Cruising the blogs

When it csomes to ed bloggers, some of my favorites can be found on NEPC's aptly-named Best of the Ed Blogs, including the likes of Ravitch, Ferlazzo, Thomas, Cuban, etal... In this post, Stanford prof, Larry Cuban wrestles with the progressive/traditional teaching duality when one of his students innocently describes him as a "traditional" teacher. He is and isn't.

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After reading Anthony Cody's favorable review of Lois Weiner's new book, "The Future of Our Schools, Teachers Unions and Social Justice", I ordered a copy from Haymarket Books for possible use in my winter quarter course.

“Education is growth" ― John Dewey 

Another EdWeek (Teacher) blogger, Elena Aguilar offers advice to fellow teacher-coaches in her "Art of Coaching Teachers" blog. I'm a little put off (biased?) by the title and the patronizing tone it projects. It's not that I'm anti-coach. I am a high school basketball coach (among other things) and also direct the Small Schools Workshop where lots of "coaching" of willing teachers and principals has taken place over the years. I appreciate the teacher-as-coach metaphor and what it connotes in the way of democratic teaching/learning. And as a coach, and a teacher, I appreciate being coached by others in my field who are willing to share their experience and knowledge with me.

So why do I feel that old chill run up my spine when I read Aguilar's response to a San Diego math coach complaining that she is seeing "no growth" in the teachers he/she is working with. This all too common response on the part of professional-developers says more about them than it does about the teachers they are trying (unsuccessfully) to coach.

 The coach has no business making such an evaluation. No growth is really a death pronouncement. Isn't it? What kind of teacher would ever deem one of their students to be "no growth."  It sounds like this coach means, I can't get these teachers to do what I want them to do. Big difference from no-growth. This coach needs to go.

But even Aguilar's response to her fellow coaching artist, smacks of the same patronizing tone towards teaching professionals. Maybe it's the way she refers to them as "your teachers" as in,

"Dear Stumped, I know how hard it can be to feel like your teachers aren't making growth ..." 

Yes, that's it.

After Nov. 6th, aren't we already at 'the table'?

“...being seated at the table, which do you think is a better place to be?” -- Sen. Durbin

November 6th was the election. The very next day came the "fiscal cliff" media deluge, concocted by the leadership of both parties as a way of justifying the grand deal that's already in the works -- a slashing of so-called entitlements in exchange for a slight bump in the tax rate for the multi-millionaire and billionaire class. Obama is adamant about the next step: putting money on the table, by not extending tax breaks set to expire at the end of the year for earners over $250,000. By entitlements, they mean the very survival basics of millions of poor and elderly -- social-security, medicare, medicaid. Also on the table are more massive cuts to public education.

Like the artillery barrage before the military assault, here comes the brigade of liberal pols, softening up the ground for the grand deal. In Illinois, where a Democratic governor is already leading the charge on the pension fund, it's the liberalist of liberals, the number 2 leader in the Senate, Dick Durbin leading the retreat.

Sen. Dick Durbin delivered some tough love Tuesday to his fellow progressive Democrats in a speech on the “fiscal cliff.” His message: Be ready to compromise — or be left out of the conversation while others make decisions about the priorities you care about the most, such as preventing the middle class from carrying an unfair tax burden. -- Sun-Times

Compromise or be left out of the conversation? Now? Before the battle even begins? Sound familiar? Hasn't this been the mantra of some national teacher union leaders as they push contracts in Newark, Cleveland, and D.C. that include self-destructive demolition of teacher's bargaining rights and test-based teacher evaluation, in exchange for a "seat at the table" they already have?

How can Dems possibly be "left out of the conversation" after November 6th? What the hell are you talking about, Sen. Durbin? Off course compromises may be necessary based on the relative strength of the base of each party and the willingness of the leadership to mobilize that base.

But the CTU strike pointed the way. There's no need to surrender before the fight even begins. The real targets of the grand deal on entitlement cuts are the poor, the elderly, the sick and the children. We don't need more "tough love." We're not afraid of the fiscal cliff. Many of us are already over it.

More BBB sleight of hand

Damn! No sooner had I posted about Byrd-Bennett's school-closing trickery, then she came up with another bit of Three-Card Monte. She's really good.

BBB's enigma, wrapped in a riddle, surrounded by mystery, goes like this: When is a moratorium not really a moratorium? Answer -- when BBB calls it a turnaround, instead of a closing. Sure, you're firing all the school's teachers and replacing them with lower-paid, non-union newbies. Sure you're handing the school over to private charter operators. But that's not exactly the same as closing -- is it? And finally, the post-moratorium closings aren't about "right-sizing," says CPS liar-in-chief Becky Carrol. They will be done for "academic reasons." Get it?

Thanks to PURE's Julie Woestehoff for finding the pea under the middle card.

She says a “turnaround’’ has the same affect of a “closure” on adults in a school. “This seems to be more evidence to suggest that this is a phony moratorium. It’s a moratorium whose details are TBA. How can people sign on to support something when the details seem to change from hour to hour? It sounds like a moratorium of convenience and nothing that can be trusted or supported by Chicago parents.’’

The editorial in yesterday's Sun-Times said it best:

A five-year moratorium on Chicago school closures proposed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel sure sounds good — as long as you don’t think too hard about it.

Also watching the cards move, were union V.P. Jesse Sharkey and Catalyst reporter Rebecca Harris who were interviewed last night by Elizabeth Brackett on Chicago Tonight.

BBB's School-Closing Chicanery

So this is why Byrd-Bennett was brought in to replace the bumbling Brizzard. Where he played Rahm's fool, she's the sleight-of-hand magician -- now you see it now you don't. She tells Rahm: You want 200 school closed without a community rebellion? Keeping the aldermen in line?  Watch this!

Let us close 100-200 schools in the next year, she tells the City Club:, and then we'll give them a five-year moratorium on closing schools. That's the "deal" she's now offering to Illinois legislators. If CPS is to close schools in the next year it must, by law, deliver a list of proposed closings to the Legislature by Saturday. Byrd-Bennett has asked for an extension of that deadline to March 31, which would mean beginning to close schools over the summer when most students and teachers are not in school and it is harder to organize resistance.

The Tribune reports:

The Chicago Teachers Union and Parents United for Responsible Education panned the speech and demanded that no schools be closed. "It sounds as if the mayor is saying, 'I promise to stop beating you after I get in this last round of punches,'" PURE wrote on its website.

Reuters reports on the CTU's response:

 "Today's announcement is nothing more than a sleight of hand," the Chicago Teachers Union said in a statement. "How can the district cry 'under-utilization' as a justification for school closings while it simultaneously approves the opening of new charter campuses?"

More reasons for an elected school board in Chicago.

Rahm stalls on revealing his school kill list (minus drones, we hope)

Rahm and his hand-picked school board can't afford drone warfare. But they have a kill list just the same, when it comes to schools in the city's most under-served neighborhoods. They just aren't showing it.

In the face of growing community anger and protests, they've switched to stalling tactics and other tricks to get around Public Act 096-0803 which was supposed to “ensure that school facility-related decisions are made with the input of the community and reflect educationally sound and fiscally responsible criteria.”

This afternoon at UIC, Rahm's sham School Closing Commission is set to meet from 1-3 P.M. Of course, no public input is allowed. But I'm told, mic-checks may be forthcoming. Rahm created the commission as a way of circumventing the legally established Chicago Educational Facilities Task Force (CEFTF).

Tomorrow, the Illinois General Assembly will hold a hearing in Springfield to consider the CPS stall plan.  CTU Political Director Stacy Davis Gates, is asking that we make contact with our elected leaders and speak with members on the Illinois House Executive Committee. Demand that they do NOT extend CPS an opportunity to change the law again.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Reaper Drone

License to Kill

"Creating a legal structure, processes, with oversight checks on how we use unmanned weapons is going to be a challenge for me and my successors for some time to come." -- President Obama 

D.C. Chancellor Kaya Henderson

"If we're going to keep a traditional school system, we can't just have schools pop up anywhere and cannibalize schools, right?" -- WAMU 88.5 News

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel

Chicago's initiatives come straight out of the playbook Barack Obama put forward in his campaign four years ago and has advocated since Day One of his presidency. -- "How to rebuild America"

Rep. Jack Franks 

I'm embarrassed for him [Gov. Quinn]. -- "Quinn faces key leadership test in coming weeks"

Grading or Degrading?

Michael Brick, writing in yesterday's N.Y. Times, ("When Grading is Degrading") offers a devastating appraisal of current reform policies which are based increasingly on fostering competition and on grading schools and teachers. Brick takes a look at the situation in Texas, which he calls "nobody’s model for educational excellence", where the state has long used complex algorithms to assign grades of Exemplary, Recognized, Acceptable or Unacceptable to its schools.

So far, such competition has achieved little more than re-segregation, long charter school waiting lists and the same anemic international rankings in science, math and literacy we’ve had for years.

Actually Brick is wrong about the "nobody" part. Chicago's mayor, Rahm Emanuel, with coaching from Stand For Children's Jonah Edelman, held up Houston as his model for his imposed longer schools day, making wild, unsubstantiated claims about Texas miracles.

Another brick (sorry!) in the testing wall fell to the ground in PA when federal education officials denied the state's request to evaluate charter school achievement using more lenient criteria, saying they must be assessed by the same standard as traditional schools.

Diane Ravitch finds it "interesting that the announcement was made on the day before the long holiday weekend, which meant that someone decided to bury it."

In L.A. the least experienced teachers are being placed with the neediest kids

A new Harvard study shows the so-called "achievement gap" growing wider in L.A. as the neediest of the district's students are taught by the least experienced teachers. Under Supt. John Deasy's control,  LAUSD has increased its reliance on extended substitutes and TFA five-week wonders as an austerity measure and a way of undermining the union contract. First-year teachers are assigned to students who begin the year academically behind students assigned to more experienced teachers.

According to the L.A. Times:

No single finding can produce a strategy to erase the district’s substantial achievement gap between white students and their black and Latino classmates, the study said, noting that the difference in performance on fifth-grade math tests is roughly equivalent to more than one and half years of learning. 

The study also shows the limitations on the district's use of value-added or "teacher affects" evaluation based on student standardized test scores.

Further, teacher effects are only as good as the assessment used to formulate them. Assessments that are insufficiently challenging or that are poorly aligned to the curriculum that the district expects its teachers to cover will not yield useful estimates.

Yet, it is just those types of assessment that the study and the district rely on to generate their evaluations.

Rahm's 'reform' agenda takes a beating

At City Club luncheon: i don't know what Gov. Quinn is saying, but Karen Lewis doesn't seem too impressed .

Rahm's school reform agenda of school closings and charter schools, was taken to the woodshed yesterday. First and foremost by CTU Prez Karen Lewis in her address to the City Club.

At one point, half the room gave Ms. Lewis a standing ovation. Among those who stayed seated: Beth Swanson, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's education point person during the contentious teachers strike held in September. “We usually walk a fine line at the City Club,” said Ed Mazur, a city club board member who stood up for Ms. Lewis. “She likes to cross it. She doesn't mince words.” -- Crain's

Then by Diane Ravitch on Chicago Tonight.


Finally, Ald. Fiorretti continues to be the voice  for the growing resistance movement within the city council, to the mayor's school closing/charter school expansion plans.

In his ward , Fioretti said, eight charter schools have moved in, two have moved out, and five neighborhood schools have closed, causing “significant dislocation and emotional distress.’’ One charter recently opened across the street from a neighborhood school that CPS last year had considered solidly performing but half-empty, Fioretti said.

In Pearson we trust. Really? But our blood is never blue.

Remember back in April, when a single insipid test question sparked the pineapple rebellion and shone a light, not only on current standardized testing practices, but on the whole testing industry and its leading profiteer, Pearson Publishing? With lives, careers and the very existence of schools hanging in the balance, we have become totally reliant on Pearson and the testing companies to measure and arbitrate truth and correctness. Even more so, with the era of the Common Core curriculum at hand. But what happens when Pearson is wrong -- either in the content of their texts or in the proscribed answers on their tests?

Check out this exchange between Chicago Science/Math Teacher Oscar Newman and Pearson.

November 17, 2012 

To Whom It May Concern, 

My school recently purchased Pearson's Interactive Science for our middle school students (6-8 Grades). While preparing for a lesson, I happened upon the following quote, from the Interactive Physical Science book 1 TE, p.119 Under "Science and Society": "The influx of oxygen changes blood's color from blue to red...Have students examine their arms to see if they have any blue veins. Explain that the blood in those veins is headed back to the heart and lung to receive more oxygen." 

Really? I am appalled at the poor scientific review that this book apparently underwent. Even cursory editing would have prevented this error. Human blood is never blue.

Hemoglobin turns bright red when oxygenated. Deoxygenated (vertebrate) blood is dark red. Mollusks and some arthropods use hemocyanin, which turns blue when oxygenated due to the copper it contains, but our blood is never blue. Pigments in skin cause veins to appear blue. Those who have donated blood are well aware of this, in fact, I show my students a photo of me donating blood to dissuade them of this misconception. 

I was on the team that decided to purchase this series for my school, and I am saddened that I did not catch this in time or have a chance to question the representative who sold this product. I will now thoroughly check these science texts to make sure that I do not have to waste valuable instructional time addressing this and other foolishness.

Please address this problem in future versions. 

Yours in outrage, 

Oscar Newman,

NBCT (EA Science 2002, 2011) 7-8 Grade Science and Math Teacher 

Chicago Academy Elementary School  3400 N. Austin Ave. Chicago, IL 60634

Pearson responds to Oscar Newman 

Question Reference #121117-000138 

Thank you for contacting our Curriculum K12 Customer Service Dept. Our customer service team will research your request and respond as quickly as possible.

Our regular office hours are 8:00AM to 6:00PM Eastern standard time, Monday through Friday. If you received this message outside our normal operating hours, please expect our team to begin researching your inquiry the next business day. We appreciate your business. 

Learn about our Virtual Learning Achievement Guarantee.Click here for details: http://www.pearsonschool.com/index.cfm?locator=PS159t 

So far, Oscar tells me he has received no call-back from Pearson. So for millions of American public school students and their teachers, human blood remains blue -- at least for the purpose of getting the answer right on the test.

Gov. "Squeezy" and autocrat Rahm

It would be hilarious if it wasn't so tragic. It's not only the low point of this once-progressive governor's career, it is characteristic of the buffoonery that marks state Democrats' attack on public employees' pensions and on their own political base. Of course I'm referring to Gov. "Squeezy's" pet python and his "grass-roots" campaign to "reform" the pension fund.

It all makes me wonder:   first, why are we taxpayers footing the bill for this crap? And second, what idiot on the gov's staff ingested enough drugs to come up with Squeezy? As I said the day Quinn was chased out of the state fair by thousands of pissed-off union members down in Springfield -- he's toast.

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The school board appointment means that two former CPS principals — Azcoitia and Mahalia Hines — will be voting on what could be the closure of scores of schools as the system begins to “right-size’’ the nation’s third-largest school district. -- Sun-Times

If we had an elected school board, I would be applauding the selection of Carlos Azcoitia. But with the mayor continuing his assault on neighborhood schools, I take little comfort in his appointment to Rahm's  rubber-stamp school board. Azcoitia has been one of Chicago's best community educators with a legacy of leadership in the creation of two wonderful small schools in Little Village -- Telpochcalli and Community Links.

But I'm sure that autocrat Rahm made it clear before appointing educators Azcoitia, Hines and CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett to his billionaire-dominated board that he expects nothing less than their uncritical support for the Civic Committee's plan to close 100 neighborhood schools in the city's most under-served black and Latino communities to pave the way for 100 privately-run charter schools. There are no NO VOTES allowed on Rahm's hand-picked board.

But it's still hard for me to imagine Azcoitia playing a role in the closing of some of the very schools he helped to create. Nevertheless, the CTU, parents and community groups aren't going to sit around hoping that Azcoitia, Hines, Byrd-Bennett or anyone in the City Council will have enough spine to stand up to the little autocrat when push comes to shove.

Resistance to the school closings has already succeeded in forcing the Board's current stall tactics. Now they want to delay providing us a list of school closures until March 2013. And they want to undercut the power of the Chicago Educational Facilities Task Force (CEFTF) by establishing their own school-closing commission that meets in secret.

But this won't fly, as I'm sure CTU President Karen Lewis will tell the City Club when she speaks at their luncheon this afternoon.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Duncan remains

"We came out of the gates flying" in the first term, he said, and he plans to "replicate that as much as we can." -- Edweek

Michelle Rhee on Duncan

"The signaling by Secretary Duncan that he will continue for another term is an enormous win for children." -- Huffington

Bobby Jindal says something stupid

Republicans "need to stop saying stupid things... We're not the party of big—big businesses, big banks, big Wall Street, big bailouts." -- The Hill

School districts brace for more cuts

“It in essence widens the gaps between the haves and have-nots,” said Daniel A. Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators. “The wealthy suburban communities that receive very little federal funding — it’s not going to have much impact on them.” -- NYT

Michigan affirmative action ban overturned

 George Washington, the Detroit lawyer who argued the case, said  “The Big Lie told by the supporters of Proposal 2 is that grades and test scores are a neutral means for judging merit,” he said. “But that system is openly biased against black, Latino and Native American applicants.” -- NYT

Newark teachers got the shaft [Updated]

Warning to teachers. Please don't watch this video immediately after eating.

I was sickened to see Randi Weingarten and Tea-Party Gov. Christie on Morning Joe, fawning over each other and over the deal they cut on the Newark teachers' contract. It was the worst display of seat-at-the-table unionism I have seen in years. Both are hailing the deal as a "model" for the rest of the country. I hope against hope that it isn't. Christie called it "the most gratifying day of my governorship, by far." That should tell you something about the deal right there. New Jersey Education Commissioner and chief privatizer Chris Cerf (not be be confused with Che Guevara) called the contract "revolutionary." Union President Joseph Del Grosso was a little more restrained, calling it a "roadmap" and  “a step in the right direction for the teaching profession."

I can understand why many Newark teachers voted for the contract (actually, only a slight majority of city teachers even voted and 62% of them voted yes). They have been forced to work without any contract these past two years, under the state takeover of their schools, and now will receive some retroactive pay. They were also given some input into the design of their own evaluations which are still based largely on student test scores along with peer evaluation, and which will determine whether they receive "merit pay" from now on. So the argument could be made that this was the best they could get. Of course, that's not what Weingarten and Christie are saying.

Teacher pay is now also dependent upon the largesse of billionaires Eli Broad and  know-nothing power philanthropist Mark Zuckerberg who can pull the plug on his $100 million gift at any time -- for example, if Christie or Newark mayor Corey Booker were to be defeated in the next election. This is the same kind of top-down manipulation and leveraging of Gates and Broad grant money that Michelle Rhee and former Mayor Fenty pulled off in D.C. before voters gave them the boot. Newark schools have been turned into beggars operating largely on private funding to circumvent public decision-making. A Tea Party dream come true. 

Teachers are no longer guaranteed pay step and lane increases based on credentials. They can win bonuses for teaching in low-performing schools (not a bad idea in and of itself). Teachers who are deemed "ineffective" based on a test-based, value-added formula, can elect to be rated by an independent "peer validator." That review will be considered before determining their final ratings or whether they should be fired or "mentored." However, Newark School Superintendent Cami Anderson will have the final say if an agreement on a teacher's competence can't be reached. What? Where's the union grievance procedure in all this?

The Star-Ledger reports that Christie is now threatening the NJEA:

The AFT is only affiliated with Newark teachers; the rest of the state’s more than 100,000 teachers are aligned with the New Jersey Education Association, which insists merit pay is discriminatory and a recipe for low morale. "I hope that they would look at this as a model," Christie said of the NJEA. "If they don’t, they’ll become dinosaurs, because this is where education in America is moving, and you can either be part of the difference or you can be run over by it."

Edweek reports that critics of the contract include the members of a new political "caucus" or party within the NFT. Called the New Caucus, the group has posted a number of documents that pick apart aspects of the contract.

The New Caucus seems modeled on the rise of similar groups, such as the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators in Chicago, from which emerged Karen Lewis, the hard-charging president of the Chicago Teachers' Union; and the the Movement of Rank-and-File Educators, a similar one in New York City.

Weingarten was one of Christie’s most prominent critics last year, when he slashed state pensions and health benefits by shifting more costs to public workers. Christie joked that if he could find common ground with Randi Weingarten, then Democratic President Barack Obama should be able to get along with Republicans in Washington. Buckle up, folks. 

Study: Why do so many kids drop out?

The 2012 High School Dropouts in America survey finds that the great majority of kids who leave school early, do so because of out-of-school conditions such as family problems or economic necessity. The survey findings cut against the current mythology that bad teachers, failing schools and unions are the source of the dropout problem.

Nearly one-quarter — 23 percent — of Americans attribute their failure to complete high school to a lack of parental support or encouragement, followed by entering parenthood at 21 percent. Missing too many days of school ranked third at 17 percent. Other reasons for dropping out include failing classes (15 percent), uninteresting classes (15 percent) and suffering from mental illness (15 percent).

 One-third of high school dropouts say they are employed either full time, part time, or are self‐employed. Another 38 percent of the men and 26 percent of the women were unemployed.

According to the research, if a sixth grader in a high poverty school attends school less than 80 percent of the time, fails math or English, or receives an unsatisfactory behavior grade in a core course, there is a 75 percent chance he or she will drop out of high school.

I'm surprised that the study fails to mention the high incarceration rate among black and Latino youth and the lack of resources available to help transition them back into school once they are released.

Reason No. 54 why we need an elected school board

If you're looking for another reason to replace the mayor's hand-picked school board with an elected one, look no further than yesterday's school board meeting. CPS board meetings continue to be a place where citizens come for their monthly share of abuse. Yesterday it was CTU Recording Secretary Michael Brunson being insulted and yelled at by a vitriolic board president, David Vitale.

As Brunson got up to speak, Vitale, had the nerve to accuse him and the CTU of "spreading lies" and "threatening and intimidating the board" as the union, along with parents and community groups attempt to stop the board's arbitrary school closings in under-served neighborhoods. 

"If you want us to continue to act civilly to you, you need to act civilly to us," Vitale said

Wait! What! This coming from the former bank president who was even booted from his position as head of the Chicago Board of Trade for not being able to play well with others. It was Vitale himself who was slinging the bullshit when he falsely accused the union of marching on his house to protest school closings (not a bad tactic in my book), claiming that his daughter was home alone and scared by the protesters. Acually (rumor has it) the Vitale kid was so excited, she called up her friends and they all came over and joined the peaceful protest.

What got Vitale's shorts in a twist was this public promise made by CTU V.P. Jesse Sharkey:

"We're here to serve notice to the appointed (school) board that if you're going to close schools, we're coming after you. We're serving notice to billionaires hoping to close our schools, if we close our schools we'll expose you. And we're serving notice to elected officials if you close our schools, there will be no peace in the city."

Sharkey was simply telling the truth. 

The union also denied that it organized the march on Vitale's house.

Another Vitale lie -- or at least a fudging of the truth -- came when he leaped to the defense of fellow billionaire board member, Penny Pritzker. Vitale claimed that the union was lying when it said that Pritzker had received  $5.2 million in city TIF funds for the development of her Hyde Park Hyatt Hotel. Yes, technically, the money didn't go directly into Penny's purse. Instead it went to the developer. But Pritzker is definitely a beneficiary and her position on the cash-strapped board makes her at least an accessory to the crime and a board member with an obvious conflict of interest. TIF money should be going to schools first and to wealthy, no-tax paying corporations last.

The point of all this is that Vitale,and the board don't appear to be trying to reach an accommodation with teachers and parents. Rather, under Vitale's leadership, they appear to be heading towards another major confrontation with the union and the community, having learned nothing from their defeat in the strike. Vitale's outbursts are also putting new CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett in a difficult spot and she tries to keep her commitment to more community involvement in the process -- something that Vitale obviously abhors.

If you want to know reasons #55 and 56, come to next month's board meeting. 

Teaching Democracy

There was a good turnout of students and faculty Monday night at Lake Forest College, to hear Deborah Meier speak on the topic of "Democracy is more complicated than rocket science: So why don't we teach about it?" Wow! That's a brainfull.

Here's my headline of the week. It says a lot.

The growth of charter schools

NYT reports that between 2010-11 and 2011-12, the number of students in charter schools increased close to 13 percent, to just over two million.

New Orleans, where the city’s schools were essentially destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, leads the nation in the proportion of students in charter schools, at 70 percent. But in six other districts, including Detroit, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis, more than 30 percent of public school students attend a charter school.

As you might expect, these are all school districts heavily populated with black and Latino students. The pattern breaks slightly in Clark County (Las Vegas), Nevada, the nation's fifth largest school district, where charters are growing at the fastest rate in the nation. There white students still make of a slight majority of charter school students but district charters are highly segregated. Charters like 100 Academy of Excellence and Agassi, for example, are about 90% African American while the other charters have only a sprinkling of African American kids.

The school district is the largest single employer in Clark County and the rapid growth of privately-run charters signifies a growth in non-union jobs.

Numbers that leave me shocked-and-awed

I am hardly one to try and quantify everything, particularly teaching/learning. But there are some numbers that I find fascinating if only for purposes of shock and awe. Here are a few:

50.8 -- The percent of votes cast by Washington state voters in support of Initiative 1240. The new law will permit up to 40 privately-run charter schools over the next five years in the state. Votes are still being counted a week after the election which marked the fourth time since 1996 that Washington voters have been asked to approve charters. Previous bills have been rejected by voters despite millions of dollars behind the charter campaigns. This time, a handful of billionaires, led by Bill Gates put in more cash than ever before, and had a 10:1 financial edge over opponents. Given all that money, opponents have said they are happy the vote was close. -- Maureen Downey, ajc

738 -- The number of minutes over a three-week period  (12 hours and 18 minutes), preparing for and administering standardized tests by a Chicago teacher. -- Adam Heenan

53,000,000 -- The number of dollars former Dixon, IL comptroller Rita Crundwell, is charged with siphoning off from this tiny town's treasury. I'm just imagining what that $53M might have meant for Dixon schools, students or needy families.

20,000 -30,000 -- The number of pages of lewd emails sent by U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Allen to Jill Kelley. My lord, how big is her in-box?

"We don't need no stinkin' Open Meetings Act..."

Public school teachers, students, parents and activists rally against school closings inside the lobby of the Hyatt Hotel on North St. Clair Street in Chicago. -- Chicago Tribune

Here's Byrd-Bennett's response to the ongoing protests against the Gates-funded closing of 100 neighborhood schools, replacing them with privately-run charters:

CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett appointed a new “independent commission” to oversee school closings and help engage the community. The commission has not yet met publicly and is not subject to the Open Meetings Act, which requires they meet in public any time more than two members want to get together. -- WBEZ

Rahm chimes in:

“(Delaying school closings) was not intended to stop protests, I understand people will be upset, but we’re going to have to deal now with what’s been postponed.”

CTU Vice-President Jesse Sharkey:

“If you really have a problem with too many school buildings, I think you can get a good faith conversation and start by saying you’re going to give up on the plan of open 100 new schools. That doesn’t make any sense, to be closing schools at the same time you’re building new ones.”

Sun-Times has a 'democracy problem" of its own

The landslide victory for Chicago's elected school board referendum has the Sun-Times editorial board in a tizzy. Today's editorial begins by answering its own question:

"Does the Chicago Board of Education have a democracy problem?  Without a doubt."

My guess is that most of the 65,763 yes voters (as compared  to the 10,174 no voters) would have offered a slightly stronger response -- like " OH HELL YES!"

I mean -- problem with democracy? Our autocratic mayor's hand-picked, elitist billionaire board has never even had one dissenting vote, even while the top-down reform policies under mayoral control since 1995, have yet to produce any significant improvement in the schools or in the lives of their students. Parents and community members are routinely shut out of the real policy discussions affecting their kids. Board members have been the targets of investigations involving financial misuse, and on and on.

I know what you're saying. Something like -- Well, duh! Your public schools system is now a wing of Chicago City Hall, probably the most corrupt institution this side of Tammany Hall. What did you think would happen? [Good point, by the way.]

The Sun-Times editorial board, while recognizing that 87% of voters favor an elected board, immediately begins back peddling and rationalizing on Rahm's behalf. While "no one should ignore" the referendum, it is, after all non-binding and "wasn’t on the ballot in all precincts." Voters in "ONLY [my caps] 327 precincts across 35 wards" weighed in.

Of course the reason it wasn't on the ballot citywide was because the mayor's new puppy dog in the City Council, Ald. Joe Moore, blocked it in committee. But it's only reasonable to assume that if it was on the ballot in other precincts, the vote would be the same.

So recognizing that they are bucking a near unanimous anti-Rahm, anti-board tide here, they offer some concessions. They are willing to accept a continued mayor-appointed board that is "more diverse" including some (but not too many) "average (i.e. not affluent folks) parents, school staff and community members" who could be "vetted by an independent commission," which then could forward the names of potential board members to the mayor."

Inside the Hyatt

Or umm, how about this -- a minority of the board could be elected, preserving mayoral control but making the board "more democratic".

In other words, anything and I mean anything except a democratically elected board like the ones in every other school district in the state, except Chicago's.

MEANWHILE BACK AT THE HYATT

Hundreds of teachers and supporters are using their Veterans Day holiday to rally at City Front Plaza, hold a mock trial and march on billionaire school board member, Penny Pritzker's Hyatt Hotel, demanding a moratorium on school closings.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Election Results

"Mitt Romney is the president of white male America." -- Maureen Dowd, NYT 

Rehabilitating Michelle Rhee 

Debate about how to improve schools will continue, as in the sadly effective effort by the teachers union in Chicago and in some election-day initiatives to defeat reform. Evidence that the common-sense changes engineered by Ms. Rhee are paying off should be part of the discussion and hopefully will spur other systems to follow the District’s lead. -- Washington Post editorial

Testing: Enough is enough

About a month and a half ago, astute journalists covering the historic Chicago teachers’ strike realized the issues brought up by the strike weren’t just about money, but were also a reaction to the tsunami of testing that is overwhelming teachers and students. -- Lisa Guisbond of FairTest

'YOLO --"You only live once"

  738 minutes in 3 weeks

In my school, in just three weeks’ time, I have calculated that we spent 738 minutes (12 hours and 18 minutes) on preparing for and administering standardized tests. -- Adam Heenan, WaPo

The Government and the Storm

Over the past four decades we have sown the seeds of privatization and relentlessly eroded our public services. With Katrina, Irene and Sandy — and more names surely to come — we are reaping the whirlwind. -- Kenneth M. Coughlin. Letter to the Times