Cooper Introduces Bill to Expand Funding for After-School Programs - Assemblymember Jim Cooper Representing the 9th California Assembly District

Cooper Introduces Bill to Expand Funding for After-School Programs - Assemblymember Jim Cooper Representing the 9th California Assembly District:

Cooper Introduces Bill to Expand Funding for After-School Programs

SACRAMENTO – Today, Assemblymember Jim Cooper (D-Elk Grove) introduced Assembly Bill 2663. The bill will increase funding to California’s After School Education and Safety program for low-income children.

“We must continue to invest in education and support students, especially those in disadvantaged communities,” said Assemblymember Jim Cooper. “After-school programs provide essential and meaningful academic and enrichment activities for students and help keep kids off the streets and out of trouble.”

The After School Education and Safety (ASES) program supports over 4,000 elementary and middle schools by offering after-school and summer programs to more than 400,000 students daily. The program operates at underserved schools with more than 80 percent of students participating in free and reduced-price meal programs.

AB 2663 will increase state funding to offset the costs of recent minimum wage increases and for the first time, will provide ASES with a statutory cost-of-living adjustment similar to other state programs.

AB 2663 is sponsored by California After School Coalition and will be heard in the Legislature in the coming months.

Assemblymember Cooper represents the Cities of Sacramento, Elk Grove, Galt, and Lodi.

Cooper Introduces Bill to Expand Funding for After-School Programs - Assemblymember Jim Cooper Representing the 9th California Assembly District: 

CURMUDGUCATION: Awful Mean Naughty Journalism

CURMUDGUCATION: Awful Mean Naughty Journalism:

Awful Mean Naughty Journalism

 Caroline Bermudez is senior writer and press secretary at Education Post, Peter Cunningham's  pro-reform rapid response war room created to help Tell the Reformsters' Story. And this week Bermudez took to Real Clear Education to complain that "Uninformed, Irresponsible Journalism Is Killing Needed Education Reform."


Bermudez wants to call out the anti-reform narrative, the "amalgamation of all the myths spewed forth against education reformers." These pieces are "political propaganda as nuanced as a jackhammer drilling into concrete." But those pieces come from people like Valerie Strauss and Jeff Bryant who, she implies, are eminently dismissable, but it makes her really sad when the New Yorker publishes film critic David Denby's "hollow critique" of the general anti-teacher tenor of education reform. And he did it without any data!! Or reliable evidence!! Bermudez's indignation would be more compelling if "No data or reliable evidence" were not the reformster movement's middle name. Can we talk about how Common Core arrived without a stitch of evidence to its name, not even for the very idea of using national standards to improve education, and it's still prancing around naked today? Or the kind of fake research regularly churned out by groups like TNTP or NCTQ?

But Bermudez is not here simply to register her righteous shock and blah-blah-blah over a major magazine pointing out what millions of teachers already know. She would also like to take a moment to mock all articles that disagree with the reformsters. She calls the anti-reform pieces "endemic" and notes that reformsters "utter familiar groans" when they come across these articles that so often "repeat the same sound bites."

And then she lists the things she's tired of hearing:

1. Education reformers disrespect teachers.
2. Reformers solely blame teachers for educational failure.
3. Poverty goes unacknowledged by reformers.
4. Public education is fine. Reformers are hysterical.
5. Charter schools privatize public education.
6. Reformers reflexively hate unions.

So, I guess the good news is that she has been listening, kind of? The bad news is that Bermudez does not offer any research, data or arguments in response to any of these alleged criticisms. But CURMUDGUCATION: Awful Mean Naughty Journalism:

What's the Matter with Detroit Schools? Pt I - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher

What's the Matter with Detroit Schools? Pt I - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher:

What's the Matter with Detroit Schools? Pt I

 Three years ago, in February of 2013, I spent five days at a conference around social justice, in Detroit. I wrote the next three blogs on what I saw and what I learned. I went back and re-read them today, in light of the recent events in Detroit. Have things gotten better in Detroit--or worse? Here (and over the next few days) are the edited blogs from 2013. Things have not gotten better, at all, under the most recent Emergency Manager, Darnell Earley (who also had a hand in the Flint water crisis).

In addition to the lockstep teaching to the tests, the teachers have posted horrifying pictures of dirty, unsafe buildings on social media. Their own Emergency Manager threated them when they called in sick to stage a protest--and told them they had a professional duty to snitch if they overheard planning for additional sickouts. The legislature's going after them, too. Here's the view from 2013:

You've probably seen the fun--and enlightening--meme/hashtag:#FirstWorldProblems.

Running out of hot water after a 10-minute shower? First world problem.

Can't get the book you're dying to read on Kindle? First world problem. And so on.

Most of our American problems end up being first world problems, including those in education. If you want proof, think back to the faces of children in Haiti after a devastating hurricane season, when makeshift schools were finally organized and they could spend part of their day sitting on benches, learning, with dozens of other children. Puts being reassigned to a portable in perspective, doesn't it?

However. I just spent the last five days in Detroit. I'm a firm believer in saying nice things about Detroit--much more about that later, in Part III--but if you've driven around in Detroit lately you know there are large chunks of the city where the term "first world" doesn't apply.

A panelist at the North Dakota Study Group, meeting in Detroit over the weekend, gives us some horrifying statistics: There are 50,000 homeless people in the city. There are 30,000 houses with no running water, 10,000 occupied homes with no power, and 40,000 homes in foreclosure. One-third of the land in the city is empty, vacant--and there's no supermarket in the city limits, so 90% of purchased "food" comes from 7-11s, gas stations and fast food outlets. Burned-out houses are everywhere, and there are entire neighborhoods where unemployment is universal.

How did Detroit go from being a vibrant, workingman's city full of large brick homes, ethnic neighborhoods, a place where the efforts of a growing and thriving middle class were visible everywhere--to a third world city in a first world nation? What impact has that had on public education in Detroit? And what can be done to educate students left in Detroit to believe in their own intellectual strengths and boundless creativity?

I spent 30 years teaching at the edge of the suburban ring around Detroit. When I started teaching, in the early 1970s, Detroit Public Schools had resources suburban districts envied: rich, extensive programming, beautiful old school buildings with handcrafted tiling, libraries with fireplaces and glass-front bookcases, a well-organized and experienced teaching force. A strong (but threatened) tax base.

Yes, I know about the checkered history of Detroit Public Schools--the slow slide from excellence to mismanagement. The strikes--and what happens when entire schools are filled with children born into deep poverty. I also know that for the past 14 years, a variety of power players, includingthree governors (one of them a Democrat), have decided that Detroit Public Schools can't handle their own affairs. And the alternative--heavily marketed start-up charters--haven't shown that they're the go-to answer, either.

The teachers I admire most in the world teach in the DPS system. About half of the National Board Certified Teachers in Michigan teach or taught in Detroit, by far the largest group in a single district in Michigan. Many of them have been offered jobs in charter schools looking to advertise their teaching excellence, but they prefer to keep working in neighborhood schools, where they're most needed. And it's not about preserving their seniority rights or the "fabulous" salaries public schools offer veteran teachers, because all that went away with a succession of professionally humiliating decisions by "emergency managers."

Back in the 1960s, Detroit activist James Boggs wrote about work vs. jobs. Work is labor--intellectual and physical--that leads to social contribution. The lunch-bucket auto workers who performed the same tasks on the line, day after day, were also putting a great country on wheels, building a national image--Motor City--and sharing in the good life (the local exemplar of which is a cottage in northern Michigan). Honest work.

A job, by contrast, is an economic exchange. You do what I want you to do, and I give you money, in return. Teachers in Detroit--teachers everywhere, in fact--have been shifted from the complex work of instruction and curriculum-building, to pursuit of "targeted learning goals" set by an outside management organization. A job, one that managers can fill with the lowest-cost employee available. 
Teaching somebody else's curriculum, based on nationally established standards, using predetermined instructional methods. Regular testing to evaluate "efficacy." Following a pacing chart set by someone who's never met your students. Being accountable to a "fidelity" expert.

These are first-world, technocratic problems, too. And they're not amusing. They're a threat to democratic education, and perhaps democracy itself.

In Part II, a visit to Catherine Ferguson Academy in Detroit, and more questions about the markers of a democratic education, and the ability of the people to uphold the nation's best idea: a free, high-quality, fully public education for every child.What's the Matter with Detroit Schools? Pt I - Teacher in a Strange Land - Education Week Teacher:

Louisiana Educator: Voucher School Losers Win on Getting a Better Education

Louisiana Educator: Voucher School Losers Win on Getting a Better Education:

Voucher School Losers Win on Getting a Better Education

Desperate to save the sub-standard voucher program that wastes millions of taxpayer dollars, John White's crack public relations specialists have put out a highly misleading press release claiming that the voucher students are really improving more than regular public school students on state tests. But White's friend, Will Sentell of The Advocate refused to give him the usual biased reporting on this privatization scheme.

You see, even with all this alleged improvement in test performance, the voucher schools perform just a smidgen above the performance of the Baton Rouge RSD charters and the Louisiana RSD charters that are the lowest performing schools in the state! So for children to transfer from mostly C or D public schools to go to a private school scoring at a D- level is not anything to brag about. But White's PR experts are under orders to always try to slant the reports to somehow portray almost total failure as dramatic progress!

Here is the truth: Research scientists from Berkeley, Duke and M.I.T. did a comparison of all students who asked to transfer to voucher schools in Louisiana in the past year. Since there were not enough seats available, a lottery was held and some students were denied access to the voucher schools completely at random. Then the researchers averaged the scores on state tests of the students who missed out on being selected for vouchers with the students who won the voucher lottery. What they found is that on average, the students who lost the lottery, performed better on state tests than did the voucher students. There is no amount of spinning of this data that can show that the voucher schools were a better choice for those children.

But here is one other important fact that is often overlooked by the media in reporting the small amount of progress of voucher students over a few years. Voucher schools have the same Louisiana Educator: Voucher School Losers Win on Getting a Better Education:

My Exchange with ACT’s Senior Director of Media and Public Relations | deutsch29

My Exchange with ACT’s Senior Director of Media and Public Relations | deutsch29:

My Exchange with ACT’s Senior Director of Media and Public Relations

On February 17, 2016, I wrote a post about ACT’s College and Career Readiness Standards, and I ended with a couple of questions that I had for ACT’s Senior Director of Media and Public Relations, Ed Colby, one of which was as follows:

Edward, how about a couple of examples of CC math and ELA standards that ACT/Aspire excludes for not being supported by ACT research. Could you please provide?

On February 19, 2016, Colby responded.

  

Ed Colby

In this post, I offer the details of my email exchanges with Colby, culminating in his answering my question about specific examples of Common Core standards that ACT does not test.

Here goes:

From: Mercedes Schneider [mailto:deutsch29@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2016 12:49 PM
To: Public Relations Department
Subject: question about press release

Dear ACT Public Relations Rep:

On February 11, 2016, ACT issued a press release, which includes the paragraph cited below:

http://www.act.org/newsroom/act-responds-to-findings-of-fordham-institute-study-on-next-generation-assessments/

The finding that ACT Aspire assessments adequately assess many but not all 

My Exchange with ACT’s Senior Director of Media and Public Relations | deutsch29:

Schools Matter: Judge Refuses to Stop Unfair and Unreliable Value Added System

Schools Matter: Judge Refuses to Stop Unfair and Unreliable Value Added System:

Judge Refuses to Stop Unfair and Unreliable Value Added System

 Not in the bolded section of this news story, the federal judge notes that the teachers have a strong case against the unreliable nature of the the Tennessee VAM system known as TVAAS.  He just refuses to do anything about it.

....TVAAS is a complex algorithm that aims to isolate the impact of individual teachers on their students’ learning, as measured by state tests. One of the nation’s first “value-added” formulas, it has inspired similar efforts in other states.

TVAAS scores have been calculated since the 1990s but started being used to help determine ratings, bonuses and tenure status only since 2011, when Tennessee overhauled its teacher evaluation law.

Under state law, TVAAS scores make up 35 percent of teachers’ ratings, with the rest based on in-person observations and “achievement measures,” which can include graduation rates, students’ AP or IB exam scores, or school-wide TVAAS scores.

The two teachers who filed the lawsuit, Lisa Trout and Mark Taylor, had strong ratings from classroom observations but TVAAS scores that were too low to make them eligible for bonuses from Knox County Schools. The district gives bonuses of up to $2,000 a year to teachers with strong ratings. Trout and Taylor charged that those scores should be discounted because only some of their students took the end-of-course exams used to Schools Matter: Judge Refuses to Stop Unfair and Unreliable Value Added System:

Some Characteristics Of Fascism in the early to mid 20th Century: Hmmmmm? | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing

Some Characteristics Of Fascism in the early to mid 20th Century: Hmmmmm? | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:

Some Characteristics Of Fascism in the early to mid 20th Century: Hmmmmm?

 If these ring any bells here in the early 21st century , it surely must be purely coincidence…or not!

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism – Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights – Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.”

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause – The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. “Controlled” Mass Media – In many cases the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives.

5. Obsession with National Security – Fear is used as a motivational tool.

6. Religion and Government are Intertwined – Leaders of fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.

7. Corporate Power is Protected – The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, Some Characteristics Of Fascism in the early to mid 20th Century: Hmmmmm? | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:

John King is trying to repair the Obama administration’s frayed relationship with teachers - The Washington Post

John King is trying to repair the Obama administration’s frayed relationship with teachers - The Washington Post:

John King is trying to repair the Obama administration’s frayed relationship with teachers

In one of his first major speeches as acting U.S. secretary of education, John King apologized to teachers for the role that the federal government has played in creating a climate in which teachers feel “attacked and unfairly blamed.”

To many teachers, King’s remarks at a Philadelphia high school late last month was an astonishing and welcome acknowledgment that the Obama administration, in pushing states to link teacher evaluations to student test scores, had helped create systems that seemed as if they were designed to punish teachers instead of help them get better.

For King, it was the beginning of what he describes as an important chance -- thanks to the new federal education law that President Obama signed in December — to reset the tone of conversation about teachers, teacher evaluation and the future of public schools in America.

“I think there’s just such an urgency around making sure that teachers feel valued in our society. It’s one of the things I worry a lot about,” King said in an interview with The Washington Post. “I want young people to see a future for themselves as teachers.”

[The next education secretary: Polarizing, powered by personal story]

Lily Eskelsen García, president of the National Education Association, said she appreciates the overtures from King, a former classroom teacher himself and Obama’s nominee for the permanent job of education secretary. The 

State's top educator tours Livermore charter schools accused of mismanagement | abc7news.com

State's top educator tours Livermore charter schools accused of mismanagement | abc7news.com:

STATE'S TOP EDUCATOR TOURS LIVERMORE CHARTER SCHOOLS ACCUSED OF MISMANAGEMENT

LIVERMORE, Calif. (KGO) --

Two schools in Livermore are known for their high performance, but district and city officials are accusing the corporation that runs them of mismanagement.

The allegations have caught the attention of the state's top educator California Department of Education Superintendent Tom Torlakson.

Torlakson emerged from a two-hour meeting to address a series of allegations against the Tri-Valley Learning Corporation, which operates the two charter schools in Livermore.

"I've had good discussion with the charter, with the city, with the school district," Torlakson said.

Among the allegations are that the corporation running the Livermore Valley Charter Schools failed to submit an audit, repay a debt to a community college, achieve ethnic balance, and charged expensive tuition to foreign exchange students.

There's also a charge that the two Chinese high school students were reported missing for a time by family members.

"There were allegations that some students were up in the air, missing for a short period of time, but I've been reassured that those girls are safe and they're back here in Livermore," Torlakson said. "Students leave campus, they do so without permission."

Attorney Derek Austin represents the Tri-Valley Learning Corporation and responded Friday to accusations about late audits. "Those things will ultimately bare themselves out and we will resolve those issues," Austin said.

State Supt. of Schools @TomTorlakson meets with @CityofLivermore and charter school officials to help settle diffs. pic.twitter.com/dG8ia1W0PW

— Laura Anthony (@LauraAnthony7) February 19, 2016

State's top educator tours Livermore charter schools accused of mismanagement | abc7news.com:

Wendy Lecker: Removing humans from education - StamfordAdvocate

Wendy Lecker: Removing humans from education - StamfordAdvocate:

Wendy Lecker: Removing humans from education

 The late education commentator Gerald Bracey once observed that technology “permits us now to do in nanoseconds things we shouldn’t be doing at all.” Nowhere is this observation more true than in the agenda of Connecticut’s superintendents’ association, CAPSS; specifically its promotion of a concept called “personalized learning.”

“Personalized learning” is an ill-defined term popular in the education reform world meaning different things to different advocates. The common thread is a heavy reliance on computers to teach children.

In CAPSS’ incoherent version, schools will no longer be age-graded, students will design their own curricula and progress when they develop “competencies” rather than completing a school year. Rather than being grouped according to age, students will be grouped according to “mastery.” In order to progress to the next level, children will have to undergo four standardized tests a year.

Of course, any system that depends on standardized tests for advancement cannot be “personalized.” In addition, the CAPSS plan institutionalizes tracking; a harmful educational practice rejected by the Connecticut State Board of Education. Worse still, CAPSS’ version of tracking, where there is no age-grading, would humiliate a student who fares poorly on standardized tests by grouping her with children years younger than she.

The CAPSS muddled vision also proposes students not necessarily learn in school, meaning that much learning will be conducted online; a method with little evidence of success.

This reliance on online learning is also troubling in light of research showing that reading online may negatively affect brain development. Online reading promotes superficial, non-linear reading which discourages sustained attention and Wendy Lecker: Removing humans from education - StamfordAdvocate:

No Pineapple Left Behind Review Impressions :: ZAM

No Pineapple Left Behind Review Impressions :: ZAM:

No Pineapple Left Behind Review Impressions

Education on education

Seth Alter was a teacher once. For six months. The experience left him so disillusioned that he quit the system entirely. Now, he’s made a game about it. 

The Boston-based game developer has made a small name for himself in the indie game world for making political and sociological satires that have the subtlety of a hammer to the head. His first was Neocolonialism, a Risk-like RTS that tasked players with becoming financial powerhouses that bankrupted countries (see what I mean?). This time, with No Pineapple Left Behind, he takes that same ideology to a more personal level: bankrupting your children’s humanity.

The title’s influences are concrete. Alter was a teacher in the aftermath of the No Child Left Behind Act, which required schools to meet certain standards in order to receive funding (the pineapple refers to an obtuse test question for eighth graders about a pineapple and a hare).

The structure of the game is similar. You are tasked with running a fictional school that has to meet goals in an allotted time. Some levels have you making money. Others challenge you to satisfy parents while also dealing with a hyperspace bus driver strike or keep a student from getting into a relationship. In any scenario, your main objective is to keep the kids from being, well, kids. Instead you have to strip their humanity and turn them into pineapples. Pineapples get good grades and take tests. They don’t have personalities. They don’t make friends. It all makes for a better educational experience.

Each level relies on different techniques that require the player to throw out sympathy in lieu of pragmatism. Teachers can level up and obtain special powers that can destroy friendships or encourage cheating. You can hire special faculty that brainwash students into going to class. If a teacher is low on energy from getting paid minimum wage, you can fire them before the end of the day, therefore not having to pay them.

No Pineapple Left Behind ReThere are some inconsistencies in No Pineapple Left Behind, but everything lines up in a way that exposes what Alter sees in America’s education system. And what he sees is very disheartening. 

The draw of something like No Pineapple Left Behind isn’t the game itself, which is simplistic and incomplete in some aspects. People travel through walls or get stuck in doorways. There are a multitude of menus that you need to bring up to accomplish tasks, but often get in the way of the board. While it does a decent job tutorializing and earlier levels introduce the player to rules and strategies, later stages become repetitive when there is little else to learn and the novelty of being horrible to children wears off.

But it does give crucial insight into a broken system and present it in a darkly comedic light. 

There are other fun touches, such as the children’s names, the alternate histories given to the towns, the superfluous stats which tell youview Impressions :: ZAM:

Why England is in the ‘guard’s van’ of school reform | News

Why England is in the ‘guard’s van’ of school reform | News:

Why England is in the ‘guard’s van’ of school reform

 Scotland’s education system may be creaking, but England’s is already broken. Its free-school model isn’t working and its business capital view is on the run

Britain has a teacher recruitment crisis. But it is not truly British. The complaint is much more spectacular in England. In Scotland, teaching is an attractive profession and while recruitment levels are disappointing, the issue is not as profound. The Scottish system is creaking; the English system has fallen over. What explains the difference?

The answer is simple. Scotland values a strong state educational system run by 32 local authorities that is staffed by well-trained and highly valued professionals who stay and grow in a secure and rewarding job. Teachers serve others, for most or all of their working life, in a cooperative profession that supports them to do this to the best of their abilities.

England no longer values these things. About half of its schools are now outside local authority control. England offers a business capital model that invests in education to yield short-term profits and keep down costs through shorter training, weakened security and tenure, and keeping salaries low by letting people go before they cost too much.

By comparison, Scotland models what is called professional capital: bringing in skilled as well as smart people; training them rigorously in university settings connected to practical environments; giving them time and support to collaborate on curriculum and other matters; and paying them to develop their leadership and their careers so that they can make effective decisions together and deliver better outcomes for young people.

In December, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published its review of Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence. I was one of four people on the review team. Like any system, Scotland’s isn’t perfect. But there is a strong foundation to build on – with a priority placed on valuing and developing teachers’ professional judgment.

When first minister Nicola Sturgeon opened the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement in Glasgow in January, she underlined the importance of the “professional judgment” of teachers. From Glasgow to Stornoway, teachers told our team that teaching today had Why England is in the ‘guard’s van’ of school reform | News:

Who Will Be Public Education’s Nixon? | The Merrow Report

Who Will Be Public Education’s Nixon? | The Merrow Report:

Who Will Be Public Education’s Nixon?

For decades, the United States and “Red China” had minimal contact.  Communist China was the third rail of politics and no politician could afford to appear to be ‘soft on Communism.’ After all, in the 1950’s the careers and lives of hundreds of people were destroyed because they were accused of having ‘lost China.’

Then, in February 1972, a politician with impeccable anti-Communist credentials did the unthinkable. President Richard Nixon went to China 44 years ago and ‘normalized’ diplomatic relations with that country.  Only an avowed foe of Communism could have accomplished that feat.

Public education needs its own Richard Nixon if it is ever going to escape the ‘test and punish’ death spiral that is distorting schooling almost beyond recognition.  Education’s Richard Nixon will have to be a strong advocate of testing who has seen the light, someone who has undergone conversion, the educational equivalent of Saul on the road to Damascus.

No testing critic from the left, no matter how eloquent, sensible, or correct, will be able to sway public opinion and move bureaucracies.  When Diane Ravitch, Randi Weingarten, Deborah Meier, or Peggy Robertson of United Opt Out speak out about the corrosive effects of excessive testing, their supporters say ‘Amen,’ but others shrug it off: “What else is new?” or “That’s what I’d expect them to say.”

Until a few months ago, I had a pretty good idea who could become education’s Richard Nixon.  This educator worships at the altar of testing, and her schools live and die by test scores, but–of critical importance–her schools also focus on science, the arts and physical education.  Whenever I’d visited her schools, they seemed to be places of joyful learning.

At one point I even went so far as to imagine her “conversion” announcement:

My friends, you know me as an advocate of standardized testing. I believe in test results and what they tell us about our students.  But what you might not know about me is that I subscribe to much of what John Dewey taught us about education.  Learning by doing is important.  The arts, science and physical fitness are essential parts of quality education.  These are vital elements in my schools, although they have not gotten much publicity in the past.

For years I have focused on test results, and I’ve boasted about my students’ success, but now I Who Will Be Public Education’s Nixon? | The Merrow Report:

Education's Nixon: The Success Academy Debacle

In a post he titled "Who Will Be Public Education's Nixon?," the esteemed and estimable John Merrow played around with an interesting idea: what if someone took public education by storm and renounced a previously deep-seated affinity for standardized testing, like Richard Nixon did when he normalized diplomatic relations with China in the 1970s? As Merrow points out, Nixon, well known for his paranoia and for using his office to intimidate his political opponents, bucked conventional wisdom and took the risk of looking "soft on communism" when he visited China in 1972, but did it as one of the most ...In a post he titled "Who Will Be Public Education's Nixon?," the esteemed and estimable John Merrow played around w... http://bit.ly/1RTWtzB

What Went Wrong With Teach For America | The Progressive

What Went Wrong With Teach For America | The Progressive: "What Went Wrong With Teach For America"

What Went Wrong With Teach For America

• Peter Greene

Photo by Karlsson/Flickr

Teach for America is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Twenty-five years may not seem like much, but TFA  has changed a great deal since Wendy Kopp first turned her Princeton paper into a real organization, and those changes help explain why some folks are throwing anniversary bouquets but others are throwing less fragrant and attractive projectiles.

What’s the fuss? Why would anyone object to a program to put America’s best and brightest college grads in underserved classrooms? After all—if it’s a good and noble thing to join the Peace Corps straight out of college to go serve the poor and needy on foreign shores, why not direct a similar effort to people in need in our own country?

From the beginning, TFA tapped into the most noble and inspiring images of teaching, the idea of standing in front of a group of young people and really Making a Difference. Who wouldn’t want to make the world a better place, to step into the classrooms that strapped districts couldn’t fill on their own?

But from the first there were misgivings in the education world. TFA was giving just a few weeks of training to its teachers, believing that if TFA recruited A students from the nation’s top schools, they would be naturally equipped to teach poor, urban students. Those of us in teaching raised our eyebrows—what other profession would let recent grads take over professional duties with just five weeks of training? Would my English degree plus five weeks of training make me ready to be a Brain Surgeon for America?

There were other concerns. As Jack Schneider notes in Excellence for All, TFA sold itself as a solution to national problems. Stated an early recruitment letter: “one thing on which business and government leaders from different industries and political parties agree is that the state of the educational system is threatening America’s future.” It was an idea that would echo through many versions of education reform—the nation needs poor people to be educated in ways that will make them more useful to corporate America.

As the program developed, it became evident that for many if not most TFA teachers,

- See more at: http://www.progressive.org/pss/what-went-wrong-teach-america#sthash.37A83Wb0.dpuf

Parents alarmed after hearing about California student data transfer | The Sacramento Bee

Parents alarmed after hearing about California student data transfer | The Sacramento Bee:

Parents alarmed after hearing about California student data transfer

 Parents across California have grown concerned after learning that a Sacramento-based federal judge ordered the state Department of Education to release sensitive records for more than 10 million schoolchildren to lawyers and consultants representing special education advocates.

The records include names, some Social Security numbers, home addresses, disciplinary records, medical information and progress reports for students who have attended a California public school since Jan. 1, 2008. Under U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller’s order, access to the data would be tightly controlled by a special master with expertise in cybersecurity.

Parents can register an objection to having their child’s records released but not electronically or by phone. Instead, they must print out a form and send it by mail to Mueller’s office by April 1.

The order has elevated a little-known court case that began when the Morgan Hill Concerned Parents Association alleged in December 2011 that special needs students in the Santa Clara County community have not received a legally required level of public education.

But the scope of the data release has infuriated many parents. Nancy Griffin said she is sympathetic to the interests of the plaintiffs. But she believes the judge’s order involves too much sensitive information, including records belonging to her daughter, who graduated from Rio Americano High School in 2008.

The records pertain to 6.2 million current students and about 4 million previously enrolled.

“A data dump going back to 2008 disturbs me,” she said. “(Some of) these students are now 25 years old. I’m not sure they would want their report cards and progress reports pawed through without understanding the necessity of it. This strikes me as an overly broad amount of data for somebody to sift through.”

Under a process set out by the court, a special master with cybersecurity experience is responsible for ensuring that the data is protected. In a document filed with the court last year, the special master said he “has significant concern about the storage and use of the highly sensitive student data” the state will provide. He noted that a security breach could result in notifying millions of people under state and federal requirements at a cost of millions of dollars.

To guard against that, he proposed a series of risk assessments and safeguards, including a record of all devices and people who access the information. He also suggested that data beParents alarmed after hearing about California student data transfer | The Sacramento Bee:  

Video: Automated calls notify parents about release of student information

February 19, 2016

Sacramento City Unified School District made automated calls to families informing them of the legal case regarding the disclosure of student information and advising how parents could file an objection.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article61422232.html#storylink=cpy

Charter School Champion Hates Bernie Sanders, Prefers Hillary Clinton | gadflyonthewallblog

Charter School Champion Hates Bernie Sanders, Prefers Hillary Clinton | gadflyonthewallblog:

Charter School Champion Hates Bernie Sanders, Prefers Hillary Clinton

Bernie Sanders doesn’t like charter schools enough.

To me that’s an endorsement.

But to Shavar Jeffries, it’s a condemnation.

Jeffries took to the pages of the New York Daily News to decry Sanders position and champion Hillary Clinton’s.

Jeffries is the executive director of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), a hedge fund front promoting the privatization of public education.

Despite its name, the group doesn’t represent the views of most Democrats. It represents the neoliberal branch of the party that has heavily influenced the education policy of Barack Obama, Arne Duncan, Cory Booker, Bill Gates and other prominent so-called liberals.

One can see why Jeffries isn’t Feeling The Bern. Sanders famously said THIS in January about the industry DFER promotes:

I’m not in favor of privately run charter schools. If we are going to have a strong democracy and be competitive globally, we need the best educated people in the world. I believe in public education; I went to public schools my whole life, so I think rather than give tax breaks to billionaires, I think we invest in teachers and we invest in public education. I really do.

More to Jeffries’ taste is Hillary Clinton who he says backed off on her own charter Charter School Champion Hates Bernie Sanders, Prefers Hillary Clinton | gadflyonthewallblog: