What Democrats Lost In Bipartisan No Child Left Behind Rewrite, And What They Won | ThinkProgress

What Democrats Lost In Bipartisan No Child Left Behind Rewrite, And What They Won | ThinkProgress:

What Democrats Lost In Bipartisan No Child Left Behind Rewrite, And What They Won

The Every Child Achieves Act, the Senate’s bipartisan fix to No Child Left Behind, passed Thursday with 81 voting for and 17 against. Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) voted against the reauthorization. The rest were Republicans including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) Steve Daines (R-MT), Mike Lee (R-UT), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Tim Scott (R-SC) and Jerry Moran (R-KS).

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) led the bipartisan effort. The overwhelming majority that voted in favor of the bill was unusual compared to the usual partisan gridlock, but as with most bipartisan legislation, no one is 100 percent pleased with the legislation. Democrats may have lost more than Republicans, as several of the key amendments pushed by Murray and Democratic leadership did not pass.

Although every senator and advocacy group has a different opinion on what qualified as a win, there were a few amendments that signified Democratic priorities, such as bullying of LGBT students, keeping track of disadvantaged students’ progress and teaching students about climate change.

What Democrats Lost

Accountability Amendment

One of the losses Democrats are sorest over is their accountability amendment, which the Obama administration hoped would be included in the final legislation. The National Education Association opposed the legislation, as it stated the accountability measures were too close to No Child Left Behind and would punish schools rather than offer support. Alexander read the NEA’s statement on the Senate floor Wednesday in support of a no vote.

Booker, who offered the amendment along with Warren and Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), said, “I cannot in good conscience support a bill that falls short of investing in the potential and promise of all of our children, especially New Jersey’s most vulnerable students.”

The amendment that would have required to states to intervene in schools where subgroups of students, such as students of color, low-income students and English-language learners, had achievement gaps.

Several civil rights groups, urged a no vote on the legislation after the amendment failed to pass, such as The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law.

“In years past, ignoring these students or segregating them was a moral stain on our nation and that remains true. But today, it is also a recipe for economic disaster. We have been hopeful that there was a path forward toward redeeming the ESEA so that it could live up to its legacy as a civil rights law intended to equal the playing field for vulnerable students but that hope did not materialize yesterday when the senate voted down accountability,” said Nancy Zirkin, executive vice president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights in a conference call before the legislation’s passage.

Universal Pre-K Amendment

The universal pre-K amendment offered by Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) also did not pass. It was one of the last few opportunities Democrats had to include one of their top amendments in the legislation. Alexander had previously voiced his concern about how the amendment would be paid for. The amendment required $30 billion to be distributed through block grant funding, which What Democrats Lost In Bipartisan No Child Left Behind Rewrite, And What They Won | ThinkProgress:

Pat Toomey background check amendment: Why the No Child Left Behind rewrite won't include it.

Pat Toomey background check amendment: Why the No Child Left Behind rewrite won't include it.:

Background Check Provision Gets Chucked From No Child Left Behind Rewrite

In the final days of debates over the Senate’s bill to replace No Child Left Behind, which passed with unusual bipartisan support on Thursday, various amendments got offered up and obliterated at lightning speed. Among the more unfortunate casualties was Sen. Al Franken’s Student Non-Discrimination Act, which proposed extending federal protections against bullying to LGBT students. Other amendments were adopted in extremely watered-down form.

One of the weakened amendments was Sen. Pat Toomey’s Protecting Students From Sexual and Violent Predators Act, which, as originally written, would have required any school that receives federal funding to submit its employees and contractors, regardless of tenure, to periodic background checks through four major state and federal registries. Sounds good, right? But the proposal, co-sponsored by Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, met with only slightly more success than the two senators’ 2013 push to tighten the system of background checks for gun buyers in the aftermath of Sandy Hook.  

