Sleeping Giant of Education Politics - Parents - Are Awake and Rebelling

Sleeping Giant of Education Politics - Parents - Are Awake and Rebelling:

Sleeping Giant of Education Politics - Parents - Are Awake and Rebelling

A New York Times frontpage headline last Aug. 13, 2015 stated,

"20 percent of State Students Opted Out of Tests in Sign of a Rising Revolt."

This grassroots rebellion is a response to the war on public education being waged by billionaire foundation heads, corporate CEOs, Wall Street hedge funders, and numerous politicians who support the corporate reform agenda and who like campaign contributions that come with it.

Nancy Cauthen, a member of Change The Stakes an anti-testing organization and parent of two NYC students, criticized the "test-and-punish regime that remains fundamentally unchanged...The Bush-Obama-Gates experiment with public education needs to end -- now."

The opt out movement against high stakes standardized testing also includes a growing number of classroom teachers and is spreading across the country. Parents resorted to civil disobedience because they felt helpless to protect their children from the test prep and testing mania and from the damaging new Common Core State(not) national Standards.

Congress and President Obama saw the growing rebellion by progressive, moderate and conservative parents. Last December, they finally replaced the widely discredited No Child Left Behind law. Also former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who was politically tone deaf and became a lightning rod for criticism, resigned at the end of December.

But Congress and the president seemed to be addicted to testing because the federal mandate that states test all third through eighth graders was kept in the new law. The new law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, does empower the states to create their own accountability systems but they must be approved by John King the new Acting U.S. Secretary of the Department of Education (DOE).

King, the former Commissioner of the New York State Education Department, replaced Duncan, but was this a change in policy? No. King's prepared remarks for a speech delivered on April 10, 2014 as commissioner said, "And finally--we at the state level and our colleagues at the federal level need to own up to the unintended consequences of our policies -- from narrowing of the curriculum to an overemphasis on testing." Incredibly, he said we are going forward. (King and Obama both send their children to private, progressive schools)

Some states will have fewer tests, others shorter tests, still others won't time the test taking, etc. But less of a bad thing is still a bad thing.

Obama, King, and Congress keep ignoring a major nine-year study, "Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education," released in 2011 by the prestigious and highly respected National Academies of Sciences' National Research Council. It Sleeping Giant of Education Politics - Parents - Are Awake and Rebelling:

Competency Based Education – UnitED For Florida Children

Competency Based Education – UnitED For Florida Children:

Competency Based Education

We don’t have time to play these games!

I can’t say you weren’t warned.

By Laura McCrary
Founder, United for FL Children

Parents, I Cannot Protect Your Children –    I will do my best. But my best isn’t good enough – and I think that is the point I really want to make here…”  ~ (Peggy Robertson)

I am going to be blunt here.  If parents don’t wake up and take a stand right now, this year, we will only have ourselves to blame.  Ask yourself this.  How do you see education in four to six years?  I can promise you it won’t be the friendly teacher driven classrooms we are seeing today.  Changes are being made from the top down right now as you are reading this, and it isn’t pretty.  It is called Competency Based Education (also known as Competency Based Learning, Outcome Based Education, Personalized Learning, and Performance Based Education to name a few).

In theory, the idea behind Competency Based Education (CBE) isn’t all bad.  According to the Kentucky Department of Education, CBE is “a method that focuses on mastering specific skills or standards rather than completing course work over a specific period of time.”  However, the people who are voting this in, did not take minorities, English Language Learners, and ESE students into account.   In fact ,they were not thinking about the children at all.  CBE is a corporate driven movement by a vast network of foundations, think tanks, and governmental groups.

The following excerpt was taken from Peter Greene’s blog Curmudgucation, titled Selling Competency Based Education:

“This was bad enough when it was the focus of a once-a-year Big Standardized Test. But look at what Pearson envisions as its “Balanced Assessment System.” Their system features six types of assessment, including formative of which they say “This happens every day!” Yes, it’s all assessment, all the time.”

Yes, that is daily testing they are talking about. And, we think the yearly tests are bad!

The achievement gap will grow tremendously, and the need for qualified teachers will come to an end. How do you feel about the primary teacher being a computer program, tracking your child’s progress on every standard all day long?  So, you say that can never happen?  We will always need teachers in the classroom, and a computer will never take over the teacher’s job.  Hmmm…

This article  states,

“Desperate school leaders are already having to turn to unqualified staff to take lessons. As the Competency Based Education – UnitED For Florida Children:

Shavar Jeffries: The establishment Bernie Sanders likes - NY Daily News

Shavar Jeffries: The establishment Bernie Sanders likes - NY Daily News:

Shavar Jeffries: The establishment Bernie Sanders likes

 As the next round of hand-wringing over the Democratic race commences, those of us who are focused on education policy have our own questions.

First, why, when Democrats need a broad coalition of Latino and African-American voters, are our candidates shying away from an issue that consistently ranks at the top of those voters’ concerns — access to high-quality education?

And, second, why is no one calling out the flip-flops and hypocrisy in Bernie Sanders’ record on education? It reinforces his greatest perceived weakness — that he is incapable of putting together the diverse coalition necessary to win. And it undermines his greatest strength — the perception that he is ideologically consistent.

EDITORIAL: SANDERSIZING AMERICA

Sanders recently said that he is opposed to public charter schools because they undermine democracy and our competitiveness by diverting money from public education. This flawed argument ignores that public charters are public schools, and glosses over the life-changing outcomes produced by charters around the country.

In South Carolina — a major test for both campaigns — families are embracing these new educational opportunities by the thousands. Since 2007, the state’s public charter sector has seen 100% growth, with nearly 30,000 students attending 68 public charters.

In communities like Newark, New Orleans and Washington, D.C., public charters have helped to improve test scores and graduation rates, particularly in poor and minority communities that have too often been overlooked.

Sanders used to get it — in 1998, as a congressman, he voted in favor of the bipartisan Charter School Expansion Act. That same year, he entered testimony in the Congressional Record from a ninth-grade student who emphasized that public charters “open up (options) for disadvantaged students.” But fast-forward to 2016, and he’s apparently done an about-face.

SANDERS RELEASES NEW AD FEATURING ERIC GARNER'S DAUGHTER

On accountability, Sanders can’t decide if we should “monitor student performance to ensure our children, parents and educators are receiving the support they need” (April 2015) or if “high-stakes standardized testing” and “Draconian interventions” are taking over our schools (May 2015).

And in spending billions to make college free, Sanders focuses on funding, not outcomes. His plan is mostly about the adults — not about whether colleges should be pressed to improve graduation rates for economically disadvantaged and minority students.

Sanders’ educational platform is also out of touch with the electorate. Public charters are especially popular among African-American and Latino voters, who support parent choice to the tune of 60% and 70% respectively. On accountability, more than 60% of all voters support clear metrics to track what is working in our schools, and over 80% support benchmarks to measure classroom effectiveness.

Which is not to suggest that Hillary Clinton is perfect on these issues. When she was asked about charter schools in South Carolina last fall — and said charters “don’t take the hardest-to-teach kids” or don’t keep them if they do — we were troubled. But she has since reasserted her support for charters and has been open to these reforms that are working for kids.

Sanders, meanwhile, has doubled down on his anti-reform stance and otherwise ignored pressing K-12 issues throughout this campaign. For someone who professes to care about social justice, that is beyond troubling. It is disingenuous.

Sanders talks much about how he marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to challenge a status quo that perpetuated racial inequities. Sadly, two generations later, Sanders now stands with an educational status quo that in some cases produces inequities in educational outcomes worse than those produced during Jim Crow. It is unfortunate that Sanders’ railing against the machine stops at the schoolhouse door.

Jeffries is president of Democrats for Education Reform.Shavar Jeffries: The establishment Bernie Sanders likes - NY Daily News:

New National Report on Community Schools Model Shows Significant Success | Educate All Students: Larry Miller's Blog

New National Report on Community Schools Model Shows Significant Success | Educate All Students: Larry Miller's Blog:

New National Report on Community Schools Model Shows Significant Success

The Center for Popular Democracy, the Coalition for Community Schools and the Southern Education Foundation published this new report.

See the full report at: Community-Schools National Report

For at least a decade, the dominant idea about how to improve outcomes for children and youth has focused on control and compliance; holding adults accountable for raising test scores. This approach has proved least effective for our most vulnerable students. In our search for silver bullets, reformers and policymakers alike have overlooked strategies that have long shown promise and for which there is mounting evidence of success. Community Schools is one of these strategies.

Community Schools combine challenging and culturally relevant learning opportunities with the academic and social supports each and every child needs to reach their potential. These schools, at their core, are about investing in children, through quality teaching, challenging and engaging curricula, wrap around supports, positive school climate, strong ties to family and community and a clear focus on results.
It’s clear the tide is turning, as interest in this vision of schooling is now evident in the nation’s major education policy, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). We note in particular the inclusion of factors in accountability systems that extend beyond test scores, as well as provisions for the use of resources to strengthen school-community partnerships—including needs assessments, teacher
development on family/community engagement, and support for personalized learning—reflective of the Community Schools strategy.

This report profiles Community Schools across the country, all which demonstrate consistent improvement in a wide range of indicators of student success. The best of these schools leave nothing to chance. They are as committed to challenging academics as they are to health, wellness and social and emotional learning. They are sustained by the broad support they enjoy from their communities. And they represent the ultimate purpose of our schools: to prepare young people to pursue their aspirations and participate fully in our economy and democracy.
This report intends to shed light on how Community Schools come alive in practice, and the improvements in academic and social outcomes that emerge when these schools are given a chance to work. There are over 90 communities across the country with significant efforts underway.

In low income communities and communities of color, we have not always valued the power of citizen input and the capacities within communities to coalesce around their children. This New National Report on Community Schools Model Shows Significant Success | Educate All Students: Larry Miller's Blog:

Day of Remembrance Is a Reminder to Continue to Fight Injustice - NBC News

Editorial: Day of Remembrance Is a Reminder to Continue to Fight Injustice - NBC News:

 Day of Remembrance Is a Reminder to Continue to Fight Injustice

On this day in 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which gave the U.S. military the authority to incarcerate more than 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. February 19 is observed today as the Day of Remembrance.

Pictures of people who were incarcerated at Manzanar War Relocation Center are displayed alongside family tags at Manzanar National Historic Site on December 9, 2015 near Independence, California. Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

In communities across the country, the Day of Remembrance is commemorated with events to promote education and understanding about this dark chapter in American history. The legacy of the World War II experience is personal to me: my father, Fred T. Korematsu, challenged the incarceration in a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and he is the namesake of the civil rights organization I lead, which honors his fight for justice for all people.

The Day of Remembrance is a reminder that we cannot let down our guard against injustice even as we move farther from the events of World War II. We must find purpose in this history, seeking out its lessons and reaching out to educate others across different generations and diverse communities.

Karen Korematsu, founder and executive director of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute. Bob Hsiang / Courtesy of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute

RELATED: Digital Teach-In Provides Internment Camp History Lessons That Schools Lack

Today, that purpose is compelling and urgent. Racial tensions are prevalent, and stories of hate crimes, profiling, and discrimination against immigrants and minorities pervade the news. The American Muslim community, in particular, is facing a recent surge in the hostility it has confronted since 9/11, with some public leaders amplifying the unjust hysteria by proposing measures to curtail this community's freedom and civil liberties.

The public and political scapegoating, stereotyping, and profiling of American Muslims that is on the rise today most strongly parallels the experience of Japanese Americans during World War II. This treatment has extended to other communities, including Arab, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Americans.

A rosary and a stone sit on a monument honoring the dead in the cemetery at Manzanar National Historic Site on December 9, 2015 near Independence, California. Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

In 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Japanese American incarceration in my father's case, Korematsu v. United States. Although the decision has been widely condemned — including by current Justices of the Supreme Court and the late Justice Scalia — it has yet to be overturned. The ruling remains an ominous shadow on Americans' civil liberties in times of crisis, when our Constitution's principles must hold their strongest.

RELATED: Virginia to Celebrate Korematsu Day for First Time

Current racial tensions and challenges facing American Muslims, immigrants, and other minority communities across America remind us that we have not overcome the past. On this day, we are called not only to remember, but also to recommit to our collective responsibility to ensure that the lessons of history prevail over a repeat of history.

President Clinton presents Fred Korematsu with a Presidential Medal of Freedom during a ceremony at the White House. Dennis Cook / AP file

Karen Korematsu is founder and executive director of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute.

 Editorial: Day of Remembrance Is a Reminder to Continue to Fight Injustice - NBC News:

Nationwide ad campaign will chide parents: Don't let your child miss school | OregonLive.com

Nationwide ad campaign will chide parents: Don't let your child miss school | OregonLive.com:

Nationwide ad campaign will chide parents: Don't let your child miss school

The federal government is launching a multimillion-dollar advertising campaigndesigned to persuade parents of elementary and middle school students to get them to school every day.

The Ad Council's "Every Student, Every Day" campaign, paid for in part my the Mott Foundation, will target parents to inform them of the devastating toll on students who miss even one day of school every two or three weeks. Students who are chronically absent are unlikely to learn to read well and are even less likely to graduate from high school.

In Oregon last year, 94,000 students missed at least 10 percent of the school year, meaning they were chronically absent.

The Ad Council has a track record of helping the nation make progress on some of its biggest public health and safety concerns, federal officials said. Its new anti-absenteeism campaign will include billboards, public service announcements at bus shelters and posters hung in barbershops, doctors' offices and schools. A website will offer parents resources to help support them in getting their child to attend school, including an online tool kit with blog posts, infographics and absence trackers. The website will also include resources for educators, community leaders and organizers of after-school programs.A recent report by America's Promise Alliance found that having a caring adult in their lives was a major factor in lowering a student's odds of dropping out of high school. Having a caring adult in school had a larger impact than having a caring adult at home, reducing a student's likelihood of leaving school by 25 percent. 

The Oregonian/OregonLive explored Oregon's chronic absenteeism epidemic in great detail in its Empty Desks investigative report. You can read all five parts online or download your own copies of the series to print and share.

 Nationwide ad campaign will chide parents: Don't let your child miss school | OregonLive.com:

FACT SHEET: The White House Launches New National Effort to Eliminate Chronic Absenteeism

FACT SHEET: The White House Launches New National Effort and Ad Council Campaign to Eliminate Chronic Absenteeism and Drive Student Success | U.S. Department of Education:

FACT SHEET: The White House Launches New National Effort and Ad Council Campaign to Eliminate Chronic Absenteeism and Drive Student Success

Today, the White House and the U.S. Department of Education announce two groundbreaking campaigns to address and eliminate chronic student absenteeism in this country:  the My Brother’s Keeper (MBK) Success Mentors Initiative -- with 10 initial participating cities -- and a multi-million dollar Ad Council campaign to engage parents on this critical issue. Chronic absenteeism is a nationwide challenge with devastating consequences for more than five to seven million students, and in low-income communities, the impact is even more prevalent. These efforts are part of the national Every Student, Every Day Campaign, and is in response to the MBK Task Force’s recommendation that federal agencies launch a cross-sector national absenteeism initiative to improve the outcomes for young people, including those in underserved communities.

Groundbreaking Mentorship Initiative:

The MBK Success Mentors Initiative aims to reduce chronic absenteeism by connecting over one million students with caring mentors. It is the nation’s first-ever effort to scale an evidence-based, data-driven mentor model to reach and support the highest risk students – using existing resources already linked to schools, and the metric of chronic absenteeism to drive school and life success.  The Initiative is a partnership between the Department of Education and Johns Hopkins University.

The Initiative will launch with participation from school districts in 10 communities – Austin, Boston, Columbus, Denver, Miami-Dade, New York City, Philadelphia, Providence, San Antonio and Seattle – that accepted the MBK community challenge. Additional communities are expected to join this effort by the spring.  Over the coming months, MBK Success Mentors will work with students in the 6th and 9th grades across their communities’ high needs school districts, with the goal of reaching over 250,000 students over the next two years  and eliminating chronic absenteeism in these grades. At full scale when operating in grades K-12 across districts, the model aims to reach over 1 million students within the next 3-5 years. In the next phase, the initiative will be bolstered by college students from nearby colleges who will serve as MBK College Success Mentors, leveraging federal work-study allocations.  Miami-Dade College will be the first MBK community to launch this college-linked model as part of this effort.

The MBK Success Mentors Initiative model connects students to caring adults who are trained school-linked personnel. These mentors will receive additional resources and tools to help them mentor students with greater impact. Mentors will include coaches, administrative staff, teachers, security guards, educators, AmeriCorps members, tutors, after-school providers and others. They will serve as trained and supported motivators, problem solvers, connectors, and advocates to form supportive relationships, identify and celebrate student’s strengths, promote their attendance every day, and connect them with the necessary supports to keep them on track and thriving.  Each mentor is assigned 3-5 students as mentees. Mentors are also “connectors,” helping flag challenges causing absenteeism and connecting mentees to appropriate school personnel or resources through this system that would otherwise remain untapped. Mentors meet with students 3 times per week in school all year and are trained to find a mentee’s positive strengthens, celebrate them, and call home as a parent engagement tool.

Key Department of Education collaborators in this work include Dr. Robert Balfanz of Johns Hopkins University’s Everyone Graduates Center, MENTOR, Attendance Works, United Way, Corporation for National and Community Service, the Ad Council, Mott Foundation and the Arnold Foundation, which will provide critical assistance in identifying mentors, as well as strategic advice, training, and philanthropic support.

The Ad Council’s Parent Engagement Campaign — Absences Add Up:

The Ad Council, in partnership with the Department of Education and the Mott Foundation, will simultaneously launch a multi-million dollar parent engagement campaign to elevate the conversation about the devastating impact of chronic absenteeism, specifically targeting parents of K-8th grade students.

The Ad Council has helped to address some of the country’s most challenging public health and safety concerns, and through this campaign with MBK, will help to ensure that students across the country have the opportunity to succeed.  The effort will include billboards and bus shelter outdoor Public Service Announcements (PSAs) and community posters for barbershops, doctor’s offices and schools. A key component of the effort will include a new campaign website offering resources for parents in the key areas that contribute to student absences, including an online tool kit offering downloadable resources such as customizable posters, blog posts, infographics and absence trackers. The website will also include resources for educators, community leaders and afterschool providers.

Through this awareness campaign, the Ad Council and its partners will help raise awareness about how chronic absenteeism affects children in the short-and long-term, and share tips and resources for parents to help address chronic absenteeism.

Why This Matters:

Chronic absenteeism, or missing at least ten percent of school days in the school year, or a month or more of school, excused or unexcused, is a leading cause of low achievement and a powerful predictor of which students will eventually drop out of school. Five to seven and a half million children miss a month or more of school each year, putting them at significant risk of falling behind and not graduating from high school. Half the high-need students who fall off-track to high school graduation do so in just 65 school districts. Chronic absenteeism is often the first flag.

A recent report by America’s Promise Alliance shows that students in our highest need communities typically experience “relationship poverty,” which greatly increases the odds that they will dropout. The research showed that having a caring adult in their lives was a major counter force to dropping out.  Having a caring adult in school had the largest impact of all – reducing the likelihood of leaving school by 25%.

Every Student, Every Day Campaign is focused on the estimated 5 to 7.5 million students who are chronically absent each year. Defined as missing at least 10 percent (approximately 18 days) of school days in a school year, chronic absenteeism puts students at heightened risk of falling behind and dropping out of school. Together, communities can address and eliminate chronic absenteeism, and ultimately boost student success and strengthen our nation's workforce and our future prosperity. As part of this initiative, the Administration is collaborating with states, local communities, and nonprofit, faith, and philanthropic organizations to support local, cross-sector efforts.

Evaluating and Planning

To build the most impactful intervention possible, a multi-year evaluation and learning agenda will be incorporated into the MBK Success Mentor Initiative, including a series of randomized variations of the model, and cutting edge components including district-based mentor and mentee text messaging, and socio-emotional skills training. Private support for this evaluation and learning agenda is being provided by the Arnold Foundation. Based on the evaluation, the Department of Education will develop guidance and tool kits for school districts to  implement this model.FACT SHEET: The White House Launches New National Effort and Ad Council Campaign to Eliminate Chronic Absenteeism and Drive Student Success | U.S. Department of Education:

California court to rule on suit to scrap K-12 funding system | 89.3 KPCC

California court to rule on suit to scrap K-12 funding system | 89.3 KPCC:

California court to rule on suit to scrap K-12 funding system

 A California appeals court is expected to rule soon in a case that claims that the state's system of funding public schools in unconstitutional.

If the plaintiffs in the case prevail, observers say, it could prompt a groundbreaking move towards focusing on providing schools the amount that it would take to prepare students for college and beyond. 

The case is a consolidation of two 2010 cases -- Campaign for Quality Education vs. California and Robles-Wang vs. California. Both suits were dismissed in Alameda County Court in 2011, and the state appeals court combined the suits into one when they appealed.  

The California constitution guarantees the right to a free publicly funded education, but it's less clear whether the constitution requires the state to hold its public schools to a certain level of quality. 

Right now, California's funding system is complex, but it essentially “delivers a minimum amount of funding, essentially based on what we did last year, with some adjustments,” said John Affeldt, a lawyer with Public Advocates, one of several groups that filed the lawsuits. (The suits' plaintiffs include one of the state's teachers unions, associations representing the state's school boards and administrators, the state Parent-Teacher Association, a group of non-profits representing low-income, minority families, and more than 60 individuals.)

Creating a funding system around what it costs to prepare each student for college or a career would ensure “every student can succeed in the work force and succeed as an engaged citizen in our democracy,” Affeldt said.

But the county court dismissed that claim, saying that the state legislature can fund schools how it chooses and the constitution does not demand that schools meet any bar for excellence.

And beyond the constitutional issues, the case also raises questions about what it means for schools to prepare students for college and to participate fully in civic life, and how much that costs.

NEW FUNDS, BUT STILL STRESSED

At Whittier High School, the increased focus on graduation is apparent in the classroom. One a recent afternoon, six school administrators walked into an eleventh-grade history class to have a serious talk with the students. The school's juniors are earning many more Ds and Fs than students in other grades, the administrators told the students. 

"We’re not freaking out but we do have a concern," said assistant principal Tim California court to rule on suit to scrap K-12 funding system | 89.3 KPCC:

Shanker Blog: Student Attrition And "Backfilling" at Success Academy Charter Schools:

Shanker Blog: Student Attrition And "Backfilling" at Success Academy Charter Schools: What Student Enrollment Patterns Tell Us | National Education Policy Center:

Shanker Blog: Student Attrition And "Backfilling" at Success Academy Charter Schools: What Student Enrollment Patterns Tell Us

This is the second of two posts on Success Academy Charter Schools. The first post was entitled “Student Discipline, Race and Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy Charter Schools.”

Last fall, at a press conference called to respond to a New York Times exposé of efforts to “push out” targeted students from New York City’s Success Academy Charter Schools, Eva Moskowitz , the charter chain’s founder and CEO, described those practices as “an anomaly.”

“Our goal in suspending children or issuing any consequences,” Moskowitz told reporters, “is not to get rid of children or to have them leave our school. It is to have them have high standards of conduct.”

Last week, at a press conference called to respond to the New York Times publication of a video of a Success Academy model teacher berating a child for making a mistake in arithmetic, Moskowitz reiterated her claim that such practices were “anomalies.”

The notion that students were being “pushed out” in order to boost Success Academy scores on standardized exams was “just crazy talk,” Moskowitz told journalist John Merrow in a PBS interview.

Does the available evidence support Moskowitz’s claims? In search of an answer, I examined the student enrollment patterns at Success Academy Charter Schools, using the data currently available in the New York State Education Department’s school report cards.

The following charts capture those data. The first chart pools the student enrollment numbers across all Success Academy Charter Schools; the subsequent charts (below) are for the individual Success Academy Charter Schools that have four years or more of data.1 I have color coded the charts to make it easier for readers to follow the student cohorts as they pass through different grades.

The general pattern is unmistakable.  In the early grades, student enrollment in Success Academy Charter Schools increases: Whatever losses the schools may suffer through student attrition are more than compensated for by the enrollment of new students. After Grade 2, however, the enrollment numbers begin to decline and do so continuously through the later grades. There are only small variations in this essential pattern among the different Success Academy Charter Schools.

In New York State, high stakes standardized exams begin at the end of Grade 3.

Success Academy Charter Schools has made a conscious decision to not fill seats opened up by student attrition in the upper grades of its schools. And this is a deliberate, network-wide practice, as evidenced by Success Academy’s own website. When Shanker Blog: Student Attrition And "Backfilling" at Success Academy Charter Schools: What Student Enrollment Patterns Tell Us | National Education Policy Center:

Public vs Private and Charter Schools: The Biggest Issue Might Be the Brand

Public vs Private and Charter Schools: The Biggest Issue Might Be the Brand:

The Biggest Public School Problem Might Be the Brand
Surprisingly, public schools outperform private and charter schools—but no one knows it.

 Most people believe that charter and private schools are preferable alternatives to traditional public schools. This is evident in the palpable anxiety at school open houses, in overheard conversations at coffee shops, and humorless posts on parent blogs. And it comes across quite clearly in survey data. According to a recent Gallup poll, 78 percent of Americans believe that private schools provide a good or excellent education. Charter schools aren’t far behind, clocking in at 60 percent. And traditional public schools (where the vast majority of K-12 students are educated)? They come in dead last, with only 37 percent of respondents expressing confidence in their merits.

This wouldn’t be much of a story if the data on school performance supported these assumptions. Yet private schools are often outperformed by their public counterparts. Sure, private schools often have higher raw test scores. But they also tend to serve more privileged populations. So, when factors like income, race, and parental education are taken into account, private schools don’t appear to add as much value as one might assume they do.

Charter school performance also fails to match public perceptions. As researchindicates, charter school quality varies dramatically, from state to state, and from school to school. And on the whole, charter performance is comparable to that of traditional public schools.

So what accounts for the split between popular perception and actual results?

One factor worth considering is marketing. Gauging school quality from the outside isnotoriously difficult, and it can often take parents years to determine the value of the education their children are receiving. Desperate as they are for information, parents tend to fall back on general brand attributes—turning to crude indicators of quality like the condition of the school’s physical plant or its general reputation, which may have nothing to do with actual effectiveness. Private and charter schools, always vying for clients, are well aware of this. And not surprisingly, they work to shore up their brands by investing in computer labs, creating impressive faculty bio pages, posting cheery banners, and even launching advertising campaigns.  For their part, traditional public schools tend not to engage in such practices. After all, they have plenty of clients, and brand status is only loosely tied to actual performance.Public vs Private and Charter Schools: The Biggest Issue Might Be the Brand:

PTA adopts position against state laws - President Obama adopts position against his own education policies - What is LAUSD to do? — PS connect

PTA adopts position against state laws - President Obama adopts position against his own education policies - What is LAUSD to do? — PS connect:

PTA adopts position against state laws - President Obama adopts position against his own education policies - What is LAUSD to do?

Now that winter has all but passed without the torrential rains we expected, Angelenos are wondering what all the fuss was about El Niño. 

The same might be said as the national standardized testing opt out movement finally reaches California. What started out in New York as a hurricane seems to have been downgraded to a chance of sprinkles here in sunny California.

But with the SBAC tests still two months away, the conversation is getting lively in school council meetings, on blogs and among policymakers.

Probably fearful of a spread of the New York movement in which over 200,000 students opted out across that state last year, the National PTA is trying to muscle parents out of exercising their legal right to opt children out of standardized tests. In January, the PTA adopted a position against state laws that give parents the right to opt out of state testing. Former US Deputy Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch says that might have something to do with the PTA receiving $1 million last October to promote Common Core assessments. This will be news to some of the less edu-policy obsessed.

Even President Obama admitted that his education policies have rained on a lot of parades, saying recently that he hears from parents who worry about "too much testing, and from teachers who feel so much pressure to teach to a test that it takes the joy out of teaching and learning. I want to fix that," he said.

The PTA says, “We highly value family engagement in education and respect the rights of parents to make decisions on behalf of their PTA adopts position against state laws - President Obama adopts position against his own education policies - What is LAUSD to do? — PS connect:

'School choice' is an idea whose time has passed - NonDoc

'School choice' is an idea whose time has passed - NonDoc:

‘School choice’ is an idea whose time has passed

For more than 25 years, I have cautiously supported school choice — at least in terms of homegrown charter schools offering alternatives to local families.

Oklahoma City has been fortunate. We have excellent private schools and charters serving lower-poverty and alternative-school populations, and we even have a few outstanding higher-poverty charters serving as many at-risk students as they can handle. But, the first generation of competition-driven school improvements went hand-in-hand with the outmoded 1990s gentrification and the urban revitalization that sought to lure sports teams and convention centers from one city to another.

Urban charters, like other schools embracing win-lose policies, helped some children gain access to a better education while leaving others behind in even worse conditions. Thus, choice helped create schools with more brutal concentrations of kids who have endured extreme trauma from generational poverty. And, we must not forget, many charters and private schools have failed in their own right — imposing education malpractice, increasing segregation and opening the doors to corruption.

Perhaps the worst thing about today’s school choice is that it has created a climate 'School choice' is an idea whose time has passed - NonDoc:

Democratic Party calls for firing over altered ISTEP report

Democratic Party calls for firing over altered ISTEP report:

Democratic Party calls for firing over altered ISTEP report

The chairman of Indiana’s Democratic Party called Thursday for the firing of a State Board of Educationofficial who altered a report that detailed a so-called independent investigation into the troubled and unpopular standardized ISTEP standardized exam.

Chairman John Zody said that actions taken by State Board of Education Executive Director John Snethen “manipulated” the report which officials had billed as an “independent” review of the validity of the test, which was plagued by problems after it was revamped in 2015 and hastily rolled-out.

Zody cited a story by The Associated Press based on documents provided through a public records request that show Snethen made edits and requested changes to the report. Some passages Snethen altered or asked to change were critical of a decision by Republican Gov. Mike Pence and his GOP allies to adopt last year’s exam after dropping national Common Core math and English standards in favor of Indiana-specific ones that were included in the 2015 test.

“Any way you look at it, Mr. Snethen manipulated what was supposed to be an independent report to strike out information damaging to his boss, Governor Pence. This clearly crosses a line. It violates the public trust, it’s unethical, and it’s grounds for termination,” Zody said in a statement. “Mike Pence needs to do the right thing here - terminate this individual and explain to the public how this happened.”

Pence spokeswoman Kara Brooks dismissed Zody’s comments in a two sentence statement: “Hoosiers are tired of political antics. This doesn’t merit a response.”

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The Republican governor previously said he has not seen changes made to the document and expressed “confidence in the integrity” of state education board, as well as its staff.

Republican Senate leader David Long said Thursday that the ISTEP has become a major problem and needs to be scrapped in favor of a different test.

“The test is damaged goods in my eye and a lot of other peoples’ eyes and we need to move on,” Long said.Democratic Party calls for firing over altered ISTEP report: