Education Reform’s Very Bad Week

10/29/2015 – Education Reform’s Very Bad Week:

Education Reform’s Very Bad Week

October 29, 2015 Subscribe

THIS WEEK: Now Who’s Making Excuses … Capping Tests Won’t Help … School-To-Prison Pipeline … Online Charters Stink … Deaths From High School Football

TOP STORY

Education Reform’s Very Bad, God-Awful Week

By Jeff Bryant

“Because of all the big money behind current education policies, it’s difficult to see any real break in the status quo, but anyone who believes that cracking down harder on neighborhood schools while pushing for privately operated charters are the necessary “reforms” our education system needs has to admit this past week was a huge downer … The big take-away is that education reform has never been as much about getting policy right as it has been about getting the politics right. So any work to improve education in the policy shop will be for naught if we don’t match or exceed that level of effort on the political front.”
Read more …

NEWS AND VIEWS

NAEPscuses: Making Sense Of Excuse-Making From The No-Excuses Contingent

National Education Policy Center

NEPC Director Kevin Welner and Managing Director William Mathis write, “Lower grades on the Nation’s Report Card are … bad news for those who have been vigorously advocating for ‘no excuses’ approaches – standards-based testing and accountability policies like No Child Left Behind … Promises of education’s test-driven reformers over the past couple decades have been unfulfilled … It has distracted policymakers’ attention away from the extensive research showing … achievement is caused by opportunities to learn … They assured us that success was a simple matter of adults looking beyond crumbling buildings and looking away from the real-life challenges of living with racism or poverty. As a substitute, we were told to look toward a ‘no excuses’ expectation for all children … Any benefits of test-based accountability policies are at best very small, and any meager benefits teased out are more than counterbalanced by negative unintended consequences.”
Read more …

Why Obama’s New Plan To Cap Standardized Testing Won’t Work

The Washington Post

Education journalist Valerie Strauss writes on her blog, “Solutions offered by the [Obama] administration – apparently to calm an anti-testing rebellion around the country – don’t much move the needle. They won’t cut into testing time and test prep all that much, if at all, and they won’t eliminate what is arguably a bigger problem: the high stakes associated with the exams … The Testing Action Plan does not, incidentally, recommend a specific limit on test prep time … The Testing Action Plan also does not call for the elimination of using standardized test scores to evaluate educators … For years we’ve heard teachers complain that test scores don’t come in a timely manner for them to use the scores to help individual students … The testing culture is entrenched in our schools and that those who profit both financially and academically from the tests won’t let it go easily.”
Read more …

The School-To-Prison Pipeline, Explained

Vox

“Juvenile crime rates are plummeting … But school discipline policies are moving in the opposite direction: out-of-school suspensions have increased about 10% since 2000. They have more than doubled since the 1970s … Black students are three times more likely to be suspended or expelled than white students … Administrators started relying more heavily on actual police … About 92,000 students were arrested in school during the 2011-2012 school year … And most of those are low-level violations… When a school allows a School Resource Officer to arrest a student … they’re turning that student over to the juvenile justice system. That makes it that much easier for a student to get a juvenile record … Punishment for a second offense is likely to be much harsher … [Some] schools are exploring restorative justice programs, which focus on forming relationships between teachers, students, and administrators and giving students an opportunity to resolve problems by talking about them.”
Read more …

Cyber Charters Have ‘Overwhelming Negative Impact,’ CREDO Study Finds

Education Week

“Students who take classes over the Internet through online charter schools make dramatically less academic progress than their counterparts in traditional schools … Gains that online charter students saw in math were so limited, it was ‘literally as though the student did not go to school for the entire year’ … Such schools enroll about 200,000 full-time students across 26 states … More than two-thirds of online charter schools had weaker overall academic growth than similar brick-and-mortar schools. In math, 88% of online charters had weaker academic growth than their comparison schools … Full-time online charter schools now enroll about 8% of charter students nationwide.”
Read more …

We Had No Idea This Many Kids Have Died Playing High School Football This Year

Mother Jones

“Since the start of the high school football season, five high school football players have died following on-field injuries, matching both last year’s total and the average number of football-related deaths since the late 1990s … Between 2005 and 2014, another 92 high school football players died indirectly from the sport, with causes ranging from heart-related issues to heat stroke and water intoxication … Amid lingering unease over the long-term effects of concussions, some schools have considered getting rid of football altogether … Notably, only 37% of public high schools had access to a full-time athletic trainer … Historically, compared to other high school sports, football has accounted for a large majority of catastrophic injuries.”
Read more …

10/29/2015 – Education Reform’s Very Bad Week:

Florida teacher's 'deeply personal' resignation letter goes viral

Florida teacher's 'deeply personal' resignation letter goes viral:

Florida teacher's 'deeply personal' resignation letter goes viral

There's been more than a little talk about our education system lately; parents and teachers alike are frustrated over the test-focused curriculum they're asked to put kids through. Former Polk County Florida teacher Wendy Bradshaw is finished with the system and isn't shy about why.

Bradshaw, who has both a master's and doctorate degree in education, is fed up with the way we teach our children, and when it came time for her to quit, she didn't mince any words in why she was leaving the field she loves. She shared her resignation letter on a public Facebook post, and now it's spreading like wildfire:

Her clearly heartfelt letter is long but worth the read. It covers a lot of what parents are frustrated about with the education system as a whole, particularly the aspect of testing, which Bradshaw says flies in the face of everything educators know to be appropriate about teaching kids.

Bradshaw begins by talking about how much she loves the field of education, and to be sure, you really must love a job that is so overtaxing and underappreciated (not to mention underpaid) as teaching to put yourself through what could potentially take a decade or more of education to do it. But in the end, there's one thing that is keeping her from continuing in the classroom, and it would break any parent's heart:

I just cannot justify making students cry anymore. They cry with frustration as they are asked to attempt tasks well out of their zone of proximal development. They cry as their hands shake trying to use an antiquated computer mouse on a ten year old desktop computer which they have little experience with, as the computer lab is always closed for testing. Their shoulders slump with defeat as they are put in front of poorly written tests that they cannot read, but must attempt. Their eyes fill with tears as they hunt for letters they have only recently learned so that they can type in responses with little hands which are too small to span the keyboard.

More: Girl arrested for checking her cellphone

Some kids are great at tests. Some even thrive in that environment. But the majority of children, particularly at the age Bradshaw is referring to — kindergarten through second grade — don't and shouldn't be expected to. It isn't developmentally appropriate and in essence sets children up to fail. At that age, school serves a different purpose. It's for learning the ropes, for making friends and for play-driven learning, not for getting familiar with scan-tron machines and learning how to manage test-induced stress.

Any parent with a child of testing age knows exactly where she's coming from. With so much money tied up in how kids perform on arbitrary tests, there is way too much pressure on kids to perform at an age where they aren't equipped to manage the havoc that pressure can wreak on their little brains and bodies.

More: Parents ask school to remove photo of girl with Down syndrome from yearbook

Indeed, it was the birth of her own child that spurred her to action. In what might be the most poignant part of her letter, Bradshaw talks about the birth of her daughter: 

On June 8, 2015 my life changed when I gave birth to my daughter. I remember cradling her in the hospital bed on our first night together and thinking, “In five years you will be in kindergarten and will go to school with me.” That thought should have brought me joy, but instead it brought dread. I will not subject my child to this disordered system, and I can no longer in good conscience be a part of it myself. Please accept my resignation from Polk County Public Schools.

We ask a lot of our teachers. We want them highly trained. We want them to do Florida teacher's 'deeply personal' resignation letter goes viral:

Obama administration weighs in on transgender bathroom debate - Yahoo News

Obama administration weighs in on transgender bathroom debate - Yahoo News:

Obama administration weighs in on transgender bathroom debate

The US Department of Education and the Department of Justice issued a joint statement in a friend-of-the-court brief in support of a student suing for the right to use the boys' restroom.

Schools that prevent transgender students from using restrooms for the gender with which they identify may be violation of federal law, according to the Obama administration.

This is not the first time the Obama administration has moved in favor of transgender rights. In April of this year, the White House announced that it would be opening its first gender-neutral restroom, which would allow more federal employees and visitors who identify as transgender greater peace of mind.

The argument was initially put forward by the Department of Education (DOEd) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) in a friend-of-the-court brief backing a Virginia teenager named Gavin Grimm who is suing for the right to use the boys’ restrooms at his Virginia high school.

Recommended: How much do you know about gay rights in America? Take the quiz!

The brief suggests that the Gloucester County School Board's requirement that Gavin must use either the girls’ restrooms or a unisex bathroom can be considered unlawful bias under Title IX, the federal law prohibiting gender-based discrimination.

The policy prevents Gavin from enjoying “a benefit that every other student at this school enjoys: access to restrooms that are consistent with his or her gender identity," lawyers with DOEd and DOJ wrote in their filing. “Treating a student differently from other students because his birth-assigned sex diverges from his gender identity constitutes differential treatment on the basis of sex under Title IX."

The brief, while not legally binding, "sends a crucial message to schools across the country – transgender youth are valuable members of our community who are entitled to full protection of the law," Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin told the Associated Press. "No one should be humiliated or marginalized by the adults responsible for helping them to achieve."

Gavin was born female but identifies as male. He came out as transgender to his parents in the spring of 2014, and was allowed to use the boys’ restrooms at Gloucester High School until some other families complained. The school board then voted to restrict transgender students to single-stall unisex facilities and those bathrooms that correlate with their biological sex.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued to overturn that policy in June, claiming that the policy was grounds for sex discrimination.

In July, when the Justice Department first expressed a desire to weigh in on Gavin’s lawsuit, Gloucester County Attorney Ted Wilmot told the Daily Press newspaper in Newport News, Virginia that “existing court precedents do not support the idea that the school board's restroom rules violate Title IX.”

In September, a federal judge sided with the school board, dismissing the ACLU’s sex discrimination claim. The case is now pending before the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

This report contains material from the Associated PresObama administration weighs in on transgender bathroom debate - Yahoo News:

Damning Report Shows How Charter Schools Dump Struggling Students: Gothamist

Damning Report Shows How Charter Schools Dump Struggling Students: Gothamist:

Damning Report Shows How Charter Schools Dump Struggling Students

Parents like charter schools because they are intensely student-focused. Hedge fund managerslike charter schools because they provide a model for private education that is publicly funded. Governor Cuomo likes charter schools because hedge fund managers like charter schools (and because the Mayor ran opposing them). Sure they might be "polarizing," with their strict discipline, higher suspension rates, and frequent teacher burnout, but they get (test) results. Now a New York Times investigation reveals what charter opponents have been saying all along: they actively try to shed struggling students and those with special needs to keep their success rate high.

Using a bevy of anonymous sources, Kate Taylor reports that Success Academy, the largest charter network in the city, targets underperforming students who misbehave as potential candidates for expulsion.

While it's difficult to formally expel children from charter schools because of the public funds they receive, it's much easier to repeatedly suspend problem children and hope their parents take the hint.

Monique Jeffrey said her son, who was in kindergarten last year, was suspended so many times she “stopped counting.” In the middle of the year, Ms. Jeffrey said, the school’s education manager, Rebecca Fleischman, told her that her son had emotional and behavioral issues the school could not handle and that she should look for another school. Ms. Jeffrey withdrew him at the end of the year.

At Success Academy in Fort Greene, the principal made a list of 16 students under the headline "Got to Go." Nine of those students later left.

Other emails obtained by the Times show administrators and teachers at Success schools mulling how to designate a child as a special needs student so that the Success could plausibly tell their parent they were unequipped to teach them.

The notes also appear to allude to the possibility of getting one child on the “Got to Go” list classified as a 12:1:1 special education student. Those students are entitled to classrooms limited to 12 students, with one teacher and one aide, so Success Academy, which offers Damning Report Shows How Charter Schools Dump Struggling Students: Gothamist:

Education reformer fired for suggesting radical change

Education reformer fired for suggesting radical change:

Jacques: Reformer fired for suggesting radical change

Greg Harris, the state director of StudentsFirst in Ohio, decided to weigh in on the Detroit school reform debate. And now he’s the former state director.

Harris got fired for a guest piece he wrote for The Detroit News last Friday. Apparently, he hadn’t received permission from his counterpart at the StudentsFirst Michigan office before writing the piece that struck a raw nerve with some of the key players in the Detroit school turnaround.

Firing Harris seems over the top. After all, he had spent some time in Detroit in 2011 as the interim director of Excellent Schools Detroit, so his perspective was valid.

In addition, while Harris’ ideas were provocative, they were well-reasoned. He suggested that Detroit Public Schools be converted to an all-charter district for financial and academic reasons. This is a concept that has worked in New Orleans, following Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of city schools in 2005. And a growing number of cities are relying more heavily on charter schools.

Yet some thought Harris’ opinions were too radical, including top officials within StudentsFirst, the education reform organization founded by former Washington, D.C., school chief Michelle Rhee.

“Our team in Michigan has worked tirelessly for policies that will make Detroit schools better and only our team members in Michigan are qualified to discuss these important issues,” Tim Melton, StudentsFirst vice president of legislative affairs wrote in a news release, which also stated Harris was fired. Melton has Michigan ties, having served several terms in the state House prior to taking this national job.

But maybe radical is just what Detroit needs.

It’s also the approach Rhee took. She formed the organization in 2010 as a way to help states push through important legislative changes to boost teacher performance and school accountability. Rhee is also an advocate of charter schools, although she stops short of saying they are the only option.

A few years ago, Rhee wrote a book about her work with StudentsFirst, as well as her time as chancellor of Washington, D.C. public schools. She titled her book “Radical.”

Rhee has never been afraid of pushing against the education establishment and Education reformer fired for suggesting radical change:

Who's Behind Friedrichs? The right-wing one-percenters who are funding a mega-attack on unions

Who's Behind Friedrichs?:

Who's Behind Friedrichs?

The right-wing one-percenters who are funding a mega-attack on unions

As the current term of the U.S. Supreme Court opens this autumn, looming on the docket is Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a case designed to decimate public-sector unions. While it may not come to that—even the most knowledgeable Court-watchers are unsure how the justices will rule—the stakes are high. A decision is expected before the term ends in June.

The case was, in effect, invited by Justice Samuel Alito, who penned the majority opinion in Harris v. Quinn, a 2014 case in which the court ruled against the union representing home-care workers in Illinois. In Harris, as Harold Meyerson wrotehere, Alito devoted half of his opinion to considering the constitutionality of public-sector unions’ right to collect “fair share” fees from those who have opted out of union membership. These fees cover the worker’s share of the resources the union spent on negotiating a contract, representing workers in grievance procedures, and other services that benefit the entire workforce. They are lower than the dues assessed the union’s members, whose payments also cover the cost of their union’s political activities.

The right of unions to collect fair share fees was settled by the court’s unanimous decision in 1977’s Abood v. Detroit Board of Education. In her dissenting opinion inHarris, Justice Elena Kagan noted that the fair-share issues Alito brought up were not even before the court in Harris. Alito’s questioning of the Abood precedent, however, signaled an inclination by the conservative majority to revisit it.

Alito’s invitation to reconsider Aboodhelped ensure that Friedrichs tore through the legal system at high speed. But the real force propelling Friedrichs’gallop through the courts was the Center for Individual Rights (CIR), the right-wing pro-bono law group that is representing teacher Rebecca Friedrichs and her fellow plaintiffs: At each stage in the legal process, CIR attorneys asked the courts to rule against their own clients, with the apparent interest of moving the case up to the Supreme Court as quickly as possible.

“It just seems really nefarious,” says Frank Deale, a professor at the CUNY School of Law. “In fact, it’s collusive, in a way. You’re setting up this false scenario, this false conflict, in order to get a Supreme Court ruling. The Center for Individual Rights didn’t even make an argument [in the lower-court filings]. They asked for the court to rule for the defendant, and then they got rewarded for it.”

In addition to Rebecca Friedrichs, the plaintiffs include nine other California schoolteachers, who have all opted out of union membership. They’re bringing suit against the California Teachers Association in a bid to relieve themselves of having to pay their fair share, via agency fees, for the services the union is required by law to provide to them, including contract negotiation and adjudication of grievances. But the Court’s ultimate decision could reach further than the issue of agency fees, in ways that could threaten the very existence of unions. A narrow ruling, of course, could have a lesser effect.

Should the Friedrichs plaintiffs succeed in all their claims before the high court, they could cause public-sector unions to have significant drops in membership, since all the workers covered under their union contract could cease payment of any dues or fees to the union, even though the union would still be legally obligated to provide them with services. The unions would have to sign up their current members to collect payments from them again, causing them to devote additional staff and resources to organizing. As well, the resources unions could devote to political action could be substantially diminished—a possible reason why, with the 2016 elections looming, right-wing organizations have been so determined to fast-forward the case to the Supremes.

WHEN THE CENTER FOR Individual Rights first came on the scene in 1989, Frank Deale was on the staff of the Center for Constitutional Rights, the organization that made its mark in the field of civil rights. “When I first heard their name I said, ‘For Who's Behind Friedrichs?:

Jindal and the Core: Louisiana snubs the Manchurian Candidate | The Lens

Jindal and the Core: Louisiana snubs the Manchurian Candidate | The Lens:

Jindal and the Core: Louisiana snubs the Manchurian Candidate

Diane Ravitch, the high-profile New York academic and blogger, is probably the punditocracy’s most relentless opponent of what’s been happening in public education here since Katrina. Charter schools and the choices they provide families, high-stakes testing to assure student achievement and teacher competence — all that stuff is anathema to her. As is the Common Core.

Failed governor turned presidential wannabe Bobby Jindal still postures as a fan of school reform — even after presiding over savage and repeated cuts to LSU and a push toward vouchering, so students can leave public education altogether and carry taxpayer dollars into religious schools of sometimes shockingly low quality. And like Ravitch, he has emerged as an angry foe of the Common Core.

Ravitch, a darling of teacher unions, is — these days, anyway — a creature of the left. Jindal, his hopes pinned on overcoming dismal poll numbers in Iowa, panders to the far right.

But are they really all that different? Not in the eyes of Louisiana voters, to judge from Saturday’s elections to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Neither Ravitch nor Jindal was on the ballot last weekend, but to the extent voters took any note of their posturing in the run-up to the election, both got handed their heads.

All three BESE candidates backed by Ravitch’s Network for Public Education — Lee Barrios, Jason France and Lottie Beebe — were spurned by voters. The more crushing defeat was Jindal’s: the implicit victory for state Superintendent of Education John White, once the apple of Jindal’s eye, now his whipping boy.

To the relief of the school-reform leadership in New Orleans, the incoming state school board, like the one it succeeds, will be peopled predominantly by folk who favor the Common Core. That is expected to be true no matter what happens in the two mop-up runoffs for BESE seats next month. That means BESE can be counted on to continue siding with White against Jindal’s effort to get rid of the Common Core — or a successor governor’s effort to get rid of White.

White, briefly superintendent of the Recovery School District in New Orleans, began preparing the state for the new standards and tests as soon as Jindal lifted him up as his nominee for the top state education job three years ago.

Summer before last, Jindal put a wet finger in the wind and decided he’d better reverse course on the Common Core, the set of benchmarks he had heartily embraced as a way to bring Louisiana schools up to par with better-performing states across the nation.

White, who has gained national visibility as an eduction leader, stood his ground and continued preparing for the Common Core. Jindal and the Core: Louisiana snubs the Manchurian Candidate | The Lens:

Saving Students From A Shattered System: Debates and the standardized test.

Saving Students From A Shattered System: Debates and the standardized test.:

Debates and the standardized test.

On and on ad nauseam candidates are spewing out their one liners trying to get the most points on the debates. Like standardized tests, they are a national disgrace.  They depend on simple answers to complex questions forcing the simple minded in the viewing audience to cheer or boo over utter nonsense.

Why is this the case?  Allow me to quote George Carlin: " They don't want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking.  That's against their interest.  They want obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork and just dumb enough to passively accept it."  They want the Stepford families that believe that complex problems are simple if only they are elected.

However, I don't put the whole blame on the politicians.  They present what we the people and the tabloid media expect of them.  I do not agree, as was stated in the last GOP debate, that the liberal press is biased.  Judging by how they bashed Secretary Clinton and President Obama, they are equal opportunity bashers.  The media is owned by corporations that must have advertisers paying them big money or they fail.  In order to get sufficient ads, they must have viewers.  In order to get viewers they depend on simplistic gotcha news.  And it works. 

Look at Fox "news".  They aren't even tabloid, they are straight out Russian style propaganda. Remember the Ukraine situation where Russians said Ukraine supporters were aiming at Putin's plane and hit the passenger jet that was brought down killing many? Conspiracy theories are Saving Students From A Shattered System: Debates and the standardized test.:

Federal monitor finds phony records used to lie about special ed progress in Newark | Bob Braun's Ledger

Federal monitor finds phony records used to lie about special ed progress in Newark | Bob Braun's Ledger:

Federal monitor finds phony records used to lie about special ed progress in Newark

There are no words…

Employees of the state-run administration of the Newark schools may have tampered with documents essential for determining whether the state-operated district is complying with a federal court decision designed to ensure the city’s special education children are receiving services required by law.  Priscilla Petrosky, a court-appointed monitor reported that some obviously phony records  “compromised” the validity of assurances given to the court that the district was trying to comply with its order.

Petrosky also said the obvious manipulation of special education files raised issues about the “credibility” and “legitimacy” of documents the district’s state-appointed employees produced to prove it was complying with the court order.

The Education Law Center, which brought the underlying federal case on behalf of the city’s special education children, issued a statement indicating it had asked the state Attorney General  to “investigate whether anyone in NPS may have engaged in improper employment conduct or violated any laws. ”

Priscilla Petrosky

Petrosky found undated letters–all uniformly worded– in student files that contradicted other information in those files, leading her to believe they did not accurately reflect how well the district was complying with the federal court order handed down in 2012. The order imposed strict deadlines on the district Federal monitor finds phony records used to lie about special ed progress in Newark | Bob Braun's Ledger:

R-E-S-P-E-C-T | The Crunk Feminist Collective

R-E-S-P-E-C-T | The Crunk Feminist Collective:

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

“What do you think I want, respect or compliance?”

This was the question I posed my class this week, after I asked them to define the terms. For compliance they yelled out things like “following orders” and “obedience.” They defined “respect” as “valuing the thoughts of others” “being loyal,” and so on.

I asked them to define respect versus compliance for a few reasons. Last Friday, my class of mostly white college sophomores, juniors, and seniors was feeling particularly antsy. For many, my 11 o’clock class is their last one before their weekend begins and by the time I see them they are “ret to go.” But Last Friday took the cake. There were so many cellphones, so much scrolling through Facebook and Instagram. Here I am trying to engage them in a conversation about Toni Morrison and they are liking pictures and commenting on posts. This was very frustrating.

My general policy is to note who is using social media and file it away for future reference. This will simply affect their participation grade and I keep it pushing. If they are persistent, I pull them aside and ask what’s up. Ultimately, my students are grown and make choices. My pedagogical style does not emphasize shaming or policing.

But Friday felt different. I felt different. The magnitude of the disrespect welled up within me. When they started shuffling their books and bags at 11:45—5 minutes before class ends—I was too through.

“Class is not over until 11:50! Please stop putting your stuff away.”

Most of them stopped shuffling, but many just sat there looking at me blankly or sullenly for 5 minutes while I wrapped up a meager discussion with a handful of engaged students.

So, I had already planned to talk to my students when I returned to class the next week. This is a classroom community and we need to respect one another. They need to respect me. They need to respect themselves. We’ve R-E-S-P-E-C-T | The Crunk Feminist Collective:

Thinking about Darrell Steinberg and Angelique Ashby in a post-K.J. Sacramento

Sacramento News & Review - Thinking about Darrell Steinberg and Angelique Ashby in a post-K.J. Sacramento - Essay - Opinions - October 29, 2015:

Thinking about Darrell Steinberg and Angelique Ashby in a post-K.J. Sacramento

Cosmo Garvin pushes aside the Steinberg buzz to ask some real questions about the candidate

Really? It was the video that did it for you? The transcripts, that whole, “Again, I didn't recall us being one hundred percent naked” conversation—that was OK? But post the actual video of 17-year-old Mandi Koba telling her story to the police and suddenly it's, “Ugh, Kevin Johnson is a creep!”

All right, whatever.

In any case, there was really no point in Johnson running for mayor again. It wasn’t going to get any better for him, or his big-money backers, than “saving the Kings.”

And K.J.’s assorted mini-scandals and ethical lapses were starting to stick. Or at least they were getting the attention of reporters at national outlets, who were writing stories with a pronounced what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-Sacramento angle.

So, time for a new mayor.

If you’re looking for a less-handsy version of the Johnson administration, then Councilwoman Angelique Ashby may be a good bet. She’s spent the last five years as a loyal member of Team K.J., then launched her own campaign for mayor more or less simultaneously with Johnson’s announcement that he wouldn’t run again.

But it’s former state senator and political fixture Darrell Steinberg who is generating the excitement. A not-exactly-grassroots social-media campaign to “convince” Steinberg to run—comprised largely of Democratic politicians, party activists and fundraisers—materialized immediately after K.J.’s announcement.

Steinberg has broad appeal. In fact, lots of people who hate Johnson’s guts want Steinberg for mayor. In their eyes, Steinberg is a policy heavyweight where K.J. is all about branding and government-by-press-release. They see Steinberg as a man of integrity where Johnson is, well, not.

But is the culture of low-grade corruption and self-dealing that thrived under Johnson really going to improve in a Mayor Steinberg administration? I’m not so sure.

Believe me, I understand as well as most the differences between Johnson and Steinberg.Steinberg in many ways turned me on to public policy and public affairs. Anyone remember Steinberg’s Assembly Bill 680, to distribute sales taxes more equitably among local governments? No? I do. It was goddamn Sacramento News & Review - Thinking about Darrell Steinberg and Angelique Ashby in a post-K.J. Sacramento - Essay - Opinions - October 29, 2015:

2016-20: The Waltons Set Out to Promote “Choice Ecosystems” | deutsch29

2016-20: The Waltons Set Out to Promote “Choice Ecosystems” | deutsch29:

2016-20: The Waltons Set Out to Promote “Choice Ecosystems”

In September 2015, Jim and Alice Walton contributed a combined $400,000 to a Louisiana PAC in order to influence the October 2015 Louisiana state board of education election.

The Waltons have an eye on Louisiana, and it has to do with school choice in New Orleans. As of 2014, almost all public schools in New Orleans are charter schools, with 100 percent of the state-run Recovery School District (RSD) operating charter schools. (RSD currently has 63 schools.)

It seems that from 2016 to 2020, the Waltons plan to particularly expand their presence in New Orleans (and DC and Denver). They have a new plan for school choice, as noted in this October 2015 Grantmakers for Education report.

Here are excerpts from the Walton report, including what they supposedly learned on their way to buying what they want.

Of the $373 million the Walton Family Foundation contributed across its three focus areas in 2014, more than half, 54%, went to education. In 2014, funds were disbursed over four education categories: shaping public policy ($80.1 million); creating quality schools ($75.7 million); improving existing schools ($22.6 million); and research and evaluation ($2.5 million). Other education-related grants totaled an additional $21.6 million. …

The Foundation seeks to attract and develop talent to staff teaching, school 

2016-20: The Waltons Set Out to Promote “Choice Ecosystems” | deutsch29:

CURMUDGUCATION: The Only Good Standardized Test

CURMUDGUCATION: The Only Good Standardized Test:

The Only Good Standardized Test

As testing has risen once again to the surface of the ed policy soup,  I have found myself in versions of the same conversation, because people who like the idea of standardized testing really like the idea of standardized testing, and because I said the number of necessary standardized rests is zero.

Jennifer Borgioli Binis challenged me to be a little more precise in my language. I took exception toRobert Pondiscio's assertion that data from tests are the life blood of education and he took exception with my exception. Someone in the comments called me a "union shill." And a reporter asked me what the alternative to standardized testing would be. 

It's a fair question. Is there such a thing as a useful standardized test?

But First a Few Words about Opposition 

To have this conversation, we have to get one thing out of the way first. If you believe (and I think some reformsters sincerely believe it) that the only reason that teachers oppose the current high stakes test-and-punish status quo is because their self-serving union tells them to, you are blinding yourself to some real issues. First, there is a real gulf between national union leadership and rank and file teachers precisely because union opposition to reformster policies has been tepid at best. For the most part, NEA and AFT leadership is not whipping up opposition to ed reform policies-- they are trying to tamp it down.

The teacher opposition to testing comes first and foremost from teachers who are watching testing CURMUDGUCATION: The Only Good Standardized Test:

New Testing Makes No Sense - The Crucial VoiceThe Crucial Voice

New Testing Makes No Sense - The Crucial VoiceThe Crucial Voice:

New Testing Makes No Sense

Two “Super Supers” came to Idaho to bring us their wisdom. It is always good to listen to the voices of experience; it helps clarify things. It certainly threw light on some issues for me.

Dr. David P. Driscoll (MA) and Dr. Eric Smith (FL) were brought to Idaho by the Albertson Foundation, which has been financially supporting standards development in Idaho since 1997.

In describing their visit here, the Supers indicated that they were given some of our state data to review. It showed a couple of things that many across the country have knownfor years; we have a lack of consistency in the quality of our schools and those schools that show up on the bottom of the performance pile tend to do so repeatedly. This we have known.

These experts came to their conclusions by reviewing the data they were given; some of us have lived the reality, shouted it from the rooftops, and been brushed aside — because our observations were anecdotal, we can’t do our own research, attempt todraw logical conclusions from data, or we didn’t graduate from the right colleges? (I have New Testing Makes No Sense - The Crucial VoiceThe Crucial Voice:

David P. Driscoll

He has been a member of the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) since 2003. For the past two years, Dr. Driscoll has been appointed chair of NAGB by Secretary Arne Duncan. Dr. Driscoll serves on a number of national boards, including the Fordham Institute, Alliance for Excellent Education, U.S. Education Delivery Institute, and Teach Plus.

 Dr. Eric Smith

Smith previously served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees for The College Board, and was a member on the Board of Directors for the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program. He has served as Chair of the National Assessment of Title 1 Independent Review Panel since 2003 and was named Florida's Commissioner of Education in 2007.^{[citation needed]}

Smith has used his educational skill recently in Chile, while teaching the Chilean Army in the use and employment of Field Artillery.

Dr. Smith also served as Senior Vice President for College Readiness at the College Board and is a member emeritus of Chiefs for Change.

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Follow-Ups and Did You Know?

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Follow-Ups and Did You Know?:

Follow-Ups and Did You Know?

Did you know that the district has rank ordered programs/support activities in district buildings?  The reasoning is two-fold - for enactment of 1351 for smaller class sizes in K-3 and the growth in Seattle Schools.  Here's the list from a letter that Flip Herndon sent on Oct. 13, 2015 to "Seattle Public School Partners:"

1.       K-12 Instruction
2.       Preschool (because it requires dedicated space and licensing)
3.       Before and After Care (because it is more flexible in utilizing multi-use space)
4.       Other Youth Activities
5.       All other Activities

Currently, it looks like most of the impact will happen at the elementary level of buildings, but this space prioritization is applicable to all buildings. Additionally, an evaluation of space needs will happen on an annual basis and any impact to an organization or partner would be communicated as soon as possible to allow time transition. Just because you are receiving this letter, does not mean that you are losing space that is currently being used. This is a general notification. In the event that the space currently being used by your organization needs to be prioritized for K-12 instruction, a specific letter referring to the applicable lease would be sent with a timeline attached. 

You see that? Pre-K BEFORE other before/after school care.  

Budget Items from the Work Session:

Budget presentation (scroll down in document to see it).   Really interesting page 6 which is the Current Year Enrollment by Grade Band (prior three years plus a 10 year previous).  The growth has been largely in  grades 1-5 and high school enrollment has decreased since 2006.


Upside: potential prior year carryover support, teacher reassignments for adjusted enrollment and possible decrease in transportation expenditures.

Downside: acutal enrollment budget variance ($4.3M) and SEA labor contract above anticipated budget ($3.5M)

So the staffing adjustments are both a good and bad thing for the district's budget.  Interesting.

As well they are still waiting for find out about the OSPI/DoE SPED funding holdback of $3M.  The other unresolved issue is "unfunded needs" at $71M.  They identify these as:

• add 5 minutes to lunch/recess
• bell time shift
• African-American Initiative (which I believe only applies to boys)
• Close Opportunity GAP (sic)
• Sped/ELL program expansion
• start of school process improvements
• IB funding
• School funding model enhancements
• Restoration of pre-recession central operations support

I do not know what the second to last item means and I can't believe they want Seattle Schools Community Forum: Follow-Ups and Did You Know?: