Diane Ravitch's blog
A site to discuss better education for all
Saturday, February 23, 2019
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all via @dianeravitch
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all
CURMUDGUCATION: TN: Market Forces Are Not Magical
CURMUDGUCATION: TN: Market Forces Are Not Magical
TN: Market Forces Are Not Magical
Shelby County is running up against two of the fallacies embedded in most charter school policy.
One is the modern charter policy lie-- the notion that you can run multiple parallel school systems with the same money that used to run one system. The other is that charter systems don't need a lot of regulation because the invisible hand of the market will take care of it all.
Shelby County Schools in Tennessee has noticed that it has problems with both of those principles.
The issue was raised back in August when the board considered nine more charter applications-- which would have brought the grand total to 63 charter schools in the county. Superintendent Dorsey Hopson put his finger on the problem:
“No surprise, we have too many schools in Memphis,” Hopson said. “If you got 12 schools in a three-mile radius… and all of them are under-enrolled, we’re not serving kids well.”
Shelby County is home to Memphis, one of the great early charter playgrounds in a state that has always ridden on the reformster train. About 14% of students in the county attend charter schools, and that's enough to leave some schools feeling a financial pinch (the overhead of maintaining a building does not go down whether you lose one student or one hundred). That's also before we count schools being run by the state in the Achievement School District (a method of state takeover of school districts with low test scores).
Nor are the schools well-distributed. Check this map and you'll see that some neighborhoods have clusters of charter schools, while other areas of the county have none at all. It's almost as if market forces do not drive charter businesses to try to serve all students, but only concentrate on the CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: TN: Market Forces Are Not Magical
TN: Market Forces Are Not Magical
Shelby County is running up against two of the fallacies embedded in most charter school policy.
One is the modern charter policy lie-- the notion that you can run multiple parallel school systems with the same money that used to run one system. The other is that charter systems don't need a lot of regulation because the invisible hand of the market will take care of it all.
The issue was raised back in August when the board considered nine more charter applications-- which would have brought the grand total to 63 charter schools in the county. Superintendent Dorsey Hopson put his finger on the problem:
“No surprise, we have too many schools in Memphis,” Hopson said. “If you got 12 schools in a three-mile radius… and all of them are under-enrolled, we’re not serving kids well.”
Shelby County is home to Memphis, one of the great early charter playgrounds in a state that has always ridden on the reformster train. About 14% of students in the county attend charter schools, and that's enough to leave some schools feeling a financial pinch (the overhead of maintaining a building does not go down whether you lose one student or one hundred). That's also before we count schools being run by the state in the Achievement School District (a method of state takeover of school districts with low test scores).
Nor are the schools well-distributed. Check this map and you'll see that some neighborhoods have clusters of charter schools, while other areas of the county have none at all. It's almost as if market forces do not drive charter businesses to try to serve all students, but only concentrate on the CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: TN: Market Forces Are Not Magical
John White Speaks at a San Francisco TFA Board Meeting… for the Benefit of Louisiana | deutsch29
John White Speaks at a San Francisco TFA Board Meeting… for the Benefit of Louisiana | deutsch29
John White Speaks at a San Francisco TFA Board Meeting… for the Benefit of Louisiana
John White Speaks at a San Francisco TFA Board Meeting… for the Benefit of Louisiana
According to a Louisiana ethics filing dated January 16, 2019, Louisiana state superintendent John White spoke in San Francisco, California, at a Teach for America (TFA) board meeting on January 09, 2019, and was comped by TFA for his lodging ($1,186.75) and transportation ($605.33).
The particular ethics form for the filing above has undergone a revision as of August 2018; the form it replaced used to require the signature and seal of a notary. That is no longer true.
Now, it’s only White certifying himself.
As his own agency head, White now approves his own attendance and certifies that his speaking at a TFA board meeting “is of direct benefit to the agency” (the “agency” being the Louisiana Department of Education).
Next, as the public servant for the agency, White was also able to attest that his own agency-head declaration was “true to the best of his (“public servant,” not “agency head”) knowledge” by signing as the public servant for the agency of which he is the agency head.
Of course, one might rightly wonder how, exactly, John White’s speaking at a TFA board meeting in San Francisco is of benefit to the Louisiana Department of Education.
My ready guess is that the reverse is true– that it is LDOE benefiting TFA through offering TFA contracts with LDOE and through employing TFA alumni at LDOE.
White is a TFA alum whose has never stopped championing TFA, the single org CONTINUE READING: John White Speaks at a San Francisco TFA Board Meeting… for the Benefit of Louisiana | deutsch29
Tying Kids’ Lunch Money to Test Scores? It’s No Crueler Than High Stakes Testing | gadflyonthewallblog
Tying Kids’ Lunch Money to Test Scores? It’s No Crueler Than High Stakes Testing | gadflyonthewallblog
Tying Kids’ Lunch Money to Test Scores? It’s No Crueler Than High Stakes Testing
Tying Kids’ Lunch Money to Test Scores? It’s No Crueler Than High Stakes Testing
UPDATED
Most people agree that the best way to get kids to read isn’t by threatening to take away their lunch.
But an Arkansas state Representative is threatening to do just that – sort of.
Rep. Alan Clark, a West Memphis Republican, proposed a bill that would cut “Lunch Funding” for impoverished children in state schools where students struggle with standardized reading tests.
If passed, the bill would reduce a district’s National School Lunch funding – a state mechanism that distributes extra resources to schools with high concentrations of students who qualify for free lunch programs – if student test scores don’t rise over a period of time. This would cut things like professional development and tutoring.
However, this has been confused with the federal program of the same name and CONTINUE READING: Tying Kids’ Lunch Money to Test Scores? It’s No Crueler Than High Stakes Testing | gadflyonthewallblog
TFA Celebrates New Research That Suggests That Corps Members Are Ineffective Teachers | Gary Rubinstein's Blog
TFA Celebrates New Research That Suggests That Corps Members Are Ineffective Teachers | Gary Rubinstein's Blog
TFA Celebrates New Research That Suggests That Corps Members Are Ineffective Teachers
TFA Celebrates New Research That Suggests That Corps Members Are Ineffective Teachers
Over the years there have been various studies comparing the ‘effectiveness’ of TFA teachers to non-TFA teachers. Though these studies are based on the results from standardized tests that may or may not be appropriate for this purpose, the results of these papers are still interesting to look at.
Many of these studies have concluded that TFA teachers, especially, corps members who have not become alumni yet, are a little less effective at teaching reading and a little more effective at teaching math compared to non-TFA teachers with the same amount of teaching experience. Considering all the teacher bashing allies of TFA, I always find it pretty ironic that if the average teacher in this country is supposed to be so bad and that the TFA teachers are about the same, then what does this say about the TFA teachers? But the reformers don’t really mind that TFA teachers aren’t so good. Most of those TFA teachers aren’t going to be in the classroom for very long anyway and some of them are going to be fast-tracked to help join in the fight to bash teachers.
The other day I noticed this tweet from TFA:
#TeachForAmerica corps members and alumni teachers have a demonstrated positive impact on student achievement, according to a new research study from @SMU's Center on Research and Evaluation. https://t.co/uFA4aR1L9F— Teach For America (@TeachForAmerica) February 21, 2019
So I took a look at the research paper and found that when you look at the whole thing, there is actually a lot of data that suggests, according to their way of comparing teachers, that TFA corps members, particularly the ones who are in their first of second year, are actually underperforming compared to non-TFA teachers with the same amount of experience.
This diagram summarizes most of the results, though it does CONTINUE READING: TFA Celebrates New Research That Suggests That Corps Members Are Ineffective Teachers | Gary Rubinstein's Blog
Oakland Teachers Strike, And West Virginia Teachers Say Trust Issues Persist | 89.3 KPCC
Oakland Teachers Strike, And West Virginia Teachers Say Trust Issues Persist | 89.3 KPCC
Oakland Teachers Strike, And West Virginia Teachers Say Trust Issues Persist
Oakland Teachers Strike, And West Virginia Teachers Say Trust Issues Persist
Oakland teachers are the latest to strike
Teachers in Oakland, Calif., went on strike Thursday after the Oakland teachers union rejected a last-minute proposal from the district Wednesday. Teachers in the Oakland Unified School District have been working without a contract since July 2017.
The Oakland Education Association, which represents around 3,000 educators, is seeking a 12 percent pay raise, reductions in class sizes and more nurses and counselors in schools. The district's latest offer included a 7.5 percent raise over three years, plus a retroactive 1.5 percent bonus, KQED's Matthew Green reports.
Oakland schools remained open during the first two days of the strike, staffed by non-union employees and substitute teachers.
The district is also shouldering a $30 million budget deficit.
West Virginia teacher strike kills controversial education reform bill, but teachers still have 'trust' issues
On Tuesday, teachers in West Virginia went on strike. But it only took a few hours for the state's House of Delegates to effectively kill the controversial education bill the state's teachers' unions were protesting.
Despite the legislature's action, union leaders called for the strike to continue on CONTINUE READING: Oakland Teachers Strike, And West Virginia Teachers Say Trust Issues Persist | 89.3 KPCC
“We’re Fighting a Mean-Spirited and Antidemocratic Attack on Public Education” #Unite4OaklandKids #WeAreOEA #WeAreCTA #strikeready #REDFORED
“We’re Fighting a Mean-Spirited and Antidemocratic Attack on Public Education”
“We’re Fighting a Mean-Spirited and Antidemocratic Attack on Public Education”
On the first day of the Oakland teachers’ strike, I met up with Oakland teacher and union activist Tim Marshall at the rally downtown. Marshall has been an Oakland public school teacher for twenty-two years. He sits on the organizing committee for the Oakland Education Association (OEA), the teachers union that’s fighting for a living wage, smaller class sizes, more student supports, and an end to school closures. He’s also a cluster leader, in charge of organizing union activity at a handful of school sites. And he’s a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), having joined in the big post-Bernie membership wave.
“We’re Fighting a Mean-Spirited and Antidemocratic Attack on Public Education”
On the first day of the Oakland teachers’ strike, I met up with Oakland teacher and union activist Tim Marshall at the rally downtown. Marshall has been an Oakland public school teacher for twenty-two years. He sits on the organizing committee for the Oakland Education Association (OEA), the teachers union that’s fighting for a living wage, smaller class sizes, more student supports, and an end to school closures. He’s also a cluster leader, in charge of organizing union activity at a handful of school sites. And he’s a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), having joined in the big post-Bernie membership wave.
My name is Meagan Day. I’m also a DSA member, as well as a staff writer for Jacobin. I interviewed Marshall on Thursday in Oakland, to get a sense of what’s really at stake in the teachers’ fight.
Marshall and I peeled off the rally the pickets had converged into, and settled into a restaurant called Ed’s Cheesesteak. From our booth, we could hear more than five thousand teachers chanting and singing outside City Hall. Before the interview began, Marshall got a phone call from a leader at one of his school sites. “It’s a propaganda war right now,” he told the organizer on the other end. “That’s why you take attendance. We need to show that we shut it down.”
Marshall hung up and pulled up an app on his phone that showed attendance percentages at schools across the city. Many of them were in the single digits. He pointed to one, a major aberration with a thirty percent attendance rate. “This is a problem,” he said. “We’ll be sending DSA members out to this picket tomorrow morning to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
I talked with Marshall about the Oakland teachers’ fight, the role of billionaires in dismantling public education, what’s so undemocratic about charter schools, and the right of every student to an equitably funded school that reflects and responds to the community where they live.
After the interview, we walked outside to find nurses from the California Nurses Association chanting, “Without teachers, we wouldn’t be nurses!” and elementary school children chanting, “Get up, get down, Oakland is a union town!” CONTINUE READING: “We’re Fighting a Mean-Spirited and Antidemocratic Attack on Public Education”
Denver Teachers’ Strike Was a Rejection of Education ‘Reform’
Denver Teachers’ Strike Was a Rejection of Education ‘Reform’
Denver Teachers’ Strike Was a Rejection of Education ‘Reform’
Denver Teachers’ Strike Was a Rejection of Education ‘Reform’
A Denver Public Schools teacher pay stub from 2016 shows the complexity of teacher salaries in the district.
“I definitely drank the education reform kool-aid,” recalls Alex Nelson, a Denver teacher who, along with over 5,300 fellow teachers and school support staff, walked off the job earlier this month in a four-day strike that resulted in the teachers having most of their demands met.
Now in his sixth year at Denver Public Schools, Nelson is at Bryant-Webster Elementary where he teaches Math, Science, and Spanish to third- and fourth-grade students. “I was convinced education was failing and needed reform,” he recalls about his early years in the profession.
Back then, Denver schools were still basking in the glow of favorable national media coverage received during the leadership of superintendent, and now current U.S. Senator and expected presidential candidate, Michael Bennet. Under Bennet’s direction from 2005-2009, Denver adopted a package of policies and programs favored by bipartisan education reformers, including measuring school and teacher performance by student test scores, closing low-performing schools, and opening competitive charter schools. After Bennett’s tenure, district leadership transitioned to protege Tom Boasberg who just finished a ten-year term in office maintaining most of the same policies Bennet started.
Denver’s approach to school governance has been much-ballyhooed by politically centrist advocates like David Osborne of the Progressive Policy Institute, the Clinton-era “ideas shop” that has been pushing the privatization of public services for more than thirty years. Beltway-based think tanks, on both the right and the left of the political spectrum, hail CONTINUE READING: Denver Teachers’ Strike Was a Rejection of Education ‘Reform’
Steph Curry, Mahershala Ali and MC Hammer made a video to support striking Oakland teachers. Here it is. - The Washington Post #Unite4OaklandKids #WeAreOEA #WeAreCTA #strikeready #REDFORED
Steph Curry, Mahershala Ali and MC Hammer made a video to support striking Oakland teachers. Here it is. - The Washington Post
Steph Curry, Mahershala Ali and MC Hammer made a video to support striking Oakland teachers. Here it is.
Steph Curry, Mahershala Ali and MC Hammer made a video to support striking Oakland teachers. Here it is.
Luminaries from sports, film, radio and the letters star in a video posted on YouTube that supports Oakland, Calif., teachers who went on strike Thursday demanding higher pay, lower class sizes and more nurses and other resources for schools. They are also calling for an end to school closings and a stop to unfettered charter school expansion.
Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors, Oscar-winning actor Mahershala Ali and rap pioneer and preacher MC Hammer are just some of the people in the video, which is anchored by Oakland native Rafael Casal, an actor, poet and filmmaker.
Casal says in the video that teachers went on strike for “four simple things:” a livable wage, smaller classes, more support staff for students and an “end to the district’s plan to close 24 of its 86 schools in predominantly black and Latinx neighborhoods.”
Casal says the plan to close schools is “a complete and outright assault on Oakland families — and above all else, they don’t even have to do it!”
Casal, along with Daveed Diggs, also an Oakland native and a member of the original “Hamilton” cast on Broadway, co-wrote, co-produced and starred in the 2018 film "Blindspotting, which transpires in Oakland, where they grew up together.
Here’s the video, and below is a longer list of people who appear. CONTINUE READING: Steph Curry, Mahershala Ali and MC Hammer made a video to support striking Oakland teachers. Here it is. - The Washington Post
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