Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION

CURMUDGUCATION:

Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION

How Not To Teach Writing

67by Peter Greene / 1d

Imagine how crazy it would be. An English teacher stands in front of a class and explains, "For every thought you have about the prompt, there is only one correct sentence that can use to express that thought. I'll be grading your essays based on how many of the correct sentences you use." Nobody teaches writing that way. Nobody says, "Okay, if you have an insight about Jake's injury in The Sun Al

MAR 23

MS: Paving Way for Vouchers

8by Peter Greene / 1d

Mississippi has long been considered America's Armpit of Education. Educational lists? You name it, they've consistently ranked near the bottom. It qualified as news when Nevada beat them for dead last in EdWeek's Quality Counts list in 2016, because that was their first step up in years(and it can be argued that they didn't so much improve as Nevada just became even worse.) Sharing another excell

MAR 22

Which Choice Would You Choose?

29by Peter Greene / 2d

If you were (or are) a parent, which one of the following options would you prefer? OPTION A Your neighborhood is served by a single public school. That school is well-staffed with a range of young and experienced professional educators, well-trained and committed to the needs of their students, and they are well-managed and well-paid so that they stay on as the foundation of a stable school commu

MAR 21

Booking.com and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Ad

100+by Peter Greene / 3d

The folks at booking.com put out this advertisement. I've never established a Hall of Fame here, but if I did, this letter would go into it: After watching your ad several times I am moved to do something I've never done before- write a company to complain of the image they are portraying of my profession. As a 15 year veteran teacher, I can assure you that my stress does NOT come from the student

MD: University Privatization

15by Peter Greene / 3d

The University of Maryland University College is pioneering a new business model, and not everyone thinks it's a very good idea. George Kroner is a UMUC graduate and a former employee who worked on the tech side of things as UMUC developed a variety of on-line education and analytics programs (he is also, I should note, a former student of mine). But in the nine months since Kroner has left UMUC,

Netflix and the Myth of Personalization

19by Peter Greene / 4d

Today Slate has an analysis of how Netflix began the process of personalizing marketing, of using "algorithms to micromanage distribution, not production" in particular in the multi-pronged marketing of House of Cards by creating multiple trailers to appeal to particular slices of the Netflix customer pool, based on their "likes." In the middle of the article, we find this paragraph: House of Card

MAR 20

IN: Vouchers and Changing the System

9by Peter Greene / 4d

Indy Ed is a website devoted to exploring one idea-- "There are so many changes swirling around our schools that it’s hard to get straight answers." Their focus is Indianapolis, one more urban center suffering from a plethora of education problems, not the lest of which is a government that doesn't want to spend too many tax dollars on Those People. But Indy Ed seems to prefer focusing on that mo

The Map of the World

19by Peter Greene / 5d

Boston Public Schools just caused a stir by adopting a new map of the world. " Boston public schools map switch aims to amend 500 years of distortion "reads the headline in the The Guardian, and "amend" is a good choice of words, because BPS decided to replace one set of distortions with another. Boston had been using the Mercator Projection (1569), a version that we're all pretty familiar with. M

MAR 19

ICYMI: Quiet Sunday Edition (3/19)

5by Peter Greene / 6d

Here's some reading for your lazy Sunday. Remember to pass on what you find useful! Did Betsy DeVos Just Ask States To Ignore Part of Federal Law? Nobody did a better job this week of explaining the problem with DeVos's comments on just who gets included in ESSA work than Valerie Strauss Damning a Student's Future with Old Data Nancy Bailey looks at one of the big problems with the work of our Dat

MAR 18

The Lost Years

300+by Peter Greene / 7d

After years of hearing how kindergarten has been turned into the new first grade, you'd think at the other end of the K-12 pipeline we would find highly advanced students. And yet-- not so much. I am not going to report a ton of 

CURMUDGUCATION:

For Profit U – Have You Heard + Change a School’s Structure, Change the World: An Exchange

For Profit U – Have You Heard:

For Profit U

In episode #14, Have You Heard talks to Tressie McMillan Cottom about her new book, Lower Ed, and the push to make education *risky*…

In this episode of Have You Heard, we talk to Tressie McMillan Cottom about the rise of for-profit colleges, and *risky* higher ed that saddles low-income students with debt and questionable credentials. And we discuss the growing push to make K-12 more risky, including busting up public institutions and shifting the burden of choosing an *education option* as Betsy DeVos likes to call it, onto parents. Cottom’s new book Lower Ed is a must read, and this episode of Have You Heard is a must listen. As she points out, the same free market that we’re now entrusting with the futures of kids and adolescents also gave us cheese whiz. Cottom’s book and our conversation threatened to deplete my store of adjectives (*fantastic*!) and inspired Jack to make one of his famous charts.

Jennifer Berkshire:	Welcome back to another episode of Have You Heard. I’m Jennifer Berkshire.
Jack Schneider.:	And I’m Jack Schneider.
Jennifer B.:	And today, we’re going to be talking about for-profit higher ed.
Jack S.:	I’m calling this episode “When Things Don’t Go According to Plan”.
Jennifer B.:	Well, I think that depends on who you ask, because in some areas, it seems like things are going very much according to plan. In fact-
Jack S.:	That would be the boardroom.
Jennifer B.:	That’s correct. On my way over here, I happened to read, I was checking my stock performance as usual-
Jack S.:	That’s good, I hope you bought the whole index. Either that or I hope you bought just stock in for-profit colleges and universities, because For Profit U – Have You Heard:

Change a School’s Structure, Change the World: An Exchange

In which Empower School’s Brett Alessi and I go back and forth about whether the Springfield Empowerment Zone is *all that*… 

Editor’s note: I recently wrote about the much-hyped Springfield Empowerment Zone, arguing that there isn’t enough *there there* to merit its coronation as the next big thing, and that the zone’s eye-popping suspension numbers are a serious red flag. Brett Alessi, head of Empower Schools, the nonprofit that is helping to empower the Empowerment Zone, responded and asked if he might respond to my piece, giving readers a fuller account of what’s happening in Springfield than my *negative Nancy* portrayal. (My description, not his). I eagerly obliged but requested that Alessi focus on the two specific issues I raised: the high student suspension numbers in the Zone’s schools, and whether the push to *scale up* the Zone is warranted given that the Zone has yet to do what its architects claimed that it would do. Alessi’s response is below, and my response to his response is below that…

By Brett Alessi
First, I’d like to start by saying that while we don’t always see eye-to-eye, I have really enjoyed our exchanges and appreciate the opportunity engage in a genuine dialogue.  At the end of the day, I believe that what we both care most about is ensuring that all children have the opportunity to be successful.

In response to your recent post, I’d like to point out that prior to forming the Springfield Empowerment Zone Partnership (SEZP), the schools that are now in the Zone were in the bottom 3 percent of middle schools in Massachusetts. Five of Change a School’s Structure, Change the World: An Exchange 

The Stealth Campaign Against Public Schools and the Public Space

The Stealth Campaign Against Public Schools and the Public Space:

The Stealth Campaign Against Public Schools and the Public Space

Sheila posted this exactly two years ago and her words are still stunning. The post has been  recirculating and I wanted to highlight it. Many thanks to Sheila Resseger for her passionate and pointed writing.

By Sheila Resseger, M.A.

Instead of seeing these children for the blessings that they are, we are measuring them only by the standard of whether they will be future deficits or assets for our nation’s competitive needs. 

Jonathan Kozol

Our children, our families, our neighborhoods, our public schools, and our democracy itself have become pawns in a vast and inter-connected scheme to undermine public institutions for private profit. The vehicle for this travesty in the arena of education is the Common Core State (sic) (Stealth) Standards and their accompanying high-stakes standardized testing—PARCC or SBAC. This incessant testing, orchestrated to be taken on computers, intensifies the myth that 21st century teaching depends on the innovation of software programs that “personalize” education for each child. Nothing could be further from the truth. The entrenched belief that accounting/accountability, i.e. data collection, is the answer to lagging scores on standardized tests as compared to other nations is a travesty.

Human beings learn from other human beings. Human beings are inspired to learn in trusted relationships. The factory model of standardization and culling of the defective is antithetical to a diverse, democratic society. This is a travesty of the extreme right wing (e.g. ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council), the Democratic left (e.g. Democrats for Education Reform and the White House), the business community (e.g. the Chamber of Commerce), and the ed tech entrepreneurs/corporatists (e.g. Bill Gates/Microsoft), with the willing collusion of the federal Department of Education. Critics of this “innovative” strategy are accused of wallowing in the status quo. It is true The Stealth Campaign Against Public Schools and the Public Space:

These For-Profit Schools Are ‘Like A Prison’ | PopularResistance.Org

These For-Profit Schools Are ‘Like A Prison’ | PopularResistance.Org:

These For-Profit Schools Are ‘Like A Prison’

Camelot Education takes the students that public schools have given up on. But some current and former students say its discipline goes too far.

Listen to This Story
Hear a narrated version of this story. Download the Audm app for your iPhone to listen to more titles.

This story was co-published with Slate.

Teenagers at Paramount Academy sometimes came home with mysterious injuries.

An alternative school for sixth- through 12th-graders with behavioral or academic problems, Paramount occupied a low-slung, brick and concrete building on a dead-end road in hard-luck Reading, Pennsylvania, a city whose streets are littered with signs advertising bail bondsmen, pay-day lenders, and pawn shops. Camelot Education, the for-profit company that ran Paramount under a contract with the Reading school district, maintained a set of strict protocols: No jewelry, book bags, or using the water fountain or bathroom without permission. Just as it still does at dozens of schools, the company deployed a small platoon of “behavioral specialists” and “team leaders”: typically large men whose job was partly to enforce the rules.

Over six months in 2013 and 2014, about a half-dozen parents, students and community members at Paramount Academy — billed as a “therapeutic” day program — complained of abusive behavior by the school’s staff. One mother heard that staff restrained students by “excessive force” and bruised the arms of a female student, according to email exchanges between Camelot and the district. Another mother, Sharon Pacharis, said she visited the school to complain about manhandling and was told, “That’s just what we do.” Camelot’s own written reports to the district documented one incident in which a teenager was scratched and another in which a bathroom wall was damaged. Both resulted from “holds” — likely a reference to Camelot’s protocol for restraining students during a physical encounter.

Camelot tended to blame the students in its weekly reports to the district, calling them “out of control”; school officials referred several to police. It was, after all, a place partly for students whom the district had deemed too disruptive for a traditional school setting.

But an incident on April 24, 2014, abruptly shifted the focus to Camelot’s staff.

Ismael Seals, a behavioral specialist, walked into a classroom with several loud and boisterous students and commanded them to “shut the fuck up,” decreeing that the next one who talked would get body-slammed through the door, according to a subsequent criminal complaint. Moments later, Seals fulfilled his promise. After 17-year-old Corey Mack asked and received permission from his teacher, Teresa Bivens, to get up to sharpen his pencil, Seals pushed him repeatedly against a door and then shoved him into the hall, where a school surveillance camera recorded most of the rest of the incident. Seals, 6 feet 4 inches tall and 280 pounds, lifted Mack, 5 feet 8 inches tall and about 160 pounds, by his shirt and swung him into the wall headfirst, later pinning him to the ground as other staff members arrived, according to court documents.

Mack later showed a string of bruises and scratches on his back to a program director at a center for children with behavioral and mental health challenges. The program director called a juvenile probation official, who contacted the police.

Reached by telephone last fall, Corey Mack struggled to remember the details of his altercation with Seals, including what he had said just before the behavioral specialist shoved him, and the precise sequence of events. But he was clear on the essential point: “He beat me up,” Mack said.

The Seals incident is the best-documented example of staff-on-student violence at facilities run by Camelot, a company dogged by allegations of similar abuses. Thirteen Camelot students have alleged in interviews or documents that they were shoved, beaten, or thrown — assaults almost always referred to as “slamming” — by Camelot staff members, usually for the sin of talking back, in separate incidents that span 10 years and three states. (Six of the students were interviewed in 2009 in New Orleans.) Two additional students, and five Camelot staff members, say they have personally witnessed beatings or physical aggression by staff.

The abuse allegedly occurred in Camelot programs in Reading; Lancaster; Philadelphia; New Orleans; and Pensacola, Florida. Jandy Rivera, for instance, a former teacher at Camelot-run Phoenix Academy in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, says that on multiple occasions staff members, including administrators, “baited kids so they could hit kids.” For the most part, staffers who allegedly assaulted students have faced no criminal charges or internal discipline; some have even been promoted.

The Florida Department of Children and Families, which investigates reports of child abuse, is looking into an incident last week at Camelot Academy in Pensacola in which a behavioral specialist, while breaking up a fight between students, allegedly knocked a 13-year-old to the ground, causing a bloody abrasion and bruising near the teenager’s eye. The youth posted a graphic photo of his swollen face on Facebook. “I do not like this way of disciplining kids,’’ said his mother, Pauline Ball. “You can give him a permanent injury.” Camelot said the specialist “had to intervene to protect other students,” and that the injuries were an accident: “The staff member and student tripped over each other’s feet and both These For-Profit Schools Are ‘Like A Prison’ | PopularResistance.Org:

Supreme Court Ruling On Special Ed Contradicts Gorsuch; DeVos Education Department Lacks Key Posts : NPR Ed : NPR

Supreme Court Ruling On Special Ed Contradicts Gorsuch; DeVos Education Department Lacks Key Posts : NPR Ed : NPR:

This Week In Education: Supreme Court Rules On Special Ed; Senator Slams Vouchers

No rest for the weary in our weekly roundup of national education news.

Supreme Court rules on special education case

"I'm thrilled," said Amanda Morin, a parent and advocate with the web site Understood.org, after the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in a case that could affect 6.5 million special education students. "Now I can actually go into a school system and say 'The Supreme Court has said, based on my child's abilities, he is legally entitled to make progress.'"

In Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District, a Colorado family asked the district to pay for their son's private school tuition. They felt Endrew, who has autism and ADHD, wasn't making sufficient progress in his public school.

Federal law guarantees a "Free Appropriate Public Education" for all students with disabilities. In writing the court's opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts held that schools must meet a more demanding standard than "merely more than de minimis" and that a child's education plan must be "appropriately ambitious."

But the court stopped short of offering a simple formula. "We will not attempt to elaborate on what 'appropriate' progress will look like from case to case," reads the opinion, saying it depends on "the unique circumstances of the child."

Advocates for children with disabilities hailed the ruling.

"Today is a good day for children with disabilities," Mimi Corcoran, president and CEO of the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said in a statement. "The Court ... soundly rejected the belief that just some small benefit is enough."

"The Supreme Court's decision today acknowledges what we all know: that virtually all students with disabilities can be educated in regular classrooms and can meet the same high expectations we have for students without disabilities," Ira Burnim, legal director of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, said in a statement.

While commending the decision, some public school advocates made a subtly different point, that "appropriately ambitious" is already the norm in many schools.

Nancy Reder, deputy executive director of the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, told NPR Ed, "A higher standard is already playing out throughout the country."

And Julie Wright Halbert, legislative counsel for the Council of the Great City Schools, said, "I think this really reflects what we currently are already doing."

If that's true, this ruling may not lead to big changes after all. Time will tell.

DeVos makes case for less activist Department of Education

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos spoke to two big groups of state education leaders this week, the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Association of State Boards of Education.

Just days after President Trump unveiled his budget blueprint, which calls for a 13.5 percent cut in the department, DeVos stressed her desire to give state and local education leaders more freedom.

"Too often, the Department of Education has gone outside of its established authority and created roadblocks – wittingly or unwittingly – for parents and educators alike," she told the Council of Chief State School Officers. "This isn't right, nor is it acceptable. Under this administration, we will break this habit."

Speaking of roadblocks, states have an initial deadline to submit their school accountability plans to the department next month. But Congress recently threw out the regulations that spelled out exactly how they are supposed to conform with federal law. And as Education Week reported recently, DeVos's department is notably understaffed, lacking a deputy and assistant secretaries.

Former for-profit college lobbyist steps down

One more Ed Department post opened up when Taylor Hansen, a former registered lobbyist for the major for-profit college trade association, made an exit after just one Supreme Court Ruling On Special Ed Contradicts Gorsuch; DeVos Education Department Lacks Key Posts : NPR Ed : NPR:

Students Serve Up Stories Of Beloved Family Recipes In A Global Cookbook

100+by Becky Harlan / 2h

Many students at D.C.'s Capital City Charter School are first-generation Americans. For a creative writing project, a literacy nonprofit picked a topic everyone could relate to: food from home. (Image credit: Becky Harlan)

A High School's Lesson For Helping English Language Learners Get To College

1Kby Claire McInerny / 4h

Fort Wayne, Ind., is home to one of the largest Burmese refugee populations in the U.S. One public high school there is helping them meet high expectations. (Image credit: LA Johnson/NPR)