CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Really Big List Edition (2/3)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Really Big List Edition (2/3)

ICYMI: Really Big List Edition (2/3)

Was it the cold? Did we all just have more time to wander the internet? I don't know, but it's a huge list this week. Remember to share-- that's how the word gets out.


LA Strike: Charters Are An Existential Threat To Public Education   

The LA strike was extraordinary in that it addressed so much more than wages and benefits, but also addressed policy as well. Here's a good look at where the LA charter movement fits in the bigger picture.

The Headband Obsession with Student Concentration.

From the "You Can't Make This Stuff Up" files, the program that's going to read student minds via fancy science headbands.l

Betsy DeVos Fabricating History To Sell Bad Education  Policy

DeVos has been talking a lot lately-- well, at least for her-- and much of it has been a sales pitch based on history that is not exactly accurate

Only Two Percent of Teachers Are Black Men Yet Research Confirms They Matter. 

Let's go over this again- we need more black men teaching in the classroom.

Teacher Strike Interview

NEPC fellow Terrenda White creates some context for the strikes of the last year, up to and including the current struggle in Denver

Betsy DeVos's Favorite Teacher Story Wants Her To Stop

DeVos likes to tell a story about a teacher named Jed to help make some of her points. Rebecca Klein tracked Jed down; turns out he wishes DeVos would knock it off.

Can Altschool Save Itself From Failure

This might be the "if you only read one piece this week" article. Susan Adams is the education editor at Forbes, and she took a good hard look at Max Ventilla's super cool ed tech charter, Altschool, and probably got one of the most fluff-free looks at it ever (complete with cringing PR people). Joins Andrea Gabor's book in pointing out that some of these guys thinking they can business model their way to ed reform are actually using bad business models.

Shark Tank Recap: Teaching Harvard Grad Financial Lesson

Speaking of bad business. A Harvard grad goes on shark tank with her idea for mail order Montessori and her tail of having blithely burned through a mountain of investor money. Things do not go well for her.

This Is How Horribly Teachers Are Paid In The US

The story here is that this piece ran in Vice, not exactly known for their prodigious education coverage. This is brief, solid, and sad.

DC C charter Administrators Have Some Of The Highest School Salaries In Town; Their Teachers, Some Of The Lowest

City Paper goes digging, and has to work at it, because of course Freedom of Information Act doesn't apply to charters. Most amazing part-- a charter wouldn't let a teacher see her own salary schedule to know what steps up she might expect.

Another KIPP Teacher

Need another reminder of how awful a Teach Like A No Excuses Champion school can be. Here's are some words from a teacher who used to be a KIPPster.

Their Levers Are Destined To Fail.

A new-to-me blog with a post looking at the different ways reform has tried to bring teachers to heel.

America Is Falling Out Of Love With Billionaires

Not exactly an education story, except of course it is. Are US citizens getting fed up with the oligarchs?

Here We Go. Another Koch Push 

More news you didn't want to hear-- the Koch brothers have decided to help fix education some more.

When Schools Say "All Means All," What Do They Really Mean.

Peter DeWitt talks about safeguarding our LGBTQ students

10 Out Of 15 PA Cyber Schools Are Operating Without A Charter

Steven Singer calls for a little less cyber charter baloney and a little more-- or just some-- oversight.

Broken Promises: Camden's Renaissance Charter Schools

Jersey Jazzman with yet another tale of charter shenanigans.

That's it. I mean, that's not really it, because there is always more (which reminds me-- your recommendations are always welcome).



CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Really Big List Edition (2/3)

Measuring Success: A Study in Contrasts

23by Peter Greene / 2d

Two items tossed my feed this week that underline contrasting ideas about what constitutes success in education. First, let's go to the Jackson-Madison County school system of Tennessee. At JMCSS folks are pretty excited because they've made such strides with the addition of a unified curriculum. They know this worked because they have all sorts of growth data, much of it exceeding expectations. N

JAN 31

How American Should American Schools Be?

by Peter Greene / 2d

Part of the impetus behind modern education reform is the idea that more of the education system should be operated by businesses. Many merits and drawbacks of that approach continue to be debated, but one aspect is rarely discussed. Modern business is multinational, so we need to ask--how much control of our educational system do we want to send outside of U.S. borders? Charter schools have been

JAN 30

MA: Turnover Starts To Give Charters A Clue

37by Peter Greene / 3d

Teacher churn in Massachusetts charter schools is high ( about 30% ). And apparently at least some charters have decided to do something about that. But as this article by Carrie Jung at WBUR indicates, there is some sort of mystery involved. Maybe there are clues in there. I do give the charters involved credit for at least thinking about the issue-- in many modern charters, teacher churn is a fe

JAN 29

There Is No Teacher Shortage

14Kby Peter Greene / 4d

I've made this point a dozen times in other contexts, but let me take a day to address it directly. There is no teacher shortage. Oh, across the nation there are districts that are having trouble filling openings with fully-qualified certified teachers. But there is no teacher shortage. "Shortage" implies a supply problem. Like maybe people are born teachers and for some reasons, the gene pool has

JAN 28

The Truth About Davos, AI, and Firing All the Humans

71by Peter Greene / 5d

This article ran last week, and it made my ICYMI list Sunday, but you really, really need to see this. Kevin Roos went to Davos for the New York Times to see what the masters of the universe are up to, and his most striking discoveries was " The Hidden Automation Agenda of the Davos Elite. " The short version is simple. In public, they are going to talk about how much Artificial Intelligence will

TN: Legislator Says Bring On Fashion Police

by Peter Greene / 5d

Tennessee state representative Antonio Parkinson (D) considered all the issues facing education and decided that the one he wants to address is-- parent dress codes . Schools may be figuring ou t-- slowly-- that body-shaming students and chasing them down for ripped knees might be counterproductive. But this Memphis lawmaker wants to crack down on the parents : "People wearing next to nothing. Peo

MD: Failing Five Year Olds

500+by Peter Greene / 6d

Maryland joins the ranks of those states that have kindergarten exactly backwards. News overage of this Alarming Crisis starts with this sentence : Less than half of Maryland’s children have the behavior and academic skills they need to be successful in kindergarten, according to a new state report. Only 47% tested as "ready" (that's up 2% from last year). And I want to smack my head so hard that

JAN 27

ICYMI: Here Comes Another Arctic Blast Edition (1/27)

by Peter Greene / 7d

So it's going to get cold again. But in the meantime there are useful things to read about education. Here's the list for this week-- remember to share what you think needs to be shared. Denver's Portfolio Model School District is a Failure Thomas Ultican breaks down some of the details in the long-running reform experiment in Denver schools. Automation at Davos This is pretty stark stuff. The dif

JAN 26

Is Competency The Hot New Thing?

65by Peter Greene / 7d

Tom Vander Ark thinks that competency is the up-and-coming next big thing in education. He just said so a few weeks ago at Forbes , but he's been saying so for several years now . Vander Ark has been at the education reform biz longer than most, but his career also includes the launch of K-Mart's competitor to Sam's Club, point man for the Gates small schools initiative , and an attempt to launch

OK Legislator To Teachers: Shut The Hell Up

7Kby Peter Greene / 7d

Oklahoma has worked hard to get itself in the front of the pack of States Most Hostile To Public Education. Maybe not number one (relax, Florida), but right up there. Ultra-low teacher pay. Slack charter rules . The kind of state where the idea for improving education is to gear it more toward providing meat widgets for employers. The kind of state where a serious idea about improving teacher pay

JAN 25

WV: Legislative Extortion

84by Peter Greene / 8d

Last spring, West Virginia's teachers stood up and stood up loud, shutting down every single school in the state. They were out with five demands -- better wages, health insurance, defeating an expansion of charter schools, keeping seniority, and killing a "paycheck protection" bill. They won, the governor signed a pay raise , and teachers won the right to shout at the end , "Who made history? We

DeVos Has A Hammer

80by Peter Greene / 9d

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has been busy lately, making actual somewhat-public appearances and talking about all her favorites subjects. Thursday it was the 87th annual United States Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting, and her remarks included many of her favorite points. But she's not just beating a drum; she's working with a big, heavy hammer. Bang bang bang. Here are some highlights: D

Charter/Community Schools & Partnerships: Privatization Ending Public Education

Charter/Community Schools & Partnerships: Privatization Ending Public Education

Charter/Community Schools & Partnerships: Privatization Ending Public Education

A charter school can be a community school, and vice versa. 

~National Center for Community Schools

There’s new school management these days that might seem nice, but scratch beneath the service and it is privatization and the theft of America’s democratic public schools.

There are two points in this blog post.

• Community schools might be charter schools in disguise.
• Partnerships can steal school ownership from the community.

The Community Schools Deception

The idea of “community schools” evokes a sense of belonging. We see ourselves connected with others, our voices heard, and our children surrounded by adults who are eager to address their needs.

Some community schools meet this objective. They’re truly public schools, open to all children, and owned by the community which they represent. The school board is the governing body elected by those who live in the community.

These community schools demonstrate the best of a democracy, especially when they are diverse and inclusive.

Americans trust this concept. In a post heralding community schools Minneapolis blogger Sarah Lahm writes The support for community schools stands in stark CONTINUE READING: Charter/Community Schools & Partnerships: Privatization Ending Public Education

Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans: Still Too White. | deutsch29

Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans: Still Too White. | deutsch29

Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans: Still Too White.

Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans is a French immersion charter school located in New Orleans. According to Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) October 2018 enrollment data (see here and here), Lycée Français’s enrollment included 824 students in grades K-8.

Lycée Français has been criticized in the past for both its predominately white student body and higher socioeconomic draw. From 2012:

Allegations that Lycée Français de la Nouvelle Orléans is structured to favor well-off students and that it does not appropriately serve the city’s African-American population resurfaced on Tuesday afternoon when a series of complaints about the new French-immersion charter school were aired before the state education board in Baton Rouge.

Among the complaints were that the school has failed to follow through on an outreach program to a Central City daycare promised in its charter, that it is using state money to subsidize its private preschool, that students in the school’s new second grade are not being given adequate remedial instruction in French and that state education officials are intentionally ignoring those issues. No action was taken on the complaints, but the board asked its staff to investigate the claims and report its findings next month at a meeting in New Orleans. …

[Louisiana state superintendent John] White said that the state has already expressed its own concerns about the diversity of the school, and that Lycee Francais is making improvement. After an extensive outreach using radio ads and flyers to predominantly black neighborhoods last year during admissions, White said Lycee Francais now has a minority population of about 30 percent. (By comparison, Lycee had about 15 percent nonwhite students last year, Lusher had 48 percent, Audubon Charter had 62 percent and International School had 71 percent; the nonwhite population of New Orleans is about 67 percent.)

Six years later (October 2018), of the 824 students enrolled at Lycée Français, 477 (58%) were white; 135 (16%) were black, and 130 (16%) were Hispanic.

According to October 2018 enrollment data, New Orleans schools in general served a student body that was 7% white (3,316 / 46,178) 82% black (37,977 / 46,178), 7% Hispanic (3,338 / 46,178).

As of October 2018, only 42% of Lycée Français’s student body is economically CONTINUE READING: Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans: Still Too White. | deutsch29

Texas Hangs Sword of Damocles Over Houston Schools | tultican

Texas Hangs Sword of Damocles Over Houston Schools | tultican

Texas Hangs Sword of Damocles Over Houston Schools

When the Houston Independent School District (HISD) Board refused to privatize four schools, state takeover of the district became likely. States taking over school districts have an awful track record. Takeovers in Philadelphia, Newark, Detroit and Tennessee have been long running disasters for students, parents, schools and communities. So the idea that Texas will likely seize HISD – a district the Texas Education Agency (TEA) assigned a grade of B on its new A – F grading system – is bizarre.

HISD is the largest school district in the state of Texas and the 7th largest in the United States. The nine HISD Board members are an impressive group whose children attend district schools. Seven of them are products of HISD. They all are college graduates and most earned advanced degrees. Seven of them have both teaching and administrative experience in public schools. Anne Jung was a high school science teacher who earned a master’s in physics at Harvard. Jolanda Jones is a Rhodes Scholar and an NCAA heptathlon champion with a Juris Doctorate from the University of Houston. Wanda Adams was a scholarship winning athlete who attended Kashmere High School which is one of the four schools TEA might shutter. She is an Emmy winning college graduate who has been named to multiple top 50 lists in Houston area plus has served two terms on the Houston city council.

Richard Carranza became HISD superintendent in August of 2016. In March of 2018, he resigned to take a similar position in New York City Schools. With the HISD board’s impressive resumes and the fact that their last top hire was considered the best administrator in America to lead the nation’s largest school district, it was startling to read Governor Greg Abbott’s January 3rd tweet,

“What a joke. HISD leadership is a disaster. Their self-centered ineptitude has failed the children they are supposed to educate. If ever there was a school board that needs to be taken over and reformed it’s HISD. Their students & parents deserve change.”

A counter observation based on biographies is that every elected board member in HISD is more qualified to be an education leader than Mike Morath, the guy Abbott appointed Texas Commissioner of Education. They all are more educated CONTINUE READING: Texas Hangs Sword of Damocles Over Houston Schools | tultican

Los Angeles Asks For a Charter School Pause

Los Angeles Asks For a Charter School Pause

Los Angeles Asks For a Charter School Pause

“This resolution does not impact a single LAUSD charter school or charter school student. It does not create a cap…and it doesn’t create a ban.”

– LAUSD Board Member Scott Schmerelson

“Vote NO on the charter ban!  #NoCharterBan”

– California Charter School Association

The resolution before the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) School Board was relatively benign. Its passage would not actually change any policy. Instead, it would ask the state to impose a temporary moratorium on new charter schools within the District while state education leaders “conduct a comprehensive study to inform future policy considerations for charter authorization reform.”

The California Charter School Association (CCSA) described the resolution in completely different terms. According to them, this resolution was an all-out assault on their publicly funded private schools. Instead of attending class, hundreds of charter school students took buses to protest in front of the LAUSD headquarters on Beaudry. Some students cried as they pleaded with the Board to not shut down their schools.

Although the Board meeting was not set to begin until 1:00 PM, the line curved around the building and halfway up 4th Street by 8:20 AM in the morning. By some reports, the charter industry supporters had been lining up as early as 6:30 AM in order to ensure access to the meeting. After waiting for almost five hours, I gained access to the meeting and a chance to speak:

I am going to follow up with the last speaker. He said that “a moratorium is a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist.” I disagree.

“Kids First” is the motto of this Board.

That to me would mean a charter school, North Valley Military Institute, CONTINUE READING: Los Angeles Asks For a Charter School Pause

Sinclair brings Betsy DeVos and the education privatization echo chamber to local news

Sinclair brings Betsy DeVos and the education privatization echo chamber to local news

Sinclair brings Betsy DeVos and the education privatization echo chamber to local news
DeVos’ softball interview with Sinclair’s Boris Epshteyn promotes an extreme agenda, and it’s airing on local news stations across the country

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is the latest member of President Donald Trump’s inner circle to use the ready-made platform at conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group as an infomercial for the president’s agenda -- this time, to promote education privatization.

DeVos filmed a softball interview with Sinclair chief political analyst (and former Trump aide) Boris Epshteyn that began airing on January 24 on local news stations across the country. In the portion of the interview aired so far, the education secretary promotes National School Choice Week:

But National School Choice Week is not as innocuous as its name might suggest. In fact, it’s a public relations campaign (and a group) funded overwhelmingly by the Gleason Family Foundation, the secretive private family foundation of a machine tool manufacturing company. The foundation supports many other pro-CONTINUE READING: Sinclair brings Betsy DeVos and the education privatization echo chamber to local news

Peter Greene: Charter Schools Are Not Public Schools

Charter Schools Are Not Public Schools

Charter Schools Are Not Public Schools

Modern charter schools prefer to attach the word "public" to their descriptions. Many of the charter advocacy groups include "public charter" in their title. And truthfully, there are no regulations attached to the term--any school can attach the word "public" to its title without having to worry about any sort of penalty.

So technically, any charter school can call itself a public school. Heck, any private or parochial school can call itself a public school if it's so inclined. But while modern charter schools are financed by public tax dollars, they are not truly public schools for the following reasons.

Transparency

When City Paper recently reported on the salaries of DC charter teachers and administrators, it required extra digging to come up with the information because charter schools are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. In fact, City Paper reported that a teacher employed by the charter was not even allowed to see the salary scale for her own job. In 2014, when the New York state controller wanted to audit the books of Eva Moskowitz's Success Academy, the charter leader took him to court and won, barring the state from trying to see how public tax dollars were spent.

Public schools are required to provide a transparent look at their finances. At times, some outlets have gone so far as to publish the salaries of individual teachers, and that's perfectly legal. Nor are public school boards allowed to meet privately or in secret. Everything that happens in a public school is paid for with public dollars, and is therefor subject to public scrutiny. Charters deliberately avoid that level of scrutiny.

Subject To State Law

The details here vary from state to state (here's a handy chart for looking up your own state), but charter schools generally don't have to play by the same rules as public schools. Non-discrimination, health and safety, and school year length are often (but not always) CONTINUE READING: Charter Schools Are Not Public Schools

Ed Notes Online: School Scope: Teachers Go Wild with Strikes in Virginia, Denver, Los Angeles, and a Wildcat in Oakland

Ed Notes Online: School Scope: Teachers Go Wild with Strikes in Virginia, Denver, Los Angeles, and a Wildcat in Oakland

School Scope: Teachers Go Wild with Strikes in Virginia, Denver, Los Angeles, and a Wildcat in Oakland

Published in The WAVE print edition, Feb. 1, 2019. www.rockawave.com

School Scope: Teachers Go Wild with Strikes in Virginia, Denver, Los Angeles, and a Wildcat in Oakland
By Norm Scott
January 28, 2019

Teacher strike fever has struck the nation. Last year we saw the anti-union Trump red state strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky. Teachers revolted, not only against the Republican state legislatures and governors, but against their own union leaderships that often urge caution. This week thousands of teachers in Virginia left their classrooms to march in a rally at the capitol. Virginia Educators United, a grassroots campaign formed by educators, parents and members of the community, organized the rally on Monday. The movement has spread to blue states where stronger union leaderships have taken leadership. Denver teachers are going on strike. Teachers are getting the message that going it alone as a union without outside support is a losing proposition. Pay has been a key factor, one reason we won’t see similar actions here in the UFT.

United Teachers, Los Angeles (UTLA) strike Ends - Charter Schools Curbs on the Agenda
In Los Angeles, the pay issue seemed to take second place – both sides agreed on a roughly 6% raise. Contrary to what has happened here in NYC where the opposition to Unity Caucus’ domination of the UFT has been in disarray, in 2014, a group of teachers in LA came together under the banner of “Union Power” an amalgam of various groups and independents and won the election under the leadership of Alex Caputo-Pearl. I first met Alex about 10 years ago when he was a high school teacher and also an elected member of the UTLA Executive Board and it was clear he had a strong vision that went far beyond narrow trade unionism. (See NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/us/charter-schools-los-angeles.html).

Caputo-Pearl and his team began preparing the membership for a strike from the day he took office, with 99% of the teachers supporting a strike. They built alliances with parent and community groups by not only emphasizing raises but also calling for drastic class size reductions and more support personnel like librarians, school nurses and guidance counselors. And through these tactics, they seem to have won a great victory.

The elected school board in LA has been under the control of the pro-charter billionaire boys club led by Eli Broad and they have installed hedge fund managers instead of educators to run the schools, with a pro-charter bent. Broad tried to push CONTINUE READING: Ed Notes Online: School Scope: Teachers Go Wild with Strikes in Virginia, Denver, Los Angeles, and a Wildcat in Oakland

Professors for Black Lives: An outpouring of support for BLM@School week in higher education! – Black Lives Matter At School

Professors for Black Lives: An outpouring of support for BLM@School week in higher education! – Black Lives Matter At School

Professors for Black Lives: An outpouring of support for BLM@School week in higher education!

Citing the need to “promote equity; the value of human life; and educational, political, and social justice,” scores of professors from institutions of higher education from around the country have signed on to petition of support for Black Lives Matter At School Week. The Black Lives Matter At School coalition encourages all college and university professors to join your colleagues who have already signed.

The statement of supports concludes with these words:

We are committed to teaching, learning, and co-creating culture in our classrooms that reflect these mission and goals in order to build the leadership of our students so that we may all live by these principles. The survival and liberation of Black people and, by extension, all people demands this.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfpol91DoSM9QbxXAage4SL5OfH1VqRRInyVeRJ4iSdRrlIyw/viewform

Professors for Black Lives: An outpouring of support for BLM@School week in higher education! – Black Lives Matter At School