Day 3: Speeches from the Democratic National Convention - WTOP #DNC #DemsInPhilly

Day 3: Speeches from the Democratic National Convention - WTOP:

Day 3: Speeches from the Democratic National Convention

WASHINGTON — The headliners scheduled to speak on Day 3 of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia include Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s pick for vice president; President Barack Obama; and Vice President Joe Biden.

Related Stories

• Day 1: Speeches from the Democratic National Convention2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION NEWS
• Day 2: Speeches from the Democratic National Convention2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION NEWS

A full schedule of Wednesday’s events can be found here. The description of the day’s theme is provided by the Democratic Party. Unless otherwise stated, biographical information has also been provided by the Democratic Party.

Theme: “Working Together”

On Wednesday speakers will take an in-depth look at just how high the stakes are in this election and how Hillary has the experience and steadiness to bring people together to tackle the big challenges and get real results.

See the full program for Wednesday evening here.

Headlining speakers

U.S. President Barack Obama 
(This is an excerpt of a bio taken from the White House’s website.) Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008, and sworn in on January 20, 2009. He and his wife, Michelle, are the parents of two daughters, Malia and Sasha. 

Vice President Joe Biden
(This is an excerpt of a bio taken from the White House’s website.) Joe Biden was elected the 47th Vice President of the United States in 2008. He was previously a U.S. Senator from Delaware for 36 years and Chairman or Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee for 17 years.

Vice President Nominee Tim Kaine
(This is an excerpt of a bio taken from his Senate website). Tim Kaine is a U.S. Senator from Virginia. He was elected to the Senate in 2012 and is the nominee of the Democratic Party for Vice President of the United States. He is Ranking Member of the Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee and the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on State Department and USAID Management, International Operations and Bilateral International Development.

Leon Panetta
(This is an excerpt of a bio taken from the Department of Defense website.) Leon Edward Panetta served as the 23rd Secretary of Defense from July 2011 to February 2013. Before joining the Department of Defense, Mr. Panetta served as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from February 2009 to June 2011. Mr. Panetta led the agency and managed human intelligence and open source collection programs on behalf of the intelligence community. 

Additional speakers Day 3: Speeches from the Democratic National Convention - WTOP:

Democratic Convention Speakers Praise Teachers, Decry Gun Violence in Schools - EdWeek #DNC #DemsInPhilly

Democratic Convention Speakers Praise Teachers, Decry Gun Violence in Schools - Politics K-12 - Education Week:

Democratic Convention Speakers Praise Teachers, Decry Gun Violence in Schools

Philadelphia

Odes to teachers and calls to prevent gun violence in classrooms highlighted the K-12 talk during Wednesday night's Democratic National Convention program, devoted mainly to boosting presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her running mate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine.

During the final speech of the night, President Barack Obama said he was proud of teachers, but that more work remained to be done "for every child who needs a sturdier ladder out of poverty" and access to a quality education. He did not mention the Every Student Succeeds Act, which he signed last December and which reauthorized federal K-12 law for the first time in 15 years.

He emphasized Democratic nominee's plan to ensure access to preschool. (She doesn't have a comprehensive K-12 plan, though.) And Obama praised Clinton for her work on behalf of students in special education, echoing the theme of speeches from Tuesday.

Several of the lead-up speeches also linked education to top Democratic priorities. 

In his speech, Kaine recalled gun violence in Richmond, where he was elected mayor, as well as the "horrible mass shooting" at Virginia Tech University in 2007, and how the state responded by closing a loophole in the state's background check for purchasing guns. He also discussed the state's expansion of early education. (Kaine was introduced by Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, the ranking member of the House education committee.)

And as he did last week when he gave his first speech as Clinton's vice-presidential pick, Kaine highlighted efforts to address school segregation by his father-in-law, former Virginia Gov. Linwood Holton. 

"He integrated Virginia's public schools, so black and white kids would finally learn together, and the family enrolled their own kids, including his daughter, Anne, in those integrated inner-city schools," Kaine said of the former governor, who was in attendance Wednesday night.

And he highlighted his work with Sen. Bernie Sanders on the Senate budget committee to increase funding for education.

Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden also threw a spotlight on education, albeit briefly. The vice president praised teachers who buy school supplies for students out of their own pocket, and added, "Being a teacher is not what they do, it's who they are." And Jill Biden praised community colleges as "America's best-kept secret." Jill Biden is a community college teacher who has helped Obama lead an initiative for free community college.

Speakers Discuss Sandy Hook and Gun Control

Wednesday night here didn't focus so intently on education and children the way the previous night's speeches did. But in addition to Kaine's speech, education did figure into remarks about gun violence, municipal infrastructure, and other topics over the course of the second-to-last night of the convention.

One of the most charged moments was when Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut spoke about the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. Murphy praised Clinton for being willing to take on the "gun lobby" and said he had had enough of shootings across the country and "enough of children dying in our classrooms." Murphy held a push for greater gun control in the Senate that lasted 15 consecutive hours earlier this year. 

Attacking Republican nominee Donald Trump for being in favor of putting more guns in schools for protection, Murphy said, "This is a fate we cannot accept."

Right after Murphy spoke, Erica Smegielski, the daughter of Dawn Hochsprung, the Sandy Hook Elementary principal who was killed in 2012 by a gunman along with five other adults and 20 children, said she should be watching the DNC at home with her mother, not speaking at it. And she spoke in favor of fewer guns in schools, not more. 

"We don't need our teachers and principals going to work in fear. What we need is another mother who's willing to do what's right," Smegielski said in support of Clinton.

Children in Poverty and Bullies

Earlier in the evening, Scott gave a shout-out to Clinton for seeking educational equity and trying to help children reach their "full potential."

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said the Democratic nominee will fight for universal prekindergarten. (Clinton's record on early education in Arkansas got some attention in President Bill Clinton's speech Tuesday night.) And former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, Clinton's former rival for the Democratic nomination, bashed Trump by saying that instead of wages being too high (as the GOP nominee has said), the costs of child care and the number of children living in poverty are too high.

"Here's what I learned in elementary school on the playground: Bullies are just cowards in disguise," O'Malley said in a jab at Trump.

The mayor of Flint, Mich., Karen Weaver, also spoke, calling attention to the lead poisoning of the city's water that continues to be an issue for Flint and other U.S. cities—Weaver called Flint a "city in crisis." (Our own Corey Mitchell and Denisa Superville have written about lead in schools' water this year.) 

Moderate but Solution-Oriented?

We've focused a lot on how delegates feel about Clinton. But what about her vice-presidential pick?

Reaction to Kaine from the perspective of education was generally positive—but he's also getting a boost from his wife from at least one delegate.

While there's some sentiment that Kaine is too moderate, Sandra Klassen, who is the subchair of Virgina's delegates who backed Sen. Bernie Sanders, said those who "know him best" are enthusiastically behind the move.

"He brings integrity and ethics to the ticket," said Klassen, who retired years ago from her job as the executive director of the International Council on Education for Teaching, a non-profit organization that works on global development through education. "He is a genuinely nice person who cares about people."

And she's a big fan of Kaine's wife, Anne Holton, who just stepped down as Virginia's Secretary of Education. In fact, Klassen said she gave Holton a copy of Diane Ravitch's book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools. Holton "appeared receptive" to the book's ideas, in Klassen's view.

And Amy Laufer, a Clinton delegate and the chair of the Charlottesville City School board and a former middle school math teacher was unabashedly enthusiastic about Kaine. 

"My two sons who have special needs took advantage of his expansion of early-intervention services. In my mind he comes up with real solutions for real problems," she said. 

Assistant Editor Alyson Klein contributed to this post.

Photos: An observer listens to a speech about gun violence by Erica Smegielski, the daughter of the principal of Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. who was killed in 2012, at the Democratic National Convention on July 27 (Deanna Del Ciello/Education Week); Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, left, waves as Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., center, hugs his wife Anne Holton on July 23 (Andrew Harnik/AP); Democrats on the floor the Wells Fargo Center at the DNC on July 27 (Deanna Del Ciello/Education Week)

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Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12. Democratic Convention Speakers Praise Teachers, Decry Gun Violence in Schools - Politics K-12 - Education Week:

Defending No Child Left Behind? Education Reform Hits the DNC #DNC #DemsInPhilly

Defending No Child Left Behind? Education Reform Hits the DNC:

Defending No Child Left Behind? Education Reform Hits the DNC

Hillary Clinton addresses the National Education Association July 5, 2016, in Washington, DC. (Screengrab via NEAABS / YouTube)

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A coalition of education reformers gathered on Monday this week at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Philadelphia for a "Camp Philos" event hosted by Education Reform Now, a sister organization of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER). They discussed the typical topics of the education reform movement -- accountability, school choice and so-called public charter schools -- but their event also throbbed with the recognition that policies have been met with increasing resistance in communities across the country. Together they strategized about what the education reform agenda in the Democratic Party should be, going forward.

The city of Philadelphia is a particularly appropriate setting for such a meeting -- it's been the site of budget cuts to public education, school closures and charter expansion, and subsequently, a resurgence of progressive union organizing. I walked past a shuttered public school building, now up for sale, to get to Camp Philos. I work as an after-school teacher in two public schools in New York City, and to me, the sight of the desolate building was gut-wrenching. Huge old school buildings are often the beacons of a neighborhood, their playgrounds overrun with kids of all ages all summer. This school, in contrast, was deserted and ghostly.

For more original Truthout election coverage, check out our election section, "Beyond the Sound Bites: Election 2016."

Just two weeks prior, DFER President Shavar Jeffries had called the finalized education platform "hijacked" and an "unfortunate departure from President Obama's historic education legacy," but now speakers were emphasizing the importance of uniting behind Hillary Clinton and working together with other stakeholders in education, including teachers unions.

Clinton had recently spoken to both the United Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, said Ann O'Leary, senior policy advisor to Hillary for America, and had told them that "we really need to make sure to end these so-called education wars and put our ideology aside and look at how we problem-solve." The group of education reformers at the DNC reluctantly cheered, and O'Leary added, "Yeah, you can clap for that!"

O'Leary called for unity between public school teachers -- "who oftentimes are being asked to do so much more than we ever asked teachers to do in the past" -- and reformers who "said it's not good enough." She argued that "great charters all over this country" are "laboratories" whose practices can be replicated at both charter schools and "traditional public schools."

Surprisingly, O'Leary, along with Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, defended the merits of the widely reviled No Child Left Behind education law and Clinton's early support of it. Both O'Leary and Coons painted the bill, which Clinton and Obama criticized during the 2008 presidential campaign, as a well-meaning bill that, despite its emphasis on testing, has had positive results for accountability. "For all of its problems, it exposed uncomfortable realities in America's classrooms," said Senator Coons. "It refused to lower our nation's expectations in any school, and demanded that every child in America [get] the education that he or she deserves."

"High expectations" and "accountability" are two of the fundamental premises of education reform, and they were both revisited throughout the day. One of the movement's primary mechanisms for "accountability" has been to test students and use the results to evaluate their teachers and their school. Under No Child Left Behind, schools with consistently low test scores were subject to mass teacher firings or a takeover by private management, but the new Democratic platform explicitly Defending No Child Left Behind? Education Reform Hits the DNC:

The Agony of Being a First Time Undecided Voter | gadflyonthewallblog #DNC

The Agony of Being a First Time Undecided Voter | gadflyonthewallblog:

The Agony of Being a First Time Undecided Voter

Is there anyone else out there like me?

I’ve never been an undecided voter before. I’ve always known early which candidate I’m supporting and why.

But this election has my head spinning. One minute I’m ready to vote for Hillary Clinton to stop Donald Trump. The next I can’t live with myself if I do that and am willing to vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein even though she has very little chance of winning.

And so on back-and-forth, hour-to-hour. The only thing I’m certain of is that I will never EVER vote for Trump.

Is there anyone else out there like me?

This seems to be the new reality.

I’d rather have Hillary as President than Trump, but I’d rather have another option than either one.

It’s agonizing. I can’t sleep. I toss and turn.

I hop into bed thinking I’ll just vote Hillary and then wake up passed midnight The Agony of Being a First Time Undecided Voter | gadflyonthewallblog:

Watch Hillary Clinton Break The Glass Ceiling #DNC #DemsInPhilly

Watch Hillary Clinton Break The Glass Ceiling:

Watch Hillary Clinton Break The Glass Ceiling

“I can’t believe we just put the biggest crack in that glass ceiling yet.”

The Democratic National Convention began Tuesday night with Hillary Clinton becoming the first female presidential nominee of a major political party, and ended with Clinton breaking the glass ceiling. Sort of.

After showing a montage of the 43 men who have served as president, Clinton addressed the convention via live video, with her face emerging through shards of shattered glass on the video display.

via GIPHY

Clinton acknowledged the historical significance of the occasion.

“What an incredible honor that you have given me,” she said in the video. “I can’t believe we just put the biggest crack in that glass ceiling yet. Thanks to you and to everyone who has fought so hard to make this possible. This is really your victory, this is really your night.

“And if there are any little girls out there who stayed up late to watch, let me just say I may become the first woman president, but one of you is next.”Watch Hillary Clinton Break The Glass Ceiling:

A Conversation With a Teacher Who Decided to Go on Strike - The Atlantic

A Conversation With a Teacher Who Decided to Go on Strike - The Atlantic:

A Conversation With a Teacher Who Decided to Go on Strike

Last September, the public-school teachers in Seattle, Washington, voted to go on strike on the first day of school. The most high-profile reason for striking was the teachers’ pay: Between 1999 and 2012, salaries for public-school teachers in Washington declined by 4.5 percent. Since the strike, they have successfully bargained on issues including pay, support and funding for special education, and removing standardized-testing scores from teacher evaluations.

Noam Gundle has taught biology and oceanography at Ballard High School in Seattle for more than 15 years, and was a participant in the strike. His interests in activism—from climate change to education reform—along with his desire to mentor led him to a career in education. I spoke with Gundle about his job, some major shifts in the world of education, and the impact he hopes to make on his students. The following transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

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Adrienne Green: How does your interest in the environment and your proximity to the ocean affect how you teach your students?

Noam Gundle: I do a lot of project-based learning. I've done a lot the last few years on the Elwha River recovery—which is a really amazing story about two dams being put in almost a hundred years ago that stopped all salmon migration, and created a bunch of natural lakes and sediment movement. They took out the dams through a long process: It took a lot of research, work, and collaboration from a lot of different people. It’s an example of what we can do in our society to make things better.

For many years, we would make biodiesel in class to demonstrate biodiesel chemistry and alternative fuels. There are a lot of organizations in Seattle, like Climate Solutions and Seattle Chill, that are super amazing and do projects with kids or I could take to their spots for field trips.

Green: How has teaching biology and oceanography changed for you since you started teaching?

Noam Gundle, a biology teacher in Seattle, Washington

Gundle: In a couple of different ways. We know a lot more about genetic technology and climate change now than we used to. Climate change wasn't something that I was keyed into when I was a student in high school, or even in college. We talked about environmental issues all the time, but it wasn't something that was front and center. It A Conversation With a Teacher Who Decided to Go on Strike - The Atlantic:

A Critical Vote for Clinton - Living in Dialogue #DNC #DemsInPhilly

A Critical Vote for Clinton - Living in Dialogue:

A Critical Vote for Clinton

By Anthony Cody.

The Democratic National Convention has been painful to watch. In the days prior, we had the revelation of emails which demonstrated what Sanders supporters had felt throughout the primary – that the DNC was biased towards Clinton, and was acting to enhance her candidacy despite their claims of neutrality. Most significantly, as Matt Taibbi explains here, Clinton was using the apparatus of the DNC to extract money from wealthy donors in amounts up to $353,400 each. This allowed the Clinton campaign to stay competitive at a time when Sanders was buoyed by millions of small donations.

But Sanders took the stage Monday night and guided us towards candidate Clinton in spite of this. It is a bitter pill to swallow – to see someone cheat in a contest and be awarded the prize nonetheless. But as Sanders pointed out, this is the world we live in. The job of creating a better one still lies before us.

We are seeing great attention paid to the misdeeds and corruption of Donald J. Trump, and that is as it should be. We have learned of his past as a discriminatory landlord. We know about the fraudulent Trump University.  And most of all, we know he has run a campaign fueled by xenophobia and racism. He is a truly frightening authoritarian who could cause great harm.

There are several different ways to support Clinton’s candidacy. One would be to downplay or smooth over A Critical Vote for Clinton - Living in Dialogue:

Jersey Jazzman: Who Is Running America's Charter Schools? A Data Correction

Jersey Jazzman: Who Is Running America's Charter Schools? A Data Correction:

Who Is Running America's Charter Schools? A Data Correction



 For some time now, I've been posting this graph on the blog:

This graph is incorrect, and it's my fault. Let me explain:

Last year, I made a dataset that merged the work of education researchers Gary Miron and Charisse Gulosino with a school database from the US Department of Education. The dataset was for an academic paper on for-profit charter management organizations (CMOs) that is still undergoing peer review. I used the Miron-Gulosino directory of CMOs as a base, made some changes on my own, and then combined this directory with the federal data to analyze patterns in school spending. 

My co-author, Bruce Baker, made the graph above with my dataset. Unfortunately, while most of the state-level datasets used for this pie chart were correct, one -- Illinois -- was not. At the risk of going way into the weeds, what happened was that several CMOs in the Chicago area were over-counted, so that the total number of students enrolled by the CMO were multiplied by the number of different campuses in the Miron-Gulosino directory.

This is entirely my mistake: Bruce and Gary and Charisse had nothing to do with it. I apologize to them for misrepresenting their work, and I apologize to all of you for missing the error.

Here is a corrected version of this graph (click to enlarge).*

As you'll notice, the shares of students enrolled in Chicago-area charter schools -- Noble, UNO, Distinctive, etc. -- are way lower. Nobel's own annual report for 2011-12 put their enrollment at "more than 6,300," which means they and others move into the "less than 10K" category.

Which actually reinforces a point Bruce made in his post:

At least a handful of studies on high profile charter operators have yielded substantive, positive results, at least with respect to growth on narrowly measured student achievement outcomes, and in some cases on college acceptance/matriculation. Of course, even these studies, like Jersey Jazzman: Who Is Running America's Charter Schools? A Data Correction:

TBFURMAN: Hendrik Reviews The Gulen Movement's Structure

TBFURMAN: Hendrik Reviews The Gulen Movement's Structure:

Hendrik Reviews The Gulen Movement's Structure

There is really nobody better at explaining this phenomenon than Joshua Hendrick, who is interviewed over in Huffpo.

What does it mean to be a Gulenist or follower of Gulen?There are different variations of participation. At the top are the core loyalists, who are the directors of Gulen’s institutions and the people in Pennsylvania. Then there are the “friends,” who donate to Gulen’s institutions, but mostly for their own interests. Then there are sympathizers, who appreciate the movement but are not part of it, like sympathetic journalists or people who say that it is peaceful, or “moderate” version of Islam. Finally, the largest group are the many consumers of Gulen institutions’ products. By going to school or reading a newspaper, their actions are contributing to the movement. They have the weakest ties to the movement, but are the most important to its functioning.  

When you participate in the Gulen movement, there is no ID card. There are some ritualistic practises that members take part in, the most common of which is the sohbet.  Traditionally, this refers to the communication between a sheikh and their disciples ― which the Gulen movement has repurposed as a reading group, where people come together to read Fethullah Gulen and other religious scholars. It often starts out in a student house, and there’s someone in each company that organizes the sohbet. It starts out as a reading group and then becomes a group of peers who get together informally to discuss their sphere of business. Another practise of the movement is a religious donation called himmet.

I'm pretty sure these faux board that I'm looking at--- the CMSA and the Concept boards--- are comprised of a strategic mix core loyalists, friends, and sympathizers. The sympathizers seem to be people whose have some previous massaging through the dialogue centers, or trips, or dinners or what have you.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there. I get about a million emails a day asking me to sign some petition to extradite Gulen.

As if.

I have no interest in signing petitions related to the extradition of Gulen. I don't know whether Gulen should be extradited or not--- it's a whole area of law that I haven't learned in my TBFURMAN: Hendrik Reviews The Gulen Movement's Structure:

 

Big Education Ape: The Gulen Movement’s Collision Course With The Turkish State - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-gulen-movements-collision-course.html

Big Education Ape: US Commander Campbell: The man behind the failed coup in Turkey - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/us-commander-campbell-man-behind-failed.html

Big Education Ape: Turkey’s Failed Coup Puts Spotlight on a Rural Pennsylvanian Town - WSJ - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/turkeys-failed-coup-puts-spotlight-on.html

Big Education Ape: TBFURMAN: Who's Running These Schools? Part 3 - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/tbfurman-whos-running-these-schools_24.html

Big Education Ape: Turkish rivalry comes to San Jose amid allegations about Magnolia charter schools - Mercury News - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/turkish-rivalry-comes-to-san-jose-amid.html

Big Education Ape: Apple Education Services Posts Its Privacy Policy… in Latin | deutsch29 -http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/apple-education-services-posts-its.html

Big Education Ape: What Would it Take for US to Extradite Muslim Cleric to Turkey? -http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/what-would-it-take-for-us-to-extradite.html

Big Education Ape: Yo Campbell Brown Cat got your tongue? I Guess There is NO Talking Turkey w/ YOU! -http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/yo-campbell-brown-cat-got-your-tongue-i.html

Big Education Ape: TBFURMAN: Who's Running These Schools? -http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/tbfurman-whos-running-these-schools.html

Big Education Ape: Video shows Gülen urging followers to secretly infiltrate Turkish state institutions - Daily Sabah - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/video-shows-gulen-urging-followers-to.html

Schedule & Speakers | Wednesday, July 27th | 2016 Democratic National Convention #DNC #DemsInPhilly

Schedule & Speakers | Wednesday, July 27th | 2016 Democratic National Convention:

Schedule & Speakers | WEDNESDAY JULY 27 | 2016 Democratic National Convention

Hillary Clinton Breaks The Glass Ceiling

WEDNESDAY JULY 27 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM ET - PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, 118C

Ethnic Council

The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.

WEDNESDAY JULY 27 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM ET - PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, 120ABC

AAPI Caucus

The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.

WEDNESDAY JULY 27 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM ET - PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, 118A

Native American Council

The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.

WEDNESDAY JULY 27 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM ET - PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, TERRACE I & II

Black Caucus

The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.

WEDNESDAY JULY 27 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM ET - PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, TERRACE IV

Hispanic Caucus

The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.

WEDNESDAY JULY 27 | 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM ET - PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, 119AB

Disability Council

The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.

WEDNESDAY JULY 27 | 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM ET - PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, 122B

Small Business Owners Council

The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.

WEDNESDAY JULY 27 | 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM ET - PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION CENTER 114 – MICHAEL A. NUTTER THEATER

Youth Council

The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.

WEDNESDAY JULY 27 | 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM ET - PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, 120ABC

Veterans and Military Families Council

The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.

WEDNESDAY JULY 27 | 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM ET - PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, 118ABC

Labor Council

The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.

WEDNESDAY JULY 27 | 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM ET - PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION CENTER, 121ABC

Faith Council

The Pennsylvania Convention Center is home to many important official party events, including caucus and council meetings. These caucus and council meetings are open to the general public.

WEDNESDAY JULY 27 | 4:30 PM ET - WELLS FARGO CENTER

Gavel In

WEDNESDAY JULY 27 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

Erica Smegielski

Erica’s mother Dawn was the principal of Sandy Hook Elementary and was killed while trying to protect her students. Since then, Erica has become an outspoken advocate for commonsense gun violence prevention measures. Erica was featured in the ad, My Mom.

WEDNESDAY JULY 27 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

Felicia Sanders & Polly Sheppard

Felicia and Polly are two of the three survivors of the Mother Emanuel Church shooting in Charleston, SC.

WEDNESDAY JULY 27 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

Jamie Dorff

Jamie’s husband was Patrick Dorff, an Army helicopter pilot from Minnesota who died while on a search and rescue mission in northern Iraq. As a senator, Hillary worked with Republicans and Democrats to increase the gratuity paid to family members of fallen veterans from $12,000 to $100,000.

WEDNESDAY JULY 27 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

Vice President Joe Biden

 SPEAKER: Vice President Joe Biden

WEDNESDAY JULY 27 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

President Barack Obama

 SPEAKER: President Barack Obama

WEDNESDAY JULY 27 | WELLS FARGO CENTER

Gavel Out



 Schedule & Speakers | Wednesday, July 27th | 2016 Democratic National Convention:

NEA President on School Reform: 'The Corporate Model Is Crumbling' - Politics K-12 - Education Week

NEA President on School Reform: 'The Corporate Model Is Crumbling' - Politics K-12 - Education Week:

NEA President on School Reform: 'The Corporate Model Is Crumbling'

Philadelphia

The nearly eight years of the Obama administration haven't exactly been a cakewalk for the National Education Association. But the union's president, Lily Eskelsen García, thinks things are looking up

First, Congress passed the Every Student Succeeds Act, which seeks to broaden accountability beyond tests and bars the federal government from interfering with teacher evaluations, school turnarounds, and more. And now the Democrats have nominated Hillary Clinton, a candidate that Eskelsen García believes will be in the union's corner. 

"She's going to listen to a lot of people. But we're going to be in her ear first, talking about things like what English-language learners need, what students in special education need, and what a test measures and what it doesn't measure," Eskelsen García told me as she bounced from one event to another here.

The union will no longer be "sitting at the children's table, after the adults, or the people that think that they're the adults, the decision and then we're the first to know about it," she added.  

Over the past eight years, NEA has had to swallow a slew of policies it didn't really like, especially teacher evaluations based on test scores, and work with former U.S. Secretary of Education  Arne Duncan, whom some NEA members here have described as "trainwreck." 

But Eskelsen García thinks that the Democrats who supported many of those ideas—teacher merit-pay, charter schools, alternative routes into the teaching profession—are in a tight spot these days.

"The corporate model is crumbling of its own absurdity," EskelsenGarcía said."Now the [Democrats for Education Reform] are in town and they are having a real hard time this time making any kind of case. ... It's all about vouchers and charter schools and Teach for America. ... They can't point to one success. Wherever they've said 'This will move the needle,' it didn't." 

Of education reformers, she said, "their balloon is pffft!" (she made a deflating sound) and then joked "I'm not sure how you're gonna spell that." (Probably unsurprisingly, Education Reform Now, the non-profit think tank affiliated with DFER, a political action committee, sees all these things very differently. Check out what it had to say here.)

Endorsement Drama

That's not to say the Democratic National Convention is all sunshine and puppies for the NEA. A vocal contingent of delegates remain really, really unhappy with the union's decision to endorse Clinton early, without giving her primary opponent, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a chance to catch fire, or at least to extract more policy promises from Clinton.

And the American Federation of Teachers, the other national teachers' union, is feeling some of the same heat. Case in point: Mindy Rosier, a 10-year special education teacher in New York City NEA President on School Reform: 'The Corporate Model Is Crumbling' - Politics K-12 - Education Week:

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Who has the Authority to Make What Decisions?

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Who has the Authority to Make What Decisions?:

Who has the Authority to Make What Decisions?

Seattle Public Schools, as an institution, has a lot of issues around the scope of authority. There's a world of confusion about what a teacher can decide independently and what are the limits of that authority? What can a principal decide and what is the scope of a principal's authority? What falls inside and outside the limits of a BLT's authority? What decisions can an Executive Director of Schools have authority to make? What about District Staff? Do they have any authority? Surely there are some decisions that are up to the Superintendent and some that are up to the Board, but what are they?

The simple answer is that Board Policy and the Superintendent Procedures provide all of the answers to these questions. There is a clear answer in these governing documents that defines the scope of authority for each person. Granted, a lot of the policies and procedures are so poorly written that they are neither actionable nor enforceable.

The real answer, however, is much more fluid. The real answer is: "Whatever you can get away with."

This is the hallmark of a dysfunctional organization. This is a facet of the culture of lawlessness.

The Board writes policy, but if they do not enforce it, then they have failed to set policy. The current Board, like every Board before them, refuses to enforce policy. The Board Directors may not care for that characterization. They may claim that they have no process for enforcing policy, that they can only request the superintendent's compliance but, unless the non-compliance gets so bad that it makes them want to fire him, they have no method for coercing that compliance. That's true, but who's job is it to develop a policy enforcement process? I have no sympathy for people who complain that their dinner is Seattle Schools Community Forum: Who has the Authority to Make What Decisions?:

School improvement requires win-win policies - NonDoc

School improvement requires win-win policies - NonDoc:

School improvement requires win-win policies

The contemporary school-reform movement was based on the theory that, as long as educators were held accountable for school improvement that raised test scores, the answer to poverty could be found within the four walls of classrooms. This supposedly required teachers to cede their professional autonomy to administrators, as the school boards, education schools and teachers’ unions were “blown up” by “disruptive innovation” so that “transformative” change would be unleashed.

Meanwhile, there was a large body of social and cognitive science that explained why this test-driven, competition-driven experiment couldn’t work, but Silicon Valley venture philanthropists insisted that the creation of incentives and disincentives would attract non-educators who would reinvent schools. Big Data would supposedly drive a technocratic process to “build a better teacher.” Teachers’ compliance would be mandated. Mass school closures would undermine union power and allow the “exiting” of thousands of teachers who weren’t fully on board or “on the same page” with data-driven, teach-to-the-test instruction.

This social engineering degenerated to the point where young teachers were taught to avoid the word “please.” They had to shut down class discussions to keep up with the mandated pacing schedule for covering testable standards.

Charter schools, run by national charter-management organizations (CMOs), would be the cadres that scaled up the “turnarounds,” “transformations” and closures of schools School improvement requires win-win policies - NonDoc: