Making Charter Schools Public Schools Requires Higher Standards of Accountability | Nonprofit Quarterly

Making Charter Schools Public Schools Requires Higher Standards of Accountability | Nonprofit Quarterly:

Making Charter Schools Public Schools Requires Higher Standards of Accountability

Last September, the Washington State Supreme Court held that “charter schools did not meet the definition of a common or public school and were not eligible for a share of state education funding.” While the ruling directly affected only the 1,200 students who were beginning their school year, the court highlighted the need to clearly define what makes a charter school a public school.

For many charter advocates, being free from the rules and regulations that apply to traditional public schools is an essential ingredient for success. This high level of autonomy allows charters great latitude to define their curriculum, their educational philosophy, and to operate outside of existing union contracts with their own governance structures. And therein lies the rub. Traditional public schools operate in a publicly accountable framework; their governing bodies are directly elected or appointed by an elected mayor or governor and their operations are held to the same level of oversight as are other public bodies in their jurisdictions. The Washington Supreme Court’s ruling asked us to think of another way to ensure public accountability for our schools.

As a new legislative year begins, two Washington lawmakers have proposed legislation that they believe will meet this challenge. According to the Seattle Times, their proposal is modeled on frameworks being used in Boston and Los Angeles, where charters fall under the direct auspices of the local school board:

Sen. Andy Billig, D-Spokane, and Sen. Michael Baumgartner, R-Spokane, are co-sponsors of the bill, which they think would pass constitutional muster because the charters would be directly accountable to an elected school board.

The proposed legislation tries to find the right balance point that can unlock innovation and still remain accountable.

Billig said that under his proposed bill, school districts would have much tighter control over the charter schools, with more freedom to revoke contracts or choose not to renew them. The charters still would differ from other public schools, with the power to decide the length of the school day and year, staffing levels, and how to train, hire and fire staff. They also would have their own privately appointed boards, but the elected school board would have to approve the details, which doesn’t occur now.

This structure brings traditional public schools and charter schools closer to alignment, but still leaves some key questions unresolved. Are educational innovation and improvement only possible outside the current structure of public education? Is the level of public engagement possible within the framework of traditional public education systems antithetical educational excellence? Are we willing to trade off the messiness of democratic governance for the hope of improved schools?—Martin LevineMaking Charter Schools Public Schools Requires Higher Standards of Accountability | Nonprofit Quarterly:

Farewell to the testocracy tsar | SocialistWorker.org

Farewell to the testocracy tsar | SocialistWorker.org:

Farewell to the testocracy tsar

 Jesse Hagopian, editor of More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing, bids adieu to the Secretary of Miseducation, in an article for The Progressive.

ARNE DUNCAN, the former U.S. Secretary of Education who left office at the close of 2015, has ended his tenure as one of the most destructive forces against public education in history.

"He's done more to bring our educational system, sometimes kicking and screaming, into the 21st century than anyone else," President Obama gushed announcing Duncan's pending resignation last October. Obama's words were meant as praise for the Secretary, but in this one aspect of the assessment of Duncan, I have to agree with the President. There can be no doubt that Duncan inflicted policies that caused students and educators to cry out for help.

Duncan's official title may have been Secretary of Education, but his real role has been the "testocracy tsar." His signature policies of Race to the Top and Common Core have been singularly focused on promoting high-stakes, standardized test-and-punish policies.

For example, in order for states to compete for grant money under Race to the Top, Duncan required them to increase the use of standardized testing in teacher evaluations. Duncan's championing of the Common Core State Standards--and the tests that came shrink-wrapped with them--has ushered in developmentally inappropriate standards in the early grades that punish late bloomers, while further entrenching the idea that the intellectual and emotional process of teaching and learning can be reduced to a test score. For many, Duncan will be remembered as an educational alchemist who attempted to turn education into "testucation"--with the average student today subjected to an outlandish 112 standardized tests between preschool and high school graduation. Thehighest concentration of these tests is in schools serving low-income students and students of color.

In addition, Duncan has been widely derided as "the national school superintendent" for the way he held waivers to the No Child Left Behind Act over the heads of state officials. NCLB set an unattainable goal of 100 percent proficiency in math and reading for every school in the country by 2014. As per the plan, not a single state reached the proficiency goals, and schools could only escape sanction by the federal government if they were granted a waiver--which Duncan would only grant to states who would agree to more testing.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THIS HIT home for me last year when my state of Washington refused to mandate standardized tests in teacher evaluations. Arne Duncan then took off his gloves and showed he wasn't afraid to punish children by revoking the NCLB waiver for the state. With the waiver gone, nearly all of Washington's schools were labeled failures, resulting in the loss of control of millions of dollars in federal money.

And yet, as harmful as Duncan has been to our nation's children, it's important not to credit him with having too much impact. Duncan wasn't a mastermind or a skilled political operative. He was a corporate yes man who did anything that was asked of him by the richest people the world has ever known. As Anthony Cody and others have detailed, billionaires such as Bill Gates, Eli Broad and the Walton family set the education Farewell to the testocracy tsar | SocialistWorker.org:

Do We Have to Send Our Kid to a Bad Public School? - The New York Times

Do We Have to Send Our Kid to a Bad Public School? - The New York Times:

Do We Have to Send Our Kid to a Bad Public School?

My wife and I are an interracial couple living in Oakland, Calif. We are both first-generation college graduates for whom solid public-school educations made all the difference. We are struggling with choosing a public school for our son, who will enter kindergarten this year. State test scores came out recently, and our neighborhood public school, which is filled with some of the city’s poorest kids, scored very low. I have to believe there is something seriously wrong with how the school is educating kids. (Otherwise, the school, which we know fairly well through volunteering, seems perfectly fine.) My wife and I both work full-time and also care for her mother and disabled sibling, so we know that we can’t put in the kind of time that would be required to turn the school around. We also fear that we cannot teach our son enough outside school hours to make up for a significant deficit in his education.

The Ethicist

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This raises a serious ethical quandary for us: Do we let our neighborhood kids and our own values down by fleeing to a higher-testing public school in a richer part of the city? Or do we let our son down by sending him to the neighborhood school, which we fear will not put him on solid educational footing? My instinct is that our higher duty is to our son. But I am also painfully aware that this kind of my-kid-comes-first mentality is exactly what created poor urban schools to begin with. We will probably feel lousy no matter what we decide to do. But from a purely ethical standpoint, should our child’s education or our neighborhood and its kids come first? Name Withheld

You don’t owe it to all the other children in your neighborhood to give their interests the same weight as their parents do. Your special obligations are to your own child. You suggest that a my-kids-come-first mentality is what creates problem schools. But doesn’t it also make for some of the best schools? (And keep in mind that educational excellence needn’t be a zero-sum game.) There’s no recognizably human world where parents treat their own children the same as everyone else’s. This doesn’t license lack of concern for those other kids, and you’re right to worry that your dysfunctional neighborhood school is failing those it serves. But you can do something about that — through involvement in local and state politics, for example — without sacrificing your son. And what you owe is not heroic commitment, ‘‘turning the school around’’ by your own efforts. You owe only your fair share of the duties of an engaged local citizen. Like everyone else, you should provide your son with a good education if you can; the school may be perfectly fine in every other respect, but that doesn’t make up for the appalling results.

My brother and I have been supporting our extravagant parents Do We Have to Send Our Kid to a Bad Public School? - The New York Times:

How Student Privacy and California’s SOPIPA May Affect You | Cooley GO

How Student Privacy and California’s SOPIPA May Affect You | Cooley GO:

HOW STUDENT PRIVACY AND CALIFORNIA’S SOPIPA MAY AFFECT YOU

 California recently passed the Student Online Personal Information Protection Act (“SOPIPA” a.k.a. “so-peep’-ah”), which is the first state law to comprehensively address student privacy and will be effective January 1, 2016.  SOPIPA applies fairly broadly to websites, applications and online services that focus on K-12 students and is designed to protect personal information on K-12 students.  Even if your business is not based in California, SOPIPA will apply if you will be collecting covered information from California K-12 students.

Does SOPIPA Apply To You?

Even if you don’t think your company is in the EdTech market, SOPIPA may apply.  To be subject to SOPIPA, you must know that your offering is being used for K-12 school purposes and was designed and marketed for K-12 purposes.  As this is a new law, there is little guidance yet as to what that means, but if your site is used by K-12 students, keep reading!  SOPIPA does not apply, however, to a general audience (for example Google Search, which of course “happens” to be used by K-12 students, but is not designed for their use specifically).

What Information Do You Need To Worry About?

If SOPIPA applies to your business, it protects personally identifiable information or materials, in any media or format, that

• is provided to you by a student or parent to  for K-12 school purposes;

• is provided to you by an agent of the K-12 school, school district, or county office of education; or
• is gathered by you through your service and is descriptive of a student or otherwise identifies a student.

This information can be painfully broad, including information in the student’s educational record, first and last name, home address, telephone number, email address, or other information that allows physical or online contact, discipline records, test results, special education data, juvenile dependency records, grades, evaluations, criminal records, medical records, health records, social security number, biometric information, disabilities, socioeconomic information, food purchases, political affiliations, religious information, text messages, documents, student identifiers, search activity, photos, voice recordings, or geolocation information.

What Can’t You Do With SOPIPA-Protected Data?

Well, that’s a long list!  SOPIPA prohibits:

• Engaging in targeted advertising on your service using the information proscribed;
• Targeted advertising elsewhere using information collected or created;
• Using information created or collected for the purpose of creating a profile about students, other than in furtherance of K-12 school purposes;
• Selling the information (except in connection with merger or acquisition where the purchaser is also bound by SOPIPA); and
• Disclosing, except in specified circumstances, any collected or created information about a student unless made in furtherance of the K-12 purpose you serve where the information is not further disclosed unless to allow or improve functionality within the student’s classroom or school.

So, How Do You Comply?

. SOPIPA imposes the following security and deletion requirements on Covered Services

• Security requirements: You could be required to implement and maintain reasonable (whatever that means!) security procedures and practices appropriate to the nature of the information.
• Deletion requirements: You also may be required to delete information if the school or district requests deletion of data under the control of the school or district.

We strongly recommend you speak with an attorney well-versed in SOPIPA to help interpret the requirements in your specific circumstances.

What Happens If You Don’t Comply?

What may be most unique about SOPIPA, for website operators with experience in the EdTech sector, is the fact that it imposes direct liability on those operators (i.e., the law applies directly to those entities as opposed to indirectly through contractual obligations from their customers). This is in stark contrast with the most well-known educational privacy law—the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”), which does not apply directly to website operators.  FERPA only applies directly to educational institutions that receive federal funding.  SOPIPA is new enough that we don’t yet know what sorts of penalties will be imposed or which entities will be targeted for such penalties, but we believe that suits will fall under “unfair competition” claims.

The Good News: Several Ways You Can Still Use Data

There is some good news here.  Under SOPIPA you CAN use the information you gather, even if subject to SOPIPA, for:

• maintaining, developing, supporting, improving, and diagnosing your services (or related purposes);
• legitimate research purposes as allowed by state or federal law and under the direction of a school, school district, or state department of education (and in compliance with the above restrictions on creating of profiles and advertising);
• creating and then using de-identified data within your services to improve educational products or to demonstrate the effectiveness of your services;
• sharing de-identified and aggregated student information for the development and improvement of educational sites, services, or applications;
• adaptive learning or customized student learning purposes; and
• marketing educational products directly to parents so long as the marketing does not result from the use of Covered Information obtained by you through your services.

Practical Tips

If SOPIPA applies to your company’s activities, you would be required to be in compliance. We recommend all website operators that collect information from K-12 students take the following steps.

• Determine whether your online services are covered under SOPIPA and, if so, whether you collect the type of information protected under SOPIPA;
• If you do collect this type of information and are covered by SOPIPA, put into place procedural and technical measures designed to ensure the information is not used for any of the restricted purposes or otherwise disclosed in violation of the law;
• Conduct a threat and risk assessment (TRA) to determine what security measures would be appropriate for your particular service;
• Set up technical, physical, and administrative security measures commensurate with the sensitive nature of the applicable information (which may include developing new and/or revising existing policies and procedures and (using industry best practices such as encryption to protect the data both in transit and at rest on your services); and
• Review your existing agreements with subcontractors and consider amending existing and/or future contracts to require subcontractors to comply with SOPIPA. Consider whether indemnification by your subcontractors may be appropriate. Similar FERPA provisions are also advisable.How Student Privacy and California’s SOPIPA May Affect You | Cooley GO:

Vaccines, Fluoride and Breastfeeding: A Primer to the Parenting Fights of Portland - Willamette Week

Vaccines, Fluoride and Breastfeeding: A Primer to the Parenting Fights of Portland - Willamette Week:

Vaccines, Fluoride and Breastfeeding: A Primer to the Parenting Fights of Portland

Your guide to the most divisive issues in Portland parenting.

In a city already as sanctimonious as Portland, it probably comes as no surprise that the child-rearing scene is a minefield of enlightened folks ready to tell you that your precious little hump dumpling will not grow up to be a Harvard Ph.D.-holding MacArthur Genius who saved an endangered species of monkey during his stint in the Peace Corps. No! He will be a meth-addicted convicted felon living in your basement, because YOU USED THE WORD "NO"/FORMULA-FED/TOXIFIED HIS VIRGIN SKIN WITH CHLORINE-SATURATED PAPER DIAPERS.

Most of these judgments will take place in the regionally passive-aggressive-appropriate forum of Facebook posts and comments directed at complete strangers in the grocery store, but even if you're not the immediate recipient of such well-meaning advice, know that all eyes are on you at all times. Judging.

On that note, here are the top 10 ways you, as a Portland parent, are probably screwing up.

1. Your neighborhood public school.

Proponents say: Sending your child to your neighborhood school—warts and all, regardless of test scores, absentee rates, ambivalent principals and overcrowding—is the only way to attain true equity across the entire district and improve neighborhood schools as a whole. Defecting to a charter school, a language-immersion program or, God forbid, private school, is akin to throwing your neighbors to the wolves, and makes you a horrible human being.

Opponents say: I'm not going to sacrifice my child's educational prospects for a nebulous greater good.

Typical insult: "Parental involvement is what makes the difference when it comes to school. And don't you want your child to experience diversity?"

2. Vaccines.

Proponents say: Remember polio?

Opponents say: The government doesn't get to tell me what to inject into my child. Plus, herd immunity!

Typical insult: "Fuck you."

3. Breastfeeding.

Proponents say: Breast milk is the only food specifically designed for your baby and contains crucial disease-fighting antibodies, plus it releases Vaccines, Fluoride and Breastfeeding: A Primer to the Parenting Fights of Portland - Willamette Week:

A healthy child has a better chance to learn: Editorial | NOLA.com

A healthy child has a better chance to learn: Editorial | NOLA.com:

A healthy child has a better chance to learn: Editorial

According to the study, the average income needed by a single parent in New Orleans with one child is $51,264. That figure rises with more children in a home.

The strain of poverty and poor health makes it more difficult for many youngsters in Louisiana to succeed in school. Roughly 28 percent of children statewide are living in poverty. The percentage is even higher in New Orleans, where the child poverty rate is 44 percent, according to the Data Center. Although Louisiana has increased the number of children covered by Medicaid, there are still gaps in health care statewide and thousands of children are vulnerable.

Louisiana also lags behind other states in academic achievement. Strong schools are essential to changing that, of course. But it also is important to make sure that children aren't dragged down by poor health, hunger or other hardships.

In an effort to do that, the state is adopting the holistic model developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Legislature last year charged the Department of Health and Hospitals, Department of Education, United Way of Southeast Louisiana, the New Orleans-based Childhood and Family Learning Foundation and others with developing a plan to implement the CDC's Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child program statewide.

That effort is still in the planning stage, but it got a big boost this week with a generous $250,000 donation from an anonymous donor to United Way. The money will help launch the health initiative in schools across the state, United Way president and CEO Michael Williamson said.

"Decades of research shows healthier children are better students — more able to succeed in school and in life," the United Way said in a press release about the donation. The donation will help pay for a plan to identify health issues that affect students and coordinate care for them.

When children are dealing with health problems, they are more likely to fall behind — and perhaps more likely to drop out of school. That limits their ability to get a decent-paying job and could keep them mired in poverty.

"Given that a healthy child makes a better learner, the goal is to reduce the number of school-aged children who experience health barriers to learning and establish programs aimed at evaluating and addressing the health status and need of each child," Mr. Williamson said.

The "whole child" model focuses on health education, nutrition, wellness, school climate, health services, counseling and social services, community involvement, family engagement and physical education, among other areas.

United Way and the Childhood and Family Learning Foundation are already working together on coordinated health care at a dozen schools in New Orleans. The plan now is to expand those efforts statewide.

Phyllis Landrieu, co-founder, president and CEO of the family learning foundation, said the effort could make a major difference in children's lives.  "A consistent and comprehensive statewide process for preventive health screenings every year for all students in all schools could assure reaching all children in need," she said.

Improving the health of children will not only help them succeed in school now, but should improve their opportunities in the long run.

Statewide, 1-in-3 married-parent families and 4-in-5 single-mother families don't make enough money to be economically secure, according to a January 2015 study by the Jesuit Social Research Institute at Loyola University.

Researchers looked at cost of living data to calculate the amount the average household needs to pay for essentials and live a "modest but dignified" lifestyle.

According to the study, the average income needed by a single parent in New Orleans with one child is $51,264. That figure rises with more children in a home.

Strengthening students' ability to learn could allow those children to eventually compete for better-paying jobs — and give their families more financial security.  A healthy child has a better chance to learn: Editorial | NOLA.com:

Anti-union SCOTUS Challenge Threatens Church-State Separation

Anti-union SCOTUS Challenge Threatens Church-State Separation:

Anti-union SCOTUS Challenge Threatens Church-State Separation

The Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association case not only puts public-sector unions in danger, it risks opening a new chapter in the war over religion in public schools. 

(Photo: Shutterstock)

A version of this article was originally published in the December 2015 issue ofClarion, the newspaper of the Professional Staff Congress-CUNY.

On Monday, the Supreme Court will take up Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a case with profound implications for the future of public-sector labor unions, and the labor movement as a whole. At issue is the underpinning of public-sector unionism—that public employees who opt out of union membership can still be obligated to pay for their individual share of the services and collective bargaining they receive from the union. The Court could even decide to make union membership an opt-in rather than an opt-out proposition, allowing the public employees unions are required to represent to glean the benefits of representation without paying dues.

While the plaintiffs in Friedrichs base their claims on a free speech argument that many find dubious, tucked away in the case lies another, real First Amendment concern: the separation of church and state. The lead plaintiff in the challenge before the High Court is Rebecca Friedrichs, a teacher in California’s Savanna School District; she is joined in the suit by nine additional individuals, and one organization: the Christian Educators Association International (CEAI), which bills itself as an alternative to the “secular” teachers’ unions, and argues openly that the Constitution does not bar teachers from imparting their Christian faith in their classrooms.

Should those unions find themselves on the losing side of the Friedrichs case, an important bulwark against the incursion of religion in public schools will be undermined.

“Many public-school educators believe that they must make their schools God-less under the banner of ‘separation of church and state,’” CEAI’s executive director, Finn Laursen, has written, “to the extent that an environment is created that is hostile to religion.”

The teachers’ unions, Laursen maintains, “have such control that student needs become secondary” to those of the union. In that “hostile” public-school environment, according to Laursen, “the sin nature [sic] of mankind is accepted and even promoted.” There are “forces are at work,” he writes, that aim to “control the minds of our children by systematically promoting such things as sexual orientation being genetically driven and same sex marriage being acceptable under the banner of tolerance.”

Representing CEAI and the other plaintiffs is the Center for Individual Rights, a pro-bono law firm whose donors are linked to the Koch brothers, the billionaires known for their opposition to labor unions.

The CEAI casts public schools as settings ripe for proselytizing, and its members as the foot soldiers in a battle for the students’ minds—and souls. “There are over 50 million students in our public schools, 70 million parents, three and a half million teachers,” Laursen said in a 2007 video titled “Christian Teacher Core Values.” That represents nearly 124 million people, he added, “many of them Anti-union SCOTUS Challenge Threatens Church-State Separation:

Public preschools attempt to accommodate diverse languages of students | EdSource

Public preschools attempt to accommodate diverse languages of students | EdSource:

Public preschools attempt to accommodate diverse languages of students

Teacher Lien Nguyen got up in front of a class of 3-year-olds and gave a lesson typical of a preschool: Where are your eyes, nose and hair?

But Nguyen did something not heard in most classrooms: She repeated each body part in Vietnamese.

Most of the class understood, as 16 of the 23 children spoke Vietnamese.

While Spanish is by far the most common language other than English in California’s publicly funded pre-kindergarten programs, they enroll children who speak a variety of languages, reflecting the pockets of ethnic communities dotting California. In Los Angeles County alone, 224 languages and dialects are spoken by children in Head Start and the California State Preschool Program.

Preschool programs are playing a key role in helping children who speak languages other than English get ready for kindergarten. More than half of students in those two programs – the largest ones statewide – speak a language other than English at home.

Vietnamese was ranked the third most common home language – behind Spanish and English – in the state preschool program in 2013-14 and is also the third most common language in K-12. Head Start lists “East Asian languages” as the third most common home language.

Many of those Vietnamese-speaking children attend preschools near Little Saigon, the largest enclave of Vietnamese people outside of Vietnam, centered in Public preschools attempt to accommodate diverse languages of students | EdSource:

Cerf, the new “decider” in Newark, decides to break the unions | Bob Braun's Ledger

Cerf, the new “decider” in Newark, decides to break the unions | Bob Braun's Ledger:

Cerf, the new “decider” in Newark, decides to break the unions

Christopher Cerf, the state-appointed superintendent of the Newark schools, has unilaterally taken actions that threaten the future of collective  bargaining rights of the city’s school employee unions–and maybe even the future of the unions. Cerf announced he was imposing a salary settlement on members of the City Association of School Administrtators (CASA), the union representing school principals,  and he directed that prescription benefits plans be changed without a new agreement with the Newark Teachers Union (NTU).

“I am making the decision,” Cerf wrote in a letter to Tina Taylor, CASA’s president, saying he would unilaterally impose a new salary guide on principals and other administrators and take away a $6 million “contract ratification bonus” because, in his view, the union had waited to long to reach an agreement. His words were reminiscent of Gov. Chris Christie’s warnings to then newly-elected mayor Ras Baraka that he–Christie–was the decider of what happened in and to Newark schools.

“It’s clear that this latest move by Cerf is an attempt to break the CASA union,” said Tina Taylor, CASA’s president. The union has not had a new contract since 2009.

NTU’s Abeigon

At the same time, Cerf’s “chief talent officer,” Vanessa Rodriguez, announced in a letter to the provider of prescription drug benefits, the General Prescription Plan (GPP) that, “It is a decision of Newark Public Schools to cancel our Prescription coverage” for school employee unions, including the NTU. She demanded that the GPP turn over to her all information about subscribers held by the provider.

The prescription plan, provided under contract with the Newark Supplemental Fringe Benefits Program (SBF),  ends Feb. 1, Rodriguez said.

“We’re going to court,” said NTU President John Abeigon, who contended Cerf acted “with no financial discussion with the Newark Advisory Board (and) without any power to do so.”

Abeigon said Cerf’s decision to cancel the prescription contract as of Feb. 1came after the union refused to drop the SFB-backed prescription plan. The union Cerf, the new “decider” in Newark, decides to break the unions | Bob Braun's Ledger:

My Daughter is Not a Widget | gadflyonthewallblog

My Daughter is Not a Widget | gadflyonthewallblog:

My Daughter is Not a Widget

“I’m not sure public schools understand that we’re their customer—that we, the business community, are your customer. What they don’t understand is they are producing a product at the end of that high school graduation. Now is that product in a form that we, the customer, can use it? Or is it defective, and we’re not interested? American schools have got to step up the performance level—or they’re basically turning out defective products that have no future. Unfortunately, the defective products are human beings. So it’s really serious. It’s tragic. But that’s where we find ourselves today.”
–Rex Tillerson, ExxonMobil CEO

My daughter just turned seven during this holiday season.

She loves to draw. She’ll take over the dinning room table and call it her office. Over the course of a single hour, she can render a complete story with full color images supporting a handwritten plot.

These narratives usually star super heroes, cartoon characters and sometimes her mommy and daddy. In these flights of fantasy, I’ve traveled to worlds lit by distant suns, been a contestant on a Food Network cooking show, and even been a karate pupil to a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sensei.

That little girl is my pride and joy. I love her more than anything else in this world.

Make no mistake – She is not anyone’s product.

She is not a cog to fit into your machine. She is not merchandise, a commodity, a My Daughter is Not a Widget | gadflyonthewallblog:

New education law puts more pressure on states to serve English learners | EdSource

New education law puts more pressure on states to serve English learners | EdSource:

New education law puts more pressure on states to serve English learners

Delia Pompa

The Every Student Succeeds Act, which President Barack Obama signed into law last month, includes important policies that recognize the needs and diversity of English learners in an effort to close the ongoing achievement gap between them and other students. The bill, which reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also crucially maintains accountability for improving academic achievement of English learners  – a hallmark of the last reauthorization, known as the No Child Left Behind Act.

Given the new law’s overall thrust of reducing federal authority in education, however, ensuring that the needs of English learners are met will be complicated by the fact that education agencies in 50 states and the District of Columbia will be interpreting the new mandates and perhaps implementing them differently.

The law has many strengths with respect to the nation’s approximately 5 million English learners in K-12 classrooms. The most far-reaching change requires that states include English language proficiency in their accountability frameworks under Title I, the provision that governs accountability for all low-income students.

Previously, accountability for growth in language proficiency was not included in general accountability provisions. With this change, how well English learners do on language proficiency assessments has greater consequences than ever before. Now, states must set their own goals for achievement on English proficiency assessments as well as for achievement on statewide math and language arts assessments. Together, results from these three assessments will be included along with at least one other academic indicator chosen by the state to count more than other indicators in statewide accountability systems. The change gives English learners a higher profile in accountability systems and reflects their growing importance in overall student achievement because of their increasing numbers.

Placing English learners in the law’s primary achievement and accountability framework will be of particular importance for California and other states and districts with the largest concentrations of English learner students. Of California’s approximately 6 million K-12 students, one in four is classified as an English learner, a far higher proportion than any other state.

In another significant change, states are now required to have a standardized process for classifying students as English learners, as well as a standardized process for how English learners exit special services (or how they are reclassified as English proficient). Up to now, many states have had a hodgepodge of English learner entry and exit criteria across districts, resulting in inconsistent assessment of needs and provision of services for students. Under the new New education law puts more pressure on states to serve English learners | EdSource:

ASL Teacher has ALS and loses both of her voices | Reclaim Reform

ASL Teacher has ALS and loses both of her voices | Reclaim Reform:

ASL Teacher has ALS and loses both of her voices

Karen Dyer, an American Sign Language (ASL) teacher, has ALS which was once called Lou Gehrig’s Disease; this is a progressive neurodegenerative disease which has caused her to lose both her vocal abilities and her hand movements.

Karen Dyer has lived her adult life with two voices—her speaking voice and the “voice” of her hands. As an ASL teacher, mentor, consultant, interpreter and actress, she has awakened a new level of awareness within our theatre community of what it means to communicate with your hands.

She introduced the character of Chester the Jester into the Children’s Programming. Chester never spoke, only signed. As a result, countless children left our theatre smiling and talking to each other with their hands.

Karen’s good friends are attempting to raise funds via a GoFundMe site.

The expenses and needs that accompany this disease, over and above health care coverage, can be emotionally, psychologically and financially debilitating. Our goal is to ease the financial burden of home modifications, transportation needs and in-home care.

If you can afford to help Karen Dyer, please do so. For more information and to contribute, please go to her GoFundMe site.

(I know that this is a legitimate situation because my wife’s dearest friend is also a friend of Karen Dyer. Although they both live outside of Philadelphia, a thousand miles away from me and my wife, we also hope that you can help Karen and her family during this crisis.)ASL Teacher has ALS and loses both of her voices | Reclaim Reform:

Receivership: Union battle & Common Core assessments | WBFO

Receivership: Union battle & Common Core assessments | WBFO:

Receivership: Union battle & Common Core assessments

As receivership plans for 15-of Buffalo's most struggling public schools could mean changes to the school day, the teachers union is planning to fight the new rule. WBFO's Focus on Education Reporter Eileen Buckley says one city school teacher calls receivership 'union busting'.  

 "They want to divide and conquer the unions, not just Buffalo, but across the state," said Mel Holden, Teacher at City Honors and Buffalo school parent.  

Holden tells WBFO News schools should be a stable place that families can rely on for their children to attend. Holden said she believes receivership will only destabilize troubled city schools, fearing they could be turned into charter schools that are not always a success. 

"It doesn't have the best interest of communities and children in mind. In addition creating this whole union busting. It's nothing  good for teachers, nothing good for the students, nothing good for the parents," responded Holden.

The Common Core assessments also come into play in receivership. Buffalo Parent Teacher Organization Co-chair Larry Scott said both the State Education Department and Common Core Task Force have 'flubbed' the receivership process.

"And the big question remains, because these schools placed in receivership -- it Receivership: Union battle & Common Core assessments | WBFO: