How to Identify an Enemy of Public Education - The Crucial Voice of the People

How to Identify an Enemy of Public Education - The Crucial Voice of the PeopleThe Crucial Voice of the People:

How to Identify an Enemy of Public Education

“How the Democratic Party Became an Enemy of Public Education” explained how both Republicans and Democrats are selling the idea that private-sector education reforms have the best interests of all our children at heart. They don’t.

Advocates for private entities controlling the public schools have completely ignored facts, research, and us. The consequences their policies have on our schools, communities, and children are harmful. The leaders of this private-sector education revolution know what they are doing. And they don’t care about the harm being done. They aren’t accountable to any of us.

And never forget, both Republican and Democratic leadership have no faith in the idea that We, the People, have enough brainpower and manpower to fix our own problems, in our own schools. Those in power trust Washington D.C.’s think tanks and education industry corporations to come up with “innovative” education reforms to sell to us.

Bull roar. These influential people pushing the levers of power are destroying our public education system. Their latest innovation? The claim to be proposing “progressive” or “centrist” education reforms for the Democratic Party. The truth; their agenda is neither. And they are paying the “grassroots” to advocate for them. It’s being done through confusion, propaganda, and indoctrination.

Progressivism supports making progress towards solving social problems.

Progressives advocate for the best solutions based on the latest information.

Progressives expect the political system to respect the scientific method of problem solving.

Progressivism is hard to define because progressive principles change based on evidence.

Important to discussing this further are the following points from “How the Democratic How to Identify an Enemy of Public Education - The Crucial Voice of the PeopleThe Crucial Voice of the People:

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

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

Saturday Reads Diane Ravitch's blog

A site to discuss better education for all

Why Is DeVos Hiding from the Press?

3by dianeravitch / 1h

James Warren wonders why Betsy DeVos is steering clear of the media . Typically, the Secretary of Education speaks to the annual meeting of the Education Writers Association. But she declined. She had something better to 

Utah: Should Charters Be Allowed to Seize Private Property by Eminent Domain

3by dianeravitch / 21min

We have seen how privately managed charter schools are exempt from transparency and accountability, thanks to the big bucks that pave their way. But Utah is considering a new low for preferential treatment of charters. Utah legislators are discussing whether charters should have the power of eminent domain, to seize private properties for their own use. Two conservative principles are at odds on

Arizona: The State Where Anything Goes for Charter Schools

2by dianeravitch / 20min

The Phoenix New Times has an long, in-depth article about one of the state’s nearly 600 charter schools. It is possibly the weirdest and proud of it. Nepotism abounds because it is not against the law for charters (only for public schools). The founder of the school has a free hand to do whatever he wants. State laws don’t matter much at Metro Arts Institute. It begins: “The photograph is hard to

Trump’s Tweets This Morning: His Hillary Obsession

1by dianeravitch / 56min

Politico posted Trump’s tweets. Here you see what he is fixated on. The big obsession is Hillary. I think she keeps a very low profile because at any moment, he could direct the Justice Department to open an investigation of her emails (again) and “lock her up.” The only way to stand up to this guy is if you have nothing to lose. “WHAT’S ON THE PRESIDENT’S MIND — at 6:33 a.m.: “A new INTELLIGENCE

New Orleans: Students Punished for Being Poor

7by dianeravitch / 3h

Astana Bigard, parent activist in New Orleans, reports that poor children are regularly suspended and expelled from charter schools because they can’t afford to pay for a uniform. “When a New Orleans charter school made headlines recently for kicking out two homeless students because they didn’t have the right uniforms, people were shocked. They shouldn’t have been. Suspending poor students for “

YESTERDAY

The New Republic: We Are Veering Closer to a Constitutional Crisis

8by dianeravitch / 21h

Brian Beutler, an editor at The New Republic, warns that we are approaching “an authoritarian crisis.” I call it a constitutional crisis because there is nothing in our Constitution that deals with the actions of a Trump. https://newrepublic.com/article/143984/were-brink-authoritarian-crisis What if the president and his immediate family have colluded with a foreign power to influence the preside

Los Angeles: Court Rules that Rafe Esquith May Sue LAUSD for Discriminating Against Him

2by dianeravitch / 21h

Rafe Esquith, a teacher of fifth-grade students at the Hobart Elementary School in Los Angeles who gained national attention for his Hobart Shakespeareans, won the right to sue the Los Angeles Unified School District for firing him in 2015. Esquith was accused of sexual improprieties, which he denied. A state appellate court panel Thursday upheld a trial judge’s ruling that a former Los Angeles U

Billionaire Elon Musk Knows What Schools Need to Do–and They Are Already Doing It

12by dianeravitch / 22h

Elon Musk, tech billionaire, says he has the solution for schools: teach children to ask why. Engage them in constructing things to learn how they work. http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/20/elon-musk-this-question-can-help-fix-the-u-s-education-system.html?utm_source=TopSheet&utm_campaign=5d4d14b0ca-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_07_21&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d40b014331-5d4d14b0ca-176133581 Is this news? No.

How to Follow the Creeping Privatization of Public Services

13by dianeravitch / 23h

There is an organization that tracks the privatization of public services–in cities, states, nationally and internationally. It is called “ In the Public Interest.” I urge you to sign up for its online newsletter and reports. You can stay informed about efforts to transfer public assets into private hands and to turn public services into profit-making businesses. The latest weekly newsletter link

New York City: Most Teachers Evaluated Using Test Scores of Students They Don’t Teach

18by dianeravitch / 1d

This practice of evaluating teachers by the scores of students they never taught in subjects they don’t teach is absurd. In New York City, more than half of all teachers are judged based on work they didn’t do. Teachers in Florida went to court to challenge it, the state court judge said it was unfair but not unconstitutional. That judgement was as nonsensical as the evaluation method. “Just over

Rachel M. Cohen: Is VAM Dying? A Review of the Evidence

17by dianeravitch / 1d

It is called VAM. Value-added-measurement, or value-added-modeling. It means measuring the effectiveness of teachers by the rise or fall of the test scores of their students. Rachel M. Cohen, writing in The American Prospect, documents the slow but steady retreat from evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students. Only a few years ago, VAM was lauded by Secretary of a Education Arne Du

Randi Weingarten: The Fight Before Us Against DeVos and Privatization

16by dianeravitch / 1d

Randi Weingarten gave a major address to the AFT Teach Conference yesterday, in which she explained why she took Betsy DeVos to Van Wert, Ohio, and she called out the forces of destruction now targeting public schools in America. It is time, she says, to resist. To resist privatization by charters and vouchers; to resist the attacks on the teaching profession; to fight racial segregation; to resi

School Choice: Grounded in Racism, Reinvented by the Radical Right

77by dianeravitch / 1d

Rick Hess makes a valiant but unsuccessful effort to provide a new origin story to the idea of school choice, attributing it to Thomas Paine and John Stuart Mill. That’s quite a stretch, because Thomas Paine lived before there were any public schools in the United States, and Mill, of course, never had any contact with the American idea of free, universal, democratic public schooling. In my exper

Jennifer Berkshire: The Public Rejects DeVos-ALEC Agenda

33by dianeravitch / 1d

Jennifer Berkshire asks a crucial question: Just how far right can Betsy DeVos go before the public rises up to quash her extremist agenda? Never in modern history has there been a more unpopular, more polarizing Cabinet member. She 

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

If north Fulton teachers went to south Fulton schools, would achievement soar? Or is it the students? | Get Schooled

If north Fulton teachers went to south Fulton schools, would achievement soar? Or is it the students? | Get Schooled:

If north Fulton teachers went to south Fulton schools, would achievement soar? Or is it the students?

One of the problems with bonus programs designed to entice top-rated teachers to low-rated schools is figuring out who the most effective teachers are and whether their effectiveness is portable. (We have been discussing incentives this week in relation to Fulton County’s abandoned pilot that offered certain teachers $20,000 to transfer.)

A teacher may dazzle in a school where students perform at grade level and parents jam open houses, but may fizzle in a high-poverty classroom where many kids are behind and parents are too busy working two jobs to run robotics teams.

We are still not adept at separating out how much of student performance reflects socioeconomics and family inputs and how much hinges on teachers and schools.

Consider the release Thursday of the Georgia Milestones scores, the state exams given each spring to elementary, middle and high school students and used to rate both schools and educators. In the five-county metro area, the top middle school for eighth-grade math was Dodgen in Cobb and the top elementary school for third-grade language arts was Lake Windward in Fulton. Both schools have 6 percent of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, the proxy for measuring low-income households.

When you go to the other end of the spectrum, the lowest-performing schools on this year’s Milestones, many have 90 percent or more of their students qualifying for free and reduced-price lunch.

At Banneker High School in south Fulton, nearly nine out of 10 students failed the state geometry exam, scoring below proficient, at the beginner or developing learner level. No student scored at the advanced level, according to the state data released Thursday. At the College Park school, nine out of 10 students are also eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, according to the state Report Card. At Milton High at the other end of Fulton County – where one out of 10 students is low-income  — 24 percent failed the End of Course geometry test. Nearly 30 percent scored at the highest level.

Would $20,000 persuade math teachers from Milton to move to Banneker where the lift to student proficiency would be far more arduous and frustrating? Even if they agreed to move — and most likely would not, given the distance and the challenges — could they be as successful with students arriving in geometry class in need of remediation?

As one teacher said on AJC Get Schooled Facebook, “It’s easy to look like If north Fulton teachers went to south Fulton schools, would achievement soar? Or is it the students? | Get Schooled: