Are Dems abandoning corporate reform? Some are giddy over Kaine pick.

Kaine never mentioned education reform in his DNC speech. 

Lots of ed activists are sending me this piece by Jeff Bryant at Campaign for America's Future. Jeff is a good education writer and usually knows what he's talking about.

Here he says that by adding Tim Kaine (no, Donald, he's not the governor of NJ) to the Clinton ticket, Dems may be abandoning current corporate-style school reform policies, which have plagued public education for the past few decades.

I'm for keeping hope alive, but not convinced.

If true, this would really piss off the likes of DFER, Gates/Broad/Walton power philanthropists, Arne Duncan, John King, Peter Cunningham and Wall St. hedge-fund reformers.

It could also pull opt-out parents and anti-Common Core folks closer to Clinton and  away from Trump.

AFT and NEA leaders are likely gleeful over this supposed shift and see it as redemption (payback) for their premature Clinton endorsement. We'll see.

Bryant writes:

The policy outline for K-12 education coming from the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign remains vague, but supporters of Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders have substantially altered how public education is framed in the Democratic Party platform, and Clinton has become more strident in her attacks on “for-profit” charter schools and vouchers that allow parents to transfer their children to private schools at taxpayer expense.

Vague indeed.

He refers to a recent piece by Lauren Camera for U.S. News and World Report on Kaine's "hefty education resume." Camera points to the significance of the Kaine choice over New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who is "someone who would have been more favorable to big supporters of the high-stakes testing and charter school expansions that come with reform orthodoxy."

True about Booker.

Then there's Kaine's wife Anne Holton, who is VA's secretary of education and who has tried to reform the standardized testing regime in her state. She's also opposed the expansion of charter schools. And  -- stop the presses -- the Kaines even send their kids to public school.

Good for Anne. We need more like her.

Diane Ravitch is passionate about the Kaine's.

On top of that come the victories won by union activists and Sanders supporters in reshaping the party's ed plank in the platform committee. Victories, by the way (without being giddy with success), that offer activists a reason to stay and fight instead of walking out on the inner-party struggle after the convention.

Having said that, I don't read much into the V.P. choice and I generally see Kaine as a pro-Wall St. guy, someone who is malleable and will toe the party line on education (or TPP), whatever that is.

BTW, what is the party line? Obama said the word education only twice in passing references during his speech. Of course that's two more than he mentioned Iraq or Afghanistan. But who's counting?

In Bill Clinton's ("In the spring of 1971, I met a girl") speech, there were 4, but none substantive.

The word was mentioned only twice in Kaine's own speech with not a word about reform, testing, or charter schools.

Maybe Hillary will mention education in passing, tonight.

I'm thinking back to 2008 when Pres. Obama teased us by making progressive Linda Darling-Hammond the head of his ed transition team and then sent her back to Stanford in favor of corporate reformer Arne Duncan who became his pick for ed secretary.

From what I can see, the fight to save and transform public education will still have to be fought under and throughout a Clinton administration. But the fight may be on more favorable grounds. Certainly better than under a Trump presidency.

Ed activists enter the lion's den, win some important concessions

In an unexpected move, Democrats have revised the K-12 education section of their party’s 2016 platform in important ways, backing the right of parents to opt their children out of high-stakes standardized tests, qualifying support for charter schools, and opposing using test scores for high-stakes purposes to evaluate teachers and students. -- Washington Post

Party platforms mean little and are usually forgotten the day after the election. This year's platform fight within the Democratic Party is more significant than usual because it reflects the struggles of real movements on the ground -- the Fight For 15 Movement, for example -- and because of the realignment of forces within both major political parties.

Dem platform now supports Opt-Out

Throughout the primary campaign, Sanders continually tried to drag Clinton leftward on policy. Leading up to the national convention, Sanders insisted that the party adopt “the most progressive platform ever passed.” That may be a low bar, but it did.

For the first time, after intense internal debate between the Clinton and Sanders factions, the DNC's platform committee backed the unqualified inclusion of the $15 minimum wage as the official policy of the party. They also dropped their statement of support for TPP.

With education activists like Chicago's Troy LaRaviere leading the way, the Sanders forces wrung concessions from Clinton loyalists and came away with an education plank that broke from the current administration's outright support for privately-run charters and high-stakes testing. The party is now on record in its support for the opt-out movement of parents and students.

Also among the unity amendments was a Sanders-Clinton compromise on education that included free public higher education for families with income of up to $125,000 a year.

If you don't think that matters, check out the whiny responses from Arne Duncan's former deputy, Peter Cunningham, and from the hedge-fund school "reformers" from DFER.

Here's my brother Fred's response.

Democrats are now against “high-stakes standardized tests that falsely and unfairly label students of color, students with disabilities, and English Language learners as failing.” Peter hates that.

Cunningham even has reservations about the rather tame criticism of charter schools: He calls it “extreme” that the Democratic Party supports “high-quality public charter schools,” as long as they don’t, “replace or destabilize traditional public schools.”

DFER's Shavar Jeffries claims that the original draft on education was “progressive and balanced.” but that the new language “threatens to roll back” President Obama’s education legacy. I hope so, considering that what Jeffries calls "Obama's education legacy" is actually George Bush's.

The platform shift marks a setback for these corporate reformers and their patrons--Gates, Walton, Broad, etc... I have suggested that Eli Broad should even demand his $12M back from Cunningham and Edu_post. They obviously have no juice.

Here's an example of the disrespect these guys have for the millions of Sanders supporters.

Looks like Sanders delegates plan to make a stink at the convention.https://t.co/epb52WyEmm

— Peter Cunningham (@PCunningham57) July 12, 2016

I'm still waiting to see what Cunningham's former boss, Duncan, has to say on this.

There's  much in the platform that progressives will dislike. Some things I personally find offensive. As the Nation notes:

After the amendment to secure the rights of Palestinians was voted down, the room unanimously supported a move to eradicate wildlife trafficking that would have helped save creatures like Cecil the lion.

But at least on education and a few other issues, Sanders' people were able to leverage some concessions. In exchange, if he can deliver the party at least 70% of his voters (and I believe he can) he will all but ensure a Trump defeat. More important, Sanders has promised to keep the movement behind his campaign going after the election.

Looking back, this is the kind of negotiation that should have taken place on the part of AFT and NEA leaders before their now discredited early and divisive Clinton endorsement.

I have no doubt that after the election, Clinton and the party leadership will try to backtrack on the education plank. But now at least, there's a document that activists, parents and teachers can use to hold her feet to the fire. Something that wasn't done during the Obama years.

Activists learned they could enter the lion's den and win some victories. Now the struggle moves back out in the streets, the communities and the schools.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

CTU Pres. Karen Lewis

"This is not a moment," CTU President Karen Lewis said to a raucous rally in the campus commons at Chicago State University. "Brothers and sisters, this is a movement." -- Tribune

Drew Faust, president of Harvard University

 “Although we embrace and regularly celebrate the storied traditions of our nearly 400-year history, slavery is an aspect of Harvard‘s past that has rarely been acknowledged or invoked. Harvard was directly complicit in America’s system of racial bondage from the college’s earliest days in the 1700s until slavery in Massachusetts ended in 1783.” -- Harvard Crimson

Yohuru Williams, Fairfield University professor

“Choosing to opt out is one way of fighting back against the tide of corporate education reform with its emphasis on high-stakes testing, which has had a traumatizing effect on young people. We have a moral responsibility to demand that the government attack the real source of inequality in American society, which is poverty, rather than promoting schemes that discourage rather than encourage social justice.” -- Answer Sheet

Adam Hochschild, asked about the title of his new book

It comes from a quotation from Albert Camus, which I should know by heart by now but don’t. But it goes something like—he said it some nine or 10 years after the [Spanish Civil] war: "Men of my generation have always had Spain in our hearts. There we learned that you could be right but still be defeated, that courage was not its own reward." -- Democracy Now

With supporters like Ben Carson...

"Donald Trump has major defects. Are there better people? Probably.” -- Huffington

Thank you @CTULocal1 - you do this for all of us. #fightforfunding pic.twitter.com/l8GkWv6arh

— Helen Gym (@HelenGym2015) April 2, 2016

Randi & Lily: Why all the smoke-and-mirrors about new law's opt-out provisions?

ESSA allows parents to opt a student out of required assessments for any reason. -- AFT

ESSA maintains the right of parents to opt their children out of statewide academic assessments and allows states to limit the amount of time students spend taking annual tests. -- NEA

These requirements do not allow students to be excluded from statewide assessments. -- D.O.E.

Are teacher union leaders shooting straight with us about ESSA, the new federal education act? Or have they just not read the bill they've worked so hard to sell to teachers and parents?

 

AFT and NEA leaders would have us believe that the new law eliminates test-and-punish requirements and allows for parents and students to opt out of continuing No Child Left Behind testing madness. 

Is that really true?

Here's AFT's take on the new law:

ESSA allows parents to opt a student out of required assessments for any reason.Local educational agencies are required to notify parents annually of the ability to receive any testing participation policy of the state or LEA. If requested, school districts must provide parents information regarding student participation in mandated assessments and the parents’ right to opt their child out of the tests.

With this addendum:

 While states are required to have 95 percent of students participate in assessments,each state may determine the weight of the participation measure.

Whatever the hell that means.

But here's what's coming out of Arne Duncan/John King's D.O.E.:

Ann Whalen, the acting assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education, wrote a letter to state school chiefs on December 2, reminding them of “key assessment requirements” for the statewide assessments to be taken in Spring 2016. 

She writes: 

This school year the states are still under the requirements of No Child Left Behind. Whalen notes however, “similar requirements are included in the recently signed reauthorization of the ESEA, known as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)."

Whalen cites the new law:

Section 1111(b)(3)1 of the ESEA requires each State educational agency (SEA) that receives funds under Title I, Part A of the ESEA to implement in each local educational agency (LEA) in the State a set of high-quality academic assessments that includes, at a minimum, assessments in mathematics and reading/language arts administered in each of grades 3 through 8 and not less than once during grades 10 through 12; and in science not less than once during grades 3 through 5, grades 6 through 9, and grades 10 through 12. Furthermore, ESEA sections 1111(b)(3)(C)(i) and (ix)(I) require State assessments to “be the same academic assessments used to measure the achievement of all children” and “provide for the participation in such assessments of all students” (emphasis added).

 These requirements do not allow students to be excluded from statewide assessments. Rather, they set out the legal rule that all students in the tested grades must be assessed. [My emphasis]

With the new law's supposed states' rights emphasis (Mississippi goddam) there is some lingo that allows states to interpret 95% participation differently. I'll get my lawyers right on it.

But it's doubtful that cash-starved states, with huge testing contracts with Pearson and others, will risk losing hundreds of millions in federal education by risking opt-out provisions.

Despite ESSA rather than because of it, the opt-out movement will continue to grow. The question is, which side will our union leadership be on? If the new law is so great, why all the smoke and mirrors about opt-out?

New Study: Hungry kids score lower on tests. Shocking news?

Black Panther Party's free Breakfast Program, circa 1969.

Here's a shocker for you. Latest research coming out of Cardiff University confirms that kids who come to school hungry score lower on standardized tests than kids who are fed well. The latter group of the study's 11-year-olds scored twice as high as the hungry students.

More evidence that basing teacher evaluations on student test scores is bogus. What the tests are mostly measuring is student/family poverty -- not so-called "student achievement". Of course, by now nearly everyone in the field realizes this. Thus the growing movement of resistance to testing madness that have forced some small retreats in federal and state testing policies. Or maybe just lip service to change?

At any rate, Pres. Obama's call for "fewer and better tests" is welcomed by parents and educators. But it misses the point. That point being -- how high-stakes standardized testing is used to track and sort kids and to evaluate teachers.

Latest mini-retreat comes from one of the nation's greatest offenders -- N.Y. Gov. Cuomo himself.

According to NCPR:

New York State’s latest teacher evaluation system, which was supposed to be in place by November 15, has been put on hold because 90 percent of school districts were granted waivers to delay its implementation. This represents the reversal of a policy championed by Governor Cuomo last spring.

Side Note -- In Wales, where the study took place, there is a free breakfast initiative in place for primary schools.

After watching Stanley Nelson's latest film, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, I'm reminded that the Panthers most popular community initiative was it's free Breakfast For Children program. And that was back in '69.

Arne Duncan and the D.O.E. would do well to take a chunk of the millions it spends on testing and use it to recreate the Panthers' program. It would almost immediately lead to higher measurable student learning outcomes than have all the Department's current test-and-punish strategies.

As a parent and educator, I am repulsed by the idea that our society needs the testing rationale to make the case for feeding hungry children. But, whatever works, I suppose.

Without a focus on ending child hunger and poverty, current testing initiatives will continue to reproduce the system's inequities.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES 'No confidence' in Duncan/King

"No Confidence" in Duncan/King.

Jeanette Deutermann, Public school parent and founder of Long Island Opt Out

“Throughout his term in New York, John King was notorious for his complete disconnect from parents, teachers, and school officials. His blatant disregard for concerned parents and educators fueled opt outs to historic numbers. Our only hope is that this bizarre move by the White House will have the same effect across the country, spreading the Opt Out movement to every corner of the nation.” -- NYSAPE

John King

"It's [Duncan's]an incredible agenda and I'm proud to carry it forward.” -- Politico

Pres. Obama on Duncan resignation

"He's done more to bring our education system -- sometimes kicking and screaming -- into the 21st century more than anybody else." -- CNN

Diane Ravitch

So this is what the 21st century will look like: boot camps for minorities; teachers with scripts; schools run for profit; school scams by corporations; education industry traded on Néw York stick exchange; high-yield online schools with high attrition rates; the monetization of public education. -- Blog

Randi Weingarten

...his tenure as New York state’s education commissioner created so much polarization in the state with parents and educators alike that even Gov. Andrew Cuomo is finally doing a mea culpa over the obsession with testing. We can only hope that King has learned a thing or two since his tenure in New York.” -- AFT Press Release