Worried About School Funding, Most Favor Tax Increase—For the Rich | California Progress Report

Worried About School Funding, Most Favor Tax Increase—For the Rich | California Progress Report

Save Our Schools: SOS

By Deborah Meier,
Dear Diane,
HELP!!! SOS!!! "Reformed" schools are literally becoming reform schools for the poor. It's a sign of "the future" as some people envision it. Although, of course, these are not the schools for the reformers' kids.
Mitt Romney "declared that this century must be an American century," and President Barack Obama insists that "anyone who tells you that America is in decline ... doesn't know what they are talking about." Well, it's hard to argue with Romney since his "must" is a preference, not a prediction. But I do worry about Obama's statement because it contains truth, and it covers up a potential falsehood. (See "America's Place in the New World," by Charles A. Kupchan in The New York Times.)
But why should we care if we're first? (See last week's letter!) If the first is a nation we respect, being second is just fine. What we care about is the health and welfare of our nation's people and their future prospects both economically and politically, not our place in somebody's ranking system. We might also like a president who hopes for the best for other nations' people, too. And, while American business may not be in decline, it has the advantage of transferring its own future health and welfare to almost any nation it chooses. The American people have a harder time following suit. Indeed, global business has no country. Our inventiveness won't help if we off-shore the production of the inventions "made in America"—to nations that operate with 19th century sweat-shop wages and working conditions.
Under our unequal circumstances (99/1) it seems hard to envision how we will once again have an economy that works for everyone, not just the top 1 percent. And given the options of who might replace us, democracy doesn't seem likely to be the winner either way. Our own democracy is fast crumbling—and for the very same reason: the inequality of power in our society run amok ... and fueled by fear.
So, Kupchan may be right that "the democratic, secular, and free-market model" challenged by state capitalism and religious fundamentalism will succeed in dominating the 2lst century.
As Henry A. Giroux writes in the Truthout blog:

"Under such circumstances, all bets are off regarding the future of democracy. Besides a growing inability to translate private matters into public concerns, what is also being lost in the current historical conjuncture is the very idea of the public good, the notion of connecting learning to social change and developing modes of civic courage infused by the principles of social justice. Under the regime of a ruthless economic Darwinism which emphasizes a survival-of-the-fittest ethic, concepts and practices of community and solidarity have been replaced by a world of cutthroat politics, financial greed, media spectacles, and a rabid consumerism."

Is there another way?
Yes. That's why I'm stuck trying to both hold onto the idea of "public space" and a public to go with it! Public education is one of several much besieged institutions that may soon disappear—think about replacing post offices and our local letter-carriers. Consider, too, an army made up of mercenaries, and who knows? Private police? Firefighters? Libraries? Highways? Where can "we" go to "hang out" together?
In schools (that) we trust *—that "belong" in some direct form to "we the people"—is part of my answer. So go read the book by that name, especially Chapters 9 and 10 on scaling up reform for democracy. Do you have a suggestion on a book laying out why we need public police, firefighters, libraries, et al?
Of course, the present system is not all it should be, re. democracy, especially for minority groups, and in our much too large urban districts with their tendency to become centralized in the hands of the local elite. Few are the mayors or appointed school board members who send their own kids to their local schools.
See also Will Standards Save Public Education? which I wrote in 2000 (foreword by Jonathan Kozol). I agree with virtually everything I said there, except that I was oblivious to the attack on the idea of a public system itself. I wasn't yet noticing what lay ahead, and now that it's so front and center, could it be too late?
The future is not yet written—when it is, there will still be those of us fighting for the next future. Which reminds me, read No Citizen Left Behind by Meira Levinson—a forthright defense of schools as institutions for teaching about democracy and justice. Democracy was never a foregone conclusion. It's perhaps amazing that it remains a lively option, if not a foregone conclusion.
Many of us will be in Washington, D.C., from Aug. 3-5 (thanks to Save Our Schools) to once again show our support for public education and to produce an education agenda that we can share at both upcoming conventions. Over the coming months I'll try to keep folks informed about how it's shaping up, with input, we hope, from one and all. Will you be joining us?
Can we build a response that doesn't rest on fear, but rather on hope?
Deb

Hired Guns on Astroturf- Fake School reform ...

Dissent Magazine - Spring 2012 Issue - Hired Guns on Astroturf..

Dissent Magazine - Spring 2012 Issue - Hired Guns on Astrotur...

Joan Barkan

If you want to change government policy, change the politicians who make it. The implications of this truism have now taken hold in the market-modeled “education reform movement.” As a result, the private funders and nonprofit groups that run the movement have overhauled their strategy. They’ve gone political as never before—like the National Rifle Association or Big Pharma or (ed reformers emphasize) the teachers’ unions. 

Devolution of a Movement

For the last decade or so, this generation of ed reformers has been setting up programs to show the power of competition and market-style accountability to transform inner-city public schools: establishing nonprofit and for-profit charter schools, hiring business executives to run school districts, and calculating a teacher’s worth based on student test scores. Along the way, the reformers recognized the value of public promotion and persuasion (called “advocacy”) for their agenda, and they started pouring more money into media outlets, friendly think tanks, and the work of well-disposed researchers. By 2010 critics of the movement saw “reform-think” dominating national discourse about education, but key reform players judged the pace of change too slow.

Read the detailed analysis of Michelle Rhee and other "reformers" who are making millions off of "school reform." 

Flunking the Test | American Journalism Review

Flunking the Test  | American Journalism Review
How the media fails on school coverage.

Dreams Are For Everyone

Public Education is about score manipulation

by Paul Karrer. Teacher. Monterrey.
http://choosingdemocracy.blogspot.com/2012/03/public-education-is-too-much-about.html

Chicago School Reform

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has produced a remarkable document describing a vision for schooling that is truly equitable and high-quality.  The plan addresses, head-on, the historic inequality in education and refuses to compromise on quality. 

The Chicago Teachers Union argues for proven educational reforms to dramatically improve education of more than 400,000 students in a district of 675 schools. These reforms are desperately needed and can head Chicago towards the world-class educational system its students deserve.

The following are essential:

1.     Recognize That Class Size Matters. Drastically reduce class size. We currently have one of the largest class sizes in the state. This greatly inhibits the ability of our students to learn and thrive.

2.     Educate The Whole Child. Invest to ensure that all schools have recess and physical education equipment, healthy food offerings, and classes in art, theater, dance, and music in every school. Offer world languages and a variety of subject choices. Provide every school with a library and assign the commensurate number of librarians to staff them.

3.     Create More Robust Wrap-around Services. The Chicago Public Schools system (CPS) is far behind recommended staffing levels suggested by national professional associations. The number of school counselors, nurses, social workers, and psychologists must increase dramatically to serve Chicago’s population of low-income students. Additionally, students who cannot afford transportation costs need free fares.

He’s looked at life from both sides now – or has he? Arne Duncan claims the high ground, but school clinics still face needless obstacles | Economic Policy Institute

He’s looked at life from both sides now – or has he? Arne Duncan claims the high ground, but school clinics still face needless obstacles | Economic Policy Institute

Night of Outrage: Thousands Protest NYC School Closings « Talking Union

Night of Outrage: Thousands Protest NYC School Closings « Talking Union

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

At the Department of Education, Warm Snow Falls Up - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

At the Department of Education, Warm Snow Falls Up - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Secretary Duncan and Project RESPECT

Billed as a new initiative to rebuild the teaching profession and elevate teacher voice, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s new RESPECT Project (which stands for Recognizing Educational Success, Professional Excellence, and Collaborative Teaching) seeks to involve teachers and principals in a national conversation about teaching. The work builds on the more than 100 roundtable discussions that the Department of Education’s Teaching Ambassador Fellows have had with fellow teachers across the country and will continue to have throughout the year.
 
During a teacher town hall to launch the RESPECT Project, Duncan outlined his goals for revamping the teaching profession, which include

▪                Improving teacher preparation programs;

▪                Dramatically increasing teacher salaries and tying pay to job performance, skills, and demonstrated leadership ability;

▪                Establishing career ladders that allow for advancement and leadership opportunities without requiring teachers to completely leave the classroom;

▪                Improving professional development and providing teachers more time for meaningful collaboration;

▪                Providing teachers with greater classroom autonomy balanced with more accountability; and

▪                Implementing evaluation systems based on multiple measures, rather than just test scores.

Michelle Rhee tells her tale

Courtesy of Monty Neill at Fair Test.  Long, but worth reading, especially the suggestions at the end on how to more successfully reframe the debate:
 
Rhee's Framing of the Debate on Education
On the evening of February 7, Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of DC public schools and the public face of the opaquely funded StudentsFirst, addressed an audience of some four thousand people at the Paramount theater in Oakland. This lecture was one of a number of lectures purchased as a series, and did not imply any particular interest in Rhee or in education by the older and relatively affluent crowd attending, the sort of crowd one finds at similar series, whether theater, ballet, or classical music.

As I have never heard Rhee speak before, I cannot say that she tailored her talk to this particular audience, but given her consummate skills as a public speaker, I would be very surprised if she had not.

The lecture was divided in three parts. First, Rhee introduced herself
and described her leadership of the DC public schools; next, she outlined her fundamental principles about education; finally, she answered questions from the audience.

In the first part, Rhee established her persona: a mix of unprepossessing
but feisty "Korean lady," finding herself unaccountably charged with the
management of DC public schools and concerned only for the good of the
children. Her narrative of her three years as DC chancellor, a position
for which she had no qualifications or experience, framed her dictatorial
and disruptive tenure as the story of a plain speaking firebrand who
sliced through every piece of red tape and obstruction to transform
institutional corruption into a working school system. Rich in anecdote
and short on facts, the main point of the story was to set up Rhee as a
concerned citizen who was out of patience with a dysfunctional system and
whose arbitrary and devastating actions (performed under the aegis of
Mayoral control) were not a violation of the democratic rights of parents
and teachers and children, but the necessary and heroic actions of a
woman more concerned with the good of the children than with the interest
of other "adults" involved in the educational system. Someone listening
closely might have wondered why schools were failing quite so badly
since, in fact, they had been following the kill and drill NCLB model for
close to a generation. Listeners might have also wondered about her
assertions as to how much money is being lavished on these failing
schools. But facts are little things, and Rhee's aim to tell a "Mr Smith
Goes to Washington" story largely succeeded. In this story, her lack of
expertise and experience prove that she is not part of the education
insiders responsible for the education crisis.

Millionaires should pay their taxes

 by Duane Campbell

California needs additional revenue to fund schools and to invest in the future.  A tax plan known as  The Millionaires Tax has been   proposed by the California Federation of Teachers and the Courage Campaign to increase revenues to pay for vital services.   It was assigned the official title "Tax To Benefit Public Schools, Social Services, Public Safety, And Road Maintenance," on Friday, Feb.2,   by California  Attorney General Kamala Harris.

A report of the California Budget Project notes that  “measured as a share of family income, California’s lowest-income families pay the most in taxes. The bottom fifth of the state’s families, with an average income of $12,600, spent 11.1 percent of their income on state and local taxes.  In comparison, the wealthiest 1 percent, with an average income of $2.3 million, spent 7.8 percent of their income on state and local taxes.”

The Millionaires  Tax  plan, of  the California Federation of Teachers and the Courage Campaign would raise taxes by three percentage points on income above $1 million and five percentage points on income over  $2 million.    Analysts say the proposal would generate $4 billion to $6 billion annually.  Signature gathering for the plan will begin within weeks.

The plan competes  with Gov. Jerry Brown's tax initiative, which would raise income taxes on earners starting at $250,000 for single filers, as well as increase the statewide sales tax by a half-cent.

Demonstrators Protest Michelle Rhee and corporate agenda

“Silent” protestors with their mouths taped shut  confronted Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson and corporate education proponent Michelle Rhee as they entered a  carefully promoted and controlled  discussion about education issues at the Tsakopoulos Library Galleria, 828 I St, in Sacramento on Wednesday, January 25.

Demonstrators held a news briefing with local media outlets.  The Sacramento Bee did not cover the demonstration.  This protests occurs as Wall Street corporations and foundations are funding not only the privatization of education.  The protestors set up a ‘gauntlet” of protestors with their mouths taped shut –something Rhee admitted to doing to her noisy students when she was a teacher. She later said some of the students were hurt when they removed the tape.

The “Town Hall” organized by Rhee and Johnson gained positive press coverage on local news channels.  They covered Rhee’s views and the advocacy group without describing her connections to right wing groups.

Why do many reporters not report on the realities of the corporate sponsorship of  one group of  “school reformers”?

Conference: Attack on Public Education

CONFERENCE
The Attack On Public Education
And Privatization
January 22 (Sunday), 2012, 10:00 AM -5:00 PM
Laney Theater, Laney Community College
900 Fallon Street, Oakland, CA 94607
Free

There is a national systemic organized plan for the total priva-
tization of public education through the use of multi-billion-
aire supported non-profits such as the Gates Foundation, Broad
Foundation and the KIPP Foundation to place paid lobbyists into
governmental positions on school boards and other government
agencies.
At the same time, the privatization of the University of California
and the CSU system through corporate regents and trustees who
are profiting from these public institutions is a growing scandal.
This conference will look at how the destruction of public edu-
cation is taking   place in California, who is doing it and how to
stop it and defend the right to a public education for all working
people.

The Death and Life of the American School System

The Death and Life of the Great American School System

             Educational historian Diane Ravitch will make a presentation in Sacramento on Jan. 20, 2012 sponsored by local CTA affiliates- that is good.  The public needs this conversation and teachers need this support.  The Bee story on Jan 12 unfortunately uses a misleading headline- Testing Critic to address teachers. The issue is testing and more.  And, the public needs to consider what is happening to their schools- not only teachers.

            The Bee  article by Melody Gutierrez is reasonable, while the general reporting on education in national newspapers, magazines and television leaves much to be desired.   Ravitch’s book and her presentations will offer a small but important counter story.

Why do many reporters not report on the realities of school change?

  They too often  rely upon the wisdom of selected “spokespersons” and other elites. 

They have been sold a framework of  a corporate view of accountability. Corporate sponsored networks and think tanks such as the the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, the Broad Foundation,  the Bradley Foundation, the Pacific Research Institute,  and the Olin Foundation provide “experts” prepared to give an opinion on short notice to meet a reporters deadline.  Most reporters assume that these notables are telling the truth when in fact they are promoting a particular propaganda such as in the film “Waiting for Superman”.  Who do they not talk with?  They fail to interview experienced teachers and professionals who have worked for decades to improve the quality of inner city schools.

Corporations Sell Out Schools

Selling Schools Out

By Lee Fang
Posted on November 17, 2011, Printed on January 9, 2012
http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/investigations/corporateaccountability/1580/

If the national movement to "reform" public education through vouchers, charters and privatization has a laboratory, it is Florida. It was one of the first states to undertake a program of "virtual schools" — charters operated online, with teachers instructing students over the Internet — as well as one of the first to use vouchers to channel taxpayer money to charter schools run by for-profits.

But as recently as last year, the radical change envisioned by school reformers still seemed far off, even there. With some of the movement's cherished ideas on the table, Florida Republicans, once known for championing extreme education laws, seemed to recoil from the fight. SB 2262, a bill to allow the creation of private virtual charters, vastly expanding the Florida Virtual School program, languished and died in committee. Charlie Crist, then the Republican governor, vetoed a bill to eliminate teacher tenure. The move, seen as a political offering to the teachers unions, disheartened privatization reform advocates. At one point, the GOP's budget proposal even suggested a cut for state aid going to virtual school programs

Lamenting this series of defeats, Patricia Levesque, a top adviser to former Governor Jeb Bush, spoke to fellow reformers at a retreat in October 2010. Levesque noted that reform efforts had failed because the opposition had time to organize. Next year, Levesque advised, reformers should "spread" the unions thin "by playing offense" with decoy legislation. Levesque said she planned to sponsor a series of statewide reforms, like allowing taxpayer dollars to go to religious schools by overturning the so-called Blaine Amendment, "even if it doesn't pass…to keep them busy on that front." She also advised paycheck protection, a unionbusting scheme, as well as a state-provided insurance program to encourage teachers to leave the union and a transparency law to force teachers unions to show additional information to the public. Needling the labor unions with all these bills, Levesque said, allows certain charter bills to fly "under the radar."

Privatization & The War Against California Teachers-Fired CTC Attorney ...

See this and other posts about how California teachers are "evaluated."

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.