60 minutes on Bat of Minerva | Cloaking Inequity

60 minutes on Bat of Minerva | Cloaking Inequity:

60 minutes on Bat of Minerva

Aristotle once said “For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.”

Today, I’d like to share 60 minutes on the Bat of Minerva

While I was in Minneapolis to give a keynote at the University of Minnesota (See “Lead Bravely.” How To Change the Story About Community-Based Education), I had the opportunity to sit down with Peter Shea for his show Bat of Minerva.

The Bat of Minerva is a regional cable interview show produced and directed by Peter Shea, who received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Minnesota and has worked as an instructor at Gustavus Adolphus College and Minnesota State University in Mankato.

For about 20 years, the Bat of Minerva has featured thoughtful people–scholars, activists, artists, farmers–talking about their life journeys, trajectories, stumblings. From these conversations, hints emerge about the landscape of the academy and the world outside, the varieties of scholarly and thoughtful lives.  The interviews also communicate a strong sense of the energy or passion or even annoyance which keeps creative people thinking and working, year after year.

The Bat airs at midnight between Saturday and Sunday on Minneapolis/Saint Paul regional channel 6, serving the Twin Cities metro area. Over the years, many IAS collaborators, fellows and guests have been interviewed and their conversations with Peter Shea can be viewed 60 minutes on Bat of Minerva | Cloaking Inequity:

What Sort of Assessment DOES Enhance Learning? - Living in Dialogue

What Sort of Assessment DOES Enhance Learning? - Living in Dialogue:

What Sort of Assessment DOES Enhance Learning?

By Anthony Cody.

In recent weeks we have heard President Obama talk about the value of tests – even as he acknowledges that they have become too pervasive. President Obama suggested we should have tests that “enhance instruction,” and “enhance teaching and learning.” Unfortunately, the standardized tests his administration has promoted and continues to require do none of these things.

There are, however, ways to assess learning that DO enhance learning, rather than stifle it. This assessment is done by the classroom teacher, and is directly connected to the work they have students do on a daily basis. This is called “formative” assessment, and it informs the teacher and the student about what the student is able to do. It helps the teacher shape their instruction to their students’ needs, and also provides feedback to students so they can stretch and grow.

About fifteen years ago, I was involved in a research project focused on this sort of assessment with Dr. Myron Atkin of Stanford University, and I learned how to engage my students in doing peer assessment of their work, and guide them towards higher quality.

We have become so obsessed with measuring student performance through tests of one sort or another, that this genuine teacher-driven assessment has been largely left behind. Even so-called formative assessments are now often packaged and sold with textbooks, or built into predetermined timelines. Back in 2009, I asked Dr. Atkin to explain how formative assessment works best, and here is his advice:

Dr. Atkin writes:

The impressive attention that formative assessment is receiving in today’s schools stems from seminal work by Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam in the late 1990s. They systematically reviewed the research literature and found 580 reports or chapters 

What Sort of Assessment DOES Enhance Learning? - Living in Dialogue:

LAUSD: When did education become political? The Board of Education - Change The LAUSD

LAUSD: When did education become political? The Board of Education - Change The LAUSD:

LAUSD: When did education become political? The Board of Education

The seven members of the school board are elected. Do they care about education or is it politics they care about? Are they educators, parents with school age children or are they aspiring politicians?

Warren Furutani and Jackie Goldberg, former school board members, got elected to serve in Sacramento. Rita Walters and Jose Huizar got elected to the City Council. Bobbie Fielder went to Congress.

It is name recognition. Once they are serving on the School Board, they find an elected seat that is to be vacated, they run, and since their name is known they win. Look at all the politicians who have switched between Sacramento and the Los Angeles City Council. They have become career politicians enjoying the perks, the attention, the limelight, and the fame. What else can they do?

When they see another elected office opening up do they remain on The Board of Education or are they bored of education?

Since so many members of the Board are not educators, how to they get their information?

The well entrenched bureaucrats.  

Those administrators and others in their section or department who have been there for years. Those same administrators who keep themselves in power by supplying information to the Board members and the Superintendent.  Those same administrators who never go to schools or talk to teachers. Those same administrators who set up programs, and create paperwork to keep themselves in office, and who are out of touch with the realities of education today.

These top administrators and their assistants, the Superintendent and his assistants, and the Local District Superintendent and assistants scratch each others backs, keep each other in authority, and maintain the bureaucratic excess and waste.  

A commenter to one of my columns wrote the following:

“At Beaudry, there is whole army of people who every day, all day long, go to meetings talking about things they know nothing about."

It is like the case of the chicken and the egg.  What comes first a new Board members seeking information from the well entrenched bureaucrats or the District downtown bureaucrats seeking to gain favor and maintain position and bureaucracy by offering information to the new members of the Board?

If the district were run as a business there would be someone LAUSD: When did education become political? The Board of Education - Change The LAUSD:

"The Beast Side" and "Chasin' the Gram" | John Thompson - Linkis.com

"The Beast Side" and "Chasin' the Gram" | John Thompson - Linkis.com:

"The Beast Side" and "Chasin' the Gram"

Being an inner city teacher, my favorite part in D. Watkins's great book, The Beast Side, is the chapter with the ironic title of "Chasin' the Gram." Watkins is a former drug dealer, so it would be easy to assume he is writing about cocaine. Instead, Watkins is sounding the alarm about another addictive threat - Instagram.

Although Watkins now teaches English 101 at Coppin State University, he had attended a school similar to the one where his nephew, Butta, was stuck in an in-house suspension class of some sort where:

School seemed like a jail, and level two - Butta's floor - was the psych ward. Students bolting up and down the hallways, desks taking flight, a trail of graded and ungraded papers scattered everywhere, fight videos being recorded on cell phones, Rich Homie Queen blasting at highest decibel, crap games and card games going down with children named Bitch and Fuckyou ...
Watkins and his sister had sought to get Butta out of a class covered by a sub who texted through the class and back to his "real teacher." But, "she was gone that day anyway - stomped down and beat up, we later learned, by eight-grade girls mad she had confiscated their cell phones."

Back when he was in school, Watkins couldn't appreciate the required reading, such as Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Now, he knows differently but "my perspective was different when I was a kid. I came from a neighborhood with shootouts, dirt bikes, police raids, junkie fights, block parties, and hoop tournaments. Adventures happened every day and Twain seemed corny to kids like us; fences "The Beast Side" and "Chasin' the Gram" | John Thompson - Linkis.com:

New State Programs Place the Emphasis on Training High-Quality Teachers - The Atlantic

New State Programs Place the Emphasis on Training High-Quality Teachers - The Atlantic:

A Renewed Focus on Training Teachers

Several state programs take a pointed approach to ensuring all students have access to high-quality educators.

Many states are ramping up their efforts to ensure student access to quality teachers, regardless of the students’ race, ethnicity, household income, or any of the other factors that have too often come to determine the quality of education provided to children across the country.

“All parents understand that strong teaching is fundamental to strong opportunities for their children. We as a country should treat that opportunity as a right that every family has—regardless of race, ethnicity or national origin, zip code, wealth, or first language,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a statement.

According to a Department of Education release last week, 33 states and the District of Columbia have department-approved plans to “ensure equitable access to excellent educators.”

In Alabama, the efforts are manifesting themselves in the new “Professional Pathways for Alabama Teachers” program, a pilot tiered-certification system that seeks to offer career-development opportunities for Alabama teachers that will help attract and support new teachers while improving retention and increasing recognition of the efforts of those who have been effective.

In Michigan, the “Michigan Teacher Corps” looks to attract and retain skilled teachers in the state’s lowest-performing schools that disproportionately serve low-income families and students of color.

In Howard County, Maryland, the local school district is partnering with McDaniel College on a new initiative they’re calling “Teachers for Tomorrow,” which looks to provide country students with a four-year paid internship experience that begins the moment they graduate from high school and prepares them to teach in the schools that reared them.

Based on the idea that more students in the county (and across the country) are increasingly from lower-income families and increasingly of color, the Howard County Public School System Superintendent Renee Foose said, “Our goal was to create a diverse workforce and to have an increased number of teachers with backgrounds” that mirror those of the students they’re teaching.

The program will provide full scholarships for 12 low-income students to attend McDaniel College in exchange for three years of service as school-system employees. Students are permitted to major in the discipline of their choice, but must minor in education. In addition, they will receive “a health-insurance plan New State Programs Place the Emphasis on Training High-Quality Teachers - The Atlantic:

Foundations fund L.A. Times’ education reporting. A conflict? - The Washington Post

Foundations fund L.A. Times’ education reporting. A conflict? - The Washington Post:

Foundations fund L.A. Times’ education reporting. A conflict?

The Los Angeles Times announced what seemed like good news for its readers in August: a new reporting initiative that would expand the paper’s coverage of local education.

“Our goal is to provide an ongoing, wide-ranging report card on K-12 education in Los Angeles, California and the nation,” wrote then-Publisher Austin Beutner. He noted that the project, called “Education Matters,” would be funded by a series of charitable organizations.

Except the newspaper left out a key detail: Some of the foundations funding “Education Matters” are among the most prominent advocates of public-education reform in Los Angeles. One of them is the principal backer of a proposal to convert nearly half of Los Angeles’s public schools into charter schools.

In other words, the Times’ new education-reporting project is being funded by some of the very organizations the new education-reporting project is likely to be covering.

The Times has said the foundations will provide $800,000, enough to cover the salaries of two education journalists for at least two years.

The Times has said the foundations’ money will provide $800,000, enough to cover the salaries of two education journalists for at least two years. (Richard Vogel/AP)

Nevertheless, the initiative has raised suspicions, most notably among teachers’ union representatives and others who oppose the reformers’ agenda. Can a news organization, they ask, take money from vested interests and cover the issues fairly?

“It’s dead wrong,” said Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of the United Teachers Los Angeles, the city’s largest teachers’ union. The Times’ readers, he added, “are harmed when they don’t know what they can trust in the biggest paper in Los Angeles.”

Three of the Times’ benefactors — the K&F Baxter Family Foundation, theWasserman Foundation, and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation — have been major supporters of charter and school-privatization efforts that are strongly opposed by teachers’ unions.

More specifically, the Broad Foundation developed the Los Angeles charter proposal, which would cost $490 million to create 260 new charter schools enrolling at least 130,000 students in the sprawling district (charters are publicly funded but independently operated schools that are usually non­union and exempt from work rules that govern traditional public schools).

The Broad Foundation’s chairman, billionaire businessman and philanthropist Eli Broad, has repeatedly expressed his interest in buying the Times. The newspaper’s owner, Tribune Publishing, has rejected his offers, reportedly including one this month.

Major news organizations have long tended to fund their own news-gathering activities, on the principle that taking money from another group could compromise their independence, or prompt readers or viewers to question their reporting.

But the practice isn’t unknown; NPR, a nonprofit organization, takes “grants” Foundations fund L.A. Times’ education reporting. A conflict? - The Washington Post:

Mathematica, CRPE, and CREDO Condemn Online Charter Schools in Three-Agency Report | janresseger

Mathematica, CRPE, and CREDO Condemn Online Charter Schools in Three-Agency Report | janresseger:

Mathematica, CRPE, and CREDO Condemn Online Charter Schools in Three-Agency Report

You can learn exhaustively about cyber charter schools in the National Study of Online Charter Schools, a major, three-part report released earlier this week.  Significantly, although one of the think tanks presenting the data—the Center on Reinventing Public Education—and the funder of the three-part report—the Walton Foundation—actively endorse school choice and charter schools overall, the report’s conclusions about the giant online academies are scathing.

What are online charter schools?  Mathematica Policy Research, author of the report’s first volume, Inside Online Charter Schools, explains: “Online charter schools—also known as virtual charters or cyber charters—are publicly-funded schools of choice that eschew physical school buildings and use technology to deliver education to students in their own homes.  These schools typically provide students with computers, software, and network-based resources, while also providing access to teachers via email, telephone, web, and/or teleconference.”  Mathematica examines 200 virtual schools that together serve approximately 200,000 students.  “Student enrollment in online charter schools is highest in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and California, each of which had more than 25,000 students enrolled in 2012-2013; together those three states account for half of the online charter enrollments nationwide.  In a short summary brief, Mathematica warns: “Our analysis indicates that the greatest challenge for online charter schools, in which student-teacher interactions are more limited than in conventional schools, is maintaining student engagement… Perhaps to compensate for limited student-teacher interaction, online charter schools expect parents to provide significant instructional support.”  Mathematica’s longer report concludes that cyber schools generally provide students with less live contact with a teacher each week than students in conventional schools have each day.

The report from the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), whose focus is the public 

Lead With Love [Spring Valley High Is Your School Too] | The Jose Vilson

Lead With Love [Spring Valley High Is Your School Too] | The Jose Vilson:

Lead With Love [Spring Valley High Is Your School Too]

Today, I finally saw some of my cockamamie student groupings come to a screeching halt when some of my best students started clashing with each other over how to approach their scientific notation project. My 280 lbs frame usually settles disagreements if I’m in proximity, but this was not one of those days. As I listened to their grievances, I picked apart the major contents and helped them work out the minor details without me.

In my younger days, I might have had a conniption, shifted a few students to different groups, or rolled my eyes hard. Today, I decided to lead with love.

Visions of seeing black teenagers dragged and flung halfway across a room still lay uncomfortably under my eyelids, along with other visions of incidents I’ve seen as a student and teacher. I’m not completely desensitized to this violence, I’ve had to resensitize myself to remind of the awesome work I undertake. I do mean awesome in the truest sense of the word. At any given moment, the Lead With Love [Spring Valley High Is Your School Too] | The Jose Vilson:

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Making the case against power philanthropy

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Making the case against power philanthropy:

Making the case against power philanthropy

Joanne Barkan is once again on the case of the new breed of muscle philanthropists who hide their obscene wealth in tax-sheltered foundations and use it to exercise unaccountable displays of power over public education and all aspects of public life. She makes the case that the super-rich don’t need billions of dollars in tax relief annually to exert their will in the public sphere.

Writes Barkan:

One hundred years later, big philanthropy still aims to solve the world’s problems—with foundation trustees deciding what is a problem and how to fix it. They may act with good intentions, but they define “good.” The arrangement remains thoroughly plutocratic: it is the exercise of wealth-derived power in the public sphere with minimal democratic controls and civic obligations.

Power philanthropists exercise greater control than ever over public ed. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation have taken the lead, but, says Barkan, other mega-foundations have joined in to underwrite the self-proclaimed “education reform movement.” Some of them are the Laura and John Arnold, Anschutz, Annie E. Casey, Michael and Schooling in the Ownership Society: Making the case against power philanthropy:

School Board Recall Vote Divides Colorado County | Al Jazeera America

School Board Recall Vote Divides Colorado County | Al Jazeera America:

School board recall vote in Colorado could have national implications

County election says a lot about larger political battles over educational choice, vouchers and curriculum control

Patterson International Elementary School teachers, students and parents protest a curriculum review committee proposed by the Jefferson County school board in Golden, Colorado, in October 2014.

Helen H. Richardson / The Denver Post / Getty Images

LAKEWOOD, Colo.­ — On a beautiful recent autumn Sunday afternoon, about 100 people are gathered in a hotel conference room in Lakewood to talk about schools.

At a summit sponsored by the Colorado chapter of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), they discussed how to increase the number of charter schools in the state, pay teachers on the basis of performance and use government money for students in private or even home schools.

And they strategized how to win school board elections in Jefferson County and other school districts around the state on Nov. 3.

Meanwhile, activist parents like Jeff Kirk are walking neighborhoods in the county — by student population, the second-largest school district in the state. They’re trying to persuade voters to recall three of the five Jefferson County school board members and elect an entirely new board.

It’s a battle over how children should be educated in this small corner of Colorado, from the issue of school choice to vouchers to curriculum disputes.

But this battle has ramifications far outside the school district, and it’s drawing attention on a national scale. It is a battle pitting heavy hitters like AFP, the small-government advocacy group founded by billionaire businessmen Charles Koch and David Koch, against teachers’ unions and their supporters.

It’s a battle being closely watched by educators and political operatives across the U.S. because JeffCo is the ultimate swing county in the key swing state of Colorado. That means success — or defeat — there could be replicated across the U.S.

“It’s for the control of our future as a country,” state Sen. Tim Neville, who is running for the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat for the state, told the AFP gathering. “It’s going to be relating to the presidential election.”

Low-turnout takeovers

Two years ago, about 33 percent of JeffCo voters turned out and elected three new school board members. The philosophy of the new board members was patterned after a 2009 school board takeover in nearby Douglas County, fueled by that county’s Republican Party.

The Douglas County board hired a new superintendent, ended bargaining with the teachers’ union and, perhaps School Board Recall Vote Divides Colorado County | Al Jazeera America:

A letter to give your principal at the beginning of the school year on testing | Seattle Education

A letter to give your principal at the beginning of the school year on testing | Seattle Education:

A letter to give your principal at the beginning of the school year on testing

…or any time during the school year.

From the Parents Across America website:

Model Parent Letter on Testing

A PAA-Roanoke Valley leader Laura Bowman shared this excellent model letter prepared by her PAA chapter for parents to bring to school at the beginning of the school year:

Dear_____________,

Parents are concerned with the number of standardized tests their children take each year. In addition, parents believe the time spent preparing for the tests is excessive and they see the emotional fallout from the pressure from standardized testing on their children and on their children’s teachers. The expense of the tests at a time when our schools are being historically under-funded, and teacher retention rates are at an all-time low, has parents questioning the use of their tax dollars for these tests.

Parents understand the need for a reasonable amount of accountability and assessment. However, parents believe the focus on standardized test scores to gauge student learning reduces their children to mere data points, narrows the curriculum, and robs their children of meaningful learning experiences in the classroom. Parents want their children to become lifelong lovers of learning, not good test takers.

Therefore, parents in your district are requesting the following information on the standardized tests their children will be subjected to this school year. If you deem these standardized tests vital to instruction and assessment, parents are requesting transparency and accountability on your part. In short, parents are asking that you justify the resources, including time and money, being spent in your school district, on standardized testing.

It would be helpful for your school district to provide an answer sheet to each parent at the start of the school year, detailing the answers to the questions below.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to your response and to the answers to the questions below.

Sincerely,

____________

Parent in your school district

1. How many standardized tests does my child have to take this year?
2. What are the names of these tests and what is the specific academic purpose of each one?
3. Where do these tests originate? Are they mandated by the state or are they the choice of the district?
4. How will these tests affect my child’s academic future or standing?
5. For each test, does the teacher see individual student results and have a chance to adjust individual instruction to help each student?
6. Who sees the scores, where will they be recorded, and for what purpose?
7. Do the scores become part of my child’s record?
8. What are the costs associated with the tests per student and to the district per grade level?
9. How much time does the administration of the test take?
10. What training is provided to staff to administer the test and how much time does that encompass?
11. Can you explain how test costs are used in a way that is in the best interest of the students?
12. How many staff are taken away from teaching or counseling duties to administer the tests?A letter to give your principal at the beginning of the school year on testing | Seattle Education:

NYC Public School Parents: FERPA complaint from Fatima Geidi to US Dept of Education re Eva Moskowitz violation of student privacy

NYC Public School Parents: FERPA complaint from Fatima Geidi to US Dept of Education re Eva Moskowitz violation of student privacy:

FERPA complaint from Fatima Geidi to US Dept of Education re Eva Moskowitz violation of student privacy

Since the original PBS program and the subsequent illegal disclosure of educational records by Eva Moskowitz (see our cease and desist letter), more details and instances of the widespread nature of suspensions and push-out tactics of Success Academy charters have been documented in this NY Times article.  

Fatima's FERPA complaint to the US Department of Education sent this morning is below; for more on how Moskowitz violated FERPA and the federal student privacy rights of Ms. Geidi's son, see this Slate article.  Sign the Color of Change petition, to demand that the US Dept of Education stop granting Success Charters millions of dollars and contributing to the Kindergarten to prison pipeline.  

October 30, 2015

U.S. Department of Education
Family Policy Compliance Office
400 Maryland Ave, SW
Washington, DC 20202-8520

By postal mail and email to: FERPA.Complaints@ed.gov 

My name is Fatima Geidi and I reside at the following address: [removed] I am the mother of [name removed] age 10.  [name removed] was a student at Upper West Success Academy charter school at 145 W 84th St, New York, NY 10024 from August 2011 to Feb. 2014.   

The principals of the school during that period were Caroline Roby and Paola Zalkind. The current principal of the school is Jennifer Haynes. The CEO (or Superintendent) of the Success Academy Network is Eva Moskowitz, whose office is located at the following address: 95 Pine Street, Floor 6, New York, NY 10005. 

On October 12, 2015, PBS News Hour ran a segment with an interview of my son [name removed] who spoke about his experiences at Upper West Success Charter Schools, where he was repeatedly suspended for minor offenses. His face and name appeared in the video, and his name in the transcript as well, which are posted here: [removed]

On October 19, Ann Powell, Executive Vice President of Public Affairs and Communications at Success Academy Charter Schools, sent out a media release to reporters, composed of a long letter from Ms. Moskowitz to Judy Woodruff of PBS that included non-directory personally identifiable information from my son’s education record in connection with certain disciplinary issues.  This media alert is attached, as well as the letter. The letter was posted on the Success Academy website the same day at: [removed]

I was not contacted at any time beforehand and did not give my consent to the disclosure of my son’s non-directory education record. 

The letter by Ms. Moskowitz includes an email from John Merrow of PBS, in which he wrote that I “was unwilling to release [my] son’s records.” This is further documented by PBS, in their response to the letter, where they write: “…the mother was not willing to allow Success Academy to release her son’s school records.”  Ms. Moskowitz herself wrote that I was “refusing to waive her son’s privacy rights.”  [removed]

I learned about this nonconsensual disclosure of my son’s non-directory information on October 20, from a friend.  I sent a letter to Ms. Moskowitz on October 22, NYC Public School Parents: FERPA complaint from Fatima Geidi to US Dept of Education re Eva Moskowitz violation of student privacy:

Malloy kicks the can so far down the road that it land’s right on our children’s heads - Wait What?

Malloy kicks the can so far down the road that it land’s right on our children’s heads - Wait What?:

Malloy kicks the can so far down the road that it land’s right on our children’s heads

The voters of Connecticut need to pay special attention to Governor Dannel Malloy’s irresponsible proposal to change the way that Connecticut funds its pension program for state employees.

Governor Malloy’s plan is nothing more than an outrageous maneuver to balance his failed state budgets on the backs of our children and their future.  As the title of yesterday’s Wait, What? blog stated – Connecticut: BEWARE of Governor Malloy’s most fiscally irresponsible budget proposal yet.

The CT Mirror’s Keith Phaneuf provides more information about Malloy’s proposals in his latest article, explaining that the new initiative violates one of the most fundamental promises Dannel Malloy made when he was running for governor in 2010.

Keith Phaneuf writes,

“One year after taking office, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy vowed to accelerate payments into the state’s cash-starved pension fund, much as a family might make extra mortgage payments now to lessen balloon payments looming in future years.”

But not surprisingly, although Malloy pushed through significant tax increases in 2011 and 2015, he used the additional funds to pay for other things and never followed through on his commitment to make those extra pension payments.

Now, in the face of new state budget problems, Malloy is completely reversing his stand on Malloy kicks the can so far down the road that it land’s right on our children’s heads - Wait What?:

Death threats, big money become part of Jeffco school board recall - The Denver Post

Death threats, big money become part of Jeffco school board recall - The Denver Post:

Death threats, big money become part of Jeffco school board recall 

Allegations of bullying, death threats part of increasingly partisan campaign in Jefferson County school board recall election

Death threats, allegations of bullying and fake social media accounts have all become part of the contentious school board recall election in Jefferson County, which is drawing large amounts of money and national attention.

The tension is rooted in philosophical differences about the use of charter schools, how teachers are paid and who should have access to free kindergarten. But, increasingly, the discussions have become about personal and partisan attacks.

"School boards were never meant to become a bully pulpit for politics," said Thomas Alsbury, a professor at Seattle Pacific University who researches school boards and district governance. "There's too much power and too much money involved now."

Campaign finance reports released this week show more than $450,000 has been raised by candidates and committees involved in the recall. But other organizations that act indirectly — including Americans for Prosperity, which supports the current board — do not have to file their spending. There are estimates that as much as $1 million already may have been spent on the recall.

Still, Alsbury says, the situation in Jefferson County is rare.

Tuesday's ballot includes a recall for three seats and a general election for the board's other two seats where members are not seeking re-election. If the recall is successful, the entire board for the state's second-largest school district could be new.

Ballotpedia, a nonprofit online publication that tracks elections and legislation, named theJefferson County school board election "the top election to watch" in the country this year — ahead of Louisiana's race for governor and Pennsylvania's filling of vacancies on its Supreme Death threats, big money become part of Jeffco school board recall - The Denver Post: 

At the Intersection of Money & Reform Part I: Teacher Compensation | School Finance 101

At the Intersection of Money & Reform Part I: Teacher Compensation | School Finance 101:

At the Intersection of Money & Reform Part I: Teacher Compensation

Pondering Chartering: Balancing Portfolios

October 30, 2015

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The blogging has been quiet for a while. This is partly because I feel like most issues that arise have already been dealt with somewhere on this blog. Also because I’ve been involved in several, simultaneous, long-term projects. These projects intersect with many topics I’ve addressed previously on this blog. At times, this blog serves […]

Posted in: Uncategorized

Pondering Chartering: Importance of Public/Private Distinctions

October 30, 2015

0

The blogging has been quiet for a while. This is partly because I feel like most issues that arise have already been dealt with somewhere on this blog. Also because I’ve been involved in several, simultaneous, long-term projects. These projects intersect with many topics I’ve addressed previously on this blog. At times, this blog serves […]

Posted in: Uncategorized

At the Intersection of Money & Reform Part II: Charter Schools

October 30, 2015

0

The blogging has been quiet for a while. This is partly because I feel like most issues that arise have already been dealt with somewhere on this blog. Also because I’ve been involved in several, simultaneous, long-term projects. These projects intersect with many topics I’ve addressed previously on this blog. At times, this blog serves […]

Posted in: Uncategorized

At the Intersection of Money & Reform Part I: Teacher Compensation | School Finance 101:

At the Intersection of Money & Reform Part I: Teacher Compensation

October 30, 2015

0

The blogging has been quiet for a while. This is partly because I feel like most issues that arise have already been dealt with somewhere on this blog. Also because I’ve been involved in several, simultaneous, long-term projects. These projects intersect with many topics I’ve addressed previously on this blog. At times, this blog serves […]

Posted in: Uncategorized

Schools Matter: Asshat!

Schools Matter: Asshat!:

Asshat!

When she reminded us the other day of Arne Duncan's spin after the 2013 bump in NAEP scores and after the 2015 dip in NAEP scores, Valerie Strauss captured for us what blatant ideology can breed in the ethically septic mouth of a fool:

. . . . reformers who have touted NAEP score increases in the past as evidence of  success are now trying to spin the newest results as anything but their the failure of their reforms. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, in 2013 for example, credited Common Core implementation for higher NAEP scores in some states. He said:

“In 2013, reading and math scores edged up nationally to new highs for fourth and eighth graders. It is particularly heartening that reading scores for eighth graders are up, after remaining relatively flat for the last decade. Achievement among the largest minority group in our nation’s public schools—Hispanic students—is also up since 2011. And higher-achieving students as a whole are making more progress in reading and math than in recent years.

“While progress on the NAEP continues to vary among the states, all eight states that had implemented the state-crafted Common Core State Standards at the time of the 2013 NAEP assessment showed improvement in at least one of the Reading and/or Mathematics assessments from 2009 to 2013—and none of the eight states had a decline in scores. [Emphasis added]

Fast forward to today, and Duncan has a different explanation for the lower scores. Brown reported:

Duncan defended those policies in a call with reporters Tuesday, saying that massive changes in schools often lead to a temporary drop in test scores while teachers and students adjust. But the new 

Schools Matter: Asshat!:

55 kids in a class? Typical at some Oregon online schools | OregonLive.com

55 kids in a class? Typical at some Oregon online schools | OregonLive.com:

55 kids in a class? Typical at some Oregon online schools

Classes at Oregon's two huge online public schools, Oregon Connections Academy and Oregon Virtual Academy, routinely include 55 students or more, the state reported Thursday.

No brick-and-mortar schools packed that many students into any math, English or science class last year, and few if any had a core course with 45 students, the state report and check-ins with principals indicate.

The new data constituted Oregon's most detailed look ever at how class sizes vary statewide. They make it possible to see which schools have not merely above average classroom rosters, but the very biggest in the state.

The two virtual schools, which receive roughly the same $7,000 per student of state and local taxes as other public schools, hire far fewer teachers in proportion to the number of students they serve. They rely on technology and on parents to help teachers motivate, teach, monitor and grade 50 or more students per online course.

Courses in online schools are run in a variety of ways that can differ by grade level, school and course design. Teachers generally offer some real-time instruction to the whole class delivered via web cam to students in their homes all over Oregon. But students also read textbooks and watch recorded online lessons on their own. Some quizzes and tests are graded by computer. The teacher is responsible for monitoring progress, answering questions, grading assignments and issuing course grades for every student in the class.

At Oregon Virtual Academy, which enrolled more than 1,600 students last year, the median class had 48 students and one teacher. A total of 24 core academic classes contained more than 55 students apiece.

Oregon Connections Academy, which enrolled nearly 4,000 students, had 54 core classes that included more than 55 students, including 15 science classes and 12 each of math and social studies, the state said. The online school provided incomplete information to the state, making it impossible to accurately determine its typical class size.

Statewide, the typical Oregon school had elementary classes averaging 25 students. In middle and high schools, the typical core academic course had 24 to 26 students, the state reported.

How online schools differ

Maintaining very large classes, as the online schools did, can drive down 55 kids in a class? Typical at some Oregon online schools | OregonLive.com:

What If Every High School Had A 'Justice Program' Instead Of A Cop? : NPR Ed : NPR

What If Every High School Had A 'Justice Program' Instead Of A Cop? : NPR Ed : NPR:

What If Every High School Had A 'Justice Program' Instead Of A Cop?

This week's viral videos of a Columbia, S.C. deputy's push-the-chair-over-and-drag-the-student arrest of a 16-year-old high school girl in her classroom has refocused attention on the expanding role of police in schools, "zero tolerance" discipline policies and the disproportionate punishment of minorities. The student in the case was African-American and the deputy, Ben Fields, is white.

The Richland County sheriff, Leon Lott, fired Fields on Wednesday. Witnesses say the student was disruptive and refused to leave the classroom. "What she did doesn't justify what our deputy did," Lott said. "He should not have thrown the student."

An attorney for Fields has said the deputy's actions were "justified and lawful."

NPR Ed has done lots of reporting on the racial gap in school discipline, including stories here, here and here. We've also written extensively about alternative discipline policies in schools. NPR's Code Switch team has also covered the topic.

We've also reported on the growing number of alternatives that seek to move school discipline away from approaches centered around punishment and law enforcement. As my earlier visit to an Oakland, Calif., middle school shows, district programs that bring students, teachers and parents together to talk through discipline problems is one such alternative. These "restorative justice" programs — when done right — can often work wonders.

An Alternative To Suspension And Expulsion: 'Circle Up!'What If Every High School Had A 'Justice Program' Instead Of A Cop? : NPR Ed : NPR: