Blue Serials (2/1/20) | Blue Cereal Education

Blue Serials (2/1/20) | Blue Cereal Education

Blue Serials (2/1/20)

Presidential Resurrection

It’s been a weird 2020 so far in education news. As I’m sure you’ve already heard, President Trump announced that starting now, he’s going to allow students to pray in public schools if they so choose. He’s also going to institute a system whereby religious student organizations can meet on school grounds, as long as schools grant that access equitably to all Christian denominations. He’s calling this policy, “The First Amendment.”

This announcement was met with some bewilderment by the segment of the U.S. population with a basic understanding of government and history, since the President is proudly taking credit for constitutional guidelines which have been more-or-less set in stone since the early 1960s. A few Supreme Court cases have tweaked the details along the way, but at no point in U.S. history have students been forbidden from praying at school.

Nevertheless, students partaking in this year’s “See You At the Pole,” a religious gathering on school grounds which has been occurring annually since the 1990s, will no doubt take a moment to be thankful that they're now REALLY allowed to pray at the flagpole, as they’ve been doing since the 1990s without interference by local or state authorities. There are also rumors of other organizations sprouting up, perhaps involving students who are already natural leaders in their high schools – maybe some sort of “fellowship” of Christian athletes or whatever. It’s even possible some young CONTINUE READING: Blue Serials (2/1/20) | Blue Cereal Education

Disregarding the Needs of the LAUSD’s Most Vulnerable Students

Disregarding the Needs of the LAUSD’s Most Vulnerable Students

Disregarding the Needs of the LAUSD’s Most Vulnerable Students

First and foremost, our students with disabilities are general ed students…All of them.”

– Anthony Aguilar,

LAUSD Chief of Special Education

The end of 2019 brought a conclusion to the Chanda Smith consent decree and its modification. For the first time in over a generation, the delivery of special education services within the LAUSD is not being overseen by an independent monitor. For the vast majority of parents whose children have special education needs, this is a period full of concern as they wait to see how the country’s second-largest school district will act without someone looking over their shoulders. However, when it comes to students with extreme needs, there was also hope that there will be an improvement in their relationship with the district.

Chanda Smith’s needs, which stemmed from her dyslexia diagnosis, were much different than those of children with severe intellectual and physical disabilities. This fact was ignored as the plaintiff’s lawyers and CONTINUE READING: Disregarding the Needs of the LAUSD’s Most Vulnerable Students

2019 Education Justice Victories That Give Us Courage for 2020 | Schott Foundation for Public Education

2019 Education Justice Victories That Give Us Courage for 2020 | Schott Foundation for Public Education

2019 Education Justice Victories That Give Us Courage for 2020

Changing policies to achieve greater equity for children of color takes time, months, even years of dynamic mobilizing and building collaboration among parents, students, community members and educators. That’s why Schott builds and sustains long-term partnerships—they’re in it for the long haul and so are we. Grassroots organizing by our grantees and allies was the key to some key policy wins in 2019, all of which provide momentum for the important work ahead.

1. Grassroots Organizing Won $1.5 Billion for Public Schools in Massachusetts
2. 
   
   
   This year’s landmark Student Opportunity Act guarantees an additional $1.5 billion in funding for k-12 public schools across the commonwealth. This kind of dramatic shift in funding priorities only comes about when grassroots pressure builds from the bottom-up and makes a change inevitable: when the people lead, politicians must eventually listen. Schott is proud to have supported many of the groups involved in this multi-year effort.
   Learn more about this important victory here.
3. Major Movement Toward Culturally-Responsive Education (CRE) in NYC
4. 
   
   
   Building off the momentum of a big win in 2018, the New York City Department of Education announced in September that it would evaluate its core curriculum based in part on whether they include materials that represent students of different backgrounds, including race, class, sexual orientation, and disability status. In addition, advocates won a new fellowship program for 60 NYC teachers to develop new, more culturally-responsive curriculum materials. Schott partner the Coalition for Educational Justice (CEJ) took the lead in a diverse coalition that showed the country how youth, parents, and educators can fight for a public school system that better reflects and responds to their communities.
   Learn more about the CRE victory here, and watch a webinar about culturally-responsive education featuring CEJ's Natasha Capers here.
5. A Historic Expansion of Title IX Coordinators in NYC
6. 
   
   
   In June, the New York City Council approved $857,000 to hire seven Title IX coordinators for the city’s public schools, a dramatic increase from the existing one coordinator. Schott partner Girls for Gender Equity (GGE) has long been raising awareness among the public — and pressure on policymakers — about the crisis of gender-based violence, pushout and CONTINUE READING: 2019 Education Justice Victories That Give Us Courage for 2020 | Schott Foundation for Public Education

TIME Magazine: How the “Reform” Movement Has Failed America | Diane Ravitch's blog

TIME Magazine: How the “Reform” Movement Has Failed America | Diane Ravitch's blog

TIME Magazine: How the “Reform” Movement Has Failed America

This article just appeared in TIME magazine, explaining how the “education reform” movement has failed America. 

This short article encapsulates the themes of my book SLAYING GOLIATH. Piling on tests and punishments for students and teachers and closing schools doesn’t solve any problems, and it certainly doesn’t improve education.

The article gives a much abbreviated history of “reform” from George W. Bush to Barack Obama to Betsy DeVos. Testing and choice, they assumed, would fix all the problems.

Not true.

For almost twenty years, the Bush-Obama-Trump program of standardized testing, punitive accountability, and school choice has been the reform strategy. It has utterly failed.

So the question remains: How do we improve our schools? We begin by recognizing that poverty and affluence are the most important determinants of test scores. This strong correlation shows up on every standardized test. Every standardized test is normed on a bell curve that reflects family income and education; affluent kids always dominate the top, and poor kids dominate the bottom. Nearly half the students in this country now qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, which is the federal measure of poverty. We can CONTINUE READING: TIME Magazine: How the “Reform” Movement Has Failed America | Diane Ravitch's blog

Charter network leader apologizes for ‘really dumb and unhelpful’ financial decisions - The Washington Post

Charter network leader apologizes for ‘really dumb and unhelpful’ financial decisions - The Washington Post

Charter network leader apologizes for ‘really dumb and unhelpful’ financial decisions

The head of a Texas-based charter school chain publicly apologized for “really dumb and unhelpful” plans that included leasing a private jet for millions of dollars and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on San Antonio Spurs tickets.

It’s not the first time he has acknowledged errors in the chain’s operations.

Tom Torkelson, chief executive of IDEA Public Schools, issued a letter (see in full below) to the IDEA community saying he has sometimes “pushed us to a place that’s hard to defend” in his effort to be “entrepreneurial and different from traditional education systems.”

“I’m sorry I put IDEA and our friends in that position,” he said.

Charter schools are publicly funded but privately operated. Supporters say they offer valuable alternatives to families that do not like their neighborhood schools. Critics say they drain resources from traditional public school districts that educate the vast majority of students and that they are part of a movement to privatize public education.

IDEA was started in Texas by two alumni from Teach for America and has nearly 100 campuses in that state and Louisiana serving nearly 53,000 students. According to its audit for 2018 and 2019, IDEA has more than $1.13 billion in assets. It has received more than $200 million from the federal Charter Schools Program over the past decade and has plans to expand rapidly in the next few years.

The chain markets itself as having a 100 percent college acceptance rate. It doesn’t mention that acceptance to a four-year college is a requirement for graduation, which would presumably be a disincentive to enroll for students who do not want to attend college.

Torkelson recently backed off a plan to lease a private jet for $2 million a year — for six years — after the Houston Chronicle and a state teachers union raised questions about it. Torkelson had said the lease would allow IDEA executives to fly to states where the network is expanding.

“You may have seen news stories about IDEA leasing an airplane,” he said in his letter. “That was my idea. I was trying to solve a problem that no other school district in the country has: how to be present in schools that are thousands of miles away from each other and growing fast. While convenient and efficient, it was a foolish solution, because it didn’t square with the life and needs at the very schools I was traveling to.”

IDEA will also end an agreement it has had with Spurs Sports & Entertainment for tickets and a luxury box at a cost of about $400,000 a year, paid for with private funds, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Two months before the Chronicle CONTINUE READING: Charter network leader apologizes for ‘really dumb and unhelpful’ financial decisions - The Washington Post

OUTSTANDING DISSERTATION AWARD in EDUCATIONAL POLITICS AND POLICY | Cloaking Inequity

OUTSTANDING DISSERTATION AWARD in EDUCATIONAL POLITICS AND POLICY | Cloaking Inequity

OUTSTANDING DISSERTATION AWARD IN EDUCATIONAL POLITICS AND POLICY

Purpose: The purpose of the AERA Division L Outstanding Dissertation Award is to recognize the exceptional research accomplishments of recent doctoral graduates. Dissertations employing any theoretical and methodological orientation may be nominated as long as they make an important contribution to education policy and/or politics. The award recipient will be formally recognized at the 2019 Division L Business Meeting at AERA and will have an opportunity to give a brief presentation about their dissertation at this meeting.

Eligibility: Dissertations must have been completed and successfully defended between August 16, 2018 and August 15, 2019. At the time the dissertation is being considered, the author must be a member of Division L of AERA.

Nomination Process: Nominations must be submitted by a faculty member of the nominee’s doctoral degree granting institution by February 10, 2020. The nomination package should include the following as four separate attachments:

1. A nomination letter from a faculty member of the nominee’s degree granting institution. Please include information about when the nominee defended his/her dissertation.

2. A document that contains the nominee’s current contact information (name, current job title, address, phone number and email address)

3. A 3- to 4-page double-spaced summary of the dissertation

4. A copy of the dissertation in PDF format.

Review Process & Evaluation Criteria: Complete nominations that are received by the deadline will be reviewed by the Division L Dissertation Award Committee. Specifically, the committee will evaluate the following aspects of each dissertation:

1. Objectives/purposes

2. Literature review

3. Perspective/theoretical framework

4. Research methods

5. Data sources

6. Results

7. Significance

8. Quality and clarity of writing

9. Connection to Division L

Submission: Email submissions to Professor Julian Vasquez Heilig (j.vh@uky.edu) by February 10, 2020 at 11:59 PM EST using the subject line “DIVISION L DISSERTATION AWARD

OUTSTANDING DISSERTATION AWARD in EDUCATIONAL POLITICS AND POLICY | Cloaking Inequity

A TEACHER Writes a Great Review of SLAYING GOLIATH in the Washington Post! | Diane Ravitch's blog

A TEACHER Writes a Great Review of SLAYING GOLIATH in the Washington Post! | Diane Ravitch's blog

A TEACHER Writes a Great Review of SLAYING GOLIATH in the Washington Post!

Melanie McCabe, an English teacher at Yorktown High School in Arlington, Virginia, and an author, wrote this terrific and accurate review of SLAYING GOLIATH.

Unlike the reviewer for the New York Times, who is not a teacher and gives no hint of ever having set foot in a classroom since she finished school and college, Melanie McCabe knows full well about the billionaire-funded attacks on public schools and their teachers, which continue to seek their privatization of our public schools and to impose business ideas about closing schools based on spurious data.

Teachers get it. Teachers know that their students are being strangled by high-stakes testing and their schools are deprived of resources when forced to compete with charters and vouchers, which do not offer better education than the public schools they harm.

McCabe writes:

[Ravitch] has written a thought-provoking, painstakingly researched account of those who have sought to privatize and monetize America’s schools. She calls them the “Disrupters,” and they are indeed a foe with all the intimidating strength of Goliath. Confronting this opponent is the “Resistance”: the ordinary teachers, parents and citizens who are fighting back and winning.

Ravitch exposes the self-serving motivations of the Disrupters — many of them among the richest people in CONTINUE READING: A TEACHER Writes a Great Review of SLAYING GOLIATH in the Washington Post! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Feedback for Teacher Learning (David Brazer) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Feedback for Teacher Learning (David Brazer) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Feedback for Teacher Learning (David Brazer) 

David Brazer is a practitioner/scholar. Teacher and high school principal, Brazer has also been a professor at George Mason and Stanford Universities. He is now Director of Professional Learning at TeachFX.

A few years ago, I met with Jamie Poskin the founder of TeacherFX and former graduate student of Brazer’s at Stanford. After showing me graphic displays of teacher talk, he asked what I thought of the tool for teacher learning. I was impressed with its possibilities but at the time pointed out a series of shortcomings, especially around analyzing the kinds of talk both teachers and students engage in.

In this guest post, Brazer describes how he got involved and where the device is now. Like Brazer, I find this tool most useful for those teachers who seek self-improvement through analyzing how they teach. *

Teachers talk a lot. Hattie (2012) claims they talk 70 – 80% of class time across grade levels. In contrast, students talk very little, even when they’re talking in groups. But secondary teachers frequently tell me that students love to talk, just not about class content. The result is often an emphasis on classroom control that keeps students quiet, causing many to disengage. Students’ love of talking presents an opportunity to engage them in learning instead of controlling their behavior. What if teachers could harness students’ talk energy and see how that influences their engagement? Would teachers modify their teaching and talk CONTINUE READING: Feedback for Teacher Learning (David Brazer) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

John White’s Nonprofit, Propel America, Wants to Expand in Louisiana | deutsch29

John White’s Nonprofit, Propel America, Wants to Expand in Louisiana | deutsch29

John White’s Nonprofit, Propel America, Wants to Expand in Louisiana

In June 2018, Louisiana state superintendent John White co-founded a nonprofit, Propel America, which is piloting its career pathway product in four states, including Louisiana– even as co-founder White holds the position of superintendent of the state in which his fledgling nonprofit began doing business.

One can discover some of the national-level key players in Propel America from LinkedIn bios, but not from White’s LinkedIn bio. Co-founder White wants to be the Louisiana state superintendent who co-founds a nonprofit that does business with Louisiana, but maybe the public will not notice if White’s connection with Propel America is restricted to an occasional sighting, kind of like Where’s Waldo.

Paymon Rouhnifard, Co-founder

• Walton Family Foundation, Entrepreneur in Residence (2018 to present)
• Camden City (NJ) superintendent (2013 – 2018)

Debra Kurshan, Chief Operating Officer

• NY Dept. of Ed (2007- 2010)
• New Orleans Recovery School District consultant (2011)

Erin Bendily, Executive Director

• Louisiana Department of Education, Assistant Supt. and Deputy Supt. (2010 – 2019)

John White

• No mention as Propel co-founder

White does not yet appear to be drawing financial compensation from the CONTINUE READING: John White’s Nonprofit, Propel America, Wants to Expand in Louisiana | deutsch29

CURMUDGUCATION: OH: More Voucher Nonsense

CURMUDGUCATION: OH: More Voucher Nonsense

OH: More Voucher Nonsense

I've frequently kvetched that a central fallacy at the heart of school choice is the notion that several parallel school system can be run for the cost of one. "Why," I ask, "can't politicians have the cojones to just say they think school choice is so important that they are going to raise peoples' taxes to pay for it?"

Well, the legislature of Ohio (motto "We want to be Florida when we grow up") is coming really close.

You will recall that Ohio school districts are facing an explosion in costs as they enter the next phase of the privatization program. Phase One is familiar to most of us--you start out with vouchers and charters just for the poor families who have to "escape failing public schools." Phase Two is the part where you expand the program so that it covers everybody.

Well, Ohio screwed up its Phase Two. Basically, they expanded the parameters of their privatization so quickly that lots of people noticed. The number of eligible school districts skyrocketed, and that brought attention to a crazy little quirk in their system, as noted by this report from a Cleveland tv station:

We analyzed data from the eight Northeast Ohio school districts that paid more than $1 million in EdChoice vouchers to area private schools during the 2019-2020 school year as part of the program.

Those districts include Akron, Canton, Cleveland Heights-University Heights, Euclid, Garfield CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: OH: More Voucher Nonsense

CATCH UP WITH NEWBLACKMAN (IN EXILE)

NewBlackMan (in Exile)

CATCH UP WITH NEWBLACKMAN (IN EXILE)

Is D'Angelo's 'Voodoo' The Perfect Album? A Conversation with Questlove and Rick Rubin

by Mark Anthony Neal / 10h

' On the Broken Record Podcast with Rick Rubin and Malcolm Gladwell , Questlove talks about how he got involved with D’Angelo ’s Voodoo record, the process of it, and Rick Rubin shares that it's one of the greatest albums of all time to him.' -- Bringing Down The Band

JAN 28

Looking Back On A 'Decade Of Fire'

by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

'In the 1970s, a string of devastating fires would help make the South Bronx a symbol of urban decay. In her documentary Decade of Fire , co-director Vivian Vázquez Irizarry , who grew up in the South Bronx, tries to dissect and counter that negative image through a personal lens. The documentary analyzes how the city, state, and federal governments abandoned the Bronx in the 1970s, and how despi

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by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

'Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill say they can detect autism spectrum disorder before it manifests in some young children, and they’re even developing treatments for some of the conditions that go hand-in-hand with autism. Professors Mark Zylka and Joe Piven work among more than two dozen scientists at UNC focused on autism spectrum disorder, and the National Institu

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by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

'History professor Marcia Chatelain 's new book, Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, tracks what she calls the hidden history of the relationships between the struggle for civil rights and the expansion of the fast food industry.' -- All Things Considered

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by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

'Durham artist Maya Freelon ’s large tissue paper installations have hung in the halls of the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building and the North Carolina Museum of Art. She has received commissions from Google and Cadillac and was recently named one of five young artists to watch during Miami Art Week 2019. Her techniques transform tissue paper from schoolhouse craft to fine art and create co

The Barriers to Finding Mental Healthcare While Black

by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

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by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

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by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

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by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

'Taking advantage of his visit in Chicago, Léopold Lambert talked with our past contributor Imran Mohammad . In November 2017, he wrote a text for us about the Rohingya genocide that he fled while he was living his fourth year of detention in an Australian camp detaining hundreds of exiled people on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. A few weeks later and while many detainees organized forms of revo

JAN 27

What Does the Resurgence of White Supremacy Mean for the Future of Race Relations? Lawrence D. Bobo in Conversation

by Mark Anthony Neal / 4d

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by Mark Anthony Neal / 4d

On this episode of Edge of Sports , host Dave Zirin talks with Professor Kenneth Shropshire about a host of issues pervading sports and how today's students are taking them in. Kenneth L. Shropshire is the Adidas Distinguished Professor of Global Sport and CEO of Global Sport Institute at Arizona State University. His most recent book is The Miseducation of the Student Athlete: How to Fix College

"RIP 8 and 24" by C. Liegh McInnis

64by Mark Anthony Neal / 4d

RIP 8 and 24 by C. Liegh McInnis | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile) Sports were as critical to my childhood as art. As I’ve stated many times, I was a mediocre three-sport athlete, emphasis on “mediocre.” Still, I learned many lessons from sports that continue to help me as an artist and an adult. As such, Kobe Bean Bryant becomes another example of how sports can be used to teach multiple lesso

#BigBlackData: A Celebration of Black History Makers

by Mark Anthony Neal / 4d

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JAN 26

Left of Black S10:E8: Oulimata Guéye and Afrocyberféminismes

by Mark Anthony Neal / 6d

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NewBlackMan (in Exile)