WTF Dept.

Hey Arne! Please explain this DOE purchase order? h/t Ken Libby

QUOTABLES

Tribune Columnist Mary Schmich

Anyone who watches the march with an open mind will see that these young people aren't aliens. They're us. They are Chicago, and the immigration laws are squandering their energy and possibilities. In other words, squandering our possibilities. And her full name, which she finally says is OK to use, is Tania Unzueta. She is undocumented. She is trying not to be afraid. ("Undocumented and unafraid")

Herb Kohl

My feeling is that progressives should advocate a "race to equity" - a multibillion dollar initiative to bring some of the most impoverished schools up to the material and pedagogical conditions of the most effective public schools in the country. (Living in Dialogue)

Teacher of the year, Anthony Mullen

A butcher's bill has come due in Central Falls, Rhode Island and a nation awaits the fate of 93 school employees. Will these teachers and staff be brought to an oak cutting board? Will the visceral remains of teachers be wiped clean from the school district's cutting board and stain a sawdust covered floor? Lines have been drawn, rhetoric spewed, and children await resolve. (Road Diaries)

Fallout from Central Falls

If the firings proceed, the best, most experienced teachers will find jobs elsewhere. Who will replace them? After the headlines fade, the students at Central Falls could be the biggest losers. (Joan Vennochi, Boston Globe)

"We have to stop lying..."-- Duncan

Arne Duncan is still talking that civil rights talk. Only now he's moved the setting over from Robt. E. Lee H.S. in Montgomery, Alabama to a N.Y. session on CNN with neocon talk show host, Bill Bennett.

Some of you might remember Bennett as Ronald Reagan's education secretary. Younger readers may know him more as the gambling-addicted pontificator who wrote his preachy Book of Virtue, or the racist buffoon who liked to tell jokes genocide jokes, like: "[Y]ou could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."

Sorry Bill. Maybe you thought we forgot and put all that behind us. I haven't.

This is Duncan's version of bipartisanship. After all, the Democrat and the neocon found lots of areas of agreement. Bennett lauded Duncan for supporting the mass teacher firings in Central Falls. They both agreed that No Child Left Behind had been responsible for "lowering standards."

Hey wait a minute! Wasn't it Duncan who praised NCLB to the skies when he was Chicago schools CEO and put the district of a strict standardized testing regimen? And wasn't it Obama, just the other day, who was toasting Duncan's predecessor, Margaret ("NCLB is 99.4% pure") Spellings, as the reform leader who "helped to lead a lot of the improvement that’s been taking place and we’re building on"? Building on, indeed.

And wasn't Bennett previously a big cheer leader for NCLB, especially when his company, K12 Inc., was making millions after it somehow qualified as an NCLB "supplemental educational services" provider, giving Bennett access to huge NCLB grants. As I recall, one of K12's biggest customers at the time was Arne Duncan himself. Duncan and the board even granted K12's virtual school a charter and access to millions in state funding, without making the company go through the normal chartering procedures.

Oh, one more thing they were both certain of--Duncan's new mantra: "This is the civil rights issue of our generation."

I agree with one point Duncan made near the end of his interview.

"We have to stop lying," Duncan added.

Also see " Duncan and Bennett Share Same Forked Tongue" at Schools matter.

Obama's blunder in Central Falls

I very much appreciate the support from President Obama for the decisions we have made regarding Central Falls High School. Though these decisions have been difficult, I am confident that we have made our decisions based on the best interest of the Central Falls students. --State Supt. Deborah Gist

Instead of simply accepting Supt. Gist's version of what's in the "best interest" of the students, Obama should have talked with some before supporting the mass firings of their teachers. Now those current and past students are making their support for the teachers loud and clear.

I'm also wondering if Obama ever considered the potential economic impact on this small town, of the firings of 93 professionals, and their possible replacement with young, inexperienced TFA out-of-towners at non-union salaries. Central Falls is not like Chicago or New York, where teachers can move to other schools or maybe find jobs in the private sector. Now many will likely have to leave CF to find work, taking families with them, selling homes if they can. Central Falls, with a population of 18,000, is the smallest, most densely populated city in the nation's smallest state (possibly in the nation).

40% of youth live in poverty

The median income for a household in this, Rhode Island's poorest city, was $22,628, and the median income for a family was $26,844. Males had a median income of $23,854 versus $18,544 for females. The per capita income for the city was $10,825. About 25.9% of families and 29.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 40.8% of those under age 18 and 29.3% of those age 65 or over.

Firing 93 teachers and staff, having them collecting state aid or moving, will likely have a devastating effect on an already suffering community.

At least he's not saying, "It's all about the kids..."

At least, when Gov. Quinn, announced he was cutting the state's education budget by $1.3 billion, forcing the firing of possibly thousands of teachers and support staff, he didn't say, "it's for the kids."

The cuts will most certainly put an end to lots of the reform/speak about a longer school day and school year. Illinois can't even pay what it currently owes to schools. At the same time, the state will face the loss of more than $1 billion in federal money that has been used to soften cuts in education funding this year. While Chicago will be hard hit, suburban schools are also in trouble:

In the Thornton Fractional District in the south suburbs, the superintendent is considering eliminating one period a day...The singing will be silenced next year for 1,400 students in the Carpentersville school district. Gone will be music, and gym for kindergarteners, and some bus service, along with 112 teachers...The Kaneland School District is cutting 21 staffers and 10 athletic coaching jobs. (ABC News)

Quinn'a plan would cost some 13,000 teachers and staff their jobs, cut off poor seniors from help in paying for costly prescriptions and shut down some health care programs for the indigent. But even after about $2 billion in cuts, the state would still be $11 billion in the hole.

I'm not making this up

When the right-wing Fordham Institute's Mike Petrilli (left) heard Arne Duncan mention the words, "civil rights," he freaked.

Holy Toledo! The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights is going to use “all the tools” at its disposal to fix one of education’s most intractable problems: the achievement gap.

But, not to worry. He heard back immediately from Russlynn Ali, the Department of Education’s Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, calling to "soothe" his concerns.

Holy Toledo!

ED REFORM?

dan wasserman cartoon

Duncan talks civil rights

It seems like everyone in school reform is talking the civil rights talk these days. "Education is the civil rights issue of our time" has become the mantra of the so-called "post racial" era. I suppose that's a good thing but it makes me wonder if it's become an empty cliche? I can't help remembering that 8 years of No Child Left Behind have been foisted on us, using that same civil rights lingo along with the empty promise of "closing the achievement gap."

Yesterday, Sec. Duncan announced that the DOE's Office for Civil Rights expects to issue a series of guidance letters to educators to address "issues of fairness and equity." According to the Washington Post, the OCR "is ramping up enforcement of civil rights laws in schools and colleges, a move that seeks to draw a contrast with the policies of his Republican predecessors."

Duncan made the announcement at an appearance at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where Dr. King and civil rights marchers were attacked by state and local police in March 1965. There he listed a few examples of the widening racial gaps, including suspension and expulsion rates, in schools.

It's interesting to note that Duncan also held a news conference at Robt. E. Lee High School, a long-standing symbol of white supremacy and of Montgomery's war against the Civil Rights Movement of the '60s. It still strikes me as shocking that in 2010, we have a now, predominantly African-American high school in the South named after a pro-slavery general and leader of the Confederacy. After some protests by black ministers and politicians, the ever-agile Duncan announced he would visit Martin Luther King Elementary School as well--a kind of hat-tipping to both sides, I suppose.

I'm glad Duncan went to Selma. I hope his appearance was more than a photo op or just political another example of political positioning vis a vis the Republicans. Of course even old-line Georgia segregationist Newt Gingrich, Duncan's touring buddy, is talking civil-rights these days, in order to push school vouchers and privatization schemes. So if I sound a little skeptical, I am. Here's why.

When Duncan was Chicago's schools CEO, he led the charge to liquidate the district's court-ordered desegregation plan. "We've done all we can do," Duncan pleaded before a federal judge. He claimed that the push to desegregate the city's schools was going to cost the district $300 million. The Consent Decree was dropped and Mayor Daley's school system remains, arguably the most racially segregated in the nation.

Ron Huberman, Duncan's replacement, is now saddled with the task of restructuring the district's highly esteemed magnet schools, minus deseg requirements and without the ability to use race as an admissions criteria. In other words, the very schools that were created under the Civil Rights Act, and the city's only racially diverse schools, are now being re-segregated.

As was pointed out in a Sun-Times editorial yesterday, Huberman's initiative "--one that no longer uses race as a factor, per a court ruling -- almost certainly makes it harder for minority students to get in."

Such is Duncan's civil rights legacy in Chicago.

Winners & Losers in the race to the top

Urban Prep Academy is a small all-boys charter high school in Chicago's African-American community of Englewood. It's run by a non-profit corporation and led by a committed and talented director, Tim King, the former president of Hales Franciscan Catholic School. According to Saturday's Sun-Times, Urban Prep's entire first class of 107 graduating seniors has been accepted to four-year colleges. Quite an accomplishment, right? King and his staff should be complimented on their great work.

But Urban Prep's success also raises questions about the way charter schools have been pitted against neighborhood schools with results being used, under NCLB and now under Race To The Top, to punish those schools and their teachers.

I have no solid numbers about Urban Prep's attrition rate or how it selects its students, compared with neighborhood schools. I know it's supposed to be purely through a lottery process but there's no available data on UP's percentage of ELL, and students with disabilities and special needs. I also wonder whether students who don't see college in their immediate future or who are more interested in (or of necessity) going straight into the world of work, are accepted after going through the application and interview process.

The larger questions raised by Urban Prep's success have to to do with test scores, the cornerstone of Arne Duncan's school closing and turnaround policies under RTTT. Urban Prep's are nothing to write home about (I don't think test scores in general are anything to write home about, but that's me). According to the Sun-Times:

The average ACT score of Urban Prep's all-black male student body -- 16.1 -- is below the Chicago Public Schools average of 17 but above the CPS black male average of 15.4. On state tests, Urban Prep kids fell below even the CPS black male average, with only 15.3 percent of juniors passing last year.

It's interesting that the school's entire graduating class has been accepted to four-year universities even though only 12% of them met the college readiness benchmark in reading and only 36% met the benchmark in English on the ACT exam. And while UP's composite ACT score is a few (3) points higher than nearby high schools, it's important to remember that UP ISN'T a neighborhood school. It draws its students from 31 different zip-codes in the city.

If Urban Prep was a neighborhood school with scores like these, instead of being heralded by the mayor, Arne Duncan, and CEO Huberman, the school would likely be facing sanctions under NCLB or worse ones under RTTP. It's possible that King would be fired along with his entire dedicated faculty, and the school hit with turnaround, since current policy relies almost entirely on standardized test scores as an indicator of school success. And you can forget about so-called merit pay which is tied directly to student test scores.

But UP isn't a neighborhood school. Its curriculum isn't all about testing. Rather it offers students a longer school day, "core values," a strong push towards college, along with basic skills instruction and a strong complement of after-school and sports programs (all neighborhood schools just had their sophomore sports programs gutted). While Chicago Public School budgets are being drastically cut, Urban Prep gets more than a million dollars in extra financial support from foundations and outside funding sources like Oprah Winfrey. That gives the school an annual budget of some $5 million-plus with which to educate its 500 students. The extra funding allows the school to provide each student with his own personal counselor as well as with a college counselor in each of his four years of high school. Neighborhood high school guidance counselors each have to counsel 400-500 students. With all the extra dollars and corporate partnerships, you would expect the school to be scoring higher than regular neighborhood schools.

There's no reason why every public school student shouldn't or couldn't be getting these kinds of supports. You don't have to be a charter school to do most of what Urban Prep is doing and you don't have to do it Urban Prep's way. There are also many ways to measure school success.

Then again, this is a race to the top and that presupposes a small group of winning schools and a large group of losing schools. Doesn't it?

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Senator from Harlem, critic of privatization

“If there are people fleeing from something, it is cause for alarm,” he said in an interview in his office. Using an analogy he favors when talking about charter schools, he said: “That should tell you there is a fire, and those who are responsible should find out what is causing that fire, not just create a new place for those who flee and leave the rest inside to burn there.” (Sen. Bill Perkins)

Rhode Island supe's collateral damage

The “turnaround model” now recommended by the superintendent and supported by Education Commissioner Deborah Gist is the school-reform equivalent of detonating a bomb within a school. The collateral damage done already should suffice to give policymakers pause. (Monica Teixeira De. Sousa)

Obama supported R.I. teacher firings

“I ripped the Obama sticker off of my truck,” said Zeph Capo, a midlevel official at the Houston Federation of Teachers who trains classroom teachers. “We worked hard for this man, we talked to our neighbors and our fellow teachers about why we should support him, and we’re having to dig the knife out of our back.” (New York Times)

REMAPPING PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION

The First Symposium of the Deborah Meier Institute

Featuring
Michelle Fine CUNY
Pedro Noguera NYU
John Ryan PRESIDENT EMERITUS INDIANA UNIVERSITY
Deborah Meier COALITION ESSENTIAL SCHOOLS

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Sponsored by the following schools and organizations (list in progress)

AmPark*Art of Teaching Program of Sarah Lawrence College*Boston Arts Academy*Brooklyn Collaborative*Brooklyn International *Brooklyn New School*Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies*Bronx New School*Center for Urban Education at LIU*Central Park East 1*Central Park East 2*City as School*Community School for Social Justice*Earth School*East Side Community*El Puente*Elementary Teachers Network*Ella Baker*Essex Street*Facing History*Fannie Lou Hamer*Fannie Lou Hamer Middle School*Fenway*Freedom High School*Global Learning Community*Gotham Arts Academy*Humanities Prep*Institute of Collaborative Education*James Baldwin*Landmark*Lehman Alternative Community School*Lyons Community*Manhattan International*Middle College*Mission Hill*Muscota New School*Neighborhood School*PerDevPerceptual Development*Public Science Project at the Graduate Center, CUNY*School of the Future*School Without Walls*United Federation of Teachers (UFT)*Urban Academy*Vanguard*Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation

• Hear nationally known educators speak about creating and sustaining progressive schools.
• Participate in workshops facilitated by educators and students addressing topics relevant to progressive educators.
• Participate in workshops to redirect the local and national education agenda.
• Connect with colleagues of similar perspectives and varied experience.
• Be entertained by the All-City High School Chorus.

The Julia Richman Education Complex
317 East 67th Street (between 1st &2nd Avenues)

Saturday, April 17, 2010
8:30 am-3:30 pm

Registration details will follow

Email MeierSymposium@gmail.com with any questions

The Meier Institute Symposium is presented in collaboration with
Harmony Education Center and Indiana University

Wow! What a week

An independent voice

First there was the stirring of the sleepy teachers unions in response to the mass firings of teachers and staff at Central Falls H.S. in Rhode Island. Then, yesterdays protests by hundreds of thousands of students and supporters in California, New York and some 40 cities nationwide really shook things up.

It looks like many of the very forces that mobilized to put President Obama into the White House are now, once again finding their independent voice. It's about time.

Real change can only come from below. What a shame that former community organizer, Obama and teacher's son Duncan, have to relearn this the hard way.

AP VIDEO

The struggle continues

Central Falls teachers and their supporters rallied in West Warwick on Thursday ahead of a meeting of Rhode Island's Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education.

After Supt. Frances Gallo balked at the demonstration, a union official responded that the rally was about unity:

“This is about supporting teachers and students. Whenever teachers can get together to support each other and to support their students, I don’t think that should interfere with anything,“ said Jane Sessums, president of the Central Falls Teachers’ Union.

Chicago's Local School Councils

Last vestige of democratic school reform threatened

The deadline for Chicago's Local School Council candidates to register to run this spring is one week from today, March 11. But you'd never know if from anything the district is putting out.

Don Moore at Designs For Change reports that to date, there are only 1,627 candidates officially registered to run and unless there is an extension of the candidate deadline, we are headed for a record low number of candidates, which will inevitably be followed by a call to eliminate LSCs.

Aside from the conscious neglect of LSC recruitment on the part of the board, there has been lots of misleading and discouraging information coming out of Clark Street, says Moore. It's all designed to make potential candidates feel they're not needed. On top of this, half of all CPS schools have been placed on academic probation. This status robs LSC's of some of their most important decision-making powers and there's no evidence that probationary status has ever improved student learning outcomes.

If you're a Chicagoan interested in running for your school's LSC, there's still time. Find information here or contact Designs For Change at donmoore@designsforchange.org or call 312/236-7252 ext. 236.

Questions remaining

According to this morning's Times, it looks like Supt. Gallo and the Central Falls board are in retreat. After first refusing to even meet with the union, Gallo announced yesterday that she welcomes the union’s input on a transformation plan for the high school. Gallo, said an offer made late Tuesday by the Central Falls Teachers Union gave her hope the issue could be resolved without mass firings. The union has already appealed the firings to the district’s board of trustees and filed a complaint with the State Labor Relations Board and national reaction, especially from labor, to the mass firings has been overwhelmingly negative towards the district and state leadership as well as towards Obama/Duncan.

Questions remaining:

• Was an unenthusiastic Gallo pushed into this rash move by an overzealous State Supt. Gist?
• Was Gist (an Eli Broad Academy fellow and obvious Michelle Rhee wannabe) led to believe that the mass firings would win her favor with Arne Duncan and improve her chances of getting RTTT $$$?
• Can or should the district and union reach a compromise on work rules and pay issues by negating the existing contract, which both parties agreed to and signed?
• Can Gallo retreat without Duncan's blessing?

Stay tuned.

Ravitch's book has power

Diane Ravitch's new book echoes many of the views in our own 2008 book, Small Schools: Public School Reform Meets the Ownership Society. She's become the leading critic of what passes for school reform these days, what we called Ownership Society reform--teacher/union bashing, privately-run charter schools, arbitrary school closings, power philanthropy, and mayoral control. While still a step or two removed from the struggles going on in school communities around the country, Ravitch has become a leading voice of the resistance movement.

She does give our book a mention. But damn, Diane. We're only part of footnote 22 on page 268. What's up with that? I don't feel so bad however, since Deb Meier, who probably played the biggest role, through their Bridging Differences blog, in forcing Ravitch to reconsider many of her previous views, is only mentioned once in passing (p.228).

But Ravitch's story of conversion from right-wing think-tanker, voucher and standardized-testing supporter to arch enemy of current market-driven school reform, is so much more powerful than anything we could have written. Her transformation has drawn notice and lengthy rave reviews from major media and comment from all political corners. Check out today's NYT's piece by Sam Dillon which has this great Ravitch quote:

“School reform today is like a freight train, and I’m out on the tracks saying, ‘You’re going the wrong way!’ ”

Freight train indeed, Diane. Welcome to the tracks.

But the most amusing review came from DR's old right-wing running buddy, Chester Finn. Chester, writing in Forbes (of course), says he still "respects" turncoat Diane, even though she's not a union basher. But the funniest part is when Finn says of DR.,

"She has become more conservative, while I have become more radical."

Is Finn, the 2010 version of Bill Ayers? What are they smoking over there at Fordham?

Obama's support for mass teacher firings have a price

Union leaders say they are "appalled" by Obama's cheer leading of Central Falls teacher firings. Even though they say they are sticking with Dems in elections, Obama/Duncan escalating attacks on teachers and their unions will be costly.

Coming the day after union presidents sharply complained to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. over stubbornly high unemployment, stagnant wages and the administration’s failure to do more to create jobs, the statement — voicing a rare vehemence toward a Democratic president — underlined the disillusionment of an important Democratic constituency. (New York Times)

But union leaders want to keep their seat at the table, one they didn't have under Bush. They still hope to influence ESEA reauthorization and are closely watching Arne Duncan's testimony before the House Education and Labor Committee.

Happy Birthday Doc!

It's Dr. Seuss' birthday today. I'm sure if the good doctor was in Central Falls, R.I. yesterday and heard Obama's pile-on speech attacking the 94 fired teachers, literacy coaches and other staff, he would send off one of his famous rhymes to to the prez:

“Your Majesty.
Please… I don’t like
to complain.
But down here
below, we are feeling
great pain.”--Yertle the Turtle

Shades of Reagan

If there was any doubts that the mass firings of Central Falls H.S. teachers came straight from the top, Obama put them to rest yesterday when he took a public kick at the 93 fired teachers and staff yesterday, blaming them and them only for lagging test scores.

Obama's speech, tantamount to a declaration of war, was reminiscent of Ronald Reagan's 1981 busting of PATCO, the air controllers union and marked a major open break with reform partner Randi Weingarten and the AFT.

The only question now is, will the AFT and NEA stand and fight or lose all credibility as a voice for their 4 million members?

In a joint response, Weingarten and local union officials said:

"We know it is tempting for people in Washington to score political points by scapegoating teachers, but it does nothing to give our students and teachers the tools they need to succeed."

In an interview, Weingarten said Obama's comments about the school "don't reflect the reality on the ground and completely ignore the commitment teachers have made to turn things around." Seemingly trying to put the president's speech in the best light, Weingarten said the union was "profoundly disappointed by the comments" and said the president "seems to be focused on . . . incomplete information."

Does she really think that Obama would make such a strategic move without first getting all the facts?

National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel echoed Weingarten's Obama-is-naive response:

"It's time for federal officials to get out of the blame game and into the classroom. One thing is certain: Firing the entire faculty of a school that is on the path to improvement is no recipe for turning around a struggling high school. And relying on a magical pool of 'excellent teachers' to spring forth and replace them is naïve at best and desperately misguided." ... in reality, we all know that the solution is not blame, it is collaboration...collaboration among school employees, management, parents and communities."

The AFT also took the opportunity to offer a 2009 report that highlights turnover in leadership (6 principals in 4 years) and a variety of conflicting, failed, top-down reform programs.