Dems living abroad in France get it right

I wonder why the Democrats, living abroad in France, seem to have it much more together than the ones in the White House, Congress and the DOE? Here's the education platform they want the Democratic Party to adopt:

DRAFT RESOLUTION ON STRENGTHENING QUALITY PUBLIC EDUCATION FOR ALL AMERICAN YOUNG PEOPLE

Proposed by Chair Democrats Abroad France, Constance Borde assisted by the Democrats Abroad France Education Policy Group Chair: Dr. Leslie J. Limage

 (Originally submitted to DA Resolutions Committee on September 14, 2011, Approved for transmission to the DA Platform Committee by the DCPA on October 17, 2011, Washington, D.C.)

WHEREAS education is a human right and public responsibility to provide all children and young people with the opportunity to realize their full potential (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 26).

WHEREAS ongoing policies inherited from the previous U.S. Administration and carried forward by current leadership are undermining the quality of education as well as our longstanding commitment to equal opportunity, the alleviation of poverty, civil rights and respect for linguistic, social and cultural diversity in a misplaced reliance on business practices and privatization of public education.

WHEREAS what we need to improve education is a strong, highly respected education profession; a rich curriculum in the arts and sciences, available in every school for every child; assessments that gauge what students know and can do, and a government that is prepared to change the economic and social conditions that interfere with children’s readiness to learn.

WHEREAS we cannot improve education by quick fixes, by handing over our public schools to entrepreneurs, by driving out experienced professionals replacing them with enthusiastic amateurs, or by closing them and firing teachers and entire staff. No country in the world follows such strategies.

WHEREAS disadvantage in our country is exacerbated by unsafe and crumbling schools. Over the past three years, investments in school improvements have benefited the wealthier districts disproportionately. The President’s new job’s creation legislation announced in his September 9, 2011 speech to Congress on an “American Jobs Act” is intended to remedy this situation and we need to ensure that it does in fact do so.

BE IT RESOLVED that Democrats Abroad adopt the following education policy foundations for our platform in 2012 many of which already figured in our 2008 Platform and that these principles figure in our 2012 Party Platform:

The Purpose of education: is to enable all children and young people to reach their full potential as individuals and become socially responsible citizens of our country and the world.

Equality of opportunity and non-discrimination are the foundations of our democratic society and must be reflected in all aspects of educational governance, management, finance, school facilities, teaching and support professions.

Formative Evaluation and Assessment should encourage learning. The evaluation of students should be diagnostic. The results of student evaluation should not be used to evaluate teachers and schools as institutions. The evaluation of schools should celebrate the strengths of community ownership of and improvement by school communities.

The teaching and school leadership professions. Teachers and their organizations should be viewed by governments as equal partners, independent but committed to the common endeavor of achieving successful education systems. School leadership, governance and management also require professional knowledge and the specificity of public service and education. Outsourcing any aspect of educational leadership de-professionalizes key foundations of our education systems and decision-making based on knowledge, experience, trust and democratic principles. Education professionals’ collective bargaining rights acquired over many years should be respected rather than threatened.

Educational facilities: quality, safe and environmentally friendly schools. Public schools are an important element of our nation’s infrastructure. Repairing strengthening, upgrading and constructing schools are essential. A nationwide effort needs to be initiated to anticipate and improve the adaptability of the nations’  existing and yet to be built school infrastructure, including regular rehabilitation and upgrades.

Promoting Equality through Inclusive Education. It is the responsibility of public authorities to ensure that all citizens have access to high quality education services appropriate to their needs. All barriers to education must be removed in order to make school accessible for all persons. Any school receiving public funding should not be permitted to select its students based on their likelihood of meeting testing standards, much less because of race, ethnic origin, sex, or religion.

Early Childhood Care and Education: Free, High Quality Public Preschool Programs

Early childhood care and education is intended to meet the needs of the whole child. The Federal government should provide assistance to states for the creation of free, universal, voluntary pre-kindergarten programs. They should encourage linkage of universal preschool with the resources, infrastructure and talent of the public school system. The Federal government should also ensure that states require the licensing and certification of all preschool instructors.

Primary and Secondary Education. Quality primary and secondary education are the basis on which all further learning takes place and young adults are equipped with the critical thinking skills and knowledge to make further educational and professional choice throughout their lives. These levels of education are public responsibility. The Federal government’s first responsibility is to set the bar higher than it has ever been in terms of equality of access and service, rather than lowering it to enable “market” forces to play.

Higher Education: Access, Academic Freedom and Quality. Action must be taken to improve equal access to all forms of tertiary education and reduce the cost of higher education. A key characteristic of successful individuals and societies is the quality of higher education. It is not a matter of “competition” worldwide or for scarce “jobs” within our country. It is an absolutely necessary building block for realizing human potential and constructing democratic, open and globally responsible world citizens.

Protection of education as a public good in a period of economic austerity. All concerned citizens should work to re-take and then re-build quality public education. The trends towards privatization and outsourcing of our children’s future are undermining democratic institutions at home and internationally. We need informed citizenry to begin to re-establish democratic values and institutions that respect them.

Thank to Diane Ravitch for forwarding this. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Duncan's biggest fan

“I’m a fan,” said Margaret Spellings, Duncan’s immediate predecessor, who was education secretary during President George W. Bush’s second term and an architect of Bush’s signature No Child Left Behind policy. “He’s a good man who I think is doing the best job he can.” -- Politico

Petrilli agrees

He has “used his power responsibly for the most part,” said Michael J. Petrilli, executive vice president at the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a former Bush-era Education Department official. “The priorities he’s been pushing on are the right ones.” -- Politico

Ravitch not so much
“If you like federal control of education, he’s your man.” -- Diane Ravitch

Gates knows best

"It may surprise you—it was certainly surprising to us—but the field of education doesn't know very much at all about effective teaching." -- Bill & Melinda Gates

Measurement and its discontents

One way is to ask ourselves what is missing from our measurements. Are the tests administered by schools making students smarter and more educated, or just making us think we know how to evaluate education?  -- Robert Crease, New York Times

Rahm declares war on the unions

Move over Gov. Walker, Chris Christie and Rick Perry. A new king of the union busters has emerged in Chicago, of all places. He's a big-city mayor, not a T-Party governor and his plan starts with tax breaks for the corporations and big tax increases on the poor followed up by a legal rip-off of public employee pensions. His only barrier is the unions and Mayor Rahm has already declared war on them, starting with the teachers union.

But even autocrats run into resistance once in a while (Isn't that so, Bloomberg, Duncan, Mubarak?) and Rahm ran into some yesterday when the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board ruled that his arbitrary longer-school-day scheme being imposed on resistant schools violated teachers collective bargaining rights. The Board ruling pushes the state attorney general’s office to seek an injunction against Rahm's assault on teachers who were being made to work longer hours for what amounts to less than minimum wage. The ruling puts a temporary hold on Rahm's waiver strategy of bribing individual schools and teachers to break ranks with their unions. The strategy was already a failed proposition as only 13 schools out of some 470 voted in favor of the contract waiver.

In another disgusting display of journalistic toadyism,  two Sun-Times editorials exhort politicians to go after the pension funds as a way to pay for corporate tax breaks ( "To fix state pension mess, cut benefits for employees") and to attack the transit workers union ("For sake of riders, CTA must take on unions").

It’s time for Illinois to get a grip on its monstrous pension problem. And the only viable solution requires public workers and the state to swallow bitter pills: reduced pensions for current employees and mandatory payments by the state to cover the roughly $85 bil­lion it owes for pension benefits already promised.

This solution, in concept, has been pushed for years by the Civic Committee, a Chicago business group, and was embraced by House Minority Leader Tom Cross and House Speaker Michael Madigan in legislation introduced last spring. It could come up in the veto session that begins next week. 

 Yes, there's no doubt that the mayor has pulled out all stops and mobilized all his troops in his war on the city's workers. Occupy Chicago!

Chicago math and science scores worst ever

Duncan rode the myth of the Chicago "miracle" all the way to D.C.

It's been 16 years since Mayor Richard M. Daley took control of Chicago's school system, bringing with him a school-reform agenda focused on school closings, mass teacher firings, privately-run charter schools, and increased reliance on standardized test scores as the main means of judging  schools and teachers. Now Mayor Emanuel has taken the reins with his own brand of corporate-style reform.

Each campaign, from Renaissance 2010, to Turnaround Schools, was supposed to produce big gains in measurable "student achievement."  The mayor's hand-picked, politically faithful school CEOs, from Paul Vallas, to Arne Duncan, to Ron Huberman, were all quick to make claims of miracle "turnarounds." Duncan even rode the myth of Chicago "miracle" all the way to Washington.

But facts are stubborn fellows, as they say, and now comes news that nearly half of all Illinois public school students failed the annual 11th grade Prairie State Achievement Exam, the worst statewide performance recorded in the test's history. This news comes on the heels of a report from the Consortium on Chicago Schools Research, showing, "No real progress in CPS grade school reading in 20 years."

The latest results not only show the bankruptcy of corporate-style school reform in Chicago, but the failure of No Child Left Behind as well. Chicago's  failure to meet NCLB standards makes the district part of the 80 percent nationwide who are anticipated to be left behind.

I can already predict the mayor's response. Instead of calling for an end to the testing madness, Rahm will likely claim that the dismal scores are the result of schools not implementing HIS longer-school-day reform. Maybe he can name it, Renaissance 90 Minutes.

Isn't it time to rethink the whole notion of mayoral control of the schools?

Rahm's model district is in shambles

Mayor Emanuel and schools chief Brizard have been touting Houston, Texas as the model for their longer school day campaign. 

"If you start in the Chicago Public School system in kindergarten," offered Rahm, "and your cousin lives in Houston, and you both go all the way through high school, the cousin in Houston spends three more years in the classroom."

Remember, it was Jonah Edelman and Stand For Children who fed Emanuel that nonsense. Well, it turns out that they couldn't have picked a worse model. The Texas "miracle" is a mess and Houston's schools and school children are once again in a state of crisis.

For one thing, the heavily black and Hispanic district is broke. Teachers are being laid off and class sizes are swelling. 

According to the Chronicle:  Houston ISD, the largest district in the state, typically has the most contract waivers to increase class size above the legal limit, and the number jumped to 1,048 classrooms exceeding the cap this fall - up from 693 last year. Roughly a quarter of the district's elementary classes top the limit this year. Texas, like most states, does not cap the size of middle and high school classes, and elementary classes that get waivers have no limits.

Now you know where Emanuel is heading with this stuff. 

Beating the bushes for a speaker in Denver

Look who they've dredged up in Denver to speak on school reform. This even though Jr. had backed out of his previous commitment. His handlers wouldn't let him get within 10 miles of WikiLeaks' founder Assange.

******

Even though the president's jobs bill was DOA, Dems are pushing ahead with it piece-by-piece in order to force the hand of Limbaugh Party opposition-ists. Not a bad campaign strategy. First up is $35 billion for state and local governments to rehire teachers, police and firefighters paid for by a tax increase for millionaires and ending subsidies for the oil and gas industry. "Our expectation [is] that the first measure will be teachers," says White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

******

I'm looking forward to hearing  John Carlos speak tonight with my favorite sports writer, Dave Zirin up at Northwestern.  For those too young or mis-educated to know, Carlos was the great Olympic sprinter who in 1968,  along with Tommie Smith, raised his fist in the black power salute, in open defiance, when he got to the medals podium. He's been an outspoken human rights advocate ever since. Zirin is co-author, along with Carlos, of The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World. Cornell West wrote the foreword.

In this morning's L.A. Times:

About 200 protesters gathered near downtown Tuesday to link the nationwide Occupy Wall Street-inspired protests to budgets cuts and layoffs in the Los Angeles Unified School District. “Occupy LAUSD” participants took on the district, education philanthropists and charter schools as well as giving voice to familiar themes such as opposing corporate greed and inequality. Many of the demonstrators had marched from the main Occupy L.A. campsite around City Hall, more than a mile away. English teacher Greta Enszer spoke at the school board meeting going on inside district headquarters and then addressed the crowd outside in similar terms.  

“This is not OK to lay off permanent teachers,” she told the school board. “This [job] is not a stepping stone to me. This is my profession. My students are very important to me.”

Times slings the manure on New Orleans charters

Echoing Duncan's comments on Katrina

Not since Arne Duncan claimed that Hurricane Katrina was "the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans" have I heard more b.s. about charter schools in the Big Easy. The latest to sling the manure is the N.Y. Times editorial board.

An October 15th editorial, Lessons From New Orleans, takes Duncan's crude comment and runs with it, hailing, "the structural changes [that] occurred because the hurricane essentially destroyed the old system, allowing the city to begin fresh."

"Fresh" meaning the firing of every teacher in the city, the driving out from the city's schools more than 100,000 mostly African-American children, the busting of the teachers union, and the creation of a new two-tiered school system around a core of privately-managed charters.

There is no evidence offered by the Times showing that these charters are any better. The Times board even hedges its bets on charters:

Charters around the country are often no better than traditional schools, and are frequently worse. In New Orleans, they appear to be better on average than charters elsewhere. They generally have a longer school day and a longer school year than most schools. They spend a great deal of time teaching study and time management skills, and plan each student’s development. None of these attributes are particular to charters, but they have helped turn the schools around.

So this is what reform is, according to the education experts at the Times. Create a system of schools that are "frequently worse" than traditional schools. Have kids stay in these schools longer and have mostly inexperienced and unqualified TFA teachers teaching poor kids "study and time management skills." I can only imagine what would happen if this recipe was foisted upon white, middle-class parents. But don't worry. It never will be.

Behind this new wave of charter school myth making is a well-orchestrated and well-financed political campaign supported with millions in PAC money coming from the state's most conservative, anti-union and anti-public-school forces. Chief among them is Lane Grigsby, a right-wing Baton Rouge businessman who is committed to taking the public out of public education.

See my post about Grigsby on my Schooling in the Ownership Society blog.

Also see Diane Ravitch's excellent piece: What I learned in New Orleans.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Dr. Cornell West

"If Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today, he would be on Freedom Plaza."--Upon his arrest in D.C. protest

Sen. Bernie Sanders

"Now that Occupy Wall Street is shining a spotlight on Wall Street greed and the enormous inequalities that exist in America, the question then becomes, how do we change the political, economic and financial system to work for all Americans, not just the top 1 percent?" -- Huffington

KIPP gets an "F"

"I still find it very difficult to vote for two more schools when their first school, which got all these praises, is an F," -- Jacksonville school board member, Tommy Hazouri

Taxing the rich?

“I suggested 80 percent. A tremendous number of wealthy people haven’t given much of anything.” -- Billionaire industrialist Jon Huntsman Sr.

Hip-Hop High

Sam Seidel

There are lots of kids who can't or won't connect with the traditional high school setting. Many brilliant and talented among them drop out and wind up on the street. That's one of the reasons why we created the Small Schools Workshop 20 years ago, to help educators develop small, public, personalized, alternative models focused on areas of student interests, talents and passions. While many of the ideas of the early small schools movement were captured and distorted by the regressive currents of privately-managed charter schools, there are still lots of good small, alternative schools fighting to survive and flourish.

One of them is the High School of Recording Arts in St. Paul (MN), also known as Hip-Hop High. In the preface to Sam Seidel's new book, Hip-Hop Genius: Remixing High School Education, veteran alternative schools educator Herb Kohl writes:

The High School of Recording Arts (HSRA) in St. Paul is a bold and exciting attempt to build a high school rooted in this culture and based on performance, music and video production, community-based learning, the study of urban African-American youth culture, and the development of performer and community-controlled businesses. It also attempts to integrate more traditional academic knowledge into its hip-hop focus. 

Last night I went over to the Elastic Arts Foundation in Chicago to hear Seidel read from Hip-Hop Genius . He brought with him school director Tony Simmons and  a couple of HSRA students, Lil C and Federal, who performed some of their own high-energy poetry. Joining them on stage were a couple of local young poets from Kuumba Lynx and Young Chicago Authors.

Seidel's book is the culmination of several years of active documentation and engagement with Hip-Hop High, its students and teachers.  It's a fascinating account of the creation of a learning community tailored to the needs and interests of students and filled with caring teachers and a professional quality recording studio equipped with the latest in digital technology.

Here is just one more example of the power of the arts and other extracurriculars in teaching and learning. Hip-Hop High is trying and seems to have managed to make the extracurricular curricular.

Lots of lessons and questions embedded here for alternative and traditional educators alike, including how this unusual high school wrestles with such issues as testing, standards, and discipline.

"What do these protesters want, anyway?"

Truthout

Fordham's "High Flyer" report gets low marks

"The report’s flawed analysis and interpretation leads to biased results and to an unsupported conclusion that many high-performing students do not maintain their academic edge while more low-performing students catch up." -- NEPC review of High Flyer

These days, it's getting tougher for right-wing think tanks to pass off their school reform propaganda as legitimate research. The reason? There's a group of skilled academics over at NEPC, armed with the necessary research skills, who are able to take on and debunk their politically-aimed studies.

Case in point -- A recent report put out by the conservative Fordham Institute and Northwest Evaluation Association, Do High Flyers Maintain Their Altitude?, claims that the academic performance of high-achieving students is being undermined by a policy focus on lower-achieving students.

The problem is, their claim isn't supported by solid evidence. University at Buffalo, SUNY, professor Jaekyung Lee, a nationally known expert on accountability and equity issues in education, finds that Fordham's conclusions rest on biased methodology and misleading arguments.

Lee concludes:

"So the good news or bad news, depending on one’s predilection, is that everybody improves to more or less the same extent over time, implying equal benefits of schooling. However, if we are concerned about the issue of equity, the picture looks gloomy. The clear bad news is that the achievement gap between high and low achievers is large and does not narrow over time in general. And more specifically, racial and poverty gaps also do not narrow (and sometimes widen) over time."

Find Jaekyung Lee’s review on the NEPC website at: http://greatlakescenter.org/docs/Think_Twice/TT_Lee_HighFlyers.pdf

In fairness, Fordham's Mike Petrilli went on the Jim Bohannon Show and got Jimbo to say that he found the study to be "very important."

We occupied the hell out of Chicago

M

Thousands marched a rallied in Chicago, Monday. A mortgage bankers 
convention meeting downtown had to end their meeting early before thousands of protesters arrived and make a run for it.

Morgan Park H.S. Marching Band

Turning around the 'turn-arounds'

L.A.'s Promise turns out to be a big lie

Out in L.A., they're "turning-around" Manual Arts High School again. School district officials announced that they will retake control over Manual from L.A.'s Promise, a corporate-style reform group they had appointed to turn the school around. The huge campus (3,500 Latino and African-American students) has been beset by overcrowding and endured a disorderly start to the school year that saw initial shortages of desks and textbooks and left some students without class schedules. In March, hundreds of Manual students walked-out to protest teacher lay-offs and transfers forced by the management group.

Ten teachers have no classrooms of their own; instead they share rooms and switch locations from period to period. A new school is expected to open nearby next year to relieve overcrowding. "The primary problem is that the classes have ballooned," said history and government teacher Daniel Beebe, one of the instructors without a classroom.

Writes Howard Blume in L.A. Times:

Top district officials faced a dilemma in dealing with L.A.'s Promise. They wanted to address the situation at Manual Arts without alienating the backers of the nonprofit group. Officials did not want to derail a recently launched, major fundraising initiative led jointly by L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy and education philanthropist Megan Chernin, longtime head of the L.A.'s Promise Board of Directors.

L.A.'s Promise Doard of Directors also includes former Gates' education chief Tom VanderArk whose recent attempt at starting a chain of N.Y. charter schools ended in disaster.  It's advisory board includes:
Peter Chernin, The Chernin Group; Ivelisse Estrada, Univison; Robert Iger, Walt Disney Company; Kevin Sharer, Amgen; and Ron Sugar, Northrop Grumman.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Fred Shuttlesworth

"He marched into the jaws of death every day in Birmingham before we got there." -- Andrew Young

The Mayor of Wall Street

"What they're trying to do is take the jobs away from people working in this city," the mayor declared in his harshest criticism of the three-week-old protest that has caught the attention of the nation. "They're trying to take away the tax base we have because none of this is good for tourism." -- N.Y. Post

AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten

"They are basically sending us a message that says, 'Don't create a society where one percent basically has all the wealth.'" -- CBS News

The GOP and the DOE

“You can imagine the Republican candidate is saying, ‘Not only do I want to end the Education Department as a bureaucratic monster, but I want to defund programs for needy kids or special-needs kids,’ or ‘I want to let states spend those dollars on other kids.’ That’s a very difficult debate for the Republican candidate.” -- Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy at the conservative American Enterprise Institute,

Let's Occupy Chicago Monday

Meet at the Board of Trade (LaSalle and Jackson) at 4 P.M.

The Occupy Wall Street protests are coming full-blast to Chicago where Mayor Emanuel and the Civic Committee continue where Mayor Daley left off,  with the city as their personal cash cow.  On Monday the teachers union and education activists will play a key role in the flowering Occupy Chicago Movement. The CTU is mobilizing teachers, who have a day off Monday for Columbus Day, to meet  at the Board of Trade (LaSalle and Jackson) and march to CPS headquarters, to City Hall and the Art Institute to demand and end to the privatization of our schools and asking that the state and and wealthy investors gathering at the Art Institute pay their fair share and adequately fund our schools. Four other marches are also expected to meet up at the Institute.

Greg Hinz at Crain's reports:

The union says about 10,000 teachers, jobless veterans, students and others will join in objecting to "corporate bailouts, tax breaks for the rich and the way neighborhood schools are cheated out of more than $250 million a year." The latter refers to tax-increment financing funds, which the city uses for development projects and which the union asserts can be switched to other needs.

The union said in a press release that demonstrators will also rally for "a better school day" as a counter to the mayor's own 90 minutes of more seat time campaign.

Other marches will begin at: 

• Daley Plaza (Washington & Dearborn) where SEIU members are coming together to demand meaningful job creation.
• Federal Plaza (Adams & Dearborn) An alliance of labor unions and immigrant groups are rallying to demand real solutions to the unemployment crisis. 
• Hyatt Regency (Wacker & Stetson) National Peoples Action—Pay Us Back-Outside of the Mortgage Banker’s Association 98th Annual Convention and Expo. Congresswoman Jan Schakowskywill be speaking to the group about the foreclosure crisis in Chicago. 
• Hilton Chicago (Balbo & Michigan) College students and MoveOn activists are converging outside the Futures & Options expo to demand that corporate welfare be reinvested in our schools and communities.

News from the battle front

Bloomberg's White Shirts go wild

Occupy Wall Street Arrests; Fox 5 Crew and Protesters Hit by Mace, Batons: MyFoxNY.com

News from the battle front

Unions join the protest

Crain's New York Business, New York Magazine, and The Village Voice are reporting that "a loose coalition of labor and community groups" have pledged solidarity with the protests at Zuccotti Park in New York's financial district and are organizing a march for next Wednesday, Oct. 5. -- Slate

Who are the 99 percent?

College debt shows up a lot in these stories, actually. It’s more insistently present than housing debt, or even unemployment. That might speak to the fact that the protests tilt towards the young. But it also speaks, I think, to the fact that college debt represents a special sort of betrayal. We told you that the way to get ahead in America was to get educated. You did it. And now you find yourself in the same place, but buried under debt. You were lied to. -- Ezra Klein, WaPo

UFT will show support for Wall St. protests today

At 4:30 p.m., members will gather near the UFT banner in Foley Square. Marchers will step off at 5 p.m. from Foley Square and head to Zuccotti Park, where they will be welcomed by the Occupy Wall Street protesters who have created an encampment to denounce corporate greed and the grossly unequal distribution of wealth in this country. Their rallying cry: “We are the 99 percent.” -- Edwize

Other unions that will be joining the protest today

• AFL-CIO (AFSCME)
• United NY
• TWU Local 100
• SEIU 1199
• CWA 1109
• RWDSU
• Communications Workers of America
• CWA Local 1180
• United Auto Workers
• United Federation of Teachers
• Professional Staff Congress - CUNY
• National Nurses United
• Writers Guild East

Who won't be there today

I'm pretty sure you won't find corporate reformers like DFER at today's protest. The reason? Their patrons, like hedge-funders Whitney Tilson, Charles Ledley, John Petry, David Einhorn, Joel Greenblatt, Vincent Mai, Michael Novagratz, and Boykin Curry already occupy Wall Street.

Thankfully, the CTU didn't take Zorn's advice

You may remember, it was just a little over two weeks ago that Tribune columnist Eric Zorn was urging the Chicago Teachers Union to throw in the towel in its fight with the mayor over the 90-minute-longer school day.

Zorn advised CTU leaders on Sept. 16 to "graciously surrender."

I couldn't begin to guess which side has the stronger case — labor law is pretty dense — but I can helpfully imagine for the teachers union what the headlines will be if they happen to prevail:

Teachers win: School day shortened
Union turns back clock on school reform
Students lose learning time as teachers get back shorter schedules

Well it's a damn good thing that Zorn's warnings went unheeded. None of his doomsday predictions materialized. None of those headlines appeared in print. In fact, here's the actual headline on today's column:

Brizard failed to sway the rank and file to a longer school day this year 

He writes:

If you’re keeping score at home, which I happen to be, the tally looks to be stuck: 

Chicago Public Schools –13 Chicago Teachers Union – 470 

Well Eric, I was also keeping score and that sounds like somewhat of a a defeat for our autocratic mayor. In other words, even with all of Rahm's threats; even with his bribing of teachers to break with their own union and abandon their own collective bargaining agreement; even with all that, Rahm could only get 13 schools to bite.

In fact, according to Zorn himself, it's Rahm and Brizard who have thrown in the towel --at least for now. They were out-maneuvered when the union put forth its own play for a "better" restructured school day -- one that included academic enrichment, more arts and teacher planning time as opposed to Rahm's call for more seat time. In other words, they changed the whole narrative away from longer vs. shorter school day.

More Zorn:

Whether you think a 2.7 percent acceptance rate is good news --- most teachers have put the brakes on a hastily implemented plan that asks them to set aside a key portion of their collective bargaining agreement    --- or bad news --- most students will not this year get the extra classroom time some of them badly need --- it certainly reflects the failure of new Chicago schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard to make his case to the rank and file. And it's almost certainly why, Friday, Brizard sent a letter to union leader Karen Lewis saying "the time is right to turn the Pioneer Project into a collaboration between the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union leadership..."

There's an important lesson in all this. Next time a Tribune columnist offers your union tactical advice, do just the opposite and victory is practically assured.

Yo-yo Ma brings "Arts strike" to Telpochcalli

Telpochcalli is a small neighborhood public school on Chicago's southwest side. It was started by teachers as part of the early small schools movement. The school's mission focuses on arts integration and bi-lingual literacy. In this morning's Trib, Mark Caro writes:

What Yo-Yo Ma and friends brought to [Telpochcalli] Monday was dubbed an "arts strike," which is fitting because that particular iron is hot. Ma, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's creative consultant, and Damian Woetzel, a ballet star/director/producer who serves with the virtuoso cellist on President Barack Obama's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, gathered a diverse collection of performing artists at the Telpochcalli Elementary School in the predominantly Mexican-American Little Village neighborhood to illustrate the benefits of arts-based education programs. Don't miss the great video. 

According to Caro, after the program Ma was enthusiastic about Telpochcalli.

"The school is spreading a fabulous message," he said, noting that teaching two languages helps students see the world from multiple perspectives. "Plus you add the senses, whether it's music, it's dance, collaboration — all these things are the ingredients that stimulate the imagination. Imagination and empathy are the key ingredients to creating an innovative workforce, a student population that is absolutely curious and passionate about learning, and this school is doing it the right way."

"This is the type of thing that could really make a difference in people's lives," he said, "not just enriching but giving the fundamental values of what builds a great society."

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

U.S. Marine

"2nd time I've fought for my country. 1st time I've known my enemy." - At Wall Street protests

Alabama Supt.

"In the case of this law, our students do not have anything to fear," Casey Wardynski said in halting Spanish. He urged families to send students to class and explained that the state was only trying to compile statistics. Police, he insisted, were not getting involved in schools. -- A.P. "Ala. Hispanic students vanish"

The "Chicago Miracle"

So after waves and waves of reform, you thought Chicago public elementary schools had made tremendous progress in the last 20 years? Think again...Math scores improved only “incrementally” in those grades, and racial gaps in both subjects increased, with African American students falling the most behind other groups, especially in reading — an area pushed heavily under former Mayor Richard M. Daley. -- Sun-Times

N.Y. Teacher

“This time I just got a letter home, explaining, you know, that I’m no longer needed,” said Ms. Ramirez, 30, who is five months pregnant with her first child. -- New York Times, "School Layoffs About to Fall Heaviest on the Poorest and Most Struggling" 

Sweet home Alabama???

Once again the shame of the nation

 Birmingham, Ala. -- Latino students have started vanishing from Alabama public schools in the wake of a court ruling that upheld the state's tough new law cracking down on illegal immigration. Education officials say scores of immigrant families have withdrawn their children from classes or kept them home this week, fearful that sending the kids to school would draw attention from authorities. -- AP Wire

The Toll of the Great Recession

The Pew Hispanic Center reports that more Latino children are living in poverty—6.1 million in 2010—than children of any other racial or ethnic group. This marks the first time in U.S. history that the single largest group of poor children is not white. In 2010, 37.3% of poor children were Latino, 30.5% were white and 26.6% were black.

Christie just another teacher-bashing corporate reformer

N.J. teacher writes

My parents, both public school teachers, along with the many great teachers who shaped my life, were my inspiration when I changed careers and became a teacher in 2003. As I return to school this year, the calls for “reform” and the negative atmosphere created by the vociferous “blame the teacher” brigade make me question my career change.

The largest piece of the governor’s proposals focuses on improving teacher quality. The plan purports to value teachers and claims their effectiveness is the most important variable in how children learn; however, the “top-down” dictatorial approach asks for no input from teachers, the same stakeholders the governor claims to value so highly. In fact, teachers would be stripped of the right to collectively bargain compensation policies and work rules. During a stop at my school to advance his plan, the governor took no questions from teachers. The governor’s proposals appear to focus less on quality and more on reducing cost, undermining the quality teaching staffs successful districts have recruited and developed. -- Andrew Romanelli is a special-education teacher at Hopewell Valley Central High School. (NJ.Com)

Teachers teaching children of color are paid less

Teachers in schools that serve the top quintile of African-American and Latino students are paid significantly less—approximately $2,500 per year—than the average teacher in such districts, according to an analysis  by the U.S. Department of Education's office for civil rights.

Steven Sawchuck, posting on Edweek, writes:

Fifty-nine percent of the districts studied showed these spending disparities. And because teacher salaries make up about 60 percent or so of the typical district's budget, these data demonstrate some fairly hefty gaps in spending between schools that serve more students of color and those that serve fewer such students. 

Arne Duncan calls it, "a civil rights issue, an economic security issue, and a moral issue." But Duncan's own Race To The Top policies have reinforced these disparities by punishing schools and districts with high percentages of poor, black and Latino students. Current "performance pay" schemes, which tie teacher evaluations and pay bonuses to student test scores are also widening the pay gap.

******

On top of this, The Chicago Teachers Union charges that African-American teachers have been unfairly targeted by CPS layoffs. According to the union, while fewer than 30 percent of teachers in CPS are African-American, they represent more than 40 percent of those getting pink slips this year, either for budgetary reasons or because of enrollment declines.

CTU prez Karen Lewis, quoted in the Tribune, says the disparity of teachers being laid off from low-income neighborhoods represents a "disturbing trend" that has consequences for students who look to their teachers as "role models for achievement and success."

"With unemployment soaring in the black community, why is CPS exacerbating this crisis by getting rid of experienced and valuable educators in the first place?" Lewis asked.

Looking back on Obama's pick

In December, 2008 President-elect Obama named Arne Duncan to be his new secretary of education.  Obama's choice of Duncan over the much more highly qualified Linda Darling-Hammond should have been a tip-off as to what would transpire the next two-and-a-half years.

At the time, many of us were still optimistic in the wake of Obama's historic election victory. Based on his campaign promises, educators were anticipating an end to Bush-ism and to nearly a decade of testing madness under NCLB. Those looking at the glass as half-full (myself included) were cautiously hopeful. After all, Obama had also rejected hard-core anti-teachert extremists Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee for the job. Having worked with and battled against Duncan's regime in Chicago, I expressed hope that, once out from under the thumb of Mayor Daley and the Chicago machine, Duncan might be able to represent a more progressive and humane ed politics than the previous regime. But this was not to be.

This morning, while reading a Huffington piece by Joy Resmovitz, "Will Arne Duncan's Education Reforms Get Left Behind?" I linked to a Dec. 2008 assessment of the Duncan appointment in the Economist,: "B+ for the new boy: Barack Obama’s education secretary is a diplomatic reformer."

Chester Finn of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute calls Mr Duncan “a terrific pick”, and Margaret Spellings, George Bush’s education secretary, calls him “a kindred spirit”. But Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, declared herself “pleased” by the choice. The worry is that the effort to reach consensus may hinder bold change. But at least Mr Duncan may restore the spirit of co-operation that helped pass NCLB in 2001. Mr Obama, in his announcement, criticised advocates who fail to realise that “both sides have good ideas and good intentions”. The president-elect is a master at charting the middle road. Time will tell whether that path leads to meaningful reform or to messy drift.

Well, time certainly has told. There were no "good intentions." There was no "spirit of cooperation" and NCLB was dead in the water (thank goodness). Duncan's attempt to coalesce with Newt Gingrich and the  neocons fell flat on its face. Conciliation soon turned into outright adoption of the corporate reform agenda and the plight of teachers and their collective bargaining rights have have gotten worse than ever.

Now NCLB has essentially been re-branded as Race To The Top and the Dept. of Education has lost whatever juice it had in trying to re-authorize a national education law. Duncan's attempt to grab power with his waiver initiative is bound to fall on its face.

With elections on the horizon, Obama would do well to clean house at the DOE and hope for a fresh start.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Where's the Zuckerberg $$?

"We don’t know what the foundation is doing or how they intend to spend the other money. With that money comes a responsibility to the public to be clear about its use." -- Newark Teachers Union President Joe Del Grosso

From Education Nation

"This (teacher salary issue) really strikes home for me because when I know passionate, excellent teachers who've left the classroom, it's not because of lack of dollars, it's lack of voice. We want a chance to be the decision makers. We're on the ground, we know what need to be done and we want the chance to do it." -- Melanie Allen, a Boston teacher.

Monty Neill

"The Obama-Duncan plan for ―flexibility‖ in the administration of the ―No Child Left Behind‖ (NCLB) federal education law offers little more than a leap from the frying pan to the fire – and even adds gasoline to the fire." -- FairTest

Cheating

"Cheating scandals have been rolling up the East Coast like a hurricane this year, from Atlanta to Washington, Pennsylvania and New Jersey." -- Sharon Otterman, New York Times

John Kass

Perry makes No Child Left Behind seem like a fairy tale with a happy ending. And if he loves government muscle so much, shouldn't he have run for mayor of Chicago? -- Tribune

Defender gets it right on Rahm's longer school day scam

An editorial in the Chicago Defender, "Breaking the Teachers Union" blasts the mayor's longer-school-day campaign.

Though the district is trying to close a $200 million budget deficit, and has reneged on a negotiated 4 percent raise for the teachers, that is not the rallying cry for the district. Instead, CPS sends out notices trumpeting the fact that teachers at individual schools are voting for longer school hours, succumbing to the siren call of 2 percent bonuses offered by the district. If all of the schools voted that way, it would cost $100 million ... which would pay for the raises. So far, nine schools (out of 650) have taken the bait, even though it undermines the only weapon a union has to advocate for its members - solidarity.

The Defender editorial sees the assault on the CTU being partially connected with race and gender issues.

Why target CTU? Hopefully it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that 76.6 percent of CPS teachers are female. Hopefully it has nothing to do with the fact that 29.6 percent of CPS teachers are African American (down from 40 percent in 2002).

Seeing members of the Pastors United for Change cozying up with Ald. Richard Mell (one of the [racist faction that opposed Chicago's first black mayor, Harold Washington--M.K.] Vdrolyak 29) was particularly disheartening. Even some of the city’s labor union heads - most of whom don’t send their kids to Chicago Public Schools - came out in support of a longer school day.

IN THE MAILBOX

Dear Mike,

At 11:08 pm, the state of Georgia killed Troy Davis. Just before he was executed, Troy maintained his innocence, urged people to dig deeper into the case to find the truth, and said "For those about to take my life, may God have mercy on your souls, may God bless your souls." It's a tragic day for Troy, for his family, and for equality, fairness, and justice.

It's hard to know what to say at a time like this. In this moment, and in the days and weeks before Troy's execution, we've felt all kinds of things — anger, sadness, inspiration, hope and hopelessness. This is a time to mourn and remember Troy, to contemplate the profound loss we're facing, to send love and support to Troy's family and friends. It's incredibly important to take the time to spiritually and emotionally care for Troy's family and the amazing community that has arisen to support Troy — and it feels hard to muster the energy to do much more than that.

But before he died, Troy told us that this was about more than him — and he called on those of us who have fought against his execution to continue fighting for justice, even if we weren't successful in saving his life. Now is also an important moment to take stock of what's brought us to this point — the criminal justice system that allowed this to happen, and the movement we've built to fight for Troy and others facing injustice and oppression at the hands of that system.

Race, the criminal justice system, and the death penalty

At every stage of the criminal justice system, Black people and other minorities face inequality and discrimination. We all know about people who've been treated unfairly by police or by the courts. When the entire system treats Black people unequally, it means that the death penalty is applied unequally too. Troy Davis' case underscores the way in which this systemic inequality can lead to a tragic miscarriage of justice.

In most cases, people who've been treated unfairly or wrongly convicted have some chance to correct the injustice. People who have been mistreated by the police can sue them. People who are wrongly serving time can be granted new trials, can be released from prison, and are sometimes entitled to compensation. As we all know, the safeguards that can correct abuse by the criminal justice system often fail, and rampant inequality persists. Usually, people can at least keep trying.

But there's no way to correct a death sentence. If Troy Davis were serving a sentence of life in prison without parole, he could continue to press the legal system to grant him a fair trial — but because the death penalty exists, he will not have that opportunity.

Troy Davis' case has sparked a national conversation about the death penalty. In the past, much of the debate around the death penalty has focused on the morality of killing people as a legal punishment — a very important question that brings out a lot of strong opinions. But even if we completely leave aside the question whether or not it can ever be right for the government to punish a murderer by killing them, there's an entirely different debate to be had — whether or not we can have the death penalty and actually avoid the possibility of killing innocent people. In a criminal justice system that routinely misidentifies Black suspects and disproportionately punishes Black people, Black folks are more likely to be wrongfully executed.

There's plenty of evidence to suggest that the death penalty has been used to kill innocent people many times. Since 1973, more than 130 people have been released from death row because of evidence that they were wrongly convicted. Troy Davis is one of many people who were executed despite serious questions about their guilt, and he's called on his supporters to continue working to end the death penalty.

A group of NAACP organizers went to visit Troy in prison yesterday, and NAACP's Robert Rooks said this about the visit:

For someone that was facing death the very next day, he was just full of life and wanted to spend time talking to the younger staff, the interns, giving them direction and hope and asking them to hold onto God. And he challenged them. He challenged them by saying, "You have a choice. You can either fold up your bags after tomorrow and go home, or you can stand and continue this fight." He said it doesn’t—it didn’t begin with Troy Davis, and this won’t end if he is executed today. He just asked us all just to continue to fight to end the death penalty, if in fact he’s executed.

A powerful movement

For years, ColorOfChange members have been an important part of a growing movement to stop Troy Davis' execution. Hundreds of phone calls from ColorOfChange members to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole helped delay Davis' execution twice. Over the past year, there's been a huge outpouring of support for Davis from ColorOfChange members — more than 100,000 of us have signed petitions, and we raised more than $30,000 to run radio ads in Georgia calling for justice for Troy.

And we've been part of an even bigger movement — NAACP, Amnesty International, National Action Network, Change.org, and others have all been a major part of the fight for Troy Davis, and there are now over close to a million petition signatures overall. Prominent people from all across the political spectrum have spoken out: members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Desmond Tutu, former President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI, former FBI Director William Sessions, former Georgia Republican congressman Bob Barr, and former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Norman Fletcher.

This movement couldn't stop Davis' execution — but it's a movement that won't die with Troy Davis. There's no better way to honor Troy's memory than to keep fighting for justice.

Thanks and Peace,

-- Rashad, James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Matt, Natasha and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
September 21st, 2011

Low poverty rates = high scores on int'l tests

An email from a colleague in California caused me to reflect once again on the results of the 2009 PISA exams. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide evaluation of 15-year-old school pupils' scholastic performance, performed first in 2000 and repeated every three years. It is coordinated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), with a view to improving educational policies and outcomes. Another similar study is the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, which focuses on mathematics and science but not reading.

In reading, math, and science the U.S. was reported to be lagging far behind countries like Finland, Singapore, China and South Korea. Corporate reformers and Arne Duncan have used the results to in part, blame public schools for this country's declining power vis-a-vis it's perceived global competitors. It has also provided the rationale for the labeling of thousands of urban public schools as "failing" or calling them "dropout factories."

But as my colleague reminded me, there were several ways of looking at U.S. PISA data which show that US schools with 10% poverty would score #1 in the world in reading. Those with 25% in poverty would score #3 in the world. And those with 75% students in poverty would score 33rd in the world.  

She adds:

Other high-achieving countries like Finland and Singapore have very few kids in poverty and very equitable outcomes for schools that serve those kids, so it wouldn’t change their rankings much. OECD has documented all this in the PISA reports.

It makes it clear once again that the main difference in measurable learning outcomes between high and low-scoring schools in this country has more to do with parent income than anything going on in the classroom and that student scores can't be used as a reliable measure of schools or teachers. 

These figures caused many of my students to wonder, what exactly are our standardized tests really measuring?