Charter Updates - Legislative Update - Safety Power Shut Off - CDE Emergency Response Fund (CA Dept of Education)

Charter Updates - Charter Schools (CA Dept of Education)

Charter Updates

Updates and information from the California Department of Education, Charter Schools Division to charter schools, authorizers, and stakeholders

Welcome to Charter Updates

This web page, launched in fall 2020, serves as a means for the California Department of Education, Charter Schools Division to provide timely and relevant information to the state’s charter school community, including, but not limited to, charter school administrators, charter school authorizers, charter school stakeholders, and the general public.

Updates are organized in reverse chronological order by release date. To receive notifications of new charters updates, join the Charter Schools Listserv.

#	Release Date	Topic(s)
Update 1	10/14/2020	Assembly Bills 1505 and 1507 Enrollment Data Enrollment Data Technical Assistance Webinar Charter Schools Program Fiscal Year 2020 Grant Funding Determinations for Renewing Nonclassroom-Based Charter Schools Senate Bills 98 and 820 Frequently Asked Questions State Board of Education Appeal Submission Deadlines

Return to Charter Schools

Questions:   Charter Schools Division | charters@cde.ca.gov | 916-322-6029

CDE Emergency Response Fund - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education) - https://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr20/yr20rel84.asp

Charter Updates - Charter Schools (CA Dept of Education)

Legislative Update – Assembly Bill 827 - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education) - https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/legcalrecyleab827schdist.asp

Public Safety Power Shutoff Event October 14, 2020 - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education) - https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/powersafetyshutoffoct13.asp

COVID Learning Loss Over-Hyped | tultican

COVID Learning Loss Over-Hyped | tultican

COVID Learning Loss Over-Hyped

By Thomas Ultican 10/15/2020

Warnings about learning losses due to the pandemic dominate education media; especially the media created and financed by billionaires. Based on a briefing by NWEA, McKinsey & Company claims “the average K–12 student in the United States could lose $61,000 to $82,000 in lifetime earnings (in constant 2020 dollars) … solely as a result of COVID-19–related learning losses.” The Hoover Institute’s CREDO warns “the findings are chilling.”

One of my favorite education bloggers, Nancy Flanagan, says it well,

“Test-data estimates, alarmist language and shady research do nothing to help us with the most critical problem we have right now: keeping kids connected to their schoolwork and their teachers. However that’s offered and as imperfect as it may be.”

The popular blogger Peter Greene goes to the essence of the issue noting:

“So why has CREDO decided to throw its weight behind this baloney? Well, the testing industry is in a bit of a stir right now. The BS Test was canceled last spring, and nobody is very excited about bringing it back this year, either. So the testing industry and their reformy friends are trying to sell the notion that students and schools and teachers are adrift right now, and the only way anyone will know how students are doing is to break out the industry’s products and start generating some revenue data.”

The Billionaire Created Echo Chamber

The first COVID-slide bang on the bell came from the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) which sells MAP tests. Their computer delivered assessments of mathematics and English are given three times each school year; fall, winter and spring. The tests are not aligned to one class level so they are only partially aligned with state curricular standards.

Using data from approximately 350,000 students who took MAP tests in school years 2017-18 and 2018-19, analysts at NWEA created a paper that guessed at what the negative education effects from the school shut downs would be. The paper was published on May 27, 2020 by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University.

In the paper, NWEA stated,

“In this study, we produce a series of projections of COVID-19-related CONTINUE READING: COVID Learning Loss Over-Hyped | tultican

NYC Public School Parents: "Talk out of School" on "integration fatigue" and what's happening in Finland's schools during the pandemic

NYC Public School Parents: "Talk out of School" on "integration fatigue" and what's happening in Finland's schools during the pandemic

"Talk out of School" on "integration fatigue" and what's happening in Finland's schools during the pandemic

Today, on my podcast "Talk out of School," I interviewed Prof. Noliwe Rooks and author William Doyle.

First, I recapped some of the latest news from NYC, including that despite last week's order from Governor Cuomo to close more than 300 public and private schools in COVID hotspots in Brooklyn and Queens, it has been reported that little enforcement has been done to close the Ultra-orthodox Yeshivas in these neighborhoods. 

Then I greeted back to the show Prof. Noliwe Rooks of Cornell University, whom I spoke to last week as well.  Prof. Rooks, the author of "Cutting School," explained how successful independent schools run by Black educators in the 1960s and 1970s had closed due to the expansion of well-connected charter chains. Prof. Rooks also described why many Black parents and other advocates were suffering from “integration fatigue,” and provided her thoughts about how should the planned reopening of city schools should have proceeded this fall, instead of what actually happened. 

William Doyle, whose book “Let the Children Play” is about to come out on paperback, then joined us. He is living in Finland this year, researching a book on that nation’s education system, and his 7th grade son is attending a public school in Helsinki. Doyle described how Finland is dealing with the pandemic and more specifically what's happening in the school his son attends. He also explained how Finland’s education system provided important lessons for the future direction of US public schools. You can find previous podcasts and//or subscribe here.&nbsp.

Links and Resources:

• Noliwe Rooks, Cutting School: The Segrenomics of American Education
• William Doyle,  Let the Children Play: For the Learning, Well-being and Life Success of Every Child, co-authored by Pasi Sahlberg
• Segment about Finnish schools in Michael Moore’s documentary, “Where to Invade Next”

NYC Public School Parents: "Talk out of School" on "integration fatigue" and what's happening in Finland's schools during the pandemic

CURMUDGUCATION: ME: Charter Pushers Quietly Switch To New Product

CURMUDGUCATION: ME: Charter Pushers Quietly Switch To New Product

ME: Charter Pushers Quietly Switch To New Product

Maine has suffered through its own brands of education disruption. Most notably, they became the target for a bunch folks who wanted to use Maine as a proof of concept state for proficiency based learning grafted onto standards based grading. At best they showed that a poorly implemented and underfunded disruption of this sort is disastrous; at worst, they showed that re-organizing education around the needs of data miners is a terrible idea. However you slice it, Maine's little experiment failed hard.

But what education in Maine hasn't had to deal with much is the rise of charter schools. The charter industry hasn't infected Maine as badly as, say, Ohio or Indiana. There are ten charters, with fewer than a total of 3,000 students enrolled. There are plenty of possible explanations, not the least of which is that once you get away from Theme Park Maine on the coast, Maine is pretty rural (I have an old friend who used to describe his central Maine high school as fifteen miles and an hour and a half away from the nearest rival). But that limited role for charteristas may be about to change.

Like every state where charters are legal, Maine has a group that promotes, advocates, lobbies and generally cheerleads for the charter industry-- the Maine Association for Charter Schools, whose stated purpose is to promote "high-quality options for all children within Maine's public education system." But last year the legislature indefinitely extended a charter school cap. 10 is all the charters they may ever have.

So what's a chartery education disruption group to do? 

How about renaming yourself? And rebranding yourself with a whole new mission by declaring CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: ME: Charter Pushers Quietly Switch To New Product

Clothespin Bucket – radical eyes for equity

Clothespin Bucket – radical eyes for equity

Clothespin Bucket

I had a dream last night, the kind of dream that jumbles your past and present in ways that make sense only in the dream.

The jumble in this dream was riding my recently purchased gravel bike from my former home (where I lived when I was about 10 until my early 20s) to the nearby club house of the rural golf course where that house sat, Three Pines Country Club.

In this dream, my mother, now deceased, met me at the club house after I pedaled up the long hill from that house to the club house, weaving between cars much more carelessly than I would in real life. I also rode the bicycle over steps and furniture into the club house, weaving there through people as if my behavior was perfectly normal.

The kicker of that dream was not the mixing of past and present as well as the living and the deceased but that I eventually realized although I had ridden to the club house to hit range balls, I didn’t have my golf clubs or shoes—as I had ridden a bicycle of course.

In real life, both my mother and I worked at that golf course for many years, and I spent a great deal of my life at the club house and hitting range balls, spanning essentially my entire adolescence.

None the less, the dream was so vivid that I was unnerved when I woke, and continued to think about it all morning.

Eventually, I texted my oldest nephew, over twenty years my junior, who lived CONTINUE READING: Clothespin Bucket – radical eyes for equity

NewBlackMan (in Exile) TODAY

NewBlackMan (in Exile)

NewBlackMan (in Exile) TODAY

Why Philanthropy Alone Can't Solve Social Inequality

by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h

'“The Hard Truth About Bias” features conversations about the relationship of race and privilege; racial stress; the impact of bias in the images and language in our daily news and information; and the creation of stereotypes and how they influence the way we think. Guests in this segment: Wes Moore , CEO, the Robin Hood Foundation .' -- Matter of Fact

Chicago Humanities Festival: Peniel E. Joseph on Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

by Mark Anthony Neal / 15h

'Popular accounts of the 1960s-era civil rights movement are often reduced to the story of two extraordinary visionaries: Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. In his book The Sword and the Shield Peniel E. Joseph argues that by focusing on their differing doctrines of self-defense versus nonviolence, we’ve been blind to the scope of their shared activism and communion. Join Joseph and Jonathan Ei

Public Enemy - GRID (Animated) ft. Cypress Hill, George Clinton

by Mark Anthony Neal / 15h

Animated visuals for Public Enemy 's "Grid" featuring Cypress Hill and George Clinton .

Lenny Kravitz on Finding His Voice

by Mark Anthony Neal / 15h

'Having written an introspective new memoir, Let Love Rule , the Grammy-winning singer Lenny Kravitz talks about his struggles with identity, the road to rock stardom, and his extended, blended family. CBS Sunday Morning : Saturday host Michelle Miller reports.'

A Place to Belong—Queer Desire in the Black Church with Ashon T. Crawley and Shikeith

by Mark Anthony Neal / 15h

'Artists Ashon T. Crawley and Shikeith discusse how their works in the exhibition "Enunciated Life" investigate elements of desire, longing, and loneliness through the lens of queer embodiment within Black spiritual spaces. Introduction by exhibition curator Taylor Aldridge .' -- California African American Museum

Afrotopia: A Conversation with Felwine Sarr and Maboula Soumahoro

by Mark Anthony Neal / 15h

'French scholar of the Atlantic Maboula Soumahoro joins philosopher, economist, and musician Felwine Sarr in a public discussion moderated by Laurent Dubois about Sarr's book, AFROTOPIA .' -- Scholars and Publics

“Elect Public Officials Who are Committed to Stop Police Killings” by Ben Jealous

by Mark Anthony Neal / 1d

“Elect Public Officials Who are Committed to Stop Police Killings” by Ben Jealous | @BenJealous | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile) Millions of Americans have turned out in big cities and small towns to protest the killings of unarmed civilians—often Black people—at the hands of law enforcement. If we want our demands for justice and accountability to lead to real policy change, we need to build

James E. Hinton’s Unseen Films Reframe the Black Power Movement

by Mark Anthony Neal / 2d

'As a photographer, James E. Hinton made pictures of some of the most prominent figures of the civil-rights era. Yet the majority of his images—more than forty thousand, many of which are being digitized by Emory University —

NewBlackMan (in Exile)