Happy Thanksgiving! I Am Thankful for Great Public Education Bloggers! #HappyThanksgiving #thankful #Thanksgiving2018 #gratitude #grateful

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! | Diane Ravitch's blog - https://wp.me/p2odLa-lbM via @dianeravitch

Happy Thanksgiving!

Enjoy your day.

If you are not making dinner, go to a church or homeless shelter to volunteer to serve others. It will remind you of your blessings and good fortune. Former President Obama helped prepare food bags for those in need in Chicago (imagine Trump doing that, I can’t).

The spirit of giving is contagious.

When I think of those to whom I am thankful, I Think first of family and loved ones.

I think of you, who take time from your day to read what I write.

I think of the teachers in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Colorado, North Carolina, and Arizona who taught the nation a lesson.

I think of all those who work tirelessly for others to make our communities better places to live.

Despite our woes, we have much to be thankful for.

Diane

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Happy (Grateful) Thanksgiving - http://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/2018/11/happy-grateful-thanksgiving.html

NYC Educator: Happy Thanksgiving - http://nyceducator.com/2018/11/happy-thanksgiving.html

Thanksgiving: Family, Friends, Teachers, HOPE, and Public Schools - https://nancyebailey.com/2018/11/22/thanksgiving-family-friends-teachers-hope-and-public-schools/ on @NancyEBailey1

glen brown: Thanksgiving: Celebrating the Day Americans Fed Undocumented Aliens from Europe - https://teacherpoetmusicianglenbrown.blogspot.com/2018/11/thanksgiving-celebrating-day-americans.html

Teacher Tom: I'm The Luckiest Man Alive - http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2018/11/im-luckiest-man-alive.html

Decolonize Thanksgiving! – Parenting for Liberation - https://wp.me/p7fXox-Ne via @Parenting4Lib

New PBS NewsHour Video Segment: “How teachers are debunking some of the myths of Thanksgiving” | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... - http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/?p=92805 on @Larryferlazzo

A Thanksgiving Present for You: Laughter! | Diane Ravitch's blog - https://wp.me/p2odLa-lcR via @dianeravitch

I Am Thankful for the Resilient Educators Teaching Children After the Fire in California | Diane Ravitch's blog - https://wp.me/p2odLa-lch via @dianeravitch

I Am Thankful for Freedom of the Press | Diane Ravitch's blog - https://wp.me/p2odLa-lcw via @dianeravitch

I Am Thankful for Those Who Defend an Independent Judiciary | Diane Ravitch's blog - https://wp.me/p2odLa-lcp via @dianeravitch

We're thankful for these Twitter superstars | Schott Foundation for Public Education

We're thankful for these Twitter superstars | Schott Foundation for Public Education

We're thankful for these Twitter superstars 

For those of you who tweet entirely too much (which applies to many of us at Schott!) we've assembled our first annual Twitter list of Education Justice Superstars, individuals who are helping to expand the education conversation online. They’re leading the way, pushing racial and gender equity, fair funding, community schools, grassroots organizing and other crucial issues to the fore.

So while you're sitting back after a plate full of turkey tomorrow, don't forget to add these superstars to your feed:

	Jitu Brown @brothajitu Jitu is a veteran community organizer and the National Director of Journey for Justice Alliance. His feed is filled with updates on J4J’s work and the movement for equity in public education!
	Zakiyah Ansari @Zansari8 Advocacy Director of the Alliance for Quality Education and relentless advocate for equity in public education, Zakiyah’s feed is a great place to go for all things civil rights, racial equity and NYC progressive politics!
	Diane Ravitch @DianeRavitch Diane is the Founder of the Network for Public Education and longtime advocate for quality education. She tweets about all things public education; attempted charter schools takeovers to the damaging effects of overtesting. Diane also blogs at dianeravitch.net.
	Maisie Chin @itzmemaisie Maisie is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Community Asset Development Re-defining Education (CADRE) in Los Angeles and serves on the board of directors at the Schott Foundation. Her Twitter feed is all about public education and education justice organizing!
	Jose Luis Vilson @theJLV “The Math teacher Gotham deserves.” Jose is a career public educator and author of This is Not a Test. Jose tweets about teaching, public education equity, and provides plenty of everyday inspiration! He writes at thejosevilson.com.
	Jesse Hagopian @JessedHagopian Jesse Hagopian is an educator and a lifelong promoter of public education funding and is the co-editor of the new book Teaching for Black Lives, and the Editor of the book More Than a Score. Jesse also posts on his blog iamaneducator.com.
	Judith Browne Dianis @jbrownedianis A civil rights lawyer, racial justice advocate, and executive director of the Advancement Project, Judith’s feed is awesome for updates on AP’s work, racial justice and immigrant rights!
	Dmitri Holtzman @DmitriHoltzman Dmitri is the Director of Education Justice Campaigns for Center for Popular Democracy in Brooklyn, NY. His twitter feed is full of everything having to do with education, Civil Rights and New York politics.
	Jeff Bryant @jeffbcdm Jeff has written about education for the Washington Post, Salon, Alternet, and the Progressive. He heads the Education Opportunity Network and tweets on public education, charter schools, and has been a lifelong champion of equity and equality in education!
	Geoffrey Winder @GeoffreyWinder Geoffrey is the Co-Executive Director of the Gay Straight Alliance Network and an LGBT youth organizer. He tweets about LGBT rights, civil rights, philanthropy and education!

We're thankful for these Twitter superstars | Schott Foundation for Public Education

John Thompson: Goliath, King of the Zombies | Diane Ravitch's blog

John Thompson: Goliath, King of the Zombies | Diane Ravitch's blog

John Thompson: Goliath, King of the Zombies

John Thompson here writes about his reaction to the annual conference of the Network for Public Education, where the implicit theme was that David is beating Goliath, but Goliath just keeps stumbling forward, crushing public schools and advancing privatization, with no evidence of success. I argued, in the opening address of the conference, that the Reformers are akin to Goliath, and that Goliath has failed and failed again but is so powerful that he continues to wreak destruction on communities. He is among the Walking Dead. He is, in fact, a zombie.

Thompson was a teacher in Oklahoma; he recently retired. He lives in the belly of the beast, a state where Goliathians control the legislature and the governorship. At least they don’t pretend to be “progressives.” They are DeVos-Trump extremists, with links to ALEC and the Koch brothers.

Thompson admits that he was slow in realizing that the Reformers are intent on undermining public schools and that they were acting in concert. But he is convinced now, not only that they are doing so, but that their promises have not been kept and that, in fact, they have failed wherever they set their sights.

He ends with this:

Knowing that Indianapolis is at the heart of the dying, but still dangerous corporate reform movement, I expected that Chalkbeat would choose its words carefully and make sure that its reporting didn’t threaten its donations from Goliath. Chalkbeat Indianapolis didn’t cover the NPE conference but Matt Barnum of Chalkbeat New York has been covering Indiana’s Mind Trust and its successor, the City Fund. (Chalkbeat Indiana has since linked to WFYI Indianapolis’s report on one of the city’s 20 “innovation schools” which is receiving $1.3 million in management fees.)

This leads to the biggest question that I brought to the NPE. We Oklahomans have failed to communicate with our state’s edu-philanthropists on how their science-based, holistic early education and trauma-informed instruction programs and the Indianapolis Goliath are Continue reading: John Thompson: Goliath, King of the Zombies | Diane Ravitch's blog

Toward a Consensus Approach to Evaluating State School Finance Systems! (and dumping the others!) – School Finance 101

Toward a Consensus Approach to Evaluating State School Finance Systems! (and dumping the others!) – School Finance 101

Toward a Consensus Approach to Evaluating State School Finance Systems! (and dumping the others!)

Over the past decade, there has been an emerging consensus regarding state school finance systems, money and schools. That consensus is supported by a growing body of high-quality empirical research regarding the importance of equitable and adequate financing for providing quality schooling to all children. As guideposts for this new and improved annual report on state school finance systems, we offer the following five core principles:

1. The level and distribution of school funding matters;
2. Achieve higher outcomes and a broader array of outcomes often requires additional resources and may require substantial additional resources;
3. Achieving competitive student outcomes depends on adequate school resources, including a competitively compensated teacher workforce;
4. Closing achievement gaps between children from rich and poor neighborhoods requires progressive distribution of resources targeted toward children with greater educational needs;
5. Both the adequacy of students’ outcomes and improving the equity of those outcomes are in our national interest.

But US public schooling remains primarily in the hands of states. On average, about 90 percent of funding for local public school systems and charter schools comes from state and local tax sources. How state and local revenue is raised and distributed is a function of seemingly complicated calculations usually adopted as legislation and often with the goal of achieving more equitable and adequate public schooling for the state’s children.

Core Principles of Funding Fairness

Beginning in 2010, in collaboration with the Education Law Center of New Jersey, we laid out a methodology and series of indicators for comparing state school finance systems using available national data sets. With support from the William T. Grant Foundation, we dramatically expanded our analyses and developed publicly accessible district and state level databases – The School Funding Fairness Data System. More recently, we have combined our data with those of the Stanford Education Data Archive to estimate a National Education Cost Model. Concurrently, we have begun to expand our state funding equity analyses to include public two- Continue reading: Toward a Consensus Approach to Evaluating State School Finance Systems! (and dumping the others!) – School Finance 101

The New Stupid Replaces the Old Stupid (Rick Hess) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The New Stupid Replaces the Old Stupid (Rick Hess) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The New Stupid Replaces the Old Stupid (Rick Hess)

From an interview conducted in 2009 with Rick Hess, then Resident Scholar at The American Enterprise Institute. I have lightly abridged the interview. The original article upon which this interview is based is here.

Q: Rick, you recently published an article in Educational Leadership
arguing that the ways in which we rely on data to drive decisions in
schools has changed over time. Yet, you note that we have unfortunately only
succeeded in moving from the “old stupid” to the “new stupid.” What do you do
you mean by this?

A: A decade ago, it was only too easy to find education leaders who dismissed
student achievement data and systematic research as having only limited utility
when it came to improving schools. Today, we’ve come full circle. You can’t
spend a day at an education gathering without hearing excited claims about
“data-based decision making” and “research-based practice.” Yet these phrases
can too readily serve as convenient buzzwords that obscure more than they
clarify and that stand in for careful thought. There is too often an unfortunate
tendency to simply embrace glib solutions if they’re packaged as “data-driven.”
Today’s enthusiastic embrace of data has waltzed us directly from a petulant
resistance to performance measures to a reflexive reliance on a few simple
metrics–namely, graduation rates, expenditures, and grade three through eight
reading and math scores. The result has been a race from one troubling mindset
to another–from the “old stupid” to the “new stupid.”

Q: Can you give us an example of the “new stupid”?

A: Sure, here’s one. I was giving a presentation to a group of aspiring
superintendents. They were eager to make data-driven decisions and employ
research to serve kids. There wasn’t a shred of the old stupid in sight. I
started to grow concerned, however, when our conversation turned to value-added
assessment and teacher assignments. The group had recently read a research brief
highlighting the effect of teachers on achievement and the inequitable
distribution of teachers within districts. They were fired up and ready to put
this knowledge to use. One declared to me, to widespread agreement, “Day one,
we’re going to start identifying those high value-added teachers and moving them
to the schools that aren’t making AYP.” [AYP is the acronym from No Child Left Behind law (2002-20015); it means “Adequate Yearly Progress” in test scores for different groups of students.]

Now, I sympathize with the premise, but the certainty Continue reading: The New Stupid Replaces the Old Stupid (Rick Hess) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Truly Public Schools Must Form Engaged Citizens and Then Engage Those Citizens in Shaping School Policy | janresseger

Truly Public Schools Must Form Engaged Citizens and Then Engage Those Citizens in Shaping School Policy | janresseger

Truly Public Schools Must Form Engaged Citizens and Then Engage Those Citizens in Shaping School Policy

This blog will take a week long Thanksgiving break.  Look for a new post on November 29.  Good wishes for Thanksgiving!

In its October 2018 issue, Phi Delta Kappan magazine features a pair of articles that, from two entirely different perspectives, trace declining civic engagement around public education to the philosophy at the heart of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act.

In Preparation for Capable Citizenship: The Schools’ Primary Responsibility, Michael Rebell worries that schools driven by a pinched, test-and-punish agenda—schools designed to force all students to demonstrate basic proficiency in language arts and math—have narrowed the curriculum and dangerously reduced what has been understood historically a primary purpose of public schools: the formation of engaged citizens.  Rebell is the executive director of the Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University.  He is an attorney and one of the founders of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Inc.  He was executive director when the Campaign for Fiscal Equity successfully sued the state for more adequate and equitably distributed school funding.

Rebell argues that high-stakes, test-based school accountability—the system which rates and ranks schools and school districts on standardized tests of language arts and math and punishes the lowest scoring schools and teachers—has squeezed out much that is important: “Over the past half century, the scope of American democracy has expanded to include a more diverse population and a greater understanding of the need to respect and embrace the needs and aspirations of all our citizens, yet the schools’ civic focus has eroded, leaving our democratic institutions substantially at risk. Interestingly, a series of recent cases regarding the adequacy of funding for public schools has led state courts to examine the meaning of state constitutional clauses—most of which were written in the 18th and 19th centuries…. The courts have consistently emphasized the continuing importance of educating students to be effective citizens.  For example, the New York Court of Appeals held that the purpose of public education today is to provide students the skills they need to ‘function productively as civic participants capable of voting and serving on a jury’ (Campaign for Fiscal Equity,Inc. v. New York State, 2003).”

Rebell defines the skills he believes are needed for citizenship: “(1) basic civic knowledge of government, history, law and democracy; (2) verbal and critical reasoning skills; (3) social and participatory experiences, and (4) responsible character traits and acceptance of democratic Continue reading: Truly Public Schools Must Form Engaged Citizens and Then Engage Those Citizens in Shaping School Policy | janresseger

Mitchell Robinson: Please save me from the wisdom of self-appointed education experts, Part 293 | Eclectablog

Please save me from the wisdom of self-appointed education experts, Part 293 | Eclectablog

Please save me from the wisdom of self-appointed education experts, Part 293

I read a lot of stuff on education policy, written by a wide range of authors. Some are bright, well-informed, and experienced teachers. Most are not. But this piece here maybe the silliest article on education reform I’ve seen in a long, long time.

It’s by an author I have to admit I’d never heard of until today…Robin Lake, from the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington, Bothell. (Note: One of my trusted colleagues at UW Bothell wanted me to assure readers that their School of Educational Studies is not connected to CRPE, and does not want to be connected to CRPE in any way.)

A quick glance at Ms. Lake’s CV shows that she has a MPA in Education and Urban Policy from the University of Washington, but never found time to actually, you know…teach. So here she is, providing her suggestions on how to “fix” education, without ever having taught anyone anything. So there’s that–which I wish I could say was surprising, or uncommon.

Anyhoo, here’s a snippet…with some commentary:

Lake: “What exactly do we want to happen when students aren’t achieving basic competencies? Imagine a ninth grader who shows up in high school reading at a third-grade level. Should the high school be held accountable for that student’s lack of proficiency?”

Me: If your first question upon encountering a ninth grader reading at a 3rd grade level is about who to blame…you’re not a teacher. But to answer the question of what to do when kids aren’t achieving basic competencies…maybe the first things to do are to ask who established these competencies, how they were determined, how were they measured, who paid for the tests, and who benefits when kids fail?

Also, so long as we’re using strawman tactics to make our point here, it’s more than possible that this ninth-grader “show(ed) up in high school reading at a third-grade level” after attending a string Continue reading: Please save me from the wisdom of self-appointed education experts, Part 293 | Eclectablog

CURMUDGUCATION: Should Your Three-Year-Old Attend On-line School?

CURMUDGUCATION: Should Your Three-Year-Old Attend On-line School?

Should Your Three-Year-Old Attend On-line School?

The short answer is, "No." Or maybe, "Hell, no."

You may wonder why the subject even needs to be discussed, and the short answer to that is, "Because somebody's already doing it."

By now you've probably heard the new old saying that kindergarten is the new first grade, with academic learning that used to be a staple of 6-year-olds now pushed down to 5-year-olds. We can blame that on many factors, including the parental desire to give their child an extra competitive edge, but arguably this is yet another problem we can blame on Common Core Standards. Some of the worst problems with the standards are found in the earliest grades, likely because of the use of backwards scaffolding-- the standards writers decided what a high school graduate should be able to do, and then just worked backward from there ("If we want them to bench-press 100 pounds in 12th grade, then we should start with 5-year-olds bench pressing 50 pounds and add 4 more pounds every year"). It seems logical, as long as I completely ignore the developmental capabilities of small children.

The demands of the Core and Core-related testing has panicked many school districts into getting students started on academics sooner and ignoring what we know about the developmental capabilities of littles. Now we frequently hear noise about 5-year-olds not being ready for kindergarten, which has put the pressure on the Pre-K providers. In Florida, where huge numbers of littles are deemed "not ready for kindergarten," pre-K providers have been threatened with losing funding if their "graduates" can't pass a standardized kindergarten exam.

Never mind that everything we know says this approach is wrong. Much research says that early academic gains are lost by third grade; some research says that pre-school academics actually make for worse long term results. If most of your 5-year-olds are not ready for kindergarten, the problem is with your kindergarten, not your 5-year-olds.

Turning to technology does not help. A study released earlier this year by the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine, found that most "educational" apps aimed at children five and Continue reading: CURMUDGUCATION: Should Your Three-Year-Old Attend On-line School?

My Review of Eve L. Ewing’s “Ghosts in the Schoolyard” | Diane Ravitch's blog

My Review of Eve L. Ewing’s “Ghosts in the Schoolyard” | Diane Ravitch's blog

My Review of Eve L. Ewing’s “Ghosts in the Schoolyard”

The best book about education this year was written by a woman who is a poet, a playwright, a novelist, and soon to be the writer of a Marvel comic about “a black girl genius from Chicago.” Ewing has a doctorate in sociology from Harvard and is now on the faculty of the University of Chicago. In case you don’t know all this, I am referring to Eve L. Ewing and her new book about school closings in Chicago. The title is Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side.

Eve Ewing was a teacher in one of the 50 public schools that Rahm Emanuel closed in a single day. Her book will help to memorialize Rahm Emanuel’s stigma as the only person in American history to close 50 public schools in one day.

Because she is a poet, the book is written beautifully. She has managed to overcome the burden of academic language, which can so often sound technical, bureaucratic, and dehumanizing. Her language goes to the heart of the experience of suffering at the hands of bureaucrats and technocrats.

She examines the school closings from the perspective of those who were its victims: students, families, communities.

The question at the heart of the book is this: Why do students and families fight to keep their schools open after the authorities declare they are “failing schools.”

She answers the question by listening to and recording the moving testimony of those who fought for the survival of their schools.

Ewing sketches the history of the Bronzeville community in Chicago, racially segregated by government action. What resulted was a community that was hemmed in but nonetheless developed strong traditions, ties, and communal bonds. One of those bonds was the one between families and schools.

She describes some of the schools that were closed, schools with long Continue reading: My Review of Eve L. Ewing’s “Ghosts in the Schoolyard” | Diane Ravitch's blog

Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side: Eve L. Ewing: 9780226526027: Amazon.com: Books - https://www.amazon.com/Ghosts-Schoolyard-Racism-Closings-Chicagos/dp/022652602X

DeVos Proposes Controversial Rewrite of Rules for Investigating Campus Sexual Assault | janresseger

DeVos Proposes Controversial Rewrite of Rules for Investigating Campus Sexual Assault | janresseger

DeVos Proposes Controversial Rewrite of Rules for Investigating Campus Sexual Assault

Last Friday, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos released—for a 60-day public comment period—new rules for how schools that receive federal dollars must handle allegations of sexual assault.  The Washington Post‘s Laura Meckler explains: “The rules stem from a 1972 law known as Title IX that bars sex discrimination at schools that receive federal funding. Most of the attention is on higher education, but the rules also apply to elementary and secondary schools.  Unlike the less formal Obama-era guidance that is being replaced, the new plan is a proposed regulation that will be subject to public comment and, once finalized, carry the force of law…. Overall, the proposed regulation describes what constitutes sexual harassment or assault for the purpose of Title IX enforcement, what triggers a school’s legal obligation to respond to allegations, and how a school must respond.”

Meckler reports that the new rules would, if finalized, narrow the definition of sexual assault: “(T)he proposal puts forth a narrow definition of harassment. Obama guidelines held that harassment was ‘unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature.’ The proposed regulation defines it as ‘unwelcome conduct on the basis of sex that is so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it denies a person access to the school’s education program or activity.’ ”  Meckler adds that under the new rules, a student’s complaint of sexual abuse must be reported to an “official with authority to take corrective action.”  That person could include the school’s Title IX coordinator, but would not include a complaint, for example, made by a student to a teacher or other unauthorized personnel.  Additionally, the incident must have occurred on campus or as part of the school’s programs or sponsored activities. Besides narrowing the definition of campus sexual assault, the new procedures are burdensome for the victims and likely to discourage the reporting of serious incidents.

A major change proposed in the new rules is that colleges would be required to hold a formal hearing once a complaint is received. Meckler reports: “In investigating complaints, schools are required to implement a range of due process procedures, including a presumption of  Continue reading: DeVos Proposes Controversial Rewrite of Rules for Investigating Campus Sexual Assault | janresseger

Charter School Cheerleaders Elected to Leadership with PA House Dems | gadflyonthewallblog

Charter School Cheerleaders Elected to Leadership with PA House Dems | gadflyonthewallblog

Charter School Cheerleaders Elected to Leadership with PA House Dems

Democratic gains in the midterm elections were a repudiation of the policies of Donald Trump.

Yet holding nearly the same views as Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVosearned two Pennsylvania state representatives high leadership positions with House Democrats.

Rep. Jordan Harris, D-Philadelphia, was elected minority whip – the second highest position after floor leader. Rep. Joanna McClinton, another Philadelphia Democrat, was selected chair of the Democratic Caucus.

Even after making gains in the election, Democrats did not get control of either the state House or Senate from Republicans, but kept control of the Governor’s mansion.

New leadership positions will last for two years, but have many scratching their heads.

Both Harris and McClinton are staunch supporters of charter schools over and above traditional public schools just like DeVos, a Republican megadonor before being selected for Trump’s cabinet.

Harris and McClinton support school vouchers – just like DeVos – if labeled Continue reading: 

Toxic Philanthropy Part 1: Surveillance – Wrench in the Gears

Toxic Philanthropy Part 1: Surveillance – Wrench in the Gears

Toxic Philanthropy Part 1: Surveillance

We are living through desperate times: populations dislocated by climate catastrophe and dispossessed by state violence. Many are attempting, unsuccessfully, to navigate economic systems grounded in low-wage, disposable labor and insurmountable debt. The cost of living continues to rise, especially in cities where wealth is concentrated in the hands of speculative investors.

Stable housing is hard to find; food insecurity is real. Addiction is rampant with limited treatment options, and affordable healthcare is beyond reach. Meanwhile, education is being privatized as children are plugged into devices and told to cultivate a “growth mindset.” Digital tracking of mental health and social-emotional competencies is being normalized. It’s as if the Davos / Fourth Industrial Revolution crowd knows things are about to get much, much worse, and is rapidly locking systems into place to track and manage citizens before they become ungovernable.

As the buying power of the working class withers, capital must find new ways to circulate. Increasingly it will flow into investment markets created by outcomes-based service contracting. Such a model will fuel growth in P3 public-private partnerships and enrich those consulting firms, like Ridge Lane LP, angling to broker agreements. Seed funding to jumpstart this transition was part of the Federal Budget in February, the Social Impact Partnerships Pay for Success Act.

Against such a backdrop, we must critically examine the toxic network of arrangements that have been made between non-profit health and human service organizations (including public education systems), predatory venture philanthropy, and companies that have developed technologies to turn citizens into “impact” commodities that can be tokenized and traded like toxic bundled mortgages in derivatives markets.

Branding poverty-mining as “what works” government makes it easier for finance and technology interests to convince elected officials that wringing profit from the misery of society’s most vulnerable is something that could actually be made palatable enough to sell to the unsuspecting masses. Whether living in abandoned warehouses or tents in Kensington, in rural Indian villages, or refugee encampments, those needing access to services Continue reading: Toxic Philanthropy Part 1: Surveillance – Wrench in the Gears

A White Supremacist Murdered Two At My Supermarket: Kentucky teacher speaks out against racist violence and the school-to-prison-pipeline – I AM AN EDUCATOR

A White Supremacist Murdered Two At My Supermarket: Kentucky teacher speaks out against racist violence and the school-to-prison-pipeline – I AM AN EDUCATOR

A White Supremacist Murdered Two At My Supermarket: Kentucky teacher speaks out against racist violence and the school-to-prison-pipeline

In October, two Black grandparents were gunned down by a white supremacist in a Kroger supermarket in Louisville, Kentucky, sending shock waves through the Black community.

The shooter was recorded on surveillance video trying to get into a predominately Black church just before the killing. Michelle Randolph, who teaches fourth grade in a school with a majority of Black and immigrant students in Jefferson County, Kentucky, lives in the neighborhood and shops at the Kroger that was targeted.

Randolph helped organize the over 5,000 Kentucky educators who shut down schools in 30 counties and rallied with students, parents and unionists on the state Capitol for education funding. Kentucky educators were part of the “Red State Revolt,” which included strikes that shut schools down in more than five states dominated by Republican legislatures — including West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona and North Carolina — and won many millions of extra dollars in education spending for their school districts.

Jesse Hagopian, a Seattle high school ethnic studies teacher and co-editor of the book Teaching for Black Lives, interviewed Michelle on the fight against racism and the struggle for education in an article that first appeared in Socialist Worker.

Jesse: Thanks for taking the time to talk after a long day in the classroom.

Michelle: My pleasure.

Jesse: I wanted to first ask you about the recent escalation of racist, hateful violence. There were the mail bombs sent to political opponents of Trump. Then there was the attack on the synagogue that killed 11 people, which has been called the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. And in the midst of these, there was the racist killing of two Black grandparents in Kentucky, Maurice Stallard and Vickie Lee Jones, while they were doing their weekly shopping at the Kroger supermarket. Tell me about the Continue reading: A White Supremacist Murdered Two At My Supermarket: Kentucky teacher speaks out against racist violence and the school-to-prison-pipeline – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Kansas’ next governor says job protections for teachers should be restored statewide | The Wichita Eagle

Kelly would ‘welcome’ bill to restore teacher due process | The Wichita Eagle

Kansas’ next governor says job protections for teachers should be restored statewide

TOPEKA 

Kansas Gov.-elect Laura Kelly said she would welcome a bill to again provide thousands of public school teachers with statewide due process protections that were eliminated years ago.

During an interview Thursday with McClatchy, she also said that she wants to strengthen the state’s civil service system, which has lost thousands of employees over the past several years.

Under due process, teachers have the right to an administrative hearing before they are fired. Advocates say that provides protection from wrongful termination. Opponents say decisions about whether to extend due process should be made by local school boards and districts, not state lawmakers.

Lawmakers and then-Gov. Sam Brownback eliminated that right from state law in 2014. Teacher unions and Democrats – including Kelly – have wanted to reverse the decision ever since.

“I voted against eliminating due process for teachers and I would welcome a bill that repeals what we enacted in 2014. I fully expect that there will be efforts to do that during the legislative session,” Kelly said.

Previous bills to restore teacher due process have not advanced to the governor’s desk. But some measures have found support among lawmakers in the House. In 2017, for example, Continue reading: Kelly would ‘welcome’ bill to restore teacher due process | The Wichita Eagle