L.A. Teachers on What Was Won—And Which Battles Are Next

L.A. Teachers on What Was Won—And Which Battles Are Next

L.A. Teachers on What Was Won—And Which Battles Are Next

Following a six-day teachers’ strike over inadequate public-school funding, United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) reached a tentative agreement Tuesday. While tallies haven’t yet been released, UTLA has confirmed that teachers voted in favor of the contract and, as of Wednesday, have returned to their classrooms.

The agreement, which was preceded by a nearly 21-month bargaining period, reverses some of the trends the union was protesting, including bloated class sizes, insufficient staffing of nurses and counselors, excessive standardized testing and a lack of resources for special education. (UTLA’s protests, including the strike, were largely the product of a reform movement among educational unions nationwide.)

It also calls for a greater reckoning with charter schools: publicly funded, privately operated schools boosted primarily by wealthy financiers and executives. UTLA members rebuke these schools for siphoning funding from public schools and view a pro-charter district agenda as the cause of the aforementioned problems.

The new contract would restrict school privatization, calling on California to establish a cap on charter schools. It also states that Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti will endorse the Schools and Communities First ballot initiative, which will ostensibly redirect $11 billion per year to California schools, community colleges, health clinics and other local institutions.

In These Times spoke to five teachers from five different LAUSD schools. While most of them contend that more could have been won, these rank-and-file members overwhelmingly consider the new terms an improvement and a testament to the power of strikes.

“I am pleased with the agreement for several reasons,” second-grade teacher and rank-and-file UTLA member Traci Rustin told In These Times. “I think we started a conversation about charter schools among those members of the community and UTLA who had not previously given it much thought.”

Rustin and some other teachers, however, found the vote bittersweet, arguing that while they’re eager to return to work, the proposed terms should have included more aggressive changes. The agreement prevents the district from “unilaterally ignor[ing]” all class sizes and promises a gradual reduction of class size—which routinely exceeds 40—over the next four years, imposing maximums of 39 students for English and CONTINUE WORKING: L.A. Teachers on What Was Won—And Which Battles Are Next

CURMUDGUCATION: The Trouble With Evidence

CURMUDGUCATION: The Trouble With Evidence

The Trouble With Evidence

So now some voices are calling for an emphasis on evidence-based practices in classrooms, and I don't disagree. Evidence-based is certainly better than intuition-based or wild-guess-based or some-guy-from-the-textbook-company-told-us-to-do-this based. But before we get all excited about jumping on this bus, I think we need to think about our evidence bricks before we start trying to build an entire house on top of them.

There are three things to remember. The mot important is this:

Not all evidence is created equal.

Your Uncle Floyd is sure that global warming is a hoax, and his evidence is that it's currently five degrees outside. The Flat Earth Society has tons of evidence that the world is not round at all. Youtube is crammed with videos showing the evidence that 9/11 was faked, that the moon landing was staged, and that the Illuminati are running a huge world-altering conspiracy via the recording industry. Every one of those folks is certain that their idea is evidence-based, and yet their evidence is  junk.

Some evidence is junk because it has been stripped of context and sense. Some is junk because it has been unmoored from any contradictory evidence that might give it nuance and accuracy. Some is junk because it has been mislabeled and misrepresented.

One of the huge problems in education evidence-based anything is that when we follow the trail, we find that the evidence is just the same old set of test scores from a single bad standardized test. Test scores have been used as evidence of student learning, of teacher quality, of school achievement. Test scores have been used as evidence of the efficacy of one particular practice, an influence somehow separated from all others, as if we were arguing that the beans Chris ate at lunch three Tuesdays ago are the cause for Chris's growth spurt. And don't even get me started on the absurd notion that a teacher's college training can be evaluated by looking at student test scores.

