KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG 

A site to discuss better education for all

Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America's Public Schools

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Tom Ultican: The Failure of Privatization in New Orleans

by dianeravitch / 7min

New Orleans is supposed to be the lodestar of the Corporate Reform Movement (or as I call it, the Disruption Movement), but the experiment in privatization is a costly failure, as Tom Ultican demonstrates in this post. The old, underfunded school system was corrupt and inefficient. The new one is expensive, inefficient, and ethically corrupt because of its incessant boasting about what are actual

Tennessee: Gov. Lee Packs State Charter Commission with Charter Zealots

by dianeravitch / 1h

Governor Bill Lee Hayes public schools, even though most children in Tennessee attend them. He packed the new State Charter School Commission with people who love to hand public money to private corporations to operate schools that choose their students and operate without accountability. Tennessee is opening the state treasury to out-of-state corporations, entrepreneurs, and grifters. Come get t

YESTERDAY

New York City Joins Forces with Corporate Reformers

20by dianeravitch / 21h

Mayor Bill DeBlasio joined in partnership with Laurene Powell Jobs’ XQ Institute and the hedge-funders’ Robin Hood Foundation to create new schools and transform existing schools. The corporate reformers are not offering much money—only $15 million (crumbs from the billionaires’ table)—but they are getting the Mayor to admit that amateur “reformers” know more than the city’s professional educator

California: A Charter Chain So Awful That the Charter Lobby Expelled It

22by dianeravitch / 22h

Inspire Charter Schools does not inspire confidence in its academics, its finances, or its integrity. Inspire makes money by getting state money to underwrite home schooling, with state-subsidized field trips and lots of folderol. Things got so bad that the Inspire chain was kicked out by the California Charter Schools Association , the powerhouse lobbyists for the charter industry. There is just

Louisiana: Vote for Pro-Public School Candidates on October 12

200+by dianeravitch / 23h

Louisiana will hold elections for its state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education on October 12. This year, as in the past, out-of-State billionaires are spending heavily to keep control of the state board to promote privatization policies. During the tenure of State Superintendent John White, a former deputy to Joel Klein in New York, the state’s ranking on the National Assessment of Educa

Jan Resseger: New Study Shows that Schools Don’t Fix Poverty

by dianeravitch / 1d

Jan Resseger analyzes a new study by Sean Reardon of Stanford University that demonstrates what has been widely known for decades: Schools alone don’t cure poverty. Those who insist that they do are either uninformed, selling something (TFA founder Wendy Kopp has claimed that inexperienced teachers can overcome poverty and close achievement gaps caused by poverty), or just don’t want to pay taxes

Tennessee: Underfunded District May Close Its Schools

200+by dianeravitch / 1d

Now that Tennessee is controlled by Republicans who don’t like public schools, the money needed to operate them is slow to reach the districts. Andy Spears of Tennessee Education Report reports that Sullivan County is contemplating closing its schools, at least temporarily, because the county commission is holding up necessary funding. Unfortunately, Tennessee has had two consecutive Republican g

OCT 03

Bill Phillis: Beware Privatizers Running for Local School Boards!

100+by dianeravitch / 1d

Bill Phillis, founder of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, warns that privatizers run for local school boards, as they have in Atlanta and other cities. Teach for America has a special outfit called “Leadership for Educational Equity,” which trains its recruits to go into politics and helps to fund their campaigns. Bill Phillis writes: Anti-public school advocates run

D.C.: KIPP’s Sweet Deal in the District of Columbia to Scoop Up Closed Public Schools

by dianeravitch / 1d

Parent activist Valerie Jablow is a whistle-blower about charter school abuse in the District of Columbia. In this post, she describes the sweet deal that KIPP has worked out to its benefit. It is a “game of insiders,” she writes. Ferebee-Hope is a perfect example of how the mayor on down is enabled by law and practice to ignore every member of the public regarding the future of DCPS school facil

George Conway: Trump Is Unfit to be President

by dianeravitch / 1d

George T. Conway III is a lawyer. He happensto be married to Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s Close aide. He writes in The Atlantic that Trump is unfit to serve. It is no secret. He writes: No president in recent memory—and likely no president ever—has prompted more discussion about his mental stability and connection with reality. Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly is said to have described him a

Peter Greene: A Good Teacher Is Not Like a Candle

by dianeravitch / 2d

Peter Greene does not like stupid analogies. He rejects the dumb idea that “a good teacher is like a candle that burns out.” Hell, no!

Alabama: Montgomery’s First Charter School Descends into Chaos After Six Weeks

21by dianeravitch / 2d

Josh Moon of the Alabama Political Reporter reports that Montgomery’s first charter school has devolved into a chaotic messonly six weeks after opening. LEAD Academy, Montgomery’s first charter school, has been a chaotic mess since it opened less than six weeks ago, with staffing shortages leaving more than 70 students crammed into one class, angry teachers left without necessary supplies, studen

OCT 02

Politico: Cost of Protecting Betsy DeVos Will Rise to Almost $8 Million

500+by dianeravitch / 2d

No previous U.S. Secretary of Education required the protection of U.S. Marshalls. Betsy DeVos is the first to feel so endangered that she requires a special unit for herself. Could it be the Grizzly bears? Her brother Erik Prince owns a mercenary army. Both of them are billionaires. Why doesn’t she ask Erik to pitch in? Politico Morning Education reports: DEVOS SECURITY DETAIL COST MORE THAN $6M

Sara Stevenson, Librarian, Defends the Constitution In WSJ

25by dianeravitch / 2d

Sara Stevenson was until recently the librarian at O. Henry Middle School In Austin. She reads the Wall Street Journal daily and writes letters to the editor often to correct their uniformed rants about public schools and school choice. She is singled out for her persistence in my new book SLAYING GOLIATH. This past week, she explained the Constitution to writers and readers of the Wall Street Jo

David Currie: Religion Is Not a Rationale for Hatred

by dianeravitch / 2d

David Currie is a rancher, a pastor, and a member of the board of Pastors for Texas Children. He writes in this post about those who claim that the Bible gives them the right to discriminate against and hate others. He is chair of the Democratic Party in Tom Green County. http://bit.ly/2ke3t2d He begins: “Most of you have probably never heard of Rachel Held Evans, but I want you to know about her

William J. Gumbert: Red Flags and Charter Schools in Texas

by dianeravitch / 2d

William J. Gumbert has been writing a series of articles about charter schools in Texas, which are undermining the state’s underfunded public schools and do not perform any better than public schools . Texas Charter Schools – Perception May Not Be Reality IDEA Public Schools: Remove the “Rose-Colored Glasses” and Many RED FLAGS Appear By: William J. Gumbert IDEA Public Schools (“IDEA”) is the fas

Michigan: For-Profit Charter Operator Pulls a Fast One on Parents

100+by dianeravitch / 3d

Michigan blogger “Up North Progressive” describes a clever, underhanded bait-and-switch pulled by a for-profit charter founder. He needed money for a new school and he showed plans of an expansive campus. Once he got the money, the reality emerged that the new school would be in an industrial office building surrounded by a parking lot, not playing fields. For-profit Charyl Stockwell Academy like

Max Brantley: The Little Rock School Crisis, and Parents Fight to Stop Walton-Funded Takeover

71by dianeravitch / 3d

Max Brantley is editor of the Arkansas Times , where he courageously confronts the depredations of the powerful Walton family against the public sector. In this post, he summarizes the Waltons’ current efforts to take over the Little Rock school district, so they can eliminate public schools and replace them with charters. Any Democrat who thinks that charter schools are “progressive” should visi

OCT 01

Federal Judge Rules That Harvard Does Not Discriminate Against Asian-American Students

by dianeravitch / 3d

In a closely-watched case, a federal judge ruled that Harvard University does not discriminate against Asian-Americans in its admissions decisions. The case was filed by a far-right group hoping to outlaw affirmative action, which Harvard used to promote diversity in its student body. The challenge came from a group hoping to overturn a longstanding Supreme Court precedent that allows race to be

Trump’s Roy Cohn Defense: Deny, Attack, Attack Again

by dianeravitch / 3d

James Hohmann of the Washington Post yesterday described Trump’s defense when his hand was caught in cookie jar in broad daylight: The president is running the smashmouth playbook he learned from Roy Cohn, his mentor and Joe McCarthy’s hatchet man. It’s worked repeatedly for Trump, from fighting the Justice Department’s investigation of racial discrimination at his family’s rental properties in t

Do You Live Near Boston? Come to Hear Eve Ewing Speak at Wellesley College on October 17!

30by dianeravitch / 3d

If you live anywhere near Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, I hope you will join me to hear Eve Ewing speak on October 17 at Jewett Arts Center at 7:30 pm. She is speaking in an annual lecture series that I established a few years ago to bring some of the most important voices in education today to the campus. Eve Ewing is one of them. Ewing is an amazing woman who wrote a fabulous b

Rob Schofield: The War on Public Education in North Carolina

24by dianeravitch / 3d

There was a time when Norh Carolina was widely seen as the most progressive stTe in the South. That time ended abruptly when the Tea Party took control of the state in 2010 and began to decimate public services, especially public education. The Tea Party introduced charters and vouchers, killed the state’s successful NC Teaching Fellows Program for career teachers (giving its funding to Teach for

Michael Kohlhaas: The California Charter School Association’s Secret, Reprehensible Goals

34by dianeravitch / 3d

Last June, blogger Michael Kohlhaas received a huge trove of documents from the Green Dot Charter Chain in response to his request filed under the state’s Public Record Act. He has been reviewing these documents and releasing them. In this post, he summarizes a Powerpoint presentation (and provides a link to the actual document) in which the California Charter Schools Association lays out its goa

Jan Resseger: Ohio Reduces Oversight of Failing Charter Operators and Gives More Money to Attend Low-Performing Voucher Schools

32by dianeravitch / 4d

Jan Resseger reports here on Stephen Dyer’s astute analysis of Ohio’s state budget. Dyer is a former legislator who is now an Education Policy Fellow at Innovation Ohio. This is Dyer’s report. Read it and weep. Ohio’s rightwing Republicans care more about campaign contributors than they care about the state’s students or the quality of education. In looking at the plums for charters and vouchers,

Timothy Snyder: On Tyranny: The Road to Unfreedom

90by dianeravitch / 4d

During the protests in Hong Kong, demonstrators carried placards of Timothy Snyder’s lessons about losing democracy. On Tyranny: the Road to Unfreedom Timothy Snyder – Yale University – Nov 15, 2016. Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here a

NPE National Conference: Last Day to Get Early Bird Rate!

by dianeravitch / 4d

Register today for the Network for Public Education’s National Conference in March 2020 in Philadelphia. Today is the last day to get early bird discounted rate. Great speakers, great panels, and a chance to meet the leaders of the Resistance! Including you!

SEP 30

A New Year’s Greeting from Around the World

by dianeravitch / 4d

This is a lovely way to usher in the New Year 5780! Thanks to my dear friend David Berliner for sharing! And a happy New Year, L’Shana Tova, to all!

ProPublica: Trump Has Been Working the Ukraine Story in Plain Sight

by dianeravitch / 4d

ProPublica documents that Trump has been proclaiming his interest in the Ukraine investigation on Twitter for months. Why are we surprised when he has told the story out loud for months ? Conspiracy theorists convinced him long ago that Ukraine—not Russia—interfered in the 2016 election, to aid the hated Hillary. He also telegraphed his belief that Ukraine leaked damaging information about Paul M

Andrea Gabor: The Demand for A New Kind of Civics

by dianeravitch / 4d

Andrea Gabor wrote this article for Bloomberg News. Andrea Gabor, a former editor at Business Week and U.S. News & World Report, is the Bloomberg chair of business journalism at Baruch College of the City University of New York and the author of “After the Education Wars: How Smart Schools Upend the Business of Reform.” The College Board, which administers college entrance exams to high school st

Red Queen in L.A.: No, We Do Not Need a Yelp for Schools

37by dianeravitch / 4d

The charter Industry faction on the Los Angeles School Board wants to introduce a Jeb Bush-style evaluation system to rank and rate schools. It hasn’t worked anywhere else in the nation, so why not introduce it in Los Angeles. Every other state has demonstrated that the school grading system ranks schools by the income of parents. Schools that enroll the poorest children get the lowest grades. Sc

John Thompson: Can Online Learning Survive the Profiteers and Frauds?

100+by dianeravitch / 5d

John Thompson is a historians and recently retired teacher in Oklahoma. For more than two decades I’ve mourned the loss of opportunities for online instruction to augment and enhance student learning, as opposed enabling a Social Darwinian competition where charters attack traditional public schools. Educators seeking meaningful choices, such as real personalized learning, have been shackled by t

Peter Greene: Watch RAND Play “Corporate Reformy Buzzword Bingo”

by dianeravitch / 5d

Peter Greene recognizes the RAND Institution’s adroit use of the Reformy vocabulary in its latest report. Almost all your favorite jargon and buzzwords are found there, he says. Check it out and see if they overlooked any of your favorite buzzwords. RAND Corporation, with its vision to be “the world’s most trusted source for policy ideas and analysis.” regularly contributes to the total thinky ta

SEP 29

Lady Hale: A Profile of Britain’s Top Judge

by dianeravitch / 5d

Lady Hale is the Chief Judge of Britain’s highest court, the court that unanimously rebuked Prime Minister Boris Johnson for trying to suspend Parliament for five weeks so it could not discuss or delay his intention to leave the EU on October 31 (Brexit). This is a delightful profile of a very accomplished woman, the daughter of two schoolteachers. When the full weight of Britain’s Supreme Court

Bob Shepherd: The Decline of Education Publishing

300+by dianeravitch / 5d

Bob Shepherd, polymath, wrote this: When I started to work in educational publishing, many years ago, there were some two hundred or so companies dividing up the textbook market in the United States and about twenty with significant market share. Now there are four. Four. Over the decades, there has been considerable consolidation of the industry. There were many, many mergers and acquisitions. A

What Larry Cuban Learned About School Reform Over Many Decades

26by dianeravitch / 6d

In this post, Larry Cuban reflects on what he has learned about schools and social reform over many decades as a teacher, superintendent, and historian. https://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2019/09/17/how-my-thinking-about-school-reform-has-changed-over-decades-part-1/ He began convinced that schools could change society. Today, he believes that teachers can change the lives of individual students bu

“Bring Your Bible to School Day” is October 3

28by dianeravitch / 6d

October 3 should be interesting. Apparently it is “Bring Your Bible to School Day.” Presumably, Muslim students will bring their Koran. Jewish students will bring a facsimile of a Torah. Mormon students will bring the Book of Mormon. And other religious groups will bring their sacred texts. Will it remind everyone that religious activity belongs in houses of religious worship, not in the public s

SEP 28

Trump Reopens Unhinged Investigation of Hillary Emails

by dianeravitch / 6d

Just when you think Trump could not get crazier, this happens. The Trump administration is investigating the email records of dozens of current and former senior State Department officials who sent messages to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email, reviving a politically toxic matter that overshadowed the 2016 election, current and former officials said. As many as 130 officials

D.C.: The Charter School That Descended into Chaos

by dianeravitch / 6d

Perry Stein and Valerie Strauss wrote about a D.C. charter school that descended into chaos, with no meaningful oversight to protect its students. Top D.C. education officials knew for months about safety issues plaguing a charter school that serves some of the city’s most vulnerable children but did not force changes, public records and interviews with school employees show. Students at Monument

Little Rock: Activists Demand a Meeting with Governor Hutchinson

by dianeravitch / 6d

Parents and supporters of public schools in Little Rock are outraged that Governor Asa Hutchinson refuses to meet with them. The state took control of the Little Rock district, and parents want democratic decision making restored. Remember when Republicans used to support local control? Not anymore. Rev/Dr. Anika Whitfield write to the Governor on behalf of a large coalition of parents. Gov. Hutc

Mercedes Schneider: “Stand for Children” Spends Out-of-State Money to Buy Louisiana Elections

100+by dianeravitch / 7d

Mercedes Schneider discovered that Oregon-based Stand for Children is pouring money into school board races in Louisiana. Why should an Oregon organization try to choose school board elections in another state? That’s the way the Disruption Movement works. The funding comes from the usual sources, none of which is based in Louisiana. She writes: Since 2012, hundreds of thousands of dollars has fl

Carol Burris: Federal Analysis Finds No Difference in Performance Between Charter Schools and Public Schools

74by dianeravitch / 7d

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, reports on a new federal analysis comparing charter schools and public schools. She writes: A recent report on school choice commissioned by the US Department 

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

CURMUDGUCATION: A Teacher's Final Lesson

CURMUDGUCATION: A Teacher's Final Lesson

A Teacher's Final Lesson

If you live in western Pennsylvania, you may already know the story of Ashley Kuzma. If you don't, I'd like to share it with you.

Kuzma was born in Beaver County, PA, and graduated from Freedom Area High School in 2005. She attended Pitt where she earned a Bachelor's in History and Poli Sci, and Edinboro University, where she earned a Master's in Education and a teaching certificate. She worked as a long term sub teaching social studies, then later became a gifted support teacher for Lancaster schools, then taught gifted at McDowell Intermediate High School.

Teaching was a challenge as she suffered from throat problems that made her increasingly hoarse. A biopsy revealed those problems to be the result of laryngeal cancer. She went through radiation treatments, then a partial laryngectomy. She returned for the final day of school with a feeding tube. Then the cancer came back. In September  of 2018, she went into the Cleveland Clinic for a total laryngectomy, plus 30 radiation and 5 chemotherapy treatments. She returned to the classroom, able to speak softly with the aid of a prosthesis held against a permanent opening in her neck. As a young teacher, she did not have nearly enough sick days accumulated to cover her absences, so much of her treatment occurred during unpaid leave.

Her story became more widely known when a friend entered her in a Norwegian Cruise Lines contest that offered free cruises for 30 teachers who showed a passion for teaching. Kuzma was one of the winners.

Before it was time to leave for the cruise, Kuzma learned that her cancer was back. She traveled to Mexico and Chichen Itza. Her treatment options were limited.

On September 22, Ashley Kuzma died at the age of 32.

Before she passed away, Kuzma completed one other exceptional act. She wrote her own obituary. Here are some excerpts:

When you have recurrent laryngeal cancer that just won't take no for an answer, you have a lot of CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: A Teacher's Final Lesson

How America Killed Play—and What We Can Do to Bring it Back | STACK

How America Killed Play—and What We Can Do to Bring it Back | STACK

How America Killed Play—and What We Can Do to Bring it Back

In our last piece from our interview with play expert Dr. Peter Gray, we outlined the five criteria of play. For an activity to truly be considered play, it must:

• Be self-chosen and self-directed
• Be done for its own sake and not an outside reward
• Have some sort of rules/structure
• Have an element of imagination
• Be conducted in an alert frame of mind

When you break it down like that, much of what modern parents think of as play doesn't actually qualify. The truth is play has been gradually declining for the past five or six decades, but it seems to have come to a head in the last 10 years. According to the Child Mind Institute, American kids now spend an average of just 4-7 minutes a day on unstructured outdoor play, and elementary schools across the country are reducing or entirely eliminating recess. Play is an absolutely critical part of our youth, as it develops life skills in a way which is very hard to replicate elsewhere. How did this crucial component of the human experience get so diminished?

The 1950s were something of a "golden era" of play. The post-World War II baby boom left no shortage of potential playmates for a kid, and child labor laws passed in the late 1930s meant children could no longer be forced to toil inside factories or coal mines. Schools had multiple recesses throughout the day, the concept of homework barely existed, and the school year itself was about 4-5 weeks shorter.

"School was not the big deal it is today. Parents were not involved. You went home, you were home. School happened at school, when you were out of school, you were out of school," says Gray, a research professor of psychology at Boston College and the author of the book Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life. The culmination of these factors created a generation where kids played for hours each and every day.

"You could go out anytime during daylight and you'd find kids playing with no adults around. Parents shoo'd you outdoors, they didn't want you in the house—moms especially," Gray says. Organized youth sports were still in their infancy, and if they did occur, they were a far cry from some of the ultra-expensive, ultra- CONTINUE READING: How America Killed Play—and What We Can Do to Bring it Back | STACK

Parents' Complaint: Nick Melvoin's Lips Weren't Sealed | Capital & Main

Parents' Complaint: Nick Melvoin's Lips Weren't Sealed | Capital & Main

Parents’ Complaint: Nick Melvoin’s Lips Weren’t Sealed
Did a Los Angeles school board member leak confidential information to charter school lobbyists?

An ethics heat advisory in effect for Los Angeles Unified school board member Nick Melvoin got considerably hotter last week after a group of “concerned” district moms and public school supporters signed letters requesting formal investigations into alleged misbehavior by the pro-charter board rep. The letters were appended with 500 signatures from the group’s online petition, said parent activist Emiliana Dore, one of the five parents who signed the letters. According to Dore the informal group, which had met on social media boards like Public School Families and Parents Supporting Teachers, filed complaints with the L.A. city attorney’s office, the LAUSD inspector general and the State Bar of California. Their accusations are based on California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) meeting memos obtained under the state’s Public Records Act and published in July by the independent online muckraker site Michael Kohlhaas dot org. The charge? That at a private, February 20, 2018 meeting between Melvoin (a non-practicing attorney and CalBar member), local CCSA political operatives and L.A. charter school operators, Melvoin leaked confidential district legal strategy that proved beneficial to CCSA.

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“Learning Curves” is a weekly roundup of news items, profiles and dish about the intersection of education and inequality. Send tips, feedback and announcements of upcoming events to braden@capitalandmain.com, @BillRaden.

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At the time, the charter group was suing the district to make it easier for charters to shop, seize and co-locate on LAUSD campuses. (Charter schools won the right to occupy district facilities under California’s Proposition 39.) “This isn’t about attacking charters,” Dore insisted to Learning Curves. “I think they have a place in the system. It just seemed to us that an elected official who’s supposed to be representing all of LAUSD shouldn’t [be] sharing confidential information he got as a board member.” Neither Melvoin nor his office responded to a request for comment on this story.

The parents had already been pressing the board to investigate Melvoin over a February 21 CCSA-penned draft summary of Melvoin’s progress in delivering two board resolutions. Together these would legislate for CCSA what its lawsuit ultimately failed to litigate: “a complete [online] inventory of all LAUSD school facilities,” and, according to the meeting memo, what the charter sector hoped would be a mechanism to close down struggling schools — both public and charter — thereby potentially making available their vacated campuses. The latter plan is Melvoin’s vaunted School Performance Framework (SPF), a Yelp-like, one-to-five scale online schools ranking metric that was touted by the LAUSD board’s former pro-charter voting majority as a way to give parents and educators a simple and accessible measure of campus performance.

But as this email makes clear, CCSA lobbyist Jason Rudolph saw the SPF as “another pathway for [charter] access to facilities” occupied by public schools that posted subpar SPF numbers. SPF will next get a hearing on October 8, when the board’s Curriculum and Instruction Committee considers a Jackie Goldberg-authored resolution to pull its plug. Dore and the moms are demanding swift board action on what their online petition asserts is at the very least a violation of Melvoin’s “oath to represent the interests of all of the students in his district (LAUSD District 4)‚ not just the students attending charter schools.”

Score this week’s signing into law of state Senate Bill 206 as another missed opportunity for California to reaffirm the democratizing raison d’être of public higher ed still enshrined by Article 9 of the state constitution. Instead, beginning January 1, 2023, college athletes at the CONTINUE READING: Parents' Complaint: Nick Melvoin's Lips Weren't Sealed | Capital & Main

California: A Charter Chain So Awful That the Charter Lobby Expelled It | Diane Ravitch's blog

California: A Charter Chain So Awful That the Charter Lobby Expelled It | Diane Ravitch's blog

California: A Charter Chain So Awful That the Charter Lobby Expelled It

Inspire Charter Schools does not inspire confidence in its academics, its finances, or its integrity. Inspire makes money by getting state money to underwrite home schooling, with state-subsidized field trips and lots of folderol.

Things got so bad that the Inspire chain was kicked out by the California Charter Schools Association, the powerhouse lobbyists for the charter industry. There is just so much embarrassment that the CCSA can tolerate and this is one of those rare occasions. In the past, CCSA has defended criminal charter operators, but drew the line at Inspire and called for an independent audit of its financials.

The California Charter Schools Association has expelled the Inspire home charter school network from its membership and is now calling for a third-party investigation, citing concerns about the network’s operational and governance practices.

At the same time, a group of county superintendents from across the state has asked a state agency to audit Inspire, though the scope of that audit request and the list of superintendents requesting it have not yet been finalized.

Meanwhile, a tiny California school district said it believes CONTINUE READING: California: A Charter Chain So Awful That the Charter Lobby Expelled It | Diane Ravitch's blog

What Can We Learn From Betsy DeVos' School Visits? Explore Our Interactive Map - Politics K-12 - Education Week

What Can We Learn From Betsy DeVos' School Visits? Explore Our Interactive Map - Politics K-12 - Education Week

What Can We Learn From Betsy DeVos' School Visits? Explore Our Interactive Map

Updated.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos often attracts a cloud of attention when she visits a school. At the very beginning of her tenure, she was met with protesters , angered by her support of policies like private school vouchers, who tried to bar her from entering a Washington, D.C., middle school. When she stopped at a Poway, Calif., school in May, her staff asked the district not to publicize the visit in advance, a decision that was later met with backlash online.

But she's also been greeted warmly by Native Alaskan children in remote schools, watched as students at an Indianapolis charter school designed T-shirt cannons as part of a project-based learning program, and read books with young students who probably didn't know anything about the controversy that tends to follow her.

When DeVos took office, Education Week set out to track every school visit she made. We recently did a massive update of our interactive visit tracker with dozens of new visits and accompanying photos, videos, social media, and related news coverage.

Click here to visit "Tracking School Visits by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos." You can also explore the map at the bottom of this post.

Here are three things to know about DeVos' school visits:

As education secretary, most of DeVos' visits have been to public schools.

DeVos has spent her life—and her tenure as secretary—advocating for school choice. While supporters contend that families—particularly low-income families—benefit from alternatives to traditional, district-run public schools, opponents argue those alternatives can divert money from the traditional public schools that most children attend. And, beyond more broadly accepted options like charter schools, DeVos has championed public programs to support private school choice. That includes her proposal for a $5 billion tax-credit scholarship program.

So it may surprise some DeVos detractors to see the patterns in her school visits. By our count, the secretary has visited 77 schools so far, and majority of those schools, 44, were district-operated CONTINUE READING: What Can We Learn From Betsy DeVos' School Visits? Explore Our Interactive Map - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Presidential candidates focus on gun violence, school safety at policy forum - Education Votes

Presidential candidates focus on gun violence, school safety at policy forum - Education Votes

Presidential candidates focus on gun violence, school safety at policy forum

Any political candidate would agree that students and educators deserve better than to live in fear of a shooting at their school. But what do the 2020 presidential candidates actually plan to do about the issue of rampant gun violence in America?

Nine presidential candidates got on stage to answer that question at a forum in Las Vegas on Wednesday, nearly 2 years to the day after a gunman killed 58 people at a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip.

(Sen. Bernie Sanders planned to be at the forum, but was forced to cancel after undergoing a heart procedure.)

The forum was organized by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and March for Our Lives, the organization founded by student survivors of last year’s mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in which seventeen students and educators were killed.

In the audience were many activists whose lives have been touched by gun violence—not only mass shootings, but also suicides, accidental shootings, and unrelenting, commonplace gun violence on the streets of their communities. Nearly 40,000 Americans died from gunshot CONTINUE READING: Presidential candidates focus on gun violence, school safety at policy forum - Education Votes

NANCY BAILEY: It’s Time to Erase Harmful, Recycled Education Policy!

It’s Time to Erase Harmful, Recycled Education Policy!

It’s Time to Erase Harmful, Recycled Education Policy!

Serious education issues in public schools are recycled because the ulterior motive of some is to end public education. Research is repeatedly ignored. Why are school administrators clueless? How is it that legislators repeatedly recreate policy we know is harmful for students? Each heading contains a link to proof.

End Retention. Research is clear that retained students might appear to improve at first, but they fall back into a cycle of failure. The connection between retention and dropping out is real. So why is Alabama signing on to third grade retention? Not only should they drop it like a hot potato, states like Michigan and Florida should end it too. There are other ways to help children catch up, like looping and multi-level class placement. Schools need to be creatively responsive to students with what works. If schools weren’t ruled with an iron fist, teachers could do this.

End huge class sizes. All classes don’t need to be lowered, like P.E. and band. But early elementary classes where children are learning to read would be better smaller. Middle and high school classes where teachers can better get to know students would benefit by having smaller numbers.

End homework/busywork. Even our youngest students spend hours on busy work. Teachers should ease up. They are promoting unproven accountability measures.

Denying recess is detrimental . Like retention, the amount of research in favor of CONTINUE READING: It’s Time to Erase Harmful, Recycled Education Policy!

What Does Educational Opportunity Mean? | janresseger

What Does Educational Opportunity Mean? | janresseger

What Does Educational Opportunity Mean?

Mike Rose, the education writer and professor of education at UCLA, has spent a good part of his life examining the meaning of educational opportunity.  In Why School? (2009 and expanded in 2014), Rose considers how students experience opportunity at school: “I’m especially interested in what opportunity feels like. Discussions of opportunity are often abstract—as in ideological debate—or conducted at a broad structural level—as in policy deliberation.  But what is the experience of opportunity?” (Why School?, p. 14)

In a much earlier exploration, the 1989, Lives on the Boundary, part of it biographical, Rose investigates the ways educators connect with students and the role of quality literacy and remedial education: “Lives on the Boundary concerns language and human connection, literacy and culture, and it focuses on those who have trouble reading and writing in the schools and the workplace. It is a book about the abilities hidden by class and cultural barriers. And it is a book about movement: about what happens as people who have failed begin to participate in the educational system that has seemed so harsh and distant to them. We are a nation obsessed with evaluating our children, with calibrating their exact distance from some ideal benchmark… All students cringe under the scrutiny, but those most harshly affected, least successful in the completion, possess some of our greatest unperceived riches.” (Lives on the Boundary, p. xi)

In the 2012, Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves a Second Chance at Education, Rose explores the role of  community college programs to educate adults and provide technical training: “Equal opportunity is something every conservative affirms as a core American value. Yet in no realistic sense of the word does anything like equal opportunity exist toward the bottom of the income ladder… Recent studies show that parental income has a greater effect on children’s success in America than in other developed countries… Many of the students I’ve taught at UCLA who come from well-to-do families grew up in a world of museums, music lessons, tutoring, sports programs, travel, up-to-date educational CONTINUE READING: What Does Educational Opportunity Mean? | janresseger

Chicago teachers vote to authorize strike amid contentious contract talks - The Washington Post

Chicago teachers vote to authorize strike amid contentious contract talks - The Washington Post

Chicago teachers vote to strike Oct. 17 if contentious contract talks are not settled

Chicago teachers have voted to strike Oct. 17 if contentious contract negotiations with city officials are not resolved, affecting some 300,000 public school students in the nation’s third-largest district.

School support staff and park district workers — who are represented by a different union — also set Oct. 17 as the day to strike if their contract talks are not resolved, meaning that unionized teachers could be striking at the classroom at the same time public parks could be closed. The city’s contract with the Chicago Teachers Union expired in June.

If Chicago teachers walk off the job, it would be the latest strike by educators in a string of job actions that began in early 2018 in states controlled by Republicans and Democrats. This year, teachers went on strike in Los Angeles, Denver, Oakland and Sacramento. Teachers have been seeking not only higher pay but more resources for cash-strapped schools.

Chicago teachers voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to strike in two weeks if their demands — which include higher pay and benefits, fully staffed schools, smaller class sizes — are not met by Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration. Some class sizes exceed 40 students, the union said, and many schools do not have sufficient staff, including nurses, social workers and librarians.

Other union demands involve social issues, including affordable housing for teachers, students and parents; an expansion of community schools that provide services for students and their families (including counseling, medical and dental care, food support); and an extension of the city’s moratorium on charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated.

Lightfoot and Chicago Public Schools Chief Executive Officer Janice K. Jackson said that even though they are doing “everything in our power to reach a fair deal” to avoid a strike, they are making preparations for one, and they pledged to keep schools open during school hours “to ensure students CONTINUE READING: Chicago teachers vote to authorize strike amid contentious contract talks - The Washington Post

The Cost Of The Dalio Deal Was Too High | Real Learning CT

The Cost Of The Dalio Deal Was Too High | Real Learning CT

The Cost Of The Dalio Deal Was Too High

Everyone would agree: If we are doing good, we welcome others knowing about it.

Why, then, does the Dalio Foundation make it a condition of giving a $hundred million to Connecticut’s schools that its decisions be kept secret?

 Everyone would agree: Taxpayers have a right to know how their tax dollars are spent.

Why, then, does the Dalio Foundation require that its $hundred million be matched by a $hundred million in taxpayer funds but refuse to tell the taxpayers how it will go about spending their money and demand exemption from Freedom of Information regulations which provide transparency and accountability?

The CT Mirror reported on October 2, 2019 that Gwen Samuel, a Connecticut parent who has children in Connecticut public schools and is a vocal advocate for educational equity for all of Connecticut’s children, asked those same questions of the Connecticut State Board of Education:

The leader of the Connecticut Parents Union made an impassioned plea Wednesday for members of the state Board of Education to review the provision that exempts the new partnership between the state and Dalio Philanthropies from disclosure and ethics rules.

“My main concern, and I’m sure I speak for many parents, is the fact that this could all be done in secret,” Gwen CONTINUE READING: The Cost Of The Dalio Deal Was Too High | Real Learning CT

Bill Phillis: Beware Privatizers Running for Local School Boards! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Bill Phillis: Beware Privatizers Running for Local School Boards! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Bill Phillis: Beware Privatizers Running for Local School Boards!

Bill Phillis, founder of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, warns that privatizers run for local school boards, as they have in Atlanta and other cities. Teach for America has a special outfit called “Leadership for Educational Equity,” which trains its recruits to go into politics and helps to fund their campaigns.

Bill Phillis writes:

Anti-public school advocates run for seats on boards of education to attempt to completely privatize districts

Privatization of the public common schools takes many forms:

·        Charter schools

·        Vouchers

·        Tuition tax credits

·        Education savings accounts

·        Portfolio districts

·        State takeover that can eventually result in turning the district over to private operators

The most ruinous privatization tactic is for privatizers to take control of boards of education

Michelle Dillingham, with the Cincinnati Educational Justice Coalition, reports that some “fierce” school choice candidates are running for board of education seats in Cincinnati. The Justice Coalition has published a list of “qualities” that voters should CONTINUE READING: Bill Phillis: Beware Privatizers Running for Local School Boards! | Diane Ravitch's blog

CURMUDGUCATION: Bad Administrator Field Guide

CURMUDGUCATION: Bad Administrator Field Guide

Bad Administrator Field Guide

Is there a lousier job in the world than that of a school administrator. For the past twenty years, it has been all of the responsibility and none of the power. Yet a building principal (and to some extent a superintendent) have enormous control over a teacher's workplace-- how miserable is it, how safe is it, and how hard is it for teachers to do the job they signed up to do?

Administrators come in all shapes and sizes these days (though they are still mostly men), especially since the last twenty years of reformy baloney has done some bad things to the hiring pool. But there are still good ones out there who somehow find a way to fulfill the basic function of an administrator-- that is, to provide the tools, setting and processes that encourage your people to do their best work.

But there are other  admins out there. Bad ones. This taxonomy is by no means complete, but here's a quick introduction to some of the species you might find yourself dealing with:

The Conflict Avoider  

I just want to go through the day without any yelling, either from me or at  me. If you run into my office screaming that the building is on fire, the first problem I will want to solve is that you are in my office screaming. If you are screwing up, I will not call you into my office; I will just send an email scolding everybody. My go-to response in a crisis is to suggest we all  just shut up about it and wait for it to go away quietly on its own. If I must pass on bad news, I will do it in an email on Friday afternoon at 6:00 PM.

The Cruise Director 

I'm hoping that my principalling duties don't become so demanding that I don't have time to put a fun puzzle or quiz in your mailbox every morning. I think a good way to maintain morale is to have fun contests, with prizes to be awarded from the bag of Oriental Trading goodies I have in my office closet. If you insist that you would rather be treated like a grown-ass professional adult, I will alternately freeze you out of important work stuff and tease you in annoying ways that you can't push back on without being insubordinate. It's your own fault for not being a team player. I don't  know why you're such a grump-- I'm pretty sure the kids think I'm cool.

The Boss, And Don't You Forget It

I don't have any particular educational philosophy or guiding management principles other than CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Bad Administrator Field Guide