Whenever neocons say, "it's not about race..."

David Brooks ("It's not about race") says Jimmy Carter is wrong. There's absolutely no racism behind the New Confederacy Movement, Birthers, or T-Baggers who are attacking Obama. Brooks is certain of it. They're just fun-living "populists," he assures us. How does he know? He went jogging near the recent New Confederacy march on Washington and saw some white wing-nuts buying food from a stand at the nearby Black Family Reunion.

My take: Whenever you hear the neocons saying, "it's not about race"--it's about race.

St. Cloud wants to test 'em in the womb

Kindergartners in three St. Cloud schools with growing minority populations will take math and reading tests this year to help the school district get a better handle on a success gap between white and minority students. (SCTimes.Com)

Mr. Huberman's data

CPS is most certainly exaggerating its first-day attendance figures. That seems to be the consensus over at the City Room (see my comments there as well). Why? Are they that desperate for some good news, especially with the Olympic Games bid hanging in the balance?

Even if so, Mr. "Data-driven" Huberman needs to get figures straight. His estimated .4% increase in day-one attendance over last year, is a percent of a much smaller number. CPS enrollment is down to 408,000. That a net loss of about 7,000 kids. So even a small increase (1,600 kids) in day-one attendance doesn't even nearly make up for the number of students who have left the system. Looking at it another way, if only 100 kids were left in Chicago Public Schools and all 100 showed up on day-one, you might say there was a 10% jump in first-day attendance.

Sorry to poop the party.

Providence goes cookie-cutter

I just returned from Providence where I got to spend a couple of days at The MET, one of my favorite small schools. I've visited several times and am always inspired after chatting for a while with MET kids--nearly all from low-income families and all engaged in their own learning. Graduation rates are extremely high and graduates are doing well in college.

What's the secret of The MET's success? Personalization--the school is small and builds its curriculum around the interests of the student. Teachers are highly skilled and act as advisors on student projects and internships. The school is deeply rooted in the community and has its support. You won't find graffiti on the walls of The MET. Kids learn by doing, spending lots of time out of the classroom and working in the company of adults in fields that interest and excite them.

I'm not saying that The MET is right for everyone or that other models and approaches aren't worthwhile or necessary. But the idea that an innovative school like The MET can exist and thrive in the inner-city and its kids can be successful, without bending to unnecessary pressures from the top of the system, is encouraging.

So what do I read in today's news about Providence?

PROVIDENCE — For the first time, the city’s 10 public high schools will share the same graduation requirements, the same core curriculum and the same textbooks, part of a larger effort to boost student achievement and make college more of a reality than a dream. (Providence Journal).

Too bad. I kind of liked the dream better. Don't get me wrong. I really like many of the things the district is mandating. I like advisories and more challenging courses. Of course, "challenging" or "rigorous" take on new, weird meanings in the hands of state bureaucrats and politicians. And as for mandating the same textbook for all schools and students--that's just a boondoggle for politically connected publishing companies and one that turns teachers into delivery clerks.

Fortunately, The MET, a public (non-charter) school, has it's own autonomous standing in the state and is immune from such top-down idiocy. I don't think you will find many textbooks being used at all at The MET.

Obama gives a history lesson in Pittsburgh

Speaking at the AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Obama told cheering delegates:

The battle for opportunity has always been fought in places like Pennsylvania. It was here that Pittsburgh railroad workers rose up in a great strike. It was here that Homestead steelworkers took on Pinkerton Guards at Carnegie's mill. And it was here that something happened in a town called Aliquippa. It was a tough place for workers in the 1930s, "a benevolent dictatorship," said a local steel boss. Labor had no rights. The foreman's whim ruled the day. And the company hired workers from different lands and different races - the better to keep them divided, it was thought at the time. But despite threats and harassment; despite seeing organizers fired and driven out of town; these steelworkers came together - Serb and Croat, Italian and Pole, Irish and Greek, kin of Alabama slaves and sons of Pennsylvania coal miners. And they took their case all the way to the Supreme Court, securing the right to organize up and down the Ohio River Valley, and all across America. And I know that if America can come together like Aliquippa - and rise above barriers of faith and race, region and party - then we will not only make life better for steelworkers like Steve Skvara in Indiana, and not only make life better for members of the AFL-CIO, but we will make possible the dreams of middle class families and make real the promise of the United States of America.

Chicago's 'miracle' up in smoke--poooof

Duncan's legacy

Sometime over the past week, CPS officials quietly posted the 2009 Prairie State and ACT test scores. They didn’t hold a press conference or even issue a release, as is the custom. And it is no wonder. Scores on both exams stagnated this year. And the scores for juniors who have been part of the district’s High School Transformation project since their freshmen year were no better, and in some cases worse, than their predecessors. (Catalyst)

1 million homeless kids

There are now an estimated 1 million homeless students. This according to data from the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth.

Blue Ribbon Schools--"beating the odds""

But where's the charter schools?

Somebody help me here.

I'm reading over the list of Blue Ribbon Schools announced yesterday by Sec. Duncan. They're the 314 schools--264 public and 50 private--"that are either academically superior, or have made dramatic gains in student achievement and helped close gaps in achievement among minority and disadvantaged students." Among the main consideration--"those that beat the odds."

Ignoring the private schools for a moment, I immediately peruse the list of public high schools and find few surprises. In Illinois for example, there's three award winners--wealthy suburban schools, Deerfield and New Trier, and Chicago's elite selective enrollment high school, Whitney Young (Michelle Obama's alma mater). All three are large--Deerfield has 1700 kids (6 African American students); New Trier in upscale Winnetka , has over 3000 (22 African American students); and Young with 2,100 (fewer than 1% of applicants are admitted).

Two questions immediately come up. First, how are these schools "beating the odds?" Haven't they already beaten the odds by who they enroll? Second, where are the charter schools, especially those run by private management companies? Were they not included in the competition? Did I just miss some, hidden somewhere deep down on the high school list? Were there none good enough to make the grade? If not, why are they being pushed as the national model by Duncan? With all their hype and added Walton and Venture Fund money, can't they compete with our best public schools that have union teachers?

What?

The Broad Superintendents Academy

How billionaire, former AIG director Eli Broad, is spreading the business model to public school systems

Teaching the Politics of Urban Education - FOXBusiness.com

Source: www.foxbusiness.com

FOX anchorwoman: "I think this training should be called waste management." Broad spokesman Quinn agrees.

Update on Kent, WA teachers strike

Tentative agreement after 17-day strike

Teachers wanted smaller class size, fewer imposed meetings and more time spent with kids. In Washington, public employees are not allowed to strike. Judge Darvis tried to force teachers back to work with $200/day fines. Darvis accused teachers of "disrespect for the court" and of "setting a bad example for students."

But Kent administrators said smaller classes were too expensive, given the district's budget constraints, and that spending its reserve fund on smaller classes, as the union wanted it to do, would be irresponsible. Although the strike left many families scrambling for child care, growing numbers of parents nonetheless supported the teachers, rallying on their behalf and standing with them on picket lines. (Seattle Times)

A letter from the New Confederacy

Rep. Pence, recruiting an Armey

Has Indiana joined the New Confederacy? As I recall, Obama carried the state (obviously not all of it). Opinion-maker that I am, I just received a 13-page letter from Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) that rivals anything Dick Armey (most aptly named man in America) could have thought up down in Texas. All I could remember about Pence's views on public ed was that he led the struggle to have classroom prayers "during the war on terror" and came out against the teaching of evolution. On the more interesting side, Pence is also against mandated state testing and national standards.

His Dear Mike letter begins with a rant about Obama/socialism/govt-rationed health care/etc... His appeal is underwritten by a group called Americans for Prosperity Foundation. The foundation is bankrolling a recruiting campaign for more "ground troops" and Pence's letter is full of military metaphors.

When they're not busy trying to privatize public education, Pence and the AFP Foundation are recruiting soldiers to join the "grassroots citizens army" from the ranks of small business owners, those he claims, who are being "punished for their success." He's appealing to "hardworking families who've played by the rules" as opposed to all those others, I suppose, who just lay around the house all day, collecting entitlements. Together, rich and poor alike are, according to Pence, "marching under the banner of free enterprise." They're "fighting and winning battles" against "big government." They're building "an army of citizens" to fight the liberals, the unions, environmentalists, and especially MoveOn.org.

Hey, Congressman Pence. Sorry about the postage (oh wait, it's taxpayer's postage), but you've got the wrong guy. I'm not joining your Dick Army.

New models

Can models like New Tech and Project-Based-Learning replace the traditional factory-model high school?

“It’s a world apart from the old factory model of the high school with its rows of desks, textbooks and memorization,” said Ms. Martinez, whose organization has helped design 40 high schools in nine states and hopes to double that number by next year. (NYT)

Weekend quotables

WaPo editorial equating teacher pay raises to gas guzzling

... across-the-board increases to an artificial average are a discredited relic -- the education equivalent of building a gas guzzler when the market has turned to hybrids.

Dowd on Joe Wilson

Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.

Ravitch asks us Chicagoans...

Friends in Chicago: why are Duncan and Obama in love with charters and pay for test scores?

Mayor Daley on his plummeting ratings

Ninety percent of those surveyed disapprove of the $1.15 billion, 75-year lease with a private company.

“If we didn’t have the parking meters money … we’d be in much more serious financial conditions. But that’s hard to explain to people because the transition did not go good…

Republican Gomorrah

The Charter School of Excellence

Max Blumenthal's book, Republican Gomorrah (Nation Books, 2009) book traces the rise of the radical right in the US and how it used the concept of personal crisis to grow as a movement and eventually capture control of the GOP to transform it from the party of Dwight Eisenhower to the party of Sarah Palin.

Here's an excerpt:

An authoritarian Christian-right self-help guru named Bill Gothard created the home-schooling regimen implemented by Murray's parents. Like his ally James Dobson, Gothard first grew popular during the 1960s by marketing his program to worried evangelical parents as anti-hippie insurance for adolescent children. Based on the theocratic teachings of R. J. Rushdoony, who devised Christian schools and home-schooling as the foundation of his Dominionist empire, Gothard's Basic Life Principles outlined an all-consuming environment that followers could embrace for the whole of their lives. According to Ron Henzel, a one-time Gothard follower who coauthored a devastating expose about his former guru called A Matter of Basic Principles, under the rules, "large homeschooling families abstain from television, midwives are more important than doctors, traditional dating is forbidden, unmarried adults are 'under the authority of their parents' and live with them, divorced people can't remarry under any circumstance, and music has hardly changed at all since the late nineteenth century."

At the Charter School for Excellence, a school in South Florida inspired by Gothard's draconian principles that receives $800,000 in state funds each year, children are indoctrinated into a culture of absolute submission to authority almost as soon as they learn to speak. A song that the school's first-graders are required to recite goes as follows:

Obedience is listening attentively,
Obedience will take instructions joyfully,
Obedience heeds wishes of authorities,
Obedience will follow orders instantly.
For when I am busy at my work or play,
And someone calls my name, I'll answer right away!
I'll be ready with a smile to go the extra mile
As soon as I can say "Yes, sir!" "Yes ma am!"
Hup, two, three!

Teach For Australia

Australia contracts with Teach for America. U.S. researchers, like ASU's David Berliner, ask: "What in the world are you thinking?"

The researchers also found that 69 per cent of TFA teachers had left by the end of their second year of teaching and 88 per cent had left by the end of their third year. That is, most TFA teachers do not stay in education long enough to make up for the damage they cause to their students during their first few years of teaching. (Sydney Morning Herald)

Busted for fraud

Remember Richard Gillman? Probably not. He's the former owner of Chicago's Republic Windows and Doors, the sight of last winter's plant takeover by workers. It was the first national response to corporate bailouts and drew praise from Pres. Obama.

Well Gillman, who tried to sneak the factory out from under his workers' noses and move it to Iowa, where he could set it up as a non-union operation, has been busted for fraud. He faces one count each of organizing a continuing financial crimes enterprise; mail fraud; money laundering; wire fraud; involvement in a financial crime conspiracy and a handful of other charges, the police official says. (Chi-Town Daily)

The always quotable Ravitch

"Is any charter school better than any public school? As we learned from the Stanford CREDO study of charters a few months ago, only 17 percent of charter schools are superior to comparable public schools; the rest were either no better or worse. Yet the Obama administration wants to open up the nation’s public schools—especially in urban districts—to massive privatization."--Bridging Differences

Teaching with social-justice in mind

Greg Michie

His book, Holler if You Hear Me: The Education of a Teacher and His Students, became a favorite of young urban teachers when it was first published a decade ago. Now it's in its second edition. Greg is interviewed by Teacher Magazine.

I don’t think we can look at kids in poor neighborhoods, on the South Side of Chicago, for example, and think, “Oh well, kids are kids everywhere. They’re just like kids in a wealthy suburb of Chicago.” In some ways they are. I think twelve- and thirteen-year-olds have many of the same worries, fears, anxieties, and joys, but at the same time there are some real stark differences. It’s really important as a teacher to get to know that child, that context, that community, and not just say, “I teach 7th graders.”

Grading schools in NYC

How Mayor Bloomberg games the system

Diane Ravitch lays it out in her Daily News commentary. "We are reaching a perilous stage where the test scores go up while real education - the kind that is available in the best schools - disappears."

The lost 18 minutes

WaPo's Jay Mathews was posing as a voice of reason when he came out against the broadcast of Obama's back-to-school speech. After all, he argued, the speech would take up valuable class time. It probably took Mathews the better part of a day to think up that excuse. But Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg makes minced meat out of it in a few well-crafted sentences:

"Instructional time is very precious." Since when? Don't they still blow days at a time, cramming for and then administering standardized tests? Every school in America burns hours with hygiene filmstrips and boredom. But Barack Obama appears, and suddenly they're all too busy to look up for 18 minutes.

The latest on BBA

I was beginning to wonder when and if the Broader Bolder Approach (BBA) group was going to gather some momentum. But now they seem to be on the move and fighting for a seat at an education policy table thus far dominated by conservative opponent Education Equity Project (EEP). That group, led by N.Y. Mayor Bloomberg, Al Sharpton, and Newt Gingrich, favors privatization and wants even greater emphasis on standardized testing. Until now, they have had the closest ties with Ed Sec. Arne Duncan and the greatest influence on DOE policy initiatives like Race To The Top.

A update issued today by co-chairs Co-Chairs Helen Ladd, Pedro Noguera, Tom Payzant, details BBA's early progress. It includes the BBA report, issued in June, which maintains that the burden of school reform cannot be shouldered by schools alone and that test scores alone cannot represent a true measure of school success or failure. BBA calls for a policy approach with combines school improvement with improvements in family living conditions, including early childhood care and education, health, and out-of-school time. Duncan and his staff received a briefing on the report and asked BBA leaders to follow it up with specific recommendations.

According to the latest update, BBA has responded to the request with specifics on improvement of tests and their use and on how Race To The Top funds should be used to improve schools and the lives of children. Recently, BBA Accountability committee members Linda Darling-Hammond, Dennis Van Roekel, Richard Rothstein, and Diane Ravitch promoted the BBA report at the National Journal's web site.

Quotables

Obama speaking in Cincinnati at Labor Day picnic:

"We remember that the rights and benefits we enjoy today were not simply handed out to America's working men and women. They had to be won."

Shantelle Steve

The Chicago honor student, was lauded in Obama's back-to-school speech. The Julian High School student is also a member of Chicago Youth Initiating Change, which sponsors the annual Social Justice Student Expo — and she recently raised criticisms of Renaissance 2010 with CPS chief Ron Huberman.

“We have to change schools without getting rid of all the teachers, because they are our support system.”

San Diego charters excluding or avoiding special ed students. Only 4.1percent at start-up schools:

"One principal tells me all the time, 'Wouldn't your son be better off in another school? One that can provide him with better services?'" said Patricia Rogers, a parent who has sued both the High Tech system and San Diego Unified over special education issues. "They're inviting you to leave."

Keeping ELL grad rates a secret

Even though NCLB requires states to report graduation rates of English Language Learners (ELL), many don't or won't, according to EDWEEK's Mary Ann Zehr. She quotes an Arizona bureaucrat for example, who says that the state doesn't consider ELL grad rates important and has no expectations that ELL students will graduate on time, so they don't bother to report them.

One bright spot in Zehr's report is a group of N.Y. small schools that that have a mission to serve English-learners and helping to improve the city’s overall ELL graduation rate.

Among those small schools are 10 that are part of the Internationals Network for Public Schools. They enroll ELLs who have been in the country for less than four years. The average graduation rate for the seven graduating classes from those schools was 73 percent in the 2007-08 school year—higher than the city’s overall rate. And many students stay in school and receive a diploma after an additional year or two.

The wing-nuts were right

Obama's speech to the kids

My apologies to Beck, Malkin & Limbaugh. They were right about Obama all along. I played his so-called "stay-in-school speech" backward at 33.33 rpm to check for any subliminal, socialistic messaging. Here's what I heard:

HELTER SKELTER; LOOT, PILLAGE, AND BURN; TAKE DRUGS; DROP OUT OF SCHOOL; LISTEN TO 50 CENTS, ORGANIZE A SOCIALIST TAKEOVER OF AMERICA TONIGHT WHILE YOUR PARENTS ARE SLEEPING; AND BE FRIENDS WITH VAN JONES.

At least, that's how it sounded to me. I'll bet they never thought we would crack the code.

An American disaster for public education

Stimulus dollars make a small dent

This according to this morning's NYT story by Sam Dillon.

...in Arizona, California, Georgia and a dozen other states with overwhelming deficits, the federal money has failed to prevent the most extensive school layoffs in several decades...the shuffling of teachers out of their previous classrooms and into new ones, often in new districts or at unfamiliar grade levels — or onto unemployment — continues to disrupt instruction at thousands of schools...In Arizona, which is suffering one of the nation’s worst fiscal crises, some classrooms were jammed with nearly 50 students when schools reopened last month, and the norm for Los Angeles high schools this fall is 42.5 students per teacher.

Look who's opposing President Obama's speech

It's none other than WaPo's Jay Mathews. He insists he's not agreeing with wing-nut Michelle Malkin (he describes her only as a "columnist") or Florida Limbaugh Party Chairman Jim Greer, who both claim that Obama's back-to-school speech is part of some socialistic plot to take over the country. And I believe him, sort of.

No, Mathews is much more reasonable. He only wants to stop Obama's speech from being played in schools because the 15-minute don't drop out message "will take up too much class time." It seems some teachers once told him that they don't like classroom interruptions.

"The President is speaking. Don't let the children hear"

No more concessions, please

The dregs of the Republican Party, from Limbaugh, to Beck; from Malkin, to Palin, are frantic. They've got to keep their dwindling troops moving from battle to battle without time to think, (they must be reading Clausewitz) from death panels to Henry Louis Gates. And no wonder. Every time they shake a fist or show up with a gun on their hip, the Democrats either turn and run or else try unsuccessfully to coalesce with them.

This time it's the president's back-to-school speech. Obama is calling on kids to stay in school--an obvious "socialistic" ploy to indoctrinate our children in public Medrasaas or re-education camps, according to the tea-baggers.

I only hope that Obama doesn't make any more concessions to these whackos.

Chicago's at-risk hit list

Huberman's solution to gun violence

Chicago schools CEO Ron Huberman has taken data-driven reform to the next level. He has contracted consultants who claim, with a $30-million budget, they can predict through data-analysis, the 1,200 CPS students out of 430,000, who "will most likely be shot." If you are fortunate enough to make the most-likely-to-be-shot list, you become eligible for a personal "advocate,'' a social worker and a job in an attempt to "turn your life around." Schools will also get more and better trained security guards. Not from Wackenhut, I hope.

How this will save student lives exactly, former Chicago cop Huberman doesn't say. This is especially bewildering since all of the 290 school kids shot last year, were shot outside of school with most being unintended victims.

According to the Sun-Times,

Huberman also has identified 38 schools that have more safety problems than would be expected. Principals of those schools will be paired with the principals of schools with high safety ratings. They will write plans to bring a "culture of calm'' to their schools, using lessons from the safer schools.

Huberman never says what he intends to do about the hundreds of potential shooters needed to shoot the 1,200 MLTBS kids. Probably hire a different group of consultants for that one.

Oh, I almost forgot...

Huberman also expressed interest in the "Jesuit model'' in which schools are headed by a president instead of a principal with an administrative certificate.

Yeah, the Jesuit model. Why hadn't we thought of that earlier?

Guest blogger --Nik Hartley from Motown

Nik is 13 and currently attends middle school in Detroit. He likes to write and play hoops. He's a good ball handler, but tells me, his outside shot needs work. That's Nik on the far right.

******

The Importance of Friends in Middle School

From my recent experiences at the overpopulated suburban school called Waldon Middle School, I know that many kids at my age exhibit extremely hostile and mean behavior towards their peers. The students who they target are primarily new kids and those who either have trouble making friends, or have been alienated to the extent that no-one wants to be around them simply because of what others say. They target those who are often alone or are ignored by the groups they hang out with, because they know that none of their targets "friends" can/will come to their aid if they are bullied.

This is not a situation that is easily ignored by the victims, because being constantly dehumanized can have a serious effect on their self-esteem and confidence to do anything in life. The mistake that teachers often make is the assumption that children will behave better and perform better if they don't have good friends in school. In my personal experience, this is the opposite of what really happens.

When I was constantly abused with no-one to help me stand up to the bullies, I felt my will to continue my schoolwork decrease. I also felt so emotionally torn down that I behaved badly in class as a way of releasing some of my stress, and because the teachers were already so against me I felt that it didn't even matter. I also attempted to be a disruptive class clown as a last resort of obtaining friends.

From all of my past experiences, I know that for a child to perform his/her best in school, while maintaining a healthy level of self-esteem, they need good friends who will stick with them. Not only does the student need to actively attempt to make friends, but the school should also encourage students to make friends with everybody and keep their eyes open for any situation where a student is excluded by their peers.

Kozol on C-SPAN SUNDAY

Dear Mike,

C-SPAN (BOOKNOTES, WHICH RUNS ON C-SPAN TWO) IS DOING A 3-HOUR SPECIAL ON JONATHAN’S ENTIRE CAREER STARTING AT NOON EASTERN TIME THIS SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 6, THE DAY AFTER JONATHAN’S BIRTHDAY. IT’S A VIEWER CALL-IN PROGRAM AND WILL REACH OVER A MILLION PEOPLE.

Jonathan will be there in the C-SPAN studio to answer questions callers throw at him, and I expect many of the callers are going to be vicious right-wing types who despise everything he stands for. It would be great if teachers, former students, educators, and just plain friends who know what Jonathan is like and how hard and long he’s worked for kids like he ones he’s described in the South Bronx and Boston, feel like calling-in to give him some support. I’m sure Jonathan will be questioned about Shame of the Nation, Amazing Grace, Letters to a Young Teacher, and his other books and all the issues they raise about unequal, segregated schools, NCLB, corporate privatizers, the testing mania, etc.

I know he’ll be speaking out on behalf of all those idealistic and terrific teachers who write to us and tell us that they feel that everything they value (and the public system as a whole) is under withering attack. Knowing his views on charter schools (the kind that are run by private groups, especially for profit), I assume he’ll have to disagree with President Obama if this comes up. It probably will. Perhaps, even if you can’t call in, you’ll spread the word, by website or other means, to as many good folks as you can.

THIS SUNDAY, C-SPAN TWO, STARTS AT NOON E.S.T. (11 A.M. CHICAGO, 9 A.M. LOS ANGELES.) -- Jonathan’s friend, defender, ally, and co-worker, Melanie Harris

Privatization update

I don't think so

Depraved Wackenhut contractors in Kabul drank vodka from each other's butts. DOD solution? Ban alcohol. Keep Wackenhut. This same private security firm works in Chicago Public Schools. They were brought in to replace regular security guards after takeover of the Chicago Juvenile Detention Center which also houses the Nancy B. Jefferson School.

