After 29 Years Evidence That TFA Still Doesn’t Set New Corps Members Up For Success | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

After 29 Years Evidence That TFA Still Doesn’t Set New Corps Members Up For Success | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

After 29 Years Evidence That TFA Still Doesn’t Set New Corps Members Up For Success

When I first started this blog 11 years ago, the purpose was to give tips for new teachers.  Back then, this was on the teachforus.org site, no longer active, where I would interact with new TFA corps members and offer advice to them.

You’d think that after 29 years, TFA training would have improved.  But since they are supposed to be so data-driven, they should look at the most telling statistic about their quality of training.  The quit rate for TFA has not changed from 29 years ago until this day, approximately 15% don’t complete their two-year commitment, or roughly 1 out of 7 corps members.

I was once a staff member at the TFA institute and I had a lot of conflicts with Michelle Rhee who was second in charge of it at that time.  I also worked for the New York City Teaching Fellows which was a TFA spin-off and trained about 6 cohorts of math teachers.  I wrote two books about teaching, the first one ‘Reluctant Disciplinarian’ is still in print.  The lesser known one ‘Beyond Survival’ went out of print, though I obtained the rights to it and am considering making a kindle version of that one.

I noticed this tweet from an institute staffer today:

Ms. McCrary@Ms_McCrary12

TFA Chorps Members are ready for their 1st Day of Power Up! Grateful for the opportunity to serve as a Faculty Advisor for the 6th year @TeachForAmerica @PrincipalBGrant @Bunche_Chargers

4

6:36 AM - Jun 6, 2019 · Atlanta, GA

See Ms. McCrary's other Tweets

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We rarely get to see or hear from actual TFA corps members.  I don’t know if they now have to sign some kind of non-disclosure agreement but I find it strange that this group of ‘leaders’ produces not one person live-blogging or live-tweeting their experience.  When CONTINUE READING: After 29 Years Evidence That TFA Still Doesn’t Set New Corps Members Up For Success | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

AN OPEN LETTER TO LAUSD'S SUPERINTENDENT AUSTIN BEUTNER - Perdaily.com

AN OPEN LETTER TO LAUSD'S SUPERINTENDENT AUSTIN BEUTNER - Perdaily.com

AN OPEN LETTER TO LAUSD'S SUPERINTENDENT AUSTIN BEUTNER

The longstanding endemic corruption at a clearly dysfunctional and always prospectively bankrupt Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) will not get better until some of LAUSD's dyfunctional practices- both financial and academic- are finally addressed, eliminated, or radically changed.

After the recent resounding defeat of the Proposition EE parcel tax, that needed 67% "Yes" votes to pass and only got 45% of votes cast, LAUSD's Superintendent Beutner, Mayor Garcetti, and UTLA's Alex Caputo Pearl now want to go to the State of California for the money they were unable to get on the Proposition EE parcel tax.

This actually might be a good and successful course of action, if, big if, Superintendent Deasy et al were finally able to show and convince the California State legislature that agreeing to bail out LAUSD at this time was not just throwing more good money after bad as has now been done for decades.

Some of the following points that could be made by Superintendent Beutner and Co. to the State might just succeed, if they finally had the teeth necessary to fundamentally reorganize LAUSD administration and academic and financial practices to accomplish this difficult task, given the entrenched interests that will fight you every step of the way:

The number one clear reality that stands the best chance of getting the State Legislature to give LAUSD more money is that it presently costs "an average of $407.58 per person per day and $148,767 per person per year" to incarcerate a juvenile. Actually educating these predominantly minority students in LAUSD (Blacks have a 14 times greater and Latinos have a 7.5 times greater chance of being incarcerate than Whites) could be accomplished for a small fraction of this amount. Bottom line: Educated people with gainful employment, for the most part do not wind up in jail.

But up until now LAUSD has continued to socially promote students through grade after grade without mastery of any basic grade-level academic standard. This ultimately leads to the very act of education being humiliating to students put in an Algebra class without knowing their times tables or into a high school Government class with a 3rd grade reading ability.

Ultimately, these students drop out of school, but not CONTINUE READING: AN OPEN LETTER TO LAUSD'S SUPERINTENDENT AUSTIN BEUTNER - Perdaily.com

Pearson Embraces the Digital Knock-Off of Authentic Education | tultican

Pearson Embraces the Digital Knock-Off of Authentic Education | tultican

Pearson Embraces the Digital Knock-Off of Authentic Education

The world’s largest publishing company is betting on cyber education. Great Britain’s Pearson Corporation took a financial beating when common core state testing did not turn into a planned for cash cow and concurrently the market for text books slowed. With its world-wide reach, Pearson’s new play is for digital education to open up global markets. The corporation envisions creating life-long relationships with its customers to provide virtual schooling, professional certifications, assessments, and other services.

In April, Education International Research published “Pearson 2025 Transforming teaching and privatising education data.” Authors Sam Sellar and Anna Hogan report,

“Pearson aims to lead the ‘next generation’ of teaching and learning by developing digital learning platforms, including Artificial Intelligence in education (AIEd). It is piloting new AI technologies that it hopes will enable virtual tutors to provide personalised learning to students, much like Siri or Alexa. This technology will be integrated into a single platform—Pearson Realize™—that has now been integrated with Google Classroom.”

“… [I]ts corporate strategy is premised upon creating disruptive changes to (a) the teaching profession, (b) the delivery of curriculum and assessment and (c) the function of schools, particularly public schooling. These disruptions do not follow a coherent set of educational principles, but capriciously serve the interests of the company’s shareholders.”

Two main concerns accompany Person’s new agenda. (1) The privatization of data and infrastructure will turn the commons into private assets. (2) Diminishing the teaching profession will transform education from its broad purposes such as social development and creative thinking into a focus on CONTINUE READING: Pearson Embraces the Digital Knock-Off of Authentic Education | tultican

The NEA on national strike support and presidential endorsements. No change. – Fred Klonsky

The NEA on national strike support and presidential endorsements. No change. – Fred Klonsky

THE NEA ON NATIONAL STRIKE SUPPORT AND PRESIDENTIAL ENDORSEMENTS. NO CHANGE.

Michael Antonucci and I used to meet up at some national meetings of the NEA. Mike would be in the press section – press are barred from being on the convention floor and talking to delegates – so to talk I would have to go over to him.

Mike is a libertarian and my take away is that he thinks union shops are coersive. We don’t agree.

However, Mike is a dogged reporter when it comes to the back room doings of NEA leadership.

One national NEA leader once told me, “I don’t like the guy, but he’s never wrong on his facts.”

When my Evanston teacher friends introduced an NBI at last year’s RA to offer members an opportunity to contribute to a national teacher strike support fund, it passed overwhelmingly.

Mike reports on what happened to that NBI, along with the NEA leadership’s response to the criticism of the presidential endorsement process.

It’s worth the read.

The 2018 delegates approved a new business item that directed NEA to establish a voluntary fund to support statewide work actions to which members could contribute $3 or more.

The job was assigned to the union’s Center for Organizing and Center for Innovation and Technology. The implementation report describes the amount of work necessary to meet privacy and regulatory guidelines. The fund was launched Oct. 4, with a web page and an e-mail notification to all state CONTINUE READING: The NEA on national strike support and presidential endorsements. No change. – Fred Klonsky

The LAUSD Tried to Secure a Source of Funding and All It Got Was a Bill for $12.5 Million

The LAUSD Tried to Secure a Source of Funding and All It Got Was a Bill for $12.5 Million

The LAUSD Tried to Secure a Source of Funding and All It Got Was a Bill for $12.5 Million

Proper planning for ballot initiatives like this takes months and years, not weeks…Nor has the district done at this time the preparation necessary to run a successful campaign so the taxpayers would support it…I believe a better option is to properly plan to do this by 2020 when we can be successful.”
– Austin Beutner, July 10, 2018

Last July, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board Members Scott Schmerlson and George McKenna proposed adding a parcel tax to the November 2018 ballot. After initially indicating that he would support the measure, LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner came out against the parcel tax at the July 10, 2018, board meeting. Beutner admitted that the tax was needed, but said that the timeline of four and a half months was too short in order to get the measure passed by the voters. He also pointed out that the $5 million price tag for holding the election would put a strain on the budget. His suggestion for the district to wait until the 2020 election cycle was backed by the votes of Board Members Monica Garica, Nick Melvoin and Ref Rodriguez, sending the proposal to its defeat. The parcel tax was dead.

Or so we thought.

Suddenly, last February the parcel tax returned. With just a couple of days notice it returned to the board’s agenda as a proposal for the CONTINUE READING: The LAUSD Tried to Secure a Source of Funding and All It Got Was a Bill for $12.5 Million

Where Is Elizabeth Warren's Plan For K-12 Public Education?

Where Is Elizabeth Warren's Plan For K-12 Public Education?

Where Is Elizabeth Warren's Plan For K-12 Public Education?

Elizabeth Warren has plans.   

You can buy a t-shirt that says so. The New York Times says that her plans have helped her “gain ground,” which is another way of  saying that the press is finally giving her the kind of coverage she deserves and not relegating her to back bench status while they get all excited about Mayor Pete (that’s the back bench where much of the press also place Harris and Gilliland—can you guess what those candidates have in common).  

Go to her website and you can find plan after plan listed. Plans for new tax structure. Plans for ending voter suppression. Plans for fixing foreign policy. Even plans for more affordable college.  

But no plans for K-12 public education.  

Bernie Sanders has a plan. Joe Biden has sort of a plan. Kamala Harris has a proposal.  

But so far, Warren’s direct address of K-12 education consists of a promise to appoint a secretary of education who has been a teacher in a public school. She has also called Betsy DeVos the worst secretary of education ever. Beyond that, we don’t know what her plans for K-12 education might be.  

Democrats who are heavily invested in that particular issue are CONTINUE READING: Where Is Elizabeth Warren's Plan For K-12 Public Education?

Rebecca Solnit: How Internet Insinuation Becomes Campaign Fact | Literary Hub

Rebecca Solnit: How Internet Insinuation Becomes Campaign Fact | Literary Hub

Rebecca Solnit: How Internet Insinuation Becomes Campaign Fact
On the Curious Case of Elizabeth Warren and the "Charter School Lobbyist" Who Wasn't

The Internet is a costume party in which everyone comes dressed in an opinion, or rather dozens of them or an endless array, one right after another. An opinion is, traditionally or at least ideally, a conclusion reached after weighing the evidence, but that takes time and so people are dashing about in sloppy, ill-formed opinions or rather snap judgments which are to well-formed opinions what trash bags are to evening gowns. If opinions were like clothes, this would just be awkward, but opinions are also like votes. They shape the discourse and eventually the reality of the world we live in. Journalists used to say that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts, but opinions are supposed to be based on facts and when the facts are wrong or distorted or weaponized, trouble sets in.

Big Education Ape: Charter School Lobbyist Introduces Elizabeth Warren at Rally | gadflyonthewallblog - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/06/charter-school-lobbyist-introduces.html

There was actually a nice victory over distortion and insinuation a couple of weeks ago. The Washington Post put out a story on May 23 that was titled “While teaching, Elizabeth Warren worked on more than 50 legal matters, charging as much as $675 an hour.” (If you look it up now, the title has been changed to not shout about the money any more.) It was kind of a nonstory: one of the nation’s leading bankruptcy lawyers, while teaching at one of the nation’s most distinguished law schools, did some work on the side, as law professors apparently often do.

If you didn’t know anything about legal experts’ compensation rates, $675 an hour might seem high, and the whole thing seemed to be trying to suggest that there was something shady about the whole thing. Perhaps women are not supposed to earn a lot of money, though we knew from the sideswipes about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s waitress work that we are not supposed to work in low wage jobs either. Perhaps women are always either too much or not enough. For the record, I am wildly enthused about Warren as a presidential candidate, but I was enthused about accuracy a long time before she came along, and this is a story mostly about accuracy and its opposites. The stories I’m relating could be told about any number of other candidates who’ve been misrepresented in ways that have stuck as smears.

One of the two journalists, Annie Linskey, had penned an earlier Post story whose headline suggested a desperate reaching for controversy: “Elizabeth Warren reshaped our view of the middle class. But some see an angle.” The story declared there had been, “a bitter dispute over the CONTINUE READING: Rebecca Solnit: How Internet Insinuation Becomes Campaign Fact | Literary Hub

CREDO Says Pennsylvania Charter Schools Are Weak and Unimpressive | Dissident Voice

CREDO Says Pennsylvania Charter Schools Are Weak and Unimpressive | Dissident Voice

CREDO Says Pennsylvania Charter Schools Are Weak and Unimpressive

In another recent study on charter schools, the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University, “finds little to no progress in charter school impact in Pennsylvania.”¹

A June 4, 2019 press release from CREDO states that: “Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) found over four years of study that the typical charter school student in Pennsylvania makes similar progress in reading and weaker growth in math compared to their traditional public school peer (TPS).”

The press release does not mention what sort of selective enrollment practices are practiced in Pennsylvania’s charter schools, but it is well-known that charter schools across the nation regularly cherry-pick their students. It is also worth noting that, “Of the state’s 15 cyber charters, 10 are operating with expired charters.”²

The CREDO Pennsylvania finding is extra significant given that it comes from an organization that is unrelentingly pro-charter school and funded heavily by billionaires who have been working for years to impose privately-operated charter schools on the entire country (e.g., Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Walton Foundation).

Nearly 30 years after they appeared on the American education landscape, charter schools, which barely make up seven percent of all schools in the country, have demonstrated weak results on a broad and consistent basis. These privately-operated segregated schools that often over-suspend students CONTINUE READING: CREDO Says Pennsylvania Charter Schools Are Weak and Unimpressive | Dissident Voice

NYC Educator: Why Are We Raising a Generation of Non-readers?

NYC Educator: Why Are We Raising a Generation of Non-readers?

Why Are We Raising a Generation of Non-readers?

I had a lot of time on Monday. I proctored for one hour and 15 minutes, and then I was pretty much free. Also, we were free the next day. It felt like a Friday, and I just want to thank all my Muslim brothers and sisters for giving us that Tuesday off.

No one was in trouble on Monday This was good for me, and my members, but I hadn't brought a book or anything. So I sat down and read the new social studies Regents exam. I haven't studied history in, oh, decades, and I'd have aced this test. I had almost no prior knowledge whatsoever. There were only two questions that confused me, and both were in the short answers.

I don't remember exactly what the first one was, but I do remember that I looked at it very carefully, reconsidered, and decided it was a different answer. I was absolutely sure I was correct. The hardest question on the test for me was one about revolutions. Was it the Iranian Revolution, the French Revolution, or one of two other revolutions?

I had no idea. Then I looked at the source names, and waddya know, one of them was in French. It was the French Revolution. There was some essay question about the rich oppressing the poor, or the capitalists exploiting countries, and they asked me to choose three out of five given non-fiction pieces to cite and prove my point. I chose the last three, which were on target. I was very confused by a tea advertisement, though it may have just been evidence the English were using Indian tea. It didn't matter. The last three all fit.

What I noticed about this exam is that it was a reading test. If you could read, you could pass. You needed no specific prior knowledge. Odd, then, that you'd have to spend a year sitting in a social studies class all so it could culminate in a test that you needed no particular information to pass. I'd think that would be more appropriate for an English test, but the English Regents exam does absolutely nothing of the sort.

So we have a social studies exam that tests reading, and an English exam that tests nothing. And a lot of students, unless the geniuses in Albany set the past score low enough so as to render the exam utterly meaningless, are going to tank on this test. This is because they are not readers, and we are no longer developing readers. We are developing a generation who knows how to look at line 24 and decide whether it means A, B, C or D. We minimize the importance of reading fiction and push tedious crap, and it has precisely opposite the intended effect.

I am a reader. When I was very young my mother sat with me until I cracked the code, and from that point I was liberated. I was fascinated with comic books and read them CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Why Are We Raising a Generation of Non-readers?

Steve Lopez: Why Measure EE Lost and What It Means for the City’s Future—And America’s Future | Diane Ravitch's blog

Steve Lopez: Why Measure EE Lost and What It Means for the City’s Future—And America’s Future | Diane Ravitch's blog

Steve Lopez: Why Measure EE Lost and What It Means for the City’s Future—And America’s Future

Steve Lopez, a columnist for the L.A. Times, is outraged by the low and negative vote on Measure EE. He wrote that city gave a collective shrug.

On this, the last week of school before summer break in the Los Angeles Unified School District, voters have sent a loud and clear message to roughly 600,000 students:

Your schools may be crumbling, your libraries may be closed, your class sizes may be unmanageably large, about 90% of you live in poverty and thousands of you are homeless, but who cares?

The Measure EE parcel tax on Tuesday’s ballot needed two-thirds approval and didn’t even get 50%. It would have cost the average homeowner about 75 cents a day. As supporters pointed out, California is in the bottom tier of funding per pupil nationally, and New York City schools spend about $8,000 more per student than L.A. Unified spends.

The response from Los Angeles was a shrug…

As hopes for EE’s passage faded Tuesday night, an East L.A. grandmother told me she had voted yes, partly because she wants a nurse at her granddaughter’s school more than just once a week.

“This is a crisis,” said Maria Leon.

The principal of Telfair Elementary School in Pacoima,where nearly a quarter of the students were recently classified as homeless, told me he tried his best to counter social media attacks on Measure EE.

“Do I want to see my taxes go up? No,” said Jose Razo. “But I want to invest in the future of our kids, and $220 for me is a small price to pay to make class sizes smaller and bring back the things we so desperately need. I get it. It’s supposed to be the state that takes care of us. But until they get their act together, we have to do what we can for our kids.”

Glenn Sacks, a social studies teacher at James Monroe High School in North Hills, expressed his frustrated CONTINUE READING: Steve Lopez: Why Measure EE Lost and What It Means for the City’s Future—And America’s Future | Diane Ravitch's blog

CURMUDGUCATION: A Spectacular Charter Scam

CURMUDGUCATION: A Spectacular Charter Scam

A Spectacular Charter Scam

You may skimmed past reports of the San Diego indictment of charter scam artists thinking, "Ah, just another charter fraud story." But this $50 million scam is worth a closer look because it highlights several of the problems with modern charters.

The scammers were led by Sean McManu and Jason Schrock. McManus is Australian, but as various other operators have shown (particularly the infamous Gulen chain), there's no real barrier to non-Americans getting into the business of owning and operating US schools. The indictment of eleven defendants runs to 235 pages, and is the result of a year's worth of investigation.

The San Diego Union Tribune has been digging through the indictment, and though the business has been widely covered, their reporters, Morgan Cook and Kristen Taketa, have done an exceptional job of picking apart the details. Most of the following details are taken from their account.

McManus was already in the charter biz when he teamed up with Schrock in 2016 to kick the scam off with a perfectly legal maneuver-- buying a couple of cyber charter schools. This is one of those features of charters that distinguishes them from public schools-- they can completely change owners and operators. In fact, in 2017, McManus sold off another cyber charter operation, which was soon in the process of tying to take over yet an other school.

McManus and Schrock took the two schools and changed the names-- several times, in fact. It's a CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: A Spectacular Charter Scam

The Birthday Bike Ride Challenge | The Merrow Report

The Birthday Bike Ride Challenge | The Merrow Report

The Birthday Bike Ride Challenge

What follows is a diversion from the political madness and (perhaps) an opportunity for you to donate to a favorite cause.   In just a few days I will turn 78, and on or around my birthday I will once again attempt to bike my age.  This will be my 9th consecutive attempt, and, while I was successful the first eight times, as a stock prospectus is required to state, “Past performance is not indicative of future results.”

The ride doesn’t get any easier for two obvious reasons:  Every year the distance increases, and every year I am a year older.  An athletic nephew has suggested that it might be time to consider switching to kilometers; to be honest, there are mornings when yards would be a challenge!

However, last year I managed 83 miles, which I guess means I have 6 miles in the bank, plus 2 miles stored up from the year I was supposed to bike 73 and went 75.

Last year I challenged readers to donate $77 to their preferred cause if I made it, and many of you accepted the challenge.  You reported donating $90,000, an astounding sum!  However, my friend and noted author Jim Loewen (“Lies My Teacher Taught Me,” “Sundown Towns”) generously earmarked $77,000 of his annual donation to Tougaloo College, the HBCU in Mississippi, in my name and said I could count it toward the total, which I did.

Still, $13,000 is a pretty cool number.

Last year I suggested Planned Parenthood as a recipient, and that’s an even better idea this time around.

The Network for Public Education does important work on behalf of teachers and strong public schools (and also for “the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party”).

I’m impressed by the fledgling Coalition of Independent Public Charter Schools, a group that is trying to get charter schools to behave honorably (which, unfortunately, many do not do.)

As a former education reporter, I’d be happy if you chose to donate to the Education Writers Association,  The Hechinger Report, or Chalkbeat, three organizations that improve the quality of education reporting and contribute mightily to the public’s understanding of the enterprise.

Finally, if you want to give me a birthday present, please send a copy of my book, “Addicted to Reform: A 12-Step Program to Rescue Public Education,” to friends of yours who still believe in the faux ‘Education Reforms’ of George W. Bush (“No Child Left Behind”) and Barack Obama (“Race to the Top”).   While it is obvious that the Trump Administration is hostile to public education, his predecessors did incalculable damage with their embrace of ‘test and punish’ accountability and largely unaccountable charter schools.  As I argue in the book, schools have to stop asking, “How Smart Is This Child?” and ask instead, “How Is This Child Smart?”

If you think you might want to ride with me (and one of my daughters, bless her), send me an email at john.merrow@gmail.org.

I will let you know the outcome, one way or another.  If you will tell me about your donation(s), I will keep a running tab….

And thanks for reading this far. Now I have to go stuff myself with pasta!!

The Birthday Bike Ride Challenge | The Merrow Report