Certainly test scores are evidence of something, but not much that's useful. Don't tell me that CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: The Trouble With Evidence

Chalkbeat Disputes Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative’s Claim that Summit–“Personalized”–Learning is Research-Based | janresseger

Chalkbeat Disputes Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative’s Claim that Summit–“Personalized”–Learning is Research-Based | janresseger

Chalkbeat Disputes Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative’s Claim that Summit–“Personalized”–Learning is Research-Based

“Personalized learning” is how the creators and promoters of computer driven education at school describe their programs, which they claim are advanced enough to tailor education to the particular needs of each student.  One of the biggest “personalized learning” platforms is Summit Learning, developed by Facebook engineers and now engineers at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative as one of the philanthropy’s largest projects.  School districts can use Summit Learning for free, courtesy of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

In November, the Washington Post‘s Valerie Strauss described Summit Learning: “The free platform, which offers online lessons and assessments, was developed by a network of 11 charter schools in California and Washington known collectively as Summit Public Schools, and Facebook engineers helped develop the software. Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, back the learning platform with engineering support through their… Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The Summit website says the platform is a ‘personalized, research-backed approach’ to teaching and learning.”

The contention that Summit Learning is research-based is challenged, however, in a report last week from Chalkbeat.  Matt Barnum reports: “Summit Learning, a fast-growing ‘personalized learning’ system, touts a partnership with Harvard researchers even though Summit actually turned down their proposal to study the model… The program ‘is based on collaboration with nationally acclaimed learning scientists, researchers and academics from institutions including the Harvard Center for Education Policy Research,’ Summit’s website says. ‘Summit’s research-backed approach leads to better student outcomes.'”

Barnum continues: “Schools have used that seeming endorsement to back up their decision to adopt the model.  In fact, though, there is no academic research on whether Summit’s specific model is effective. And while Summit helped fund a study proposal crafted by Harvard CONTINUE READING: Chalkbeat Disputes Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative’s Claim that Summit–“Personalized”–Learning is Research-Based | janresseger

Cartoons on Teaching Social Studies | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Cartoons on Teaching Social Studies | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Cartoons on Teaching Social Studies

For this month of giggles, grins, and groans I offer a collection of cartoons on kids and teachers during social  studies lessons. Well, most of them. Enjoy!

Cartoons on Teaching Social Studies CLICK HERE Cartoons on Teaching Social Studies | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Marie Corfield: @GovMurphy Promised To Ditch #PARCC. Is He Going Back On His Word?

Marie Corfield: @GovMurphy Promised To Ditch #PARCC. Is He Going Back On His Word?

@GovMurphy Promised To Ditch #PARCC. Is He Going Back On His Word?

What's harder than navigating 'Spaghetti Junction' on the Garden State Parkway? Figuring out what it takes to graduate high school in New Jersey. We thought we had it fixed, but not so fast...

Parents, educators and education activists cheered last month when the New Jersey appellate court struck down the requirement that high school students must pass the PARCC Algebra 1 and English Language Arts 10 tests in order to graduate high school because it violated state law requiring students to take only one exam in 11th grade to graduate.

There was plenty to cheer about. The test is awful, and was never designed for its current use. From its inception under Gov. Christie, it was met with sustained and vociferous pushback from parents, educators and testing experts. And it has turned our public schools into test-prep and data-collection factories, gavage-feeding our students more and more grade level inappropriate info lest educators be found sleeping at their desks. This despite the fact that New Jersey consistently ranks in the top two or three states in the country for quality public education. The test is so bad that out of the 24 states originally in the PARCC consortium, only one other remains: New Mexico, which consistently finishes at or near dead last. In its first year of administration, we had the second highest opt-out rate in the nation, bested only by New York. But Gov. Christie and his buddies down at the DOE (with plenty of help from some powerful state Democratic lawmakers) couldn't have that egg on their faces, so they forced it on our kids as a graduation requirement.

State graduation requirements have changed so many times in the past five years, that it's clear the DOE has no idea what it's doing. And it's hurting kids. Here are just two of CONTINUE READING: Marie Corfield: @GovMurphy Promised To Ditch #PARCC. Is He Going Back On His Word?

Badass Teachers Association: Whole Child Education by Greg Sampson

Badass Teachers Association: Whole Child Education by Greg Sampson

Whole Child Education by Greg Sampson

Originally posted at: https://grumpyoldteacher.com/2019/01/19/whole-child-education/?fbclid=IwAR2cn3ZOpWVXDQ_RRnDCDbIxXYdy9D5pqoQyvDd7YFlkninEwRLa79FNFpk

A recent post by Rick Hess* (American Enterprise Institute) is being shared across social media. That got my attention and you can read the post here.

With fellow writer Timothy Shriver*, Mr. Hess leads off with this great quote: “the need for schools and communities to embrace children as individuals and future citizens, and ENSURE THAT THEY DON’T FEEL LIKE TEST-TAKING COGS IN A BUREAUCRATIC ENTERPRISE.” (Emphasis mine.)

Who will disagree with that? As a math teacher, one of my major frustrations is the difficulty in getting high school freshmen out of the mindset that all they need to know is how to put the right answers into the test: no learning, no understanding, no curiosity necessary. Besides Geometry, every year my teaching challenge is to turn test-takers into eager, self-directed learners.

Hess and Shriver call for an end to the dichotomy in education that they describe as false: “Schools should not have to choose between chemistry and character; between trigonometry and teamwork.”

Props from GOT for the alliteration; it makes for a memorable quote. BUT! That is exactly what schools have to do as long as the test-and-punish policy of reformsters, billionaires, politicians, and the like are maintained by state laws and regulations.

Hess and Shriver get much correct. They recognize the role of schools to develop character and help children grow into responsible, capable adults. They recognize the difficulty educators face in this job because collaboration, empathy, and integrity are not innate (their word) for children.

However, they betray themselves when they say “the Commission (the National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development) suggests … every teacher should be trained in child and adolescent development and the science of learning. This would require, of course, major improvements in educator preparation that must be accompanied by ongoing professional CONTINUE READING: Badass Teachers Association: Whole Child Education by Greg Sampson

Don't Offer Real Choice — National Coalition for Public Education (NCPE)

Don't Offer Real Choice — National Coalition for Public Education (NCPE)

Vouchers Do Not Offer Real Choice

Vouchers give a choice to private schools, rather than to parents and students. Voucher programs are governed by different laws in different states, but most allow private schools to accept taxpayer dollars yet reject students with vouchers for a variety of reasons, ranging from disability to ability to pay.

---

A 2016 report conducted by the Government Accountability Office found that of all the voucher programs across the country, only four required private schools to accept all students with vouchers, space permitting. The other programs allowed private schools to deny students admission or grant preference to certain students for many reasons including disciplinary history, academic achievement, and religious affiliation.

This lack of meaningful choice means that a student may have to turn down a voucher because he cannot a find a school that would accept him or provide the specialized educational supports he needs. Additionally, a private school may expel a student using a voucher without a disciplinary hearing. And, a private school may reject a student with a voucher because she or her parents are LGBT or the “wrong” religion. 

Parents also cannot exercise a real choice when voucher programs do not provide them with necessary or accurate data needed to make informed educational choices. In Washington, DC, for example, the voucher program’s administrator repeatedly failed to provide accurate information to parents about schools participating in the program until after the enrollment deadline had already passed. Nor are voucher schools generally required to give parents the information necessary to determine whether the schools are meeting the needs of their children, such as standardized test scores (which the schools might not even administer to all their students), curriculum used by the schools, or teacher qualifications. 

Don't Offer Real Choice — National Coalition for Public Education (NCPE)

The Problem Isn't Robots Taking Our Jobs. It's Oligarchs Taking Our Power

The Problem Isn't Robots Taking Our Jobs. It's Oligarchs Taking Our Power

The Problem Isn't Robots Taking Our Jobs. It's Oligarchs Taking Our Power
Training for the jobs of the future keeps workers trapped as long as workers can't shape how technology is used and who profits from it

Each week workers are confronted with yet another article touting the threat of technology wiping out their jobs. A recent “60 Minutes” segment featured venture capitalist and author Kai-Fu Lee predicting that advances in artificial intelligence would “in 15 years displace about 40 percent of the jobs in the world.”

The message to workers is clear: the threat of obsolescence is real, so act accordingly.The advice of the World Economic Forum, the McKinsey Global Institute, and others, is that workers must “reskill” in order to have a livelihood available to them.

For workers, though, this advice is a trap.

Organizing unions and developing pathways to ownership is the best way workers can address the anxiety of the so-called “automation age,” not chasing the labor market demands of elites.

The presumed aspirant tech moguls of the automation age acknowledge that your current, barely-making-ends-meet job is going to get squeezed, shortchanged, or wiped out altogether by a robot or an algorithm. But go back to school (and take on some student debt) and get training in a new skill, and you will not only be able to weather the change but you’ll make even more money.

This prescription will only work however if workers refuse to question the paradigms that preserve the wealthy’s control of the game, and they coded it so they will always ultimately win. Practically, the “reskilling” that workers achieve will simply serve to lower the cost currently existing tech labor without any assurances that such sectors will be immune from “disruption” in a few years by the next wave of automation.

Ultimately, the better advice for workers seeking to avoid “disruption” is to become the agents of disruption themselves. What 21st-century workers need is what workers have always needed: power. Organizing unions and developing pathways to ownership is the best way workers can address the anxiety of the so-called “automation age,” not CONTINUE READING: The Problem Isn't Robots Taking Our Jobs. It's Oligarchs Taking Our Power

Did “Sesame Street” Create Twitter? | The Merrow Report

Did “Sesame Street” Create Twitter? | The Merrow Report

Did “Sesame Street” Create Twitter?

I’m old enough to remember when Sesame Street first appeared on public television in late 1969.  After its wildly popular first season, some critics complained that the program’s appealing structure–fast-paced short segments–would eventually destroy children’s ability to remain focused; they would grow up accustomed to receiving new stimuli every minute or so and would eventually become unable to learn any other way.  Any activity that required more than a few minutes of concentration would become beyond their reach, and their teachers would have to be, above all, entertainers.

As far as I know, that particular doomsday did not occur–not in the 70’s, 80’s, or 90’s, and not in the first 15 years of this century.

However, I fear that doomsday is upon us now, in the age of Twitter.   Twitter co-founders Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, Evan Williams, and Noah Glass were born in the 1970’s, which means they were in the program’s target audience during its golden years and probably grew up watching Sesame Street.  In creating Twitter, they have fulfilled the prophecies of the program’s fiercest critics. They invented the tool that has turned us into exactly what Sesame Street‘s critics predicted: a populace unable to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes (unless we are in actual danger).

Exhibit A would be Donald Trump (known in another context as “Individual A”).  Trump bounces from pillar to post, and Twitter is his favorite means of communication.

I’m afraid that I might be Exhibit B, because I have become addicted to Twitter.  At least 10 or 20 times a day I check the posts of the 1,578 people I follow.  I often CONTINUE READING: Did “Sesame Street” Create Twitter? | The Merrow Report

Striking, Negotiating, and What’s Next for Public Education in LA - LA Progressive

Striking, Negotiating, and What’s Next for Public Education in LA - LA Progressive

Striking, Negotiating, and What’s Next for Public Education in LA

The facts you need to know about the agreement, and why this was a progressive change

You may know a few things about the UTLA teacher strike that has taken place this last week from the article I wrote about it or elsewhere. You probably know that children who attend public school in Los Angeles County had the week off, while parents did not. You may know that people were standing outside schools picketing—and you may have even honked your horn in support or joined in. You may know there were some negotiations taking place behind the scenes, too.

But now that an agreement has officially been reached, you may wonder what has actually changed, and you may be left considering if it was enough. What negotiations were settled on? What will happen tomorrow when students return to school? What will happen in the next three years as the UTLA and LAUSD agreement unfolds?

These are not easy questions to pick apart and digest. Rather than digging through all the jargon yourself, continue reading for the stripped-down facts about what was agreed upon between UTLA and LAUSD. Perhaps even more pertinent to your interests is not what was decided upon, but why this matters for progressives; that’s here too.

24 points were agreed upon in the official summary published on January 22, six days after the strike started. I will not be mentioning every single point, but I will be referencing some highlights that are worth celebrating from a progressive viewpoint.  

Fair wages achieved for teachers

UTLA succeeded when it struck in 1989. After a 9-day strike, UTLA was victorious in securing three consecutive years of 8 percent pay increases for teachers. Yes, this is more than the 6 percent salary increase that was agreed upon in the 2019 negotiations; however, in ‘89, it was shortly followed by the 1990 recession, and successive layoffs of teachers. This balanced 6 percent increase shows UTLA learned from 1889, and is making efforts to support its teachers while still compromising with the school district.

Big business kept out of public, democratic institutions

Community involvement among parents, students, and UTLA allies made much more possible this round of negotiations, all with students in mind. This is a victory for UTLA, but also for unions and collective bargaining everywhere.

A resolution was passed in the recent agreement to put a cap on charter schools. Charter schools have historically introduced privatization into public education—a no-no for democracy (according to John Oliver and many others). This resolution is one step in the progressive direction to moving big business out of public spaces, toward equality.

This is a huge victory for unions

The LAUSD is only required to negotiate three things with UTLA: Wages, hours, and working conditions. However, community involvement among parents, students, and UTLA allies made much more possible this round of negotiations, all with students in mind. This is a victory for UTLA, but also for unions and collective bargaining everywhere.

Student interests supported from a socially-conscious perspective

Also agreed upon was an exemption of “random searches” at 28 schools and a plan to help CONTINUE READING: Striking, Negotiating, and What’s Next for Public Education in LA - LA Progressive

Black Lives Matter At School Makes Educator Unions Stronger – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Black Lives Matter At School Makes Educator Unions Stronger – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Black Lives Matter At School Makes Educator Unions Stronger

Jesse Hagopian is a Seattle teacher, anti-racist activist and co-editor of Teaching for Black Lives who helped organize the founding actions of “Black Lives Matter at School.” He recently talked to Socialist Worker’s Danny Katch about the importance of this year’s BLM at School week of action, set for February 4-8, as the initiative spreads around the country.

The Black Lives Matter at School website has information on how educators can participate in this year’s week of action, including:

• Purchasing and wearing the week of action shirts
• Sign the petition in support of BLM@Schools week
• Social media posts using #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool
• Using lesson plans and activities related to the 13 BLM principles
• Attending events and rallies across the country

Black Lives Matter at School issued a statement declaring solidarity with the strike by United Teachers Los Angeles, concluding: “It is no coincidence that the cities and districts most targeted for divestment in public education and investment in privatization are communities with majority Black and Brown students and families. We urge all those involved in the Black Lives Matter at School movement to support the just demands of the UTLA community.”

CAN YOU describe the Black Lives Matter at School week of action and how it got started?

IT BEGAN as a grassroots effort at John Muir Elementary here in Seattle, where CONTINUE READING: Black Lives Matter At School Makes Educator Unions Stronger – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Could Newsom’s “Choose Children” Budget Advance Digital Slavery in CA? – Wrench in the Gears

Could Newsom’s “Choose Children” Budget Advance Digital Slavery in CA? – Wrench in the Gears

Could Newsom’s “Choose Children” Budget Advance Digital Slavery in CA?

In the aftermath of the well-funded “Choose Children” campaign, we are left to ponder what Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposed 2019 budget really means for California’s children. Will he use his position to do the will of the people, or instead sacrifice the state’s youth on the altar of technological surveillance and venture capital? I see alarming connections between elements of his budget, early childhood education and healthcare pilots underway in Silicon Valley, and predatory social impact investment initiatives tied to digital identity that have surfaced abroad with support from Bay Area venture philanthropists, global banking interests, and NGOs.

For years, hedge funders have been building infrastructure for a futures market in human capital, a global poverty-mining enterprise. California is among a handful of states that are in the vanguard of such developments in the United States. San Francisco, Newsom’s stomping grounds, is home to the World Economic Forum’s Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which opened at the Presidio in the fall of 2017. Increased calls for transforming the “social” sector to fit the requirements of this technologized age were made this week at the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos. See this whitepaper, which outlines a planned three-year process to re-align the social sector, “Civil Society in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Preparation and Response.”

Newsom’s proposals reflect broader trends seen in many states where innovation, technology deployment, and adoption of an “evidence-based” approach to public services, including pre-k and digital learning, are being pitched as an answer to our current social ills. Money has been poured into branding digital enslavement as a fiscally prudent, even progressive option. I urge caution. Dig deeper; things are not what they appear.

Elements in his budget that are of particular concern include:

1. The creation of a longitudinal database linking education at all levels with workforce outcomes and social service delivery
2. $200 million for home visits and ACEs screenings
3. $10 million to explore funding options for universal pre-school
4. $500 million (one time) investment to expand childcare facilities and professional development among childcare workers
5. $50 million to create an Office of Digital Innovation

Taken together these items could advance a repressive system of technological surveillance. Such a system would control not only lives of  CONTINUE READING: Could Newsom’s “Choose Children” Budget Advance Digital Slavery in CA? – Wrench in the Gears

Denver Teachers Vote To Authorize A Strike : NPR

Denver Teachers Vote To Authorize A Strike : NPR

Denver Teachers Vote To Authorize A Strike

The teachers union in Denver has voted to approve a strike that could begin as soon as Jan. 28. It would be the first time the city has seen a teacher strike in almost 25 years.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association finished voting late Tuesday after more than a year of negotiations between the union and the district, which have failed to yield an agreement.

"Denver teachers overwhelmingly agreed to strike," said Rob Gould, the union's lead negotiator, at a press conference Tuesday. He unveiled that 93 percent of members had voted to go ahead with strike plans. "They're striking for better pay. They're striking for our profession. And they're striking for Denver students."

EDUCATION

Teachers Vote Yes On Deal To End Los Angeles Strike

In the event of a strike, schools would remain open, according to the city's school superintendent, Susana Cordova. Substitute teachers would be paid double the normal rate, up to $250 a day, to cover classes while teachers are striking.

The union encouraged parents to continue sending their children to school during the strike. A union-authored FAQ document being shared on Facebook claims that "one major goal of the strike is for school buildings to be shut down as a demonstration of the essential labor performed by educators." Without teachers to staff buildings, "the CONTINUE READING: Denver Teachers Vote To Authorize A Strike : NPR

L.A. Teachers’ Strike Is Ending, but Economic and Racial Inequity Remain Along with State Funding Problems | janresseger #UTLAStrong #StrikeReady #March4Ed #WeAreLA

L.A. Teachers’ Strike Is Ending, but Economic and Racial Inequity Remain Along with State Funding Problems | janresseger

L.A. Teachers’ Strike Is Ending, but Economic and Racial Inequity Remain Along with State Funding Problems

Los Angeles teachers reached a tentative deal to end their strike yesterday morning. Teachers began voting on the agreement later in the day, and it was expected that teachers would return to their classrooms today. At noon yesterday, the Los Angeles Times‘ Howard Blume reported that the agreement includes a 6 percent raise, smaller classes, and a promise to create 30 Community Schools with wraparound medical and social services for students and their families. Even as the teachers won some of the protections they demanded for their students, however, years of serious school funding inequity, compounded by racial and economic segregation of students across the district’s schools will continue as major challenges for the school district.

Addressing the Los Angeles teachers’ strike for The Guardian, last week Andrew Gumbel untangled the impact on the state’s public schools of California’s taxing constraints wound together with racial segregation and explosive inequality: “California once had one of the best funded, most envied public education systems in the United States. Now schoolteachers in Los Angeles, who went on strike… to vent years of frustration, say they struggle with overcrowded classrooms and children whose need for academic support, psychological services and English-language coaching outstrips anything they can provide.  Many schools do not have a full-time nurse or counselor.  In many of the poorer neighborhoods—in south L.A., or the north-eastern San Fernando Valley—the library opens rarely. Janitorial service has become so spotty that some teachers have resorted to buying their own cleaning supplies and going over their own classrooms with rags and a mop at the end of a long day. It’s a grim picture.”

Gumbel described the power of money in a state and a public school district with explosive economic inequality: “California has a greater concentration of billionaires and holders of university doctorates than any place on earth. Yet it is also a state of vast inequalities and pervasive poverty, particularly in rural areas and in the blighted neighborhoods of its biggest CONTINUE READING: L.A. Teachers’ Strike Is Ending, but Economic and Racial Inequity Remain Along with State Funding Problems | janresseger