Quotables

Spellings tells Merrow, NCLB still "99.44% pure"

Former Ed Secretary Margaret Spellings is now running something called the Campaign for Free Enterprise and is a senior advisor to the Boston Consulting Group:

I am not seeing any headlong rush to abandon NCLB…quite the contrary. While you are right in that the name (NCLB) is often attacked, I am thrilled that the major policies are very much in place and supported by the current administration, which supports standards, data, pay for performance and charters. (Taking Note)

Deborah Meier on Race-to-the-Top

Turning around 5,000 schools—with stimulus money as the bribe? It's a question that is bound to lead us into a deadend. If the only goal is creating “employees” (vs citizens) of the future it may also be both short-sighted--just plain wrongheaded. (National Journal Online)

Jon Corzine's charter dilemma

Education reform in N.J. is producing strange bedfellows. For example, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a rising star of the Democratic Party, has an education agenda that strongly resembles [Republican]Chris Christie’s emphasis on school choice in poor urban neighborhoods and the expansion of charter schools. In contrast, Corzine tiptoes near charter expansion with a mask and gloves like he’s scared of catching swine flu, so wary is he of alienating the NJEA leadership. (NJ Left Behind)

Will charter operators "authorize" themselves?

That's the question my brother Fred is asking after reading Catalyst's account of the Illinois State Board's latest proposal. The proposed new plan would create new charter school authorizers apart from the state's school districts. The hope is that the move will attract desperately-needed RTTT money to Illinois. But the question of conflict of interests is bound to arise over who the authorizers would be under the new set up. In states like Ohio, you have private operators or charter cheerleaders doubling as authorizers. The result, the worst charter schools in the nation.

Several existing charter authorizing groups receive their funding directly from the very charter operators whose schools they are evaluating, including KIPP, White Hat, Civitas and others. More on that later.

The Missing Link

Keeping kids plugged in between high school graduation and college, is crucial, writes Big Picture's Karen Arnold, blogging at Huffington.

Arnold runs BP's longitudinal study, tracking graduates long after they depart from Big Picture schools like the MET in Providence, RI. She finds lots of kids reconsidering whether to go on to post-secondary ed during that long summer break.

They struggle to put together money for the first year of college and to envision what it will be like to attend. Personal and family unfamiliarity about college interferes with a smooth transition to higher education. Conditions associated with socioeconomic disadvantage, such as family instability, pregnancy, undocumented immigrant status, and pressure to remain home with non-college friends and romantic partners also arise over the summer to shatter the fragile correspondence between knowledge, support, and will. In many cases, first-generation students serve as a source of income for the family or as interpreters for non-English speaking parents.

Arnold calls for more college support programs to carry students through and across the college threshold.

The New McCarthyism

Taking names in Ohio

Right-wing students at the Univ. of Toledo are taking names and making lists of "liberal" professors.

“We’ve been portrayed in the media, as well as comments from people in the community including College Democrats, saying that we’re creating a blacklist in order to smear the names of professors and that’s not true,” Rubin said. “We’re giving a voice to the students that have been harassed because of their political beliefs. It’s the same thing as bashing a student because they’re gay.”

Wait a minute. Isn't it these same wing-nuts who have been bashing gay students?

Food Fights

Food Fights: Workers vs. Corporate Cost-Cutters from Campbell's Soup to Stella D'Oro

Thursday, September 10, 2009
Noon - 2 PM
[Please RSVP here]

Featuring:

Dr. Daniel Sidorick, Temple University, author of Condensed Capitalism,* the story of union struggles at Campbell Soup.

Ray Scannell, Director of Research and Education at BCTGM, the union struggling to keep Stella D'Oro alive.

Time and Location:
Thursday, September 10, 2009
12:00 Noon - 2:00 PM
1333 H Street NW, Suite 300 East, Washington, DC 20005
Brown Bag - bring your lunch!

To RSVP for this event, click here

For more information, call 202-533-2555.

*Reiter's Books will sell Condensed Capitalism at the event.

---

Economic Policy Institute
1333 H Street, NW
Suite 300, East Tower
Washington, D.C. 20005

Copyright © 2009 Economic Policy Institute. All rights reserved.

Inside Chicago's school 'renaissance'

I notice all the talk about the Chicago "miracle" is dying down. The fantasy tale that rode Arne Duncan to the top of the DOE is coming undone as the new school year begins. Every day it seems, brings another story about the negative impact recent policies have had on teaching and learning in the Windy City.

The latest, a grade-changing scandal revealing the pressures being put on teachers in schools facing NCLB sanctions and merit-pay mandates. Says Deborah Stipek, dean of Stanford University's School of Education:

"It tells you what we all know -- that high-stakes pressures on schools don't necessarily result in increased quality of education'' but they can produce "a lot of game-playing and efforts to look good." (Sun-Times)

Here's a Chicago Public Radio story

Feeling the impact

My classes don't start until next week. I'm anxious to get back into the classroom. But I'm already hearing harrowing tales from other universities about the impact of the worsening economic crisis.

California, with a $26-billion budget deficit, is at the epicenter. State universities are facing the worst budget crisis in history. Tuition rates are skyrocketing, making post-secondary ed inaccessible to many students. Returning Cal State Fullerton, students found swelled classrooms, the result of teacher layoffs. Their school has been hit with a $33.7 million (about 11%) cut in its budget.

The lack of class availability has caused problems for many students, including seniors who are planning on graduating during the fall or spring semesters. “Many of the classes I was looking forward to taking since I started at CSUF aren’t being offered anymore,” stated Christa Connelly, 21, a photo communications major. “If I can’t get the classes I need next semester, it could push back my graduation date until who knows when.”

Reform vs. privatization

The Arizona Republic ran a debate on that topic between Arizona State prof Gene Glass debates right-wing think-tanker Jay Greene:

If not stopped, this privatization of the public system will leave behind a generation of Americans to intellectually wither in underfunded neighborhood schools, short on supplies and qualified teachers, said Glass, who examines this debate in his latest book "Fertilizers, Pills and Magnetic Strips: The Fate of Public Education in America."

NCLB on crack in Massachusetts

Kindergarten testing madness

This is kindergarten, the happy land of building blocks and singalongs. But increasingly in schools across Massachusetts and the United States, little children are being asked to perform academic tasks, including test taking, that early childhood researchers agree are developmentally inappropriate, even potentially damaging. If children don’t meet certain requirements, they are deemed “not proficient.” Frequently, children are screened for “kindergarten readiness” even before school begins, and some are labeled inadequate before they walk through the door. (Boston Globe)

Wisconsin dumps its standardized test

A 17-year-old statewide test used to comply with the federal No Child Left Behind law will be replaced with a broader approach to judging how well Wisconsin students are performing. The tests will be replaced over the next two to three years with a system that combines state, district and classroom assessments. Wisconsin is one of the few states with a law prohibiting the pay of teachers being tied to a standardized test score. This has attracted the ire of the DOE. Arne Duncan is threatening to withhold federal Race-To-The-Top dollars unless the law is changed. (MPR News)

Economics of testing

Another year, another study

Yes, despite what you may have heard from the "no excuses" crowd, SAT scores once again correlate perfectly with parents' tax returns. According to Catherine Rampell at NYT's Economix blog, the correlation remains strong again this year.

I'll leave it to the reader to look at this data and figure out the long-term impact of Duncan's dictum that teachers be paid on the basis of these test scores.

Of course, as any over-educated Harvard business prof (with bathrooms on his mind?) will be quick to argue, the data doesn't prove a causal relationship between income and test-scores.

Suppose we were to graph average SAT scores by the number of bathrooms a student has in his or her family home. That curve would also likely slope upward.

But as Rampell points out:

There’s a very strong positive correlation between income and test scores. (For the math geeks out there, the R² for each test average/income range chart is about 0.95.)

Illinois Gov. won't sign the Soto bill

Senate Bill 363 would have put some limits on Chicago school closings. The bill, offered by Rep. Cynthia Soto, was supported by a wide array of teacher, parent, and community groups, including the Chicago Principals Association, Chicago Teachers Union, Designs for Change, Grand Boulevard Federation, and South Side United Local School Council Federation, was passed 53 to 0 in the Senate and 117 to 0 in the House. This despite intensive lobbying efforts by Mayor Daley and powerful business and real estate interests.

Why is Gov. Quinn vetoing the bill? He is afraid that in its current form, he and the Daley machine would not have control of a task force set up under 363 to monitor new school construction, school repairs and school closings.

According to an August 27th press release issued by Designs for Change:

"The Governor has hijacked a year-long Chicago school facility improvement campaign at the last minute, by stacking the Task Force and watering down its ability to come up with a strong fair policy. He has disappointed many who thought he was different from the typical Illinois politician."

Quinn then confirmed DFC's conclusion by also vetoing his own campaign ethics bill, passed in the wake of the pay-to-play arrest of former Governor Blogojevich.

Looking for a "Great White Hope"

Lynn Jenkins

Back in 1989 when Chicago Mayor Daley was first campaigning against the city's first African-American mayor, Harold Washington, he was caught saying that the city needed a "white mayor." When called on it, Daley quickly went into denial mode. "I was misquoted," said the soon-to-be-defeated machine candidate. When asked how his comment should be interpreted, Daley responded with the words, "wet mayor, I said, a wet mayor."

I'm harking back to this strange episode as I'm reading about Kansas Republican Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins telling her audience that her party was looking for a "great white hope." Later Jenkins' spokeswoman Mary Geiger explained that Jenkins' remark was not meant to refer to "race, creed or any background."

Inside Daley's Renaissance 2010

If you really want to know what Renaissance 2010 is all about, read this gut-wrenching account of the destruction of De La Cruz Middle School in the predominantly Mexican Pilsen Community.

So here's the answer to the mystery: Renaissance 2010 is not based on solid research, educational theory, or inference from data. It is based on a Gospel, that the Market will heal you, and government--and the teacher's unions--are necessarily the problem. Shut down schools and liquidate their staff, encourage privatize players to enter the education "market". (Gapers Block)

Apologies to Diane Ravitch for complaining about her equating current ed policies with those of Bush and the neocons. She was just a little premature in her pronouncements, that's all. Even Bush, with the demon Cheney whispering in his right ear, couldn't conceive of such misuse and abuse of Title I funds, intended to support the education of poor kids.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said today that he plans to demand radical steps—such as firing most of a school’s staff or its conversion to a charter school—as the price of admission in directing $3.5 billion in new school improvement aid to the nation’s 5,000 worst-performing schools. (EDWEEK)

For Sale--250 L.A. public schools

Attention all wannabe school operators. A huge chunk of the nation's 2nd largest school system is for sale--cheap.

In fact, if you want to buy a school (or a few schools), the school board will throw in a brand new multimillion dollar facility free of charge.

For the charter school operators, the biggest prize is 50 new schools scheduled to open over the next four years. (L.A. TIMES)

Feds raid more Philly charters

The schools are among five Philadelphia area charter schools that are part of a widening federal investigation into allegations of misspending public funds. While the feds had no comment, the state auditor general had complained that many charter schools have lack of controls or, for that matter, any oversight. (6ABC.Com)

Scene in Motown

I'm blogging from Detroit this morning. It's a city in turmoil. Change is in the air. But what kind of change? Will it be done to teachers or with them? (Free Press story)

J.D. organizing in EastTexas

Today was my last day of organizing work in East Texas. Tomorrow I fly home. Over the last two weeks four of us have helped the local AFT organizer prepare for, distribute materials at, and help recruit at about 10 events.

Essentials

I liked my brother Fred's speech to teachers as the new school year begins:

Let me share a few personal views on what constitutes some essential ingredients for any successful strategy for improvement.

That good working conditions are good teaching conditions and good learning conditions.

That these are provided by an agreement, collectively bargained and honored by both teachers, administrators and the board of education.

That teacher voice is crucial to a quality school system.

That the best leadership is shared leadership.

That good ideas come from the bottom and from the top.

That the responsibility for good schools doesn’t stop at the school’s front door, but it is also a community, a state and a national responsibility.

Read the rest here.

Someone interpret, please...

What does Arne Duncan's "Race to the Top" have to do with NCLB? Plenty, says Duncan's press guy. Nothing, says Duncan.

Peter Cunningham on NCLB

“We’re mindful of all the criticisms about federal overreaching, about too much testing, of all the complaints about No Child Left Behind,” Mr. Cunningham said. “These complaints come up all the time in conversations about all our programs, not just this one, with education officials across the country. The context that No Child has generated is the context that we have to live with.”

Arne Duncan on NCLB

CNN CORRESPONDENT TOM FOREMAN: But how do you feel, when you see headlines like this on the Web from people out there who are criticizing you, parent groups, some teacher groups. Some are very much in your corner. There's no question. But there are others who are saying no, what you're doing is an extension of No Child Left Behind, you're just not calling it that.

DUNCAN: Right. Well, this has nothing to do with No Child Left Behind.

Rhee's list

How NOT to fix schools

Goofball D.C. Chancellor Michelle "Never Taught" Rhee (with broom at left) hired the consulting firm Insight Education Group to help her create an easily-measurable list of good teaching components, such as:

A highly skilled teacher should never have more than five instances of "inappropriate or off-task behavior" by students within a half-hour of class time. At least three times in that span, an instructor should respond to students' correct answers by "probing for higher-level understanding" of the idea being discussed (Washington Post).

More on Rhee from the Washington Post story:

Rhee's first two years at the helm of the 45,000-student system brought major upheaval, including school consolidation and closure, principal turnover, dismissal of central office staff and contentious contract negotiations with the teachers' union. Those talks are ongoing after nearly 22 months.

Weekend Quotables

Gates' Silver Bullets

''We've been sort of looking around for the silver bullet for education reform, and actually the answer has been right under our feet the whole time,'' said John Deasy, deputy director of the foundation's education work. (NY Times)

NEA finally speaks out on Race-To-The-Top

"Despite growing evidence to the contrary, it appears the administration has decided that charter schools are the only answer to what ails America's public schools." (Guardian)

Diane Ravitch gives lesson on federalism

The Obama administration wants states to change their laws limiting the number of privately-managed charter schools and to change their laws that prevent the evaluation of teachers based on student test scores. These policy preferences are not based on any court decisions nor any enactments by Congress. As it happens, they are not supported by social science evidence or experience. They are simply hunches and preferences, nothing more. (Flypaper)

Duncan's innovation grants

By "seeding" innovation, Duncan is sending a powerful message to educators across the country that he expects experimentation and aggressive improvement. But Ducan is also promulgating a very specific vision of what reform is likely to look like -- one heavily borrowed from Gates. (Dana Goldstein, American Prospect)