Backpacks Full of Cash | EduShyster

Backpacks Full of Cash | EduShyster:

Backpacks Full of Cash

I talk to Nevada Succeeds’ Seth Rau about the Silver State’s new Education Savings Account experiment…

EduShyster: Thanks to Nevada’s bold new*universal choice* program, I’ve got exactly $5700 in my backpack. Now I need you to help me choose what choice to choose. Should I go traditional, private, high-performing charter school seat, virtual? What do you think?

Seth Rau: In Nevada, the miracle of the high-performing seats that you’re so familiar with in Massachusetts never happened. For the most part our district charter schools are strongly underperforming. There’s also been a heavy reliance on virtual charter schools. More than a quarter of the students who attend charters attend virtual schools, which have been a disaster for many kids. For example, Nevada Virtual Academy was the largest charter school in the state and had a 32.5% graduation rate in 2011-2012. 

EduShyster: Before I cross *charter schools* off my choice list, I want to unpack something that you just said. By *strongly underperforming,* you don’t just mean *bad night at the craps table bad,* you mean *students falling behind by six-to-seven months a year bad.*

Rau: These numbers were from a 2012 CREDO report that only looked at data through 2010. The charter sector has improved considerably in the past five years. However, if we start looking at the reasons why the sector is improving, it’s even more worrisome. Our district schools now essentially serve students in poverty, Latino students and African American students. Then you look at charters, and Las Vegas is now the fastest growing charter market in the country. Las Vegas continues to have explosive growth, but all the growth is up in the suburbs of the city, not in the inner city. The suburb of Henderson has opened up11 new schools in the past five years and not a single one was a district school. They were all either charter or private schools. There are pockets of poverty in Henderson but it’s basically a middle class community. The new schools opening there are 10% free and reduced lunch or 15%. So because of all of these new schools opening up in the past five years, the charter sector is getting to be higher performing, but they’re not serving students who are actually in poverty.

EduShyster: OK—so sounds like charter schools are out for me because they’re either terrible or they’re in a zip code I can’t access. (Pausing here for a brief irony break…) I think I’ll take my $5700 and go to a private school. I bet there are a whole bunch of choices for me to choose from.

Rau: Nevada is below the national average in students who attend private schools (6% of the population). The people who can afford to send their kids to private school do, it’s just that there aren’t that many people in that category. We have a very large wealth gap between our top earners and the rest of the population. You have a strong concentration of the one percent, because you have a number of large corporations that are based here, then you have 60% of the population that qualifies for free or reduced lunch. So the people who can afford to send their kids to private school do, it’s just that there aren’t that Backpacks Full of Cash | EduShyster:

L.A. district continues to persecute one of the nation’s best teachers - The Washington Post

L.A. district continues to persecute one of the nation’s best teachers - The Washington Post:

L.A. district continues to persecute one of the nation’s best teachers

Fifth-grade teacher Rafe Esquith’s worst nightmare began March 19, during a puzzling meeting in his principal’s office. Hobart Boulevard Elementary School’s principal indicated something had happened, but Esquith says that he was told he had nothing to worry about.

That was wrong. I consider Esquith to be America’s best classroom teacher. The Los Angeles educator’s annual Shakespeare productions, real-life economics lessons, advanced readings and imaginative field trips are phenomenal. Yet he has been removed from his classroom since April and told by his school district to say nothing about what is going on.

Fortunately, his attorneys have prepared a detailed account of the administrative incompetence and wrong-headedness that created this situation as Los Angeles Unified School District investigators continue to search for anything they can use against their most-celebrated teacher.

At that March meeting, according to their account, the principal told Esquith: “You have nothing to worry about. This is a bump in the road. I need to counsel you that you need to be careful what you say in front of students.” Esquith said fine, still not knowing was they were talking about. He went back to teaching and preparing for “The Winter’s Tale,” as acted, danced and musically accompanied by his students, mostly from ­low-income Hispanic and Korean families.

Three weeks later, Esquith learned that the district had forwarded a complaint to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, but the teacher still didn’t have details. Esquith said the principal told him he had nothing to worry about and that “this is about nothing.”

The next day, Esquith learned the truth: A school staffer had reported to administrators that Esquith made a joke about nudity that she thought might offend students and their parents. Esquith had read to his students a passage from “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” in which a character called the king comes “prancing out on all fours, naked.” Esquith reminded the students that the district did not fund the annual Shakespeare play, and if he could not raise enough money “we will all have to play the role of the king in Huckleberry Finn.”

Esquith was told that the district was pressuring him for an apology. Esquith wrote and signed one: “I am deeply and sincerely sorry that any comment someone heard, or thought they heard, has anyone uncomfortable.” Nonetheless, two days later, April 10, the district removed him from his L.A. district continues to persecute one of the nation’s best teachers - The Washington Post:

Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 7/19/15

SPECIAL NITE CAP 

CORPORATE ED REFORM

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YESTERDAY

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The Senate Debate on Lee’s Opt Out Amendment | deutsch29

The Senate Debate on Lee’s Opt Out Amendment | deutsch29:

The Senate Debate on Lee’s Opt Out Amendment

In the House version of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, the Student Success Act (SSA), parental opt-out is written into the legislation, bypassing any state positions on the issue:

(2) ACADEMIC ASSESSMENTS.—

(B) REQUIREMENTS.—Such assessments shall—

‘‘(xiii) be administered to not less than 95 percent of all students, and not less than 95 percent of each subgroup of students described in paragraph 18 (3)(B)(ii)(II), except that States shall allow the parent of a student to opt such student out of the assessments required under this paragraph for any reason and shall not include such students in calculating the participation rate under this clause…. (pg 31)

The Senate version of the ESEA reauthorization chaired by Senators Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray, the Every Child Achieves Act (ECAA) of 2015, does not have a blanket opt-out amendment as does the House’s SSA. However, Senator Mike Lee’s amendment 2162 was an attempt to include a blanket opt-out statement in ECAA.

On July 14, 2015, Lee’s amendment 2162 was rejected by a vote of 32-64.

In this post, I will present the text of the few minutes of debate allowed prior to the roll call vote on amendment 2162. Senator Lee spoke first, for about a minute; then, Senators Alexander and Murray spoke for a combined couple of minutes. The video is available here; amendment 2162 debate begins at the 06:29:27 mark.

Lee: Mr. President, my amendment (2162) would clarify that parents, not the federal government, are the primary educators of their children. It would ensure that parents may allow their children to opt out of federally-mandated tests. Now, the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Alexander, is right that states should be free to make their own tests mandatory if they so choose. However, that is not what this bill (ECAA) allows. This bill mandates that states give these tests and requires them to get the content of such tests approved by the US secretary of education.

My amendment is silent on the question of state tests. It simply clarifies that the tests mandated by this bill– mandated by this Congress– are in fact 

The Senate Debate on Lee’s Opt Out Amendment | deutsch29:

What will local control in Newark look like? | Bob Braun's Ledger

What will local control in Newark look like? | Bob Braun's Ledger:

What will local control in Newark look like?

A veteran Newark teacher who knows she will be brought up on tenure charges when she returns to school in the fall writes she was “heartbroken” by events in Newark because it appears nothing much will change for teachers who spent their careers in the city and face dismissal or “rubber rooms.” A parent leader describes how the “One Newark” plan continues unabated and is clearly aimed at helping to expand charters. The new superintendent will continue the old superintendent’s policies because they were, after all, the policies of Gov. Chris Christie. The strong opposition that had been building to state control has vanished in the heat of the summer–and anyone who wonders why is branded a “crackpot” or “paternalistic” or worse.

Christie has won peace in Newark while he roams Iowa and New Hampshire in pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination, bragging about how he knows how to cut deals with those who disagree with him. While he hasn’t yet specifically spoken of the Newark deal, it’s only a matter of time.  Christie already is pushing for charters and voucher schools and he blames teacher unions for the problems of urban schools–as if the problems of urban schools were created by job protections that have been in place for decades in urban and suburban schools.

Angry students, parents and school employees were ready to shut down traffic in North Jersey on May 22. Only 46 days later,  a “March for Dignity” failed to take What will local control in Newark look like? | Bob Braun's Ledger: