Hey, Arne! Our kids are not your political poker chips. | Reclaim Reform

Hey, Arne! Our kids are not your political poker chips. | Reclaim Reform:

Hey, Arne! Our kids are not your political poker chips.

Posted on March 13, 2015by Ken Previti

Hey, Arne!

Our kids are not your political poker chips. Your chauffeur accidentally went up a blind alley in Chicago, and you were forced to walk a half block among moms. So, what do you do after those two minutes of facing reality?

Once safely inside the school, Duncan was asked about the protest outside.

Why is his U.S. Department of Education forcing a controversial standardized test — one many parents don’t want and that Mayor Rahm Emanuel has argued is “not ready” for prime time — down the throats Chicago Public Schools?

“I’m not,” Duncan said. “The state works it out without Chicago. . . . That’s the state’s decision.”

But isn’t the mandate being dictated by the federal government? Isn’t that what’s behind the threat to withhold $1 billion in funding that forced Chicago’s hand?

“No. You’re wrong. . . . You’re making stuff up. You don’t have your facts straight,” Duncan said. – Chicago Sun Times

School districts across America are spending billions of dollars on high stakes testing Hey, Arne! Our kids are not your political poker chips. | Reclaim Reform:

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: All About the Tests (And Poverty)

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: All About the Tests (And Poverty):

PA: All About the Tests (And Poverty)

In Pennsylvania, we rate schools with the School Performance Profile (SPP). Now a new research report reveals that the SPP is pretty much just a means of converting test scores into a school rating. This has huge implications for all teachers in PA because our teacher evaluations include the SPP for the school at which we teach.

Research for Action, a Philly-based education research group, just released its new brief, "Pennsylvania'a School Performance Profile: Not the Sum of Its Parts." The short version of its findings are pretty stark and not very encouraging--

90% of the SPP is directly based on test results.

90%.

SPP is our answer to the USED waiver requirement for a test-based school-level student achievement report. It replaces the old Adequate Yearly Progress of NCLB days by supposedly considering student growth instead of simple raw scores. It rates schools on a scale of 0-100, with 70 or above considered "passing."  In addition to being used to rate schools and teachers, SPP's get trotted out any time someone wants to make a political argument about failing schools.

RFA was particularly interested in looking at the degree to which SPP actually reflects poverty level, and their introduction includes this sentence:

Studies both in the United States and internationally have established a consistent, negative link between poverty and student outcomes on standardized tests, and found that this relationship has become stronger in recent years.

Emphasis mine. But let's move on.

SPP is put together from a variety of calculations performed on test scores. Five of the six-- which account for 90% of the score-- "rely entirely on test scores."

Our analysis finds that this reliance on test scores, despite the partial use of growth measures, results in a school rating system that favors more advantaged schools.

Emphasis theirs.


The brief opens with a consideration of the correlation of SPP to poverty. I suggest you go look at the graph for yourself, but I will tell you that you don't need any statistics background at all to see the clear correlation between poverty and a lower SPP.  And as we break down the elements of the CURMUDGUCATION: PA: All About the Tests (And Poverty):

Anti-Union Group StudentsFirst Launched Astroturf Campaign to Undermine Teachers | Alternet

Anti-Union Group StudentsFirst Launched Astroturf Campaign to Undermine Teachers | Alternet:



Anti-Union Group StudentsFirst Launched Astroturf Campaign to Undermine Teachers

Michelle Rhee's group is sneakily trying to rebrand itself to advance its anti-union agenda.

 StudentsFirst, the organization founded by Michelle Rhee to battle teachers unions over education policy, has seen better days – having pulled back its chapters in several states and laid off staff. Many are associating its advocacy with being reflexively against the rights of teachers and reflexively for school privatization, a trend in education policy that is starting to wane.

One way for an organization that is starting to lose its base is to rebrand, or to disguise its activities. An email Alternet has obtained shows StudentsFirst emailing individuals in New Mexico (and reportedly other states) offering to pay them to blog and social media comment in favor of its preferred anti-teachers union policies. Here's a copy of the email we received from a source who says it appeared over the summer:

The Truth Campaign for Teachers (TCT) is looking for:

·3-5 New Mexicans who are willing to blog at least twice/week on a variety of pro-reform issues

·3-5 New Mexicans who are willing to comment on/promote content on social media

Bloggers

Ideal candidate is passionate about education reform and is willing to be vocal about issues like the ones StudentsFirst supports.

·TCT would supply them with:

-Daily emails with suggested content and they would choose which topics to write on

-Before posts are final, a TCT write will provide feedback on post to form a compelling blog post

-(Help set up blog if person does not have one yet)

·Prefer that individual is willing to be named but we can work with anonymous bloggers as well

·Trying to get as many volunteers as possible

Social Media Commenters

·Ideal candidates are passionate about education reform

·Have the ability to respond quickly

·Preferred that they a twitter following but not mandatory

            This is not a StudentsFirst initiative but if they are interested, we will connect them with partners at the Truth Campaign for Teachers.

Although this email tries to distance itself from StudentsFirst, it echoes tactics Anti-Union Group StudentsFirst Launched Astroturf Campaign to Undermine Teachers | Alternet:

 Beware of AstroTurf Ed Reformers 

Just Like Michelle Rhee's Students first only BETTER

Astroturf lobbying refers to political organizations or campaigns that appear to be made up of grassroots activists but are actually organized and run by corporate interests seeking to further their own agendas. Such groups are often typified by innocent-sounding names that have been chosen specifically to disguise the group's true backers

Just Like Michelle Rhee's

 Students first Astroturf lobbying (only Better) 

Other Astroturf lobbying groups

Just Like Michelle Rhee's

 Students first Astroturf lobbying (only Better) 

Straw man or Room for Debate: “Comparative loophole.”

The Totally Legal Way America Is Cheating Low-Income Schools Out of Cash | TakePart:

The Totally Legal Way America Is Cheating Low-Income Schools Out of Cash

Money won’t fix education? C’mon and throw the $8.5 billion being kept from the poorest campuses at the problem.

“Comparative loophole.”

It’s bureaucratic jargon with a name seemingly calculated to cure insomnia. But a new analysis reveals that the real-life effect of those two words is shortchanging public-school students in poor neighborhoods nationwide by nearly $9 billion per year—the difference between the substandard education they’re getting now and the quality one enjoyed by their affluent peers. 

A report released Wednesday by the independent nonpartisan educational institute Center for American Progress shows that the Elementary and Secondary Education Act includes a loophole that keeps financial resources from the kids who can least afford it: the more than 4.5 million low-income students at 12,000 schools nationwide. The so-called “comparative loophole” linked to Title I federal funding, according to the report, is responsible for a $1,200-per-student funding gap between wealthy districts and struggling ones. 

If that loophole were closed, the report states, poor districts would have access to $8.5 billion more per year in government funds. 

At issue is a Title I requirement that rich and poor districts provide “comparable” educational services in order to receive federal money. But the law as written allows districts to qualify as comparable using either average teacher salaries or student-to-teacher ratios.

This allows schools with bigger budgets—largely because they’re paying more to experienced educators—to qualify for Title I dollars even though they have more resources than their poorer neighboring districts.

“Since teacher salaries constitute the largest proportion of school budgets and teachers with greater experience earn higher salaries and tend to teach in lower-poverty schools,” the report states, “the law can mask significant funding inequities.”

To illustrate the problem, the study creates a hypothetical: two elementary schools in Anytown, USA, both with identical profiles: 200 students and 10 teachers. But East Dillon Elementary is in a down-at-the-heels neighborhood, while West Dillon Elementary is in a leafy, upscale area of Anytown. Because teachers in struggling schools tend to earn less money, teachers at East earn an average of $45,000, compared with an average $65,000 at West. 

Based on salaries, according to the study, “total expenditures between the two schools differ by $400,000, and per-pupil expenditures are $2,000 less per student. Under federal law, however, these schools are still comparable because they have the same student-to-teacher-ratio. Such a scenario is playing out at thousands of schools nationwide, CAP’s analysis reveals.”

According to Catherine E. Brown, CAP’s vice president for education policy and one of the authors of the study, the Title I funding disparity loophole “is not an oversight—it’s written into federal law” and seems designed to ensure funding disparities between rich and poor.

“Many people have advocated for this loophole to be closed over time, but others argue that closing it would be disruptive because it would force districts to shift more experienced teachers from schools serving more affluent students to schools serving students from low-income households,” Brown wrote in an email. “We are advocating for a gradual approach to closing the loophole that would invest additional resources in the most underfunded schools first. We do not think district should have to move teachers. But why not provide higher 

As Congress Rewrites NCLB, Arne Duncan Highlights 'Title I Comparability Loophole' - Politics K-12 - Education Week

As Congress Rewrites NCLB, Arne Duncan Highlights 'Title I Comparability Loophole' - Politics K-12 - Education Week:

As Congress Rewrites NCLB, Arne Duncan Highlights 'Title I Comparability Loophole'

By Alyson Klein on March 13, 2015 9:44 AM

Can a rewrite of the No Child Left Behind Act close the so-called "Title I comparability loophole"? 

Short answer: It's politically a really tough sell. But it looks like U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is going to try anyway. He is doing a press call later today with Marc Morial, the president of the National Urban League, to highlight how the comparability loophole impacts poor and minority kids. 

Long answer: First off, what exactly is the Title I comparability loophole?

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, of which the NCLB law is the most current edition, requires that states and districts ensure they are providing "comparable" (essentially the same) level of services to both Title I schools (which serve disadvantaged students) and wealthier schools using their own state and local money, before they can tap federal Title I funding (which is supposed to be extra money aimed at the poorest students.) 

The "loophole" part? When it comes to the biggest expenditure (teachers' salaries), states and districts have some wiggle room. As long as all the schools in a district are on the same salary schedule—which usually means that teachers with the same level of experience and education get the same wages—and as long as the high-poverty schools have the same proprotion of teachers as the low-poverty schools, then the staffs are considered "comparable." That's true even if a high poverty Title I school has a high number of lower-paid, novice teachers, and a wealthier school that doesn't qualify for Title I has a high percentage of experienced educators who make significantly more money. And there are other problems with ESEA's comparability provision, civil rights advocates say. 

About 4.5 million students attend inequitably funded Title I schools, according to a report on the loophole produced by the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, earlier this week. And those schools get about $1,200 less per student, on average, than wealthier schools in their districts, CAP found. 

So what's the most recent pitch? Duncan and Morial will highlight U.S. Department of Education data from the 2011-12 school year that shows which states are shortchanging poor and minority kids the most. (More on what this state level data has to do with the comparability loophole below.)

So which states have the biggest disparities? They include Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

The biggest offender on that list is Pennsylvania, where high-poverty districts spend 33 percenAs Congress Rewrites NCLB, Arne Duncan Highlights 'Title I Comparability Loophole' - Politics K-12 - Education Week:

California faces test as it changes school performance measures - Yahoo News

California faces test as it changes school performance measures - Yahoo News:

California faces test as it changes school performance measures

By Sharon Bernstein

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - California will no longer rely solely on student test scores as a measure of how well a public school is performing, the latest effort to balance criticism of standardized testing with increased calls for accountability in public education.

The change, approved unanimously on Wednesday by the Board of Education in the most populous U.S. state, coincides with implementation of a system for testing students as part of a switch to new national education standards known as Common Core.

“This will give us a complete picture rather than a narrow view,” California Superintendent of Public Education Tom Torlakson said.

Along with the changes to the school performance measure, known as an Academic Performance Index or API, the Board also voted to suspend its use altogether for a year while the changes are being implemented.

California's massive education system has been roiled by criticism from competing quarters, with school reformers calling for greater use of student performance measures to evaluate teachers. But educators and many parents complain that school districts rely too heavily on standardized testing to judge academic progress.

Efforts to respond to these sometimes competing concerns are further complicated by the switch to the Common Core standards, which also involves a new type of standardized student test.

California's powerful teachers union, which backed Torlakson's bid for re-election last fall, has long opposed efforts to tie teacher pay or performance reviews to student test scores, saying that understanding the effectiveness of teachers and schools is far more complicated.

Last week, Republican lawmakers announced a series of bills aimed at reforming the state's education system that would dramatically change the way public school teachers are hired, fired and evaluated.

One measure would penalize school districts that do not include pupil progress in teacher job evaluations.

Last year, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge declared unconstitutional several laws meant to protect teachers' jobs, saying they allowed thousands of grossly ineffective teachers to remain on the job.

It was not immediately clear whether the suspension of API to rate schools would last only one year as currently planned. At the Board of Education meeting on Wednesday, a subcommittee said it did not expect to develop a new accountability plan until at least the fall of 2016.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)California faces test as it changes school performance measures - Yahoo News:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Change is in the air in Chicago ‪#‎Chuy2015‬ ‪#‎imwithchuy‬

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Change is in the air in Chicago:

Change is in the air in Chicago

You won't see a word about this in today's Trib or Sun-Times. But the Logan Square auditorium was packed last night. The mood, electric. It was in this same room a few months ago that we celebrated the election of Rep. Will Guzzardi and dealt a major blow to the  Emanuel/Daley/Madigan/Burke/Barrios/Mell... machine (or what's left of it). It was in this same ward, at the Norwegian Church across the street in 1983 that I remember that same energy and sense of power and unity as the crowd overflowed out onto the boulevard to hear candidate Harold Washington drive another nail into the old machine's coffin.

In the room last night, you could feel the power of a new movement for change. But last night's crowd also told a different story, one about the changes taking place in the make-up of our community and our city. The cheering crowd looked and sounded a bit different than the one at Guzzardi's rally and certainly than the one at the Harold rally 4 decades ago. So did the group of progressive candidates on stage. The both were largely Latino, including a 26-year-old newly-elected alderman in the 35th Ward, Carlos Rosa. Some African-American representation would have even made it better.

Carlos had not only handily defeated his machine rival a few weeks ago, but helped carry the ward for Chuy Garcia over Rahm Emanuel. Chuy got with 57% of the Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Change is in the air in Chicago:

Click here to go to Jesus "Chuy" Garcia for Mayor of Chicago Website

‪#‎Chuy2015‬ ‪#‎imwithchuy‬

Chicago Children Can Try To Opt Out Of The PARCC Standardized Test … If They Dare « CBS Chicago

Chicago Children Can Try To Opt Out Of The PARCC Standardized Test … If They Dare « CBS Chicago:

Chicago Children Can Try To Opt Out Of The PARCC Standardized Test … If They Dare

Blog by Mason Johnson

In case you were wondering, the headline was meant to be accompanied by a melodramatic “dun dun dun.” Feel free to add your own.

Even though Chicago’s schoolchildren have been forced to take the highly criticized PARCC standardized test, the world hasn’t imploded. Of course, complete destruction was never in the cards. With critics arguing the PARCC test is poorly designed and not field-tested, the biggest worry on educators’ minds was that it would waste weeks of otherwise valuable class time.

For children who want to opt out, PARCC means hours of sitting in silence and possibly, at worst, an intimidating guilt trip.

READ MORE: No One Wins In Chicago’s Latest Standardized Testing Debacle

While some states have created legislation clearly defining the opt out process for parents, Illinois has yet to do so (though State Rep. Guzzardi has just introduced a bill). As the foggy opt out rules currently work, parents aren’t supposed to opt out their children or take them out of class. Children themselves have to refuse the test, in person, in class.

This has led to a small handful of children at schools across Chicago opting out, leaving them to sit silently for hours on end as their classmates take the test. Have you ever sat silently in a desk with nothing to do but stare at a wall for an entire day? If this experience sounds terrible to you, imagine what it’s like for a 10-year-old.

At one Chicago school, a group of students’ attempt to opt out turned into a major guilt-trip, said one anonymous teacher.

According to her, over a dozen kids in a classroom declared they wanted to opt out. How’d that go for them? To change their mind, administration “intimidated” them into taking the test, “shaming” them and putting them on a “guilt trip,” until most of the kids changed their minds. The threat they had to endure? They were told to pick their favorite teacher. Once they had someone in mind, they were then told that their favorite teacher would likely be fired if they didn’t take the test.

Classy.

READ MORE: As Schools Begin Issuing New PARCC Test, Some Parents Want Kids To Opt Out

After that little exercise, only a couple of the kids stuck to their guns.

This doesn’t only show how terrible conditions can be for students, but also displays the pressure administrators and principals are under to ensure as many kids take PARCC as possible. When you start manipulating kids so blatantly, you’ve got to be pretty desperate.

But that is just one school. From what I hear, things are less dramatic at most other schools. One teacher I talked to mentioned that her school had some minor tech issues, but that no one, to her knowledge, had opted out yet. A principal at a different school said they had fewer than 10 kids opt out.

When I asked another teacher if anyone was opting out at her school, she laughed and jokingly Chicago Children Can Try To Opt Out Of The PARCC Standardized Test … If They Dare « CBS Chicago:

Click here to go to Jesus "Chuy" Garcia for Mayor of Chicago Website

‪#‎Chuy2015‬ ‪#‎imwithchuy‬

Parents Can Opt Out - United Opt Out National

Click Here to go to United Opt Out National: 

Click Here to go to the Website- United Opt Out Team

Click Here to go to the Website FairTest

Diane Ravitch: How to fix No Child Left Behind | EdSource

How to fix No Child Left Behind | EdSource:

How to fix No Child Left Behind

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s commentary for EdSource last month, called “How Not to Fix No Child Left Behind,” consisted for the most part of mushy platitudes that must be measured against the realities of his actions over the past six years.

During that time, Duncan has aggregated an unprecedented power to tell states and districts how to operate. The administration’s Race to the Top program was not passed into law by Congress, yet it was funded with $5 billion awarded by Congress as part of the economic stimulus plan following the 2008 recession.

Duncan used that huge financial largesse to make himself the nation’s education czar. When states were most economically distressed, he dangled billions of dollars before them in a competition. They were not eligible to enter the competition unless they agreed to lift caps on opening more privately managed charter schools, to rely on test scores to a significant degree when evaluating teachers, to adopt “college-and-career-ready standards” (aka the Common Core standards, which had not even been completed in 2009 when the competition was announced) and to take dramatic action to “turn around” schools with low test scores (such as closing the school or firing all or most of the staff).

Almost every state applied for a share of the billions that Duncan controlled, and almost every state changed its laws to conform to his wishes, yet only 18 states and the District of Columbia won awards. Duncan added the same conditions to state waivers from NCLB’s unrealistic target of 100% proficiency in reading and math for all children in grades 3-8.

As an exercise in federal power, it was brilliant, as Duncan got almost every state to do what he wanted and make it appear to be voluntary. It is important to bear in mind that none of the so-called sanctions and remedies in No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top was supported by evidence from research or experience.

State takeovers of low-performing schools have seldom (if ever) led to improvement; charter schools have a mixed and mostly unimpressive record; evaluating teachers by their students’ test scores has been unsuccessful because most of the factors that influence test scores (like family life) are beyond the control of teachers, and students are not randomly assigned to classes; and the effects of the Common Core standards are untested and unknown.

When Duncan writes “how not to fix NCLB,” he is responding to the Republicans’ revulsion to his heavy-handed exercise of power over the last six years. They want to curb his ability and that of future secretaries of education to overstep the long-understood federal system that limits the role of the U.S. Department of Education.

There is much to dislike in the Republicans’ rewrite of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which is the most recent version of America’s most important education law, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). They intend to make Title I funding for poor children portable, so that the money can be transferred to charter schools and perhaps vouchers as well. Instead of federal aid being targeted to help schools in poor communities, it will become available to spur school choice, which has long been the Republicans’ favorite remedy, despite the absence of evidence for the efficacy of either charters or vouchers.

Any genuine fix to NCLB would recognize that the administration of President George W. Bush took a wrong turn by changing ESEA from a law devoted to equity to a law devoted to testing and accountability. The switch from ESEA to NCLB was a substitution of punishment and sanctions for direct federal aid to the neediest districts. ESEA and the federal aid it supplied were supposed to help poor children, not convert their schools into test-prep factories or close them or privatize them.

Both Republicans and Democrats are determined to maintain the annual testing regime at the heart of NCLB. It is perplexing to see so many Democrats aligning themselves with George W. Bush’s educational legacy of annual testing. Teachers and parents know that high-stakes testing has distorted the purpose of education, has diverted billions of dollars to the testing industry, has discouraged teachers, has labeled children as “failures” in elementary school, and that NCLB is widely viewed as a failed law.

Advocates of the testing regime will point to improved test scores as “proof” that the demands of NCLB were correct. But they won’t admit that test scores improved even faster before NCLB was implemented, or that scores on international tests remain flat. Nor do they care that How to fix No Child Left Behind | EdSource:

Who is Helen Gym: Why you should know - Democracy For America

Democracy For America - Friends of Helen Gym:

FRIENDS OF HELEN GYM

Friends of Helen Gym
Endorsement Applicant
Philadelphia City Council At-Large in PA
http://www.helengym.com

P.O. Box 11766
Philadelphia, PA
19101

Sign up to Volunteer

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HelenGym2015
Twitter: @HelenGym2015
Public Phone Number: 267-223-7769
Public Email: friendsofhelengym@gmail.com

Primary Election Date: 2015-05-19
General Election Date: 2015-11-03

Who am I?

My parents didn’t have much when I was growing up, so I depended on the public spaces of my community. I learned to read at the public library, swam and did sports at my public recreation center, rode my bike through the public parks, and of course, attended public school. These spaces gave me the kind of opportunities I would have never had otherwise and instilled in me a lasting commitment to the common good and the importance of caring for one another, especially our most vulnerable, through the public spaces of our communities and neighborhoods.

I came to Philadelphia almost 30 years ago, stayed, raised a family and started my teaching career at Lowell Elementary School in Olney. Since then, I have helped build institutions and organizations that empower people and families across the city whose voices need to be heard: I am a founder of a citywide education newspaper, a charter school serving immigrant students and families, and a parents organization that has raised up parent voices and won millions of dollars in new revenue for Philadelphia schools. I’ve helped transform a troubled school culture and climate at South Philadelphia High School, and I’ve won million of dollars in new school funding from the Philadelphia Parking Authority.

I’m a mother, a passionate supporter of our city, and a believer that quality schools can transform our neighborhoods and strengthen our communities.

Why am I running?

I am running because in 2013 when 26 public schools in Philadelphia were shut down, it was a wake up call that we needed stronger voices in our city government advocating for our children's education and the best interests of working families throughout our city.

A lot of candidates will talk to you about education, but few can match my record or experience. I’ve worked for over two decades alongside parents and students and workers to keep the fight alive for our schools and communities. I will address poverty in this city with compassion and attention to equity and results. I understand the connection between democratic governance, ethics and good decision-making. I’m an outsider but one with the skills and experience to secure policy wins that benefit all, not a privileged few. I connect the energy and creativity of newer residents with the lived realities and struggles of the majority of residents, and I am working for a city that is inclusive, interconnected, and seeks racial and economic justice. I’m not afraid to ruffle a few feathers along the way. When it comes to the people and families of this city, Philadelphia needs a champion in their corner.

That’s why I’m running for City Council at-large. I am Philadelphia’s fighter for parents and working families, a vibrant and sustainable public school system and quality neighborhoods for all.

My Goals

Education: I have spent my life fighting to ensure that every child can go to a safe, quality, nurturing school and that public education stays truly public in a city which has become a symbol of the failures of privatization and disinvestment in schools. I have focused on improved funding, multiracial parent organizing and strengthening ethics and transparency in governance. My efforts include: co-founding the Philadelphia Public School Notebook, a nationally recognized independent newspaper that is a go-to source for education news; co-founding Parents United for Public Education as a voice for parents to re-envision the conversation about our schools; helping lead a coalition that stopped the privatization of the Philadelphia School District in 2001 and continuous efforts through today to limit privatization; pressuring a state-controlled Parking Authority to pay millions of dollars in new and recurring revenue owed to our schools; standing beside teachers and school staff for the right to collective bargaining; and filing hundreds of complaints against the Pennsylvania State Department of Education about the condition of schools which helped release $15 million in state funds for schools.

These accomplishments have won national recognition in the battle for public education. I have achieved these victories outside traditional political centers of power. With a seat on City Council, I will use the power of my office to continue this fight. Among my specific goals: increase city funding of schools through smart targeting and use of taxes; improve City oversight of the School District; and use data and the powers of my office to drive a serious public conversation about privatization in public education.

Empowering Communities: I have worked to empower communities, to grow new leaders, and to organize diverse communities to stand up for what is right. When Asian American youth at a local high school were targets of racial harassment and violence, I helped students organize and lead a boycott of their school resulting in a federal civil rights settlement. Five years later, many of those students are leaders in their communities, including one who was named Commissioner of the city’s Human Relations Commission. I’ve helped neighborhood groups in Chinatown organize against massive development projects such as a casino and sports stadium. From educators and youth to immigrants and underserved communities, I intend to use my office to bring those struggles, and those communities, into City Hall.

Increasing Transparency and Accountability: It’s wrong when public business is conducted behind closed doors. As a City Council member I will propose bills to modernize Philadelphia’s campaign finance laws, including requiring strict disclosure of dark money electioneering and ending incumbent-friendly loopholes that allow donation double dipping. Moreover, municipal transparency and accountability will be achieved through “open data.” Philadelphia has made strides in this domain, and I will work to expand our open data efforts. Open data should not be susceptible to the whims of changing administrations. I will support our Board of Ethics to enforce campaign finance and ethics rules, and ensure it has the resources it needs for oversight.

My DFA Values

From Franklin Roosevelt’s call to combat Freedom of Want, to Dr. King’s stand with sanitation workers in Memphis and Cesar Chavez’s organizing of farm workers, to today’s fast food workers organizing for humane wages and benefits, generations of progressives have long understood that security and liberty means more than protection from violence. It means the security to be free from hunger and want, and the liberty to pursue a meaningful and impactful life in our neighborhoods and communities. Municipal government may not have the resources to end poverty and defeat all injustice, but all those with a voice must stand in our long lineage of ancestors demanding dignity, security and equality for all our citizens. These are the values I have stood for all my life, and as an elected official I will continue that fight for true security and equality for all Philadelphia citizens. I’ll work to pass legislation that advances economic justice, and will actively use my bully pulpit to advance causes that have national impact as well as local. There are a number of improvements that we must make as a city and that I will advocate for as a City Councilwoman, including ending the systematic use of stop and frisk and pressuring the District Attorney to end the widespread and abusive use of civil forfeiture. I will also work to rebuild trust of our immigrant communities in the police, which has been damaged by a past history of local collaboration in immigration enforcement.

My Campaign is People Powered!

My path to victory lies in activating the grassroots activists with whom I’ve shared almost two decades of struggle. I am proud to be endorsed by both the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers and the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators (our schools principals’ union), and supported by the American Federation of Teachers at the state and national level. The struggle in Philadelphia is very much centered on schools and education. A broadening network of organizations has come together around the battleground of public education. Many of us helped lead grassroots efforts that ultimately led to the defeat of Republican Governor Tom Corbett, who was the first sitting governor in modern times not to be re-elected to a second term in office. With my strong ties to community organizations citywide, I will continue the momentum from November into May, activating parent, civic and educator entities that recognize the fragility and importance of our schools. Second, I continue to seek the endorsement and assistance of progressive networks like Action United, Philly for Change and Neighborhood Networks as well as activate progressive labor unions.

I come out of the progressive community here in Philadelphia and am one of its many leaders. If I win, it will be from the power of that multi-racial, multi-ethnic community, which crosses neighborhood boundaries and scales economic barriers. With a well-recognized history of activism I am uniquely qualified to not only represent that community, but to win while doing so.Democracy For America - Friends of Helen Gym:

Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association:



The Party of Greed

By:  Terri Michal

 While reading both charter bills, SB 45 and HB 192, I realized that for those Alabamians that are paying attention there is literally something for EVERYONE to detest in these bills, everyone except those that are profiting from them.  Could the corporate ‘Party of Greed’, with Sen. Marsh, Rep. Hubbard, and Rep. Terri Collins at the helm, be any more obvious about whom they pledge their allegiance to?  As the billions of dollars roll in on the side of the corporations the peoples’ voices are being drowned out. In order to win our government back what other choice will the people of Alabama have but to find common ground on individual issues and join forces in opposition to these corporate led legislators?  The charter bills in Alabama give us a perfect opportunity to do just that. Our perspectives may be different but our goals are the same. Rid the legislative process of corporate greed so that the will of the people will truly be served.

This weekend we marched to show respect for those that stood tall while facing their oppressors in Selma, Alabama 50 years ago. Yet today we stay silent about the most important event to affect our children in Alabama’s public schools since desegregation.  We need to stand now for the rights of ALL of our public school’s students to have an equitable, quality public education led by professionals that possess the tools needed to allow each child to achieve at their highest ability. We must ask ourselves; do we really believe that our current public schools cannot provide that? I do not. I believe our educator’s hands have been tied and our high poverty schools set up to fail, BUT if you do believe our public schools cannot provide what our students need then I contend, wouldn’t it make more sense to change the laws like the ‘Party of Greed’ is proposing for the charter schools so that they can?  Putting another layer of bureaucracy over a system that is drowning in  it and allowing more hands to be raking in the cash that is already stretched PAST its limits is not an acceptable answer. Read the Fiscal Note for SB 45 and you will find this interesting little bit “In addition, the provisions of this bill will further increase the administrative and fiscal obligations of the State Department of Education by an estimated $500,000 annually for personnel and other departmental costs associated with hiring an additional 4 employees to carry out the provisions of this bill.” and with that one statement the money drain begins.

With these two charter bills that are basically one in the same, our politicians will have the ultimate say in our public schools. Eight of the nine appointed positions on the state Charter Commission will come from the leaders of the House and the Senate, the Governor and the State Superintendent. Everything else aside, from that one bit of information, do you really feel our students’ best interest will be met or could it be this commission will be so politicized that it will actually serve the needs of those that appointed them?  Isn’t it also a problem when we have commissions appointed by politicians that can override elected local school boards? In these proposed bills they will be condemning our children to classrooms with no certified teachers, corporations will be able to convert ENTIRE SCHOOL SYSTEMS to  charter schools against the will of the people, the non-profits holding the license to the charter will be able to take the local, state and federal dollars it obtains, that should be used for our children's PUBLIC education, and funnel it through for profit companies where it will be almost impossible to trace and use it, instead, to line their pockets. Hubbard has already been accused of taking $7,500 a month in kick-backs from one education service provider before the bill is even signed, yet we look the other way and pretend the children’s best interest will be honored.

We can stop these charter bills, the power of the people proved its might 50 years ago and it can again this week if we are only willing to take that step of faith that what is right will prevail and that, united, our voices have power. We must hold our legislators accountable for their failures to create equitable schools, not hand them the weapons to use against us, and that is indeed what these bills are.  Weapons.  Weapons used by the politically powerful and extremely wealthy to ensure that their power and wealth continues to grow, weapons that will suppress and marginalize a people, weapons Badass Teachers Association: