Three-Part Series Fact-Checking LAUSD School Board District 4 “Facts,” Part I

Three-Part Series Fact-Checking LAUSD School Board District 4 “Facts,” Part I:
Three-Part Series Fact-Checking LAUSD School Board District 4 “Facts,” Part I

by Miriam Efrat. First in a three part series. Read Part II here, and Part III here.

Dear Voters of LAUSD Board District 4:

Are you a progressive recently woke to the vital need for accountable leadership in public education?  Just someone who likes to be well-informed before casting a vote?

I hear your mailboxes are groaning under the weight of mailers in this school board race.  You are on pace to receive more pounds of propaganda by March than the last LAUSD election in 2015. The privately funded charter school advocates are far outspending the public unions — mostly with negative messages targeting the incumbent in this race—LAUSD Board President Steve Zimmer—with the same drumbeat that local news coverage pounds:  a narrative of failing schools, of an insolvent district, of division between families and teachers under the banner of school choice.

I’ve been paying attention because the future of my children, their peers, indeed, the future of Los Angeles depends on the welfare of this school district.  And I’ve noticed the narratives are false:  Under the watch of Board President Zimmer, our schools are improving.  District finances are guarded but not broke. The tale of division is deployed to divert blame for malfeasance from people who no longer work for the District (and, in a sense, never really did) and to confuse real challenges with empty promises by the opponents in this race.

What has actually happened since Steve Zimmer took office in 2009: The Great Recession slashed school funding to the bone, the once-favored Superintendent left in disgrace after too many ill-planned tech initiatives that smelled like inside dealing, and the promise of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) to build support for students of highest need is just now Three-Part Series Fact-Checking LAUSD School Board District 4 “Facts,” Part I:

Three-Part Series: Fact-Checking LAUSD School Board District 4 “Facts,” Part III

by K12NN Site Admin / 1h

by Miriam Efrat. Read Part I here, read Part II here. Part Three: Dumping the Blame Game and setting some records straight No one likes to have their parenting choices judged by strangers. Engaged parents try to make choices that give their child the best possible opportunity in life. Ultimately, the charter vs. public school narrative or the narrative of unions vs. private corporations is irrele

Three-Part Series: Fact-Checking LAUSD School Board District 4 “Facts,” Part II

by K12NN Site Admin / 1h

by Miriam Efrat. Read Part I here, read Part III here. Part Two: The Budget is tight, but not bust—contrary to the challengers and received wisdom It is unclear whether the challengers just don’t understand the complexities of the 

Why Do Charter Schools Hate Public Schools

Board Members | District of Columbia Public Charter School Board:

Why Do Charter Schools Hate Public Schools

Meet Your SELECTED DC Public Charter School Board

What Is So Public About Charter Schools

The DC Public Charter School Board is governed by a seven-member Board, nominated by the Mayor, with the advice and consent of the DC Council. The volunteer Board approves new schools, provides oversight to schools while in operation, and revokes a school's charter if they fail to meet their performance goals. 

Darren Woodruff, Ph.D |  Chair 

Darren Woodruff, Ph.D. is Chair of the Public Charter School Board.

Dr. Woodruff has long been involved in education research and policy.  Currently he is the senior director of education at the DeBruce Foundation Research Institute where he focuses on the role of schools and education in transforming underserved communities.  Prior to this, Dr. Woodruff worked as a principal research analyst at the American Institutes for Research where he focused on a wide range of educational topics including support for at-risk youth, special education and closing the achievement gap.  Before joining AIR, Dr. Woodruff was a faculty member at the Yale Child Student Center.  He also serves on the boards of other research institutions including the Walter and Theodora Daniel Education Research Fund at Howard University.

Dr. Woodruff has authored several research papers and book chapters on education including minority issues in special education and effective programs for at-risk students.  He has taught and counseled students at the elementary through college levels.

Dr. Woodruff received his Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University, his Masters from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from Howard University’s School of Education where he focused on educational psychology.  He is married and has two children.

Don Soifer | Vice Chair  

Don Soifer is the Vice Chair of the Public Charter School Board.

Don Soifer is a co-founder and Executive Vice President of the Lexington Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.  There, he directs the Institute’s research programs in domestic-policy areas including education, energy and logistics. Mr. Soifer’s education policy research has been published and discussed in many of the nation’s most influential news publications and journals, and cited by the U.S. Supreme Court. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on several occasions and in official hearings of various federal and state agencies.  Mr. Soifer appears regularly on television and radio programs around the country.

Soifer serves on several governing and advisory boards for government and nonprofit organizations. He is on the board of Carpe Diem, a network of charter schools active in Arizona, Indiana, Ohio and Texas that emphasizes personalized learning.

He is a 1990 graduate of Colgate University and lives in Washington, DC.

Steve Bumbaugh | Member

Steve Bumbaugh is a member of the Public Charter School Board.

Mr. Bumbaugh has many years of experience working in education, philanthropy and issues related to urban poverty.  Currently he serves as the Manager of Breakthrough Schools: DC at CityBridge Foundation, an organization that works to build a citywide system of high-performing schools in the District.   

Previously, Mr. Bumbaugh served as the President of the ECMC Foundation, a national funder focusing on education issues in low-income communities.  He was also the first Executive Director of the Specialty Family Foundation, a funder focusing on education, health, and food security issues in low-income communities in Southern California.  Mr. Bumbaugh has also published numerous articles and has been a regular speaker on issues related to poverty and race.

Mr. Bumbaugh received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Political Science from Yale University and his Masters Degree in Business Administration from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Sara Mead | Member

Sara Mead is a member of the Public Charter School Board.

A specialist on early childhood education and K-12 education reform, Ms. Mead works at Bellwether Education Partners.  There she works with education organizations to help them become more effective in their work and achieve dramatic results for students. 

Ms. Mead has researched and written extensively on education issues including federal and state education policy, charter schools, teacher effectiveness and early childhood education. Her work has been featured in numerous media outlets including The Washington Post, New York Times, Slate, and USA Today, and she has appeared on CBS and ABC News and on NPR. 

Before joining Bellwether, Ms. Mead directed the New America Foundation’s Early Education Initiative. She has also worked for Education Sector, the Progressive Policy Institute and the U.S. Department of Education. 

Ms. Mead holds a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Vanderbilt University.

Rick Cruz | Member 

Rick Cruz is a member of the Public Charter School Board.

Mr. Cruz has long been involved in public education.  In Washington, DC, he served as the Chief Executive Officer of DC Prep Public Charter School which focuses on student academic achievement, character education and high school and college readiness.  On a national level, Mr. Cruz held senior level positions at the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship and Teach for America.  Most recently he served as a leader of the Education & Youth Practice at FSG, a consulting firm that supports nonprofits in the education sector. In May 2015 Mr. Cruz joined America’s Promise Alliance as Vice President of Mission Advancement, responsible for fund development and corporate partnerships.

Outside of education, Mr. Cruz has strong experience in finance, budget management and fiscal strategy.  He was a strategic consultant, having worked at the Corporate Executive Board and the Advisory Board Company for more than a decade in successive leadership positions in the US and internationally. 

Mr. Cruz has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Yale University.

Ricarda Ganjam, Ph.D. | Member

Ricarda Ganjam is a member of the DC Public Charter School Board.

Dr. Ganjam has spent more than 15 years with Accenture where she advises companies large and small on human performance and change management. For much of that time, her practice has focused on education, workforce development, technology, performance measurement and leadership in the Washington DC metro area.

She has also been involved in education with KIPP DC’s Future Focus program that mentors students across the KIPP PCS network with career management, presentation skills, financial literacy, critical thinking and more. The program is part of Accenture’s global corporate citizenship initiative, which equips students with the skills to reach their goals of college graduation and successful careers.     

Dr. Ganjam received her Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Educational Human Resource Development from Texas A&M University.  She also received her bachelors and a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Saba Bireda | Member

Saba Bireda is a member of the DC Public Charter School Board.

Ms. Bireda is an attorney at Sanford Hiesler, LLP, a national civil rights law firm. Long active in education policy, Ms. Bireda previously worked for the U.S. Department of Education where she served as senior counsel in the Office of the General Counsel.  There she developed litigation strategy, advised on legal issues and led complex investigations on a variety of education matters.  She also served as senior counsel at the Department’s Office of Civil Rights, where she advised on matters regarding discrimination in education.

Earlier in her career, Ms. Bireda focused on education issues while working for EducationCounsel LLC, an education consulting firm, and the Center for American Progress, an independent nonpartisan policy institute.  She practiced law in the private sector in Philadelphia for Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. Ms. Bireda began her career as a teacher at Sousa Middle School in southeast Washington, DC.

Ms. Bireda graduated from Harvard Law School and received her bachelors degree from Stanford University.

Pastors for Texas Children - Mobilizing the Faith Community for Public Education - Network For Public Education

Pastors for Texas Children - Mobilizing the Faith Community for Public Education - Network For Public Education:

Pastors for Texas Children – Mobilizing the Faith Community for Public Education

Pastors for Texas Children is a three-year-old organization that mobilizes the faith community for public education assistance and advocacy.  Our website is www.pastorsfortexaschildren.com

Our goal is to connect every single local congregation to every single public school in wrap-around care and school improvement assistance – especially high-need schools in poor neighborhoods. We do this always under the authority of the local superintendent and principal – and always scrupulously adhering to the principles of religious liberty and church/state separation.

We believe fully in the First Amendment prohibition against any religious instruction in our public schools. But we also believe that faith communities should be 100% behind public education as a core institution of democratic society and the common good.

In addition to this local school assistance, we also advocate for good and just public education policy in state government. We favor full funding for our schools, particularly universal Pre-K instruction, and we oppose any privatization of our public schools, especially vouchers. We have become a significant voice in preventing a voucher bill from passing in Texas.

We presently have 2000 partners in our organization representing 1000 congregations, and are rapidly expanding. Our movement has spread to Oklahoma where Pastors for Oklahoma Kids has just been established. We are holding conversations with ministers in several other states, and hope to spread our mission nationwide.

If you are interested in helping us do this – or connecting us to your minister and or congregation – please do not hesitate to call the Rev. Charles Foster Johnson, executive director, at 210-378-1066  or email him at charlie@charlesfosterjohnson.com

Pastors for Texas Children - Mobilizing the Faith Community for Public Education - Network For Public Education:

Rescuing Education Reform from Decades of Post-Truth | radical eyes for equity

Rescuing Education Reform from Decades of Post-Truth | radical eyes for equity:

Rescuing Education Reform from Decades of Post-Truth

The presidential campaign and administration of Donald Trump have spurred a focus on the role of mainstream media as well as the influence of fake news and post-truth discourse on political and public debate.

For those of us involved in education and the education reform movement, however, the negative consequences of post-truth discourse have been around for more than a century—and during the past three decades, a harbinger of what the Trump phenomenon has brought to the U.S.

While fake news is a specific term about using click-bait headlines and purposefully false “news” to generate revenue, the concept of post-truth is more complex, and adjacent to that is the much less often addressed issue of how media and politicians often mislead through ignorance and bias grounded in common-sense beliefs that are not supported by evidence.

In those latter gray areas rest the problems associated with claims about education and education reform.

Now that we are admitting and confronting post-truth discourse and the role of media as well as the credibility of political leaders, the path to improved education must include rescuing education reform from decades of post-truth debate.

Here, then, I want to highlight the most common but false claims about education and education reform, false claims found throughout the media Rescuing Education Reform from Decades of Post-Truth | radical eyes for equity:

CPS winners and losers. Same old same old. | Fred Klonsky

CPS winners and losers. Same old same old. | Fred Klonsky:

CPS winners and losers. Same old same old.

The great Sarah Karp, who now does education reporting at Chicago’s public radio station, WBEZ, describes how the spirit of the felonious CPS CEO Barbara Byrd Bennet and SUPES consultant Gary Solomon still walk the halls of CPS’s Clark Street headquarters.

This is a story about how a savvy company came to Chicago and raked in more than $50 million in contracts from the school system in just four years, becoming one of the district’s biggest vendors.

Camelot Education runs six small schools that re-enroll high school dropouts or students who have been expelled. It’s a service the city needs, the school district insists, and by most accounts Camelot runs solid programs that are making a difference for some troubled teens.

But Camelot is also a for-profit company willing to play ball to get contracts, school buildings and students. The Austin, Texas-based company’s growth in Chicago is a textbook example of how private companies are working the system in Chicago — using and being used by city and community leaders for political and financial gain. Call it the new Chicago Way.

Chicago Public Schools is increasingly privatizing services, hiring companies and organizations who often promise cheaper and better services. But it can have troubling consequences. Private companies like Camelot are not subject to stringent reporting requirements, and most of the work is done outside public view. This makes it harder for the public to see how its schools are run and to ferret out conflicts of interest and shady deals.

A WBEZ investigation into Camelot’s rise in Chicago reveals the depths of those potential conflicts.

Meanwhile today’s Sun-Times explains how things have never been worse for CPS CPS winners and losers. Same old same old. | Fred Klonsky:

It's the 20th Anniversary of NEA's Read Across America!

It's the 20th Anniversary of NEA's Read Across America!:

It’s the 20th Anniversary of NEA’s Read Across America!

When Marley Dias got tired of reading books about characters who looked nothing like her, she didn’t complain to her parents or teachers. She took matters into her own capable hands and launched a movement —   #1000blackgirlbooks. The 12-year-old is up to 4000 books and counting and last month landed a book deal with Scholastic. Hundreds of school kids will meet her and hear her story at NEA’s Read Across America.

This Thursday, March 2, marks the 20^th anniversary of NEA’s Read Across America, the nation’s largest reading celebration, with more than 45 million students, parents, educators and others participating every year.

Magic and Laughs

NEA will kick off the 2017 Read Across America at its headquarters in Washington, D.C., with a reading extravaganza for more than 400 public school students. The opening act will be The Great Zucchini,  longtime favorite of children throughout the Washington, D.C. area. The Great Zucchini puts on rollicking, high-energy show with amazing magic tricks and silly games that involve everyone in the audience.

The kids will also be visited by The Cat in the Hat and Thing One and Thing Two and will listen to the classic Suess tale, “Green Eggs and Ham,” read by NEA President Lily Eskelsen García.

Write and Draw Your Own Story

Authors and illustrators from NEA’s Read Across America 20^th Anniversary Calendar features diverse books about a variety of topics children can relate to today, and several of the featured authors and illustrators will be on hand to celebrate the day by reading from their books and leading the kids through interactive activity stations where they can start writing their own story and work on illustrations.

Diverse Books Roundtable

Following the kickoff events, NEA will host a roundtable discussion about literacy and diversity in literature in public schools with key education reporters, NEA President, and Read Across America’s partners Reading is Fundamental and FirstBook. The discussion will be headlined by diverse books advocate Marley Dias and LeVar Burton, the host of the long-running PBS children’s series Reading Rainbow, Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation and the young Kunta It's the 20th Anniversary of NEA's Read Across America!:

 

Oregon Save Our Schools: Letter to Joint Subcommittee on Education re. Chief Education Office and Cost Saving Efficiencies SB 5522

Oregon Save Our Schools: Letter to Joint Subcommittee on Education re. Chief Education Office and Cost Saving Efficiencies SB 5522:

Letter to Joint Subcommittee on Education re. Chief Education Office and Cost Saving Efficiencies SB 5522

Oregon Save Our Schools member Pat Muller, who is also a long time educator, penned this letter last week to the Joint Subcommittee after a presentation to them on SB 5522, which would appropriate over $7 million to operations of the Chief Education Office. This presentation in support of the bill to fund the Chief Education Office was given by the Chief Education Officer. The bill also allots another nearly $4 million from the General Fund to the Statewide Longitudinal Data System which tracks all kinds of data about students  (more on that at a later date).

Here is the letter which Ms. Muller sent to the Joint Subcommittee on Education after watching the presentation.

Dear Chairs Monroe and Smith Warner and Members of the Committee:

I had a flashback while watching the presentation of the Chief Education Office.  You could have wound the tape back a couple of years and heard the exact same presentation from Nancy Golden saying the exact same things.  I am asking:  What is the bang for my buck?  How are the activities of this office trickling down to the students in my classroom?  What is the hidden agenda of this mess?

I resent the veiled message that I am hearing constantly.  

1.     Mr. Capps is eager to point out that we have the worst absenteeism in the nation. I have gone in my car to pick up students before school, bought bicycles for those too far to walk, talked with law enforcement, worked with the homeless liaison, namely moved heaven and Earth for my kids and then I hear Mr. Capps saying I might not be captivating enough to make kids want to come to school!  I would invite Mr. Capps and whoever else would like to come to visit my after school program to see engaged ELL students. Oregon Save Our Schools: Letter to Joint Subcommittee on Education re. Chief Education Office and Cost Saving Efficiencies SB 5522:

Calling sexual harassment “urban culture,” and other reasons the Education Secretary may need a reality check - The Hechinger Report

Calling sexual harassment “urban culture,” and other reasons the Education Secretary may need a reality check - The Hechinger Report:

Calling sexual harassment “urban culture,” and other reasons the Education Secretary may need a reality check
Former civil rights chief of the Education Department on why the agency is indispensable

When we had segregated schools and when we had a time when, you know, girls weren’t allowed to have the same kind of sports teams [these were] important inflection points for the federal government to get involved,” the new Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, said recently.

But when asked whether any such need for federal involvement exists today, Secretary DeVos responded that she “can’t think of any right now.”

Our nation’s students need her to know better.

Secretary DeVos holds the purse strings for billions of federal dollars and leads federal involvement in schools, making it critically important that she know what students in too many schools today know all too well, and what Congress has mandated for close to 60 years: The federal government must actively ensure that our nation’s schools keep core civil rights promises.

I led the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, so I can offer Secretary DeVos a dose of reality about just how far we have to go as a nation to fulfill the law.

In Lee County Schools system in rural Alabama, for example, which had years earlier convinced a federal court that it had eliminated the effects of segregation, one of the four public high schools served more than 90 percent black students – even though the district student population was only 23 percent black.

Related: In a city still struggling with segregation, a popular charter school fights to remain diverse

The majority-black high school had never offered an Advanced Placement course to its students until three years before the civil rights office investigated, while the other three high schools offered a broad range of A.P. courses. Investigators from the Office of Civil Rights asked the principal of the overwhelmingly black school why he didn’t offer high-rigor courses. He said his students needed remedial education, not A.P. It took federal intervention in 2013, almost 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, to ensure that all students in Lee County – not just the white students and the few black students attending majority-white schools – had access to an Calling sexual harassment “urban culture,” and other reasons the Education Secretary may need a reality check - The Hechinger Report:

Charters & Special Education — Truth For America about Teach For America – Cloaking Inequity

Charters & Special Education — Truth For America about Teach For America – Cloaking Inequity:

Charters & Special Education — Truth For America about Teach For America

Is Teach For America’s culture and standardized teaching approaches inconsistent with the needs of Special Education students? Truth For America is a podcast about Teach For America (TFA) that provides voice to educators, parents, students, and other key stakeholders. Truth For America is co-hosted by Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig and Dr. T. Jameson Brewer.

They are joined in episode 14 by Ian Scott, a former Los Angeles TFA corps member and Dr. Barbara Pazey, Assistant Professor of Special Education at the University of Texas at Austin. The conversation in this episode explores whether TFA is properly preparing corps members to teach special education. The podcast also discusses the relationship between TFA and charter schools.

You can check out new episodes hot off the press and much much more by following my YouTube channel. You can also listen and download the Truth For America program from iTunes while you are on the road here.

For all of Cloaking Inequity’s posts on Teach For America click here.

Please Facebook Like, Tweet, etc below and/or reblog to share this discussion with others.

Want to know about Cloaking Inequity’s freshly pressed conversations about educational policy? Click the “Follow blog by email” button on the home page.

Twitter: @ProfessorJVH

Click here for Vitae.

Copyright permission from REM for use of song “World Leader Pretend” in Truth For America podcast worldwide: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21886773/Cloaking%20Inequity/REM%20World%20Leader%20Pretend%20Permission.pdf

Truth For America is sponsored by the Network for Public Education Action.

Charters & Special Education — Truth For America about Teach For America – Cloaking Inequity:

Where Are the Celebrities Supporting Democratic Public Schools?

Where Are the Celebrities Supporting Democratic Public Schools?:

Where Are the Celebrities Supporting Democratic Public Schools?

The Oscars are over and I wonder where the celebrities are when it comes to supporting public schools. Especially when so many dislike President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, you would think at least one movie star would champion democratic public schools.

Hello out there! Hey Hollywood and beyond! All of you who love your old teachers…we need you!

Many movie stars went to public schools and took part in their drama programs. A lot of actors thanked their teachers last night. So where are they in support of their own public schools?

It would be nice if we had some actors and celebrities who backed public schools. Due to their popularity and visibility, their words are powerful and influential.

But most celebrities don’t seem to understand what is happening with school privatization.

Meryl Streep

Like so many people, I admire Meryl Streep. She’s a great actress and seems like a down Where Are the Celebrities Supporting Democratic Public Schools?:

Federal rule dispute a key element of transgender case :: SI&A Cabinet Report

Federal rule dispute a key element of transgender case :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:

Federal rule dispute a key element of transgender case

(District of Columbia)  On the surface, the suit pending before the U.S. Supreme Court over bathrooms and transgender students would seem to be a straight-forward conflict over civil rights. But some experts believe the case brings forward a far different argument over the limits of federal rulemaking.

A key foundation for the legal challenge being brought by a Virginia teen over the use of campus bathrooms is based on an interpretation of federal law issued by the Obama administration last spring–the same one that was rescinded last week by the new Attorney General Jeff Sessions and new U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Sent to states and school districts across the country, the Obama letter opined that it was the position of the federal government that students in the public schools had a right to be treated according to the gender identity, not their gender at birth.

The directive, coming in the form of a “Dear Colleague” letter, didn’t have the power of law, but it did carry the threat of legal and fiscal sanctions so severe that it served basically the same purpose. The letter was also one form of a system of rule increasingly used by the executive branch to cudgel state and local governments into compliance on a wide range of policy goals that may or may not be spelled out in statute.

It is this form of bureaucratic governance that some say members of the Supreme Court want to dig into as part of the proceedings surrounding Gloucester County School Board v. GG.

“The reason the Supreme Court agreed to take this case, I think, is only in part due to the civil rights issue relating to transgender students,” said Sloan Simmons, a partner in the education law firm of Lozano Smith, based in Sacramento.

“For years, various members of the Supreme Court have wanted to return to the issue of the appropriate level of deference that must be given to the interpretation of the law by federal agencies,” he said. “While the headline on the case is that on transgender student rights, I think the piece that the Supreme Court may really want to dig into is the appropriate degree of deference courts should grant a federal agency’s interpretation of the law.”

A part of daily life for district administrators and state officials, the Dear Colleague letters from the U.S. Department of Education have typically been issued to help clarify complex areas of federal law, especially as it relates to spending and accounting. But during the Obama administration, the letters began to take on more controversial issues and press for more immediate changes.

The letters fall into a category of federal communications known as “significant guidance documents.” The most recent authority for issuing them comes from a 2007 order from the Office of Federal rule dispute a key element of transgender case :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet: