie Kaplan watches with amusement as the corporate reform-led Denver School Board tries to distance themselves from Betsy DeVos . She says, “They can run, but they can’t hide.” You see, Denver Board of Education and superintendent, once the drip of privatization as characterized particularly by choice and charters starts, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to stop. What starts as a drip

Oregon Drops SBAC, Chooses Inappropriate SAT for High School Exam

4by dianeravitch / 2d

Education Week reports that Oregon is dropping the Smarter Balanced Assessment for high school students and will use the SAT instead. Oregon will continue to use SBAC for testing 3-8 and 11. The SAT is a college admissions test, and it is wildly inappropriate to use it as an accountability test. It is a test of reading, mathematics, and writing. It does not test the curriculum that students have

Can Schools Cure Poverty?

39by dianeravitch / 2d

Jennifer Berkshire posted this interview with economist Harvey Kantor in response to a column in the New York Times by David Leonhardt suggesting that schools were the best way to address poverty. Leonhardt wrote that education 

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

Wisconsin: "They" Did It! | BustED Pencils

Wisconsin: "They" Did It! | BustED Pencils:

Wisconsin: “They” Did It!

How long has it been?  How long have I been writing about Wisconsin’s war on the teaching profession and the ridiculous notion that we have a “teacher shortage?”  Rhetorical I know.

Well today “they” did it.  “They” opened the door to deprofesssionalization and authorized the use of emergency licenses to address the “shortage” and placed our most vulnerable children in a defenseless position.

Instead of truly addressing the EXODUS of teachers and the miserable conditions driving teachers out of the profession “they” simply created a pathway into our classrooms for unlicensed and unqualified personnel.

Of course “they” won’t admit this.  In fact, “they” already have “talking points” in case someone dare question the integrity of devaluing the teaching profession.

Now let’s be very clear about how these emergency license rules will really play out in schools across the state.

• The most qualified teachers will end up in the most affluent areas.
• Emergency licensed teachers will end up in high poverty areas.
• School districts with money will hire licensed teachers and require specialized licenses for teachers in fields such as special education.
• School districts without money will hire emergency certified people and use the Wisconsin: "They" Did It! | BustED Pencils:

Los Angeles: Karen Wolfe Unravels the Unified Enrollment Scam | Diane Ravitch's blog

Los Angeles: Karen Wolfe Unravels the Unified Enrollment Scam | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Los Angeles: Karen Wolfe Unravels the Unified Enrollment Scam

Karen Wolfe is a public school parent and member of the Venice Neighborhood Council Education Committee.

Karen Wolfe - https://www.laprogressive.com/author/karen-wolfe/

Karen Wolfe — PS connect - http://www.psconnectnow.org/leadership/

Karen Wolfe is a parent activist in Los Angeles who fights for public schools against the behemoth that is the California Charter Schools Association and even against the Los Angeles Unified School District.

She recently discovered that the school district was considering spending $24 million to install a Unified Enrollment system. She became curious and began digging. After all, Los Angeles was the district that (almost) committed to spend $1 billion on obsolete iPads loaded with Pearson content.

The decision will be made on Tuesday at a board meeting.

Karen smelled a scam in the making. She was right.

The first thing she learned was that a common enrollment system is being pushed hard by the charter lobby, because it puts public schools and charter schools on an equal footing. The cheerleading for unified enrollment, where students have “one-stop shopping,” was funded by the Walton Family Foundation in New Orleans and Denver, which tells you almost everything you need to know.

The next thing she learned was that in a unified enrollment system, the school makes the choice, not the student. This also works out well for the charters.

Third, the OneApp system (as it is called in New Orleans) increases inequity and segregation.

Karen did research and wrote three posts. You should read all of them. The third post in the series has links to the other two.

Perhaps most alarming, Karen learned that the unified enrollment proposal was being pushed by insiders who were connected to the Broad Foundation and the Walton Foundation.

She writes:

In this post, as promised, we’ll introduce the privatizers who have infiltrated the school district to advance the interests of the charter lobby.

Conspiracy theory? Hardly. This just looks like the new business model. Since the iPad scandal, privatizers have had to find new ways to move Los Angeles: Karen Wolfe Unravels the Unified Enrollment Scam | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Sen. Bernie Sanders Endorses Steve Zimmer and Imelda Padilla for LAUSD School Board | UTLA

Sen. Bernie Sanders Endorses Steve Zimmer and Imelda Padilla for LAUSD School Board | UTLA:

Sen. Bernie Sanders Endorses Steve Zimmer and Imelda Padilla for LAUSD School Board

LOS ANGELES — Sen. Bernie Sanders endorsed UTLA-backed candidates Steve Zimmer and Imelda Padilla.

It is unprecedented for a front-running presidential candidate to support a school board candidate, but shows the high stakes nature of the Los Angeles Unified School Board election.

“Billionaires should not make a profit off of public school children. That's why I'm supporting Steve Zimmer and Imelda Padilla for the Los Angeles School Board. They will fight against the Trump/DeVos agenda to destabilize and undermine public schools," said Sen. Bernie Sanders in a statement.

On Friday, UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl was canvassing in support of Steve when he heard the news.

“Bernie’s support underscores the consequences of this election,” Caputo-Pearl said. “Voters have a choice to make: Will our students have two pro-public education advocates in Steve and Imelda or two adversaries, bought and paid for by outside billionaires?”

Some of the key billionaire donors to Nick Melvoin and Kelly Fitzpatrick-Gonez include the usual suspects in the pro-privatizing world: Real estate mogul Eli Broad, Republican Richard Riordan, Gap founder Doris Fisher and the Waltons of WalMart. According to a new report, titled “Out of Town Billionaires and Trump Backers Attempt to Hijack School Board Elections” in addition to donations to elect Nick and Kelly, the Walton family has donated to conservatives such as Ted Cruz, Mike Pence and Jeff Sessions.

“Our elections should be determined by our communities, not outside money from billionaires with a sordid history of failed privatization schemes like Betsy DeVos, the Walton family and Eli Broad,” Caputo-Pearl said. “This election is about our students, parents and communities and deciding the best direction forward. That’s by voting for Imelda and Steve.”Sen. Bernie Sanders Endorses Steve Zimmer and Imelda Padilla for LAUSD School Board | UTLA:

NPE Action endorses Steve Zimmer for LAUSD

 The Network for Public Education Action is endorsing Steve Zimmer for The Los Angeles School District’s District 4 School Board seat. Voting will take place on May 16.

Even though Mr. Zimmer has served on the Board since 2009, he is facing tough opposition from a candidate backed by the California Charter School Association and by the billionaires who have tried for over a decade to take control of the Los Angeles School system, with the goal of school privatization and charter expansion.

Zimmer told NPE Action that “I’m running for re-election to keep working together with our LAUSD family to improve our schools. We’ve made real and substantial change since I was elected, raising graduation rates from 56% to 75%, increasing arts programs, science education, expanding magnet and language programs. But we are far from done. We must redouble our efforts and focus our energy. We need to invest in expanding early childhood education so all students are ready for school. We need to make sure all students are reading by 9. And we cannot rest until all our programs are rich in the social emotional learning that every student needs to excel. “

Steve has the strong support of the teachers of the LAUSD.

Steve  also has the support of Network for Public Education Action President, Diane Ravitch who had the following to say about Steve. “Steve Zimmer has worked hard as a teacher and a board member for the children and families of Los Angeles. Now the billionaires have targeted him. Stop the billionaires. Stop those who are pushing the Trump-DeVos agenda. Re-elect Zimmer!”

The stakes are high for students and public education in Los Angeles. Please spread the word and vote for Steve Zimmer on May 16th! NPE Action endorses Steve Zimmer for LAUSD

NPE Action endorses Imelda Padilla for LAUSD District 6 Board seat

The Network for Public Education Action is endorsing Imelda Padilla for The Los Angeles School District’s District 6 School Board seat. Voting will take place on May 16.

Imelda describes herself as “the proud daughter of a landscape-gardener and a warehouse worker who was born and raised in Sun Valley.” She is a graduate of the local public schools and she wants to work to preserve them and make them better.

Imelda told us, “Today, too many outside interests burden our neighborhood schools with bureaucratic red tape making it challenging for quality teaching to reach the desks of students. Rather than encouraging kids to pursue post-secondary opportunities, the Los Angeles Unified School District has put forward an adult agenda disconnected from classrooms. I intend to focus on the needs of all students and educators by being solutions oriented to ensure every child reaches their fullest potential.”

Imelda is strongly opposed to vouchers and believes that it is important to keep class size small. Although she is not an educator, she believes she has the skill set needed for success.

“ As a youth and labor organizer, I have a winning record in fighting for the needs of all students; demanding resources be redirected to our students and parents. I’ve devoted my life to advocating for our most vulnerable and will not stop until we reach 100% graduation. “

The stakes are high for students and public education in Los Angeles. Please spread the word and vote for Imelda Padilla on May 16th! You can share a link to this email here.NPE Action endorses Imelda Padilla for LAUSD District 6 Board seat