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Thursday, May 16, 2019

Cynthia Liu: After Jackie Goldberg’s Win, How to Keep Momentum Going | Diane Ravitch's blog

Cynthia Liu: After Jackie Goldberg’s Win, How to Keep Momentum Going | Diane Ravitch's blog

Cynthia Liu: After Jackie Goldberg’s Win, How to Keep Momentum Going
Cynthia Liu, a journalist in California, writes:
With public education champion Jackie Goldberg’s win on the LAUSD school board seat, it’s time for public school advocates to keep the momentum surging! Update on charter accountability bills: 1507 was voted on Monday and passed out of assembly and goes to the California State Senate. YAY & THANK YOU to all who called and voted YES.
But two additional bills need to get to the Assembly for a floor vote.
Call today (Wednesday) or Thursday (morning) and say,
Script: “Hi I am asking the assembly member ________ to vote AB1505 & AB1506 out of the appropriations committee so that they can go to the floor for a full vote. I do not want them to die in committee on Thursday.”
These folks are high priority, but everyone should call. Look up your California legislator here: http://www.legislature.ca.gov/legislators_and_districts/legislators/your_legislator.html
FYI AB1505: Local school board only to approve charters, and only if they don’t harm existing public schools, don’t repeat public school programs, and state facilities needs. 1506: revisits a cap on charters.
Charter accountability IS the path to racial and socioeconomic equity! 
— Aguiar Curry AD4 Lake, Napa, Yolo (not W Sacto), parts of Sonoma, Solano
— Carrillo AD51 East LA, Eagle Rock (**appropriations committee member)
— Cervantes AD60 Corona, El Cerrito
— Cooper AD9 Elk Grove, Lodi
— Daly AD69 Anaheim, Santa Ana
— Gloria AD78 San Diego
— Gray AD21 Modesto, Merced
— Grayson AD14 Vallejo, Pleasant Hill
— Kamlager Dove AD54 Crenshaw, Culver City, Westwood, Inglewood
— Limon AD37 Santa Barbara, Ventura
— Low AD28 Silicon Valley Cupertino, Saratoga, Los Gatos
— Rubio AD48 Azusa, El Monte, Covina/W Covina



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Testing with a Side of *Not Much Else* | deutsch29

Testing with a Side of *Not Much Else* | deutsch29

Testing with a Side of *Not Much Else*

Standardized testing is claiming squatter’s rights on increasingly more of the school year, with the greatest intrusion occurring in the spring.
Our school has been in the height of spring testing asphyxia for a month now. This means that teaching and learning take the far-back seat to survivial as class schedules are severely disrupted by multiple hours of per-subject testing, multiple tests per student, multiple faculty, staff, and admin hours required, before, during, and after the school day to coddle the testing machine as those not testing at a given moment form a makeshift puzzle of who’s-in-whose-room-because-we-have-to-send-you-somewhere.
In short, it’s a prolonged mess. And I haven’t even touched on rescheduling absent students or finding proctors for absent teachers and staff.
Of course, all of this assumes that the computers are in working order, hardware and software both; that no computers have decided to perform untimely updates; that there are no unanticipated interferences to the school schedule, and that the state has its act together so that the testing portal is functioning during the entire state testing window.
That sure is a lot of assuming.
As it happens, today, the Louisiana Department of Education delivered a dose of at-the-helm CONTINUE READING: Testing with a Side of *Not Much Else* | deutsch29
IMG_1511
________________________________________________________________________

Interested in scheduling Mercedes Schneider for a speaking engagement? Click here.

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Want to read about the history of charter schools and vouchers?

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school choice cover  (Click image to enlarge)

Schneider is a southern Louisiana native, career teacher, trained researcher, and author of two other books: A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who In the Implosion of American Public Education and Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools?. You should buy these books. They’re great. No, really.

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Testing with a Side of *Not Much Else* | deutsch29
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NYC Public School Parents: How our loss in court today ironically provided evidence of how shallow de Blasio's education policies have been

NYC Public School Parents: How our loss in court today ironically provided evidence of how shallow de Blasio's education policies have been

How our loss in court today ironically provided evidence of how shallow de Blasio's education policies have been


 Today at the NY Supreme Court, a hearing was held on our lawsuit vs the redactions of 2015 City Hall decision memo which discussed and memorialized the decision of the Mayor and his top aides to reject several recommendations of the Blue Book working group on how to revamp the school capacity formula.  In particular, the Mayor rejected the group's proposal to align the formula with smaller classes -- which would be important if he or any subsequent mayor decided to significantly reduce class size as de Blasio had in fact promised to do when he first ran for Mayor.

On April 10, 2016, I submitted a Freedom of Information request for the decision memo from the Mayor's office about their decision to accept or reject the thirteen recommendations of the Blue Book Working group . This working group, appointed by the Chancellor and co-chaired by Lorraine Grillo, the head of the School Construction Authority and then-CEC 2 President Shino Tanikawa, made several recommendions in December 2014, including that the DOE should align the school capacity formula to the smaller class sizes in their original Contract for Excellence class size reduction plan

The City sat on these recommendations for more than six months, and finally in July 2015, in the middle of summer, announced that they would accept seven of the 13 but reject six others, including what several members said was the most important one: the one related to the goal of reducing class size.  There were several articles about this rejection, including in Chalkbeat and WNYC Schoolbook , DNAinfo, and on my blog here  and here.

It took more than two years after I had FOILed it, but in August 2017 I finally received the decision memo - 8 pages long and almost completely redacted.  See below. Interestingly, it was signed by all the Mayor's top staff except for the DOE Chancellor Farina or the President of the School Construction Authority Lorraine Grillo.

Because it was the middle of summer I missed the statute of limitations for an appeal, but at my request, fellow Kids PAC member Brooke Parker FOILed the memo as well.  CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: How our loss in court today ironically provided evidence of how shallow de Blasio's education policies have been


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Toto, I Have A Feeling We’re Not In The State That Paid TFA A Finder’s Fee Of $90K Per Recruit Anymore | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Toto, I Have A Feeling We’re Not In The State That Paid TFA A Finder’s Fee Of $90K Per Recruit Anymore | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Toto, I Have A Feeling We’re Not In The State That Paid TFA A Finder’s Fee Of $90K Per Recruit Anymore



A few days ago I wrote about how Texas pays TFA $5.5 million for 400 recruits, or about $15,000 per recruit.  Yesterday I wrote about how Ohio paid $2 million to TFA for 100 recruits, or about $20,000 per recruit.  As TFA is in about 40 states, I wondered what state is paying the highest amount per recruit.  I got a tip today for one that I think cannot be beat.
The state of Kansas paid TFA $270,000 for a total of 3 recruits.  First they had a $520,000 contract for 12 recruits which would be about $40,000 per recruit.  But when TFA only delivered 3 recruits, they had to give back $250,000.  As a result, they ended up paying TFA a staggering $90,000 per recruit.
TFA says that this was an investment for them to start placing corps members into a new region and they needed the money for training and to pay a staff member to go around and observe the new recruits.  With the $300 million TFA has, though, they should bear the risk and burden of the overhead in entering a new region.  And they should pay their own staff member.
And how is it possible that they were not able to deliver the 12 recruits that were originally promised?  When people sign up for TFA, they do select preferences, but they are also told that they must be flexible and go where they are most needed.  How TFA could not have CONTINUE READING: Toto, I Have A Feeling We’re Not In The State That Paid TFA A Finder’s Fee Of $90K Per Recruit Anymore | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

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Public Education Statewide Day of Action / SCTA Strike! Choosing Democracy

Choosing Democracy

Public Education Statewide Day of Action / SCTA Strike!


 Sacramento DSA will welcome DSA members from all over California on May 22 for a statewide day of action to demand the public education California students deserve!

Together, we will join educators, parents, students, and community members to demand the full funding of our public schools, common-sense charter school accountability, and social & racial justice.

Shoulder to shoulder with thousands of educators, students, and community members, we'll take over the rotunda of the state capitol. That building belongs to all of us — it's about time that the lawmakers who make decisions that impact our daily lives remembered that.

And wait, there's more! Teachers in Sacramento City Teachers Association will be on strike — AGAIN — against unfair labor practices, so we'll have the opportunity to walk the line with them as they stay #unionstrong in the face of attacks on their hard-fought wins for themselves and their students.

We'll meet at 4:30 PM for a group photo with DSA members all over the state!

Date: Wednesday, May 22nd, 9:00am-5:30pm
Location: California State Capitol (Exact meeting location TBA)



Choosing Democracy
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Banned in the U.S.A.: The Right’s Assault on Other Women | radical eyes for equity

Banned in the U.S.A.: The Right’s Assault on Other Women | radical eyes for equity

Banned in the U.S.A.: The Right’s Assault on Other Women
“Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to,” retells Offred in Part II, Chapter 6, of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. “This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary” (p. 33).
Readers have just been introduced to public executions in Gilead: “Now we turn our backs on the church and there is the thing we’ve in truth come to see: the Wall” (p. 31). On this day,
The men [hangin from…hooks] wear white coats …. Each has a placard hung around his neck to show why he has been executed: a drawing of a human fetus. They were doctors, then, in the time before, when such things were legal. … They’ve been turned up now by the searches through hospital records, or — more likely, since most hospitals destroyed such records once it became clear what was going to happen — by informants: ex-nurses perhaps, or a pair of them, since evidence from a single woman is no longer admissible. (pp. 32-33)
Atwood’s speculative theocracy is heavily grounded in a perverse worshipping of some women as possible vessels of childbirth since the birthrates of whites were in steep decline due to environmental toxins.
With a conservative shift in the Supreme Court in the United States under CONTINUE READING:  Banned in the U.S.A.: The Right’s Assault on Other Women | radical eyes for equity

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Jeb Bush’s A+ Education Reform is a Reform Disaster | tultican

Jeb Bush’s A+ Education Reform is a Reform Disaster | tultican

Jeb Bush’s A+ Education Reform is a Reform Disaster
By T. Ultican 5/15/2019
In his 1998 gubernatorial campaign Jeb Bush proposed his A+ Education Reform. This March, Sue M. Legg, Ph.D. produced a paper that studies the results twenty years later. Professor Legg observed,
“It is critically important to recognize whose interests are being served in this school reform process. School reform had little to do with student achievement and everything to do with money and politics.”
The plan had four components; (1) demanding curriculum standards, (2) annual testing for grades 3 – 10, (3) assigning A – F grades to schools based on testing results and (4) school choice. It was a plan for improving education without increasing spending. Or was it primarily a plan for defeating Democrats, promoting religion and making profits?
Speaking at the 2012 Republican National Convention Jeb Bush made clear his antipathy toward public schools, teachers and their unions. He said,
“There are many people who say they support strong schools but draw the line at school choice.
“Sorry, kid. Giving you equal opportunity would be too risky. And it will upset powerful political forces that we need to win elections.
“I have a simple message for these masters of delay and deferral: Choose. You can either help the politically powerful unions. Or you can help the kids.”
“We say that every child in America has an equal opportunity. ….
“Tell that to a parent stuck in a school where there is no leadership. Tell that to a young, talented teacher who just got laid off because she didn’t have tenure.”
When the A+ Program was adopted in 1999, Florida had consistently scored among the bottom third of US states on standardized testing. The following two CONTINUE READING: Jeb Bush’s A+ Education Reform is a Reform Disaster | tultican

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Update on our Skinny award dinner, class size, court hearings, privacy violations and more! | Class Size Matters

Update on our Skinny award dinner, class size, court hearings, privacy violations and more! | Class Size Matters 

Update on our Skinny award dinner, class size, court hearings, privacy violations and more!
1. Save the date! On Wednesday June 19 we will hold our annual Skinny award dinner at Casa La Femme on 140 Charles St. The honorees will be Attorney General Tish James for her steadfast and courageous leadership in supporting public school students and parents over many years; and NYC Kids PAC, the only political action committee that rates candidates on their positions on public education. Please reserve your ticket now — for a delicious three course dinner with wine and great company besides!
2. Last week, the Education Council Consortium and CEC 2 both passed resolutions in support of our campaign to urge the City Council to allocate funding for class size reduction in this year’s budget. Please ask your CEC to do the same! We can provide you with district-specific data if you like.
3. This week two important court hearings will be held. Tomorrow, Wed. May 15 at 2:30 PM at the NY Supreme Court, 60 Centre St., Rm. 418, Judge Arthur Engeron will hear a lawsuit vs the city for redacting nearly the entire final City Hall decision memo that we FOILed about how the DOE’s formula for assessing school space would be revised, and why the Mayor rejected the Blue Book Working Group’s proposal to align school capacity with smaller classes.
4. This Thursday May 16 at 11 AM, Judge Katherine Levine will hear arguments on the DOE’s proposal to close PS 25, a small zoned school in Bed Stuy. The hearing will take place at the Kings Country Supreme Court in Brooklyn, at 360 Adams St. Last year PS 25 parents sued and got a temporary restraining order against closing the school. I wrote an open letter to Chancellor Carranza that was published in the Washington Post Answer Sheet, asking him to withdraw this proposal; obviously he did not.
5. Because of unconscionable delays on the part of the US Department of Education in responding to parents’ FERPA complaints, Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy have once again violated student privacy and federal law. An update on this long-running saga is here.
Talk to you soon, and please sign up for our Skinny dinner today!
thanks, Leonie 


Update on our Skinny award dinner, class size, court hearings, privacy violations and more! | Class Size Matters 
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