CARL J. PETERSEN: LAUSD Candidate Profile: Patricia Castellanos

LAUSD Candidate Profile: Patricia Castellanos

LAUSD Candidate Profile: Patricia Castellanos

We need more parent and community involvement with [the] LAUSD. It is an essential ingredient in creating an enriching learning environment for our students.”– Patricia Castellanos

Currently, not one of the LAUSD School Board members has a child enrolled in a district school. As the parent of a first-grader who attends an LAUSD school, Patricia Castellanos would change that omission and “ensure that parents are represented in the top decision-making that impacts our children’s lives.” She says that her status as a district parent sets her apart from the other candidates since it gives her the ability to “understand many of the hopes and concerns shared by parents across the District.”

Castellanos is a long-time community leader who was included on billmoyers.com’s 2013 list of Activists to Watch. She was formerly a deputy director at the LA Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) and was a co-founder of  Reclaim Our Schools L.A. (ROSLA). These were CONTINUE READING: LAUSD Candidate Profile: Patricia Castellanos

NYC Public School Parents: Our class size lawsuit argued in the Appellate Court yesterday!

NYC Public School Parents: Our class size lawsuit argued in the Appellate Court yesterday!

Our class size lawsuit argued in the Appellate Court yesterday!

Yesterday, the class size lawsuit against the city and the state that we filed more than a year ago, along with nine NYC parents from every borough and the Alliance for Quality Education, was heard in the Appellate court in Albany.

Our pro bono attorney, Wendy Lecker of the Education Law Center, did a fabulous job, those of us in the courtroom agreed, which included two of the parent plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Litza Stark of Queens and Johanna Garcia of Manhattan, along with Johanna’s daughter Hailey, back from her first semester in college. NY Senator Robert Jackson, who spearheaded the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, was also there to support us, as well as retired teacher Norm Scott.

A panel of five judges listened intently as Wendy related how the NYC Department of Education had violated the state Contracts for Excellence law passed in 2007, which specifically mandates that the city lower average class sizes in all grades over five years – but instead, class sizes had sharply increased so that they are now far larger than they were when the law was first passed.  In response, the attorneys for the city and state tried to argue that since the five years outlined in the original law had lapsed, there was no longer any requirement for the DOE to lower class size.

Yet as Wendy pointed out,  the state legislature renews and reauthorizes the C4E law every year, including its class size mandate, with no specific end point for when the city’s CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Our class size lawsuit argued in the Appellate Court yesterday!

Few Conversations About Race and Identity Are Happening at Home or in the Classroom

Few Conversations About Race and Identity Are Happening at Home or in the Classroom

Few Conversations About Race and Identity Are Happening at Home. Can Educators Help?

Since 1969, the Sesame Workshop, creators of “Sesame Street,” has made concerted efforts through its programming to create a positive sense of self by celebrating differences and exploring social identities like race, gender, religion, social class, and more to help grow smarter, stronger, and kinder kids. However, based on the findings from a major national study by Sesame Workshop and NORC at the University of Chicago, parents today are not having frequent conversations around key social identities with their children.

NEA Today spoke with Rosemarie Truglio, senior vice president of curriculum and content at Sesame Workshop and Derrick Gay, a former classroom teacher, an expert on issues of diversity, inclusion, and global citizenship, and a research advisor for the “Identity Matters” study, to learn how educators and parents can work together to have these important conversations.

The study reveals that parents are comfortable talking about identity, but don’t do it—particularly parents who come from dominant groups (white, Christian, straight, middle class, highly educated). Why aren’t they talking about it?

Derrick Gay: There are a number of reasons. First is a lack of awareness. If someone belongs to a dominant group, they just may be unaware that individuals CONTINUE READING: Few Conversations About Race and Identity Are Happening at Home or in the Classroom

ENRIQUE BALORA At the #FundOurFutureFL rally in Tallahassee + Three bills to watch this Fla. legislative session - YouTube

At the #FundOurFutureFL rally in Tallahassee - YouTube

ENRIQUE BALORA At the #FundOurFutureFL rally in Tallahassee 

Three bills to watch this Fla. legislative session - YouTube - 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_sb5-ZFYzs&feature=push-u-sub&attr_tag=oUSz9xyB6_F-ctei%3A6

At the #FundOurFutureFL rally in Tallahassee - YouTube

California: County Board of Education Denies Renewal of Troubled Charter School | Diane Ravitch's blog

California: County Board of Education Denies Renewal of Troubled Charter School | Diane Ravitch's blog
California: County Board of Education Denies Renewal of Troubled Charter School

The Los Angeles County Board of Education has denied renewal to a troubled charter school in the Inglewood school district.

The school has a long history of self-dealing, conflicts of interest, and a mixed academic record. This charter demonstrates that even “non-profits” can be very profitable to its owners.

The California Charter Schools Association is on high alert because of a change in state  law that allows local districts to weigh in on the future of charter schools, especially their fiscal impact on public schools and whether they duplicate what the public schools are already doing.

The Los Angeles County Board of Education voted Tuesday to close an Inglewood charter school with a lengthy history of financial problems and mixed academic performance that illustrated flaws in California’s oversight system.

The board’s unanimous decision marks the third time it has attempted to shut down a charter school run by Today’s Fresh Start, a nonprofit started by a wealthy CONTINUE READING: California: County Board of Education Denies Renewal of Troubled Charter School | Diane Ravitch's blog

Education Research Report TODAY

Education Research Report

Education Research Report

TODAY

Restorative Justice in Education

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 18min

Schools are implementing (RJE) initiatives across the United States, often to reduce the use of out-of-school suspension, which is known to increase the risk for dropout and arrest. Many RJE initiatives also aim to strengthen social and emotional competencies, reduce gender and racial disparities in discipline, and increase access to equitable and supportive environments for students from margin

State Financial Aid Barriers for Students Impacted by the Justice System

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 20min

Last week, New Jersey became one of 17 states — plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico — that give people who are in prison access to state financial aid for college coursework. In many cases, though, individuals in prison or with prior criminal convictions are not eligible for state aid. This new Policy Outline provides a high-level overview of state financial aid eligibility for anyone i

The return on investment of the 210 US liberal arts colleges

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 22min

A new report that ranks the return on investment of the 210 US liberal arts colleges. ROI of Liberal Arts Colleges: Value Adds Up Over Time finds that financial returns from liberal arts colleges start low but rise quickly. Forty years after enrollment, the median ROI for liberal arts colleges is $918,000, nearly $200,000 higher than the median ROI for all colleges. The most selective liberal art

Overall mastery can be improved through engaged science learning

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 24min

Complete repor t Science consists of a body of knowledge and a set of processes by which the knowledge is produced. Although these have traditionally been treated separately in science instruction, there has been a shift to an integration of knowledge and processes, or set of practices, in how science should be taught and assessed. This study explores whether a general overall mastery of the proc

High School Dropout and Completion Rates

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 36min

For the first time in 40 years, the status completion rate for Black 18- to 24-year-olds was not measurably different from White 18- to 24-year-olds. From 1977 to 2016 the status completion rate for White 18- to 24-year-olds was consistently higher than the rate for Black 18- to 24-year-olds. The National Center for Education Statistics report, Trends in in the United States: 2019 , presents sta

YESTERDAY

College and University Basic Needs Insecurity

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 18h

Complete report The #RealCollege survey is the nation’s largest annual assessment of basic needs security among college students. The survey, created by the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice (Hope Center), specifically evaluates access to affordable food and housing. This report describes the results of the #RealCollege survey administered in the fall of 2018 at 123 two- and four-ye

Program proves effective in preventing dating violence with middle school students

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 18h

Coaching Boys Into Men, a program that seeks to prevent dating violence and sexual assault, reduces abusive behaviors among middle school male athletes toward their female peers, according to clinical trial results published today in JAMA Pediatrics . The trial, led by Elizabeth Miller, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at UPMC Children's Hospital of Pit

Mis/Alignment Between High School and Community College Standards

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 1d

This study explores the extent to which “college-ready” students, by high school standards, are assigned to remedial courses in college. The results confirm that ISMM was prevalent and substantial with respect to high school grades, moderate to substantial based on different measures of math course-taking, and minor to moderate based on standardized test results. Each of these cases is problemati

Some Re-Enrollment Campaigns Help Dropouts Return to College

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 1d

Most students who begin at a community college leave without earning a degree. Given the growing emphasis on student success, many colleges have implemented re-enrollment campaigns designed to foster re-engagement and 

Education Research Report

PUT YOUR COMMUNITY ON THE 2020 BLACK LIVES MATTER AT SCHOOL MAP! – Black Lives Matter At School #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool #BlackLivesMatter

PUT YOUR COMMUNITY ON THE 2020 BLACK LIVES MATTER AT SCHOOL MAP! – Black Lives Matter At School

PUT YOUR COMMUNITY ON THE 2020 BLACK LIVES MATTER AT SCHOOL MAP!

Is your school or community planning events for the 2020 Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action? If so please take a minute to enter information about what is happening at your school or community for the Week of Action on the National Education Association’s EdJustice webpage (click on the link and scroll down). We know you have been busy planning events to make this year’s Week of Action a powerful affirmation of Black lives in your school and community. Please email us your calendars and flyers and we will add them to the website. We want to know if you are teaching the 13-Guiding Principles, planning youth events, hosting a rally, or participating in the Student Creative Challenge (2020 prompt will be announced on MLK Day).

Help us let the world know that you are participating in the growing Black Lives Matter at School Movement!

PUT YOUR COMMUNITY ON THE 2020 BLACK LIVES MATTER AT SCHOOL MAP! – Black Lives Matter At School

Why, Democrats, Why? | Teacher in a strange land

Why, Democrats, Why? | Teacher in a strange land

Why, Democrats, Why?

So now we have a manufactured-for-media tiff between the Sanders and Warren campaigns. If you’re one of the people who have taken sides on social media—shame on you for making this election, already tilting the balance between America as we know it and Chaos, even more dangerous.

On Twitter, someone posted this simple question: Why aren’t the Warren and Sanders campaigns coordinating? Together, their fans form a larger and sturdier block of progressives with similar if not identical policy ideas than the silos where other candidates are holding court—a large enough group that it could conceivably wipe out Fumblin’ Joe Biden or inexperienced neolib Pete Buttigieg, their two biggest challengers.

If progressives want to win this election, the questioner asked, why don’t we take a leaf from Republicans, whose willingness to coalesce behind seriously flawed, even corrupt, candidates and office-holders means they win elections they should, by all measures, lose convincingly? Party before country is the heart of political rot, but—along with voter suppression, gerrymandering and outright lying—it’s been working pretty well for the Republicans.

Why not deliberately work together instead of devolving into he-said/she-said?

What followed was the lengthiest and most discouraging Twitter thread I’ve read in weeks. It was heavy on ugly anti-Warren bits (‘corporate bitch’) but included some CONTINUE READING: Why, Democrats, Why? | Teacher in a strange land

Defying Threat of Termination, 1,200 Florida Teachers Rally to Save Public Education | Common Dreams News

Defying Threat of Termination, 1,200 Florida Teachers Rally to Save Public Education | Common Dreams News

Defying Threat of Termination, 1,200 Florida Teachers Rally to Save Public Education
"Florida teachers are rallying for fair pay and better funding for schools, and they won't be intimidated or undermined."

More than 1,200 Florida teachers on Monday followed through on a pledge to stand up for their students and schools at a statewide rally in Tallahassee despite a threat from the state Department of Education which warned that the teachers were risking termination by attending the event.

Teachers in Polk County, Florida received an email Friday night from the state Department of Education (DOE) saying that attending the rally constitutes "an illegal strike under Florida law." Teachers across the state have reportedly been saving up personal days for months to attend the action.

"I don't really have any fear that they're going to follow through with the threats... When there's hundreds of thousands of students in the state of Florida who don't have full-time teachers as it is, they don't need to be firing teachers."
—Dr. Bruce Sabin, Polk County teacherFormer educator and columnist Peter Greene wrote in Forbes that Polk County school leaders should be "especially concerned about Florida's churn and burn rate; they lose more than half of their new teachers within the first five years"—but its high turnover rate didn't stop district officials from reportedly asking the state to warn teachers that "failure to report represents a lack of commitment and focus on what’s most important," and that they could be fired as a result of attending the rally.

Termination threats had little effect on the 1,200 Polk County teachers who planned to travel nearly 300 miles to the state capital on Monday, the eve of the first day of Florida's new legislative session.

"I don't really have any fear that they're going to follow through with the threats," teacher Dr. Bruce Sabin told ABC Action News. "Our contract guarantees us the personal CONTINUE READING: Defying Threat of Termination, 1,200 Florida Teachers Rally to Save Public Education | Common Dreams News