Unions Enter the World of Online Charter Schools | The Nation

Unions Enter the World of Online Charter Schools | The Nation:

Unions Enter the World of Online Charter Schools

The teachers across Agora Cyber Charter’s “virtual classrooms” have won an unlikely organizing victory.

Charter schools often tout their “innovation,” the enterprising spirit they bring to public education. Can they also spur unions to innovate?

A new organizing victory at a controversial “cyberschool” offers lessons on how the labor movement fits in the brave new world of “virtual classrooms.” Hundreds of teachers at Agora Cyber Charter school voted overwhelmingly to join the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) in May. The social workers and family coaches are also in the process of a union election, following the unionization of staff counselors.

One of Pennsylvania’s largest charters, with some 8,500 online students, Agora has for years been wracked by mismanagement and instability. Unionization is giving the teachers, who work remotely through digital networks, a collective voice in a virtual workplace.

Unions are rare in charter schools, which are generally publicly funded but run by for-profit firms with a start-up mentality that is unfriendly to labor. In addition to breaking new ground by organizing Agora teachers and support staff, teachers at Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School and Young Scholars of Central Pennsylvania Charter School have also unionized with PSEA.

For science teacher Melissa Hoffman-Long, who worked with the early organizing committees, what initially drove teachers to organize was a realization among staff that, while charters touted “cutting edge” programs, there was “incongruity between the for-profit business model and the public mission of a school…. We felt like having a union would help balance out and give the staff a united voice when shady things started going down.”

Shadiness has tainted Agora’s virtual schooling model for years. Founder Dorothy June Hairston Brown and other Agora executives were indicted in 2012 on more than 60 federal charges, including financial fraud, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering. The alleged fraud amounted to $6.5 million at three different taxpayer-supported Pennsylvania charters.

Pennsylvania’s 14 cyber charters are notorious underachievers, long criticized for lacking public oversight, producing abysmal standardized test scores and maintaining lax grading standards and chronically poor student attendance in virtual classes. On the state’s annual School Performance Profile, Agora has scored below 50 points, out of a passing grade of 70, for the past three years.

Agora attempted to start with a clean slate under a five-year operating contract with the state Education Department in October 2014, shedding its original corporate management firm, K12—a charter giant that has been accused of chronically mismanaging online-based schools in California.

But Agora’s transition to self-management has been “a crazy ride,” Hoffman-Long says, and the union offers a refreshing anchor of stability. The school has cycled through several different administrators over the past year. The current administrator, Michael Conti, previously faced scandal charges when he was the CEO of Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School. And despite leaving K12’s management, Agora has returned to using K12’s curriculum. In Unions Enter the World of Online Charter Schools | The Nation:

Suit: Detroit schoolchildren denied right to literacy

Suit: Detroit schoolchildren denied right to literacy:

Suit: Detroit schoolchildren denied right to literacy

 Detroit — Seven Detroit schoolchildren, represented by a California public interest law firm, sued state officials Tuesday in what attorneys say is an unprecedented attempt to establish that literacy is a U.S. constitutional right.

The suit, brought against Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and several education officials, claims the state has functionally excluded Detroit children from the state’s educational system. It seeks class-action status and several guarantees of equal access to literacy, screening, intervention, a statewide accountability system and other measures.

“Instead of providing students with a meaningful education and literacy, the state simply provides buildings — many in serious disrepair — in which students pass days and then years with no opportunity to learn to read, write or comprehend,” states the 133-page complaint by the Los Angeles-based firm Public Counsel.

Attorneys representing the students say the filing highlights shocking problems in some Detroit schools and is the first of its kind in the nation that seeks to secure students’ legal right to literacy under the 14th Amendment. Specifically, it seeks to build on the notion of the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case, Brown vs. Board of Education, that an educated citizenry is critical to a well-functioning society.

Buy Photo

Detroit Federation of Teachers Interim President Ivy Bailey addresses the media in front of the federal courthouse in downtown Detroit. (Photo: Todd McInturf, The Detroit News)

Evan Caminker, former dean of the University of Michigan Law school who is an attorney on the case, expects the filing to “bring a new focus and new lens to the question of literacy.”

Caminker said U.S. Supreme Court justices in Brown v. Board of Education made it clear that all schoolchildren require a minimally acceptable education.

“The court also made clear that the exclusion of any group of students from that opportunity stamps them with a feeling of inferiority that can reach deep into their hearts and minds and last with them for their lifetimes,” Caminker said.

The suit seeks class-action status on behalf of all children who attend school in Detroit and alleges students in the city are functionally excluded from Michigan’s statewide system of education.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit, alleges that decades of state disinvestment in and deliberate indifference to the Detroit schools have denied schoolchildren access to the most basic building block of education: literacy.

DPS has struggled for years with declining enrollment, comparatively low test scores and spending scandals that have left students without needed supplies. A $617 million aid package approved by lawmakers this summer relieved the district of nearly a half-billion dollar debt and provided $150 million in startup funding for a new, debt-free Detroit Public Schools Community District.

DPS had four emergency managers before March when Snyder installed Steven Rhodes, a retired federal judge.

“The lawsuit documents pervasive, shock-the-conscience conditions that deny children the opportunity to attain literacy, including lack of books, classrooms without teachers, insufficient desks, buildings plagued by vermin, unsafe facilities and extreme temperatures,” said Kathryn Eidmann, an attorney with Public Counsel. “One seventh- and eighth-grade classroom was taught for a month by an eighth-grade student.”

Snyder spokesman Ari Adler declined comment on the lawsuit. Chrystal Wilson, spokeswoman for the district, said its legal department is in the process of reviewing the lawsuit.

State Superintendent Brian Whiston, also named as a defendant in the lawsuit, on Tuesday said: “We are concerned with the literacy levels of all children in MichiganSuit: Detroit schoolchildren denied right to literacy:

What Are the Best Measures of School Quality? Educators Speak Out

What Are the Best Measures of School Quality? Educators Speak Out:

What Are the Best Measures of School Quality? Educators Speak Out

The National Education Association (NEA) recently hosted an online poll that asked more than 1,200 educators to specify which of NEA’s “Opportunity Dashboard” indicators they cared about the most. The two highest ranking indicators fell under the umbrella of widening the school curriculum, which came in at 85 percent, and health and wellness programs at 73 percent.

Surprised? You shouldn’t be—not if you’re an educator who for more than a decade lived under the heavy rule of No Child Left Behind that stripped schools of rich curricula to focus on reading and math, and has seen the number of public school students living in poverty skyrocket to more than 50 percent.

Last December, President Barack Obama signed into law the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which give states the opportunity to realign how testing will be used in measuring schools and educators. Since its passing, many implementation plans have been well underway. These plans will be submitted to the U.S. Department of Education starting in the spring of next year, and will outline how states will meet the letter of the law.

Educators and Association leaders across the country have used the state-implementation process to inject their expertise into decisions that impact teaching and learning in the classroom, and along the way, they’ve pushed for their state’s accountability systems to include at least one indicator of school quality or student success, which can be found in NEA’s “Opportunity Dashboard.”

These indicators include student engagement; educator engagement; student access to and completion of advanced coursework; postsecondary readiness; school climate and safety; and any other state-chosen indicator that allows for meaningful differentiation of school performance, and is valid, reliable, comparable, and statewide.

Early this month, Stephanie M. Johnson, a second grade elementary certified What Are the Best Measures of School Quality? Educators Speak Out:

Teacher Tom: Institutionalized Child Abuse

Teacher Tom: Institutionalized Child Abuse:

Institutionalized Child Abuse

Last year at this time Seattle's Public School teachers were on strike. They had a list of demands, most of which were ultimately met, including the requirement that all elementary school children receive a minimum of 30 minutes a day on the playground. As pathetic as that victory might sound to those of us who live and work in the world of play-based education, some schools were limiting their charges to 15 minutes of recess over a school day. This is not an uncommon phenomenon in America and indeed many other parts of the world.

As heartlessly cruel as this sounds, it's the result of administrators and teachers who have bought into the entirely unsupported myth that more "instruction time" will result in "better results," and that every moment of free play, especially outdoors, is a waste of time. Meanwhile, 17 million children worldwide have been prescribed addictive stimulants(like Ritalin), antidepressants and other mind-altering drugs for "educational" and behavioral problems, over half of them in the US. Already one in ten American students are on these drugs and the fastest growing segment are children five and under.

And now this from the UK: 

Tests to assess . . . children's physical development at the start of the first school year found that almost a third to be "of concern" for lack of motor skills and reflexes. Almost 90 per cent of children demonstrated some degree of movement difficulty for their age . . . The tests suggest up to 30 per cent of children are starting school with symptoms typically associated with dyslexia, dyspraxia, and ADHD -- conditions which can be improved with correct levels of physical activity, experts say.

What's to blame? Lack of physical play is a big part of it, but there's more. According researcher Dr. Rebecca Duncombe:

"Young children have access to iPads and are much more likely to be sat in car seats or chairs . . . But the problem can also be attributed to competitive parenting -- parents who want they children to walk as soon as possible risk letting them miss out on key mobility developments which help a child to find their strength and balance."

And why do we have competitive parenting: because our schools, indeed our entire educational environment, is built around the idea of competition; around the cruel caution that "You don't want your child to fall behind." Bill Gates has Teacher Tom: Institutionalized Child Abuse:

Asked about the critically important CCJEF v. Rell case, Malloy tells media he isn’t Governor Jodi Rell - Wait What?

Asked about the critically important CCJEF v. Rell case, Malloy tells media he isn’t Governor Jodi Rell - Wait What?:

Asked about the critically important CCJEF v. Rell case, Malloy tells media he isn’t Governor Jodi Rell

It was another classic Wait, What? moment with Dannel Malloy at the helm.

When the CCJEF v. Rell school funding lawsuit was filed 11 years ago, Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy was a plaintiff in the case, one of a number of local elected officials who decried the fact that Connecticut’s system of school funding was unfair, inadequate and unconstitutional.

Then, Malloy become Connecticut’s governor in January 2011 and immediately did, “a 180.”  Instead of using his position to settle the lawsuit and develop a funding formula that would be fair and constitutional, Malloy lead the charge to dismiss, disrupt and upend the case that would have benefited the children, parents, teachers and taxpayers of Stamford and Connecticut’s other poorer cities and towns.

Malloy not only squandered the opportunity to develop a constitutionally adequate school funding system, he used his budget authority to make the state’s school funding programs even more unfair.

Last week came the initial trial ruling on the CCJEF v. Rell case.  Connecticut superior court judge went so far as to say that not only is Connecticut’s school funding system unconstitutional, it is irrational.

So will Malloy and his administration appeal the decision to the Connecticut Supreme Asked about the critically important CCJEF v. Rell case, Malloy tells media he isn’t Governor Jodi Rell - Wait What?:

UNC report calls Wilmington schools "hyper-segregated"

UNC report calls Wilmington schools "hyper-segregated":

UNC report calls Wilmington schools "hyper-segregated"

Authors argue a shift toward "neighborhood schools" has re-segregated the district and hurt student achievement at majority-minority schools.

By Cammie Bellamy StarNews Staff

NEW HANOVER COUNTY -- A new report from the UNC Center for Civil Rights said more than half of New Hanover County schools are "racially imbalanced," and called the district's four magnet schools "hyper-segregated."

The report was published this week by the center's Inclusion Project, which documents segregation across North Carolina. In it, the authors argue a shift toward "neighborhood schools" has re-segregated the district and hurt student achievement at schools with higher minority populations.

"Between 2006 and 2010, the New Hanover Board of Education adopted a student assignment model that emphasizes proximity and 'neighborhood schools'," the report reads. "The Board’s reassignment decisions, which were prompted by capacity concerns and the construction of new schools in rural parts of the county, signaled an end to the district’s effort to maintain racial and socio-economic diversity in its schools in the face of significant residential segregation."

The UNC Center for Civil Rights has been involved in the district since at least early this year, when a group of black and Latino parents reached out the center with concerns about racial gaps in thedistrict's Spanish-Immersion program. The parents' children had been wait-listed for the program, which was then located at Forest Hills Global Elementary and was 73 percent white during the 2015-16 school year.

Do you agree with the report?

The UNC Center for Civil Rights' Inclusion Project argues that a shift toward neighborhood schools in New Hanover County has segregated some students and limited their achievement. The StarNews wants to hear from community members: Do you think the report is fair? Would you change how students are placed in the district? Are you happy with how the school board has handled redistricting during the last decade?

Send your thoughts to Cammie.Bellamy@StarNewsOnline.com. To read the full report, visit bit.ly/2cpCigb.

The report's authors track the racial changes at NHCS's magnet schools since 2006, when the school board converted Freeman Elementary and Snipes Elementary to magnet schools. Many seats at the schools were reserved for children who lived nearby in downtown Wilmington.

"When both new magnet programs opened, the percentage of white students at Freeman and Snipes dropped from 30 percent to 11 percent and 28 percent to 10 percent, respectively," the report reads.

Last school year, Freeman and Snipes were 84 percent and 81.3 percent black, respectively. The district's other two magnet schools, Gregory Elementary and D.C. Virgo Preparatory Academy, went from 48 percent and 67.1 percent black to 86 percent and 77.9 percent black in the same time, according to data in the report.

End-of-grade test proficiency scores have since declined at all four schools -- between 2005 and 2014, Gregory's scores dropped more than 30 percent.

"This deliberate action by the school board -- which reinforces patterns of residential racial and economic segregation -- adversely impacts all students, but has particularly harmed students and educational opportunities in the Wilmington area," the report reads. "Although magnet programs are generally established to attract diverse student bodies, NHCS’s magnet schools have failed to attract white, suburban students to the Wilmington area, leaving these schools hyper-segregated and under-enrolled." UNC report calls Wilmington schools "hyper-segregated":

De Blasio blames testing system for diversity lack at top schools - NY Daily News

De Blasio blames testing system for diversity lack at top schools - NY Daily News:

De Blasio blames admissions testing for lack of diversity at top city schools, prods state for system overhaul

The city’s elite public high schools don’t reflect the diversity of the city and should change their admission policies, Mayor de Blasio said on Wednesday.

De Blasio, speaking one day before the city’s 1.1 million school kids start their new school year, said that the current admissions process relies too heavily on a single test.

“I don’t think anything should be decided by a single test,” he said.

He added, “Right now, I mean, a school like Stuyvesant just does not represent the population of New York City in any way that’s' fair.”

NYC education plans aim to diversify, restore failing schools

The city’s elite public schools, like Stuyvesant High School, are overwhelmingly Asian and white, despite the fact that the city has a large population of blacks and Hispanics.

Stuyvesant High School, like many of the city’s most prestigious academies, is overwhelmingly comprised of white and Asian students.

 (LOUIS LANZANO/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

De Blasio, who railed against the testing policies as a candidate but has been more muted on the issue since taking office, said that the state needs to change the admissions process.

Until then, he said the city is committed to helping kids from all backgrounds on the test, including free test prep classes.

The mayor also said that the city will decide whether or not to close the most troubled public schools — which he promised to either shutter or turn around De Blasio blames testing system for diversity lack at top schools - NY Daily News:

Court Declares Connecticut Education System Violates State Constitution by Molly Hunter Education Law Prof Blog

Education Law Prof Blog:

Court Declares Connecticut Education System Violates State Constitution by Molly Hunter

On September 7, Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawser issued his post-trial decision, in Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding (CCJEF) v. Rell, finding that the state was not fulfilling its duty under the state constitution to provide children with a fair opportunity for a high school education, and ordering the state to submit remedial proposals within 180 days.

The court articulated a constitutional standard that requires the state to provide funding and resources to meet student need. The court wrote that "the state must at least deploy in its schools resources and standards" substantially rational and connected to teaching children and "things known to meet children's needs."

The court concluded that many of the state's education policies are irrational. "For instance," the court observed,

the state spends billions of dollars on schools without any binding principle guaranteeing that education aid goes where it's needed. During the recent budget crisis, this left rich schools robbing millions of dollars from poor schools. ... Instead of the state honoring its promise of adequate schools, [it] has left rich school districts to flourish and poor school districts to flounder ... [and] the system cannot work unless the state sticks to an honest formula that delivers funding according to local need.

Despite these statements, however, the court articulated and followed "a low constitutional threshold," based on its understanding of the plurality plus one (4-3) CCJEF remand order from the Connecticut Supreme Court. But, the court appears to have missed much of the supreme court's instruction and failed to fulfill its expectation that the trial court would flesh out the resources needed to meet the supreme court's broad constitutional resource standards.

The supreme court also wrote that the trial needed "to determine as a question of fact whether the state's Education Law Prof Blog:

Yes, Common Core Is Still a Political Football: See Why in Our New Video - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Yes, Common Core Is Still a Political Football: See Why in Our New Video - Politics K-12 - Education Week:

Yes, Common Core Is Still a Political Football: See Why in Our New Video

You might have missed it last week when Donald Trump unveiled his sweeping school choice plan, but the GOP nominee took another opportunity to bash the Common Core State Standards. He's done that several times throughout the campaign, although without getting into specifics as to why he thinks the standards are, as he called them at one point last year, a "disaster."

And at the Republican National Convention in July, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told the crowd (falsely) that the Republican-controlled Congress had ended the common core. 

So while common core might not be quite the hot-button topic it was in 2014 or 2015, clearly it's still enough of a divisive issue for Trump to at least nod to common-core opposition in a discussion about schools, and for McConnell to say that it's over. Maybe Trump's speech the first time you heard about the common core? Or perhaps you need a refresher about what the English-language arts and math standards are? Have you been looking for a quick way to share the key elements of the standards with your friends?

Look no further. Above, you can watch our short video explainer about what the common core is ... and what it's not. I discuss what the standards are supposed to accomplish, several common criticisms of them, and how they're discussed at the state and national level. Yes, Common Core Is Still a Political Football: See Why in Our New Video - Politics K-12 - Education Week:

Dyett High School Opens: 2015 Hunger Strike Redefines Meaning of ‘School Closure’ | janresseger

Dyett High School Opens: 2015 Hunger Strike Redefines Meaning of ‘School Closure’ | janresseger:

Dyett High School Opens: 2015 Hunger Strike Redefines Meaning of ‘School Closure’

The Chicago Tribune published a major story covering the first day of school on the Tuesday after Labor Day at Dyett High School in Chicago. Why was Dyett’s first day of school this year so important?  Here is reporter Juan Perez Jr.: “Freshmen walking through the doors of Walter H. Dyett High School for the Arts on the South Side experienced feelings similar to those of new high school students everywhere, a mix of first-day jitters and bashful excitement. But for the Washington Park and Bronzeville neighborhoods, the first day of classes Tuesday at Dyett had deeper significance. Families living nearby once again have an open-enrollment high school in their neighborhood. Parents don’t have to worry about their children taking buses or trains to far-off schools. And they don’t have to send their kids to privately run charter schools if they want to take honors or Advanced Placement classes.”

Perez continues: “A first day of school at Dyett wasn’t supposed to have happened this fall. But after a yearslong protest by community leaders that included a 34-day hunger strike, Chicago Public Schools reversed its decision to close Dyett at the end of the 2014-2015 school year. ‘When you go to a middle-class white community you don’t see charter schools, contract schools or alternative schools.  You see effective, K-12 systems of education in their neighborhoods. Our children deserve the same,’ said Jitu Brown, a community activist who took part in the hunger strike.”

Only a year ago, led by community organizer Jitu Brown, hunger strikers were sitting in Washington Park protesting not only the scheduled closing of Dyett High School but also a federal education policy that has defined school closure as one of the four prescribed ways to turn around a low scoring school.  Chicago had closed a record 50 schools at the end of 2013—justifying the plan as a way to turn around so-called “failing” schools and describing uneven enrollment patterns.

Beyond saving a neighborhood high school for Chicago’s Bronzeville Neighborhood, the Dyett Hunger Strike significantly changed the national conversation about test-and-punish school policy. Hunger strikers redefined the meaning of “school closure.” While No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top had defined school closure as what was called “a school-improvement Dyett High School Opens: 2015 Hunger Strike Redefines Meaning of ‘School Closure’ | janresseger:

CURMUDGUCATION: TN: Mrs. Jobs' Mall Charter + Hess: The Reform Agenda

CURMUDGUCATION: TN: Mrs. Jobs' Mall Charter:

TN: Mrs. Jobs' Mall Charter

You may recall that last fall we were talking about Laurene Powell Jobs' (Wharton Business School, Goldman Sachs) entry into the world of Rich Amateurs Fixing Schools-- the XQ project, a grant competition to design America's next super-school.

Well, the super-schools are here. Almost here. And Memphis, Tennessee gets one of them.

Among the charter schools approved by the Shelby County School Board this fall (though they also shot down three, including the infamous Green Dot), is Crosstown High, one of Jobs' new super-schools.

Not your father's mall

The charter is particularly unique for its setting, which is in a multi-million dollar real estate development. Crosstown Concourse (set in the abandoned Sears & Roebuck distribution warehouse) is going to be huge, and it embraces a mission that virtually floats on a cloud of overheated developer prose:

This is not just a building limited to the physical – the steel, the stone, and the tangible. This is a million square feet of opportunity, built on history and powered by renewal. It's a place to collaborate because our lives are lived better when we discover together. We believe in the search for intersections, designing paths of unexpected connections that lead to experiences filled with creative force. This is not just a building; this is a beautiful passage of people, who together... are Crosstown Concourse.

XTH's website describes the development as

a vibrant, “vertical urban village” that houses organizations focused on healthcare, wellness, education, the arts, technology, and economic development. Retail, restaurants, and residential CURMUDGUCATION: TN: Mrs. Jobs' Mall Charter:


CURMUDGUCATION: Hess: The Reform Agenda - http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2016/09/hess-reform-agenda.html

Determining Success of Technology Integration in Classrooms, Schools, and Districts (Part 4) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Determining Success of Technology Integration in Classrooms, Schools, and Districts (Part 4) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Determining Success of Technology Integration in Classrooms, Schools, and Districts (Part 4)

I ended my last post by writing that attaining the top stage of popular models of technology integration was often equated with “success.” I stated that it was “unfortunate.”

Why?

The top stage in each model (and similar ones) implies that when the teacher has reached this apex of implementation, students are thoroughly engaged in learning tasks and the classroom has become a site of active student learning—the unspoken goal of process-driven cheerleaders of student-centered classrooms. In effect, those teachers who have reached the top rung of the ladder have fully implemented technology to produce the highest levels of student involvement in learning content and skills. Implicitly, that top rung becomes the gold standard of effective teaching in integrating technologies into classroom lessons. And that is unfortunate.

What many smart people ignore or forget is that describing exemplars of technology integration is not synonymous with student-centered teaching. And student-centered teaching is not the same as “success” in student learning. This bias toward one form of teaching leading to student “success”–however defined–is historic (see here).

After all, should K-12 teacher practices change when they reach the apex of the models for integrating technology into their lessons? Certainly, the technologies themselves do not require such a fundamental change from teacher-centered to student-centered. Evidence of technology use in Europe, Asia, and the Americas  (see JECR PDF) have pointed out how powerful devices often end up being used to support teacher-centered instruction.

What’s missing from the assumption that student-centered learning is the same as “successful” technology integration is that reaching the final stage in these models says little about whether students have actually learned anything from Determining Success of Technology Integration in Classrooms, Schools, and Districts (Part 4) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

L.A.'s OPTIMIST CHARTER- A LAST STOP ON THE SCHOOL TO PRISON PIPELINE - Perdaily.com

L.A.'s OPTIMIST CHARTER- A LAST STOP ON THE SCHOOL TO PRISON PIPELINE - Perdaily.com:

L.A.'s OPTIMIST CHARTER- A LAST STOP ON THE SCHOOL TO PRISON PIPELINE

(Mensaje se repite en Español)

What makes it nearly impossible for the non-minority public to understand what amounts to the purposeful destruction of minority students' intellect in still segregated public education is the fact that neither these relatively privileged and predominantly White folks nor their children have ever had to experience what the vast majority of minority children continue to be generationally subjected to on a daily basis in what amounts to a purposefully failed innercity public education system that Whites abandon a long time ago.

The fact that the mainstream media continues to be unwilling to report the truth about what really goes on in these de facto segregated schools- be they charter or regular public schools- speaks volumes when it comes to the media's unwillingness to make their core White audience uncomfortable with this unpleasant truth that they scrupulously refuse to report.

What any teacher or staff member in any one of these innercity charter or public schools would tell you- if they weren't afraid of losing their jobs and getting blacklisted, so they could never find another job teaching- is that they are merely going through the motions, since those running these innercity schools literally have no expectation that minority children can learn.

These schools are just in the business of collecting average daily attendance (ADA) and other monies from the state and federal government. It's a business where the careers of those running these schools has always been and continues to take precedence over the needs of their acutely vulnerable and purposefully under-educated minority students.

These kids weren't born intellectually inferior, but by the time these schools are finished them they certainly are. But if you dare to take notice of this easily predictable reality, you are labeled a racist and targeted for removal.

Whatever the ethnicity of the school administrator, they are all going along to get along with their careers. They L.A.'s OPTIMIST CHARTER- A LAST STOP ON THE SCHOOL TO PRISON PIPELINE - Perdaily.com:

Audio: School districts baffled about why they’re on English learners monitoring list | 89.3 KPCC

Audio: School districts baffled about why they’re on English learners monitoring list | 89.3 KPCC:

School districts baffled about why they’re on English learners monitoring list

Days after California and federal officials agreed to improve service to English learners, most of the school districts on the list the state agreed to monitor more closely said they were surprised they were on it.

The settlement between the U.S. Department of Justice and the California Department of Education compels the state to, among other things, respond in a "timely and effective manner" to information that schools are not serving English learners, improve online monitoring technology, and include charter schools in English learner reviews.

The settlement also targets for state monitoring four school districts, one county office of education, and a high school.

“It doesn’t really make sense to me,” said Anita Alfonso, head of English learner services at the Menifee Union School District in Riverside, one of those on the list.

“We feel like we’re doing a lot right now,” she said, including purchasing new curriculum material for English learners, training teachers, and helping the parents of English learners.

“We were not aware of this at all,” said Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District spokeswoman Gail Pinsker. Her district also made the list. “We’re checking with different agencies to learn about what exactly this means and what the requirements are for moving forward under this [California Department of Education] settlement.”

The superintendents of Burbank Unified and San Gabriel Unified were also puzzled their districts made it on the list and said they received no notification from state or federal officials.

Burbank Unified officials provided numbers to KPCC detailing English learners who didn’t receive services in the time period in question. There were about 100 students or fewer in each of those years. The school district’s superintendent believes the issue had to do with incorrect coding of English learners in the district’s data system.

English learner advocates say federal law compels school districts to provide services to every English learner.

“So even if there are not that many students being deprived of services, the fact that the problem persists over a number of years suggests that there is something very systemic about the problem in those districts,” said Nicole Ochi, a lawyer with the Audio: School districts baffled about why they’re on English learners monitoring list | 89.3 KPCC:

TSJ Teach-In: Are Police Necessary? Teachers For Social Justice

Teachers For Social Justice:

TSJ Teach-In: Are Police Necessary?

Date: September 24, 2016

UIC College of Education

1040 W. Harrison Street, Room 3427

Time: 5:00-7:00 pm

Sign up for the Teach-In here.

Download the flyer here. 

Teachers For Social Justice:

Schools Matter: Does Randi Weingarten think no one is paying attention?

Schools Matter: Does Randi Weingarten think no one is paying attention?:

Does Randi Weingarten think no one is paying attention?

On September 9^th, the Answer Sheet ran a column in the Washington Post under the title “What if Randi Weingarten were U.S. education secretary?” The article is an interview with American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten by author C.M. Rubin, author of several education books, two on-line series on global education, and publisher of the online blogCMRubinWorld. She is a Fellow of the Disruptor Foundation.

Right off, Ms. Weingarten launches into her usual spin, that, while mistakes were made in education under President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan with “too many tests” and inequitable funding, things are being “reset” with the Every Child Succeeds Act of 2015. The specifics of the disaster of Race to the Top, especially for low-income school districts that have seen dozens of schools closed and public schools being put on starvation budgets to expand privatization with charters, are not mentioned. According to Ms. Weingarten, U.S. education is on course to a brighter tomorrow with ESSA.

Asked, “Does the current state of our underprivileged school systems help foster radicalism?" Ms. Weingarten says she does not know of “any empirical data that would answer your question.” She then makes a series of platitudes about how unfortunate the underfunding of schools in low-income communities is with no mention of who is responsible for this situation. Apparently listening to Schools Matter: Does Randi Weingarten think no one is paying attention?: