Diane Ravitch Speaks at the Los Angeles Teachers Strike - Network For Public Education #UTLA #REDFORED #UTLAStrong #StrikeReady #March4Ed #WeAreLA

Diane Ravitch Speaks at the Los Angeles Teachers Strike - Network For Public Education

Diane Ravitch Speaks at the Los Angeles Teachers Strike

Diane Ravitch Speaks at the Los Angeles Teachers Strike - Network For Public Education

Education, Civil Rights, Civic and Child Advocacy Organizations Protest DeVos Action on School Discipline | janresseger

Education, Civil Rights, Civic and Child Advocacy Organizations Protest DeVos Action on School Discipline | janresseger

Education, Civil Rights, Civic and Child Advocacy Organizations Protest DeVos Action on School Discipline

Among the most important guarantees promised by public schools is the protection of children’s rights. Civil rights laws ban discrimination at school, and it is the established role of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to intervene when it can be shown that black and brown students or LGBTQ students or disabled students are being more severely punished and kicked out of school.  In late December, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker rolled back 2014, Obama era guidance (see here and here) that sought to eliminate very sizeable disparities in the number of out of school suspensions and expulsions by race, disability, and LGBTQ status.

Last week the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights sent a powerful letter to DeVos and Whitaker, a letter endorsed by 75 national organizations and 45 state organizations protesting the scrubbing of these civil rights protections. The letter is signed by education organizations like the National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, and National Council of Teachers of English; civil rights groups including the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, League of United Latin American Citizens, National Indian Education Association, Human Rights Campaign, National Disability Rights Network, and Southeast Asia Resource Action Center; a wide range of children’s and education advocacy groups including the Children’s Defense Fund, Democrats for Education Reform, National Black Child Development Institute, National Center for Learning Disabilities, Stand for Children, and the Education Trust; and civic organizations including the American Association of University Women, People for the American Way, National Urban League, PFLAG National, Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Union for Reform Judaism.

It is worth reading the letter, which describes our society’s legal promise that schools will CONTINUE READING: Education, Civil Rights, Civic and Child Advocacy Organizations Protest DeVos Action on School Discipline | janresseger

Austin Beutner’s No Superintendent; He’s An Agent Of Austerity And Deception – redqueeninla #UTLA #REDFORED #UTLAStrong #StrikeReady #March4Ed #WeAreLA

Austin Beutner’s No Superintendent; He’s An Agent Of Austerity And Deception – redqueeninla

Austin Beutner’s No Superintendent; He’s An Agent Of Austerity And Deception

For a financial whiz-kid, Austin Beutner seems strangely uncomprehending of numbers and inordinately fond of trumped-up figures.

Monday morning last he floated the patently absurd hypothesis that “…3,500 people were taking part in pickets at the schools”. Considering that UTLA is 34,000 strong (in LAUSD; that figure seems a little hard to pin down though so call it 32K +/- 2K), and 98% of the 81% voting members elected to strike, that  makes for approximately 25K (+/- 2K – see above) union members alone as a base for Monday’s strike, and that number’s only risen since then. Beyond that minimum is a small army of ancillary supporters– students, families, numerous allied local unions, even charter school union members. They’ve all been pounding the pavement in “support” of our teachers.  Which in itself is a bizarre concept considering there ought to be no antagonists at the table here.

So who’s this money maven helming LAUSD’s ship as it has careened toward calamitous closure?

He’s exactly the sort of guy feared when the term “Wall Street” is invoked.  An “econ” major from Dartmouth’s class of 1982, he’s one of those “Smartest Guys In The Room”, a financial “whiz-kid”, a “vulture capitalist” and venture philanthropist who essentially swings from one corporate liana to the next, leveraging buyouts into IPOs and sticking the rest of us with his hundred-million-dollar landings.

Beutner’s resume is not an educator’s, it’s a Wall Street Wolf’s. From Dartmouth CONTINUE READING: Austin Beutner’s No Superintendent; He’s An Agent Of Austerity And Deception – redqueeninla

John Engler Resigns as Michigan State Interim President, Says Sexual Abuse Victims “Enjoy Spotlight” | deutsch29

John Engler Resigns as Michigan State Interim President, Says Sexual Abuse Victims “Enjoy Spotlight” | deutsch29

John Engler Resigns as Michigan State Interim President, Says Sexual Abuse Victims “Enjoy Spotlight”

Former Michigan governor, John Engler, will resign effective January 23, 2019, from his position as Michigan State University (MSU) interim president following comments he made about victims of sexual predator and former USA gymnastics team doctor and MSU physician, Larry Nassar.

In discussing a fund to assist Nassar’s victims in a January 11, 2019, interview with Detroit News, Engler stated that some of Nassar’s victims are “enjoying the moment [in the] spotlight.” From Reuters via aol.com:

The university’s board had scheduled a meeting for Thursday [January 17, 2019] to discuss a “personnel action.” While it was not known what that action was to be, the meeting was to come on the heels of an interview with The Detroit News during which Engler said:

“You’ve got people, they are hanging on and this has been … there are a lot of people who are touched by this, survivors who haven’t been in the spotlight. In some ways they have been able to deal with this better than the ones who’ve been in the spotlight who are still enjoying that moment at times, you know, the awards and recognition. And it’s ending. It’s almost done.”

When he was Michigan’s governor, in 1993, Engler brought a 20-gauge, sawed-off shotgun into a meeting of Michigan legislators to sensationalize school choice as a way to save students from allegedly violent, traditional public schools. In CONTINUE READING: John Engler Resigns as Michigan State Interim President, Says Sexual Abuse Victims “Enjoy Spotlight” | deutsch29

CURMUDGUCATION: FL: The Unsurprising Teacher "Shortage"

CURMUDGUCATION: FL: The Unsurprising Teacher "Shortage"

FL: The Unsurprising Teacher "Shortage"

The Florida Department of Education has released a report on teacher shortages in the state, for the 2019-2019 school year, and the news is not great.

The news is not just that there's a shortage (that's old news), but that Florida deals with the shortages by filling classrooms with teachers uncertified for the subject. The news is also in where the shortages are being felt.

It's not unusual to see shortages in the special education area, and science also turns up on the list of shortages. But Florida's shortage areas include English, math, and reading, in addition to some science areas.

It is a puzzler, but let's drill down on some of the data, because the report has some really nice charts.

The report measures shortages with three different data points, then maths them together for an overall ranking, but the three categories are interesting. First, we consider the percentage of courses taught by people not appropriately certified. In that category, English ranks at the top, followed by reading, followed by Exceptional Student Education (that's pretty much every kind of special ed). ESOL (ESL) comes  in fourth, followed by general science and then math. The English is surprising-- since when have English and Reading been hard spots to fill.

If we look at projected openings (as reported by districts) a different pattern emerges. The top category for expected vacancies is elementary education. Elementary education comes in dead last CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: FL: The Unsurprising Teacher "Shortage"

Why the L.A. teachers strike is so uncomfortable for so many Democrats - The Washington Post #UTLA #REDFORED #UTLAStrong #StrikeReady #March4Ed #WeAreLA

Why the L.A. teachers strike is so uncomfortable for so many Democrats - The Washington Post

Why the L.A. teachers strike is so uncomfortable for so many Democrats

Hey @arneduncan, why is it that when it came to guns in schools you were all for kids striking, but when their teachers want guidance counselors instead of arm[ed] guards, you blast them?

Randi Weingarten

That’s the text of a tweet that Randi Weingarten, the Democratic president of the American Federation of Teachers, directed at Arne Duncan, the Democratic former secretary of education, on the same day a massive teachers strike began in Los Angeles, which has the second-largest school system in the country.

Weingarten was referring to an op-ed that Duncan, who worked under President Barack Obama for seven years, wrote in the Hill. Duncan opposes the strike called by the 33,000-member United Teachers Los Angeles, saying it is students who will get hurt by the labor action.

Not surprisingly, Los Angeles teachers were furious, union President Alex Caputo-Pearl said in an interview Wednesday. “Our members were enraged to see Arne Duncan and [former Democratic Los Angeles Mayor] Antonio Villaraigosa shaking their finger at them telling them not to go on strike when you could count on your hands and toes how many days these guys have spent in a classroom with the conditions that our folks deal with,” he said.

t wasn’t the first time Democratic-led unions have clashed with Duncan and his school reform camp. In her one-sentence tweet Monday, Weingarten underscored the very real divisions among Democrats about public education today — how schools should operate and what kind of schools the public should pay for.

The strike in Los Angeles is about money: The teachers want more funding for pay raises and for schools strapped for resources. But there’s an underlying theme: Does a genuine public commitment exist to support traditional public school districts against privatization efforts? And it’s not just Republicans vs. Democrats. Democrats have been fighting one another over the future of public education for years.

Randi Weingarten

✔@rweingarten

 · Jan 13, 2019

Hey @arneduncan, why is it that when it came to guns in schools you were all for kids striking, but when their teachers want guidance counselors instead of arm guards, you blast them? #UTLAStrong #WeAreLA https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/education/422847-democrats-in-california-need-to-lead-on-education …

Democrats in California need to lead on education

California is a state near the bottom of when it comes to school funding and performance. Fixing this crisis is going to require great teachers and more resources.

thehill.com

Randi Weingarten

✔@rweingarten

.@arneduncan: I suggest you take a moment to read about what's really happening in LA and what @utlanow is fighting for, straight from an educator in the city: https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/09/obamas-education-secretary-arne-duncan-slams-la-teachers-for-strike/ …

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8:17 PM - Jan 13, 2019

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Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan Slams LA Teachers for Strike 

The closer we get to a strike, the more pressure is put on us to call it off. In a recent article in The Hill, pro-charter/anti-union former Education secreta

counterpunch.org

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Chris Eisenberg@cjets

President Obama's former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan call the LAUSD strike a battle between democrats.

And he's right. It's a battle between the Corporate, crony... https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/education/422847-democrats-in-california-need-to-lead-on-education …

2:16 PM - Jan 14, 2019

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Democrats in California need to lead on education

California is a state near the bottom of when it comes to school funding and performance. Fixing this crisis is going to require great teachers and more resources.

thehill.com

See Chris Eisenberg's other Tweets

The strike entered its third day Wednesday, with thousands of teachers and their supporters walking picket lines and marching. Caputo-Pearl said union protests were concentrated in six areas of Los Angeles, causing CONTINUE READING: Why the L.A. teachers strike is so uncomfortable for so many Democrats - The Washington Post

Picketing with UTLA: A Great and Inspiring Morning | Diane Ravitch's blog #UTLA #REDFORED #UTLAStrong #StrikeReady #March4Ed #WeAreLA

Picketing with UTLA: A Great and Inspiring Morning | Diane Ravitch's blog

Picketing with UTLA: A Great and Inspiring Morning

I had a very exciting morning with teachers, parents and students who were picketing outside Alexander Hamilton High School in Los Angeles.

Teachers and parents walked in front of the majestic exterior building, on the sidewalk where cars could see them. Several people held up signs saying “Honk if you support teachers,” and there was a cacaphony of honking horns as cars and trucks passed by.

As the minutes passed, the crowd grew to be hundreds of people, and they chanted “Hey, hey, Ho, Ho, Austin Beutner’s got to go!” And many other inspiring lines about supporting teachers and public schools.

The UTLA understands exactly what’s going on. Its President Alex Caputo-Pearl and his members understand that the billionaires bought the school board so they could expand the non-union charter presence. Charters now enroll 20% of the district’s children.

A day earlier, the UTLA held a mass rally in front of the California Charter Schools Association, the billionaire-funded lobbyists intent on destroying public schools in the state while prohibiting any accountability for charter schools and fighting any limits on charter school growth.

The billionaire-bought LAUSD has starved the public schools, which helps the charters.

The picketing stopped for short speeches. Parents, teachers, a celebrity (Rock Star Stevie Van Zandt) spoke. So did students, both of whom are seniors at Hamilton. One young man said, “We get it. They are targeting black and brown communities. They are trying to destroy our schools by denying us the education we need and deserve. They are dividing our district into haves and have-nots.” Another senior asked the audience to imagine what it was like to be in classes with nearly 50 students, where CONTINUE READING: Picketing with UTLA: A Great and Inspiring Morning | Diane Ravitch's blog