School Secretary’s Sense of Pride Captures the Spirit of ESP Day

School Secretary’s Sense of Pride Captures the Spirit of ESP Day

School Secretary’s Sense of Pride Captures the Spirit of ESP Day

In September of 1977, Jimmy Carter was President of the United States and the cost of a gallon of regular gas was $0.62. The top song on the charts was “Best of My Love” by The Emotions and the first episode of the long-running hit TV show Love Boat aired on ABC. It was also the start of a new school year and a new job for Mrs. Nila Brown, who has been continually serving as a school secretary in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, for the past 42 years.

“I was so excited to become part of the faculty of the very school I just graduated from,” Brown says. “I felt such a great sense of pride.”

A sense of pride is exactly what has fueled her decades-long career in education, she says: Pride in her students, pride in being an education support professional (ESP) and an integral part of the school staff, and pride in working with a talented group of educators, dedicated parents, and a close-knit community that cares about its children.

“But what I take the most pride in is my ability to help,” Brown says. “I feel important when I can help and it is important.”

Join NEA and schools across the country as we recognize the amazing ESPs who make a difference in the lives of students both in and out of the classroom. Use our Celebration Toolkit  to get event ideas, templates, sample text and graphics to show your appreciation for ESPs in person and online. Use #WeLoveOurESPs and #AEW2019 to tell us how you’re celebrating, and see how others are showing their appreciation at http://neatoday.org/esp-day/

American Education Week, November 18 to 22, is an opportunity to celebrate public education and honor individuals who work in our schools to ensure that every child receives a quality education. Wednesday, November 20, is Education Support Professionals Day and highlights the varied contributions ESPs make in supporting the whole child. This year, as we head into the 40^th year of ESP membership in NEA, we are spotlighting Nila Brown’s 40+ years of service as an ESP in the front office.

The role of the school secretary, says Brown, is to support the entire school family – from teachers and bus drivers to custodians and principals, to students, families and community members.

“The school secretary makes it all work,” she says. “We make everything run. We are at the core of it all.”

Brown started her career at Arundel High CONTINUE READING: School Secretary’s Sense of Pride Captures the Spirit of ESP Day

Charter Schools Undermine the Public Schools Which Serve the Very Children Cory Booker Worries About | janresseger

Charter Schools Undermine the Public Schools Which Serve the Very Children Cory Booker Worries About | janresseger

Charter Schools Undermine the Public Schools Which Serve the Very Children Cory Booker Worries About

On Monday, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker published a column in the NY Times to announce his support for charter schools. I’ll give Booker credit for being honest. Until now, as an active candidate for the Democratic nomination for President, Booker has tried to hedge this issue, even though support for charter schools—and at one time even vouchers—has been among his primary priorities in public life for two decades.

I’ll also give Booker credit for endorsing, in this week’s column, better support for traditional public schools: “As a party, we need to take a holistic approach to improving outcomes for children who are underserved and historically disadvantaged.  That must mean significantly increasing funding for public schools, raising teacher pay, fully funding the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, investing in universal preschool, eliminating child poverty—and yes, supporting high-performing public charter schools if and when they are the right fit for a community, are equitable and inclusive, and play by the same rules as other public schools.”

Booker bases his argument on his own life story. His parents struggled with racism and segregation and fought to move into a school district where they could be sure their children would be well educated. He believes charter schools provide an escape from struggling public schools for children whose parents cannot move out of communities where they believe the schools fail to serve their children. For Booker, charter schools are an escape route for families who feel trapped by racism, as his parents did.

It is on one level an appealing argument, which was bluntly articulated when the far-right Thomas Fordham Institute’s Michael Petrilli argued that charter schools are a solution for poor strivers. Betsy DeVos adopts the same argument for school choice when she says that, CONTINUE READING: Charter Schools Undermine the Public Schools Which Serve the Very Children Cory Booker Worries About | janresseger

The Right Moment … | GFBrandenburg's Blog

The Right Moment … | GFBrandenburg's Blog

The Right Moment …

(A guest blog by Peter MacPherson on the need to revert to democratic local control of schools in Washington, DC.)

By Peter MacPherson

The right moment.

A crucial sense of timing has long been viewed as the key to successful human endeavors. Advertising keeps reminding us that it’s crucial to have the erectile-dysfunction drug Cialis on hand when the right moment strikes, otherwise the opportunity for a joyful session of lovemaking will be lost. Sometimes the right moment, at least in retrospect and in real circumstances, can be of almost incalculable importance, where the very course of history is recognized to have been altered by timing. In early June of 1944 American General Dwight Eisenhower, with the help of his fellow centurions, was desperately trying to determine when they could unleash the largest invasion force in history on the shores of France to begin the final chapter of the Second World War in Europe. Before the invasion, Eisenhower and his colleagues had been bedeviled by bad weather, and 156,000 allied troops were onboard ships in ports along the British coast waiting to be dispatched to a battle that many participants on both sides viewed as an impending struggle of almost biblical proportions.

Group Captain James Stagg, a British RAF officer who led a team that monitored the weather for Eisenhower, determined that a brief window would open for a few hours on June 6, 1944 that would allow the allied invasion force to leave port and put ashore on the beaches of Normandy in France. Upon receiving this vital information Eisenhower recognized that the quintessential right moment had arrived.

The outcome of acting in that moment could not be clearer.

The voters of the District of Columbia are entering a period that CONTINUE READING: The Right Moment … | GFBrandenburg's Blog

Updates on Student Privacy, Class Size Data, and Upcoming CEC Presentations | Class Size Matters

Updates on Student Privacy, Class Size Data, and Upcoming CEC Presentations | Class Size Matters 

Updates on Student Privacy, Class Size Data, and Upcoming CEC Presentations

1.On Nov. 5, the Wall Street Journal published an excellent article about the College Board’s egregious practice of selling student data, showing that an important reason colleges purchase the data is to increase their rejection rates, which then boosts their reputation for selectivity. Though the article is now behind the paywall, here is a WSJ podcast on this subject and a summary of the article. Last week, WCBS news also ran a segment on how the College Board routinely violates student privacy through their “Student Search” program in this manner.

Most NY districts contract with the College Board to give the PSAT, SAT and AP exams. If you haven’t already, please sign our petition asking Attorney General Tish James to investigate this illegal practice, since NY state law prohibits the selling of student data by any school vendor.

2. This year’s class size data was released and shows that average class sizes actually increased in Kindergarten and 7th grade this year.

In other  grades, the class size held steady or declined by only insignificant amounts.

We are providing a detailed analysis of class size trends and what should be done to counteract  the sharp increases that have occurred since 2007 at three CEC meetings this week. We will also discuss school overcrowding and the findings of our charter facilities report, including how millions are missing from the matching funds the DOE was supposed to provide public schools co-located with charter schools for facility upgrades, and the $100 million a year the city spends on renting private space for charter schools, including in some cases, where the charter management organization owns the building.

• Wed. Nov. 20 at  6 PM at CEC 1 (Anna Silver School, PS 20, 166 Essex St.)
• Wed. Nov. 20 at 6:30 PM at CEC 5 (PS 36, 123 Morningside Drive @ 122nd St Unit 2 Room 228)
• Thurs. Nov. 21 at 6:30 PM at CEC 6 (at PS 178, The Professor Juan Bosch School at 12-18 Ellwood Street)

Please come – or invite us to your CEC or other community group. Our lawsuit against the city for refusing to lower class size as required by the Contracts for Excellence law will be heard by the Appellate Court in January.

3. I also have written blog posts on the following topics that you might like to check out:

• Is it accurate to say that charter schools are the “boogeymen” of progressive Democrats, as Cory Booker and some reporters claim?

• What’s really behind the city, state and national drop in NAEP (national) test scores?

thanks, Leonie

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
212-529-3539

Updates on Student Privacy, Class Size Data, and Upcoming CEC Presentations | Class Size Matters 

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Charter Drains Public Schools, Now Wants To Absorb Them

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Charter Drains Public Schools, Now Wants To Absorb Them

PA: Charter Drains Public Schools, Now Wants To Absorb Them

his week the Philadelphia Enquirer ran the story of a charter operator that wants to take over all of a district's public elementary schools. This is perhaps a logical next step in a district that has been steadily and methodically starved over the past decade. Once you've sucked out the blood and consumed the flesh, what is there left to do but feast on the bones?

The school district is Chester Uplands, and they've been in the charter-related news before. Specifically, they were the poster child for how a careful gaming of the charter system in Pennsylvania could result in huge charter profits. As I wrote at the time:

The key is that while all CUSD students with special needs come with a hefty $40K for a charter school, they are not all created equal. Students on the autism spectrum are expensive to teach; they make up 8.4% of CUSD special ed student population, but only 2.1% at Chester Community Charter School, and a whopping 0% at Widener and Chester Community School of the Arts. Emotionally disturbed students are also costly; they make up 13.6 % of special ed at CUSD, 5.3% at Chester Community, and zero at the other two. Intellectual disabilities make up 11.6% for CUSD, 2.8% for CCCS, and zero for the others. 

Speech and language impaired, however, are pretty inexpensive to educate. CUSD carries 2.4% of the special ed population in this category, but the three charters carry 27.4%, 20.3% and 29.8%.

Back in 2015, this helped put CUSD in the astonishing position of giving more money to charter schools than it received from the state.

Gureghian's PA home, where he
no doubt sits and thinks about
how he does it all for the children

Meanwhile, the district has been under the supervision of a court-appointed receiver since 2012. The state takeover hasn't exactly helped; the administrative side of things is such a monumental mess that in 2017 the state auditor general aid his office could not complete an audit of the district-- too many records were lost or just screwed up. The third of the court-appointed receivers was re-appointed this year--and promptly to spend more time with his actual day job. This is not supposed to mess up the newest recovery plan roll-out, as that work is being done by some hired consultant.
In 2015 the district made a deal for charters to accept less money for CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Charter Drains Public Schools, Now Wants To Absorb Them

Louisiana Federation for Children: Out-of-State Money Buys 26 Out of 30 Seats | deutsch29

Louisiana Federation for Children: Out-of-State Money Buys 26 Out of 30 Seats | deutsch29

Louisiana Federation for Children: Out-of-State Money Buys 26 Out of 30 Seats

Anyone who doubts that ueber-wealthy ed reformers are purchasing elections in other states need only consider this November 10, 2019, campaign finance report for the Louisiana Federation for Children (LFC) Action Fund PAC. Even so, as one quickly realizes when following ed reform money, the connections readily become numerous and complicated.

Let’s see how concise I can keep this this post centered on a single, LFC campaign finance report.

LFC is a state-level tentacle of the American Federation for Children (AFC), the school choice vehicle formerly chaired by US ed sec, Betsy DeVos. Louisiana gubernatorial challenger, Eddie Rispone is the former LFC chair. and also the former treasurer of the LFC Action Fund PAC.

According to LFC Action Fund PAC’s November 10, 2019, filing, three out-of-state donors (two individuals and one PAC), donated a combined $825K in October 2019. The same three donated a combined $2.6M in 2019 alone. They are Arkansas billonaire and Walmart heir, Jim Walton; California billionaire William Oberndorf, who succeeded DeVos as AFC chair, and a school choice PAC, Public School Allies:

• William Oberndorf (CA): $275K in 10/19; $550K YTD (year to date).
• Jim Walton (AR): $350K in 10/19; $912K YTD.
• Public School Allies (VA): $200K in 10/19; $1.2M YTD.

Public School Allies lists as its address “6312 Seven Corners Center #354
Falls Church, VA 22044,” which is a UPS drop box. However, the October 24, 2019, Chlakbeat reports that Public School, Allies is the “political arm” of the City Fund, created in 2018 to spread school choice by three individuals, including CONTINUE READING: Louisiana Federation for Children: Out-of-State Money Buys 26 Out of 30 Seats | deutsch29

Who is the right-wing American Federation for Children? | Educate All Students: Larry Miller's Blog - https://wp.me/pBWTO-1nZ

Fighting the misinformation pandemic: Here’s help teaching students to distinguish real news from what’s fake - The Washington Post

Fighting the misinformation pandemic: Here’s help teaching students to distinguish real news from what’s fake - The Washington Post

Fighting the misinformation pandemic: Here’s help teaching students to distinguish real news from what’s fake

If you don’t know what the News Literacy Project is and does, it’s time you do.

Founded over a decade ago by Alan Miller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the Los Angeles Times, the News Literacy Project aims to do something that schools everywhere should be doing: teaching students how to distinguish what’s real and fake in the age of digital communication — and at a time when the president of the United States routinely denounces real news as “fake,” and Americans will be voting on a new president in 2020.

Miller’s enterprise grows every year as teachers increasingly look for resources to teach their students how to evaluate the credibility of information. It has become the leading provider of news literacy education in the country, if not around the world.

The project creates digital curriculum and other resources and works with educators and journalists to teach middle school and high school students how to recognize news and information to trust — and provides them with the tools they need to be informed and engaged participants in a democracy. It uses the standards of quality journalism as an aspirational yardstick against which to measure all news and information. And, just as important, it provides the next generation with an appreciation of the First Amendment and the role of a free press.

“As a result,” Miller said, “NLP is on the front lines combating the misinformation pandemic that threatens to undermine civic life in the United States and around the globe.”

A sample of the project’s work is below, and I plan to publish some every week as a resource for teachers and anybody else who wants to become news literate.

The reach of the News Literacy Project is vast. It has had national success with Checkology virtual classroom, an innovative, award-winning, cutting-edge online platform featuring interactive, real-world lessons. Since launching in May 2016, more than 20,000 educators have registered to use Checkology in social studies, history, government, English and journalism classes with more than 133,000 students in every state. Educators in 110 other countries have registered to use it, as well.

The New York Department of Education has purchased 68,000 student licenses for use this year in 174 middle schools as part of a five-year agreement with the project. And West Virginia is seeding Checkology in school districts in five counties, while Columbia, Mo., has purchased 3,000 licenses and Miami-Dade County is using 1,000. The Los Angeles Unified School District will pilot the platform in 20 middle schools in early 2020. You can see short videos that capture Checkology’s impact in one CONTINUE READING: Fighting the misinformation pandemic: Here’s help teaching students to distinguish real news from what’s fake - The Washington Post

Houston Federation of Teachers files lawsuit over state takeover of HISD | FOX 26 Houston #HFT2415 #TexasAFT #UnionmanTX #rweingarten #HISDProud #HFT #HISD

Houston Federation of Teachers files lawsuit over state takeover of HISD | FOX 26 Houston

Houston Federation of Teachers files lawsuit over state takeover of HISD

HOUSTON - The Houston Federation of Teachers filed a federal lawsuit in Austin on Tuesday, saying the proposed state takeover of the Houston ISD is "unconstitutional under U.S. and Texas law because it disenfranchises and discriminates against people based on race and national origin."

"Gov. Greg Abbott and Education Commissioner Mike Morath claim the state takeover of the entire Houston school district, which earned an 88 (out of 100) academic accountability rating, was triggered due to one chronically failing school, Wheatley High School, which is attended by predominantly black and brown students," a statement released by the organization says.

HFT goes on to say that "The takeover decision was made just days after voters elected new school board members in Houston, who would not be able to take their seats under the takeover, effectively silencing the democratic electoral process."

“The state’s action to take over the HISD is flagrantly unconstitutional and has nothing to do with giving kids a strong public education,” said Zeph Capo, president of HFT and Texas AFT.

“Gov. Abbott and Education Commissioner Mike Morath will do just about anything to give private charter operators a chance to get their hands on our schools—even violate the state and U.S. constitutions. We can’t allow our government officials to unconstitutionally marginalize black and brown children, deny them their right to a quality public education, or defy the voice of voters who have just elected new school board members,” he said. CONTINUE READING: Houston Federation of Teachers files lawsuit over state takeover of HISD | FOX 26 Houston

Pennsylvania: Low-Performing Charter School Demands Charter Takeover of Elementary Schools in Entire School District | Diane Ravitch's blog

Pennsylvania: Low-Performing Charter School Demands Charter Takeover of Elementary Schools in Entire School District | Diane Ravitch's blog

Pennsylvania: Low-Performing Charter School Demands Charter Takeover of Elementary Schools in Entire School District

One charter school in the Chester-Upland district in Pennsylvania enrolls 60% of the district’s elementary schools. It is owned by one of the richest men in the state, a lawyer who was Republican Tom Corbett’s biggest campaign donor. That charter school, the Chester Community Charter School, has asked the county to turn all of the district’s elementary students over to charters. 

CCCS is not just any charter. It has received special treatment, despite its poor performance.

More than 4,300 students in kindergarten through eighth grade are already enrolled in Chester Community Charter, which is managed by CSMI. The for-profit education management company was founded by Vahan Gureghian, a Gladwyne lawyer and major Republican donor. It manages another charter school in Atlantic City that was placed on probation by the New Jersey Department of Education this year. A third charter in Camden was previously closed due to poor academic performance. 

In an earlier post, I described how CCCS made a deal in 2017 to win authorization until 2026, which is an CONTINUE READING: Pennsylvania: Low-Performing Charter School Demands Charter Takeover of Elementary Schools in Entire School District | Diane Ravitch's blog

NYC Public School Parents: Is it accurate to say that charter schools are the "boogeymen" of progressive Democrats, as Corey Booker and some reporters claim?

NYC Public School Parents: Is it accurate to say that charter schools are the "boogeymen" of progressive Democrats, as Corey Booker and some reporters claim?

Is it accurate to say that charter schools are the "boogeymen" of progressive Democrats, as Corey Booker and some reporters claim?

In a NY Times oped this week, Senator Corey Booker argued that the expansion of charter schools had a positive role in improving Newark’s school system and by extension, nationwide.  In the process, he described charters as "boogeymen" for other Democratic politicians:
 

“The treatment by many Democratic politicians of high-performing public charter schools as boogeymen has undermined the fact that many of these schools are serving low-income urban children across the country in ways that are inclusive, equitable, publicly accountable and locally driven."

One could easily challenge his claim that in Newark, the expansion of charters was “locally driven” since Newark’s locally elected school board was disempowered and their schools were being run by Gov. Chris Christie at that time.

But in any case, the main point of this op ed appeared to be to allow Booker to strongly reconfirm his commitment to privatization after some ambivalent statements this summer,  presumably in an attempt to strengthen his lagging campaign.  In the process, Booker was implicitly criticizing rival Presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who have both come out publicly against the continued funding of charters by the federal government:

Yet what struck me the most was his use of the word “boogeymen” in connection with charter schools, which rang a bell. 

Indeed. this was the second time this same analogy has been used in the New York Times in the context of the presidential campaign.

Earlier this spring, on May 23, reporters Dana Goldstein and Sydney Ember used the term “boogeyman” in describing the teacher unions’ position on charters,  in an article on Sanders’ education agenda:

Many Democrats and progressives send their children to charter schools, work within the sector or donate money to the movement. Teachers’ unions, an important constituency to Democrats, have long considered them a boogeyman, arguing that charter schools draw students and funding away from traditional public schools.

There is no evidence presented for the claim that many “progressives” work within the charter sector or donate money to the charter movement.  

Just six days later, on May 29, Michelle Hackman, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal used the term  again, describing how charter schools had become “a boogeyman of CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Is it accurate to say that charter schools are the "boogeymen" of progressive Democrats, as Corey Booker and some reporters claim?

NYSAPE Update Data Privacy - NYS ALLIES FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION

NYSAPE Update Data Privacy - NYS ALLIES FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION

NYSAPE Update Data Privacy - NYS ALLIES FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION

Dear NYSAPE Friends,

Thanks to the advocacy of you and hundreds of other parents, we convinced the NY State Education Department not to revise the student privacy regulations so that the College Board and the ACT could continue selling student data.  NYSED has now posted the regulations for a third round of comments, due Dec. 9.  If you’d like to comment, you do so by sending them to REGCOMMENTS@nysed.gov.

Please sign this petition today, urging the NY State Attorney General Letitia James to investigate the College Board’s illegal and unethical selling of personal student data.  Also check out the one-pager with advice on how to avoid having your child’s data sold for profit when they take the ACT, PSAT, SAT or AP exams.
​
On Nov. 5, the Wall Street Journal published an excellent article about this egregious practice, showing that one reason colleges purchase the data from the College Board is to market to more students and increase their rejection rates, which then raises their own ratings and reputation for selectivity.  And last week, WCBS news ran a segment on how the College Board routinely violates student privacy through their “Student Search” program in this way.
​
If your child signed up for the “Student Search” program in the past and mistakenly allowed their data to be sold, and you’re interested in potentially taking legal action to force the College Board into ceasing this practice, please email info@studentprivacy.org to find out more. 

More updates coming soon on the discussions around the state regarding revising graduation requirements, state testing, the impact of the common core standards, choosing the next state Ed Commissioner, filling Regent Judith Johnson's position and other issues.

Thank you! NYSAPE

NYSAPE Update Data Privacy - NYS ALLIES FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION