The real reasons behind the U.S. teacher shortage - The Washington Post:

The real reasons behind the U.S. teacher shortage - The Washington Post:

The real reasons behind the U.S. teacher shortage

There’s a teacher shortage across the United States — but that’s not exactly news. The U.S. Department of Education maintains an annual list — state by state — showing the subject areas in which there are too few teachers going back to the 1990-91 school year. What’s new is the size of the shortage and the reasons for it.

The official nationwide Teacher Shortage Area list for 2015-16 year (you can see the list here or below) is not a list of job postings but a reference to where states and schools are potentially looking to hire administrators and teachers. And the comparisons within many states tells a disturbing story: growing teacher shortages in key subjects.

For example, in Arizona, in 1990-1991, fewer than 10 schools and no more than 15 districts were listed as having unspecified shortages. For 2015-16, statewide shortages in various disciplines are listed. For example, in middle schools, ESL and BLE teachers are needed, and foreign language, general science, math, reading, special education and art educators are in shortage supply. Then there are countywide geographic shortages, as well.

California, in 1990-91 and 1991-92 school years, had K-12 shortages in bilingual education, life science and physical science. In 1215-16, there are statewide shortages in English/Drama/Humanities, History/Social Science/ Math/Computer Education/ Science/Self-Contained Class/Special Education (including State Special schools).

But the fact that teacher shortages aren’t new doesn’t mean they aren’t important. Exactly how big the shortages are is not known; numbers are inexact, but officials in a number of states say they are concerned the shortages could be bigger than ever.

The reasons why this is happening are important. Teachers always come and go, but in recent years there are some new reasons for the turnover. Polls show that public school teachers today are more disillusioned about their jobs than they have been in many years. One 2013 poll found that teacher satisfaction had declined 23 percentage points since 2008, from 62 percent to 39 percent very satisfied, the lowest level in 25 years. Fifty-one percent of teachers reported feeling under great stress several days a week, an increase of 15 percentage points reporting that level in 1985.

I’ve written several posts about shortages in individual states, detailing how they are resulting amid school reform initiatives that have evaluated teachers by standardized test scores, and/or reduced collective bargaining rights, and/or forced teachers to administer a mountain of standardized tests to students and teach to the test, and/or suffered inadequate funding.

For example, teachers are fleeing Arizona in droves. From the post:

Over the last five years, thousands of teachers have left the state, according to a 2015 report by the Arizona Department of 

The real reasons behind the U.S. teacher shortage - The Washington Post:

African American teachers in New Orleans demand a Congressional Hearing | Educate All Students: Larry Miller's Blog

African American teachers in New Orleans demand a Congressional Hearing | Educate All Students: Larry Miller's Blog:

African American teachers in New Orleans demand a Congressional Hearing 

What is the true story behind the mass firing of 7500 state-certified and tenured public school employees following Katrina? Those fired were overwhelmingly African American. This was a strategic and intentional blow to the Black middle class of New Orleans.

Following is a letter requesting a Congressional hearing on this issue:

New Orleans Public School Employees Will Request a Congressional Hearing on the $750
Million Federal Fund to Restart Schools after Hurricane Katrina

We suggest that an oversight or investigative Congressional hearing is warranted to review the use of $750 million in federal funds to “Restart School Operations” after Hurricane Katrina. Obtaining information from witnesses will be beneficial to various Congressional committees regarding the intended and actual use of federal funds after a natural disaster.

We propose that the initial review focus on the State of Louisiana, which was awarded $445.6 million in Restart funds, and the State of Mississippi, which was awarded $222.5 million. In New Orleans, Louisiana (only) 7500 state-certified public school employees were terminated based on a claim of “no jobs and no money.” However, “the Bay St. Louis-Waveland school district in southwest Mississippi, some of the $13 million it has received in restart money [paid] for the salaries of school psychologists, behavior specialists, and social workers to counsel staff members and students” here.

The fair and equal opportunity for citizens to receive authorized federal assistance after a natural disaster is clearly a non-partisan objective.

The following preliminary information is offered in support of a formal request for a Congressional Hearing to be made on the occasion of the 10th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Louisiana’s urgent request for federal funds
The damaged school systems not only have damaged physical property, but loss of students, staff, local revenue and basic state aid. The damaged districts are very concerned, not only with securing educational services for the students while the districts are closed, but in providing some type of compensation for their staffs during the period the districts are closed, but in providing some type of compensation for their staffs during the period the districts are closed. In talking with Florida Department of Education about last year’s hurricane issues, we learned that they continued to pay their staffs and requested that the staff either help rebuild the schools, work in a shelter or perform other community work, or deal with their emergency family situations while their home schools were closed. This was done for several reasons, but mainly to assist in retaining staff for when the schools reopened. Of course, they still lost a large percentage of staff members who found other jobs and/or moved away.

In Louisiana, our situation is much more drastic. Several school systems are only able to make one more payroll. After that, their employees will be on unemployment or will need to find other work. These employees are very concerned with their livelihood, health insurance coverage, and just being able to cover basic needs. The districts are very concerned not only for African American teachers in New Orleans demand a Congressional Hearing | Educate All Students: Larry Miller's Blog:

In Chicago, Hunger Striking to Save a School | EduShyster #fightfordyett

In Chicago, Hunger Striking to Save a School | EduShyster:

In Chicago, Hunger Striking to Save a School

Why are Chicago parents on a hunger strike to save a neighborhood school? Because after five years of fighting, they’ve run out of options... 

By Jeanette Taylor-Ramann
What’s happening in Bronzeville isn’t just about Dyett High School. There’s an agenda to push out black and brown low income and working families in the city of Chicago. If you look at the big picture, that’s what this is about. You don’t only have police brutality. You don’t have only have a decrease in public housing in the city and the closing of public schools. The neighborhood school is the last stable institution that we have. When you have good neighborhood schools, they service the neighborhood. They keep kids off the street; they help parents when they’re struggling and having issues in the home. That neighborhood school is a support system for the community, and the powers that be know that. 

This isn’t the life I chose. It chose me.
I’m a forty year-old mother of five, soon to be a grandmother. I was a teen mom, and I’ve been on the Local School Council (LSC) at Irving C. Mollison Elementary since I was 19. I’ve always had to participate in my children’s education. My mother did it for me, and when I became a mother, she pushed me to be responsible. She said *that’s your child. You’ve got to be a part of the school culture.* My grandmother was one of the first teacher’s assistants at Mollison, my auntie is a teacher there, my mother was on the PTA. She’s been a clerk at the school for 20 years. This isn’t the life I chose. It chose me.

For almost my entire life—34 years—I’ve lived in Bronzeville. I’ve recently been pushed out because of gentrification. I can’t afford the rent in the neighborhood, so for the last three years I’ve resided in Woodlawn. The transformation in Bronzeville started back in the 1990’s when they knocked down the public housing and began to build up the neighborhood. But what I started to notice was that when they put up replacement housing, it wasn’t for the people who’d lived in the neighborhood for years. So you’re pushing out the people who can’t afford to live there. If you’re not making $50,000 a year or more, you’re not able to afford to live in Bronzeville.

A line in the sand
There are currently 12 people on a hunger strike. Every day more people join us from around the city who’ve decided to go on a fast with us. We have a pastor, a Latino In Chicago, Hunger Striking to Save a School | EduShyster:

Schools Matter: Charters Drive School Resegregation, Duke Study Finds

Schools Matter: Charters Drive School Resegregation, Duke Study Finds:

Charters Drive School Resegregation, Duke Study Finds

We have known for almost a decade that charter schools are more segregated (follow the links in this commentary) than the public schools they are replacing, and we have known much longer that diverse, inclusive classrooms are the most cost effective and just way to improve academic performance for all students. 

We now have evidence that charter schools have become more segregated over the past 15 years, as all minority or all white charter schools have proliferated.  In North Carolina, for instance, white charters now resemble the white academies that sprang up in the wake of the 1964 Civl Rights Act, just as all black charters have become as common as they were during Jim Crow. 

There is a big difference, however, between the black charters of today and black public schools of the 1950s and 1960s.  Even during Jim Crow, many black schools had black, caring, and professionally-trained teachers who understood the contexts of poverty and racism from which their students came.

With a primary concern for the whole child, those all-black schools were not laser focused on turning children into miniature Amazon workers, who are subjected to behavioral sterilization while producing test scores that build and protect charter school brands. 

Another difference: today's black segregated charters are often staffed with white beginners with little, if any, professional preparation and with even less understanding of the challenges that disadvantaged children bring to school. These beginners represent the Amazon worker paradigm brought to tax-funded discriminatory schools.  

Below is part of a WaPo article that reports on a new Duke study that brings the resegregated charter school phenomenon up to date:

. . . .Setting aside the drama between charters and teachers unions, or complaints that charter schools lead to the privatization of public education, there has been the persistent critique that charters increase inequality by plucking advantaged students out of traditional public schools.

The most recent cautionary tale comes from North Carolina, where professors at Duke have traced a troubling trend of resegregation since the first charters opened in 1997. They contend that North Carolina’s charter schools have become a way for white parents to secede from the Schools Matter: Charters Drive School Resegregation, Duke Study Finds:

Alfie Kohn: The ‘mindset’ mindset: What we miss by focusing on kids’ attitudes - The Washington Post

The ‘mindset’ mindset: What we miss by focusing on kids’ attitudes - The Washington Post:

The ‘mindset’ mindset: What we miss by focusing on kids’ attitudes

Carol Dweck is a psychology professor at Stanford University and a renowed researcher in the field of motivation. She has written important works, including the award-winning “Self-Theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development,” and has been published in numerous publications, including The Washington Post, The New Yorker and The New York Times. She is famous for her theory of  “mindset,” fixed vs. growth. In the former, students believe their intelligence and abilities are fixed traits; in a growth mindset, they believe that they can develop talents and even intelligence by working hard. The growth mindset has become popular among educators to understand how students achieve and can improve their academic performance. Now, author Alfie Kohn takes a look at the sacred cow of growth mindset. Kohn is the author of 14 books on education, parenting, and human behavior, including, most recently, “The Myth of the Spoiled Child”(Da Capo Press) and “Schooling Beyond Measure” (Heinemann). He can be reached at www.alfiekohn.org and followed on Twitter at @alfiekohn. This first appeared in Salon.

By Alfie Kohn

One of the most popular ideas in education these days can be summarized in a single sentence — a fact that may help to account for its popularity. Here’s the sentence: Kids tend to fare better when they regard intelligence and other abilities not as fixed traits that they either have or lack, but as attributes that can be improved through effort.

In a series of monographs over many years and in a book published in 2000, psychologist Carol Dweck used the label “incremental theory” to describe the self-fulfilling belief that one can become smarter. Rebranding it more catchily as “growth mindset” allowed her to recycle the idea a few years later in a best-selling book for general readers and an on-line “step by step” instructional program called Brainology® that is said to “raise student achievement by helping them develop a growth mindset” ($6,000 for the all-inclusive kit).

By now, in fact, that phrase has approached the status of a cultural meme and is repeated with uncritical enthusiasm by educators and a growing number of parents, managers, and journalists — to the point that one half expects The ‘mindset’ mindset: What we miss by focusing on kids’ attitudes - The Washington Post:

Who are these guys?

Who are these guys?

When Republican candidates went on stage to show off for big donors who want to privatize public education, they offered some really bad ideas and tried to mislead the public on their own records. But that's OK--we're always happy to set the record straight.

The Decline of Play and Rise in Children's Mental Disorders | Psychology Today

The Decline of Play and Rise in Children's Mental Disorders | Psychology Today:

The Decline of Play and Rise in Children's Mental Disorders

Children are more anxious and depressed than ever before. Why?

Rates of depression and anxiety among young people in America have been increasing steadily for the past fifty to seventy years. Today, by at least some estimates, five to eight times as many high school and college students meet the criteria for diagnosis of major depressionand/or an anxiety disorder as was true half a century or more ago. This increased psychopathology is not the result of changed diagnostic criteria; it holds even when the measures and criteria are constant.

The most recent evidence for the sharp generational rise in young people's depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders comes from a just-released study headed by Jean Twenge at San Diego State University.[1] Twenge and her colleagues took advantage of the fact that the MMPI--the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, a questionnaire used to assess a variety of mental disorders--has been given to large samples of college students throughout the United States going as far back as 1938, and the MMPI-A (the version used with younger adolescents) has been given to samples of high school students going as far back as 1951. The results are consistent with other studies, using a variety of indices, which also point to dramatic increases in anxiety and depression--in children as well as in adolescents and young adults--over the last five or more decades.

We would like to think of history as progress, but if progress is measured in the mentalhealth and happiness of young people, then we have been going backward at least since the early 1950s. The question I want to address here is why.

The increased psychopathology seems to have nothing to do with realistic dangers and uncertainties in the larger world. The changes do not correlate with economic cycles, wars, or any of the other kinds of world events that people often talk about as affecting children's mental states. Rates of anxiety and depression among children and adolescents were far lower during the Great Depression, during World War II, during the Cold War, and during the turbulent 1960s and early ‘70s than they are today. The changes seem to have much more to do with the way young people view the world than with the way the world actually is.

Decline in Young People's Sense of Personal Control over their Fate

One thing we know about anxiety and depression is that they correlate significantly with people's sense of control or lack of control over their own lives. People who believe that they are in charge of their own fate are less likely to become anxious or depressed than are those who believe that they are victims of circumstances beyond their control. You might think that the sense of personal control would have increased over the last several decades. Real progress has occurred in our ability to prevent and treat diseases; the old prejudices that limited people's options because of race, gender, or sexual orientationhave diminished; and the average person is wealthier today than in decades past. Yet, the data indicate that young people's belief that they have control over their own destinies has declined sharply over the decades.

The standard measure of sense of control is a questionnaire, developed by Julien Rotter The Decline of Play and Rise in Children's Mental Disorders | Psychology Today:

The Badass Teachers Association Supports #FightforDyett = Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association:

The Badass Teachers Association Supports #FightforDyett

BATs we are asking you to do 2 events for the 12 Parents who are on a hunger strike to save Dyett HS. 

EVENT #1 ON MONDAY -->Please take part in the social media event on Monday from 7-8 P.M. EST if you are on twitter #FightforDyett - we want it to trend. Tweet to Rahm, Will Burns, and major media outlets.   If you are NOT on twitter please post a message of solidarity on your Facebook page with this story and share it out - media has blocked out this story so sharing to everyone you know gets the word out -  http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0odFGDe3TUY&sns=em

EVENT #2 ON TUESDAY--> We are asking all BATs nationwide to join the hunger strikers on a 1 day solidarity hunger strike - please sign up and join here   http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/6041/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=11586

LASTLY PLEASE PLEASE CALL AND TELL RAHM AND WILL BURNS TO STOP THIS MADNESS AND GIVE OUR HUNGER STRIKERS THE SCHOOLS THEY WANT FOR THEIR CHILDREN!!  
Chicago Mayor) Mayor Rahm Emanuel (312) 744-3300
(Chicago 4th Ward Alderman) Alderman Will Burns at (773) 536-8103


Tweets you can use for the Thunderclap on Monday 7-8 p.m. EST.  Let's get #FightforDyett trending #1!!  

12 Parents on hunger strike to save their school #FightforDyett <-@CBSNews @NBCNews @abcnews @CNN @Cspan  @ajam

 @RevJJackson joins hunger strikers   http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/7/71/888584/jesse-jackson-joins-hunger-strike-parents-seeking-new-dyett-school <-@CBSNews @NBCNews @abcnews @CNN @Cspan  @ajam  #FightforDyett

 Coalition partners and hunger strikers  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8AUSEi--Ss&app=desktop     <-@CBSNews @NBCNews @abcnews @CNN @Cspan  @ajam   #FightforDyett

 Chicago Organizers Lead Hunger Strike for Dyett High School  http://www.reclaimourschools.org/updates/chicago-organizers-lead-hunger-strike-save-dyett-high-school  <-@CBSNews @NBCNews @abcnews @CNN @Cspan  @ajam   #FightforDyett

 12 Parents Launch Hunger Strike!!! Media Alert  http://empathyeducates.org/Journeys-to-and-through/twelve-parents-launch-hunger-strike/  <-@CBSNews @NBCNews @abcnews @CNN @Cspan  @ajam  #FightforDyett

 @RahmEmanuel @Ald4_WillBurns why do black & brown Ps have to plead 4 a community schools?  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xSM_KALNKDk  #FightforDyett

 @RahmEmanuel @Ald4_WillBurns ignoring the  #FightforDyett hunger strikers  Hunger Strike: The Fight for Dyett High School in Chicago

@RahmEmanuel @Ald4_WillBurns -> @brothajitu has a ? – Why is the choice 4 black & brown children always privatization?   #FightforDyett

 @RahmEmanuel @Ald4_WillBurns CPS activist say hunger strike only option  https://soundcloud.com/wbez/cps-activists-says-hunger-strike-was-only-option  #FightforDyett

@RahmEmanuel @Ald4_WillBurns  #FightforDyett   Chicago Parents Launch Hunger-Strike for Community Input in School's Future http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=14532

 Coalition partners and hunger strikers  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8AUSEi--Ss&app=desktop @ABC7Chicago @wttw @NBCNews #FightforDyett

 12 Parents on hunger strike to save their school #FightforDyett  @ABC7Chicago @wttw @NBCNews #FightforDyett

 @RevJJackson joins hunger strikers   http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/7/71/888584/jesse-jackson-joins-hunger-strike-parents-seeking-new-dyett-school  @ABC7Chicago @wttw @NBCNews #FightforDyett

Badass Teachers Association:

Map: How student poverty has increased since the Great Recession - The Washington Post

Map: How student poverty has increased since the Great Recession - The Washington Post:

Map: How student poverty has increased since the Great Recession

Not only are more American children poor today than before the Great Recession, but poor kids are increasingly clustered with poor classmates at school, according to an analysis from the nonprofit EdBuild.

Between 2006 and 2013, the number of students in high-poverty school districts — in which more than 20 percent of children live below the federal poverty line — increased from 15.9 million to 24 million, according to EdBuild. That means nearly half of the nation’s 50 million public school students go to class with large numbers of peers who are growing up with poverty and all its difficulties.

The number of children going to class in school districts with even greater student poverty — higher than 40 percent — also increased, from about 1 percent to 4 percent of the national student population.

Such high-poverty districts need more money to help address the issues that their students bring to school, including hunger, homelessness and higher risks for mental health challenges, said Rebecca Sibilia, founder and CEO of EdBuild, a new group that advocates for more equitable school funding systems.

[Poverty rates in every U.S. school district, in one map]

“What we’re seeing is a huge spreading of poverty, but potentially more problematic is a deepening of poverty,” said Sibilia, who has worked at StudentsFirst, the lobbying group founded by former D.C. school chancellor Michelle Rhee. “The needs of high-poverty districts are just compounded compared to a smattering of low-income students that may exist in middle-income areas.”

EdBuild produced an interactive map that shows how poverty levels have changed in each of the nation’s 14,000 school districts. Here’s what poverty levels looked like in 2006:

Student poverty levels in 2006. Source: EdBuild

And in 2013:

Student poverty rates in 2013. Source: EdBuild

As the map makes clear, the Midwest and the South have experienced the most dramatic increase in student poverty. The South enrolls about 35 percent of the nation’s students but accounts for 60 percent of all students Map: How student poverty has increased since the Great Recession - The Washington Post:

Governor Kasich’s education agenda, unmasked - Toledo Blade

Governor Kasich’s education agenda, unmasked - Toledo Blade:

Governor Kasich’s education agenda, unmasked

It was probably an accident. Ohio Gov. John Kasich let his public education mask slip. He ranted when he should have relaxed.

What Mr. Kasich blurted out to a roomful of incoming legislators, assembled in Columbus for an orientation session last November, was enormously revealing. It was prophetic about a secret effort, already begun, to erode local control of Youngstown Schools and any Ohio district like it.

Representative-elect Michele Lepore-Hagan, a newly elected Youngstown Democrat, wanted to talk to the governor about the troubled school district she represented. “And he threw a tablet into the air and said those Youngstown City Schools are in such a mess I want to shut them down and put one great big charter school in there.”

Later a committee, quietly spearheaded by the Kasich administration, would sign off on a plan to change the Youngstown district and others like it in the state. The plan, crafted behind closed doors by the Youngstown City Schools Business Cabinet, could put traditional public schools out of business .

The cabinet included business executives, representatives of the governor’s staff, Ohio Department of Education officials including state Superintendent Richard Ross, higher education leaders, a retired municipal judge, and Youngstown Schools Superintendent Connie Hathorn.

Mr. Hathorn resigned effective June 30. That was enough for the so-called Youngstown plan to become an amendment to another piece of state legislation introduced, approved by committees, and voted out of both the House and Senate in a single day.

Mr. Kasich quickly signed the measure into law. His agenda was clear in November. He told Ms. Lepore-Hagan that a committee had been assembled to discuss the Youngstown problem but she couldn’t participate “because you’ll make it too political. You’ll muddy it all up.”

Instead, Mr. Kasich suggested she talk with state Rep. Sean O’Brien (D., Bazetta), the only lawmaker he would work with on Youngstown Schools. Ms. Lepore-Hagan informed the governor that Mr. O’Brien represents Warren Schools and that she was the elected official in the Youngstown district.

“The people who voted for me send their children to this school and I represent them, these kids,” she said. “It’s my neighborhood, my district.”

The incoming freshman, married to former longtime state Rep. Bob Hagan, said an angry Mr. Kasich

Read more at http://www.toledoblade.com/MarilouJohanek/2015/08/22/Governor-Kasich-s-education-agenda-unmasked.html#Q4dxTHBpvFQ2hOml.99

Benioff takes hands-off approach with donations to S.F. schools - SFGate

Benioff takes hands-off approach with donations to S.F. schools - SFGate:

Benioff takes hands-off approach with donations to S.F. schools

The list of high-tech moguls looking to disrupt, remake, revamp and ultimately “fix” public education is long — from Bill Gates to Steve Jobs to Mark Zuckerberg, not to mention William Hewlett and David Packard, to name a few.

In San Francisco, the big name in education philanthropy is Marc Benioff, but his patience and hands-off approach to change are a departure from many of his peers.

The Salesforce.com founder continues to test that approach, and will announce Monday that his long-term commitment to city schools will include a $6 million grant for this school year.

It’s the third year in a row the CEO and his Salesforce.com Foundation has written a multimillion-dollar check to the school district — and not the last, Benioff said in an interview. This is the third year in a long-term investment program, he said, with a goal of $100 million and the best schools in the country.

Public education in the U.S. is a big liability, and it will take the full weight of society to turn it into a great asset, Benioff said. But people overestimate what they can do in one year, while underestimating what they can do in 10.

Benioff is in it for the 10 years, he said.

“We’ll do anything to make SFUSD a successful school district,” Benioff said. “You can see we’re taking this very seriously.”

Benioff’s nondisruptive, few-strings-attached tech philanthropy is rare in the public school world, where “fixing” often means take-it-or-leave-it funding tied to a giver’s vision. Many have their own ideas about how to fix schools, focusing funds on pet projects to improve teaching, reorganize high schools or push a more modern version of vocational education.

Donor stipulations vary

The Gates Foundation, for example, pushed the small schools movement several years ago, offering districts like Oakland Unified millions of dollars, but only if they opened new schools that limited the number of students enrolled. The effort left the city with too many schools and not enough money to support them after the Gates infusion ran out.

In New Jersey, Zuckerberg donated $100 million to “save” public schools through an imposed reform agenda that focused on charter schools and a union-opposed idea to revamp teacher compensation, a controversial effort that produced questionable results.

“Philanthropy is a long-term game, and not many people get that or have the patience for it,” said Suzanne DiBianca, president of the Salesforce.com Foundation. “You have to shoulder up support in a way that’s much deeper than just throwing Benioff takes hands-off approach with donations to S.F. schools - SFGate:

Ta-Nehisi Coates and the History Our Kids Need to Contemplate | John Thompson

Ta-Nehisi Coates and the History Our Kids Need to Contemplate | John Thompson:

Ta-Nehisi Coates and the History Our Kids Need to Contemplate

Toni Morrison rightly compares Ta-Nehisi Coates to James Baldwin. I hope all high school students read Coates' Between the World and Me, "The Case for Reparations,"and/or his other journalism. I have my doubts that enough students are reading Coates in class, so I'll offer some of his insights that should be worked into schools' standards of instruction.

Coates shares a letter to his teenage son with us. Teachers should share his writing with our students. Coates is pleased that his son will be able to know about the whole world, but even as he expresses the "cosmopolitan wish," Coates recalls "the old power of ancestry ..." He wants his son "to know the world in its entirety," and that it can't be found "in the schools, alone, nor on the streets, alone." Referring to the famous insult by Saul Bellow, he wants "'Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus' to immediately be obvious to you."

Coates tells his son that there is strength in the hood and wisdom in those streets, and that he must respect the common struggle. When doing so, Coates reminds his son "that wisdom is not unique to our people," but "I think it has special meaning to those of us born out of mass rape."

I hope history teachers already introduce students to the complex story of the concept of "race," and how it comes from history, economics and power relationships, not biology. I doubt many of us convey that lesson as concisely as Coates, who explains that "naming 'the people' has never been a matter of genealogy and physiognomy so much as one of hierarchy." In other words, "race is the child of racism, not the father."

Coates realizes that white Americans also are a "new people." They were Catholic, Corsican, Welsh, Mennonite and Jewish before they were white. White people are "like us, a modern invention. But unlike us, their new name has no real meaning, divorced from the machinery of power." Coates finally concludes, "They made us into a race. We made ourselves into a people."

From an early age, Coates was politically conscious. Although he did not feel comfortable in school, he was home in the library. He "was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people's interests." And, Coates teaches his son the lesson that all teachers should pass on to their students, that Ta-Nehisi Coates and the History Our Kids Need to Contemplate | John Thompson:

With A Brooklyn Accent: Six Good Reasons for Parents in NY State to Support the Opt Out Movement

With A Brooklyn Accent: Six Good Reasons for Parents in NY State to Support the Opt Out Movement:

Six Good Reasons for Parents in NY State to Support the Opt Out Movement

1.Testing in the state has reached abusive proportions. Third graders in NY take have six days of tests that are more time consuming than the LSAT's, the MCAT's, and the SAT's There are too many tests which take too much time

2. The mathematical forumulas used to rate teachers on the basis of the tests are wildly innacurate. Some of the best teachers in the state. at some of the highest pareforming schools have been given unfavorable ratings, prompting lawsuits which are likely to increase in frequency.

3. The tests have been so poorly designed that the state was forced to cancel the contract with the major test vendor- Pearson- replacing it with another company whose track record is barely better.

4. The use of testing to designate schools or school districts as "failing" and in imminent danger of closing or a state takeover has led to the transformation of all instruction into test prep in high poverty districts, and the cancellation of recess and school trips to create more study time for students.

5. The stress levels imposedf byWith A Brooklyn Accent: Six Good Reasons for Parents in NY State to Support the Opt Out Movement:

CURMUDGUCATION: Duncan: Magical One Size Fits All Test Unicorn

CURMUDGUCATION: Duncan: Magical One Size Fits All Test Unicorn:

Duncan: Magical One Size Fits All Test Unicorn

One of the central tenets of Arne Duncan's edu-amateur structure of beliefs is that Low Expectations Are Bad. This has led him to the corollary that special education, adaptations, modified curriculum, and specially altered assessments are all bad things, that special ed is a morass of perfectly capable students who have been shunted into learning support programs because of race or misbehavior or any number of reasons. Once in special ed, these students go into academic free fall because they are surrounded by teachers who expect them to do poorly.

Like much that comes out of Duncan, this is not 100% baloney. If we're honest, we all know stories of students who ended up labeled special needs for every reason from being a behavior problem to having insistent parents-- but not actually needing a Learning Support label.

But Duncan's continues suggesting that the entire system of structures, rules, and pedagogy that has sprung up a some sort of complex dodge, a bizarre lie perpetuated as a way to keep students, selected almost at random, held back and stomped down. This is just... weird. One would think that in all his years in Chicago, he would have met at least one student who struggled with the difficulties of a disability that truly rendered her unable to achieve at the same level and pace of her fellow students.

We've seen Arne argue that all students with disabilities just need teachers who expect them to do well. We've watched him struggle through a grilling about USED's (non-existent) policy for helping students with dyslexia.

Well, here comes the latest USED pronouncement on the subject: Improving the Academic Achievement of the Disadvantaged; Assistance to States for the Education of Children with Disabilities, a rule that is supposed to take effect in about a month.

The rule is laced with the now-usual Department of Education balderdash. Let's open with this:

High standards and high expectations for all students and an accountability system that provides CURMUDGUCATION: Duncan: Magical One Size Fits All Test Unicorn:

Why Teach? In Defense of the Public Good

Why Teach? In Defense of the Public Good:

Why Teach? In Defense of the Public Good

By Jim Miller

These days it seems a new school year can’t start without being greeted by yet another pronouncement that my profession and/or higher education itself is heading for the dustbin of history.

Last year around this time, I pondered the proclaimed death of the English major and this year the front page of the most recent issue of Harper’s is bemoaning “The Neoliberal Arts: How College Sold Its Soul.”

In this insightful piece William Deresiewicz hits on themes familiar to anyone who has been around higher education for the last few decades. Neoliberal education is a product of “market fundamentalism,” an “ideology that reduces all values to money values. The worth of a thing is the price of a thing. The worth of a person is the wealth of a person. Neoliberalism tells you that you are valuable exclusively in terms of your activity in the marketplace—in Wordsworth’s phrase, your getting and spending.”

Deresiewicz goes on to outline more familiar facts such as the plummeting not just of majors in English and the Humanities but also in the physical sciences such as physics, chemistry, geology, and astronomy that have declined by 60 percent. Even math, by 2013, had fallen to be the chosen major of only 1.1 percent of graduates. Instead, it is all about the instrumental needs of the marketplace–critical thinking, imagination, and any notion of the public good outside of the market be damned.

In the neoliberal world, we have “reached the end of history” and capitalism as we know it will go on “replicating itself forever” so there is no need to think beyond the present moment or in anything other than an individualistic and materialistic fashion.

And, as Deresiewicz notes, it’s a bipartisan mission:

We see it in our president’s swipe, last year, at art-history majors. “I promise you,” said our intellectual in chief, “folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art-history degree.” We see it in Governor Rick Scott’s proposal to charge liberal-arts majors higher tuition at Florida’s state universities. We see it, most spectacularly, in Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to rewrite the mission statement of the University of Wisconsin, one of the country’s great public systems. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Walker “proposed striking language about public service and improving the human condition, and Why Teach? In Defense of the Public Good: