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Did anyone notice that more than 1/3 of Ohio Charter Schools are on the state’s lowest performing schools list???? - An astonishing 34% of all Ohio charter schools are on this list. And nearly 6 in 10 of those have been there for 8 years, accounting for 1 in every 5 chart...6 hours ago
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JPMorgan warns of a global food crisis ahead, while Bessent threatens to ‘blow up’ the financial system. - When JPM is the one sounding the food-crisis alarm, you know that Trump’s shit has hit the proverbial fan.9 hours ago
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The Death of Dolly Parton - When Dolly Parton died, the world did not begin by counting her 10 Grammys or 55 nominations. All the remembrances began with the lives she changed. People...9 hours ago
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CAN META AFFORD TO SCREW OVER A GENERATION? $17 BILLION SAYS YES — AND THAT'S THE PROBLEM - Let’s do some math that should make your blood boil.10 hours ago
Saturday, November 2, 2019
Peter Greene: The One And Only Lesson To Be Learned From NAEP Scores
The One And Only Lesson To Be Learned From NAEP Scores
The One And Only Lesson To Be Learned From NAEP Scores
The One And Only Lesson To Be Learned From NAEP Scores
The world of education is a fuzzy one, with some declaring that teaching is more art than science. But then the National Assessment of Educational Progress is issued. “The Nation’s Report Card” is greeted as a source of hard data about the educational achievement of fourth and eighth graders (and in some years, high school students), theoretically neither biased nor tweaked as state tests might be.
NAEP scores were released this week, and they have been percolating down through pundits, ed writers, ed bureaucrats, and ordinary ed kibitzers. So now that we have had a few days to absorb and process, what have some folks offered as important lessons, and what’s the only lesson that really counts?
Some have offered lessons that are simply misreadings of the data. The three NAEP levels (basic, proficient, and advanced) do not necessarily mean what folks think they mean, which is why Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was incorrect when she claimed that NAEP showed two thirds of students don’t read at grade level. NAEP’s CONTINUE READING: The One And Only Lesson To Be Learned From NAEP Scores
CURMUDGUCATION: Why Market Forces Will Not Provide Charter School Accountability
CURMUDGUCATION: Why Market Forces Will Not Provide Charter School Accountability
Why Market Forces Will Not Provide Charter School Accountability
Why Market Forces Will Not Provide Charter School Accountability
It has been a rough day at my house. The IRS is auditing me and needs me to send them money now. My computer has a virus. My Microsoft Windows is expired and will shut down soon. And if I don’t re-enter my personal information, my email, Netflix, and bank accounts will all be shut down. The only good news is that I still have a chance to buy great insurance, and I’m still waiting to hear back from that Nigerian prince.
Why do phone and online scammers keep at it, long after the vast majority of folks have heard about the most common scams, and even your mother knows not to say “yes” to a robocaller? Why don’t these scammers think, “Time to change my business model?” Because if scammers get a return on even one hit out of 10,000, that’s more than enough to keep them in business.
Charter school advocates have long argued that one reason that charters don’t need much formal government oversight is that they are subject to a greater accountability, that they must answer to parents who can “vote with their feet.” But the feet of charter parents don’t exert very much pressure.
The vast majority of charter school operators have nothing in common with phone scammers, but the same basic market principle applies.
Take, for instance, the Success Academy chain of New York City. New York City schools have an enrollment of roughly 1.1 million students; Success Academy has roughly 18,000, plus a waiting list. Over 1 million students have already voted with their feet against Success Academy, but there are CONTINUE READING:
The Chicago teachers’ strike contract deal, explained - Vox
The Chicago teachers’ strike contract deal, explained - Vox
The 11-day teachers strike in Chicago paid off
It got more than $30 million extra spending for public schools.
The 11-day teachers strike in Chicago paid off
It got more than $30 million extra spending for public schools.
Thousands of Chicago public school teachers are back in class.
Teachers returned to school Friday after going on strike for 11 days. They had picketed in the snow and rain until union leaders and city officials struck a deal to raise teacher pay and to put a social worker and nurse in each school. Some of the teachers’ most ambitious proposals, such as requiring the city to expand affordable housing, didn’t make the cut.
“Did we accomplish every single little thing? No. But I can say that we moved the needle on educational justice in the city,” Jesse Sharkey, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, said in a press conference Thursday.
The district also committed to spending $35 million to shrink oversized classrooms and to prioritize schools that serve the most at-risk students. The deal includes a 16 percent pay raise for teachers over five years, and a remarkable 40 percent raise for teaching assistants, clerks, and other lower-paid workers. The new, five-year contract will also boost investment per pupil and reduce the number of students in each class.
Teachers had wanted more, though. They also wanted more affordable housing in the city for students and teachers. That’s something no teachers union has demanded in recent contract negotiations.
These kinds of broad demands are part of a growing movement, led by teachers and labor CONTINUE READING: The Chicago teachers’ strike contract deal, explained - Vox
The “Parenting Tax” of School Choice | JSTOR Daily
The “Parenting Tax” of School Choice | JSTOR Daily
The “Parenting Tax” of School Choice
The framework of school choice imposes a kind of tax, one paid in the time and effort that it imposes on many black parents.
The “Parenting Tax” of School Choice
The framework of school choice imposes a kind of tax, one paid in the time and effort that it imposes on many black parents.
For decades, when the topic of unequal public schools comes up, one of the main prescriptions politicians and policymakers have offered is “choice.” In a recent paper, the sociologists Angela Simms and Elizabeth Talbert explain one aspect of school choice that’s rarely part of these conversations: the “tax” in time and effort that it imposes on many black parents.
Simms and Talbert conducted interviews with black and white parents in the Cleveland area. Participants were chosen randomly from neighborhoods at a range of income levels. Of the white parents studied, 10 out of 15 sent all their children to their neighborhood schools. Simms and Talbert write that these parents “described their school decision-making process as requiring no significant effort.” Of the white parents who sent their kids to non-neighborhood schools, such as charter or magnet schools, four out of five lived in the city of Cleveland.
“In general, we find that White parents, regardless of income, tend to be satisfied with their neighborhood public schools, which are usually in predominantly White middle-class suburbs,” the authors write.
Among the 26 black parents, on the other hand, 20 sent at least one child to a “choice” school. As with white parents, families living in the city of Cleveland were more likely to use choice options, but even black parents in the suburbs were evenly split between choice and traditional routes.
While white families often chose to live in specific communities because they were known for having “good schools,” that option was often not available to black families—and not just for financial reasons. Many black parents worried that moving into “good,” whiter districts would take them away from their social support systems, which, due to historical segregation, tend to be in communities with “bad” local schools.
Simms and Talbert write that the black parents they spoke with were highly conversant in the CONTINUE READING: The “Parenting Tax” of School Choice | JSTOR Daily
Ron Chernow: Alexander Hamilton Would Support Impeachment | Diane Ravitch's blog
Ron Chernow: Alexander Hamilton Would Support Impeachment | Diane Ravitch's blog
Ron Chernow: Alexander Hamilton Would Support Impeachment
Ron Chernow: Alexander Hamilton Would Support Impeachment
Ron Chernow, author of Hamilton, wrote in the Washington Post that Trump is the populist demagogue that Alexander Hamilton feared and warned about in The Federalist Papers.
He wrote:
There seems little doubt, given his writings on the presidency, that Hamilton would have been aghast at Trump’s behavior and appalled by his invitation to foreign actors to meddle in our elections. As a result, he would most certainly have endorsed the current impeachment inquiry. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Trump embodies Hamilton’s worst fears about the kind of person who might someday head the government.
Among our founders, Hamilton’s views count heavily because he was the foremost proponent of a robust presidency, yet he also harbored an abiding fear that a brazen demagogue could seize the office. That worry helps to explain why he analyzed impeachment in such detail: He viewed it as a crucial instrument to curb possible abuses arising from the enlarged powers he otherwise championed.
Unlike Thomas Jefferson, with his sunny faith in the CONTINUE READING: Ron Chernow: Alexander Hamilton Would Support Impeachment | Diane Ravitch's blog
How state-funded charter schools are avoiding vaccine requirements
How state-funded charter schools are avoiding vaccine requirements
How state-funded charter schools are avoiding vaccine requirements
SACRAMENTO — Nearly all California students must get vaccinated after state leaders tightened laws following the 2014 Disneyland measles scare, but at least one loophole remains: new hybrid programs known as charter home schools.
Across the country, state leaders and health advocates have aggressively pushed for new vaccination requirements, especially after the U.S. this year experienced its highest number of measles cases since 1992. California has been at the forefront, enacting a law last month that cracks down on doctors known for approving scores of waivers so unvaccinated children can attend school.
But there remain ways to get around the law and still receive a taxpayer-funded education, even in California. Though many home-based charters bring students together for regular classroom instruction or activities, the state doesn't uniformly enforce vaccination laws for such programs.
Monique Labarre, a San Diego attorney turned nursing student with an interest in public health, has two children in home-based charter programs. She said she appreciates the flexibility they offer, but that she's "unpopular" within the home school movement because of her pro-vaccine stance.
"People are taking public money but they aren't vaccinating. They believe that [the law] doesn't apply to public home-school charters," Labarre said. “Home-schooling doesn’t look like what people think — they are clustering together. But the law is not super clear and needs greater regulation.”
The state's strict vaccination laws, both written by State Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), a pediatrician, apply to all schools except for “home-based private schools and students enrolled in an independent study program." Charter schools are public. But for the increasing number of programs that blend home instruction and class time, the rules blur.
California doesn't have a clear interpretation of whether home-based charter CONTINUE READING: How state-funded charter schools are avoiding vaccine requirements
How state-funded charter schools are avoiding vaccine requirements
SACRAMENTO — Nearly all California students must get vaccinated after state leaders tightened laws following the 2014 Disneyland measles scare, but at least one loophole remains: new hybrid programs known as charter home schools.
Across the country, state leaders and health advocates have aggressively pushed for new vaccination requirements, especially after the U.S. this year experienced its highest number of measles cases since 1992. California has been at the forefront, enacting a law last month that cracks down on doctors known for approving scores of waivers so unvaccinated children can attend school.
But there remain ways to get around the law and still receive a taxpayer-funded education, even in California. Though many home-based charters bring students together for regular classroom instruction or activities, the state doesn't uniformly enforce vaccination laws for such programs.
Monique Labarre, a San Diego attorney turned nursing student with an interest in public health, has two children in home-based charter programs. She said she appreciates the flexibility they offer, but that she's "unpopular" within the home school movement because of her pro-vaccine stance.
"People are taking public money but they aren't vaccinating. They believe that [the law] doesn't apply to public home-school charters," Labarre said. “Home-schooling doesn’t look like what people think — they are clustering together. But the law is not super clear and needs greater regulation.”
The state's strict vaccination laws, both written by State Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), a pediatrician, apply to all schools except for “home-based private schools and students enrolled in an independent study program." Charter schools are public. But for the increasing number of programs that blend home instruction and class time, the rules blur.
California doesn't have a clear interpretation of whether home-based charter CONTINUE READING: How state-funded charter schools are avoiding vaccine requirements
The New Unionism: Bargaining for the Common Good | Diane Ravitch's blog
The New Unionism: Bargaining for the Common Good | Diane Ravitch's blog
The New Unionism: Bargaining for the Common Good
The New Unionism: Bargaining for the Common Good
The Chicago teachers’ strike is over but it performed a valuable service that reaches far beyond Chicago and its educators. In recent years, the union movement was recoiling from blow after blow as its adversaries attempted to destroy it by passing right-to-work laws in the states, attacking it in state courts with challenges to due process, and winning a Supreme Court victory (Janus) that was intended to kill the unions off.
But the teachers’ strikes that began in West Virginia in 2018 and continued through the Chicago strike point to a new brand of teacher activism.
Although legislatures have tried to limit collective bargaining solely to wages and benefits, the new unionism has a different vision, which they call “bargaining for the common good.”
Teachers are as concerned about children’s health and well-being, about class size, about having a full-time nurse in every school as they are about their own wages. In Chicago, they worked out the salary gains before the strike started. The strike was about improving conditions CONTINUE READING: The New Unionism: Bargaining for the Common Good | Diane Ravitch's blog
Shawgi Tell: Charter School Advocates Demand That Everyone Fend for Themselves | Dissident Voice
Charter School Advocates Demand That Everyone Fend for Themselves | Dissident Voice
Charter School Advocates Demand That Everyone Fend for Themselves
Some direct quotes from a brief October 30, 2019 news report on the “School CONTINUE READING: Charter School Advocates Demand That Everyone Fend for Themselves | Dissident Voice
Charter School Advocates Demand That Everyone Fend for Themselves
Promoters of privately-operated charter schools that intensify segregation and siphon money from public schools idolize the law of the jungle where the “strongest survive.”
This backward view assumes that everyone is nothing more than a consumer and that education is mainly a commodity. Such a discredited outlook is a direct assault on the modern principle that education is a basic human right and that schools must be fully-funded, publicly controlled, high quality, integrated, and available to all for free in every community. No one should have to worry about which school to send their child to. Government must take up its social responsibility to provide the right to education with a guarantee in practice. There is no reason not to have a great school with many programs in every neighborhood in America.
The “free market” consumerist approach to education was recently on full display at the 2020 “School Choice Fair” in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina. Not surprisingly, the “Fair” overwhelmed and confused many parents trying to figure out how to “choose” the “best” school for their child.
Some direct quotes from a brief October 30, 2019 news report on the “School CONTINUE READING: Charter School Advocates Demand That Everyone Fend for Themselves | Dissident Voice
Hitting Left with the Klonsky Brothers. A poet talks pedagogy. – Fred Klonsky
Hitting Left with the Klonsky Brothers. A poet talks pedagogy. – Fred Klonsky
HITTING LEFT WITH THE KLONSKY BROTHERS. A POET TALKS PEDAGOGY
HITTING LEFT WITH THE KLONSKY BROTHERS. A POET TALKS PEDAGOGY
If you’re a Chicago teacher, you had to miss our Friday live broadcast of Hitting Left with the Klonsky Brothers.
It’s is available on podcast here.
What if a poet was mayor or union president we pondered, talking to Chicago poet and founder of Louder than a Bomb, Kevin Coval.
Kevin said he was inspired by the power of community that was demonstrated by Chicago teachers over the past two weeks.
Of course, Mike and I agreed.
We wondered whether the divisions among progressives continue as it did after the CONTINUE READING: Hitting Left with the Klonsky Brothers. A poet talks pedagogy. – Fred Klonsky
Four Ways That Any Educator Can Affirm, Protect, & Honor the Humanity of Black Students - Philly's 7th Ward
Four Ways That Any Educator Can Affirm, Protect, & Honor the Humanity of Black Students - Philly's 7th Ward
FOUR WAYS THAT ANY EDUCATOR CAN AFFIRM, PROTECT, & HONOR THE HUMANITY OF BLACK STUDENTS
FOUR WAYS THAT ANY EDUCATOR CAN AFFIRM, PROTECT, & HONOR THE HUMANITY OF BLACK STUDENTS
Years ago, my then-four-year-old son and I were watching Black-ish. As Junior, a character played by Marcus Scribner, was talking on the show, my son said to me, “Daddy, Junior is my favorite character on Black-ish. He’s my favorite character on all the shows.”
When I asked him why, he said because Junior looked like him. While my wife melted and hugged him tight, I smiled and was astounded that at his age, he recognized skin color and positively identified himself with a young black man on television.
My wife and I work hard to humanize his and his sisters’ blackness. However, I wonder if any effort is put into humanizing blackness for my children and other black children in our schools and early childhood facilities.
In light of the country’s current political climate, humanizing black people and their blackness is critical. Once black children step outside of the care of a parent or guardian, they will confront anti-blackness; they may even confront people who mean them harm. In my state of New Jersey, a former CONTINUE READING: Four Ways That Any Educator Can Affirm, Protect, & Honor the Humanity of Black Students - Philly's 7th Ward
John Thompson: This year's OKCPS to-do list has at least 30 big items
This year's OKCPS to-do list has at least 30 big items
This year’s OKCPS to-do list has at least 30 big items
This year’s OKCPS to-do list has at least 30 big items
As students and teachers come out of fall break and wait anxiously for Thanksgiving break, perhaps it is a good time to remember that Oklahoma City Public Schools started this academic year facing a formidable “To Do” list. While the district anticipated many challenges, some tasks it now faces could not have been foreseen. Other problems were predicted by educators and patrons.
Let’s take a look at the OKCPS to-do list and ponder how we all — students, teachers, administrators, parents and community members — can support the tough tasks facing Oklahoma’s largest school district.
Since January, OKCPS has had to …
- Plan and implement EmbraceOKC, a “collaborative initiative with a focus on mental health,” which involves partnerships with the Oklahoma State Department of Mental Health, Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, the Oklahoma City Public Schools Foundation, the United Way of Central Oklahoma, and the City of Oklahoma City.
- The related effort of planning and implementing trauma-informed instruction.
- Implement the reorganized Vision of Equity, “so all students receive a high-quality education.”
- Progress toward meeting new state standards on chronic absenteeism.
- Plan and implement the new Innovative Transformation Schools program.
- Plan and implement a new transfer policy.
- Tackle the teacher shortage which results in large numbers of inexperienced and CONTINUE READING: This year's OKCPS to-do list has at least 30 big items
Students in History Class Debate Impeachment (Burch) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
Students in History Class Debate Impeachment (Burch) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
Students in History Class Debate Impeachment (Burch)
Students in History Class Debate Impeachment (Burch)
Journalist Audra Burch sat in a world history class recently and described history teacher Chris Dier’s lessons on impeachment. The article appeared October 23, 2019. I follow this description of the lesson with some questions that occurred to me.
It was impeachment day in Mr. Dier’s world history class at Chalmette High School. Andrew Johnson, the first impeached president, was on the lesson plan. So was Richard M. Nixon, who avoided facing such a fate by resigning. Bill Clinton, who also was impeached but never convicted, was part of the discussion.
But most of the class was centered on the latest president to face possible removal from office: Donald J. Trump, who is on social media just as much as some of Chris Dier’s students.
At Chalmette High, located in a conservative Louisiana parish, the students in Mr. Dier’s class recently confronted the merits of the case against Mr. Trump, who stands accused of pressuring Ukraine to investigate his chief Democratic rival, Joseph R. Biden Jr. Mr. Dier saw the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry against Mr. Trump as an opportunity: a real-time lesson in civics and political science for his students.
So, for two 90-minute class periods, Mr. Dier’s seniors pretended to be members of Congress, but without the bluster and sniping — dutifully obeying the signs on the walls about how to respectfully agree to disagree.
“We have never studied anything that was unfolding live,” said Grace Bartholomae, one of the students. “This is history.”
To help his students understand the details of the inquiry, Mr. Dier assembled a CONTINUE READING: Students in History Class Debate Impeachment (Burch) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
Montessori, Dewey, & Aristotle Respond to NAEP decline | The Merrow Report
Montessori, Dewey, & Aristotle Respond to NAEP decline | The Merrow Report
Montessori, Dewey, & Aristotle Respond to NAEP decline
Montessori, Dewey, & Aristotle Respond to NAEP decline
By now you know about the disappointing scores on what is widely known as The Nation’s Report Card, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP. Basically, what was called ‘a lost decade‘ a year or two ago has continued.
Here’s a short summary from the NAEP announcement: “Average reading scores for the nation in 2019 were lower for students in both fourth and eighth grade than in 2017, while average mathematics scores were higher by 1 point for fourth graders and lower by 1 point for eighth graders…….In mathematics and reading for both grades, a little more than one-third of students nationally scored at or above the NAEP Proficient level in 2019.”
The responses from the Administration, the center-right, and the left were not surprising. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos labelled it a ‘student achievement crisis’ and issued a call for ‘education freedom’ for parents so they could escape failing schools. See here for her response and here for analysis.
The center-right, basically the ‘School Reform’ advocates who have controlled the public education for 20 years, focused on the smattering of good news in the NAEP report:
Hispanic students had a higher average mathematics score in 2019 compared to 2017.
Fourth grade mathematics scores increased in nine states.
Mississippi showed an increase in grade 4 reading.
Grade 8 reading scores increased in the District of Columbia.
This could be presented another way, of course: Mississippi was the ONLY state CONTINUE READING: Montessori, Dewey, & Aristotle Respond to NAEP decline | The Merrow Report
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