2020 Medley #2

Vouchers, Environmental Toxins interfere with learning, NPE, Why kindergarten teachers quit, NAEP, Reading aloud

SHOULD YOUR TAX MONEY BE USED TO EXPEL KIDS WHO LIKE RAINBOWS?

Louisville Christian school expelled student over a rainbow cake, family says

Kentucky has no plan providing vouchers for students to attend religious schools. Why is that good? As of now, private schools in Kentucky that expel (or force out) a child because they like rainbows, like the one in this article, cannot receive any state funding.

Depending on what happens with the case currently before the Supreme Court, however, this could change.

Public money for public schools!

A Christian school in Louisville expelled a student last week after her family said school officials discovered the girl had celebrated her birthday with a rainbow-themed cake.

Kimberly Alford told The Courier Journal that until Jan. 6, her 15-year-old daughter had been a freshman at Whitefield Academy, a private school at 7711 Fegenbush Lane that serves students in preschool through 12th grade.

That's when Alford said she received an email from Whitefield Academy's head of school, Bruce Jacobson, explaining how her daughter was being expelled "immediately due to a post on social media."

Alford had recently posted a photo on her Facebook page showing her daughter celebrating her birthday in late December at a Texas Roadhouse restaurant. In the photo, the girl is wearing a sweater featuring a rainbow design and sitting by a colorful, rainbow-themed cake.

See also: Gerth: This just in ... God expelled from Louisville Christian school for creating rainbow

VOUCHER PROGRAMS DON'T HELP LEARNING

The Danger Private School Voucher Programs Pose to Civil Rights

From last May...

More reasons not to divert public money to private/religious school vouchers.

More recently, evidence has shown that these programs are not effective at improving educational achievement. Recent evaluations of certain voucher programs have shown no improvement in achievement or a decline in achievement for students who use them. For example, a Center for American Progress analysis found that the overall effect of the D.C. voucher program on students’ math achievement is equivalent to missing 68 days of school. Voucher programs are also not a viable solution in many rural areas of the country because these programs can strain funding resources in communities that already have lower densities of students and schools. Public funding should be used to ensure that all students have access to a quality public education, but voucher programs divert funding away from public schools. There have been a number of reports detailing how voucher programs provide public funding to schools that can legally remove or refuse to serve certain students altogether.

POISONING OUR CHILDREN...CONTINUED

The learning effect of air quality in classrooms

Yet another environmental issue that interferes with student learning. We know that environmental toxins like mercury and lead can cause damage to students which impacts their learning. Recent research shows that air pollution can also cause problems.

We’ve known for quite some time that pollution is bad for your health but researchers are documenting how it affects our brains. A 2016 Israel study found that high rates of pollution on the day of an exam tamped down high school test scores. The same students scored higher on different test dates with cleaner air. Boys and low-income students were the most affected. A 2019 draft, working paper of a study on university students in London also found that exposure to indoor air pollutants was associated with lower exam test scores. Again, males were more affected than females and the mental acuity problems were triggered by particulate levels that were below current guidelines at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

FUNDING FOR NPE

The Dark Money Behind Union-Owned NPE: Time to Fess Up.

Just kidding...NPE doesn't take "dark money." In fact, NPE hardly has any money at all when compared to groups funded by billionaire privatizers.

The short answer is that NPE is not funded by the “dark money” effort of millionaires and billionaires doling out money to puppet-string a school privatization agenda.

However, let us see exactly who funds NPE and who (like Stewart) is rolling in the dough as a result.

TEACHERS ARE LEAVING

Kindergarten Teachers Are Quitting, and Here Is Why

Appropriate instruction is better for the children. Good teachers understand that...and many are leaving the classroom to avoid doing damage to 5- and 6-year-olds.

• “I had to retire in 2017 because I could not take the pressure of having to force my 5- and 6-year-old students to sit with books… no talking allowed. …. I taught for 18 years and in the last 3 years teaching this stuff to my sweet little kinders I heard students cry, talk about how they didn’t understand, say they hated reading time, and act out. We were basically regurgitating the curriculum script. It was awful. I hated going to work that last 2 years with all the stress of academic achievement expectations… All administrators want to hear is the exact same stuff from one room to another from school to school.

• “Teachers have been complaining about more testing every year. And every year we hear, ‘We’ll look into that,’ and every year someone higher up decides, ‘We need more data.’ That, in turn, means more testing, more seatwork, and less play. I personally couldn’t take it anymore and took early retirement.”

See also: Let the Children Play, by Pasi Sahlberg and William Doyle.

NAEP -- MISUNDERSTANDINGS AND LACK OF PROGRESS

We’re Pressuring Students to Read Too Fast, Too Much, Too Soon

First, the disclaimer: On the NAEP test, a score demonstrating proficiency does not mean "grade level." It means that the test taker can competently handle challenging material. There is some debate that the scoring levels are set too high. See Curmudgucation's post titled, The One And Only Lesson To Be Learned From NAEP Scores for a discussion of this.

Second, our scores on the latest NAEP moved very little from the previous test. Maybe it's because there's too much pressure on students. The main takeaway is that the "reformist" status quo isn't helping to improve children's learning or lessen any racial or economic "achievement gaps."

Recent reading tests report that students’ reading comprehension scores show that just over one-third of students in grades four, eight, and 10 are proficient at reading. Researchers and education policy makers ponder the significance of little to no improvement in reading scores for students as a whole and the widening gap between our high-performing and low-performing students. What many of these thinkers fail to consider is the way education has changed. The system ignores that developmental psychology says when we push students too much and too fast we do more harm than good. The reading pressures we put on students may be one major cause of the stagnant scores.

WANT TO IMPROVE READING SCORES? READ ALOUD

The Most Powerful Family Ritual? The Bedtime Story

As if we needed any more reason to read aloud to our children (and students), here's an article about the benefits of reading aloud at bedtime. One thing the author neglects to mention in his article is that reading aloud to a child is the "single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading..."

Teachers and parents, if you're not reading to your children every day for at least 15 minutes, you're not doing enough. It's never too early...or too late to start.

There is simply nothing more powerful than the bedtime story—especially in this age of continuous screen time. As we go deeper into the discussion, we start to see how the bedtime story is the perfect ending to the day. So let’s rethink and reclaim this special decompression time for both parent and child.

It is not just something we are doing for our kids—the benefits accrue to us as well. We don’t just read to our kids, we read with our kids. Here are five reasons why the bedtime story is the most powerful family ritual...

Setting Children Up to Hate Reading

This article is from February, 2014. I've added it here to help with the understanding of the article above.

The best way to teach children to read is to increase their interest and enthusiasm in reading.

The best way to get children interested and enthusiastic about reading is to read to them. Every day.

Pick up any book about normal reading development and you will find that young children progress when they are ready—at their own pace.

The American Academy of Pediatrics notes the critical factor as to how a student will learn to read “is not how aggressively,” the child is given instruction, but rather their “own enthusiasm for learning.” They also state that many early learning programs “interfere with the child’s natural enthusiasm” by imposing on children to “concentrate on tasks” when they aren’t ready.

Why are young children being made to learn at a faster rate? Why is there this mistaken notion that children’s brains have somehow evolved to a higher level where they are supposed to read earlier and earlier?

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Listen to This #2

Random Quotes...

MORE THAN A TEST SCORE

Tests Can’t Measure the True Strength of Schools And Other Reasons Your Kids Aren’t Numbers

Datamongers don't seem to understand that schools are more than just test-prep facilities. When "reformers" claim that public schools are "failing" they referring to the poverty-related problems which cause low test scores...not the quality of the education students receive.

If we really want to improve the education of our children, we might consider importing ideas from successful countries (most of whom imported ideas from American researchers). One of the most useful ideas would reverse a trend in the U.S....that of spending more of our education money on wealthy children than on poor children.

From Stu Egan at Caffeinated Rage

The fact that West Forsyth is recognized as a high-performing school and that our students pursue worthwhile post-secondary endeavors speaks incredibly well, but our students are more than achievers in academics. It’s because they succeed in being good people that helps set this school apart.

THE TEACHER SHORTAGE

We don't have to do this, you know

"Reformist" legislators are anxious for highly qualified, well-trained, and therefore, expensive, educators to quit. The destruction of the profession of education means no more unions and lower wages.

From Peter Greene at Curmudgucation

We do not have a teacher shortage. We have a shortage of states and districts willing to make the job attractive enough to recruit and retain teachers.

BIG DATA

When “Big Data” Goes to School

When was the last time you saw an actual public school teacher get excited about giving a standardized test and analyzing the data?

Most teachers get excited about seeing the "light" of understanding in their students. Most teachers are excited when they pique their students' interests.

Data is for computers. Relationships are for people.

From Alfie Kohn

An individual’s enthusiasm about the employment of “data” in education is directly proportional to his or her distance from actual students.

...Those scores may be lousy representations of learning – and, indeed, egregiously misleading. But, by gum, they sure are readily available.

CAROL BURRIS HONORED

The Horace Mann League Honors Carol Burris as Outstanding Friend of Public Education: This is What She Said

Carol Burris is the Executive Director of the Network for Public Education.

...and yeah, Jeb Bush, she's talking to you!

From Carol Burris

When I hear someone define a system of community schools, governed by unpaid volunteers elected by their neighbors as a “government-run, unionized, politicized, monopolies”– there is one thing I know for sure about the speaker—he does not want to improve that system, he does not want to compete with that system, he wants to destroy it.

THE PRICE WE PAY FOR NEGLIGENCE

Bang Bang Sanity

Jim Wright has written a series of twelve blogs entries about school shootings. The latest is Bang Bang Crazy, Part 12: Excuses, Excuses.

Bang Bang Sanity, on the other hand, is his single post about what we ought to do about gun violence. He wants us to require gun owners to act responsibly or pay the consequences. There are no "gun accidents," he says. There is only negligence. Is it an accident when a four-year-old shoots his two-year-old brother with a gun left on the kitchen table? No, it's negligence on the part of the gun owner.

Negligence and irresponsible behaviors need consequences. I agree.

He thinks that background checks, gun-free zones, banning high-capacity magazines or assault weapons, won't "do a damned thing." That horse, he said, "is out of the barn." I disagree. Part of responsibility includes society's responsibility to take steps to correct the mistakes of the past. We have bans on drunk driving, but it still happens. We have bans on using illegal drugs, yet they are still being used. The fact that people will break the laws is no excuse not to put them in place...and that should include consequences for gun owners, manufacturers (including the NRA, the lobbying arm of the gun industry), and sellers.

From Jim Wright at Stonekettle Station

We hold people who sell alcohol responsible, at least in some aspects, for enabling drunken driving. We hold auto manufacturers responsible, at least in some aspects, for the safety of their product. We hold state licensing agencies responsible for administration of standards. We hold the drivers themselves responsible for their actions. We set rules and limits and we work to improve them every single day.

And we, both left and right, drivers and non-drivers, drinkers and non-drinkers and reformed drinkers, engage in reasonable dialog and conversation without hysteria or accusations that the other side is coming to take either our booze or our cars.

But what we don’t do is say stupid shit like, well now you retards, there’s just nothing we can do about drunk people and/or crazy drivers who kill people with cars, uh, uh, uh. Hey, every once in a while crazy people drive buses through pre-schools. Dead kids, that’s just the price you pay for freedom to drive...

More than half of U. S. gun owners do not safely store their guns

This quote means that 45% of gun owners with children under 18 years old DO NOT store their guns safely (in a locked gun safe, cabinet or case, locked in a gun rack, or secured with a trigger lock)!

What are the consequences for this behavior?

Slightly more than half, or 55 percent, of gun owners with children under 18 reported storing all of their guns safely.

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

The satirical site, The Onion, posts the article, "No Way to Prevent This," Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens," whenever there's a mass shooting. The title is the quote.

KNOW-NOTHINGS

A Lesson On Know-Nothingness

From Sheila Kennedy

When knowledge and expertise are devalued, when empirical evidence is scorned, when the weighty and complex search for meaning that characterizes serious religiosity is replaced with superstition, rejection of reason and fear of the Other, the know-nothings have won.

VOUCHERS FOR MILITARY FAMILIES

Military Families Deserve Fully Funded Public Schools, Not Harmful Voucher Schemes

This bill, introduced by the U.S. Congressman representing my district, doesn't surprise me. He is as far right in his politics as you can be without actually taking up a torch and marching with David Duke in Charlottesville, Va.

According to Politics the Work, his votes in congress consistently oppose...

• taxing businesses

• environmental protection

• financial sector regulation

• gun control

• public health

• increasing revenues

• taxing the wealthy

• women's rights.

With this bill we can add that he also opposes...

• support for public education

The sad thing is that, in this part of the country, Jim Banks (R-IN) is representative of the majority of his constituents.

From Americans United for Separation of Church and State

The bill provides relatively no accountability or oversight mechanisms. For families wishing to participate, it requires only that parents state that they will use the funds to “provide the child with instruction in, at minimum, the fields of reading, language, mathematics, science, and social studies.” And the funds can be used for a wide variety of programs, including for an unaccredited private school or for homeschooling expenses.

The bill also explicitly prohibits the federal or state government from exercising any oversight over the program. Basically, this bill sends the message that federal dollars should be given to families and then the government should back off and have no say over how those taxpayer dollars are actually spent.

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A Report on Reports

Need something to do this weekend?

Here is a chance to get dig deeper into some issues important to public education. Below are links to reports about school inequity, special education, vouchers, segregation, charter schools, and other topics of interest.

You can learn how

• the election of 2016 has caused stress and conflict in the nation's high schools

• public investment in education has declined

• international test scores don't tell the whole story about public education in the U.S.

• charter schools drain money and resources from actual public schools

• socio-economic status continues to be the most accurate predictor of academic success

ISSUES ABOUT MONEY, FUNDING, AND POVERTY

Education inequalities at the school starting gate

Economic inequities abound in the U.S. and schools are not equipped to address all the issues facing children alone. Policy makers and legislators must work with schools by providing funding for wraparound services, a fully funded school curriculum, and strategies to improve economic development in communities. Ignoring inequity, or asking schools to perform miracles without necessary resources is a guarantee of failure.

From Emma García and Elaine Weiss, the Economic Policy Institute

What this study finds: Extensive research has conclusively demonstrated that children’s social class is one of the most significant predictors—if not the single most significant predictor—of their educational success. Moreover, it is increasingly apparent that performance gaps by social class take root in the earliest years of children’s lives and fail to narrow in the years that follow. That is, children who start behind stay behind—they are rarely able to make up the lost ground...

What can be done about it: Greater investments in pre-K programs can narrow the gaps between students at the start of school. And to ensure that these early gains are maintained, districts can provide continued comprehensive academic, health, nutrition, and emotional support for children through their academic years, including meaningful engagement of parents and communities. Such strategies have been successfully implemented in districts around the country, as described in this report, and can serve to mitigate the impact of economic inequalities on children’s educational achievement and improve their future life and work prospects.

A Punishing Decade for School Funding

We are ignoring the underfunding of schools and services for our children and the future of the nation is at stake. Instead of planning for the future with an investment in our children, we're living "paycheck to paycheck" and ignoring the fact that we are limiting the future of a huge number of our children...which limits the future of our nation.

From Michael Leachman, Kathleen Masterson, and Eric Figueroa, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Public investment in K-12 schools — crucial for communities to thrive and the U.S. economy to offer broad opportunity — has declined dramatically in a number of states over the last decade. Worse, some of the deepest-cutting states have also cut income tax rates, weakening their main revenue source for supporting schools.

Separate and Unequal: A Comparison of Student Outcomes in New York City’s Most and Least Diverse Schools

Yet another study which shows that diverse school populations helps children and segregation harms them. Have we given up trying to abide by the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling?

From David E. Kirkland and Joy L. Sanzone, NYU Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of School

Diversity along lines of race and socioeconomic status seemed to modestly close achievement gaps (i.e., opportunity gaps), while hyper-segregation seemed to greatly exacerbate them (i.e., opportunity barrier). 

Deconstructing the Myth of American Public Schooling Inefficiency

Betsy DeVos continues to use international rankings in order to criticize, blame, and demean our nation's public schools. Rarely, if ever, does she include the fact that poverty has been, and continues to be, the societal problem which contributes the most to our average achievement. She rarely discusses the fact that American students from low-poverty schools score higher than any students in the world. She only uses the "failure" of public education as a tool to transfer the billions of education dollars into private pocketbooks.

The following report discusses some of the apples-to-oranges problems of comparing the U.S. to other advanced nations.

From Bruce D. Baker and Mark Weber, the Albert Shanker Institute

The United States is faced with a combination of seemingly high education expense, but noncompetitive compensation for its teachers, average to large classes, and high child poverty. Again, it’s hard to conceive how such a combination would render the U.S. comparable in raw test scores to low-poverty nations like Korea or Finland, or small, segregated, homogeneous enclaves like Singapore or Shanghai...

Finally, it is equally important to understand the magnitude and heterogeneity of the U.S. education system in the context of OECD comparisons, which mainly involve more centralized and much smaller education systems. Lower-poverty, higher-spending states that have been included in international comparisons, like Connecticut and Massachusetts, do quite well, while lower-spending higher-poverty states like Florida do not. This unsurprising finding, however, also tells us little about relative efficiency, and provides little policy guidance for how we might make Florida more like Massachusetts, other than by waving a wand and making it richer, more educated and perhaps several degrees colder.

POLITICS AND ITS IMPACT ON EDUCATION

Teaching and Learning in the Age of Trump: Increasing Stress and Hostility in America’s High Schools

During the years I taught I often stopped to reflect upon how politicians and policy makers seemed intent at making the job of teaching harder.

Today's political climate is no different. The election of 2016 has had an impact on our public schools beyond policy...

From John Rogers, UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access

VI. Educators can mitigate some of these challenges, but they need more support. Ultimately, political leaders need to address the underlying causes of campus incivility and stress.

• 72.3% of teachers surveyed agreed that: “My school leadership should provide more guidance, support, and professional development opportunities on how to promote civil exchange and greater understanding across lines of difference.”

• 91.6% of teachers surveyed agreed that: “national, state, and local leaders should encourage and model civil exchange and greater understanding across lines of difference.” Almost as many (83.9%) agreed that national and state leaders should “work to alleviate the underlying factors that create stress and anxiety for young people and their families.”

PRIVATIZATION

Charters and Consequences: An Investigative Series

The Network for Public Education reports on charter schools and their impact on real public schools, public school systems, public educators, and our nation's students, the vast majority of whom attend public schools.

[Full disclosure: I contribute to, and am a member of, the Network for Public Education.]

From the Network for Public Education

• An immediate moratorium on the creation of new charter schools, including no replication or expansion of existing charter schools
• The transformation of for-profit charters to non-profit charters
• The transformation of for-profit management organizations to non-profit management organizations
• All due process rights for charter students that are afforded public school students, in all matters of discipline
• Required certification of all school teaching and administrative staff
• Complete transparency in all expenditures and income
• Requirements that student bodies reflect the demographics of the served community
• Open meetings of the board of directors, posted at least 2 weeks prior on the charter’s website
• Annual audits available to the public
• Requirements to follow bidding laws and regulations
• Requirements that all properties owned by the charter school become the property of the local public school if the charter closes
• Requirements that all charter facilities meet building codes
• Requirements that charters offer free or reduced-price lunch programs for students
• Full compensation from the state for all expenditures incurred when a student leaves the public school to attend a charter
• Authorization, oversight and renewal of charters transferred to the local district in which they are located
• A rejection of all ALEC legislation regarding charter schools that advocates for less transparency, less accountability, and the removal of requirements for teacher certification.

SPECIAL EDUATION

Federal Actions Needed to Ensure Parents Are Notified About Changes in Rights for Students with Disabilities

Two things in this section, first, an article discussing the GAO Report. Then a short blurb from the report itself.

From Elise Helgesen Aguilar, Americans United for Separation of Church and State

A New Government Report Shows Private School Voucher Programs Fail To Provide Information, Especially To Families Of Students With Disabilities

Specifically, it found that most private school voucher programs do not provide necessary or even accurate information to parents of students with disabilities about the rights those students forfeit by enrolling at a private voucher school.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) ensures that students with disabilities are provided with certain rights and services in public schools, including a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) that is tailored to their individual needs.

But students who leave the public schools with a voucher forfeit many of those protections because they are considered parentally placed in private schools. For example, students accepting vouchers are not entitled to FAPE or to the due process rights that students in public schools have.

Many parents are not aware that they are giving up those rights when enroll their child in a private school voucher program. In fact, the report found that one-third of all voucher programs across the country do not provide any information to parents about the loss of procedural safeguards and due process protections under IDEA.

From the U.S. Government Accountability Office

Our draft report also included a recommendation for Education to require states to notify parents/guardians of changes in students’ federal special education rights, including that key IDEA rights and protections do not apply when a student with a disability is moved from public to private school by their parent. In response, Education stated that IDEA does not include statutory authority to require such notice, and suggested that the department instead encourage states to notify parents. However, as noted in our draft report, Education already strongly encourages states and school districts to provide such notice. Despite these efforts, we found that in 2016-17, more than 80 percent of students nationwide who are enrolled in private choice programs designed for students with about changes in IDEA rights, or provided some inaccurate information about these changes. We therefore continue to believe that states should be required, not merely encouraged, to notify parents/guardians about key changes in federal special education rights when a parent moves a child with a disability from public to private school. To this end, we have converted our recommendation into a Matter for Congressional Consideration to require such notice.

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From NPE 2017 – Wrap Up

The NPE conference ended on Sunday, October 15. Below are some quotes made, or referred to on the last day, some books I heard about at the conference and now have on my to-read list, and some articles about the conference, or referred to on the last day. My comments, included.

QUOTES

From Garrison Keillor

When you wage war on the public schools, you're attacking the mortar that holds the community together. You're not a conservative, you're a vandal.

From President John Adams

If you read this blog regularly, you'll note the following quote is at the top of this page.

The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves.

From Rev. Charles Foster Johnson, Executive Director Pastors for Texas Children

Pastors for Texas Children were instrumental in preventing the passage of a voucher bill in the recent Texas legislature.

Vouchers divert money from the public schools to religious schools (98% of voucher accepting schools in Indiana are parochial schools). We don't do that with any other public good. We don't divert money from the public library for vouchers to privately owned book stores. We don't divert money from public parks for private country club vouchers. Why is public education different?

If you don't believe in the public trust, leave your car in the parking lot and don't drive home on the roads paid for by the citizens of the community.

From Nikole Hannah-Jones, Investigative Journalism, New York Times.

The last time the black/white achievement gap lowered nationally was when cities and states were required, under Brown v. Board of Education, to integrate schools. The current voucher/charter "reform" movement has resulted in the resegregation of public schools.

The fight for public schools must be a fight for integration. Period.

and

The longer a black child stays in a segregated school, the wider her achievement gap grows and the further she falls behind her white peers.

Nikole Hannah-Jones speaking at the NPE Conference, 2017

BOOKS

Here is a list of books I've added to my to-read list...publisher's descriptions are included.

United We Stand Divided We Fall: Opposing Trump’s Education Agenda

Quite a few familiar names in this book. This collection of essays includes as authors some folks who I have been reading for years, including Steven Singer, Russ Walsh, P. L. Thomas and George Lakoff. It also includes a selection by NPE Conference Keynote speaker, Yohuru Williams.

In United We Stand Divided We Fall: Opposing Trump’s Agenda – Essays on Protest and Resistance Garn Press has gathered together essays by great scholars and renowned teachers who oppose the direction in which President Trump is leading the country. These are essays, to quote George Lakoff, which frame American values accurately and systemically day after day, telling truths by American majority moral values.

These are essays of protest against and resistance to Trump’s presidency, to his billionaire cabinet, to the privileging in the White House of white supremacists, the promulgation of “alternate facts”, the denigration of media sources, the purges of State Department personnel, the gag orders at the EPA and scientists placed on “watch lists”, the travel bans on people from wide swaths of U.S. society and on refugees … the list is long.

The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at a Time by Gordon Lafer

In an era of growing economic insecurity, it turns out that one of the main reasons life is becoming harder for American workers is a relentless—and concerted—offensive by the country’s best-funded and most powerful political forces: corporate lobbies empowered by the Supreme Court to influence legislative outcomes with an endless supply of cash. These actors have successfully championed hundreds of new laws that lower wages, eliminate paid sick leave, undo the right to sue over job discrimination, and cut essential public services.

Lafer shows how corporate strategies have been shaped by twenty-first-century conditions—including globalization, economic decline, and the populism reflected in both the Trump and Sanders campaigns of 2016. Perhaps most important, Lafer shows that the corporate legislative agenda has come to endanger the scope of democracy itself.

For anyone who wants to know what to expect from corporate-backed Republican leadership in Washington, D.C., there is no better guide than this record of what the same set of actors has been doing in the state legislatures under its control.

Addicted to Reform: A 12-Step Program to Rescue Public Education by John Merrow

I first heard about this book in a podcast interview of John Merrow by Will Brehm on FreshEd. I'm glad I was given the opportunity to get the book at the NPE conference last weekend. You can listen to the podcast here.

This insightful book looks at how to turn digital natives into digital citizens and why it should be harder to become a teacher but easier to be one. Merrow offers smart, essential chapters—including “Measure What Matters,” and “Embrace Teachers”—that reflect his countless hours spent covering classrooms as well as corridors of power. His signature candid style of reportage comes to life as he shares lively anecdotes, schoolyard tales, and memories that are at once instructive and endearing.

Addicted to Reform is written with the kind of passionate concern that could come only from a lifetime devoted to the people and places that constitute the foundation of our nation. It is a “big book” that forms an astute and urgent blueprint for providing a quality education to every American child.

Democracy in Chains by Nancy MacLean

Gordon Lafer, author of the One Percent Solution (above), recommended this book during his conference session.

Behind today’s headlines of billionaires taking over our government is a secretive political establishment with long, deep, and troubling roots. The capitalist radical right has been working not simply to change who rules, but to fundamentally alter the rules of democratic governance. But billionaires did not launch this movement; a white intellectual in the embattled Jim Crow South did. Democracy in Chains names its true architect—the Nobel Prize-winning political economist James McGill Buchanan—and dissects the operation he and his colleagues designed over six decades to alter every branch of government to disempower the majority.

In a brilliant and engrossing narrative, Nancy MacLean shows how Buchanan forged his ideas about government in a last gasp attempt to preserve the white elite’s power in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education. In response to the widening of American democracy, he developed a brilliant, if diabolical, plan to undermine the ability of the majority to use its numbers to level the playing field between the rich and powerful and the rest of us.

Corporate donors and their right-wing foundations were only too eager to support Buchanan’s work in teaching others how to divide America into “makers” and “takers.” And when a multibillionaire on a messianic mission to rewrite the social contract of the modern world, Charles Koch, discovered Buchanan, he created a vast, relentless, and multi-armed machine to carry out Buchanan’s strategy.

ARTICLES/BLOG POSTS

A Brief Overview of the NPE Conference in Oakland

Diane Ravitch gives her overview of last week's conference. She refers to posting the videos of some of the sessions as well as the keynote addresses. I urge you, if you weren't at the conference, to watch however much you can once they're published...especially the two keynote addresses by NPE Board Member, Yohuru Williams, and by Nikole Hannah-Jones, investigative reporter for the New York Times, and 2017 recipient of the MacArthur Foundation "Genius Award."

The most important things that happened at the conference were not on stage, but in the hallways, where people from across the country met others they had only heard of. We had parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, local school board members, state school board members, journalists, students. The conversations were buoyant.

No one was paid to attend. Almost everyone paid their own way. The speakers were not paid. This was truly a grassroots effort, run on a shoestring, but a very beautiful, unencumbered shoestring. Nearly 500 people came together to find comfort, fellowship, solidarity, and hope.

Michelle Gunderson on Teaching in the Time of Trump

...One of our students who has been struggling to learn was sitting with his reading partner sharing a book when his partner came running over to us. “He read it! He really read it! All by himself.” In the field, this is sometimes referred to as “breaking the code,” or the time a child launches as a reader. When young students begin to read at first they break down each sound and word. Then, suddenly, the walls collapse, and reading becomes smooth.

I am here to tell you that it is one of our miracles, and the reason I teach first grade.

So, how do we teach in the time of Trump? We wake up and be our best selves, and everything we do has meaning and importance. There are no small things right now...

Yohuru Williams at the NPE Conference, 2017

An Interview With Yohuru Williams about Betsy DeVos

This is a must-read blog post by Mercedes Schneider. She interviewed Yohuru Williams and included a link to his powerpoint presentation which accompanied his keynote address to the NPE Conference. I hope to post the video of his presentation at a later date.

Schneider: What do you consider the major threat of the placement of B DeVos as US ed sec?

Williams: There are essentially two major problems with Betsy DeVos. The first is her overall lack of qualification for the position. The second is her open hostility to public schools. We have never had an Education Secretary in the history of the United States History who has exhibited such hostility toward public schools.

Schneider: What do you perceive to be DeVos’ “Achilles heel”?

Williams: Secretary DeVos’ Achilles heel might very well be her singular focus on school choice as the panacea for what she and other Education Reformers have problematically labeled as a “failing system of education” in America. Her arrogance may very well prove her undoing.

Schneider: Arrogance?

Williams: By arrogance I mean her deep sense of entitlement and privilege and her inability to see beyond her own experience.

🎤📚📝

From NPE 2017 – Listen to this #13

Memorable quotes from Saturday at the Network for Public Education 4th Annual Conference. Check out the live streaming and video, here (Facebook link) for much, much more.

#NPE17CA

NETWORK FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION

From Colleen Wood

Now More Than Ever - it's not just a theme, it's what we do.

From Diane Ravitch

In the coming election [our organization] will not endorse anyone who supports charters or vouchers...

...We want to improve education, not monetize it.

From Yohuru Williams

We reject Betsy DeVos. We reject Donald Trump. We reject Race to the Bottom. We reject privatization. We reject vouchers. We reject inequality. We reject alienation. We reject your narrative of inequality. We stand for justice.

Yohuru Williams at #NPE17CA

TEACHING

From an Arkansas legislator/teacher

How is shutting the door and saying 'Just let me teach' working out for you?

Jonathan Foley in United We Stand Divided We Fall

[Teachers, as first responders, are] willing to risk it all for the next generation.

PRIVATIZING AND REFORM

From Michelle Gunderson

Kindergarten is the new Second Grade, and a really, really bad Second Grade.

From Frank Adamson

This is not an evidence battle. This Is an ideological battle.

From Steven Singer

We invest the majority of our educational funding in rich white kids. The poor and minorities are left to fend for themselves.

From Tanya Clay House

[When speaking with a pro-voucher privatizer,] Every child deserves the benefit of a quality education. That's why we have public education that you're not funding.

🚌🚌🚌

From NPE 2017 – Winners and Losers

We traveled on the train from Chicago to the San Francisco area for this year's Network for Public Education (NPE) National Conference which will take place in Oakland in a few days.

We've done the train from Chicago to the west coast several times. We enjoy the relaxed pace, and the scenery of the Desert, Plains and Mountains. We had the time...so we decided to do it again.

This year we encountered a new problem. Amtrak is working on the track between Denver and Salt Lake City so our train was diverted north to Wyoming and then west to Salt Lake City.

During the time we were on the alternate track, our train had to yield (and by "yield" I mean, sit and wait) often to "freight traffic." The alternative route was owned by the companies operating the freight routes (this, according to our sleeping car attendant) , and dispatchers from those companies chose who had the right of way on single tracks. They chose their own trains every time. After repeatedly waiting for those other trains, we arrived at our destination about 4 hours late.

In theory, I don't object to the track owners calling the shots on their own track. It's theirs, after all. They should get to give their own trains priority when there is a conflict. It was inconvenient, and it would have been nice if the dispatchers had given us priority now and then, but I can understand it.

On the other hand, Amtrak, a government subsidized rail corporation, is paying for the use of that track. They're giving the track owners public funds for the right to use the track. Doesn't that count for something?

This reminds me of the public funding currently going to private schools in the form of vouchers. Private schools get public money to teach students yet are allowed to choose which students they accept and which they deny. They can choose what curriculum they use...and why not (as long as the students are able to pass "the test")? They're a private corporation and are not obligated to follow the same rules as public schools.

The analogy between public education and publicly supported rail travel doesn't really work 100%. Amtrak, while privately subsidized, is a for-profit company, operated by a single entity. Public schools, on the other hand, are all non-profit and are owned and "operated" by their communities.

Still, should a private company which receives public funds be obligated to follow all the government regulations and requirements that public companies follow? Private freight companies do, of course, have to follow the laws and requirements of U.S. and the states in which they do business. But they do have some latitude in some areas - for example, prioritizing the trains traveling their tracks.

Likewise, Indiana's voucher law requires private schools to follow some of the laws regarding education if they accept public funding. The adults working in their schools must pass criminal background checks. Their students must take "the test." The schools will be "graded" on those tests, attendance, and growth, just like public schools. If they don't fulfill these and other, selected, requirements, then they may not continue to receive public funding.

However, private schools still get to "prioritize their own trains" by rejecting students who are behavior problems, or who function at a lower academic level. They still get to teach that humans and dinosaurs coexisted, and that the Earth is 6000 years old.

And in Indiana, thanks to the privatization-owned super-majority in the legislature, any or all of those requirements may – and sometimes have been – waived so that private schools can continue to get public funds even when they fail to fulfill the requirements of the state.

Competition in the freight and transportation industries drives improvement. Travelers can weigh the pros and cons of train travel versus air or car travel, and make their own choices. Failure means loss of business. Companies come and go. The market creates winners and losers.

Competition in education, however, is counterproductive and dangerous. Failure of a school isn't like the failure of a business. Children's futures, the futures of their communities, and the future of the nation, are at stake. When we create winners and losers in the education of our children, we guarantee that some people will be successful and others will not, yet the more people who are successful, the better it is for our society. If we continue to prioritize some children over others, the whole nation loses.

The goal of public education is excellence for everyone, but competition produces excellence for only a few, and sometimes not even that. It's a lousy metaphorical framework for education. Better, say, to talk about a garden on which we focus the full resources of the community to plant and water and tend living things to grow and mature without worrying about which one is tallest, sweetest or most vibrantly colored, or how we could best deprive one flower of water so that another can win a greenery contest. Education is not a race, and competition will not improve it. – Peter Greene, in Competition vs. Quality

🚂⛰🛤

From the Network for Public Education – The NPE Toolkit: Stop Betsy DeVos

The more we learn, the more we are certain that Betsy DeVos is bad for public schools and for kids.

When De Vos has to choose between quality schools and “the free market,” she chooses “the free market” of privatized choice every time. The best interests of children take a back seat.

And we know the DeVos endgame–shut down our neighborhood public schools, and replace them with a patchwork of charters, private schools and online learning.

We can’t let that happen and we need your help. Present and future generations of children are depending on us to act now. We now know that some Senators have grave doubts. It is our job to make those doubts grow into active resistance to DeVos. Our senators are in district offices from 12/17 – 1/2.

Here are our three toolkits to help you do your part.

Toolkit 1. Call your senators’ offices. The toolkit with numbers and a phone script can be found here. It includes a link to phone numbers.

Toolkit 2. Send a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. You can find a model here.

Toolkit 3. Visit your senators’ offices. If you cannot get an appointment, hand deliver a letter. Our toolkit, which you can find here has a model to use, and directions to find local offices. If you cannot hand deliver it, send your letter in the mail.

When you go into the toolkits and commit to an action, we have a simple form that let’s us know what you did. As a thank you, you will receive a special badge for your Facebook page or Twitter account each time you complete an action, and you will be entered into our drawing for a copy of Reign of Error signed by Diane Ravitch.

The drawing will be held on January 5th, so please begin your actions today. Share this link on your Facebook page and Twitter account, or email it to a friend.

We thank you for all that you do. Sadly, our nation’s children need you to do more.

For more go to: The NPE Toolkit: Stop Betsy DeVos

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A Big Red "F" For Indiana

Indiana legislators and "reformers" love letter grades...so communities (via their schools) are graded as A through F using already invalid ISTEP scores. Those grades are good for things like getting campaign donations from privatizers, bashing public school teachers, and directing real estate agents to where the money is, but not much else.

Now that the Network for Public Education has given Indiana a grade of F because of the failure to actually help improve student achievement and public education, legislators will likely complain that these grades aren't valid...that they're biased (irony alert)...or even more likely, they'll ignore them completely.

An editorial in Sunday's (Feb. 14, '16) Journal Gazette summarizes the report about Indiana...

State gets poor marks in dedication to schools

Indiana earns Fs for supporting teacher professionalism, resisting privatization and investing school funding resources wisely. It earned Ds for rejecting high-stakes testing and giving children a chance for success. Indiana public schools continue to serve the vast majority of students. Public school enrollment this fall was 1,046,146 students, compared to 84,030 non-public students.

The poor mark for high-stakes testing won’t surprise anyone familiar with the state’s continuing struggles with ISTEP+, the standardized test administered to students in grades 3 through 8. Indiana also is among a handful of states requiring third-graders to pass a reading test to be promoted to fourth grade.

The state did get a B in school finance...and a D in High Stakes Testing and Chance for Success, though, as we'll see I disagree with the High Stakes Testing grade.

The grade card then, is 3 Fs, 2 Ds, and a B – not the worst in the nation (thanks to Arizona, Idaho, Texas and Mississippi), but certainly not anything to be proud of.

The complete report from Network for Public Education (NPE) can be found here...

My comments, and my grades, along with NPE's, cover three of the categories. These three alone would be enough reason to change the political leadership in Indiana in November (if not sooner). Add to that the refusal of the Republican governor to work cooperatively and respectfully with the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, an actual teacher, and we have a serious situation for Indiana's school children.

[On an interesting side note, the current State Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI), Glenda Ritz, used to be a Republican. She switched parties in order to help us get rid of former SPI and "reformer" extraordinaire, Tony Bennett. She recognized that his and then Governor Mitch Daniels' policies were damaging the public schools in our state. Suellen Reed, the SPI before Tony Bennett, also a Republican, is currently on the advisory board of the Indiana Coalition for Public Education, a pro-public education group fighting "reform" and privatization. She served for 16 years as SPI under Democratic and Republican Governors in a congenial atmosphere which disappeared with the Daniels/Bennett administration.]

FAIL: HIGH STAKES TESTING

Indiana uses the ISTEP to grade schools and evaluate teachers, neither of which is a valid use of a tool meant for measuring student achievement. Last year's ISTEP mess has at least encouraged the legislature to rethink the test and likely go with a different provider. However, grading schools and teachers using student achievement test scores will probably continue no matter what test is used.

Indiana also uses the ISTEP to label each school and school system on an A through F scale. Schools and neighborhoods are then either damned or lauded. That judgement is based, for the most part, on the economy of the families whose children attend the school since standardized tests have a direct correlation with family income. The D and F labels attached to low-income schools are detrimental to the community, to its families, and to its children. Students and their families are punished for having low incomes. Teachers are punished for working in high poverty schools.

Furthermore, Indiana uses a reading test, IREAD-3, to prevent students from being promoted from third grade to fourth. The rationale is that they need a year to catch up. Research into retention has shown time and again that students who are behind in third grade don't catch up through retention, and in fact, fall even further behind. The money for IREAD-3 would be better spent on early intervention (see here, and here, and you might as well check this out, too).

NPE used various criteria in which to give Indiana a D. They also figured their grade before the monumental failure of last year's ISTEP. My feeling is that the overuse, abuse, and misuse of tests in Indiana is reason enough to award the state a BIG RED F.

NPE Grade – D
My Grade – F

FAIL: PROFESSIONALIZATION OF TEACHING

NPE graded states on their ability to treat teachers with respect as professionals. Indiana fails.

The legislative chairs of the respective education committees (Robert Behning, chair of the House Education Committee, and Dennis Kruse, chair of the Senate Education and Career Development Committee) seem to take pleasure in depriving public school educators of their rights. In 2011 they led the drive to

1. eliminate due process for teachers. In the past administrations which wished to terminate a teacher had to allow the teacher a hearing with an impartial mediator. This allowed the teacher to present her case in front of someone who was not involved with the school system and could rule impartially. We call this Due Process. The law was changed in 2011. Now, teachers who are to be terminated can request a meeting with the superintendent or the school board. The chances of a fair and impartial hearing are reduced. This is what was meant by the term tenure in K-12 education in the state. Indiana teachers no longer have it.
2. reduce collective bargaining to only salary and insurance. Teachers and school systems no longer have the right to negotiate things like class size, evaluations, prep time, or parent teacher conferences. Teachers now must do what they're told, despite the damage it might do to student learning. The collective bargaining law changes (actually all the law changes in 2011) were meant to punish the teachers unions in Indiana, which they have done, but they also limit the flexibility that school systems have in negotiations as well. The supermajority in Indiana doesn't seem to understand (or care) that negotiations and bargaining is a process that takes two parties: the teachers and the school system.
3. use student achievement test scores to evaluate teachers. Why is it that there are fewer "bad" teachers (based on student test scores) in wealthy areas? Why is it that schools in high-poverty areas always seem to have many more "bad" teachers? Because student test scores reflect the level of parental income. Using student achievement test scores to evaluate teachers (and schools) is quite simply a misuse of tests and should be stopped.
4. force schools to abandon the step-scale for teacher pay and eliminate seniority. Apparently the supermajority and its "reformer" donors don't consider experience a benefit in public schools. I wonder if they would be happy with an inexperienced teacher for their own child...an inexperienced surgeon taking out their appendix or an inexperienced attorney defending them in court. The truth is, experience matters, in every job or profession.

The legislature and the governor also have a problem listening to the elected educational professional in the government, the State Superintendent of Public Education, Glenda Ritz. Instead they've worked tirelessly, and successfully, to limit her influence on Indiana's education policy. Apparently they believe that the auctioneer that leads the Senate education committee, the florist that leads the House education committee, and the radio talk show host who sits in the governor's chair, all know more about public education than someone who

• is a National Board Certified Teacher with two masters degrees

• is a former Teacher of the Year

• has 33 years of teaching experience in public education

Or perhaps it's that she's a Democrat and former union leader who got more votes than their "reformist" friend, Tony Bennett...

Here's an irony for you...the legislature is "studying" the reason for the looming teacher shortage.

NPE Grade – F
My Grade – F

FAIL: RESISTANCE TO PRIVATIZATION

Public Education is a public trust. It should be funded and controlled by the public through democratically elected school boards. President John Adams wrote,

"The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves."

Indiana has the most expansive voucher program in the nation, diverting millions of dollars from public schools to private, mostly parochial schools.

Indiana politicians also favor privately run charter schools over public schools by methods such as loan forgiveness (even when the school closes), additional special-favor loans to charter schools, and support for the proven failure of virtual charter schools.

In Indiana "failing" public schools end up as "failing" charter schools, which then become "failing" parochial schools getting taxpayer dollars. Instead of redistributing tax money reserved for public education to private corporations and religious organizations, the state ought to help students in struggling schools. In the past, Indiana was one of the few states where struggling schools got higher funding than schools in wealthy areas. That changed in 2015. Now, the better you do on standardized tests, the more money you get.

State budget proposal shifts aid toward wealthy schools

...changes in the funding system proposed Monday appear likely to funnel most of those extra dollars to wealthy and growing suburban school districts, while some of the poorest and shrinking districts could actually get less money.

So, instead of putting money where it's needed, the state "rewards" schools for high performance, forcing students in poorer areas to do more with less. Those same students are then "blamed" for "failing" and their schools get closed or turned over to a charter company. The failure of the state to provide for the students is blamed on the school, the teachers, and the students, and privatization gets the PR boost, and the profits, it was after all along.

NPE Grade – F
My Grade – F

FAIL: INDIANA

The state of Indiana is lead by a "reformist" governor and a "reformist" supermajority in both houses of the legislature. Their goals appear to be the complete privatization of public schools, the deprofessionalization of public school teachers, and the elimination of Indiana's teachers unions, all accomplished through testing.

Things are not likely to change soon. Politicians talk a good game, but they are driven by the need to be reelected, which means they respond to those who pay their campaign expenses, i.e. donors. And the biggest contributors are the corporate donors who use public education tax revenue as a source for profit.

If Indiana wants to improve its public schools...and we ought to pause to think about whether or not that's actually true...which will benefit all our children and our communities, we're going to have to change things. Poverty is the main cause of low achievement. As long as Indiana's 22% child poverty rate, the same rate as the nation's, continues, we'll have struggling students. At this point it will take several generations to undo the damage done by the last 12 years of the supermajority legislature and the last two governors.

There are no “silver bullets” when it comes to improving schools. The myth that “three great teachers in a row” can close the achievement gap has always been a ploy. However, if states are willing to invest time and money guided by the right values, we will see steady progress for our public schools and our nation’s children. 

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Random Quotes - February 2016

SCHOOLS OUR CHILDREN DESERVE

This is how Bernie or Hillary wins: The speech that would seal the nomination

Bertis Downs, a member of the Board of Directors of the Network for Public Education, wrote this for Salon. How many teachers and parents would support a candidate who promised that all public school children would get the education they deserved?

from Bertis Downs

Which campaign wants to lay claim to public schools supporters? Easy. Whoever embraces these ideas first. Just imagine:

...John Dewey once said, “What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that we must want for all of the children of the community.” Well, under my administration, we will actually govern that way and foster the kinds of schools where we would all be proud to send our children. We all know the factors that make a school great: excellent teachers who are respected, compensated, and supported so they can better teach our children; a rich and varied curriculum that includes the basic academic subjects as well as the arts and physical education; safe and healthy learning environments; the school as a center of community; strong leadership that focuses on enabling educators to collaborate, develop, and improve as they teach; reasonable class sizes; and an active and engaged parent and community presence. These describe some of our best schools — both public and private. And these are the attributes our policies need to be building and sustaining, not undermining and discouraging. For too long, our policies have created a de facto parallel system — schools for the Haves and other schools for the Have-nots. We need to shift our thinking and try a different approach — one that strives to improve opportunities for all of our nation’s children, not just a select few. Put simply, we must redouble our efforts to expand on our schools’ existing strengths, while freeing teachers to teach and addressing the lingering inequality that presents challenges to teachers and administrators.

Which classroom would you choose for your child?

ESSA

Congress passed the reauthorization to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act last December. The Every Student Succeeds Act returns much of the task of monitoring the nation's education system to the state. Testing, among other things (such as support for the for-profit charter industry), is still very much a part of the law. Here are two comments about the new law that focus on the same issue – poverty. No improved testing system is going to remove the effects of poverty on the huge number of students in America's public schools who live with unmet physical, medical, emotional, and social needs.

Why are none of the candidates for President talking about America's embarrassingly high child poverty rate?

Before we talk seriously about Every Student Succeeds ...

There are certain requirements

from Stephen Krashen

I offer an updated version as a comment on the new education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act:
When Congress passes
Every Student Is Well-Fed,
Every Student Has Proper Health Care, and
No Student Is Left Homeless,
Then we can talk seriously about
"Every Student Succeeds."

There's a Way to Help Inner-City Schools. Obama's New Education Law Isn’t It.

from Pedro Noguera

[ESSA is] not addressing the real issues related to poverty that are contributing to why those schools are struggling. Having less emphasis on testing, particularly if states use those resources to devise other means to support schools, will be helpful. But you still don't have federal or state strategies to address issues related to poverty and how they affect schools—that's a glaring omission. The origins of these federal policies were tied to President Johnson's war on poverty. Supplemental funds were sent to school districts serving poor children to compensate for issues related to poverty. Since the enactment of NCLB, the focus on mitigating poverty has been replaced by a focus on accountability as measured by test scores.

TESTING AND EVALUATIONS

from Alfie Kohn

Why Standardized Tests Should Not Be Used to Evaluate Teachers (and Teacher Education Programs)

Assessing any teachers with student standardized achievement tests is invalid. Achievement tests were developed to measure student achievement. The variables affecting a student's standardized test are too many to give a teacher credit or blame for the score.

Legislators who are responsible for requiring that student test scores be used to measure teacher quality listen up: Learn something about tests and measurements before you start passing laws about tests and measurements.

from David C. Berliner, quoted in Audrey Amrein-Beardsley's VAMboozled

Assessing new teachers with standardized achievement tests is likely to yield many false negatives. That is, the assessments would identify teachers early in their careers as ineffective in improving test scores, which is, in fact, often the case for new teachers. Two or three years later that could change. Perhaps the last thing we want to do in a time of teacher shortage is discourage new teachers while they acquire their skills.

Report: Lowest-scoring teachers concentrated in poorest schools

Any teacher who teaches in a school filled with students who live in poverty will become "low scoring teachers." Why is the USA one of only three advanced nations on Earth investing more money in schools for the wealthy than in schools for the poor?

Emphasis added.

from University of Chicago Consortium on School Research

Researchers say, however, that they don’t know whether the discrepancies reflect true differences in the quality of teaching or that it’s just harder to be effective or get high marks in higher-poverty schools.

“They may reflect that it is harder to get high scores in unorganized, chaotic schools or in schools with few resources or instructional supports for teachers, as other studies have shown,” the report notes.

FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD

NPE State Report Card 2016

The following is from the introduction to the 50 State Report Card given by the Network for Public Education. Diane Ravitch repeats her oft quoted belief that public education is something that we have agreed to provide for all children of our society because it benefits all of us.

By Diane Ravitch in Valuing Public Education: A 50 STATE REPORT CARD

Educating all children is a civic responsibility, not a consumer good. Sustaining a public education system of high quality is a job for the entire community, whether or not they have children in public schools and even if they have no children. An investment in the community’s children is an investment in the future, a duty we all share.

PITTING TEACHER AGAINST TEACHER

Plan to change teacher pay and pensions passes after emotional debate

In their continuing effort to cause damage to the public education system, the Indiana House of Representatives has passed a bill, under the guise of easing the looming teacher shortage, which will allow school systems to pay some teachers more money, thereby reducing the amount of money available for everyone else. This is the latest attack on teachers by legislators who are hell-bent on hurting the Indiana State Teachers Association even if that means destroying public education in the process. The bill now goes to the Senate.

by Melanie Wright, music teacher and member of the Indiana House of Representatives

“If we make those salaries negotiable and outside collective bargaining, we will have salaries all over the place,” she said. “Our mid-level teachers will look for options to get out. They already are exhausted from all the mandates that have been put on them.”

A–F GRADING OF SCHOOLS

Most schools' grades stay flat

Kudos to this superintendent who is determined that the damage caused by the legislature will not prevent his school system from providing the best education it can for its students.

By Chris Himsel, superintendent of Northwest Allen County Schools

“It’s not going to change what we do. We try to provide a healthy and safe learning environment that engages our learners in meaningful activities and supports them whenever learning becomes difficult and obstacles get in the way,” he said.

“Nothing’s going to deviate us away from that mission, and our primary focus at this point is not to look back on the past and all the issues that came across with the ISTEP+ and the transition to the new test and the new accountability standards and those kinds of things.”

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