Seattle Schools Community Forum: Common Core Updates

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Common Core Updates:
Common Core Updates

(Editor's note: I seem to recall that some were saying that "Common Core was here to stay." Read on.)

This reads like it's from The Onion but nope, it's from the NY Times regarding a taskforce that Governor Cuomo of New York created around Common Core:

A task force Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo created is calling for changes in what New York State students learn and how they are assessed, in a set of recommendations released on Thursday.

The task force, which Mr. Cuomo convened in response to the concerns of parents and teachers, is also calling for the state not to use its test scores to evaluate teachers through the 2018-19 school year, to allow time to develop the new standards and tests.

Why does this appear to be happening?

It comes in the wake of a rebellion by parents against testing;one-fifth of students did not sit for the state exams this year, a fourfold increase from the previous year.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, appeared to be heeding this anger when he created the task force in September and charged it with making recommendations “to overhaul the Common Core system — to do a total reboot.”

It is unclear how different the new standards will be from the Common Core. The task force’s report calls for enlisting educators and parents to help create them, and it recommends modifying the standards for kindergarten, first grade and second grade so that they are more age-appropriate. 

 Another hugely interesting article comes from Catholic Education Daily where there was concern over how Catholic school students (who don't generally use Seattle Schools Community Forum: Common Core Updates:

English Language Arts Guidance - English Language Arts (CA Dept of Education)

English Language Arts Guidance - English Language Arts (CA Dept of Education):

English Language Arts Guidance

Resources for implementing and improving English Language Arts instruction, including content standards, frameworks, curriculum guides, and digital materials.

Resources covering the following topics are listed in the tabbed sections below. The sponsors and supporters of high-quality resources from outside the California Department of Education are provided at the end of the citations.

• California State Standards
  California Department of Education (CDE) Web pages that focus on ELA and Literacy (ELA/Literacy) content standards and related standards.
• CDE Resources and Policies
  CDE Web pages feature resources on the 2014 English Language Arts/English Language Development Framework (ELA/ELD Framework), curriculum guides, instructional materials for implementing standards for all students, and policy information.
• Instructional Guidance and Resources
  Web-based resources created by notable, national contributors for teachers and families striving to improve students’ ELA/Literacy learning are presented.
• Digital Literacy 
  Curated Web sites with instructional materials and guidance from teachers and other experts on incorporating and improving literacy with digital resources are highlighted.
• Social Networking 
  Approaches and resources for professional learning, lesson sharing, instructional strategies, assessment approaches, and communications with families are featured.

• State Standards
 
• CDE Resources and Policies
 
• Instructional Resources
 
• Digital Literacy
 
• Social Networking

State Standards

California Department of Education (CDE) Web pages that focus on ELA and Literacy (ELA/Literacy) content standards and related standards.

California Common Core State Standards: English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (PDF), Adopted August 2010
The California Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (CA Standards for ELA/Literacy) are the culmination of an extended, broad-based effort to create the next generation of standards from kindergarten through grade 12 to help ensure all students are literate at college and career ready levels no later than the end of high school. They are based on the national Common Core State Standards (CCSS) 

California English Language Development Standards
The California English Language Development Standards (CA ELD Standards) help guide curriculum, instruction, and assessment to ensure English learners develop the English language skills needed to engage successfully with the CA Standards for ELA/Literacy.

Quality Professional Learning Standards
The Quality Professional Learning Standards identify characteristics of professional learning that are most likely to support educators in building individual and collective capacity to meet professional, school, and student performance expectations.

Model School Library Standards for California Public Schools
The School Library Standards support students’ learning to access, evaluate, use, and inte­grate information and ideas found in print, media, and digital resources, enabling students to function in a knowledge-based economy and technologically-oriented society.

Spanish Translation of the California Common Core State Standards: English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects 
Translated document describing what students need to know and be able to do in CCSS for ELA/Literacy, as well as providing support for a shared educational goal, literacy in Spanish. 

Questions:   Phyllis Hallam | PHallam@cde.ca.gov | 916-323-4630

Last Reviewed: Friday, December 18, 2015

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Dorn's Statement on Inslee's Supplemental Budget

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Dorn's Statement on Inslee's Supplemental Budget:

Dorn's Statement on Inslee's Supplemental Budget

Two words - not impressed.

This is not to say that the Superintendent dissed the Governor.  No, he liked:

Inslee does fund some increases to Jobs for Washington’s Graduates,CorePlus, Career and Technical Education, Healthiest Next Generation initiative, language access for families and discipline equity. And he did raise beginning teacher salaries and increase funding for  mentoring to help decrease our state’s teacher shortage.

But (bold mine),

Although salaries are an element of basic education and should be paid for by the state, the state now pays only a portion of what school employees actually earn. In his budget, Inslee actually digs school districts into a deeper hole because a salary increase applies to a teacher’s total salary, not just the amount covered by the state. That places an additional burden on districts to come up with the difference.

And, of course it all circles back to...

But while all of those things are good, Inslee continues to avoid the real issue of McCleary. 

I’m tired of sounding like a broken record. I’m tired of the so-Seattle Schools Community Forum: Dorn's Statement on Inslee's Supplemental Budget:

Only in America: Four years into life, poor kids are already an entire year behind - The Washington Post

Only in America: Four years into life, poor kids are already an entire year behind - The Washington Post:
Only in America: Four years into life, poor kids are already an entire year behind

Wealthy parents aren't just able to send their kids to top pre-schools—they can also purchase the latest learning technology and ensure their children experience as many museums, concerts and other cultural experiences as possible. Low-income parents, on the other hand, don't have that opportunity. Instead, they're often left to face the reality of sending their kids to schools without having had the chance to provide an edifying experience at home.

That might sound foreboding if not hyperbolic, but it's a serious and widespread problem in the United States, where poor kids enter school already a year behind the kids of wealthier parents. That deficit is among the largest in the developed world, and it can be extraordinarily difficult to narrow later in life.

This is one of the key takeaways from a new book about how United States is failing its children. The book, called Too Many Children Left Behind, is written by Columbia University professor Jane Waldfogel, a long-time researcher of poverty and inequality. And it will force almost anyone to reflect on the impact of unchecked inequality on children.

Waldfogel says the massive achievement gap in the United States is a blemish for a country that aspires to be the greatest in the world. In her book, she shows that achievement gap is pronounced to a startling degree in the first years of life.

I spoke with Waldfogel to learn more about how the early years of a child's life can impact the rest of it, what role school plays in perpetuating inequality, and why the United States isn't doing a great job of creating an equal playing field for its children. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Let's start with a provocative question you ask early on in your book: Is the American Dream a reality for everyone, or only for some? Do you have an answer now?

The American Dream is based on the belief in equal opportunity, the idea that everyone starts from the same starting point regardless of where they’re born or their family background. If there are systematic differences in children’s capabilities, starting even early on in childhood, then that’s going to impede achieving the American Dream. So it just seemed important to us to look at that.

There’s so much work showing greater inequality in the United States among adults, among adolescents, even among school age children, but it’s not clear where that inequality comes from. If you had asked us at the start of the project, we would have said that children probably arrive at school somewhat unequally prepared because of the difference in their experiences in early childhood, but that the achievement gaps were also largely due to schooling. We would have guessed that about half the inequality that you see in young adults or adults more generally would be there at school entry, but that at least half of it would develop as children move through school—because of all the things we know about schools and unequal experiences at schools.

The big surprise for us was to find that more than half of the inequality was already there at school entry. The schools are not as much to blame as we had expected. And that’s not true elsewhere. The United States really stands out, Only in America: Four years into life, poor kids are already an entire year behind - The Washington Post:

Shelby County Schools calls for halt to ASD takeovers

Shelby County Schools calls for halt to ASD takeovers:

Shelby County Schools calls for halt to ASD takeovers

Shelby County Schools Superintendent Dorsey Hopson (Mike Brown/The Commercial Appeal)

Shelby County Schools is formally pushing back against the state-run Achievement School District, which announced last week it will take over four more schools in Memphis.

The school board on Tuesday night unanimously passed a resolution approving a "short-term strategic plan" that includes a moratorium on ASD officials taking over any more schools "until they show consistent progress in improving student academic achievement."

Board members brought the resolution to the meeting as a last-minute addition, but Superintendent Dorsey Hopson said he supports the idea.

"When I increasingly hear from communities that the process isn't fair or that the kids aren't being served, or they don't want to be a part of the ASD, it brings me great pause," Hopson said.

Backed by a Vanderbilt University study released last week, Hopson said the evidence is "overwhelming" that the SCS Innovation Zone, which keeps schools in the local district with extra funding, is a more effective turnaround model than the ASD.

The ASD has authority, per state law, to take over schools in the bottom 5 percent in the state and either run them directly or outsource their operation to Shelby County Schools calls for halt to ASD takeovers:

Another Take on New Mexico’s Ruling on the State’s Teacher Evaluation/VAM System | VAMboozled!

Another Take on New Mexico’s Ruling on the State’s Teacher Evaluation/VAM System | VAMboozled!:

Another Take on New Mexico’s Ruling on the State’s Teacher Evaluation/VAM System

John Thompson, a historian and teacher, wrote a post just published in Diane Ravitch’s blog (here) in which he took a closer look at the New Mexico court decision of which I was a part and which I covered a few weeks ago (here). This is the case in which state District Judge David K. Thomson, who presided over the five-day teacher-evaluation lawsuit in New Mexico, granted a preliminary injunction preventing consequences from being attached to the state’s teacher evaluation data.

Historian/Teacher John Thompson adds another, and also independent take on this ruling, again here, also having read through Judge Thomson’s entire ruling. Here’s what he wrote:

New Mexico District Judge David K. Thomson granted a preliminary injunction preventing consequences from being attached to the state’s teacher evaluation data. As Audrey Amrein-Beardsley explains, “can proceed with ‘developing’ and ‘improving’ its teacher evaluation system, but the state is not to make any consequential decisions about New Mexico’s teachers using the data the state collects until the state (and/or others external to the state) can evidence to the court during another trial (set for now, for April) that the system is reliable, valid, fair, uniform, and the like.”

This is wonderful news. As the American Federation of Teachers observes, “Superintendents, principals, parents, students and the teachers have spoken out against nother Take on New Mexico’s Ruling on the State’s Teacher Evaluation/VAM System | VAMboozled!:

Teaching Rebellion: Schools Must Cultivate A Struggle for Justice | The Progressive

Teaching Rebellion: Schools Must Cultivate A Struggle for Justice | The Progressive:

Teaching Rebellion: Schools Must Cultivate A Struggle for Justice

“Our ultimate objective in learning about anything is to try to create and develop a more just society”-Yuri Kochiyama

These words from human rights activist Yuri Kochiyama are never far from my mind each morning as I think about my students. I plan our lessons as just one tiny sliver of a great, historic justice movement.

So much of the debate in education is about how poverty and other outside forces impact kids in school, but in many classrooms students are learning to use their education to fight poverty and systemic oppression. With a nod to Dr. King, if we are to win, we must focus all of our energy on tilting the moral arc of the universe toward justice and to counter those who are actively pushing in the opposite direction.  

For many across the country right now, this idea is contained in the image of Laquan McDonald, a 17-year-old executed in a short minute by 16 shots from a Chicago police officer’s gun. Laquan didn’t need more academic rigor, he needed a city that valued his life.

But if the Laquan McDonald shooting is a wake up call to the nation, it reflects something we in Chicago have known all along. We live in city ruled by people who do not value the lives of black youth. Chicago Police rank third nationally in shooting and killing residents, and disproportionately shoot African Americans. Chicago police harass residents, especially youth of color, with a stop-and-frisk rate nearly sixty times that of New York police.

In Chicago, groups like Black Youth Project 100, STOP/FLY, VOYCE, and Project NIA have been fighting this battle for years. These young folks are very clear about the systemic nature of this deadly oppression. The Chicago Teachers Union and its social justice unionist caucus CORE (of which I am a member) have joined the students to take vocal stands against racist oppression both in the streets and within our schools.

We all agree that mayor Rahm Emanuel and the powerful people who worked to get him elected don’t care, or know how to care, about kids afflicted by poverty in our communities. We see this in the Laquan McDonald video and those of the killings of Ronald Johnson and Philip Coleman and others. The mayor and his cronies drop crocodile tears, apologies, and promises to change, even as they fight the release of news about the murder of another

- See more at: http://www.progressive.org/news/2015/12/188468/teaching-rebellion-schools-must-cultivate-struggle-justice#sthash.vLjpO4ef.dpuf

Pondering Chartering: On Market Forces & Innovation? | School Finance 101

Pondering Chartering: On Market Forces & Innovation? | School Finance 101:
Pondering Chartering: On Market Forces & Innovation?

One of the original premises of chartering as a competitive market tool was that introducing independently governed competitors and relaxing regulations on those competitors would induce innovation, which could then be shared for the good of the whole. This premise is flawed on many levels.

First, if innovation is to be induced by competition, there exists no incentive for competitors to share their innovations.

Second, if one subset of competitors is granted relaxation of regulations such that they can innovate, then that subset of competitors is granted an unfair advantage in that the regulations imposed on their competition (“district” schools) may inhibit their ability to “counter-innovate.”

Further, this system creates an incentive for the unregulated competitors to lobby for even stiffer regulation on their competition (“district” schools). [for example, lobbying in favor of test-driven teacher evaluation requirements to be imposed on “district” schools in a climate of public concern over the influence of testing – and then seeking exemption from those requirements for charter schools]

Of course, as I explained on a previous post, from ongoing writings, growth of the charter sector is hardly based on a competitive market model in the first place. Rather, that growth in many markets is already built on aggressive lobbying and manipulation of public policy:

It is important to acknowledge that charter school market shares are not, in recent years, expanding exclusively or even primarily because of market demand and personal/family preferences for charter schools. Traditional district public schools are being closed, neighborhoods left without options other than charters, district schools are being reconstituted and handed over to charter operators (including entire districts), and district schools are increasingly deprived of resources, experience burgeoning class sizes, reductions in program offerings sending more families scrambling for their “least bad” nearest alternative. [i] These are conscious decisions of policymakers overseeing the system that includes district and charter schools. They are not market forces, and should never be confused as such. These systems are being centrally managed without regard for equity and adequacy goals or the protection of student, family, taxpayer and employee rights, but instead, on the false hope that liberty of choice is a substitute for all of the above (including, apparently, loss of individual liberties). [ii]

Further, for all the talk that this model of competition (which really isn’t) would yield innovations not previously conceived, a growing body of research, including that most favorable to the charter sector Pondering Chartering: On Market Forces & Innovation? | School Finance 101:

Can Community Schools Dampen the School Takeover Fever? - NEA Today

Can Community Schools Dampen the School Takeover Fever? - NEA Today:

Can Community Schools Dampen the School Takeover Fever?

The Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University and the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) released a new report on Dec. 17 that makes a strong case for collaborative, grassroots efforts to help turn around struggling schools.“Investing in What Works: Community-Driven Strategies for Strong Public Schools”points to examples of public schools that have improved student outcomes by becoming the center of a community while denouncing reforms that undermine local authority, such as school takeovers.

At the crux of the report is Georgia. In February, the state legislature passed Senate Bill 133 to create a state-run system—dubbed “Opportunity School District (OSD)”—that would control some of Georgia’s lowest-performing schools. One indicator would measure these schools: the College and Career Readiness Performance Index (CCRPI). If a school falls below 60 points of the CCRPI, it would be removed from local authority. Today, there are 137 schools statewide that would meet the proposed requirements of Senate Bill 133.

Georgia’s proposal mimics the misguided school reform efforts found in  Louisiana, Michigan, and Tennessee, which usurp local control as a way to transform struggling schools. Some of these strategies include charter conversion, indiscriminate staff and leadership removal, or school closures. According to Annenberg and SEF, the takeover models of Louisiana, Michigan, and Tennessee have neither shown continuous nor sweeping improvements in student outcomes.

“These state takeover districts have failed to consistently improve student outcomes, and failed to engage (and invest) communities and educators in any kind of visionary transformation that is needed in our public schools,” the report states. “Without such investment, even initial academic results will falter.” It goes on to say that these initiatives have created “bad will in the communities and schools that have been targeted by them.”

Tennessee’s Achievement School District (ASD), for example, was cited in the report for turning 18 of the 23 takeover schools into charters. Academic performance in most of the ASD schools has shown mixed results—and even some decline. Parent frustration has become an issue,

Chris Caldwell, a member of the Shelby County (Tennessee) School Board told theCommercial Appeal, “The way that (ASD) was implemented, it gave the families a feeling that they were being punished or isolated from the rest of the school system because of the performance of the school.”

If the Georgia legislation passes, Governor Nathan Deal would appoint an OSD superintendent who could enforce one of four interventions: direct management by Can Community Schools Dampen the School Takeover Fever? - NEA Today:

CURMUDGUCATION: The Federal Family Fixing Plan

CURMUDGUCATION: The Federal Family Fixing Plan:

The Federal Family Fixing Plan

It's the kind of document that only a federal bureaucracy could create, and you still have a little over two weeks to comment on it.  Meet the DRAFT POLICY STATEMENT ON FAMILY ENGAGEMENT FROM THE EARLY YEARS TO THE EARLY GRADES. 

It's a policy so bureaucraticky that it took two departments-- Education plus Health and Human Services-- to come up with it. Like all good government documents, it ranges from dull to obvious to dumb to terrifying. And it wants to address, in particular, pre-K. Also pre-pre-pre-K. Its stated purpose is to formulate some policies "on systematically engaging families in their children’s development, learning, and wellness, across early childhood and elementary education settings." 

Announcing the Problem

I tell my students never to open a piece of writing with a Bulletin from Captain Obvious (The Sun Also Rises is a book that people have read), but this opus leaps right in with "Families are children’s first and most important teachers, advocates, and nurturers."  That's not a problem, but the kind of governmental attitude that gives some folks fits starts to show up just one paragraph later with this sentence:

Both Departments recognize the critical role of family engagement in children’s success in the early and elementary education systems.

Does it? Why, that's mighty good of it, like a guy who says, "Lady, I think you look perfectly okay," or a white guy telling a brown guy, "Hey, I've decided it's perfectly okay for you to be here." Still can't see it? Then look at the definition of "family engagement."

We refer to “family engagement” as the systematic inclusion of families as partners in children’s development, learning, and wellness.

Congratulations, families! The government is going to "include" you as partners. It is the government's table. You're invited to have a seat at it, but it's their table. Consider how different CURMUDGUCATION: The Federal Family Fixing Plan:

How ALEC Stole the Public from Public Education: A Cautionary but Inspring Tale | Save Maine Schools

How ALEC Stole the Public from Public Education: A Cautionary but Inspring Tale | Save Maine Schools:

How ALEC Stole the Public from Public Education: A Cautionary but Inspring Tale

Andy Goldstein, a parent and teacher in Florida, wrote this story below and recited it before the School Board of Palm Beach County. The story is a cautionary tale about ALEC’s involvement in our public schools.

For those who may not know, ALEC is an organization that connects corporations and politicians behind closed doors.  They draft model legislation (designed to boost corporate profit) and bring these laws to our states.  Incentives for many of their favored policies, including Pay for Success, competency-based education, and – of course – high stakes testing – were written into the latest version of ESEA, which was signed into law this month.

Here is the story, with a link to his brilliant performance below.   Enjoy!

How the ALEC stole the Public from Public Education

Every kid
Down in Kidville
Liked public education a lot!
But the American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC, did not.

ALEC hated public education
The whole public school season!
If you want to know why,
I’ll tell you the reason.
It’s a cautionary tale
That spans
‘cross many a political season.

Long long ago
And far far away
from high upon it’s perch
ALEC spied down
And set its eyes upon some prey!

It saw little boys and girls skipping merrily to school
and it grimaced a terrible grimmaceHow ALEC Stole the Public from Public Education: A Cautionary but Inspring Tale | Save Maine Schools:

The New Preschool Is Crushing Kids - The Atlantic

Kindergarten Has Become the New First Grade - The Atlantic:

The New Preschool Is Crushing Kids
Today’s young children are working more, but they’re learning less.

tep into an American preschool classroom today and you are likely to be bombarded with what we educators call a print-rich environment, every surface festooned with alphabet charts, bar graphs, word walls, instructional posters, classroom rules, calendars, schedules, and motivational platitudes—few of which a 4-year-old can “decode,” the contemporary word for what used to be known as reading.

Because so few adults can remember the pertinent details of their own preschool or kindergarten years, it can be hard to appreciate just how much the early-education landscape has been transformed over the past two decades. The changes are not restricted to the confusing pastiche on classroom walls. Pedagogy and curricula have changed too, most recently in response to the Common Core State Standards Initiative’s kindergarten guidelines. Much greater portions of the day are now spent on what’s called “seat work” (a term that probably doesn’t need any exposition) and a form of tightly scripted teaching known as direct instruction, formerly used mainly in the older grades, in which a teacher carefully controls the content and pacing of what a child is supposed to learn.

One study, titled “Is Kindergarten the New First Grade?,” compared kindergarten teachers’ attitudes nationwide in 1998 and 2010 and found that the percentage of teachers expecting children to know how to read by the end of the year had risen from 30 to 80 percent. The researchers also reported more time spent with workbooks and worksheets, and less time devoted to music and art. Kindergarten is indeed the new first grade, the authors concluded glumly. In turn, children who would once have used the kindergarten year as a gentle transition into school are in some cases being held back before they’ve had a chance to start. A study out of Mississippi found that in some counties, more than 10 percent of kindergartners weren’t allowed to advance to first grade.

Until recently, school-readiness skills weren’t high on anyone’s agenda, nor was the idea that the youngest learners might be disqualified from moving on to a subsequent stage. But now that kindergarten serves as a gatekeeper, not a welcome mat, to elementary school, concerns about school preparedness kick in earlier and earlier. A child who’s supposed to read by the end of kindergarten had better be getting ready in preschool. As a result, expectations that may arguably have been reasonable for 5- and 6-year-olds, such as being able to sit at a desk and complete a task using pencil and paper, are now directed at even younger Kindergarten Has Become the New First Grade - The Atlantic:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: DuSable librarian position restored. Thanks to 'anonymous donor' or student protests?

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: DuSable librarian position restored. Thanks to 'anonymous donor' or student protests?:

DuSable librarian position restored. Thanks to 'anonymous donor' or student protests?

“Thanks to a generous anonymous gift, the librarian’s job can be restored at the DuSable campus,” CPS said in a statement.  -- Sun-Times

“That was just amazing … the kids … I’ve been here a long time, and one of the advantages of a librarian is you get to know kids when they’re little green freshman, then watch them write essays for college,” she said. “It was really very moving to me that they were willing to take that chance and take action.  -- DuSable librarian Sara Sayigh

I'm always amazed, though not surprised any more, by how money magically appears in broke-on-purpose coffers of the Chicago Public Schools.

While I'm elated to hear that students at DuSable (I still call it that) have their beloved librarian Sara Sayigh back, CPS's statement explaining the whole affair, is borderline laughable.  An anonymous donor? Really, Forrest Claypool? Are teaching and staff positions at CPS now like endowed chairs at the university, dependent on the benevolence of wealthy patrons? Is that even legal? Will it Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: DuSable librarian position restored. Thanks to 'anonymous donor' or student protests?:

When a school assigned homework on Islam, it drew so many threats the district shut down - Vox

When a school assigned homework on Islam, it drew so many threats the district shut down - Vox:

When a school assigned homework on Islam, it drew so many threats the district shut down

A high school world geography teacher in Augusta County, Virginia, gave her students what seemed like a standard assignment: a worksheet on Islam as part of a curriculum on world religions.

The backlash was so fierce that schools in the county, which is just west of Charlottesville, are closed today after a barrage of threatening phone calls and emails from people angry about the homework assignment.

RelatedIt's not just Trump: Islamophobia in America is spiraling out of control

The worksheet asked students to try to copy the shahada — the statement that "there is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is the messenger of Allah," the pillar of Muslim faith — in order to understand the complexity of Arabic calligraphy.

The ensuing fury is so over the top it almost seems like satire. Parents argued that the teacher, Cheryl LaPorte, was trying to convert students to Islam. One parent said she "gave up the Lord's time and gave to Mohammed." The local newspaper noted,ominously, that "students were also reportedly shown copies of the Quran."

Then, after parents objected, the threats to the school district started rolling in. The whole episode is a perfect summary of growing Islamophobia within the US and the lack of understanding that drives it — a problem that the world geography curriculum was trying to correct.

Parents argued that students were being forced to convert to Islam

Understanding religion and language is a key part of the world geography curriculum, required by Virginia state standards. The point of the worksheet was to give students a feel for what Arabic calligraphy looks like, and to show how it's interwoven with Muslim beliefs.

The phrase students were asked to copy is crucial — taking shahada is the only official step in conversion to Islam. But you have to mean what you're saying. You cannot accidentally end up a Muslim while trying to copy some difficult calligraphy in a language you don't speak as part of a homework assignment.

Parents in Staunton, Virginia, thought otherwise, the News Leader reported. One complained that a teacher would be fired if students had to copy out a passage from the Bible. The district superintendent was reduced to defending the notion of studying world religions at all:

Neither these lessons, nor any other lesson in the world geography course, are an attempt at indoctrination to Islam or any other religion, or a request for students to renounce their own faith or profess any belief. Each of the lessons attempts objectively to present world religions in a way that is interesting and interactive for students.

In the end, though, the district said in a statement that students in the future would copy Arabic calligraphy that didn't have religious relevance. (Copying calligraphy might not really be the most enlightening way to learn about another culture or religion, but that's a separate issue.)

Then it got worse. The district "began receiving voluminous phone calls and electronic mail locally and from outside the area," a statement posted Thursday on its website reads. The sheriff and school superintendent decided to cancel school Friday as a precaution.

The outrage became a perfect storm of fear

On Tuesday, Los Angeles' school district canceled school over threats that purported to be from Muslim terrorists but that turned out to be a hoax. Two days later, school was canceled in small-town Virginia due to threats from people who hate and fear Muslims.

Closing schools in Los Angeles now seems like an overreaction, and doing so in Virginia probably is too; the district said it hadn't received any specific threats but was alarmed When a school assigned homework on Islam, it drew so many threats the district shut down - Vox:

Clinton Views on Charter Schools, Teacher Evaluations Upset Some Democrats - WSJ

Clinton Views on Charter Schools, Teacher Evaluations Upset Some Democrats - WSJ:

Clinton Views on Charter Schools, Teacher Evaluations Upset Some Democrats
Some donors are balking, worried that her recent comments toe the line of teacher unions

WASHINGTON—Democrats backing the effort to overhaul American education have become increasingly concerned that presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton isn’t committed to their cause, and some donors are holding back support for her campaign.

Their worries stem from skeptical comments she has made about charter schools and teacher evaluations, as well as her close relationship with teachers’ unions, who are critical of both.

“There are a lot of deep-pocketed donors who are concerned, and they’re going to hang onto their checkbooks until there is more clarity,” said Whitney Tilson, managing partner of Kase Capital, who has given more than $150,000 to Democrats in recent years. He hasn’t donated any money to Mrs. Clinton or the super PAC supporting her this year “primarily because of this issue.”

Another major Democratic donor, Eli Broad, refused requests for contributions from another friendly super PAC, and only changed his mind after personal reassurances from former President Bill Clinton and campaign chairman John Podesta that Mrs. Clinton will support charter schools.

The concerns lay bare Mrs. Clinton’s challenge in managing competing interests inside the Democratic Party. Among them are teachers, many of whom see themselves as scapegoats for society’s problems, and those pushing more accountability and expanded use of charter schools, including many donors.

The threat of withholding contributions carries consequences. Republicans will spare no expense next fall when they coalesce behind a nominee and seek to defeat the Democratic nominee.

Democrats backing an education overhaul have long viewed Mrs. Clinton as an ally and point to her decades of support for rigorous teacher evaluations and charter schools. They hoped that if elected president, she would continue policies of the Obama administration, which tied grants and waivers from onerous federal rules to states’ support for charter schools and willingness to link student test scores and teacher pay.

Still, change is coming to federal education policy no matter who is elected. PresidentBarack Obama recently signed into law a rewrite of national elementary and secondary education regulations that severely limits the federal role in shaping education policy.

To put pressure on Mrs. Clinton, the advocacy group Democrats for Education Reform last spring posted an 18-page collection of her quotes and past positions online, hoping she would stick with them.

Mrs. Clinton hasn’t put out any formal policy on elementary and secondary education, though she often talks about the importance of preschool and has a detailed proposal Clinton Views on Charter Schools, Teacher Evaluations Upset Some Democrats - WSJ: