Big Education Ape

Wednesday, August 7, 2019

Anatomy of a failure: How an XQ Super School flopped

Anatomy of a failure: How an XQ Super School flopped

Anatomy of a failure: How an XQ Super School flopped
Innovation and equity didn’t mix

SOMERVILLE, Mass. — Alec Resnick and Shaunalynn Duffy stood in Somerville City Hall at about 6:30 on March 18, a night they hoped would launch the next chapter of their lives. The two had spent nearly seven years designing a new kind of high school meant to address the needs of students who didn’t thrive in a traditional setting. They’d developed a projects-driven curriculum that would give students nearly unprecedented control over what they would learn, in a small, supportive environment. Resnick and Duffy had spent countless hours shepherding this school through the political thickets that all new public schools face. Approval by the teachers’ union, which had been the most time-consuming obstacle, had finally come through in early January. Tonight, the school committee would cast its votes.

Resnick had reason to be optimistic. Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone sat on the school committee, and he’d been the one to suggest they consider designing a new public school in the first place, back in 2012. Somerville schools superintendent Mary Skipper had been instrumental in keeping the approval process moving forward when prospects looked bleak. She wouldn’t be voting tonight, but she planned to offer a recommendation to elected officials. And then there was the $10 million. Resnick and Duffy had won the money in a national competition to finish designing and ultimately open and run their high school, and the pair knew it had helped maintain interest in their idea. Voting against them would mean walking away from a lot of outside funding.

The last two months had been grueling, though. Winning approval from the teachers union in January had triggered a 60-day sprint of public hearings and school committee meetings, during which Resnick and Duffy provided thousands of pages of answers to school committee questions about everything from what students would CONTINUE READING: Anatomy of a failure: How an XQ Super School flopped

Reparations And The Student Debt Wars | PopularResistance.Org

Reparations And The Student Debt Wars | PopularResistance.Org

REPARATIONS AND THE STUDENT DEBT WARS

The public college and university system in California was tuition-free during the sixties and into the seventies when the baby boomers were attending college in record numbers. Favorable budgets helped stoke the demand and new campuses were built to accommodate this explosion, propelled by an inclusive ethos special to this left-liberal era where a different breed of Democrats governed. This trend, also evident nationwide, revived the spirit of the free school movement popular in the early 19th century that encouraged the creation of literate citizens for a more vital democracy.

The pedagogy of education was accordingly different. There was a significant stress on a well-rounded critical and humanistic education for education’s sake. Thanks to a more favorable job market, students could experiment for a while, relatively secure in the belief that education was about more than career-niching. The evaluation process was accordingly experimental and consumer-driven, grading lax if implemented at all in some circles.

This liberal “Enlightenment” ideal succumbed to shifting trends in the 70s. A glut of new grads materialized amid an epidemic of budget deficits in a slumping economy that bred conservative solutions to a host of ills. Milton Friedman’s early-decade market-fundamentalist trounce of Keynesian economics was the authority for dealing with them. Education started to become a privilege. Ronald Reagan, as Governor of California, was an outspoken supporter of these changes. In his run-up to the presidency, however, he vowed to support the plight of grads that for so many years had faced limited job prospects—not unrelated to his enmity toward unions and the working class.

Policies since then have certainly beefed up support for the middle and upper class college grad over and against the working class, whose wages have remained stagnant since the mid-70s, but they’ve also made a college degree extremely expensive. Endless budget cuts to education have forced higher and higher tuition hikes and made CONTINUE READING: Reparations And The Student Debt Wars | PopularResistance.Org

Stop Using the Least Likely Example - Teacher Habits

Stop Using the Least Likely Example - Teacher Habits

Stop Using the Least Likely Example

I’m at a Solution Tree Professional Learning Communities event this week. It’s fine, if a bit too salesy. As for the content, it’s pretty basic stuff. Speaker after speaker has stressed the importance of working as a team so that student achievement isn’t dependent on the teacher lottery because everyone is working together to ensure the success of every child. Ideally, according to the presenters, teachers collaborate to decide on essential standards, share best practices, assess students to evaluate their teaching, and then decide how to respond when kids don’t learn and when they do. Importantly, teachers take collective responsibility for student learning. A big part of this is comparing assessment data to improve teaching. Unfortunately, the presenters regularly made this sound simple. It’s not.

One of the examples used in a session was one we’ve all heard before:

“So if we as a grade level give a common assessment and my two colleagues’ classes have 95 percent proficiency and I have 50 perfect, what should we do about that?”

And of course the answer is obvious.

Except I guess it isn’t, because this example keeps getting used. The implication behind the question is something like the following.

We have teachers working in isolation and they need to collaborate more and if they worked together to design common assessments, then got back together to look at the results of those common assessments, then took the next step of sharing best practices or having students who failed receive reteaching from the higher CONTINUE READING: Stop Using the Least Likely Example - Teacher Habits

John Thompson: How a Truly Epic Charter School Fraud Unfolded in Oklahoma - Progressive.org

How a Truly Epic Charter School Fraud Unfolded in Oklahoma - Progressive.org

How a Truly Epic Charter School Fraud Unfolded in Oklahoma
A case of ghost students, straw teachers, and parent bonuses sets a new low for privately operated schools.

Even as the audacity and creativity of charter school fraud, malfeasance, and corruption continues to astonish even some of the most objective observers of this sector of these publicly financed, privately operated schools, the recent example of a charter in Oklahoma may set a new low for the industry. It also reveals how confounding the bad-doings of these schools can be to uncover and police.

An Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation revealed that the co-founders of the state’s largest virtual charter school system, Epic Charter Schools, David Chaney and Ben Harris, split at least $10 million in profits from 2013 to 2018. They allegedly recruited “ghost students” (who were technically enrolled but received minimal instruction from teachers) from homeschools and sectarian private schools “for the purpose of unlawfully diverting State Appropriated Funds to their own personal use resulting in high NFAY [not full academic year] rates and low graduation rates for the students.”

Epic established an $800-to-$1000-per-student learning fund for students who did not enroll in a public school. These students were dubbed “members of the $800 club,” and assigned to “straw teachers,” who “would receive additional pay in the form of bonuses which included student retention goals,” while “those who dropped students would see a decrease in pay.”

Students were assigned to “straw teachers,” who “would receive additional pay in the form of bonuses which included student retention goals,” while “those who dropped students would see a decrease in pay.”

A search warrant cited parents who received money but admitted they had no intention of receiving instruction from Epic. One family withdrew its ten children from public schools, received $8000, and allowed the kids to ride horses instead of attending school. The warrant states, “Teachers did not take roll and determined attendance when students logged onto the computer.” This process explains why the 2018 Oklahoma report cards both showed that about 99 percent of students were “in good attendance.”

According to the state bureau of investigation, in 2013 Chaney told his board CONTINUE READING: How a Truly Epic Charter School Fraud Unfolded in Oklahoma - Progressive.org

Textbooks or Laptops at the Classes - LA Progressive

Textbooks or Laptops at the Classes - LA Progressive

Textbooks or Laptops at the Classes

Development of modern technologies has an impact on people’s lives in a great number of aspects, and education is not an exception. Today, students use their computers to prepare for classes, to find the materials for assignments online as it is a fast and easy way to have access to the required books, so it is important to compare the usefulness of textbooks and computers in classes and define which option is the best for students.
Are computers more expensive?

A lot of people claim that computers are useful for study, but not all students can afford to buy laptops to use them in classes.

A lot of people claim that computers are useful for study, but not all students can afford to buy laptops to use them in classes. On the one hand, this statement can be defined as a true one, but it is important to take into consideration other factors in this question. Using a textbook in classes can be considered as expensive too, as students have to buy a separate book for each class. At the same time, they have an option to buy a laptop with basic function in order to use it for all classes and to use it for other types of work. In the modern educational system, one of the most common types of work in classes is essays, and a majority of teachers prefer to get essays in electronic format. It is useful for students as they do not have to write essays by hand, it is CONTINUE READING: Textbooks or Laptops at the Classes - LA Progressive

They read Toni Morrison in school -- and she changed their world - The Washington Post

They read Toni Morrison in school -- and she changed their world - The Washington Post

They read Toni Morrison in school — and she changed their world

Among the many tributes paid on social media to Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, whose death was announced Tuesday, perhaps the most poignant are from women who read her works in school and found not only inspiration but also new ways to look at themselves and the world.

Some teachers included Morrison’s works — among them, “Beloved,” “The Bluest Eye,” “Song of Solomon” and “Sula” — in their literature and reading classes from middle school through college. Other schools and politicians tried to ban her works, which told raw stories of slavery and of black life in America.

In 2017, for example, Virginia’s governor at the time, Democrat Terry McAuliffe, vetoed a bill that would have required schools to notify parents when students were assigned materials deemed sexually explicit. The measure became known as the “Beloved bill,” because it was born from an effort to ban Morrison’s “Beloved” from Fairfax County schools. According to the American Library Association, the book has been challenged repeatedly in school districts across the country.

But in many classes students were assigned her books — and their lives were changed, as they explain below in these tweets:

CONTINUE READING: They read Toni Morrison in school -- and she changed their world - The Washington Post

Post-Truth U.S. Doesn’t Have a Prayer | radical eyes for equity

Post-Truth U.S. Doesn’t Have a Prayer | radical eyes for equity

Post-Truth U.S. Doesn’t Have a Prayer

Before I could examine a renewed interest in public school prayer prompted by a court ruling in South Carolina, school prayer was once again grossly misrepresented in the wake of two mass shootings, the cancer on the U.S. that political leaders refuse to diagnose or treat properly.

Jack Sharp

I taught and coached in a public high school in SC for 18 years, the same high school I had attended in my home town. As a coach, I lived a very direct example of how most people completely misunderstand both the laws and practices connected with prayer in public schools.

Sports, like graduation (the source of the recent SC court ruling), have strong and problematic connections with organized religion, especially in the South. Coaches tend to call players to prayer quite often, notably right before a contest.

Since I recognized that coaching and teaching are both positions representing the state, I refused to coerced my players into prayer. Pre-game prayer was optional and organized by players, to be performed before we gathered as a team to start a contest.

This is a key element in how people misunderstand the laws concerning prayer in public schools. Athletes join sports teams for the sports, not for religious purposes, and students are compelled to attend school (until the CONTINUE READING: Post-Truth U.S. Doesn’t Have a Prayer | radical eyes for equity

Proposed Rule Change in Food Stamps Program Would Hurt the Working Poor and Make Thousands of Kids Ineligible for Subsidized School Lunch | janresseger

Proposed Rule Change in Food Stamps Program Would Hurt the Working Poor and Make Thousands of Kids Ineligible for Subsidized School Lunch | janresseger

Proposed Rule Change in Food Stamps Program Would Hurt the Working Poor and Make Thousands of Kids Ineligible for Subsidized School Lunch

The Trump administration has proposed cutting access to food stamps—now called SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program)— for over 3 million families, seniors and people with disabilities. The administration has threatened to narrow something called broad-based categorical eligibility (BBCE) in a way that would not only directly reduce people’s SNAP benefits but would also affect eligibility for free and reduced-price school lunch for hundreds of thousands of children at school.

There is some confusion about what’s being proposed here. After all, the change is really in the policy weeds, part of a proposed rule change that will not be debated transparently in Congress. Lots of people have said there is inadequate information about the pros and cons of such a change. In actuality, the issues are clear.

The President of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Bob Greenstein released a statement: “Federal law includes a provision that lets states strengthen SNAP’s rules to encourage work and saving among low-income households—two goals that have long had strong bipartisan support—through a policy called broad-based categorical eligibility (BBCE). States can use BBCE to raise SNAP eligibility limits somewhat so that many low-income working families that have difficulty making ends meet, such as because they face expenses for costly housing or child care that consume a sizeable share of their income, can receive help affording adequate food… The Administration’s proposal would dramatically narrow this policy… Children from families who would lose their SNAP benefits under the proposed rule would also lose access to free lunches and breakfasts at school.”

In a longer report, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Dottie Rosenbaum explains that, “without BBCE, a family can lose substantial SNAP benefits from a small earnings increase that raises its gross income over SNAP’s eligibility threshold (130 percent of the federal CONTINUE READING: Proposed Rule Change in Food Stamps Program Would Hurt the Working Poor and Make Thousands of Kids Ineligible for Subsidized School Lunch | janresseger

Tuesday, August 6, 2019

LAUSD’s Nick Melvoin: Betrayal of Trust

LAUSD’s Nick Melvoin: Betrayal of Trust

LAUSD’s Nick Melvoin: Betrayal of Trust

INSIDE THE LAUSD BOARD-“Thanks for your participation in yesterday evening’s meeting with Nick Melvoin. For reference, I attached my notes and next steps from our discussion. Please do not share these notes outside of this group.” -- Jason J. Rudolph, CCSA

It appears that this school board member was a mole in the boardroom as the LAUSD defended itself against a lawsuit from the charter school industry.
As the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) board pretended last May to accept public comment on the proposed candidates for the vacant Superintendent position, they had already made a decision. However, in violation of the Brown Act, the Board had neglected to “publicly report any action taken in closed session and the vote or abstention on that action of every member present.” The public only found out about this deception because Board Member Scott Schmerelson released a statement revealing that “On April 20, by the slimmest majority possible, four members of the LAUSD Board of Education (Garcia, Melvoin, Vladovic, Rodriguez) voted to authorize negotiations for an employment contract with Mr. Austin Beutner as the General Superintendent of the District.” In an appearance before the Northridge East Neighborhood Council, Schmerelson further divulged that every time he asked Beutner “a question about education, [Beutner] couldn’t answer because he really didn’t know.”

Schmerelson was rewarded for his transparency with an investigation by the District Attorney. His fellow board member Nick Melvoin denied that he filed the complaint, but told Speak Up, (an organization created to promote his candidacy), that Schmerelson was “revealing closed-session stuff [and talking] about Austin’s answers.” Melvoin maintained that information about “who wanted Austin, who didn’t, what Austin said, is confidential” and should not have been revealed. So much “for a new era of transparency and accountability” that the Board District 4 CONTINUE READING: LAUSD’s Nick Melvoin: Betrayal of Trust

Inside The NAACP's Civil War Over Charter Schools | HuffPost

Inside The NAACP's Civil War Over Charter Schools | HuffPost

Inside The NAACP’s Civil War Over Charter Schools

Leaders of the nation’s oldest civil rights group say that members are being paid by right-wing groups to infiltrate the organization and sow chaos.

Image result for NAACPâ€™s Civil War Over Charter Schools

When three local NAACP branches in California passed April resolutions opposing the national group’s call for a charter school moratorium, school choice advocates greeted the news with glee. U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos voiced her support in an interview. The Wall Street Journal published a flattering editorial about the move, describing it as a welcome “revolt.”

But leaders at the California state NAACP say this so-called “revolt” is fake news. They say the main member who pushed these actions ― a woman named Christina Laster ― is being paid by a right-wing group connected to the Koch brothers to infiltrate the organization and sow chaos. They also note that, despite the media attention, these resolutions were dead on arrival at the national organization for failure to follow proper submission protocol or rejection by higher committees.

In July, California leadership asked the national NAACP to initiate an investigation into the three branches ― Southwest Riverside, San Diego and San Bernardino ― and their leaders’ motivations.

“It’s definitely a funded and deliberate effort to try and do a hostile takeover,” said Rick Callender, the second vice president for the California Hawaii NAACP.

Laster, on the other hand, denies the accusations and says she has been bullied by organizational leaders for simply expressing her opinion and representing the voice of local members.

“They felt I was creating division to make it seem like we were breaking away as an organization. But it wasn’t that at all,” Laster, education chair of the Southwest Riverside branch, told HuffPost. “It was my desire to bring to the forefront what works and what doesn’t work.”

The NAACP ― the nation’s oldest civil rights organization ― passed a national resolution in October 2016 calling for a moratorium on the expansion of charter schools. The resolution came out of the San Jose branch and made its way through multiple CONTINUE READING: Inside The NAACP's Civil War Over Charter Schools | HuffPost

What Can We Expect Schools to Do about White Nationalism? | Teacher in a strange land

What Can We Expect Schools to Do about White Nationalism? | Teacher in a strange land

What Can We Expect Schools to Do about White Nationalism?

As the news stories about back-to-back (to-back) shootings emerged, I waited for what was surely coming.

Listening to talk radio while driving for an hour on Sunday morning, the stories from CNN, NPR, MSNBC and Bloomberg were similar: Shock and horror. Informed speculation about root causes. Serious conversation about domestic terrorism and white nationalism. Comments from Democratic presidential candidates (many of whom were moved by anger and frustration to expletives), calling for immediate Congressional action. Thoughtful remarks about gun control.

Then I turned to Fox. They were talking about… video games. And the role of the media (other media, evidently—not Fox, of course). How public schools had taken God out of the equation, leading to moral collapse and failed school policies. How the Internet and digital tools had fomented this crisis, so we all needed to put down our phones. The talk on Fox was all about mental health (another thing that public schools were lax in reporting or fixing). Thoughts and prayers a-plenty, laced with blame for public institutions.

The only thing in common: high praise for first responders.

Two distinct worldviews. Where does public education fit into this picture? If you’re patient, you’ll almost always get to hear what Joe Sixpack thinks ‘the schools’ have done wrong in shaping the next generation and how to fix these errors.

Is it fair for folks on the right to suggest that schools have absconded from their moral duty to imbue students with ethical principles? Should our first impulse be to ‘harden’ schools—or to be anti-racist role models for young children? What part can public CONTINUE READING: What Can We Expect Schools to Do about White Nationalism? | Teacher in a strange land

Walton Family Backs Bond-Market Experiment for Charter Schools

Walton Family Backs Bond-Market Experiment for Charter Schools

Walton Family Backs Bond-Market Experiment for Charter Schools

(Bloomberg) -- Anand Kesavan spent more than a decade as a public finance banker working with state loan funds for clean water projects before a two-year stint as chief financial officer at KIPP Austin, a network of 10 charter schools in Texas’s capital. Now, he’s heading a non-profit backed by the family of Walmart Inc. founder Sam Walton that’s experimenting with a novel way to cut the cost of

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/walton-family-backs-bond-market-experiment-for-charter-schools

Copyright © BloombergQuint

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