The Assault on Teachers' Unions

The Assault on Teachers’ Unions

By Richard D. Kahlenberg

Teachers’ unions are under unprecedented bipartisan attack. The drumbeat is relentless, from governors in Wisconsin and Ohio to the film directors of Waiting for “Superman” and The Lottery; from new lobbying groups

like Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst and Wall Street’s Democrats for Education Reform to political columnists such as Jonathan Alter and George Will; from new books like political scientist Terry Moe’s Special Interest and entrepreneurial writer Steven Brill’s Class Warfare to even, at times, members of the Obama administration. The consistent message is that teachers’ unions are the  central impediment to educational progress in the United States. Part of the assault is unsurprising given its partisan origins. Republicans have long been critical, going back to at least 1996, when presidential candidate Bob Dole scolded teachers’ unions: “If education were a war, you would be losing it. If it were a business, you would be driving it into bankruptcy. If it were a patient, it would be dying.” If you’re a Republican who wants to win elections, going after teachers’ unions makes parochial sense.

Romney touts dismantling of bilingual education

by Leslie Maxwell

Romney Touts Role in Dismantling Bilingual Education in Mass.

The Iowa caucuses are just a few days away and Mitt Romney, at least as of this morning, appears to be the frontrunner in the first contest of the 2012 presidential nomination sweepstakes.

For those of you trying to make a decision about the GOP candidates based on their education policies and philosophy, you can get a lot of insight on Romney over at Politics K-12, where Alyson Klein details the candidate's thinking about schooling by parsing a chapter from his book "No Apology: The Case for American Greatness."

Two pages in that chapter get into Romney's view on bilingual education vs. English immersion, which is interesting but not terribly surprising.

While he was governor of Massachusetts, Romney said he kept hearing that students were graduating from high schools in his state without being fluent in English. Those anecdotes were coming to him in the months after Massachusetts voters had passed a ballot initiative to curtail bilingual education in the state.

Astonished by this, the then-governor set about examining the state's bilingual education programs and asking questions about their effectiveness. He said the data were "scant" on whether bilingual programs produced better outcomes for students than English immersion programs. He picked up the phone and "called principals in California," where bilingual education had mostly been replaced with English immersion. The principals he talked to told him English immersion was better for students learning the language.

A Nation's Education Left Behind | Common Dreams

A Nation's Education Left Behind | Common Dreams

Diane Ravitch

Against National Tests - Stephen Krashen

Against National Standards and National Tests
Stephen Krashen
to appear on: TOPed.org, Thoughts on Public Education in California
December, 2011

The movement for national standards and tests is based on these claims: (1)  Our educational system is broken, as revealed by US students' scores on international tests; (2) We must improve education to improve the economy; (3) The way to improve education is to have national standards and national tests that enforce the standards. 
 
Each of these claims is false. 

(1) Our schools are not broken. The problem is poverty. Test scores of students from middle-class homes who attend well-funded schools are among the best in world. Our mediocre overall scores are due to the fact that the US has the highest level of child poverty among all industrialized countries (now over 21%, compared to high-scoring Finland’s 5%). Poverty means poor nutrition, inadequate health care, and lack of access to books, among other things. All of these negatively impact school performance. 

(2) Existing evidence strongly suggests that improving the economy improves children's educational outcomes. Yes, a better education can lead to a better job, but only if jobs exist. 

(3) There is no evidence that national standards and national tests have improved student learning in the past.
 
No educator is opposed to assessments that help students to improve their learning. The amount of testing proposed by the US Department of Education in connection to national standards, far more than the already excessive amount demanded by NCLB, however, is excessive and will not help learning. 

Additional budget cuts coming this week

Additional state budget cuts to higher education, k-12, and other services are predicted for this week.

They are called Trigger Cuts. They may well reach k-12. 

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/12/4116082/californias-financial-forecast.html

Current tests, ludicrous, dysfunctional

Parents. Would you force your kids to take these tests?
WHEN AN ADULT TOOK STANDARDIZED TESTS FORCED ON KIDS
Washington Post "The Answer Sheet" Blog -- December 5, 2011
By Marion Brady

A longtime friend on the school board of one of the largest school
systems in America did something that few public servants are willing to
do. He took versions of his state’s high-stakes standardized math and
reading tests for 10th graders, and said he’d make his scores public.

By any reasonable measure, my friend is a success. His now-grown kids
are well-educated. He has a big house in a good part of town. Paid-for
condo in the Caribbean. Influential friends. Lots of frequent flyer
miles. Enough time of his own to give serious attention to his school
board responsibilities. The margins of his electoral wins and his good
relationships with administrators and teachers testify to his openness
to dialogue and willingness to listen.

He called me the morning he took the test to say he was sure he hadn’t
done well, but had to wait for the results. A couple of days ago,
realizing that local school board members don’t seem to be playing much
of a role in the current “reform” brouhaha, I asked him what he now
thought about the tests he’d taken.

“I won’t beat around the bush,” he wrote. “The math section had 60
questions. I knew the answers to none of them, but managed to guess ten
out of the 60 correctly. On the reading test, I got 62% . In our system,
that’s a “D”, and would get me a mandatory assignment to a double block
of reading instruction.

He continued, “It seems to me something is seriously wrong. I have a
bachelor of science degree, two masters degrees, and 15 credit hours
toward a doctorate.

“I help oversee an organization with 22,000 employees and a $3 billion
operations and capital budget, and am able to make sense of complex data
related to those responsibilities.

Why School Choice Fails

Natalie Hopkinson.

IF you want to see the direction that education reform is taking the country, pay a visit to my leafy, majority-black neighborhood in Washington. While we have lived in the same house since our 11-year-old son was born, he’s been assigned to three different elementary schools as one after the other has been shuttered. Now it’s time for middle school, and there’s been no neighborhood option available.

Meanwhile, across Rock Creek Park in a wealthy, majority-white community, there is a sparkling new neighborhood middle school, with rugby, fencing, an international baccalaureate curriculum and all the other amenities that make people pay top dollar to live there.

Such inequities are the perverse result of a “reform” process intended to bring choice and accountability to the school system. Instead, it has destroyed community-based education for working-class families, even as it has funneled resources toward a few better-off, exclusive, institutions.

My neighborhood’s last free-standing middle school was closed in 2008, part of a round of closures by then Mayor Adrian Fenty and his schools chancellor, Michelle Rhee. The pride and gusto with which they dismantled those institutions was shameful, but I don’t blame them. The closures were the inevitable outcome of policies hatched years before.

How Online Learning Companies Bought America's Schools | The Nation

How Online Learning Companies Bought America's Schools | The Nation

Defend California public education

Please sign and forward out widely the Open Letter to Defend CA Public Education:

http://www.change.org/petitions/open-letter-defend-ca-public-education

This Open Letter is an indispensable tool to reverse the attacks on public education in California. It gives the authorities an ultimatum: either cede to our demands or we will begin a massive wave of actions beginning on February 1, 2012.

Please help us gather hundreds of thousands of signatures -- including from all major labor, student, and community organizations -- by forwarding this out widely. Moreover, please begin organizing on the ground to make February 1, 2012 the start of the largest, most united, and most powerful wave of actions California has yet seen.

(This Open Letter was first adopted by the Nov. 15 General Assembly of Occupy Cal, the largest GA in the history of the U.S. Occupy movement, with more than 5,000 students, faculty, and campus workers. For more information, contactcaloccupation@gmail.com )

California and NCLB

State Schools Chief Torlakson Issues Statement on NCLB Waiver

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson issued the following statement today regarding the State Board of Education's initial discussion of whether to seek a waiver* from the provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act:

"I commend President Michael Kirst and members of the State Board of Education for their thoughtful discussion today, and their willingness to examine both the benefits and the costs associated with the extensive conditions California would have to meet to seek a waiver of the provisions of No Child Left Behind.

"As a state, we are being asked to make wholesale changes that would affect the operation of every school—with very little time and no new resources—all to receive temporary respite from a law that, thankfully, Congress is in the process of rewriting.

"I continue to believe that the best answer for addressing a bad law is to replace it with a good one. However, recognizing the immediate need for relief among so many schools, the State Board will continue to examine the option of applying for a waiver in a manner that reflects the state's priorities, timetables, and budget constraints."

Rally to Defend Your Education

Michelle Rhee takes $35,000 from students

THU OCT 27, 2011 AT 01:00 PM PDT

Michelle Rhee takes discounted speaking fee of just $35,000 from public university +*

Michelle Rhee doesn't just peddle her brand of education "reform" for political power and media stardom—she does it for cash. Earlier this month, Rhee spoke at Kent State University at Stark, which as you might guess is a public university. Her fee was a mere $35,000,

plus expenses of not more than $5,000 that the school was to provide, including:

— first-class airfare

— a VIP hotel suite

— meals and “all reasonable incidentals”

— town car and driver for ride from Rhee’s home to the airport, airport to the hotel, hotel to the engagement “or any combination thereof”

But it's not like Rhee's greedy or anything—for this relatively small public university, Rhee offered a substantial discount from her usual rate of $50,000 for a speaking engagement. Blogger At the Chalk Face notes that:

Tell Congress to Speak Up For Kids, Support the American Jobs Act

Veto message SB 547.

To the members of the California State Senate:

I am returning Senate Bill 547 without my signature.

This bill is yet another siren song for school reform. It renames the Academic Performance Index (API) and reduces its significance by adding three other quantitative measures.

While I applaud the author’s desire to improve the API, I don’t believe that this bill would make the state’s accountability regime either more probing or more fair.

This bill requires a new collection of indices called the “Education Quality Index” (EQI), consisting of “multiple indicators,”many of which are ill-defined and some impossible to design. These “multiple indicators” are to change over time, causing measurement instability and muddling the picture of how schools perform.

SB547 would also add significant costs and confusion to the implementation of the newly-adopted Common Core standards which must be in place by 2014. This bill would require us to introduce a whole new system of accountability at the same time we are required to carry out extensive revisions to school curriculum, teaching materials and tests. That doesn’t make sense.

Finally, while SB547 attempts to improve the API, it relies on the same quantitative and standardized paradigm at the heart of the current system. The criticism of the API is that it has led schools to focus too narrowly on tested subjects and ignore other subjects and matters that are vital to a well-rounded education. SB547 certainly would add more things to measure, but it is doubtful that it would actually improve our schools. Adding more speedometers to a broken car won’t turn it into a high-performance machine.

Over the last 50 years, academic “experts” have subjected California to unceasing pedagogical change and experimentation. The current fashion is to collect endless quantitative data to populate ever-changing indicators of performance to distinguish the educational “good” from the education “bad.” Instead of recognizing that perhaps we have reached testing nirvana, editorialists and academics alike call for ever more measurement “visions and revisions.”

Obama Admin Waives some provisions of NCLB

President Obama Waives Key NCLB Provisions

At a White House event in which he declared that because "Congress hasn't been able to do it. So I will," President Obama announced the long-awaited details of his administration's plan to waive certain provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in exchange for specific reform commitments from states. There are 10 NCLB provisions(DOC) U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will consider waiving, among them the 2013–14 100 percent proficiency deadline, the sanctions for low-performing schools, the 20 percent set-aside for school choice and tutoring, and highly qualified teacher improvement plans.
As expected, states must submit an application for the waivers (note: they must request all 10 whether they will use them all or not) outlining how they will

• establish higher standards,
• differentiate accountability (by implementing student growth models and prioritizing the lowest-performing schools for improvement),
• promote teacher effectiveness, and
• reduce paperwork burdens.

Krashen: School Success and poverty

 by Stephen Krashen

How do we explain the fact that many people did well in school even though they experienced poverty growing up?

 

Note that it is not poverty per se but the conditions resulting from poverty that count: In our post (Krashen and Ohanian, Council Chronicles 2) and elsewhere, we mentioned poor nutrition, poor heatlh care, and lack of access to books.

 

From what I have seen and read, individuals who succeeded despite growing up in poverty are rare. When it happens, they had reasonably good food and health care, despite poverty, and somehow managed to have access to reading material and developed a reading habit, thanks to a local library and/or someone who helped them get access to books.

 

An interesting case:

 

In his autobiography, Geoffrey Canada, the founder of the Harlem Children's Zone, credits reading for his own school success, despite growing up in poverty: "I loved reading, and my mother, who read voraciously too, allowed me to have her novels after she finished them. My strong reading background allowed me to have an easier time of it in most of my classes" (Canada, 2010, p. 89).

 

Ironically, Canada promotes longer school days, increased accountability, and "data to drive instruction" for children of poverty (New York Post, October 13, 2010), despite the lack of data supporting these approaches and the overwhelming data supporting wide reading.

Arne Duncan's position on education and poverty

Arne Duncan's position on education and poverty –

Stephen Krashen and Susan Ohanian

"The way you end cycles of poverty is through educational opportunity …" (Arne Duncan, in "A conversation with US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan," in the NCTE Council Chronicle, 2011).

 

The US Department of Education says that with better teaching, we will have more learning (higher test scores, according to the feds), and this will lead to major improvements in the economy. This is a core concept that drives US Department of Education policy.  It also suggests that our economic problems are because of low-quality education.

 

The US DOE philosophy is identical to Bill Gates' view: "There's a lot of uncertainty today about our nation's economy, but there is no uncertainty that a high-quality education is key to economic prosperity for all of our people--and for us as a nation" (Gates, 2011).

 

But there is good evidence supporting the view that the relationship is the other way around, evidence that agrees with Martin Luther King's position: "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.”            (Martin Luther King, 1967, Final Words of Advice).

How Finland became an education leader

How Finland became an education leader

NCLB Waivers

RE: The new NCLB Waivers

It is important to know that the basic rules of school program improvement, the  take over, the use of yearly progress reports, the use of tests as the measure of reform, the 5 options for reform, the use of subgroups as a a measure ( ie. English Language Learners),  the claim to have only  well qualified teachers, etc.  I believe are all part of California state law.  The use of waivers to suspend aspects of NCLB does not change the California laws.  Until and unless California laws are re-written not much will change in the classroom. 

The problem with Obama’s plan to issue NCLB waivers - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

The problem with Obama’s plan to issue NCLB waivers - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Statement by Randi Weingarten,
President, American Federation of Teachers,
On Waivers for NCLB Requirements

WASHINGTON—No Child Left Behind needs to be fixed. Reauthorization, which is Congress' responsibility, is the appropriate avenue to do so. We applaud Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) for their efforts to move that process forward, and we share their frustration that reauthorization is long overdue. In the absence of congressional reauthorization, we understand why the Obama administration is taking this action; we are keenly aware of the calls from parents, teachers and administrators for change—sooner rather than later. Waivers are an imperfect answer to the stalemate in Congress and, at best, can provide only a temporary salve.

Some of what the administration proposes is promising, some is cause for concern, and there are missed opportunities that could have enhanced both teaching and learning.

We are pleased that the administration's proposal includes more options prospectively for improving low-performing schools, recognizing that many of the remedies prescribed in NCLB were not flexible enough. The proposal also acknowledges the importance of adopting higher college- and career-ready standards, which could include the Common Core State Standards, to prepare kids for a 21st-century knowledge economy.

How Finland invests in education - MontereyHerald.com :

Paul Karrer: How Finland invests in education - MontereyHerald.com :

Creating jobs for Teachers and opportunity for students

President Calls for Billions to Save Educator Jobs and Modernize Schools

President Obama's American Jobs Act calls for $60 billion to save teacher jobs and modernize the nation's schools as part of his $447 billion plan to boost the lagging economy and reduce the stagnant unemployment rate. But despite the president's assertion that every component of his plan has a history of bipartisan support and won't add to the deficit, such measures face an uphill battle in a divided Congress where many Republicans are skeptical that more spending will improve the economy and create jobs.
The American Jobs Act includes $30 billion to prevent up to 280,000 teacher layoffs by supporting state and local efforts to retain, rehire, and hire early childhood, elementary, and secondary educators. The funds can be used for not only teachers, but also guidance counselors, classroom assistants, afterschool personnel, tutors, and literacy and math coaches. The hope is that in addition to saving educator jobs, such efforts will address the ballooning class sizes, shortened school days, and reduction of afterschool activities that many districts are facing this school year as a result of state budget shortfalls.
The plan proposes an additional $30 billion to modernize at least 35,000 public schools?$25 billion for K-12 schools and $5 billion for community colleges. The money can't be spent on new school construction, but it can be used on a range of emergency repair and renovation projects, greening and energy efficiency upgrades, asbestos abatement and removal, and modernization efforts to build new science and computer labs and upgrade school technology. Local districts would also be able to use the funds to help schools become centers of the community?from improving outdoor learning and play areas to upgrading shared spaces for adult vocational and job development centers.
 From: ASCD.  Education advocates

School ‘Reform’: A Failing Grade by Diane Ravitch | The New York Review of Books

School ‘Reform’: A Failing Grade by Diane Ravitch | The New York Review of Books

Grading the Education Reformers | Economic Policy Institute

Grading the Education Reformers | Economic Policy Institute

How They Cheat

Paul Karrer

HOW THEY CHEAT

 

What does any society do when something is fundamentally wrong?

Answer - Obstruct, minimize, fudge, deny, resist, revolt, and cheat.

 

Why do educators cheat? Because of the results of high stakes testing. Testing now determines teachers’ fate. Merit pay is based on test results. Job security and job placement are based on test results. However, teachers don’t take the test - kids do.  No consideration is given to the soup of other variables  impacting a child’s test results. Why are wealthy cities’ scores high and poor areas low? Because it is all about poverty and wealth. Unfortunately some educators feel their backs are so against the wall, the only recourse they have is to cheat.

   Here are some ways districts and educators manipulate (cheat) standardized testing.

Institutionalized Cheating- (Mostly utilized in wealthier school districts with marginable but growing minority enrollments)

 

    1. The 15% rule -  If a school has a subgroup population (special education students, for example), comprising 15% or less, their scores are NOT counted. Imagine that you are an administra­tor at a school with X number of Special Education students. A few more kids in this group will make their low scores count by putting them over the 15% CAP. It is in the schools’ interest to make sure the subgroup never reaches 15% because then the scores count. Teachers want to do the to do the right thing and have Timmy tested, but if he qualifies, that would mean that subgroup's scores would count against your school, and likely cause you to miss scores that are required. So Timmy does NOT get tested, or the child is told there is no more room in the school, or he is encouraged to attend another school in the district. Thus the 15% trigger is not met.

 

   2 Ethnicity Switcheroo

 Schools fudge kids’ ethnicity - if a child is a low performer and of mixed race, he is put in a group below the 15% population trigger. His score does not count now. If he is a high performer he is put in a high performance group like Northern Asian or white (statistically and historically these are high performing groups) – Now his score will count and the school benefits overall.

Thank You Teachers- Labor Day

Thank you. To all of you who work, who have worked, or who look every day for work, thank you. Our country, and the dream generations have built their lives and their hopes for their children upon, exist because of your labor and the labor of your parents and their parents before them.
 
Over time, Labor Day has become part of an extended weekend, a well-deserved respite from the daily grind, a chance to spend time with family and friends and to mark the end of another summer. For educators it often signals the start of another school year, and for all of us in the labor movement, it’s an opportunity to reflect on and honor the work we have done collectively to create opportunity, security and fulfillment. 


But this Labor Day falls under the shadow of deep and broad joblessness, the effects of the worst recession since the Great Depression, insecurity about the future and, sadly, attacks upon the very workers whose labor we honor on this day. 

The economic crisis was not caused by these people, who every day work hard and play by the rules. The tragic irony is that those who did cause it—the people who presided over the unchecked greed on Wall Street and the recklessness in the housing market—have recovered, while ordinary workers and their families are struggling to survive.

 Adding insult to injury, as many of you have witnessed in the last eight months, ideologues have made an art of giving short shrift to the workers who protect us; teach our children; care for our sick; and work the day shift, the night shift or the all-around-the-clock shift when—as happened last weekend—Mother Nature threatens. To these ideologues, teachers, police officers, firefighters, janitors and other public employees are convenient fall guys for their own greed, selfishness and irresponsibility. 



We’ve heard plenty about America’s budget deficit, but not nearly enough about our jobs deficit and how our leaders plan to put our people back to work. If allowed to continue, our deficit of jobs will become a deficit of hope. Americans are determined to get back to work, and we can’t allow a dysfunctional political system to threaten the American dream. At its core, America’s trajectory—both as an economic powerhouse and as a great democracy—has been driven by our investment in human capital, most notably through education.



The AFT occupies a unique position at the nexus between public education as the equalizer of individual opportunity, and the labor movement as the leading advocate for economic dignity. We know that a strong public education system is central to achieving individual goals and restoring our nation’s economic strength.



Good jobs this century and beyond require an unprecedented level of education and training. The industrial model of education marked by rote memorization will no longer suffice.

Torlakson: NCLB sanctions not appropriate

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today called on U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to provide state schools with immediate relief from the flawed policies of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act.

"Relief is needed immediately before more schools suffer for another school year under inappropriate labels and ineffective interventions," Torlakson wrote in a letter to Duncan.

The letter warns that many schools with rising student achievement will be mislabeled as failing under the "one-size-fits-all" approach required under NCLB. In addition, the letter notes that NCLB restrictions on how districts can use funding will further burden schools already hit hard by budget cuts.

Torlakson proposed that California be allowed to freeze the imposition of sanctions and mandatory identifications for the coming school year at last year’s levels.

Schools short on money, but long on tests

Steven Krashen,

Schools are "facing tough budget choices" (August 24) and cutting back on teaching positions, tutors, support staff, summer programs, and extracurricular activities. According to an ASCD survey (SmartBrief poll, 2011-12), 78% of respondents said that they are "experiencing a lack of funding and it has affected student learning.

 

Unmentioned in the Ed Week article is the fact that at the same time money is so short, we are keeping a number of useless tests and actually increasing testing to astonishing levels, in the face of empirical evidence showing that these tests do not increase student achievement

A clear example of a current useless test is the High School Exit Exam used in many states. Studies consistently show that high school exit exams do not lead to more college attendance, increased student learning or higher employment. In fact, researchers have yet to discover any benefits of having a high school exit exam.

The US Department of Education is planning an astonishing increase in testing. In addition to end-of-year tests, there will be tests in reading and math near the end of school year and testing several times during the year (interim testing), In addition, the Department is encouraging pre-testing in the fall and testing other subjects as well.  Recently, the Department announced plans to test children before they enter kindergarten.  In addition, all tests will be administered on-line, a huge expense.  There is no evidence that the new tests will help children.

We all agree that assessment is part of teaching and learning, but our philosophy should be "no unnecessary testing":  Determine which tests are useful and eliminate the others. Over-testing is choking our schools both intellectually and financially.

Stephen Krashen

Why do the Koch brothers want to end public education?

Blueprint for California Schools?

A new strategic report for California schools, A Blueprint for Great Schools, was released by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction on Aug.9 and included a number of valuable recommendations. ( available at www.cde.ca.gov).  We have seen these reports before.  Recall the Getting Down to Facts report of two years ago that was to be the culmination of years of research?

The new Blueprint sets out a new mission for the California Dept. of Education.  At least the report will due no harm. 

Lets suppose however, that you wanted to actually improve California schooling.  What would it require? For this post I will focus specifically  what would be required to  reduce  the California drop out rate.  I reluctantly conclude that only a few ideas  in the Blueprint would assist.

What would it take?  First. Increase the number of counselors in the schools and the number of social workers in high poverty schools.  California ranks 49 out of the 50 states in these categories.  The social workers could organize parents into the “wrap around” services mentioned in the blueprint.

Why won’t we add these counselors and social workers?  Because that costs money.  And, this is the key failing of the Blueprint.  Although it details the money issues in the section on finance, it offers no directions nor solutions.  

To improve the schools would require adequate funding of the schools – see Robles-Wong et al v State of California.

Why won’t we adequately fund the schools?  Because the legislature can not or will not adequately fund the schools.  The legislature and successive governors have failed to adequately fund the schools for over twenty years.  This unwillingness to adequately fund the schools occurs precisely at the time that Latino children become the majority of students in California.  There is no solution to these school issues without adequate funding.

Legislature- heal thyself.

Pedro Noguera Address to the Save Our Schools March

Save Our Schools March in Sacramento

            An estimated 2000 – 3,000  parents, teachers, and public education supporters marched in Washington, D.C. and in  eleven  support rallies in other cities including Sacramento, California  on July 30.  The Sacramento event had about 100 participants. The events were organized by parent groups and other pro public education groups and supported by teachers unions.  The rally, although small by Washington standards was at least 20 times larger than the Tea Party rally held in Washington this week in support of the Tea Party’s proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution to balance the budget.

            There was limited media coverage of the Save Our Schools rallies.  The Save Our Schools March was organized by a wide variety of local groups and education advocates.  Speakers included Diane Ravitch, Jonathan Kozol, José Vilson, Deborah Meier, Monty Neill, Cornel West, and Pedro Noguera, among others.  Schools around the country are suffering from severe  budget cuts and teacher lay offs  imposed by the economic crisis and the  resultant decisions of legislatures to cut budgets.

In addition parents and  teachers  say they are fed up with so-called “reform” policies in No Child Left Behind  that falsely label more than 80% of U.S. public schools as failures.   They oppose several programs of the Obama Administration included Race to the Top including the proposed new amendments to the NCLB law that would increase competition between under funded schools.   March participants, including many teacher union members, oppose the shift to more for-profit charter schools rather than public schools,  the assault on the teachers’ unions,  and the emphasis on high stakes testing which has driven many public goals from the school curriculum.

Parents and teachers insist on more democratic participation in reform effort rather than the current domination of “reform” agenda by corporate and Right Wing interests including the Gates, Broad, and Bradley  Foundation, among others.

Why We March: Save Our Schools

Monty Neil:My organization, FairTest, also endorsed Save Our Schools. True, in time more specifics are needed, but the most fundamental task is to save our schools from the education ‘deformers’ who have decided that tests (the standards don’t really matter except for the tests) and punishments are the core of a ‘solution’ to the very real problem that too many students do leave school not having learned enough to be effective citizens. It is a destructive ‘solution.’

California Rally and  March
Saturday, July 30, 11am-3pm
State Capitol Building
1315 10th Street, Sacramento

Join other Californians on the Capitol steps to support public education. Sponsored by California supporters of the Save Our Schools March, National Call to Action .

Finland, by contrast, decided to build a system based on having high-quality teachers who would be prepared well (not a BA and short training course, a la TFA), engage in ongoing shared professional learning, and be largely in charge of the shape of schooling. They have brief national standards, but those are not imposed through tests. Finland does far better than the US, which chose a disastrous detour through testland. Finland also has a child poverty rate under 5% while the US is now well over 20%. Finland is more homogeneous, but has growing numbers of immigrant students (15% if memory serves) with 43 different languages. But of course US poverty is an ‘excuse’ to the deformers, who have managed to simultaneously promote damaging education ideas while deflecting attention from massive poverty.

There are many reasons why the basic framework, the paradigm, of federal and state laws and policies must be changed – I use the US failures and Finnish success simply to highlight how a different approach has produced markedly different results, though the underlying social structures and poverty also matter.

Save Our Schools March- Sacramento

March in Sacramento.  July 30.  State Capitol.

California Rally & March
Saturday, July 30, 11am-3pm
State Capitol Building
1315 10th Street, Sacramento

Join other Californians on the Capitol steps to support public education. Sponsored by California supporters of the Save Our Schools March, National Call to Action & the Student CTA.

AFT President on so called "School Reformers"

From the speech of AFT President Randi Weingartner at the AFT convention.

We need to study what works, as I recently had a chance to do in Ontario, Canada—which has a school system as diverse as many American urban school districts. For a while, Ontario suffered from the divisiveness we are all too familiar with, and it lagged behind the United States in achievement. In 2003, a new government was elected and immediately moved to change the tone. They focused on collaboration and building the capacity of the teaching force. They created a Partnership Table that brings everyone together around policy development; teachers have a voice right from the start. Funding is from the province and is distributed equitably to the local boards. Ontario did this throughout the province; they created an effective system—not a handful of successful schools. They focused on educating all kids—not just some. Teachers unions are full partners—in fact, leaders—in this work. In this short time, Ontario has dramatically raised student achievement and greatly narrowed the achievement gap.

Other countries that have summoned the political will also have seen dramatic, nationwide turnarounds in a relatively short period of time. We heard many similar success stories back in March, at an international summit in New York. What became immediately clear was that the top-performing countries all put a strong emphasis on teacher preparation, continuous development, and mentoring and collaboration—and in each of these countries, teaching is a highly respected profession.

Take Finland, which I visited last fall. Teacher training is demanding, rigorous and extensive, with ample clinical experience. Finnish teachers are esteemed and are compensated fairly, and their training is fully paid for by the government. And they’re virtually 100 percent unionized, as teachers are in most of the top-performing countries.

I am delighted that a leading Finnish educator is with us today. Pasi Sahlberg is, to use his term, a school improvement activist. Pasi has generously shared many of Finland’s lessons about improving education with us over the years. Thank you, Pasi!

Look, I know America isn’t Finland. It doesn’t take a breakfast of herring to realize that. But even though we’re not them, we can learn from them. After all, they readily admit that they learned from us. But they took the best ideas, scaled them up, supported and sustained them.

I can’t talk about the international comparisons without noting how the so-called reformers have distorted them: They use international comparisons to denigrate American schools. But they ignore their lessons. Worse, they pursue policies that are completely antithetical to the successful strategies used in high-achieving countries. It just doesn’t make sense.

While other countries were setting a course, one that was supported by investment and political will, what was the United States doing? A series of stop-start experiments: Stop-start on curriculum. Stop-start on standards. Experimenting with vouchers, merit pay, tour-of-duty teaching, and the latest experiment—Race to the Top. And many have started denigrating public schools and public educators, putting ideology over effectiveness, and experimenting without regard to evidence. And that must stop.

The problem with all of these experiments is that our children are not lab rats. This is not about navigating through a maze. It’s about navigating through life. And we have to help them do that.

That is why the AFT has put forward this powerful quality agenda. And that is why you are all here—on your own time and, in many cases, your own dime—to learn about new ways to enhance quality in your classrooms.

But, without muscle behind it, no agenda will ever lead to a new reality.

And make no mistake, a new reality is what we’re fighting for, one in which teaching really becomes a profession and leads to genuine advances in student learning. And by improving student learning, we’re improving the prospects of our nation.

A quality agenda unites educators and the broader community. The current discussion around education has been hijacked by a group of self-styled “reformers” who believe that public education in America should consist of islands of excellence staffed by passers-through, instead of dynamic school systems staffed by professionals. Islands versus systems. Passers-through versus professionals. Let’s really look at what these two different views mean in practice.

Note. I am not now a member of the AFT. 

Systematic cheating to pass tests in Atlanta's School system

By KIM SEVERSON: New York Times 

ATLANTA — A state investigation released Tuesday showed rampant, systematic cheating on test scores in this city’s long-troubled public schools, ending two years of increasing skepticism over remarkable improvements touted by school leaders.

The results of the investigation, made public by Gov. Nathan Deal, showed that the cheating occurred at 44 schools and involved at least 178 teachers and principals, almost half of whom have confessed, the governor said.

A culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation existed in the district, which led to a conspiracy of silence, he said in a prepared statement. “There will be consequences,” Mr. Deal said.

That will certainly include dismissals, according to school board members and the interim superintendent, Erroll B. Davis Jr., and could possibly result in criminal charges.

Mayor Kasim Reed of Atlanta called the release of the investigation “a dark day for the Atlanta public school system.” The cheating, he said, showed a complete failure of leadership that hurt thousands of children who might have been promoted to the next grade without meeting basic academic standards.

CTA on the budget deal

Latest Democratic Budget Plan Best Option for Students, Public Education and California

Contact: Sandra Jackson, 916-325-1550

SACRAMENTO – Dean E. Vogel, president of the 325,000-member California Teachers Association, released this statement about the 2011-12 Democratic State Budget plan:

“This is certainly not a perfect budget plan, but it is what Democratic lawmakers and the Governor were able to do in light of the Republicans’ refusal to work with them to pass a budget that would temporarily extend revenues to protect our students, schools and our state. We commend Democratic lawmakers for engaging in the work they were elected to do. 

“While this new plan is far from what our schools and colleges need to provide all students a quality education, it protects them from much worse cuts and will help local school districts and colleges plan for the coming year.  The proposal defers nearly $3 billion in funding to K-14 schools and cuts $300 million from higher education.  This year as thousands of educators were laid off, class sizes pushed higher, the school year shortened, student programs eliminated, and college tuition fees increased, Republican lawmakers simply watched and offered no honest solutions that would even maintain California’s current level of funding to public education.

The Republicans won the California budget battle today

The Republican minority won the California budget battle.

California is a Democratic controlled state; in the Senate there are 25 Democrats and 15 Republicans, in the Assembly there are 52 Democrats and 28 Republicans, the Governor and most state offices are Democrats.

In spite of these majorities, the Republicans won the budget battle of 2011.  They got a cut in the sales tax by 1 %, and a cut in the vehicle license fee.  The result will be further cuts in the Univ. of California, further cuts in the California State University system, and further cuts ( called deferrals) in the K-12 schools.

California is presently 47^th. out of the 50 states in per pupil expenditures, we are among the very poor in funding our schools.  In prior years, as described by the California Budget project, “Lawmakers cut the overall annual funding level for K-12 public schools by $6.3 billion, from $50.3 billion in 2007-08 to $44.1 billion in 2009-10.3 Lawmakers cut schools’ general purpose dollars as well as funds earmarked for specific school programs, often referred to as categoricals.”

What remains?  The proposed budget uses overly generous estimates of future tax incomes.  If the projections  fall short, there will be mandated further cuts to the universities and to k-12 education.

By imposing this mostly cuts budgets, the economic crisis flows down to produce cuts in police, fire protection and local budgets.

The Democratic leadership will not admit the truth.  They lost.  Jerry Brown claimed he could negotiate with reasonable Republicans.  He failed.

To be certain, the school budget crisis was not caused by the Democrats.   Finance capital collapse and theft in housing and  on Wall Street produced this crisis, not police officers, firemen, nurses, librarians and teachers.  The recession took sales taxes and property taxes which normally fund safety and public services.  Now Wall Street has recovered, but the states and the cities and counties are left with the destruction.