2020 Medley #24: No More Political Ads Issue

The 2020 Election, Racism, Online learning,

Kids in high poverty schools, School "choice",

Discrimination using public funds

As of this writing (11 AM ET, Nov 4, 2020), the 2020 election is not completely over. Ballots are still being counted in the swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia. The Democrats have likely flipped two Senate seats (Colorado and Arizona), but lost one (Alabama). Other Republican Senate races are not called but are likely to remain the same. So with a net gain of one seat, the Senate will remain under the control of Mitch McConnell.

HEALING WILL TAKE TIME

The Racist Genie is Out of the Bottle (again)

This post by Russ Walsh was originally published on November 11, 2016. Even if Joe Biden eventually gains enough electoral votes to become president, the rise of white supremacy during the last four years is not likely to disappear quickly.

Read the whole post. Not much has changed since 2016.

This morning the New York Times published an editorial asking that the President-elect directly and immediately denounce the hate and let his supporters know that this targeting behavior is not OK. But once you let the hate genie out of the bottle, it is devilishly difficult to put it back in. Racism, xenophobia, and misogyny are never far from the surface in this country and when these baser instincts of humans seem to have the imprimatur of the leader of the country, it may take a lifetime to tame them.

As teachers, we need to be on guard and vigilant. We must re-double our efforts to make sure the classroom, the hallways, the cafeteria, the locker room, the campus are safe for all people, including Trump supporters, who will almost certainly be the targets of backlash as well.

In 1992, Rodney King, the African-American victim of a brutal police beating in Los Angeles asked, “Can we all get along?” Apparently not, Rodney. Not yet, anyway. There is still a lot of work to be done.

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION IN THE TIME OF COVID-19

Kindergarten Pandemic Learning Fears Should Not Be Tied to Screen Time and Rigid Drilling

Play is children's work and it is the way in which children learn, make sense of the world, and acclimate themselves to their culture. Online instruction can't reproduce the benefits of play.

Online learning is a relatively new phenomenon, and drilling five-year-olds, making them sit and face screens for long periods, can’t be good for them or instill a love for learning.

Most childhood specialists are not excited about online learning, and they discourage formal reading instruction in kindergarten. They disapproved of this push before Covid-19, so why would they like it now?

The benefit of online connection for kindergarteners is being linked to a kindergarten teacher and other children, to feel some semblance of a kindergarten class during a lonely time. Teachers who demonstrate love and kindness, introducing children to exciting and funny information they will find memorable, create the best foundation.

WASTING PUBLIC MONEY

Instead of Funding Public Education, Oklahoma Bankrolled a For-Profit Virtual Charter School

The pandemic has given privatizers permission to defund public education. Sometimes the money diverted from public schools ends up in the hands of charlatans.

Back in May, as Oklahoma state leaders sent traditional public schools contradictory messages on online, hybrid, and in-person learning during the fall semester, families flocked to Epic as an alternative. Now, Epic has about twice as many students as the Oklahoma City Public School System.

This shift amounts to a massive drain on traditional public schools, which receive funding based on student numbers, as they face the increased costs of adhering to health and safety guidelines.

Epic, while currently experiencing a surge in enrollment, has been mired in controversy since 2013, when it first came under scrutiny for financial irregularities by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, the state’s education board, and the legislature. Throughout the investigation, Epic refused to cooperate, and used expensive lobbying and advertising campaigns to delay the process.

Much of the Epic scandal was predictable, as Oklahoma funded a for-profit charter without creating an accountability system with the power to oversee its financial practices or education outcomes.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS AREN'T FAILING

Kids in poor, urban schools learn just as much as others

Test scores of children in high poverty schools are generally lower than those of wealthier children. However, the scores are more a reflection of what happens outside of school.

"Martin Luther King Jr. said, ...we are likely to find that the problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished."

Instead of being “engines of inequality” – as some have argued – this new research suggests schools are neutral or even slightly compensate for inequality elsewhere.

Disadvantaged kids start with poorer home environments and neighborhoods and begin school behind students who come from wealthier backgrounds, Downey said.

“But when they go to school they stop losing ground. That doesn’t agree with the traditional story about how schools supposedly add to inequality,” he said.

“We are probably better off putting more energy toward addressing the larger social inequalities that are producing these large gaps in learning before kids even enter school.”

Downey emphasized that the results don’t mean that school districts don’t need to invest in disadvantaged schools.

“As it stands, schools mostly prevent inequality from increasing while children are in school,” he said.

“With more investments, it may be possible to create schools that play a more active role in reducing inequality.”

SCHOOL "CHOICE" IS NO CHOICE

Two posts by Peter Greene (Curmudgucation) on how school choice is being used to discriminate, and who really benefits from school "choice."

School Choice Is Not For Those People

The message to LGBTQ students could not be clearer--"we don't want your kind here."

And if that wasn't clear enough, Alabama has been making it clearer. Back in January, an application from Birmingham AIDS Outreach to open up an LGBTQ charter school was turned down by the Birmingham school board. Alabama has a Public [sic] Charter School Commission that stands ready to overrule local school boards in case the charter is turned down, but the board has now shot down Magic City Acceptance Academy twice--first last May, and again just last week. Last week four of the eight board members abstained, three voted in favor of the school, and one against, which adds up to no.

So school choice is only for some students, and those decisions are not going to be made by elected officials are answerable to the public, nor are choice schools going to be bound by the same rules that operate in the public school world.

School Choice Disempowers (Almost) Everybody

With no collective or empowered group to stand against them, privatizers get that much closer to living in the land of Do As They Please. It's not better for students, for families, for education, for the country; it's better for them.

This is a unifying them for the "democracy is not the point--liberty is" crowd-- collectivism is bad. Well, bad in the sense that in order to be part of a collective, like a team or a board or a democracy or a functioning society, you have to give up some of your individual liberty. But the rich and powerful have accumulated a huge amount of liberty for themselves, and they would like to give up as little as possible. A publicly owned and operated school system is just one more obstacle to their perfect liberty state. Disempowering all the Lessers just helps them get closer to that fabled state.

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED PRIVATE SCHOOLS DISCRIMINATE

Another gay teacher fired. LGBTQ students face expulsion. Discrimination continues in Florida schools | Commentary

Once you accept tax money you should follow the laws made on behalf of the taxpayers. Firing someone because of who they are is not allowed in this country.

...discrimination against teachers is just the tip of this intolerance iceberg. Dozens of publicly funded voucher schools in Florida have policies that blatantly discriminate against LGBTQ students and families.

Many schools spelled them out in writing on their websites — until the Orlando Sentinel started reporting on them. Then, some of these faith-based schools started scrubbing their sites. Few came out to say they were no longer discriminating; they just wanted to erase the evidence.

One Volusia County school that received more than $1 million a year told students that simply uttering the words “I am gay” was “basis for dismissal.” A Merritt Island school that received more than $700,000 told students they could be suspended for five days for lying or cheating but expelled for being gay.

All told, the Sentinel found more than 80 schools with blatant, written policies — against students and their parents.

🚌🚌🚌

2020 Medley #7

Poverty, COVID-19 and school, Testing,
Online instruction, Charters = risky business, Undermining religious liberty,
Talking to students about race

IT'S STILL POVERTY

We have a learning crisis but it’s not about the kids

We know that student achievement is based largely on out of school factors yet we continue to try to "fix" the schools. Changing curriculum, blaming schools or teachers, privatizing, or overtesting won't solve the problem of low student achievement. The main link to low school achievement is poverty.

About a fifth of American students live in poverty (the same as child poverty in Indiana) and millions of those children live in food-insecure households.

As long as we, as a nation, refuse to address the growing inequality among our students, we'll continue to have high child poverty levels. Since high poverty correlates with low school achievement, we'll continue to have a large number of our students who fail to achieve.

World-class education nations don’t do what seems to be our main strategy: Insist schools compete against one another, use toxic accountability measures to control and measure what schools do, and hold teachers as scapegoats for plunged education rankings...

Half a century of systematic research has shown that teachers account for about 10 to 15 per cent of the variability in students’ test scores. A similar amount of variability is associated with other school factors, such as curriculum, resources and leadership. This means that most of the influence on students’ educational achievement lies outside school — in homes, communities, peer groups and students’ individual characteristics.

Make no mistake, teachers are the most influential part of school. We should stop thinking that teachers have the power to overcome all those inequalities that many children bring to school with them every day.

Schools Alone Cannot Save Children from Economic Inequality. Public Policy Must Assist Families in Deep Poverty

Public policy can ameliorate child poverty without being revolutionary. However, programs need to be redesigned and targeted to alleviate instability, privation and misery for the more than 2 million children living in America’s poorest families. Child poverty overall was reduced in the decade between 1995 and 2005, but during that same period, the number children living in the deepest poverty rose from 2.2 to 2.6 million children. These are the conclusions of a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) defines deep poverty as families living below half of the federal poverty level—below $14,000 per year for a family of four. Who are these children? “Children living in deep poverty are a diverse group…. In 2016, 37 percent were white, 30 percent were Latino, 23 percent were Black, and 6 percent were Asian; 45 percent lived in suburban areas, 32 percent in urban areas, and 11 percent in rural areas; 51 percent lived in a single-mother family, 37 percent in a married-couple family, and 6 percent in a single-father family; 16 percent lived in a family where someone had a work-limiting disability; and 89 percent were U.S. citizens and 31 percent lived in a family with a non-citizen.”

A TEACHABLE MOMENT?

Listen to Trusted Expert Advice: Coronavirus, Schools, Fear, and an Uncertain Future

Children all over the country are getting an unplanned vacation from school because of COVID-19. Their schools are moving to "virtual instruction" (more on that below). The virus seems to be the perfect "teachable moment" as explained by Ed in the Apple. Students who are still in school could also benefit.

I was speaking with a school supervisor yesterday: he was teaching a kindergarten class: how to wash their hands. The lessons should be replicated in all classrooms across the city.

Science lessons, by grade, should explain what a virus is; English classes should be reading non-fiction about viruses and epidemics.

When I mentioned this I was told, “We don’t want to unduly scare children.” Knowledge is power: the more we involve the children, teach children, we all know that the “teachable moment” is at the heart of impactful instruction.

STANDARDIZED TESTS -- A LOW PRIORITY

Public Schools Can Recover from the COVID-19 Quarantine by Skipping High Stakes Tests

What should schools do when they come back from the forced COVID-19 layoff? Skip the test!

First, debrief your students. They will all have stories to tell about how their family survived, who got sick, who might still be sick, what they did to amuse themselves, and how they coped.

Then, get back to the curriculum. We should not waste time on tests. Remember that the greatest impact on a child's standardized test is what happens outside of school (see also We have a learning crisis but it's not about the kids, elsewhere in this Medley).

The question remains – what do we do when we get back to class?

We could extend the school year, but families have vacations planned and other obligations. This wouldn’t solve much and frankly I don’t think it will happen unless we’re out for longer than expected.

I anticipate being back in school by mid April or so. That would leave about a month and a half left in the year.

This really leaves us with only two options: (1) hold our end of the year standardized tests and then fit in whatever else we can, or (2) forgo the tests and teach the curriculum.

If we have the tests, we could hold them shortly after school is back in session. That at least would give us more time to teach, but it would reduce the quality of the test scores. Kids wouldn’t be as prepared and the results would be used to further dismantle the public school network.

Much better I think is option two: skip the tests altogether.

How Can K-12 Schools Make Up Time Lost To The Coronavirus? Scrap High Stakes Testing.

There will simply be no way to know how much of this year’s test data is the result of coronavirus disruption. They will be a waste of time.

So don’t give them.

Schools can not only recoup the time lost for giving the tests, but all the time spent preparing for the tests (plus, in some cases, all the time spent on zippy test pep rallies).

Cut the test. Reclaim the instructional time and use it to patch the holes that the coronavirus is going to blow in the school’s curriculum. It’s not a perfect solution, but it makes far more sense than wasting a bunch of time and money on a meaningless standardized test.

ONLINE INSTRUCTION

Ohio's Charter School War fails us when we could really use them.

If online charters are worthy of education dollars from the state, shouldn't they be taking the lead in teaching students "laid-off" from school during the COVID-19 crisis? This article is specifically about Ohio but is appropriate for any state with public money going to online charter schools.

With all this COVID-19 talk, every Ohio Public School District is planning to move to online instruction through the end of the year. While that seems like a heavy lift, it really shouldn't be. Why?

Because no state has more students already attending virtual schools than Ohio.

Yet in no instance has the Ohio Department of Education or any school district -- despite this emergency crisis -- said, "Hey, we have a lot of online schools already, why don't we ask them for help?"

CHARTERS -- A BAD RISK

Credit Ratings Agency: U.S. charter school sector “inherently risky and volatile”

Will higher risk relieve us of the charter school scourge which diverts public funds from real public schools?

5) National: Standard & Poor’s has issued an assessment of the charter school sector’s creditworthiness as part of an overview of public finance. “The charter school sector is inherently risky and volatile, relative to other public finance sectors, as reflected in our ratings distribution, and charter nonrenewal or revocations can affect credit quality swiftly. However, despite these intrinsic risks, the majority—82%—of S&P Global Ratings’ ratings in the sector carried stable outlooks as of Dec. 31, 2019. While the sector is facing increasing political support for stricter charter laws or oversight in some states, federal government support for school choice remains strong, per-pupil funding is generally stable to growing, and demand for charter schools continues to grow. From a financing standpoint, charter schools’ opportunities and options have expanded and interest rates remain low…

“Our rated universe increasingly reflects more established charter schools, which generally have completed several successful charter renewals, maintain steady academics, and experience less credit volatility than newer schools. While there are inherent credit risks that can affect schools throughout the year, such as failure to meet authorizer standards, charter nonrenewal due to factors such as academics, or enrollment shortfalls, we believe the sector’s outlook for 2020 will continue being stable due to continued demand and growing per-pupil funding levels. However, should charter law and policy changes of significant impact occur in states where we hold a large number of ratings, or some of the broader risks (such as a slowing national economy or recession) transpire during this calendar year, charter schools could face more credit stress.” [Registration required]

VOUCHER PROGRAMS UNDERMINE RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

School Voucher Programs Undermine Religious Liberty, Misuse Taxpayer Funds

The following is from the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. Vouchers aren't good for anyone...

Yes, “choice” sounds like it is associated with “freedom,” but by funneling government funds to religious schools, vouchers actually undermine the religious freedom of both the taxpayer and the religious institution receiving the payment.

Not only do vouchers force taxpayers to support religious education they might disagree with, they also threaten religious autonomy by attaching government regulations that may compromise the religious mission of the school. Once dependent on voucher funds for its success, a church-based school can be even further pushed toward gaining favor with government regulators.

In other words, government neutrality toward religion is good for the state and good for religion.

TALK TO WHITE KIDS ABOUT RACE

White Fragility in Students

We should talk to all our students about race in America.

In our interviews with young people around the country for our Teaching While White podcast, we have seen firsthand an inability among white students to talk about race without exhibiting racial stress. We hear white children as young as nine years old express anxiety about being white and what they think that means. Often these white students, who mind you have volunteered to be interviewed, feel ill equipped and sometimes unable to engage in racial conversations. It seems that we are successfully raising the next generation of white people who, like too many in the current generation of adults, feel afraid and reluctant to talk about race.

There is a common cultural myth that racism is diminishing among youth today. In reality, not only are white students not talking about race, but incidents of blatant individual acts of racism are currently on the rise. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), there has been a surge in reports of hate and bias in schools in the last three years. Racism appears to be the motivation behind a high percentage of these hate and bias incidents, accounting for 63% of incidents reported in the news and 33% of incidents reported by teachers in the SPLC survey. School responses to this uptick in racialized incidents has been disappointing. More than two-thirds of the educators SPLC surveyed had witnessed a hate or bias incident in their school. According to the report, “most of the hate and bias incidents witnessed by educators were not addressed by school leaders. No one was disciplined in 57% of them. Nine times out of 10, administrators failed to denounce the bias or to reaffirm school values.”

👧🏾🚌👦🏻

2020 Medley #6: Public Schools Week

Public schools for the public good,
The failure of "choice",
Where will we find teachers for tomorrow?

PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD

Public Schools Week ends today, though for ninety percent of American schoolchildren the celebration of public education takes place every day during their local school year.

Why do the vast majority of our K-12 students choose public schools? Because public schools don't choose their students. Every child has a place in public schools. No child is turned away. All children are welcome: children with different gender preferences, children of any color, any or no religious affiliation, rich, poor, athletically or academically gifted, or physically or academically challenged.

We support public schools because it's important for us to have a society in which everyone is educated. Educated citizens make informed citizens. Informed citizens make informed choices. Informed choices make for a better society. Jefferson wrote (perhaps naively)...

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be...Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe.

John Adams envisioned a public school system that provided for publicly supported schools across the nation.

The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people, and must 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 expense of the people themselves.

Public Schools Serve The Public Good

The public good is a concept that has always had to fight for survival against human selfishness and it's no different in today's world. Tribalism has replaced a shared public responsibility. We have become a nation in conflict, not cooperation.

Vouchers were born out of a desire to avoid integrating schools. When so-called "separate but equal" schools became unconstitutional in the United States proponents of segregation chose to close public schools and set up private schools using voucher programs. Today's voucher programs benefit mostly religious schools that have the option to choose their students. Only certain students are allowed.

During Public Schools Week, we must recommit ourselves to defend the educational system that serves 90 percent of America’s children: our public schools. One way to do that is by opposing private school voucher schemes.

Reasons to oppose vouchers abound: The plans violate church-state separation and individual conscience because they force taxpayers to pay for private religious education. Voucher schools don’t improve academic performance. Many private schools engage in discriminatory hiring and admissions policies. Vouchers don’t require schools to be accountable to the public.

But there’s another equally compelling reason to oppose vouchers that often gets overlooked: Voucher plans subsidize private schools that serve a private interest, not the public good.

Five Threats To America’s Public School System

Those who feed the forces of tribalism distrust the concept of the public good. Since privatizers are in power, they are a very real threat to public schools.

President Donald Trump...

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos...

Private school lobbying groups...

Anti-government extremists: The simplistic idea that anything the government does is bad has a powerful hold on conservative thought in America. Because public schools are a very common manifestation of a public, government-provided service, they’re a high-profile target for ideologues who favor privatization of as many public services as possible...Never mind that public schools educate the vast majority of American schoolchildren and serve the public good.

Millionaires looking to make a profit: In her new book Slaying Goliath, education writer Diane Ravitch focuses on a band of millionaires (in some cases billionaires) who have decided to make education “reform” a priority. The problem, Ravitch writes, is that these would-be reformers don’t have backgrounds in education and naïvely insist that “market solutions” from the business community can be applied to a public service like education...

National Poll Shows Strong Voter Support for Public Schools

Americans support their public schools and are willing to pay for them, while most are unwilling to pay for private schools. That's why voucher plans usually fail when put to a popular vote. States rely on legislators to fund voucher programs. [emphasis in original]

We surveyed likely voters. Here’s what they said:

Funding for Public Schools

• 64% think funding for public schools should be increased

• 26% think funding should be kept the same, and only 6% thinking funding should be decreased

• Of those who believe funding should be increased, eight out of ten would support an increase in funding even if it meant they would pay more in taxes.

Public Funds for Private Schools

• 73% agree with the statement we should NOT take away public funds from our public schools to fund private, religious, and home school education

• 64% of voters are...less likely to vote for an elected official who supports taking away funds from public schools to give to private schools, including 47% who would be much less likely to do so

Schools And Other Shared Public Spaces

Curmudgucation's Peter Greene is a fan of public education, the public good, and shared public spaces...

I remain a fan of public education in no small part because it is one of the last shared public places left, even as it is being whittled away. It is a space that reflects the big unruly mess that is a democratic-ish country, and yes that means conflicts and negotiations and an unending clash of conflicting values and goals. But the proposed alternative--these people want something different so they'll just go over there by themselves--requires a continued breaking of relationships, a repeated running away from conflict in place of resolutions. In fact, a worsening of conflict, because once separated into private slices, everyone can just create cartoon strawman versions of Those People Over There to revile and deride.

I've been reading about the ideal for years--if you want to send your kid to a private school for left-handed druids who don't believe in evolution but do believe in global warming, and who want to play in a marching band, well, then, you should be able to make that choice. Everyone should have their own choice of a hundred separate different school systems. But we already know how well "separate but equal" works out. And by demanding that such a ecosystem of parallel schools be organized by free market forces, we guarantee failure, because the free market is great for picking winners and losers, terrible for creating equity among disparate groups.

THE FAILURE OF "CHOICE"

National School Choice Week is actually about promoting certain choices over others

Those who are privatizing our public education systems are creating a system of winners and losers.

Surely some well-meaning parents and students celebrated. But they were joined by powerful people who, despite what they say, don’t believe that every child deserves a great school. Instead, these people believe in a certain kind of choice over all others. In their worldview, market choice is more important than democracy, parents are consumers rather than members of a broader community, and education is a competition between students, with winners and losers.

School choice costing taxpayers

I'd be remiss if I didn't include information about the charter school scandal now swirling in Indiana...where virtual charter school operators paid themselves and their own businesses $85 million. The money came from state tuition support and included funds for students who were never enrolled in the so-called schools.

The legislature blames the Department of Education, despite the fact that the privatization laws passed in the Indiana General Assembly were lax enough to allow such cheating and conflicts of interest to happen.

This is not unique to Indiana. Privatizers around the nation regularly steal tax money from public schools. The Network for Public Education has been tracking charter school scandals. The current list includes more than two dozen scandals from across the nation in January 2020 alone.

For further reading: Still Asleep at the Wheel: How the Federal Charter Schools Program Results in a Pileup of Fraud and Waste

Blaming the Department of Education for the abuses of charter school operators is like blaming the BMV for the actions of a drunk driver. Responsibility for lax regulations and oversight for both charter schools and voucher schools falls squarely on Bosma and the GOP supermajority. In cozying up to the deep-pocketed school-choice community, they ignored glaring examples of corruption here and elsewhere. It was almost 11 years ago when The Journal Gazette first reported on the suspicious real estate deals surrounding two Imagine Inc. charter schools in Fort Wayne – schools that eventually shut down with $3.6 million in outstanding state loans.

Charter school scandals are so common that the Network for Public Education began collecting them on a website and tagging them on Twitter: #AnotherDayAnotherCharterScandal.

WHO WILL BE TOMORROW'S TEACHERS?

The Number Of People Who Want To Teach Has Dropped By More Than Half This Decade

Public schools are being starved by privatizers diverting tax money to charters and vouchers. Teaching in underfunded schools isn't easy, so it's no wonder that young people are turning their backs on careers in education.

Federal data shows during the 2008-09 school year, 18,113 people were enrolled in teacher preparation programs in [Indiana]. But in 2016, that number was cut by more than half; the programs training future teachers saw only 7,127 people enrolled.

What message are we sending to the future?

🚌🚌🚌

2017 Medley #13

Choice, Alternate Facts, Tenure, Testing,
Virtual Charters, Accountability,
Lead Poisoned Children

CHOICE

School Choice: The Faustian Bargain

"...corporate education reformers," says Russ Walsh in this blog post, "are anti-democracy." That statement rings true, especially now, at the end of this year's Indiana General Assembly Session. Legislation making the state's Superintendent of Public Instruction an appointed position first failed, and then passed the General Assembly after significant political manipulations from legislators who were anxious to take the right to vote for education away from the people. The state Board of Education is already filled with political appointees, and now, beginning in 2025, the office of the Superintendent will be as well making Indiana one of only six states where both the executive head of the Department of Education and the members of state's board of education are appointed.

These are the same anti-democratic legislators who have spent the last half dozen years transferring tax money from public schools to the pockets of corporate charters and church-run private schools. The budget for this year, for example, gives public schools a 1.6% increase while increasing funding for "Choice Scholarships" (vouchers) by 7% and giving SGO tax credits a whopping 31%...all paid for with public tax dollars.

I suggest that those of us who oppose vouchers and charter schools call school choice what it is in the eyes of that Ohio voter, tax theft. The government collects our taxes in order to provide essential services to all of us. There is no choice involved, we all must pay taxes (unless, apparently, we are hugely wealthy). Those essential services include providing for a military, promoting research on health and welfare, providing for police and fire protection, and funding public schools. When money is diverted from the support of the public schools, it amounts to, as the Ohio voter said, theft. Or maybe another way to say it is "taxation without representation", since voters have no voice and no oversight of how tax money is spent in schools that receive money through vouchers or charters.

Unfortunate goal of school choice movement

The goal of "reformers" is, apparently, the complete and total destruction of public education.

Many years ago, Jerry Falwell articulated the goal of the school choice movement well when he said, "I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!"

This op-ed by David R. Currie, Ph.D., of Pastors for Texas Children, could easily have been written about the state of Indiana.

Vouchers, school choice, education savings accounts — they are all code words intended to mask the real aim of this movement: destroy public education in America and turn all schools into institutions of religious indoctrination.

ALTERNATE FACTS

THIS Is What’s Wrong With America

Congressman: "Don't confuse me with facts..."

A Facebook friend who lives in Todd Rokita’s Congressional district attended his recent Town Hall. In a post following the event, she reported on an exchange she had with the Congressman:

My question was “What evidence do you require in order to revise your opinion on climate change?”

His response was “No evidence could ever exist that would change my mind. It’s all Liberal science.”

...I really never expected to live in a country where science and empirical research required defense, but evidently Luddites aren’t simply historical oddities. So later this morning, I will join other Hoosiers at the Statehouse to participate in a “March for Science.”

TENURE

Checker Still Doesn't Understand Tenure

"Reformist" politicians in Indiana have frequently commented on how there are too many well-rated teachers. The complaint is that if there are so many "A" or "B" rated teachers, why aren't there more "A" or "B" rated schools?

This reflects a basic misunderstanding of the process of education and why it's essential that educators participate in the policy-making process. Yet we continue to see "education" conferences, panels, and gatherings where the teachers' voices are absent. We continue to see the federal government education department staffed with non-educators – and those who are hostile to public education. We continue to see the movement for laws and policies which restrict teachers' ability to do their job.

...instead of saying, "Hey, teachers are mostly well-rated, so the profession must be in good shape," reformsters say, "Hey, teachers are mostly well-rated, so the evaluation system must be broken, because we just know that a huge number of teachers suck." So, data is good, unless it conflicts with your pre-conceived biases, in which case, just throw the data out.

"Tenure" is perhaps the most misunderstood concept in K-12 education. It's also a concept which "reformers" disingenuously claim, allows teachers a "job for life." "Tenure" in K-12 education doesn't mean "a job for life" as Chester Finn of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute believes. Instead, the K-12 version of "tenure" simply provides teachers with due process.

In Indiana, when K-12 teachers had tenure, teachers who administrations wanted to fire were allowed a hearing before an impartial observer. When administrators did their jobs, teachers who were guilty of immorality, incompetence, or illegal behavior, were fired. Since 2011, however, teachers in Indiana longer have "tenure." A teacher who is going to be fired may request a meeting with the superintendent, or with the school board, but no impartial observer is required.

...while there are some large districts where the process is long, convoluted and prohibitively difficult, mostly "We can't fire her because if tenure" is administrator-speak for "I could fire her, but it would take a lot of time and I'd have to, you know, work really hard, and then I would have to find a replacement and you know how hard that would be and I'm already backed up on meetings this week and now some kid just threw up in the hall, so how about I just blame her on the union and tenure and get back to my own work." Where burdensome dismissal procedures exist, they have been negotiated into contracts. Fixing those contracts by outlawing tenure is like fixing the electoral college by installing a dictatorship-- little bit of overkill.

TESTING

The Wrong Medicine

When school "reform" was in its infancy the "reformers" insisted that their policies would improve student achievement and reduce the economic/racial achievement gap. After several decades of "reformist" policies such as excessive testing and test prep, vouchers, and charter schools, the results are in. Students do no better now than they did before the "reforms" were initiated.

One of the worst problems features of "reform" is the overuse and misuse of standardized testing. Teachers no longer use test results to guide their instruction because, in most cases, the results of the tests are not timely or specific enough to help. When results are finally returned, they are used to evaluate teachers, grade schools and school systems, and as justification for closing neighborhood schools, none of which are appropriate or valid uses of the test scores.

At what point do parents, teachers, and administrators stand up and say “Enough is enough?” When do we begin to refuse to allow the removal of even one more dollar from our classrooms to continue to support this enormous exercise in futility.

How about now? Today.

The right number of standardized tests that we should be forcing down the throats of our children is precisely zero. The tests do not help our children, our teachers, or our parents. They have not improved education in America one bit.

VIRTUAL CHARTERS

Virtual Schools in the U.S. 2017

Note the recommendations in this report – virtual charter schools should be held to the same accountability standards as public schools.

During her confirmation hearing, when Senator Tim Kaine asked her about equal accountability for private and privately run schools accepting public tax dollars, Secretary DeVos repeated the phrase, "I support accountability" over and over again, refusing to answer whether all schools should be held to the same accountability. This report would seem to indicate that the answer to the question should have been "Yes, all schools receiving tax dollars should be held to the same accountability standards."

Given the rapid growth of virtual schools and blended schools, the populations they serve, and the relatively poor performance of virtual schools on widely used accountability measures, it is recommended that:

• Policymakers slow or stop the growth in the number of virtual schools and the size of their enrollments...

• Policymakers should carefully and continuously monitor the performance of fulltime blended schools...

• Authorities charged with oversight should specify and enforce sanctions for virtual and blended schools that fail to perform adequately.

• Policymakers should specify a maximum student-teacher ratio for virtual and blended schools...

• Policymakers should regulate school and class sizes...

• State agencies ensure that virtual schools and blended schools fully report data related to the population of students they serve and the teachers they employ...

• State agencies should continue the work they’ve started in revising accountability systems...

• State and federal policymakers should promote efforts to design new outcome measures appropriate to the unique characteristics of full-time virtual schools

• Policymakers and other stakeholders should support more research to identify which policy options—especially those impacting funding and accountability mechanisms—are most likely to promote successful virtual schools and blended schools...

• Policymakers and other stakeholders should also support more research on exactly how special education is being provided in virtual and blended schools....

FLINT, LEAD

Marc Edwards – How to Address the U.S. Water Crisis in Flint and Beyond

Is your water safe?

🚌🚌🚌

2016 Medley #17

Equity, Corporate Reform, Failure, Charters, ADHD, the War on Public Education, Community Schools, RtI

EQUITY

Chris Christie Punches Poor School Children in the Face

In the last session of the Indiana General Assembly the state's legislators decided to provide more money to wealthy districts and less money to poor districts. Now, New Jersey's Chris Christie has done the same. It's what Republican "reformist" policy makers do.

Rick Riordan wrote in his young adult novel The Red Pyramid, "Fairness does not mean everyone gets the same. Fairness means everyone gets what they need." That, in a nutshell, is the difference between equality and equity. With equality every school gets the same. With equity every school gets what it needs. As long as our policy makers are unable, or unwilling, to deal with the massive level of child poverty in the country, our schools, and all our public services for children, need to focus on equity.

It is, of course, clear that impoverished urban areas need more money to provide a decent education to children hobbled by the impact of poverty, poor nutrition, poor health care, high crime rates and unemployment. Recognition of this is what made New Jersey a national leader in providing extra resources to urban schools through the Abbott decisions of three decades ago. Christie says that the urban schools are getting the extra money, but are under-performing. He should know since for the last six years many of those districts have been under his control and he has failed at every turn to make improvements...

Christie's one-size-fits-all plan for taxation does not meet our most basic understandings of fairness and justice.

TRAIN WRECK

Going Off the Rails

Corporate education "reform" is a train wreck failure. "Failing" schools closed throughout the country have been replaced with other schools that, based on "reformers'" favorite metric, test scores, were "failures."

No matter how hard you work, malnourished and traumatized children will not score as high on standardized tests as children of the wealthy. No matter how well trained the teacher is, children who lack medical and dental care will not learn as well. No matter how much you threaten, teachers alone cannot overcome all the deleterious effects of poverty, segregation, and racism.

How long will we keep feeding fuel to a train wreck?

At what point after a locomotive crashes should the engineer and fireman stop shoveling coal?

I would think the first priorities in the above scenario would be to clean up the wreckage, investigate the cause of the crash, and then work to correct the reasons why the train went off the tracks in the first place.

That’s if you believe train wrecks are generally something to be avoided.

Therefore, adding more fuel to the flame by continuing to shovel coal into a broken train engine would be rather idiotic, right?

FAILURE

The Failure of Failure

Alfie Kohn reminds us that progressive education works better than canned programs and "teacher–proof" scripts.

A few years ago, two researchers in Singapore published a study that compared the effect of traditional and progressive instruction in middle-school math. The traditional approach consisted of having students listen to lectures and individually solve practice problems with clearly defined right answers. The progressive approach was defined by collaboration, discovery, and open-ended questions.

If you’re surprised to learn that the latter turned out to be much more effective — producing “deeper conceptual understanding without compromising performance [on conventional measures of achievement]” across “a spectrum of. . .ability levels” — well, chances are you haven’t been following the research in this area. It’s long been clear that direct instruction and other traditional practices aren’t very effective in general and are particularly counterproductive with younger children.

VIRTUAL CHARTERS: GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD

A Call to Action to Improve the Quality of Full-Time Virtual Charter Public Schools

Virtual (online) charter schools are so bad even charter school advocacy groups admit it.

This report from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and the National Association of Charter School Authorizers reinforces the fact that virtual charter schools are failures. Their solution? Have the public pay to continue the failed experiment through continued funding of such schools. Let the profit continue while the privatizers try to fix things.

The well-documented, disturbingly low performance by too many full-time virtual charter public schools should serve as a call to action to state leaders and authorizers across the country.

It is time for state leaders to make the tough policy changes necessary to ensure that this model works more effectively than it currently does for the students it serves.

It is also time for authorizers to close chronically low-performing virtual charter schools.

Our organizations plan to work actively with state leaders and authorizers as they embark on these efforts.

ADHD

When ADHD Collides With Grit: What to Do?

I grew up with untreated "minimal brain dysfunction" (the name for ADHD in the 50s and 60s)...and struggled as a student. I kept hearing "you're just lazy," "you need to try harder," and "you give up too easily." Year after year (decade after decade) of the same negative messages has a tendency to damage one's confidence (to say the least). It's still something I struggle with daily half a century later!

Demanding "grit" in students with ADHD is contraindicated. The one size fits all mentality (aka 'learn or be punished') damages our most vulnerable students and denies them of their right to an appropriate education.

...is today’s grit more punitive than helpful? Is it just an excuse to browbeat students into accomplishing unproven school agendas, or to insist that they put up with the lousy conditions adults fail to fix?

Think about the loss of recess. Is that supposed to teach grit?

In special education the goal for students with ADHD, or other differences, has always been about helping students find what they do best.

THE WAR AGAINST PUBLIC EDUCATION

Why the right hates American history

In light of Oklahoma’s recent attack on AP History, it would be easy to argue that today’s Republicans don’t recognize the value of a good education. However, the reality is that they do, and that the spreading attack on public education is far more sinister.

When the Patriot Act was signed, Bush and his ilk claimed the power to violate citizens’ private lives because, they said, there is no “right to privacy” in the United States. In that, they – perhaps purposefully – overlooked the history of America and the Declaration of Independence, signed on July 4, 1776. And they missed a basic understanding of the evolution of language in the United States.

Of course, they weren’t the first to have made these mistakes. And, the Conservatives waging today’s war on education hope that they won’t be the last.

COMMUNITY SCHOOLS

A Community Is More of a Community When It Has a School

Public schools provide an anchor for communities. They provide stability for children...something lacking when "failing" schools – i.e. schools in poor communities – are closed and replaced by charters which don't do any better.

Local schools are important for both urban and rural communities. "Churn" and disruption might be good for business, but it doesn't help children.

...while a community school reflects and preserves the strengths of its community, it also reflects the problems and weaknesses as well. But I also know, and have seen with my own eyes, that a community is more of a community when it has a school, a place where all members of that community come together to care for and nurture one of their most precious resources—their children. In a democratic society, that has to count for something.

RTI FAILS

Response to Intervention Falls Short

I was talking to a former colleague last week – a special education teacher – about Response to Intervention (RtI) and how it isn't working. We agreed that it seemed to be a way of keeping children from getting the special educational services they deserved – saving the school system money.

Many schools and school systems adopted RtI plans because money needed to fully support special education services was inadequate – public schools are still waiting for promised federal support. There are just too many kids who need help, and not enough special education teachers – as well as not enough money to pay special education teachers – to go around.

If we, as a nation, actually cared about our children (as opposed to "my children") we would make sure that extra help was provided when needed. Instead we dump the impossible task of fulfilling every classroom need on overworked and under–supported classroom teachers...and then blame them when it doesn't work.

A US Department of Education study evaluated RtI and found that there was little research basis for using it as a method of helping students. In fact, the report reports that RtI was worse than ineffective. It actually made things worse for some students.

...this study examined over 20,000 students in 13 states and found that first grade students who received RTI actually performed worse than a similar peer group that did not. Instead of catching up to grade level, the students receiving RTI lost the equivalent of one-tenth of a school year. To quote one of the study’s authors: “[T]his turns out to be what RTI looks like when it plays out in daily life.”

###

The Push Towards Privatization

What do public schools, airports, prisons, hospitals, parking services, state parks, and municipal water supplies have in common?

They're all being considered for privatization in one state or another.

Apparently privatization is the cure-all for society's ills. The movement to privatize all public sector institutions and jobs is based on the assumption that government is always inefficient and bad...the private sector (free market) is always more efficient and good.

In The History of the School Privatization Movement Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall writes

Neoliberal Republicans and Tea Partiers (and now Barack Obama and Department of Education director Arne Duncan) give lip service to improving achievement levels for students in inner city schools. However instead of improving funding to these struggling schools, the one intervention supported by statistical research, they continue to aggressively shift education funding from public schools to private charter schools – despite the Stanford study showing that charter programs don’t improve achievement levels (see previous blog). In my mind, this is totally consistent with what I believe is their real agenda – namely privatizing public education.

Neoliberalism seeks to privatize all public services (education, social security, water, prisons, public transportation, welfare services) – leaving a bare bones government with a strictly security and military role. Neoliberals argue that public provision of these services is inefficient and wasteful – problems that can only be corrected by subjecting them to free market competition. But as we have seen in the case of prison, water, and welfare privatization, there are always windfall profits for businesses and corporations when billions of public, taxpayer dollars are transferred to private hands.

In other words, privatization isn't just for education...it's for everything.

That's wrong. Instead of destroying public institutions we should support them and improve them where necessary. Public oversight is essential in a democratic society.

The privatization efforts discussed in the articles below are from Privatization Watch, a web site which tracks privatization efforts throughout the country. Several times a week it lists articles from newspapers, blogs, web sites and other media outlets covering attempts to privatize America. The articles below specifically refer to public education.

~~~

Bill opens up funding for private virtual schools

There is so much money spent on public education...edupreneurs are chomping at the bit to get some of it. The "product" is education...and they'll jump in without any previous experience using "business" methods (think: Enron) to run their "schools." The result has not helped children learn. The motive is profit...not the education of our youngest citizens.

May 13, 2013

Private online learning companies will get a better shot at Florida public school funding under a bill that won approval on the final day of the legislative session.

Though the vote garnered little attention from outside observers, Republicans hailed it as among the year's most important victories for school choice.

..."If you want to get at the largest portion of the state budget that has not been privatized, it is education," said Jeff Wright, who oversees public policy advocacy for the Florida Education Association, the state teachers union. "That's what this is all about. This is about allowing outside vendors to get a piece of the action."

How School Privatizers Buy Elections

It takes money to win an election. This is true at local levels as well as national. More and more state legislators are taking money from wealthy donors to win their local elections, thereby aligning themselves with the policies of the donors. The citizen legislators envisioned by the founding fathers has given way to professional politicians.

“Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.” – Thomas Jefferson

“The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.” – James Madison

May 8, 2013

A fundamental struggle for democracy is going on behind the scenes in statehouses around the country, as a handful of wealthy individuals and foundations pour money into efforts to privatize the public schools.

...So it was fascinating when investigative reporter Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ripped the veil off a secretive organization and its hidden political activities by publishing a copy of the American Federation for Children's "2012 Election Impact Report."

The report, which was clearly meant only for members and donors, outlines how the American Federation of Children pours millions of dollars into state races around the country to back candidates who support school vouchers and other measures that siphon public money into private schools.

Evidence doesn't support choice program expansion

Supporters of public education must understand that the goal of "reformers" isn't improved education. It's privatization. The "reformers" will use the promise of improved education to get their policies adopted, then, when the education doesn't improve (and privatization schemes haven't improved the education of our children), they'll abandon that reason and switch to another...usually choice. The argument is that parents deserve "choice" in where they send their children to school, just like they do when they buy groceries or shoes. The choice, however, ends up belonging to the corporate bottom line of the school...to profit, not to parents. Children who are hard to educate or who don't toe the line will often be asked to go elsewhere.

Charter* schools, vouchers, firing teachers and administrators, closing neighborhood schools, misuse and overuse of testing, removing teachers' job securities, decreased funding...none of the privatization schemes have resulted in improved student achievement.

Fact: Public. Schools. Accept. All. Children.

April 30, 2013

Legislators should be skeptical of a proposal by Gov. Scott Walker to sharply expand the school voucher program. There isn't much evidence that students in voucher schools are better educated; in fact, they seem to perform at about the same level as their peers in mainline public schools.

Louisiana’s Great Education Giveaway

No Child Left Behind, when adopted, was touted as a plan which would help those children whose needs were being systematically ignored. The rationale for the law was laudable, however, in actual practice NCLB, along with it's successor, Race to the Top, has done the opposite. More and more children are left behind as schools are closed and resources are eliminated.

April 26, 2013

A writer recently hailed federal and state education reform as a new civil rights movement. But the word reform, which means “the improvement . . . of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory,” can hardly be applied to the recent changes in educational law. Most of these changes are not for the better. Instead, they create a separate and wholly unequal educational system masquerading as choice, which serves to destabilize and discredit public schools in the name of improvement and to make state funds accessible to a wide range of individuals and corporations with little or no oversight.

This article examines recent legislation that dramatically expanded state takeover of schools after Hurricane Katrina, shows how the changes are contrary to educational research on effective schools, and points to some examples of schools and programs gone awry under this new regime.

The Parent Trigger Bill: A shot at privatization

Parent trigger bills provide for a small number of people, who happen to be parents of current students in a school, to give away a public institution paid for through years of taxpayer investment. Millions of public dollars go into building, maintaining and staffing public schools. Fifty-one percent of this year's parents shouldn't have the right to give that away. We need to support and improve public education...not destroy it.

April 19, 2013

Careful analysis of this legislation reveals its clear but unstated goal, public dollars for private companies and a diversion of resources from the public education system. Since 1991 the Legislature has reduced state funding for our schools from 62 percent to 49 percent. They have created charter schools that take money out of the public school system and are currently considering allowing charter schools to receive capital outlay dollars. These taxpayer dollars are designated to be used for maintenance and repair of public school buildings. Now, we are considering giving taxpayer dollars and buildings to private corporations.

This is all a strategy implemented and promoted by charter companies and conservative think-tank groups. If you think public education cannot be taken over by the private sector, remember there was a time when we had a Department of Labor and a Department of Commerce. Those two agencies no longer exist, and their responsibilities have been taken over by private organizations. In the process, Florida has lost millions of federal dollars that once flowed through the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor.

Editorial - Legislators’ ‘fixes’ for public education may inflict irreparable damage

The goal is weaker public schools. The goal is the elimination of public education. The goal is privatization.

April 18, 2013

For a group of politicians who claim they want to strengthen our public schools, the Honorables have a strange way of going about it. In their world, better public schools can be had only by siphoning off students and money into charter and private schools, and by eliminating the cap on class sizes in the lower grades, a factor that has been shown to improve academic achievement. At the same time, the same group of lawmakers is working to put tight caps on preschool education, another success story in education.

No, the way the Honorables in the General Assembly are going, the result can only be weaker public schools left with fewer resources to teach the very students the so-called educational improvements were designed to help. Is that their actual intent?

*References to charters generally imply corporate, for-profit charter schools. Quotes from other writers reflect their opinions only. See It's Important to Look in a Mirror Now and Then.

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

~~~

Back to School

Walk through any discount department store today and it's clear that it's "that time of year" again...time to buy school supplies.

I remember as a kid being excited each year when it was time to get new school supplies. I wasn't a great student, but each year was an opportunity to start over...a chance to do better. For me it was like baseball...no matter how much trouble a team had one year, the next year, when the season starts, everyone has an equal chance to become the champion. Every year is a fresh start.

There are some things I miss about teaching...

I miss the beginning of the school year.

What? It's monumentally stressful -- getting the room set up, counting out books, sorting out name tags/desk charts, making a schedule, going to meetings, talking to last year's teachers, the late nights/early mornings of seemingly endless preparation and paperwork -- the 12-14 hour days.

True...I don't miss all that, but I do miss the excitement of meeting new children. I miss the delightful experience of learning about young humans and their fresh minds, sharing new ideas and getting to know new senses of humor and interests. I miss watching them come into the building for the first time in the new year...the confused, and excited grins on their faces as they search for their classroom and their new teacher. I even miss the ones who come in terrified and lost...I miss how that fear changes to pleasure as they see the familiar face of a friend from the previous year, or to relief as they finally find their classroom and seat...their own personal space, safe and clean.

The newness of each school year is one of those thousands of little things which makes teaching so much fun and such a great adventure. Every year is a new beginning...a chance to start over...a chance to do better. Every year is a fresh start...for teachers as well as students.

In 1951 Isaac Asimov wrote a short story titled The Fun They Had*. It's the story of a young boy who finds a book...

The Fun They Had

The story takes place in the year 2157, where teaching is performed by computer-like robots with vast information stores. The protagonists of this story are two children, Tommy and Margie. Tom, the older child, finds a real book in his attic. He is very surprised by the object because the words on the page do not move like the words on the screen of their mechanical teacher.

The book describes the school from centuries earlier, where there was a real man as teacher that gave homework and asked questions to his students, and all the boys and girls went into a special building. Margie is very curious but her mother calls her because it is time for school. School for Tom and Margie takes place at home in a room where they do homework and hand it in via a proper slot in a mechanical teacher.

The teacher in Asimov's story was mechanical -- a precursor of today's online schools. Margie thought that it would be so much more fun to attend a school like in the old days...with real people, a human teacher and other children.

Walt Gardner, while scolding teachers unions for alienating their most logical supporters, wrote,

...public schools are at an historic crossroads. Whether they will even exist decades from now is uncertain. If they somehow manage to survive, however, I don't think they'll be recognizable.

Perhaps not...it's obvious that the public school system of the US is in flux...charters, vouchers, online schools...who knows what things will look like when Margie and Tommy find a real book about todays schools 145 years in the future.

But if they are so different that there's no interaction among children, if real live human teachers are distant or non-existent, then something more than simple buildings will have been lost. A school is more than just the building, the books, the pencils, and the iPads.

A school is a place where children and adults begin fresh each year to explore the world together. It's a place where one generation literally sits at the feet of their elders to be introduced to our cultures, our knowledge and our shared experiences. It's a place where wonder grows in a community of learners.

One cannot get that experience sitting in front of a computer at a virtual school.

Today I miss the beginning of the school year because I'm not there to enjoy it. I dread the possibility of a time when I might miss it because it no longer exists.



* According to Wikipedia, The Fun They Had was written as a personal favor for a friend, and became more popular than Asimov ever expected. It is the most anthologized of all his stories and has appeared in many publications outside of the science fiction genre. I first read it when I found it included in a basal reader from which I taught during my first full year as an elementary teacher.

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

~~~