I glommed onto the background-check provision for the simple reason that I myself have just barely survived the onerous process of getting approved to volunteer in my daughter’s preschool class for three hours a month next year. It was, to put it mildly, a huge pain in the ass. I had to fill out a Child Protection Registry request, on which I listed all my addresses for the past 18 years. After getting that form notarized, I had to schlep downtown to the police headquarters and fill out more paperwork for a criminal background check, and after that I had to get fingerprinted by an FBI mobile unit—all this, just to provide a monthly snack to a handful of 3-year-olds.

I was loudly annoyed by the hassle, but I understood its underlying purpose; I suppose anyone with unsupervised access to my children should submit to the same. But Toomey’s proposal—and the widespread resistance that it met—shows how complex background checks are.

Obviously, no one want wants child predators in the classroom, and all 50 states currently have teacher background check laws on the books. Forty-three states require background checks for nonteaching employees like bus drivers and cafeteriaPat Toomey background check amendment: Why the No Child Left Behind rewrite won't include it.:

CURMUDGUCATION: The GOP vs. DEM Question

CURMUDGUCATION: The GOP vs. DEM Question:

The GOP vs. DEM Question

Discussion surrounding ESEA re-authorization has helped clarify the question that distinguished between the Democratic and Republican parties when it comes to education--

Is it better to have stupid education policy implemented by the state or federal government?

Democrats believe (and asserted it with vigor in their ill-conceived Murphy Amendment) that high-stakes testing and prescriptive punishments attached to test results should be managed by the federal government. The GOP, however, argues that the feds should be left out of the equation and that power brokers on the state level should have the privilege of crushing public education and selling off the parts to privateers.

Neither party has displayed any interest in discussing what educational policies might actual help public education in the US. Neither party has shown an ability to hear the chorus of educational experts and qualified researchers pointing out that stack ranking, magic VAM sauce, and disenfranchising local members of the community are not working and will most likely never work.

Neither party has displayed an inclination to say, "Hey, we've been doing some of these things for fifteen years now. Are there any signs that any of it actually works?"

Nope. The parties disagree one one point only-- should the feds be in charge, or should each individual state run its own show.

That's our choice, apparently.

Given that choice, I lean toward the state-driven answer.

Not that I have unbridled faith in the states. Guys like Scott Walker and Andrew Cuomo have shown themselves completely capable of destroying their state's public education systems without any help CURMUDGUCATION: The GOP vs. DEM Question:

Nonprofit L.A. Fund for Public Education Caught Up in Scandal at Los Angeles Unified | Nonprofit Quarterly

Nonprofit Support Group Caught Up in Scandal at Los Angeles Unified | Nonprofit Quarterly:

Nonprofit Support Group Caught Up in Scandal at Los Angeles Unified

July 15, 2015; Los Angeles Daily News

A prestigious nonprofit support group affiliated with the nation’s second-largest school district, with a high-profile staff and blue-ribbon board of directors, found itself in the middle of a scandal over waste in Los Angeles Unified School District’s food program.

An audit of L.A. Unified’s food services program, released by the district’s inspector general, reveals “swanky hotel stays, cozy relationships with contractors and millions of dollars in waste,” according to a report in the Los Angeles Daily News.

The audit singles out the food services director, who has been collecting an annual salary of $152,000 while on paid leave for more than five months. David Binkle established a reputation as a promoter of healthy eating, appearing at the White House with first lady Michelle Obama.

According to the audit, the $341 million-a-year program had problems that can be traced back to the district’s decision to let food services forgo standard contracting practices in 2011, on the belief that administrative costs would be lowered. That gave Binkle almost complete control over millions of dollars in contracts, and the paper reports that he used that power to give preference to contractors who showered him with perks.

Those perks were not reported on forms mandated by state law. In addition, Binkle failed to disclose his food consulting company, which made more than $950,000 per year, according to the audit.

Money was spent from the district’s marketing fund to pay key executives at the nonprofit L.A. Fund for Public Education $117,500 to promote the district’s controversial breakfast program, which it features prominently on its website. The Fund is a blue-chip support group for L.A. Unified, whose board includes the mayor, the publisher of the Los Angeles Times and a number of entertainment industry bigwigs. The group says on its website that it “builds innovative partnerships to create solutions that will improve the educational, health and wellness outcomes for students in Los Angeles.”

Binkle denied authorizing the payment, claiming that the nonprofit was authorized to spend tax dollars without his permission. The Fund denied that, and said it had no direct involvement with the program because the individual executives worked directly for the district.

The audit also revealed that the district overpaid for meals provided by one favored contractor, which paid for airfare and hotel costs for district employees to attend a food conference, a violation of the district’s ethics policy.

The Daily News reports that LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines says he has taken steps to prevent future ethical breaches and mismanagement. The audit also says that the food services department’s operating deficit more than tripled between 2010 and 2013, even though the district served 900,000 fewer meals, meaning that the cost of food increased 41 percent.

Some of that is due to buying the healthier food Binkle and the L.A. Fund promoted, but the inspector general said that the bulk of the increase was due to lax contracting practices, ordering too much food, duplicating orders and carrying excessive inventory. At the same time, the paper reports that about one-fifth of food served was wasted, even though food offered free by the USDA wasn’t ordered on time.—Larry KaplanNonprofit Support Group Caught Up in Scandal at Los Angeles Unified | Nonprofit Quarterly:

AUDIT FINDS MISMANAGEMENT, ETHICAL BREACHES IN LAUSD FOOD SERVICES AND DEASY-FOUNDED L.A. FUND FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION (3 stories) - 4LAKids

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: AUDIT FINDS MISMANAGEMENT, ETHICAL BREACHES IN LAUSD FOOD SERVICES AND DEASY-FOUNDED L.A. FUND FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION (3 stories):

AUDIT FINDS MISMANAGEMENT, ETHICAL BREACHES IN LAUSD FOOD SERVICES AND DEASY-FOUNDED L.A. FUND FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION (3 stories)

  The Los Angeles school district’s massive food services program is riddled with mismanagement, inappropriate spending and ethical breaches, according to an internal audit released Wednesday.

The 33-page audit by the district’s Office of the Inspector General reviewed L.A. Unified’s revamped food procurement system, which was introduced five years ago to supply the nation's second-largest school food operation. Eight major vendors were awarded $750 million in food contracts spread over five years.

Under the new system, auditors found increased food prices, bloated inventories, incompatible computer systems to order food, a “haphazard” menu development process and insufficient controls over spending. The audit also found increased meal participation and greater innovation and flexibility.

L.A. Unified Supt. Ramon Cortines said district officials have already moved to tighten fiscal controls and spending oversight.

“The district takes these findings very seriously,” he said in a statement with Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana, head of the educational services office.

Cortines said he was particularly concerned about the lax oversight of a school meal marketing program funded by food vendors. The program was created in 2010 by Dennis Barrett, the former food services director who now works for the New York City Department of Education.

To win the contracts under the new system, vendors agreed to contribute more than $1.5 million to promote the district’s healthful food initiatives and educate students about nutrition.

The marketing efforts helped draw national attention to the district’s cutting-edge efforts to shift to healthier school food with lower fat, sodium and sugar — including praise from First Lady Michelle Obama.

But the audit raised questions about some of the vendor payments: $117,500 to philanthropist Meg Chernin’s Los Angeles Fund for Public Education, $65,000 to place Los Angeles Dodgers photos on school milk cartons, $6,800 for employee travel and conferences, and $581,000 to two Los Angeles public relations firms, RL Public Relations and Tatum Wan Co., among others.

The district axed the marketing program this year. Officials have also strengthened its supervision of food services staff members, improved oversight of purchasing and new menu additions and returned to competitive bidding, among other changes, the Cortines statement said.

Board of Education President Steve Zimmer said he would withhold comment until the board could meet to review the findings.

Fallout over the program has ensnared David Binkle, the district’s nationally known food services director, who has been removed from his post and ordered to stay home. Auditors found potential ethical breaches involving a private consulting firm he runs and a failure to report vendor-paid travel to food conferences.

Binkle has denied any wrongdoing and said all travel and marketing activities were legal, specified in the vendor contract proposals and approved by his superiors.

He declined to comment Tuesday until he could review the audit.

Binkle, a professional chef who joined the district in January 2008, helped adopt cutting-edge menus lower in sodium and fat, introduced breakfast and supper programs, increased meals served by 76,000 daily and promoted directives from the federal government and L.A. Unified Board of Education for healthier food.

In an earlier interview, George Silva, L.A. Unified’s procurement chief, said the district would no longer ask vendors to directly contribute money to promote school food. Instead, they would be asked to provide opportunities for student class projects on the food industry, field trips, workplace tours, online exchanges a4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: AUDIT FINDS MISMANAGEMENT, ETHICAL BREACHES IN LAUSD FOOD SERVICES AND DEASY-FOUNDED L.A. FUND FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION (3 stories):

Then and Now in Reforming the Teaching of History (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Then and Now in Reforming the Teaching of History (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Then and Now in Reforming the Teaching of History (Part 2)

A half-century ago, academics led an effort to reform the teaching of history and the social studies in a movement called the New Social Studies (NSS). Since the mid-1990s, again professors, social studies curriculum specialists, and classroom history teachers have focused upon creating usable lessons that introduce students to historical thinking and writing textbooks for novice and career teachers. Similar in ways that the New Social Studies during the 1960s created instructional units, current efforts, however, goes well beyond those materials in using teacher-friendly digital lessons and assessments tailored to the age-graded school conditions that teachers face daily, a factor missing in the earlier movement. [i]

One of the leaders of this movement is Professor Sam Wineburg at Stanford University. Trained as an educational psychologist at Stanford in the late-1980s, Wineburg worked under the tutelage of Professor Lee Shulman who, after receiving Carnegie Foundation grants to assess teaching and learning across subject areas, recruited able graduate students. Wineburg’s peers included Suzanne Wilson and Pam Grossman both of whom have gone on to illustrious academic careers. As has Wineburg. [ii]

Appointed assistant professor of educational psychology in 1989 at the University of Washington’s school of education, Wineburg launched a career that garnered teaching awards and research grants. He worked with teachers in the Seattle public schools in various projects including creating materials for students to read and think like historians. He published articles in both psychological and historical journals that generated even more grants.

In 2002, he joined the faculty of Stanford’s Graduate School of Education working with doctoral students, beginning social studies teachers, historians, and psychologists. Wineburg’s previous work with Roy Rosenzweig at George Mason University moved him toward incorporating digital historical sources into units and lessons for teachers to use. [iii]

Wineburg expanded his agenda by starting the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG). His doctoral students designed lessons that dipped into primary and secondary sources showing teachers and students how to read and think like historians. One doctoral student developed document-based lessons on the Civil War for middle school teachers in San Francisco and in her dissertation designed an intervention for history teachers in five high schools. These ideas and practices of historians also found a home in the Curriculum and Instruction courses that he and doctoral students taught for entry-level social studies teachers in the Graduate School of Education. Finally, Wineburg created a network of partners and resources (e.g., Library of Congress, American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians, National Council for the Social Studies) that covered both the discipline and teachers across the country.[iv]

From the collaborative work with doctoral students and teachers, SHEG increased production of teacher-friendly lessons in U.S. history and world history demonstrating how historians read documents, evaluate sources, and interpret historical events ranging from Pocahontas in 17th century colonial America to the Nanking Incident during Japan’s invasion of China in 1937. Posted on the Internet, these lessons permitted teachers to download them free. In early 2015, the Stanford History Education Group topped 2 million downloads. And they have added coaching services and professional development workshops for Then and Now in Reforming the Teaching of History (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Next up for No Child Left Behind: Senate-House negotiations - Yahoo News

Next up for No Child Left Behind: Senate-House negotiations - Yahoo News:

Next up for No Child Left Behind: Senate-House negotiations

WASHINGTON (AP) — No one thinks it'll be easy, but the House and Senate are embarking on negotiations to merge two differing education bills that would rewrite the nation's much-criticized No Child Left Behind education law.

Related Stories

1. Senate OKs revised No Child education law, compromise needed Associated Press
2. Senate considers No Child revision to limit federal role Associated Press
3. Senate, House look to update Bush-era education law Associated Press
4. Senate considers No Child revision to limit federal role Associated Press
5. Senate Passes Education Bill, But Tough Talks Lie Ahead With House The Wall Street Journal

On Thursday, the Senate overwhelmingly approved its version of the education legislation, a week after the House passed a more conservative measure.

For years, Congress has tried to update the law. It expired in 2007, though its mandates remained in place. Critics have complained there is too much testing and the law is too punitive for schools deemed to be failing. The Obama administration began issuing waivers to dozens of states to get around some of the law's strictest requirements when it became clear they would not be met.

Here are five things to know about congressional efforts to replace No Child Left Behind:

____

View gallery

FILE - In this July 8, 2015, file photo, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., looks to members of the media a …

THE SIMILARITIES

Both the House and Senate bills seek to significantly lessen the federal role in the nation's public schools.

Both would maintain the federally required annual tests in reading and math in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school, as well as science tests given three times between grades 3 and 12. The bills return to the states the power to determine whether and how to use those tests to assess the performance of schools, teachers and students — instead of having federally prescribed school improvement plans.

Another area of agreement: the Common Core academic standards.

The bills say the Education Department may not mandate or give states incentives to adopt or maintain any particular set of standards, such as Common Core. The Common Core standards were drafted by the states with the support of the administration but have become a rallying point for those who want a smaller federal role in education.

____

THE DIFFERENCES

The biggest difference in the two bills has to do with school choice and funding.

The House measure, sponsored by Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., includes so-called portability. It allows federal money to follow low-income children to public schools of their choice instead of current law, which has those dollars remain at the struggling schools.

Democrats do not support the idea, and the Obama administration has made clear it won't back the House bill. Lawmakers voting on the Senate bill, sponsored by Republican Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Democrat Patty Murray of Washington, rejected the idea of adding portability to their measure.

____

THE WHITE HOUSE

The White House has threatened to veto the House measure. After the Senate version passed Thursday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan offered lukewarm praise for the Alexander-Murray bill.

Duncan and several civil rights groups had urged lawmakers to strengthen the accountability measures in the bill, but an amendment that aimed to do that was rejected by the Senate. It would have required states to identify the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools, public high schools where two-thirds or fewer students are graduating on time, and public schools where poor, disabled, minority, or English-language learning children were not meeting state achievement goals. States and schools would then have to design plans to turn around the schools.

Duncan pressed for changes once the bill goes to conference "to strengthen the bill before it reaches the president's desk."

____

THE VOTES

The Senate voted overwhelmingly for its education rewrite, by a vote of 81-17.

Fourteen Republicans voted against it, including presidential hopefuls Ted Cruz of Texas, Marco Rubio of Florida, and Rand Paul of Kentucky.

While it had the support of almost all Democrats, three voted against it: Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, New Jersey's Cory Booker and Chris Murphy of Connecticut.

The House vote was more partisan, 218-213. No Democrats supported the measure and 27 Republicans voted against it.

____

NEXT STEPS

Negotiating a compromise. The Senate and House will have to find consensus and merge the two bills.

After the Senate vote, Alexander, who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, said, "There are some issues that are different, but I foresee a successful conference."

Said Kline, who chairs the House Education and the Workforce Committee, "There is a lot of work that lies ahead, but I am confident we will find common ground and send a bill to the president's desk."Next up for No Child Left Behind: Senate-House negotiations - Yahoo News:

The bizarre alliance between Republicans and teachers unions, explained - Vox

The bizarre alliance between Republicans and teachers unions, explained - Vox:

The bizarre alliance between Republicans and teachers unions, explained

Hidden behind Thursday's overwhelmingly bipartisan Senate vote to get rid of No Child Left Behind is one of the strangest alliances in politics: Teachers unions have joined hands with Republicans.

RelatedThe Senate just voted to get rid of No Child Left Behind

That's because they share two goals. They both want to get rid of the testing and accountability regimen of No Child Left Behind, and they want to cut back on Education Secretary Arne Duncan's influence. Meanwhile, the Obama administration and national civil rights groups are on the opposite side of the argument.

Republicans and teachers unions aren't enthusiastically embracing one another; don't expect teachers unions to suddenly cut their historic ties with Democrats and start supporting Republicans instead. But the unusual alliance is evidence of how much the Obama administration has mixed up the traditional politics of education so that it no longer conforms to party lines.

Why Republicans don't like George W. Bush's law and never really did

No Child Left Behind is part of President George W. Bush's legacy, but it was never very popular with conservatives.

It had a lofty, laudable goal: getting every child proficient in reading and math by mid-2014. But it gave the federal government an unprecedented role in getting there — an approach at odds with conservative philosophies favoring local and state control.

The law required schools to test students on reading and math every year from third to eighth grade, and once in high school. Because the idea was to make sure all children were learning, regardless of racial or socioeconomic background, it meant that overall scores alone weren't enough.

Schools would suffer consequences even if subgroups of students, such as black or Hispanic students, English language learners, or children living in poverty, weren't progressing quickly enough.

And the law dictated the consequences for schools that weren't making "adequate yearly progress." Congress, not states, decided what "adequate yearly progress" meant and what states would have to do if schools weren't making it.

This was a huge expansion of the federal role in education, one that conservatives viewed with skepticism from the beginning. They thought states could hold schools accountable without intrusion from the federal government.

Unions didn't like No Child Left Behind either

Teachers unions didn't oppose No Child Left Behind when it was passed. But they've always hated the testing requirement, saying it made standardized testing too important for students and teachers. They decried its approach as "test and punish," saying it labeled schools as failing that really weren't because of the requirements that subgroups make progress.

They argued that schools shouldn't be judged on a test score, and that the emphasis on reading and math narrowed the curriculum and took creativity and joy out of teaching. More recently, they've also opposed systems that would link teachers' pay and promotion to students' performance on standardized tests.

"Schooling must be more about teaching and learning than testing and measuring," Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement Thursday praising the Senate bill.

Teachers unions and Senate Republicans might not have shared the same rationale — unions were defending their members' interests, while Republicans were arguing in favor of small government. But they wanted the same result: an end to the federal accountability system for K-12 schools.

How the Senate bill brought opponents together

The Senate bill, the Every Child Achieves Act, passed the Senate in an 81-17 vote. It keeps the standardized tests that were the highlight of No Child Left Behind. But it allows states to decide how they'll use the results of those tests to hold schools accountable for how children learn.

Both Republicans and teachers unions are hailing this as a victory.

"There is nothing bigger in the last 13 years for K-12 public schools than what just happened in the last hour in the Senate," said Lily Eskelsen García, the president of the National Education Association, on Thursday afternoon. "This is a seismic shift, in a very good way."

The best example of the unusual alliance wasn't the final bill, which got broad bipartisan support. It was a vote Wednesday afternoon on an amendment from five Democratic senators that would have brought back some elements of No Child Left Behind.

The amendment would have required states to intervene in schools if subgroups of The bizarre alliance between Republicans and teachers unions, explained - Vox:

Charter schools’ worst nightmare: A pro-union movement may change charters forever - Salon.com

Charter schools’ worst nightmare: A pro-union movement may change charters forever - Salon.com:

Charter schools’ worst nightmare: A pro-union movement may change charters forever

A growing number of charter school teachers want to unionize, the American Prospect's Rachel M. Cohen tells Salon

When you think of charter schools, there are probably a few people and concepts that come to mind: Michelle Rhee, “grit,” Bill Gates, Eva Moskowitz, KIPP, etc. And if you happen to think of teachers unions at some point during this education policy reverie, you’ll probably have them in the role they’re traditionally assigned by the media — as anti-charter and anti-reform. Just like Israelis and Palestinians, Crips and Bloods, Yankees and Red Sox, teachers unions and the charter movement simply don’t like each other. That’s just the way it is.

But according to a recent piece in the American Prospect by Rachel M. Cohen, the truth of how charters and unions relate to one another is more complicated. It turns out that there are some charter school teachers out there who’ve started to think a union isn’t such a bad idea after all; and their ranks are growing. Whether it’s in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago or New York, Cohen shows, the future of education policy is very much in flux. In fact, the day when the financial backers of charters have to decide which they care about more — breaking unions or educating kids — may arrive sooner than you think.

Recently, Salon spoke over the phone with Cohen to discuss her piece, the motivations of charter teachers who are seeking to unionize, and why their success may actually bring charters closer to their historical roots and original mission. Our conversation is below and has been edited for clarity and length.

How widespread are the efforts to unionize among charter teachers?

It’s definitely not the majority. They say 7 percent of all charter school teachers are currently unionized, and half of those were because the state set that up when they created the charter law. For example, in Baltimore, which I didn’t talk about in my piece, all charter school teachers are unionizing, but not because they came together and started a union draft like they’re doing in Philadelphia or Chicago, where the state said you have to follow your district’s collective bargaining unit.

By no measure is it the majority, but what’s interesting now is that there are fairly larger networks of charter schools starting to do it, and if they succeed like in L.A. (which is the largest charter school network), then that would impact what other smaller schools do.

What tend to be the pro-union teachers’ complaints?

Most charter school teachers work on year-to-year contracts, which does not provide great stability, especially if you’re trying to create a family.

One of the things that I saw was that charter school teachers tended to be younger, and some of the teachers that I spoke with who were in their early 30s were like, “I want to stay at this school, but if I want to get married and have kids there’s no way that I can not know if I have a job in September once May rolls around. I need to either work in a district school or unionize this school, because this whole tenuous working model is not sustainable for the kind of middle-class life I’m trying to build.” So that’s something all workers are trying to figure out how to get for themselves.

There’s definitely also charter school teachers who want to form unions because they think that that’s how they’re going to best serve their kids. Charter school proponents on the political level will say, “We value the voices of teachers; we like having small schools where everybody can get a say.” But, in reality, a lot of teachers don’t feel like they have the voice that their administrators claim they have. Especially in some of the charter school chains that are very rapidly expanding, teachers said to me that all the decisions were coming from bureaucratic offices far away from the classroom, and that they don’t really have a say and are scared to say anything because their positions are already fairly precarious.

Are there any bedrock practices of the charter model that a unionized school couldn’t do?

The charter schools make their own contracts, but that depends on the city. One of Charter schools’ worst nightmare: A pro-union movement may change charters forever - Salon.com:

Ohio Department of Education retracts charter school assessments; top officials under scrutiny - Break News - Ohio

Ohio Department of Education retracts charter school assessments; top officials under scrutiny - Break News - Ohio:

Ohio Department of Education retracts charter school assessments; top officials under scrutiny

The Ohio Department of Education on Friday retracted evaluations of charter school-related organizations because a high-ranking department official with ties to the charter school industry altered results of large, poorly performing online schools.

The acknowledgment of tampering heightened the calls for an investigation of the department and followed a request for the resignation of the state superintendent of education, Richard Ross, by the senior Democrat on the House Education Committee, Teresa Fedor of Toledo.

On Friday, she also called for an investigation by the state auditor.

The department said it is rescinding the evaluations of charter school sponsors, which are independent organizations empowered by the legislature to authorize the startup of a charter school and to oversee their financial and academic performance.

Sponsor evaluations are partially based on the performance of the charter schools they monitor.

It was confirmed at a state school board meeting this week that David Hansen, the department’s head of school choice and husband of Gov. John Kasich’s presidential campaign manager, had deleted some of the academic results of the state’s online charter schools in evaluating the sponsors.

Sponsors make money based on the number of students enrolled in the schools they oversee. Online charter schools are critical to their finances because those schools are among the largest in the state.

Hansen was grilled at the state school board meeting while Ross sat silently. Hansen confirmed that he dropped some of the worst scores for online schools because the numbers “masked” potential success.

Potential conflict

On Friday, the Beacon Journal also found in public documents that Hansen served on the board of one of the state’s largest charter schools, Great Western Academy, in the 2013-14 school year, which could be a conflict of interest with his job with the state.

An official for the for-profit school management company, Imagine Schools, said that Hansen was on the board of its Great Western Academy during the time he also was employed as the department’s head of charter school oversight.

The school enrolls about 900 students and receives about $7 million in public dollars annually.

A request seeking comment from the department was sent on deadline Friday.

Before Hansen was hired by Ross to his $107,000-a-year job, he was a vice president for government relations for the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, which advocates for the expansion of charter schools. He is scheduled this fall to participate in an association panel discussion on sponsor accountability.

He also served on the board of two Columbus charter schools, one as recently as the 2013-14 school year, according to the school’s federal tax filings, and was president of the Buckeye Institute, a libertarian organization.

Growing discontent

The announcement Friday follows a rising chorus of public and private voices demanding that lawmakers return to Columbus to finish what they’ve started: an attempt to fix Ohio’s troubled charter schools.

This year began with political promises to reform Ohio charter schools, which are among the nation’s lowest performers and guilty of the most abuses of Ohio Department of Education retracts charter school assessments; top officials under scrutiny - Break News - Ohio:

Both House and Senate ESEA Bills Allow for Opt-out Without Penalty | deutsch29

Both House and Senate ESEA Bills Allow for Opt-out Without Penalty | deutsch29:

Both House and Senate ESEA Bills Allow for Opt-out Without Penalty

Both the House and Senate have passed proposed authorizations of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, and both House and Senate versions have opt-out provisions that allow for states to avoid being penalized for students whose parents opt them out of federally-mandated testing.

That’s right: Both House and Senate versions of the ESEA reauthorization provide a means for students who opt out to not be counted against the “95 percent” that the state is supposed to test as a condition for receiving Title I funding.

They just go about it differently.

I realize all of this can be difficult to follow. In this post, I hope to make the issue clear.

Opt-out and ECAA

Here’s how the parental opt-out provision works in the Senate’s Every Child Achieves Act (ECAA) of 2015:

Paragraph (2) of Title I, entitled, “Academic Assessments,” (page 36 of the ECAA draft linked above) details the ECAA requirements for annual testing, including what tests are to be given and to whom. The last section of paragraph (2) is subparagraph (K), which is the text of Isakson’s first opt-out amendment, which was approved in the Senate ed committee in April 2015 (page 52 of the ECAA draft linked above):

(K) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION ON PARENT AND GUARDIAN RIGHTS.—Nothing in this part shall be construed as preempting a State or local law regarding the decision of a parent or guardian to not have the parent or guardian’s child participate in the statewide academic assessments under this 

Both House and Senate ESEA Bills Allow for Opt-out Without Penalty | deutsch29: