Researchers Call For an End To Test-based Reforms

Open Letter to Congress and the Obama Administration from Educational Researchers Nationwide

Dear Members of Congress and the Obama Administration:

We are researchers and professors in colleges, universities, and other research institutions throughout the United States with scholarly and practical expertise in public education, including education policy, school reform, teaching and learning, assessment, and educational equity. As Congress revises and reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, we strongly urge departing from test-focused reforms that not only have been discredited for high-stakes decisions, but also have shown to widen, not close, gaps and inequities. The current reauthorization provides an historic opportunity to leverage federal resources to address the deeper and more systemic problems with strategies that research has compellingly demonstrated to be far more effective in improving the educational opportunities and success of all students, particularly those in highest need. Specifically, we write to endorse the concerns, analyses, and recommendations in the recently released policy memo from the National Education Policy Center, “Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act: Time to Move Beyond Test-focused Policies,” which is available online at http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/esea.

The following researchers endorse the NEPC memo, as of February 14, 2015. Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only.

Contact Person: Kevin Kumashiro, Dean, University of San Francisco School of Education, kkumashiro@usfca.edu

Adriana Tapanes, Professor, Harold Washington College-City Colleges of Chicago

Aimee LaPointe Terosky, Faculty, Saint Joseph's University

Al Schademan, Associate Professor, CSU Chico

Alan Singer, Faculty, Hofstra University

Alan W. Garrett, Faculty, Eastern New Mexico University

Alan Young, Resource Teacher/Project Manager-JCPS Educator Growth System, Jefferson County Public Schools/Jefferson County Teachers Association (KY)

Alberto Lopez-Carrasquillo, Associate Professor and Associate Dean, Northeastern Illinois University

Alex Molnar, Research Professor, University of Colorado Boulder

Alicia A Bower, Graduate Student/Assistant, University of Nebraska at Omaha

Alisa Leckie, Assistant Professor, Georgia Southern University

Alyson Martin, Assistant Professor Special Education, Fairfield University

Alyssa Dunn, Assistant Professor, Michigan State University

Amanda Moreno, Assistant Professor, Erikson Institute

Amy Boelé, Assistant Professor, University of Colorado Denver

Amy Brown, Ph.D., Faculty, University of Pennsylvania Critical Writing Program

Amy Frederick, Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin River Falls

Amy Levin, Professor, California State University, Northridge

Amy Millikan, Director of Clinical Education, San Francisco Teacher Residency

Anaida Colon-Muniz, Associate Professor, Chapman University

Andrea Gelfuso, Faculty Researcher, University of Central Florida

Andrea Hyde, Associate Professor, Western Illinois University

Andrea Word, Faculty, The University of Alabama in Huntsville

Anita Fernández, Faculty/Director, Prescott College

Anita S. Charles, Dir of Teacher Education, Bates College

Ann Bracken, Lecturer, University of Maryland

Ann Mogush Mason, Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin, River Falls

Ann Schulte, Professor, California State University, Chico

Anna Lou Herzer, Independent Researcher, None - Independent

Anna O. Graeber, Faculty/Associate Professor Emeriti, University of Maryland

Anna O. Soter, Professor Emerita, The Ohio State University

Anne E Campbell, Associate Dean and Director TESOL and Bilingual Education Programs, Fairfield University

Annette M. Daoud, Professor, California State University, San Marcos

Annie Adamian, Adjunct Faculty, CSU-Chico

Anthony Costa, Director of Field Experiences, Fairfield University

Anthony J. Moss, Researcher / Data Analyst, Kansas State Dept. of Education

Anthony Kenneth Tufie Francis, Assistant Professor of Teacher Development, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan

Antonette Aragon, Associate Professor, Colorado State University

Arnold Danzig, Professor, San Jose State University

Arshad I. Ali, Assistant Professor, George Washington University

Aryn Kruse, Faculty, Simpson College

Barbara Adams, Assistant Professor, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Barbara Ferman, Professor of Political Science, Temple University

Barbara Garii, Dean, CEIT, LIU-Post

Barbara McClanahan, Associate Professor, Southeastern Oklahoma State University

Barbara Morgan-Fleming, Professor, College of Education, Texas Tech University

Barbara Torre Veltri, Associate Professor, Northern Arizona University

Beatriz Quintos, Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Maryland

Benjamin C. Herman, Assistant Professor of Science Education, University of South Florida

Beth Graue, Sorenson Professor of Childhood Studies, University of Wisconsin Madison

Beth Nason Quick, Dean, College of Education, University of Alabama in Huntsville

Betsy Gilliland, Assistant Professor, University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa

Bette J. Shellhorn, Associate Professor, Eastern Michigan University

Bettina Mileur, Teacher/Researcher, UAA

Bill Rosenthal, Associate Professor, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

Brad Alan Biggs, Assistant Professor, California State University Fullerton

Bradley Porfilio, Associate Professor, California State University, East Bay

Brandelyn Tosolt, Associate Professor, Northern Kentucky University

Brandon S. Diamond, Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Miami

Bree Picower, Faculty, Montclair State University

Brian D. Schultz, Professor and Chair, Northeastern Illinois University

Brian Dotts, Associate Clinical Professor, University of Georgia

Brian Horn, Assistant Professor, Illinois State University

Bruce J. Biddle, Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri

Bruce Marlowe, Professor of Educational Psychology and Special Education, Roger Williams University

Bryan Ripley Crandall, Assistant Professor, Director of Connecticut Writing Project-Fairfield, Fairfield University

Bryan, Faculty, Portland State University

Burcu Ates, Faculty, Sam Houston State University

C.J. Pascoe, Assistant Professor, University of Oregon

Candice Dawson, Chief Executive Officer, dreaM Endlessly Consulting

Carie Green, Assistant Professor, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Carol Burris, Principal and NEPC Fellow, South Side High School

Carol Caref, Researcher, Chicago Teachers Union

Carol M. Pate, Ed.D., Faculty researcher, La Salle University

Carolina Napp-Avelli, Clinical faculty, University of Maryland

Carolyn Walker Hitchens, Associate Professor, Ball State University

Carolyne J. White, Professor, Rutgers University-Newark

Carrie Anna Courtad, Assistant Professor, Illinois State University

Carrie Semmelroth, Lecturer, Boise State University

Casey D. Cobb, Associate Dean, Neag School of Education

Cassondra Gendron, Adjunct Faculty, Supplemental Instruction Coordinator, Westfield State University

Catherine Lugg, Professor, Rutgers University

Catherine M. Koehler, Faculty, Southern Connecticut State University

Cathy Coulter, Associate Professor, University of Alaska Anchorage

Charles Timothy Dickel, EdD, Professor of Education (Counseling and Educational Psychology), Creighton University

Chela Delgad PhD, Coliseum College Prep Academy

Cheryl E. Matias, Assistant Professor, University of Colorado Denver

Christian Rewoldt, Ph.D. Candidate, Educational Policy and Leadership Studies, University of Texas at Arlington

Christian Z. Goering, Faculty, University of Arkansas

Christine Irujo, Associate Professor, Westfield State University

Christine Nganga, Assistant Professor, South Dakota State University

Christine Purkiss, Associate Professor of Teacher Education, Angelo State University

Christine Sleeter, Professor Emerita, California State University Monterey Bay

Christine von Renesse, Faculty (Associate Professor), Westfield State University

Christopher Bjork, Professor, Vassar College

Christopher Buttimer, doctoral student/researcher/instructor, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Christopher C. Martell, Clinical Assistant Professor, Boston University

Christopher P. Brown, Associate Professor, The University of Texas at Austin

Christopher Tienken, Faculty, Seton Hall University

Cindy Cruz, Faculty, UC Santa Cruz

Cindy Lutenbacher, Associate Professor of English, Morehouse College

Claire Fontaine, Adjunct Faculty, Long Island University

Colette N. Cann, Assistant Professor, Vassar College

Colette, Faculty, San Jose State University

Colleen M. Fairbanks, Professor, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Connie North, Counselor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Cristen Jenkins, Faculty, Northeastern Illinois University

Cristian Aquino-Sterling, Assistant Professor, School of Education - San Diego State University

Cynthia L. Carver, Associate Professor, Oakland University

Cynthia Lewis, Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota

Dan Clawson, Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Dan Hanley, Educational Researcher/Evaluator, Western Washington University

Dana A. Robertson, Assistant Professor, University of Wyoming

Dana Wright, Assistant Professor, Connecticut College

Daniel Glisczinski, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota Duluth

Daniel Meier, Professor, San Francisco State University

Daniel R. Hittleman, Professor Emeritus of Literacy Education, The City University of New York/Queens

Darlene Yee-Melichar, Professor, Gerontology, San Francisco State University

Darrell C. Hucks, Assistant Professor, Keene State College

Dave F. Brown, Ed. D., Educational Researcher, West Chester University, PA

David A. Raker, Ed.D, Professor of Education, Westfield State University

David F. Hemphill, Professor of Education, San Francisco State University

David Goodwin, Associate Professor, Missouri State University

David Gray Matthews, Assistant Professor, University of Memphis

David Kopperud, Education Programs Consultant, California Association of Supervisors of Child Welfare and Attendance

David Meens, Ph.D. Candidate and Instructor, University of Colorado Boulder

David R. Stronck, Professor, California State University, East Bay

David Schaafsma, Professor of English, University of Illinois at Chicago

David Spring M. Ed., Educational Researcher, Formerly University of Washington

David Stovall, Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago

David V. Madrigal, Supervisor, Teacher Ed., California State University, East Bay

Dawn Hunter, Professor, Director of Ph.D. Program, Chapman University

Debbie Sonu, Assistant Professor, Hunter College, CUNY

Deborah A. Brown Ed. D., Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas

Deborah Amchin, Doctoral Student/Researcher, University of the Cumberlands

Deborah L. Garvey, Treasurer & Director, Friends of African Village Libraries

Deborah L. Hanuscin, Associate Professor, University of Missouri

Deborah Lutz Associate Professor, Long Island University, C.W. Post

Deborah Walker, Grant Manager, Georgia Southern University

Denise Fleming, Professor, California State University, East Bay

Denise Oen, Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Georgia

Derrick Mears, Ed.S. Program Coordinator/Clinical Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction/Educational Technology, University of Arkansas

Diane Horwitz, Coordinator Education Forums, DePaul University

Diane Ketelle, Professor of Education, Mills College

Dianne R. Layden, Retired Faculty, Central New Mexico Community College

Don Zancanella, Professor, University of New Mexico

Doris A Santoro, Associate Professor, Bowdoin College

Doug Holton, Associate Director, Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Douglas Cosr, Researcher, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Douglas Kaufman, Associate Professor, University of Connecticut

Douglas Larkin, Assistant Professor, Montclair State University, New Jersey

Dr. Arnold Dodge, Associate Professor/Chair, Long Island University/C.W. Post Campus

Dr. Kevin J. Miller, Professor, Chair of Exceptional Education Dept.,SUNY - Buffalo State

Dr. Randal M. Ernst, Curriculum Specialist, Lincoln Public Schools (NE)

Dr. Sandra Howard, Associate Professor, Keene State College

E. Wayne Ross, Professor, University of British Columbia

Edmund C. Short, Associate Faculty, University of Central Florida College of Education and Human Performance

Edward Haertel, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University

Elaine Mo, Assistant Professor, University of the Pacific

Elaine Pierce Chakonas, Associate Professor, Northeastern Illinois University

Elaine Radmer, Assistant Professor, Gonzaga University

Elizabeth A. St.Pierre , Professor, University of Georgia

Elizabeth Brockman, English Professor, Central Michigan University

Elizabeth DeMulder, Faculty, College of Education and Human Development/George Mason University

Elizabeth H. DeBray, Faculty, University of Georgia

Elizabeth J. Meyer, Assistant Professor, California Polytechnic State University

Elizabeth Kean, Professor Emerita, California State University, Sacramento

Elizabeth V Moore, Associate Professor of Practice, Northern Arizona University

Emilie Berruezo Rodger, Associate Professor, Northern Arizona University

Encarna Rodriguez, Faculty, Saint Joseph's Unversity

Eric Engdahl, Faculty/Chair, California State University, East Bay

Eric Freeman, Faculty, Wichita State University

Eric Milou, Faculty, Professor of Mathematics, Rowan University

Erica Hernandez-Scott, Associate Teaching Professor, University of Missouri-Kansas City

Erica Meiners, Professor, Northeastern Illinois University

Erik Jacobson, Associate Professor, Montclair State University

Erin Hurt, Assistant Professor, West Chester University

Erin McCloskey, Chair, Associate Professor of Education, Vassar College

Erin McNamara Horvat, Associate Professor, Temple University

Erin Ramos, Educator & Advocate, Good Shepherd Services, NYC

Ernest Rose, Professor, Loyola Marymount University

Ethan Margolis, Director of Education Leadership, University of Bridgeport

Eunsook Hong, Professor, College of Education, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Eva Travers, Prof. Emerita, Swarthmore College

Evan Sterling, Researcher, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Eve Tuck, Associate Professor of Educational Foundations, State University of New York at New Paltz

Faith Boninger, Researcher, University of Colorado Boulder

Federico R. Waitoller, Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago

Florence R. Sullivan, Faculty, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Forrest W. Parkay, Professor, Educational Leadership, Washington State University

Frances Julia Riemer, Professor, Northern Arizona University

Francine Hultgren, Professor and Chair, University of Maryland

Francisco Rios, Dean, Western Washington University

Frank Adamson, Senior Policy and Research Analyst, Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education

Frank Bernt, Professor, Saint Joseph's University

Frank Goeddeke, Jr., Adjunct Assistant Professor, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Frank M Bernt, Professor and Chair, Teacher Education Department, Saint Joseph's University

Gail Sunderman, Senior Research Scientist, College of Education, University of Maryland

Gary Galluzzo, Professor, George Mason University

Gary Troia, Associate Professor, Michigan State University

Gayle Andrews, Professor, University of Georgia

Gene V Glass, Researcher, Arizona State University

George Lipsitz, Faculty, University of California, Santa Barbara

George Yonge, Professor emeritus, University of California @ Davis

Gil Naizer, Professor, Texas A&M University-Commerce

Gilda Bloom-Leiva, Professor, San Francisco State University

Giselle Abed, Associate Director, Career Center, Westfield State University

Glen I. Earthman, Professor Emeritus - Educational Leadership, Virginia Tech

Grace Maes, Lecturer Teacher Education, CSU EASTBAY

Graciela Slesaransky-Poe, Professor and Dean, Arcadia University

Gregory J. Marchant, Professor of Educational Psychology, Ball State University

Grisel Y. Acosta, Assistant Professor, Bronx Community College-City University of New York

Gustavo E. Fischman, Professor, Arizona State University

Guy Senese, Professor, Northern Arizona University

Hans Brügelmann, Professor, University of Siegen/ Germany

Heather Hickman, Adjunct Faculty, Lewis University

Heather Lattimer, Assoc. Professor & Chair, University of San Diego

Heidi Stevenson, Associate Professor , University of the Pacific

Heinz-Dieter Meyer, Associate Professor, SUNY Albany

Helen Berg, Faculty, Sam Houston State University

Ingrid Seyer-Ochi, Faculty, Mills College, School of Education

IRMA OLMEDO, ASSOC. PROF. EMERITA, U. ILLINOIS-CHICAGO

Isabel Nunez, Faculty, University of San Francisco

Jaekyung Lee, The Graduate School of Education, The University at Buffalo, SUNY

James Bucky Carter, Ph.D., Independent Scholar, Formerly of Washington State University, Pullman, and the University of Texas at El Paso Dean, The Graduate School of Education, The University at Buffalo, SUNY

James H. Nehring, Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts Lowell

James MaKinster, Professor of Education, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

James Martinez, Faculty/Assistant Professor, Valdosta State University

James P. Burns, Assistant Professor, South Dakota State University

James R. King, Faculty, University of South Florida

James S. Cruz, Researcher/ Practitioner, CSU East Bay

Jamie B. Lewiz, Assistant Professor, Georgia Gwinnett College

Jan Nespor, Professor, The Ohio State University

Jane C. Chauvin, Professor, Loyola University New Orleans

Jane M. Gangi, PhD, Associate Professor, Mount Saint Mary College

Jane Piirto, Trustees, Distinguished Professor, Ashland University

Janelle Scott, Associate Professor, UC Berkeley

Janet E. Helms, Augustus Long Professor, Institute for the Study & Promotion of Race and Culture at Boston College

Janet Isbell, Assistant Professor, Tennessee Technological University

Janet L Miller, Professor, Teachers College, Columbia University

Janice Koch, Professor Emerita/ Researcher, Hofstra University

Janine Dahms Walker, Associate Professor

Jason Fitzgerald, Assistant Professor, Wagner College

Jason L. Endacott, Assistant Profesdor, University of Arkansas

Jeanne Henry, Associate Professor, Hofstra University

Jeannie Oakes, Presidential Professor Emeritus, UCLA

Jennifer Barrett-Tatum, Assistant professor, College of Charleston

Jennifer Edstrom, Field Supervisor University of San Diego

Jennifer Oloff-Lewis, Assistant Professor, CSU, Chico

Jeong-eun Rhee, Faculty, Long Island University, Post

Jeong-Hee Kim, Associate Professor, Kansas State University

Jerry Page Becker, Professor, Southern Illinois University

Jerry Rosiek, Associate Professor, University of Oregon

Jerusha Conner, Associate Professor, Villanova University

Jesse Wilcox, Assistant Professor, Grand View University

Jessica Bacon, Assistant Professor, Lehman College, CUNY

Jessica H. Stubbs, Ph.D., Resource Helping Teacher, St. Tammany Parish Public Schools, USM grad

Jessie B. Ramey, Visiting Scholar, University of Pittsburgh

Jill Klefstad, Faculty, University of Wisconsin-Stout

Jim La Prad, Associate Professor, Philosophical and Social Foundations of Education, Western Illinois University

Joan C. Grim, Lecturer, University of TN, Knoxville

Joan T. Wynne, Faculty/Program Leader Urban Education, Florida International University

Joanne Healy, Asssistant Professor of Special Education, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Joanne Olson, Director, Center for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, & Engineering Education, Iowa State University

Joe Bishop, Professor, Eastern Michigan University

John E. McEneane, Professor, Oakland University

John Kohl, Retired Prof and Dean Emeritus, Montana State University

John Lutz, Associate Professor and Chair of English, Long Island University, Post Campus

John M. Davis, Ph.D., Chair, Educational Psychology, CSU East Bay

John R. Staver, Professor of Science Education and Chemistry, Purdue University

John Wesley White, Associate Professor, University of North Florida

Joi Spencer, Associate Professor, University of San Diego

Jose M. Cobos, Faculty, James Logan H.S.

José Paez, Full Time Lecturer, California State University, Northridge

Joseph J. Ferrare, Assistant Professor, University of Kentucky

Joseph Levine, Professor of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Joseph Sanacore, Professor, Long Island University

Joyce Strand, Faculty, University of Minnesota Duluth

Judith A. Gouwens, Professor of Elementary Education, Roosevelt University

Judith Brooks-Buck, PhD, Professor, Virginia State University

Judith Calhoon, Associate Professor, College of Education, University of New Mexico

Judith Reed, Ed.D., Associate Professor of Education, Keene State College

Judy Helfand, Instructor of Humanities, Santa Rosa Junior College

Julia Sass Rubin, Associate Professor, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers University

Julian F. Fleron, Professor of Mathematics, Westfield State University

Julian Vasquez Heilig, Professor, California State University Sacramento

Julie F. Mead, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Julie Gorlewski, Assistant Professor, SUNY New Paltz

Julie Westerlund, Associate Professor, Texas State University

Julie, Associate Professor of Practice, Mills College

June M. Robinson, Director of Special Education programs, University of St. Francis

Kaia Tollefson, PhD, Associate Professor of Education, California State University Channel Islands

Kara Mitchell Viesca, Faculty, University of Colorado Denver

Karen Cadiero-Kaplan, Professor, San Diego State University

Karen DeMoss, Faculty, Wagner College

Karen Kusiak, Faculty-Education Program, Colby College

Karen M. Wieland, Assistant Professor, Graduate Literacy Education, St. Bonaventure University

Karl Lashley, Faculty, UNC Greensboro

Karl Wheatley, Associate Professor, Cleveland State University

Kate Bielaczyc, Associate Professor, Clark University

Katherine Bertolini, Faculty-Assistant Professor, South Dakota State University

Katherine Ryan, Professor Emerita, University of Illinois at Urbana

Katherine Schultz, Dean, Mills College, School of Education

Kathleen A. Gormley, Professor, The Sage Colleges

Kathleen Crawford, Faculty, Georgia Southern University

Kathleen D. Rowlands, Professor, California State University, Northridge

Kathleen Dunn, Professor Emerita and a current school board member, Simmons College

Kathleen McInerney, Associate Professor, Saint Xavier University

Kathleen Nolan, Lecturer, Princeton University

Kathleen Riley, Faculty, West Chester University of Pennsylvania

Kathleen Scott, Adjunct Faculty, Ashland University

Kathleen Wagner, Assistant Professor, Eastern New Mexico University

Kathy Escamilla, Professor, University of Colorado, Boulder

Kathy M. Newman, Associate Professor of English, Carnegie Mellon University

Katie Brkich, Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education, Georgia Southern University

Katie Zahedi, Assistant Professor, State University of New York, New Paltz

Katya Aguilar, Associate Professor, San Jose State University

Kay Ann Taylor, Associate Professor, Kansas State University

Kay Hutchins Sato, Assistant Provost, LIU Post

Keith Adolphson, Associate Professor, Eastern Washington University

Kelly Mogiefsky, Instructor, University Supervisor, California State University, East Bay

Kenneth Haar, Associate Professor, Westfield State University

Kenneth Jerich, Professor Emeritus, Illinois State University School of Teaching and Learning, College of Education, Illinois State University

Kerry Enright, Associate Professor, University of California, Davis

Kerry Kretchmar, Assistant Professor of Education, Carroll University

Kevin Brady, Lecturer (retired), Univ. of New Mexico

Kevin Brown, Richard S Melvin Professor, Indiana University Maurer School of Law

Kevin D. Finson, Faculty, Bradley University

Kevin Gary, Associate Professor, Valparaiso University

Kevin Welner, Faculty, University of Colorado Boulder

Kimberly E. Lewinski, Assistant Professor, La Salle University

Kimberly Kopfman, Researcher, George Mason University

Kris, Director of Assessment, USF College of Education

Kristien Zenkov, Associate Professor, George Mason University

Kurt Killion, Professor, Mathematics Education, Missouri State University

Kyounghee Seo, St. Cloud State University

Lacey Peters, Assistant Professor, Hunter College, CUNY

Laura Ramirez, Faculty, Concordia University

Laurel Puchner, Professor, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Lauren Anderson, Assistant Professor, Connecticut College

Lauren Gatti, Assistant Professor, University of Nebraska

Lauren Madden, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, The College of New Jersey

Laurence Parker, Faculty, University of Utah

Lawrence Baines, Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research, University of Oklahoma

Lawrence Blum, Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Education, University of Massachusetts Boston

Lee Anne Bell, Professor, Barnard College

Leigh Patel, Associate Professor, Boston College

Leslie P. Steffe, Research Professor, University of Georgia

Leslie Rebecca Bloom, Faculty, Roosevelt University

Lettie Ramirez, Faculty, CSU East Bay

Linda Bynoe, Faculty, California State University, Monterey By

Linda M Espinosa, Professor, University of Missouri-Columbia

Linda Valli, Faculty, University of Maryland

Lindsay Portnoy, Assistant Professor, Hunter College, CUNY, NYC

Ling Liang, Associate Professor, La Salle University

Lisa A. Escarcega, Chief Accountability/Research Officer, Aurora Public Schools

Lisa Edstrom, Faculty, Barnard College

Lisa M. Jones, Ph.D., Program Evaluator, Aurora Public Schools

Lisa Martin-Hansen, Professor, Science Education, California State University, Long Beach

Lisa Zagumny, Associate dean, College of Education, Tennessee Technological University

Lloyd Komatsu, Assessment and Evaluation Coordinator, Forest Lake Area Schools

Lorena Guillen, Instructor, University of Washington

Lucia Figueras, Math Content Specialist, NYC Department of Education

Luis O.Reyes, Research Associate, Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Hunter College, CUNY

Lunetta Williams, Associate Professor, University of North Florida

Luz A. Murillo, Associate Professor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Lynn Gatto, Professor/Director of Elementary Education, Warner School/University of Rochester

Lynne E. Houtz, MS, PhD, Professor, Creighton University, Education Department

M Bruce King, Faculty Associate, University of Wisconsin-Madison

M Cecil Smith, Professor of Learning Sciences & Human Development, West Virginia University

M. Najeeb Shafiq, Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh

Magali Sarfatti Larson, Professor Emerita, Temple University

Maika Watanabe, Associate Professor, San Francisco State University

Makeba Jones, Faculty and researcher, UC San Diego

Makenzie Selland, Assistant Professor, Utah Valley University

Marc A. Markell, Professor, St. Cloud State University

Marcia B. Imbeau, Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Arkansas

Marco Gemignani, Associate Professor, Duquesne University

Marcus B. Weaver-Hightower, Professor and Chair, Educational Foundations and Research, University of North Dakota

Mardi Schmeichel, Assistant Professor, University of Georgia

Margaret Austin Smith, Instructor, University of Maryland

Margaret Gail Shroyer, Professor, College of Education, Kansas State University

Margaret Sauceda Curwen, Assistant Professor, Chapman University

Margaret Walker, Faculty, University of MD

Margo Dichtelmiller, Professor, Eastern Michigan University

Maria Hantzopoulos, Assistant Professor, Vassar College

Maria Isabel Quita, Professor, San Francisco State University

Maria José Botelho, Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Mariana Souto-Manning, Associate Professor, Teachers College, Columbia University

Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Cawthorne Professor of Teacher education for Urban Schools, Boston College

Marilyn Grave, Associate Professor, Teacher Education, University of Minnesota Crookston Professor, Director of Ph.D. Program, Chapman University

Mark Nagasawa, Assistant Professor, Erikson Institute

Mark Stern, Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Studies, Colgate University

Marla King Robertson, Researcher, University of North Texas

Martina Nieswandt, Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Marvin Lynn, Dean, School of Education, Indiana University South Bend

Mary Ann Wallace, Assistant Professor, Secondary Education, McNeese State University

Mary Beth Noll, Professor, St. Cloud State University

Mary DeKonty Applegate, Professor and Researcher, St. Joseph's University

Mary Guay, Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Georgia

Mary Inglis Burke Givens, Faculty, The University of Alabama

Mary Yee Ed.d, Candidate and Research Assistant, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education

Marya Levenson, Professor of the Practice in Education, Brandeis University

Máté Wierdl, Faculty, University of Memphis

Maureen P Hogan, Associate Professor, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Meg Callahan-Steckley, Associate Professor, Nazareth College

Meg J. Petersen, Professor, Plymouth State University

Megan Hopkins, Assistant Professor, Pennsylvania State University

Mel Freilicher, Lecturer, University of California San Diego

Meredith Mountford, Professor/Director, UCEA Center for Research on District Governance, Florida Atlantic University

Merril Simon, Faculty, California State Univ., Northridge

Meta Van Sickle, Professor, College of Charleston

Michael Hass, Professor, Chapman University

Michael J. Carter, Assistant Professor, California State University, Northridge

Michael K. Barbour, Director of Doctoral Studies, Sacred Heart University

Michael Klonsky, Faculty, DePaul University

Michael McVey, Associate Professor, Eastern Michigan University

Michael P. Clough, Professor of Science Education, Iowa State University

Michael Svec, Associate Professor, Furman University

Michele Dornisch, Associate Professor, Long Island University

Michele S. Moses, Faculty, University of Colorado Boulder

Michelle Jewett, Faculty, Central NM Community College

Michelle Proctor, Department Chair – Education, The College of Lake County

Michelle Reidel, Associate Professor of Social Studies Education

Michelle Renee, Associate Director/Adjunct Assistant Professor, Annenberg Institute for School Reform Brown University , Georgia Southern University

Miguel Zavala, Assistant Professor, California State University, Fullerton, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, UCLA

Mindy Legard Larson, Associate Professor of Education, Linfield College

Mitchell J. Chang, Professor, UCLA

Monica Taylor, Associate Professor, Montclair State University

Moreen Carvan, Director of Assurance for Learning (Admin), Marian University Wisconsin

Morgan V Lewis, Research Scientist, Retired, Ohio State University

Morna McDermott, Professor, Towson University

Nancy Dulberg, Professor of Education, Saint Mary's College of California

Nancy Flanagan Knapp, Associate Professor, University of Georgia, College of Education

Nancy Frye, Professor, Long Island University, Post

Nancy S. Niemi, Professor and Chair, University of New Haven

Natalia Smirnov, Doctoral Student/Researcher, Northwestern University

Nathan Snaza, Faculty in English; Education and Society; Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, University of Richmond

Nathan Taylor, Assistant Professor, Robert Morris University

Nelly Stromquist, Professor, University of Maryland

Nelson Flores, Assistant, Professor, University of Pennsylvania

Nicholas D. Hartlep, Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations, Illinois State University

Nikola Hobbel, Associate Professor, English Education, Humboldt State University, California

Nikole Richardson, Assistant Professor, Mills College

Noah A. Rubin, Director of Elementary Education, Wellesley College

Nora Hyland, Associate Professor, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Norman A Stahl, Professor Emeritus, Northern Illinois University

Patriann Smith, Faculty Researcher, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign

Patricia A. Whang, Professor, CSU Monterey Bay

Patricia A. Woodward-Young, Professor, Simpson College

Patricia Burch, Associate Professor, University of Southern California Rossier School of Education

Patricia Donohue, Assistant Professor and Researcher, San Francisco State University

Patricia H. Hinchey, Professor of Education, Penn State

Patricia Irvine, Associate Dean, San Francisco State University

Patricia McGuire, President, Trinity Washington University

Patricia Morrell, Professor, University of Portland

Patricia Stall, Professor, California State University San Marcos

Patrick Henry Smith, Associate Professor Bilingual Education and Literacy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Patrick McQuillan, Associate Professor, Lynch School of Education, Boston College

Patrick Pritchett, Visiting Assistant Professor, Amherst College

Paul C. Gorski, Associate Professor, George Mason University

Paul L. Thomas, Associate Professor, Faculty Director First Year Seminars, Furman University

Paul Tractenberg, Board of Governors Public Service Professor of Law, Director, Institute on Education Law & Policy, Rutgers University-Newark

Penelope Earley, Professor, Education Policy, George Mason University

Pete Farruggio, Associate Professor, Bilingual Education

Peter C. Cormas, Assistant Professor, California University of Pennsylvania

Peter Jones, Director, Institutional Effectiveness, California Institute of Integral Studies, University of Texas Pan American

Peter McLaren, Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Chapman University

Peter Pereira, Professor Emeritus, DePaul University

Peter Smagorinsky, Distinguished Research Professor, The University of Georgia

Peter Taubman, Faculty, Brooklyn College

Phil Smith, Professor of Special Education, Eastern Michigan University

Philip E. Kovacs, Associate Professor, University of Alabama in Huntsville

Philip P. Patterson, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Special Education, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Philip Ross, EdD/Faculty administrator, Southeast Community College

Phillip Harris, Executive Director, ASSOCIATION FOR EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATION & TECHNOLOGY

Phyllis Fernlund, Professor, California State University Chico

Pradeep M. Dass, Director, Center for Science Teaching and Learning, Northern Arizona University

Preston D. Feden, Faculty, LaSalle University

Priscilla Sanville, Associate Professor, Lesley University

R. Clarke Fowler, Professor and Chair, Salem State University

Rachel Lambert, Assistant Professor, College of Educational Studies, Chapman University

Rafael Gomez, Independent Researcher, Family & Education Research on Achievement

Raymond R. Isola, Ed.D, Retired Principal, Independent Writer & Researcher, San Francisco Unified School District

Rebecca A. Goldstein, Associate Professor of Secondary and Special Education, Montclair State University

Rebecca Crawford, Educator, Indiana University

Rebecca T. Barber, Faculty Associate, Arizona State University

Regina Figueiredo-Brown, Assistant Professor, East Carolina University

Rhea Settles, Ed.D, Clinical Faculty, California State University, East Bay

Ricardo D. Rosa, Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth

Richard L. Allington, Professor of Literacy Studies, University of Tennessee

Richard R. Valencia, Faculty, University of Texas at Austin

Richard Strot, Faculty, Baylor University

Rob Erwin, Associate Professor, College of Education, Niagara University

Rob Linne, Professor, Adelphi University

Robert A. Domingo, Associate Professor; Chair, LIU / Post Campus

Robert A. Wiggins, Professor, Oakland University

Robert Ceglie, Assistant Professor, Queens University of Charlotte

Robert D Hannafin, Dean, Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions, Fairfield University

Robert L Jarvis, Ph.D., Administrator, University of Pennsylvania

Robert L. Blomeyer, Jr. Ph.D., Retired Ed. Researcher & Teacher Educator, Senior Research Associate @ NCREL

Robert M Gray, PhD, Faculty/Administrator, University of South Alabama

Robert McEntarffer, Assessment/Evaluation Specialist, Lincoln Public Schools

Roberta Ahlquist, Professor, Faculty, San Jose State University

Roberta Levitt, PhD, Associate Professor, LIU Post

Robin Marion, Faculty, Westfield State University

Robin R. Jones, Retired Faculty, University of South Florida

Rose Marie Codling, Faculty, College of Southern Maryland

Rosemarie Michaels, Assistant professor, chair of Elementary Teacher Preparation, Dominican University of California

Roxana Marachi, Associate Professor of Education, San Jose State University

Ruchi Agarwal- Rangnath, Adjunct Professor, San Francisco State University

Ruth Burkett, Associate Professor of Science Education, University of Central Missouri

Ruth Kermish-Allen, Executive Director, Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance

Ruth Powers Silverberg, Faculty, City University of New York College of Staten Island

Ruthann Kurth-Schai, Professor & Chair, Educational Studies, Macalester College

S. Maxwell Hines, Ph.D., Professor of Education, Winston-Salem State University

Samantha Frizzell, Faculty, Westfield State University

Samuel D. Rocha, Faculty, University of British Columbia

Sandra Mathison, Professor, University of British Columbia

Sandra Torrence, Faculty, Westfield State University

Sandy Grande, Chair, Associate Professor, Connecticut College

Sara Miller, Assistant Professor, Longwood University

Sarah Hochstetler, Assistant Professor of English Education, Illinois State University

Sarah Kondratuk, Assistant Professor, Northern Arizona University

Sarah La Belle, Staff/Student, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Scott L. Kight, Associate Professor of Biology, Montclair State University

Sergio M. Pesqueira Jr., Assistant Director, Department of Educational Leadership, Loyola Marymount University

Seth A. Parsons, Associate Professor, George Mason University

Seung Lee, Professor of Art, Long Island University

Sharon Dole, Faculty/Professor, Western Carolina University

Sharon Merritt, Asst. Professor, Director, Master of Arts in Teaching, Fresno Pacific University

Shawgi Tell, Associate Professor of Education, Nazareth College

Sheri Leafgren, Associate Professor/Teacher Education, Miami University

Sherry Sanden, Assistant Professor, Illinois State University

Shirin Vossoughi, Assistant Professor, Northwestern University

Siddharth Lodaya, Admin Asst, Westfield State University

Skyler Wiseman, Faculty, Washington University in St Louis

Sonia M. Rosen, Faculty, Arcadia University School of Education

Sonia Nieto, Professor Emerita, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Soonhyang Kim, Assistant Professor, Pace University

Sophia Tatiana Sarigianides, Associate Professor of English Education, Westfield State University

Sophie Degener, Associate Professor, Reading & Language, National Louis University

Stacy Olitsky, Assistant Professor, Saint Joseph's University

Starlin D. Weaver, Professor of Science Teacher Education, Salisbury University

Stephanie Jones, Professor, College of Education, The University of Georgia

Steve Cohen, Senior Lecturer in Education, Tufts University

Steven Greenstein, Assistant Professor, Montclair State University

Steven Wolk, Professor, Northeastern Illinois University

Stuart Chen-Hayes, Associate Professor, CUNY Lehman College

Sumer Seiki, Visiting Assistant Professor, University of San Francisco

Sunita Mayor, Associate Professor, West Chester University, PA

Suresh Appavoo, Dean for Diversity and Equity/Associate Professor of Education, Dominican University of California

Susan Auerbach, Professor, CA State University, Northridge

Susan F. Bohrer, PhD, Faculty, UC Merced

Susan Hupp, Professor, University of Minnesota

Susan K. Brown, Faculty, Georgia Southern University

Susan M Moore, Clinical Professor, University of Colorado, Boulder

Susan M. Luppino, Visiting Instructor, Westfield State University

Susan Ohanian, Researcher, New England Society for the Study of Education

Susan P. Maude, Associate Professor, Iowa State University

Susan Sullivan, Professor, The College of Staten Island, CUNY

Susanne Chuku, Assistant Professor, Westfield State University

Suzann Girtz, Assistant Professor, Gonzaga University Educational Leadership, St Cloud State University

Suzanne Ehst, Associate Professor of Education, Goshen College

Sylvia Blake, Dean and Chief Operating Officer, Long Island University Hudson Campuses

Sylvia Y. Sanchez, Associate Professor, George Mason University

Tanya Velasquez, Faculty, University of Washington Tacoma

Teresa Wanser, Psychometrician, Lincoln Public Schools, Nebraska

Theresa Catalano, Faculty, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Theresa Montaño, Professor, CSU Northridge

Thomas Nelson, Associate Professor, University of the Pacific

Thomas Newkirk, Professor of English, University of New Hampshire

Thomas W. Bean, Faculty & Graduate Program Director, Old Dominion University

Timothy A. Micek, Associate Professor, Education, Ohio Dominican University

Timothy G. Larrabee, Associate Professor, Oakland University

Timothy J. Cook, Professor of Education, Creighton University

Timothy J. Voskuil, Coordinator, Calhoun ISD

Timothy San Pedro, Assistant Professor, Ohio State University

Tina Trujillo, Assistant Professor, UC Berkeley

Tirza Wilbon White, Faculty, University of Maryland, College Park

Toby Daspit, Associate Professor, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Tom Meyer, Director, Hudson Valley Writing Project & Associate Professor Secondary Education, SUNY New Paltz

Tomás Galguera, Professor, Mills College

Tomas R Giberson, Associate Professor, Oakland University

Trudy Knowles, Professor, Westfield State University, Westfield, MA

Uma M. Jayakumar, Assistant Professor, University of San Francisco

Vicki Bartolini, Ph.D., Chair, Professor of Education, Wheaton College, MA

Victor L. Willson, Head and Professor, Department of Educational Psychology, College of Education and Human Development, Texas A&M University

Victoria Gillis, Endowed Chair of Excellence in Literacy, University of Wyoming

Vilma Seeberg, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Kent State University, College of Education, Health and Human Services

Virginia Mary Lea, Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin-Stout

Vladimir G. Ivanovic, Trustee, Los Altos School District

Vonzell Agosto, Assistant Professor, University of South Florida

Wendy Kohli, Professor of Educational Studies and Teacher Preparation, Fairfield University

Westry Whitaker, Assistant Professor, University of North Georgia

William G. Wraga, Professor

William J. Mathis, Researcher, University of Colorado Boulder, College of Education, University of Georgia

William Sandoval, Professor

Yael Wyner, Assistant Professor/Secondary Education, City College of New York

Yen Yen Woo, Associate Professor, Long Island University, C.W.Post

Yurimi Grigsby, Faculty, Concordia University Chicago

Zeynep Ercan, Faculty/Associate Professor, Rowan University

Zoe Burkholder, Associate Professor of Educational Foundations, Montclair State University

Eli Broad is bored with giving prizes. Moving on to new top-down strategies.

"No more prizes", says billionaire Eli Broad. 

If your school district is hoping for a Broad Prize to carry it over the hump, you're S.O.L. Billionaire Eli Broad and his foundation have become bored with that strategy. The prize strategy is giving way to the new flavor of the month -- the "portfolio model"  in which different types of so-called "independent schools" compete for students and must demonstrate results.

Not enough bang for the bunk buck in prizes, says Eli. He says he gives, gives and gives some more. And your test score increases just aren't meeting his expectations. And besides, he dislikes traditional public schools with union teachers anyway and refuses to give them a nickel more. So there.

According to the L.A. Times:

Broad "has bypassed districts by promoting and funding charter schools, which have siphoned students from traditional schools. (Charters are publicly funded, and independently managed; most are non-union.) Broad recently established a $500,000 prize for charter organizations, an award that will continue.

The Times quotes Jeffrey Henig, professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University who says, the suspension of the prize could signal a "highly public step" toward the view that traditional districts "are incapable of reform."

I would say, it's more a indication that top-down reform strategies coming from power philanthropists like Broad and Gates are proving to be a dismal failure. It's predictable.

More from the Times:

On the political front, Broad, a Democrat, has donated large sums, frequently to oppose candidates allied with the teachers union. Broad also attracted notice for being among donors whose money was channeled anonymously through several organizations before landing in a committee that unsuccessfully tried to defeat Proposition 30, a temporary tax increase that prevented deep budget cuts to education.

The Purpose of Education

Gov. Walker tried to change the mission of the University of Wisconsin

Arthur H. Camins, is the director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J. I'm reading his excellent piece embedded in Valerie Strauss' WaPo column today, on the purposes of education, and wondering if it's still legal to even broach the topic. After all, I thought the case was closed. Schooling is all about global competition over reading and math scores and providing workers for the corporations. Isn't it, Sec. Duncan?

Strauss frames the question this way:

What is the purpose of education? The question came into stark relief when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker recently tried to quietly change the century-old mission of the University of Wisconsin system by proposing to remove words in the state code that command the university to “search for truth” and “improve the human condition” and replacing them with “meet the state’s workforce needs.”

Camins argues instead, that education should prepare young people for life, work and citizenship.

Critical thinking, creativity, interpersonal skills and a sense of social responsibility all influence success in life, work and citizenship.

A science educator, Camins refers to the National Research Council’s Framework for K-12 Science Education which offers some good examples.

The framework describes the practices that scientists and engineers utilize to build new knowledge and designs, but also the student engagement that leads to learning. To be clear, the framework starts from the premise that science is a means to develop explanations about how the natural world works, and engineering is a means to develop solutions to human problems. 

Camins' qualifies his piece by ending with a note about equity.

Application of the systems thinking that characterizes progress in science and engineering to education policy means that real sustainable improvement depends on addressing inequity in areas such as well-paid employment, health care, food, and housing security. You can’t have one without the others.

Well put.

'Ald. Burns likes to negotiate behind closed doors.'

Ald. Will Burns fronts for the mayor.

I've posted previously about David Axelrod's old firms, ASKG and AKPD (A as in Axelrod) and their role in attacking the Chicago Teachers Union and in managing the campaigns of anti-CTU candidates. Hanna Hayes writes here about these companies' connections to 4th Ward Alderman Will Burns who has been fighting against community activists trying to save Dyett High School. Burns is running for re-election with big support from the mayor's machine, against progressive Norm Bolden. I wish Norm the best of luck.

Dear Mike,

I thought you might be interested in this information from the 4th Ward. I remember you wrote about Rahm's conflict of interest with David Axelrod's firm during the teacher's strike. However, Alderman Burns still lists himself as a managing director for ASKG on the most recent city council disclosure statements filed in May 2014. And guess who is one of ASKG's clients? The University of Chicago Medical Center. People in the 4th ward constantly scream that he pushes the University's agenda, yet no one has brought up this relationship. (Incidentally, AKPD also ran Will's campaign in 2011.)

Burns repeatedly says that he likes to negotiate behind closed doors - he says this in forums and in a recent Chicago magazine interview. So how can his constituents be assured that he is not giving payback by servicing requests from the University of Chicago for the company where he still lists himself as a managing director? The Washington Park giveaway is just the most recent example.

Here are some relevant links:
http://webapps1.cityofchicago.org/efis/view_statement.html?statementId=185922&searchFlag=Y
Client list for AKPD http://akpdmedia.com/clients/

Client list for ASGK http://www.asgk.com/clients-campaigns

I'd be interested to hear if you have any thoughts on this. Keep up the good work!

All the best,
Hannah

Hannah Hayes
Communications Coordinator
hannah@electnormanbolden.org

Citizens to Elect Norman Bolden
1013 E. 43rd St
Chicago, IL 60653
773-285-9225

Beating Rahm's SuperPAC

Progressives Scott Waguespack (left) and John Arena, targeted by Rahm's $2 million super Pack

I braved the cold yesterday and went over to the library to cast my early vote against Rahm and for Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd). I don't mean to sound gloomy about the weather, but if I should somehow freeze to death between now and the 24th, at least my vote will be counted.

Waguespack is a member of the City Council's Progressive Caucus and Rahm's $2 million super PAC specifically targets him and Caucus member John Arena over in the 45th Ward, for defeat. We won't let that happen.

I also got to vote YES on the Elected School Board referendum and I'm sure it will carry.

I had to laugh when a voter in a nearby booth asked the judge, "How can this person, Doody-Jones,  be on the ballot when she doesn't even live in our ward?" He is referring to Waguespack's opponent -- Rahm's puppy dog, Elise Doody-Jones.

The confused but responsive judge gets on the phone and calls the Board of Elections. She actually connects with a live human being (nice going, David Orr) and asks for clarification on "Dooty-Bones" ballot position.  Turns out, it's legal. But it's a damn good question anyway.

Dooty-bones, indeed. She may not live in the 32nd, but she will pick up a nice chunk of change from the SuperPAC. She promises that she will move over here if elected. Another great reason to vote for Scott.

You have to love Chicago ward politics.

Class War...Mark Brown has a good column in today's S-T about Rauner's escalation of class warfare (thus far one-sided) against organized labor. Brown has good instincts for this kind of stuff and comes by them honestly. He writes:

My first thought upon learning of Rauner’s move was of Fort Sumter and the cannon shot that signaled the beginning of the Civil War, not to suggest anything so momentous.

My second thought was of my grandfather, a railroad worker who was shot and wounded by company thugs who fired on a group of union pickets in the central Illinois railroad wars 69 years ago this month. Yes, I have a visceral reaction to this stuff.

Me too.

Doomsday Clock Ticking...Over the next decade, the U.S. expects to spend $355 billion on modernizing its nuclear weapons. This according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Why? Remember when Obama was running for president and pledged to "set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and pursue it"?

Questions: 1) What does "modernizing" nukes have to do with eliminating them? 2) Who are we planning to target with such weapons? 3) Isn't there a better way to spend $335 billion? Ie. in a public education fund where the interest alone would fund the nation's largest school districts for 100 years. 4) Where's the hue and cry from the right on this big gov't spending?

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

 “Given the ongoing inspector general investigation, I am unable to comment.” -- Sun-Times

John Kass

The Tribune reported on Rahm's golden circle of campaign contributors — with about 100 of them ponying up almost half of the $30 million political war chest he's built since 2010. These aren't neighborhood guys. These are the oligarchs that run things. -- Tribune

Ta-Nehisi Coates

If you are truly appalled by the brutality of ISIS, then a wise and essential step is understanding the lure of brutality, and recalling how easily your own society can be, and how often it has been, pulled over the brink. -- Atlantic

Carmen Fariña 

Norm Fruchter 

“I think that her appointment had a very reassuring effect on the line educators who actually are at the core of the system. I think they feel like she knows who they are, she understands what their job is, she understands what the challenges are and she’s got their back.” -- NYT

Alice Hu

The current resistance to college-in-prison is founded upon political rhetoric rather than any factual evidence. -- Harvard Political Review

'Right to Work'

First a clarification. The phrase “right to work” is a misnomer that has little to do with the right of a person to seek and accept gainful employment.  -- Robert Bruno, Sun-Times

More on 'Dare the School Create a New Social Order?'

I had no idea that my reference to George Counts' little book would arouse such passionate arguments (see comments section) against the notion of the school as a force for social reconstruction. I hope others will join in on this important conversation.

Of course neither schools -- nor any other single institution or social force -- can transform society, provide jobs, housing or end poverty and racism by itself. But thanks to my friends Diane Ravitch and Deb Meier for pointing that out once again. Of course, I was raising much broader issues, like the growing threat of nuclear annihilation and environmental catastrophe in my post.

Deb calls it a "Utopian" idea that will only "set teachers up" for failure. But I think there's power in Utopian ideas. I'm reminded here of  John Dewey's imagined visit to Utopia written up in a 1933 New York Times article, which influenced many involved in 60's youth revolt, which was built on the imagination of a better world in which to grow up. Or for that matter, the 1990's small schools movement.

Dewey wrote:

The most Utopian thing in Utopia is that there are no schools at all. Education is carried on without anything of the nature of schools, or, if this idea is so extreme that we cannot conceive of it as educational at all, then we may say nothing of the sort at present we know as schools.

Children, however, are gathered together in association with older and more mature people who direct their activity.  The assembly places all have large grounds, gardens, orchards, greenhouses, and none of the buildings in which children and older people gather will hold much more than 200 people, this having been found to be about the limits of close, intimate personal acquaintance on the part of people who associate together.

Yes, we have to separate (and connect) visions and dreams from/with daily classroom practical problem solving. But the question remains: What can must schools do?

Counts and Dewey's critique of fellow progressive educators is as relevant today as it was 80 years ago. Despite wishes that child-centered education could take place free from political and ideological struggle, schools remain contested territory. And why not? They are the places where future generations should be being prepared to become citizens in a participatory democracy rather than merely centers of social-reproduction (structures and activities that transmit social inequality from one generation to the next).

The best examples of democratic education I can come up with are the Freedom Schools and Citizen Schools that were a critical part of the 60's-era Civil Rights Movement. It's worth reading Charles Payne's book, I've Got The Light of Freedom on this, along with his chapter, Education for Activism: Mississippi's Freedom Schools in the 1960s" in Ayers, Klonsky & Lyon, A Simple Justice.

Yes, there is always the risk that schools and teachers will try to, or be asked to carry too much of the social change burden or substitute indoctrination for the development of reflective and critical thinking skills. But the greater risk, it seems to me, is the acceptance of school in its traditional form, bound by a common core curriculum, prescribed blocks of subject matter and standardized testing.

As for jobs and housing, it's worth noting that unlike 1932, those things are profoundly influenced by schools in a society where education has become the second largest sector of the GNP, trailing only healthcare. That's much too large a share, in the minds of corporate school reformers, to be left in the hands of democratic decision makers. Education is rapidly becoming a $1 trillion industry, representing 10% of America's GNP. Federal and State expenditures on education exceed $750 billion and education companies, with over $80 billion in annual revenues, already constitute a large sector in the education arena.

There are more than 4 million teachers and many more non-teaching workers and teacher unions remain the largest in the country and may be our last bastion of organized labor.

Yes, the schools remain a battle ground. So I guess I would argue that schools, students, and educators can, should and must "dare to create a new social order". The very survival of the planet may depend on it.

'REVOLUTION' IN THE AIR

YOU SAY YOU WANT A R-R-REVOLUTION... Reading my campus email this evening. The list is topped off with this subject line: Revolutionary Case Takes The iPad To A Whole New Level. I feel certain that the masters of information-age metaphors who sent out this piece of "disruptive" drivel must have come out of the Kennedy School at Harvard.

And they say there's not jobs out there for these grads. Nonsense!

“Teacher turnover really destabilizes a learning environment,” said Hannah Nguyen, a University of Southern California junior who aspires to be a teacher but has helped organize protests against Teach for America. “So having a model that perpetuates that inequity in and of itself was also very confusing for me.”

But as ever, there's a real youth revolt brewing and it's impact is being felt right in the belly of the beast. Yesterday's NYT reports that lots of the best-and-brightest, who were flocking to TFA a decade ago, as our generation flocked to the Peace Corps or VISTA, are now opting out.

For the second year in a row, applicants for the elite program have dropped, breaking a 15-year growth trend. Applications are down by about 10 percent from a year earlier on college campuses around the country as of the end of last month.

The group, which has sought to transform education in close alignment with the charter school movement, has advised schools that the size of its teacher corps this fall could be down by as much as a quarter and has closed two of its eight national summer training sites, in New York City and Los Angeles.

My take on all this is that, given the ongoing exposés of TFA's horrific 5-week-wonder training regimen, its connection with privatization of public schools, the teacher attrition rates of its graduates, not to mention the organization's odious collection of reactionary, billionaire funders, it's become an embarrassment for many socially-conscious students to say they're joining TFA. 

According to the Times' Mokoto Rich, 

...as Teach for America grew, it became a magnet for criticism from teachers unions, education schools and some policy makers, who argued that sending enthusiastic but untested graduates to classrooms in some of the nation’s poorest communities with just five weeks of training would not produce great teachers. They also said the program’s two-year teaching stints brought instability.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Bob Marley. He would have turned 70 today.

Sun-Times backs Rahm toadies in 4th, 35th & 37th

toad·y

noun --  a person who behaves obsequiously to someone important.
synonyms: sycophant, brown-noser, lickspittle, flatterer, flunky, lackey, trained seal, doormat, stooge, cringer; informalbootlicker, suck-up, yes-man; vulgar slang: kiss-ass, ass-kisser

Ald. Rey Colon, busted for DUI

Brother Fred can't help but chuckle over the Sun-Times endorsement of Rahm's toady Alderman Rey Colon over progressive, Carlos Rosa in the 35th. Neither can I. He says:

 I read this as the Sun-Times saying, sure, Rey Colon is unresponsive tool of developers and a serial drunk driver, but Carlos Rosa will defend our pensions and oppose the city adding additional tax burdens on the working people in our neighborhood. And he has a history of fighting for immigrant rights. So we endorse Colon.

Our guy, Carlos Rosa in the 35th

Seems like a pattern here. Just look at their endorsement of Rahm's toady in the 4th Ward, Will Burns:

Burns has two opponents, the most impressive of whom is Norman Bolden. They remind voters what Burns needs to work on: He can be arrogant, not listen closely enough to community concerns and is often tightly aligned with the mayor.

Hmm, says the S-T Board. Arrogant? Doesn't listen to the community? Sounds like our kind of guy.

Or how about in the 37th where S-T endorses Emma Mitts, the incumbent who backed the building of a new Noble St. Charter School right across the street from Prosser Career Academy. S-T editors say Mitts is, "a generally passive alderman, inclined to follow the leader". Just what we need, right?

And besides, her opponent, progressive community activist, Tara Stamps, "has high ideals and real fire." So naturally, we'll go with Mitts.

Rauner's dream: A state with no unions and more charters

Gov. Rauner used yesterday's State of the State speech to officially declare war on the state's working people and on public schools. His first order of business was calling for Illinois to join states like Mississippi and Alabama as union-free zones and for the banning of political contributions from teachers and other public employee unions. He then promised to cut workers' comp, unemployment benefits and to push for more privately run charter schools.

The Tribune reports:

The rookie chief executive and venture capitalist put his official stamp on proposals to let communities vote on right-to-work zones where jobs are scarce, scale back workers' compensation, rein in lawsuit damage awards and lower unemployment insurance rates.

 Gregory Baise, the president and CEO of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association, said the business community is upbeat for the first time in a long time. Now, he said, lawmakers must give the governor's pro-business bills consideration.

Rauner, Madigan & Cullerton

No surprise there. But what may have stunned some union leaders was how easily the gov's anti-labor mantra was gulped down by the state's Democratic Party leadership.

 House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, did not summarily dismiss the Rauner proposals. "I wouldn't characterize anything as a non-starter," he said. "I agree with the governor that the state of Illinois needs a lot of work, a lot of attention."

The New York Times noted that:

 The reaction from Democrats, who control the state legislature, was remarkably muted, not dismissing the governor’s ideas out of hand.

Remember, Rauner can't get anything through the legislature without Democrat support. And if recent pension-theft legislation pushed by Madigan, Cullerton and Quinn is any indication, this won't be as difficult as some might have guessed.

Pushing so-called right-work-legislation is now the favorite tactic of right-wing politicians and their Koch Bros. patrons.

Let's see how Dems and public employee unions respond.

If you want to get down to the essentials of Rauner's agenda, look no further than his shutting down 30 social-service and youth-training organizations this week, along with a proposal to hire more prison guards. 

Get it?

More than 80 years ago, Counts asked, "Dare the school build a new social order?"

“The urgency is real. We are not saying that it is too late to take actions, but the window for action is closing rapidly. The choice is ours, and the clock is ticking.” -- Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Executive Director Kennette Benedict

Back in 1932, George S. Counts asked his colleagues in the Progressive Education Association, "Dare the School Build a New Social Order?" Counts, who was influenced by progressives like John Dewey and Francis Parker, favored the progressive education model of child-centered learning. But he and other social-reconstructionists feared that school curriculum, even in progressive schools, was being sanitized and separated from the real social conditions like the Great Depression and the global crisis caused by the rise of fascism in Europe and the threat of a new world war. He called for a "critical pedagogy" that might produce a new generation of social justice activists, capable of "reconstituting the democratic tradition and of thus working positively toward a new society".

I'm thinking about Counts' challenge to the educators of his time this morning, as I'm reading that the board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) has decided to move the minute hand on its symbolic Doomsday Clock 2 minutes closer to disaster. The clock now shows 3 minutes before midnight because the “probability of global catastrophe is very high” as a result of continuing climate change and efforts to modernize nuclear weapons stockpiles. The BAS board includes more than 20 scientists, 17 of whom are Nobel laureates.

It's stunning that the clock should move this far, even after six years of a liberal and self-proclaimed progressive, Democratic Obama administration which pledged to "set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and pursue it." Sad to say that the pace of dismantling our massive stockpile of nuclear weapons has slowed nearly to a stand still and the development of new weapons of mass destruction and modernized delivery systems is rapidly moving forward. And now the threat of a new Cold War with Russia is growing stronger.

Global greenhouse gas emission rates are now 50% higher than they were in 1990. Emission rates have risen since 2000 by more than in the previous three decades combined. Investments have continued to pour into fossil fuel infrastructure at a rate that exceeds $1 trillion per year, with additional hundreds of billions of dollars in continued fossil fuel subsidies.

Faced with this global crisis and rising poverty and racial oppression (the new Jim Crow) here at home, the question of the role of teachers and schools is back on the table as is the question posed to progressive educators by Counts more than 80 years ago.

Taking names. Calling them out.

"We will not apologize for standing up for what's right for children. We will never keep silent in the face of austerity." -- Karen Lewis

It's only appropriate that the announcement of Tom Gradel and Dick Simpson's new book, "Corrupt Illinois", should parallel today's Sun-Times story of Rahm Emanuel's $2 million super PAC coming to the rescue of his gaggle of ass-kissing council candidates.

If you're taking names, here's the list:

Deborah Graham (29th), Will Burns (4th), Natashia Holmes (7th), Anthony Beale (9th), John Pope (10th), Joann Thompson (16th), Lona Lane (18th), Howard Brookins (21st), Mike Zalewski (23rd), Danny Solis (25th), Roberto Maldonado (26th),  Deb Mell (33rd), Emma Mitts (37th), Marge Laurino (39th), Pat O’Connor (40th), James Cappleman (46th) and Debra Silverstein (50th).

I'm feeling pretty confident that we can beat Rahm's bought-off candidates in wards where the community is organized. Out here in Logan Square for example, I'm predicting victories for young activist Carlos Rosa (35th) and Progressive Caucus leader Scott Waguespack (32nd).

We are are hosting a house meeting and fund-raiser for Carlos on Sunday to help him over the hump as the election draws near.  

Speaking of naming names, CTU Pres. Karen Lewis called out Rahm's "crazy hedge fund homies" in the audience, in her address to the City Club of Chicago. You gotta watch it. Also called out was board member Jess Ruiz, who's been Rahm's main water carrier on school closings. He was so shaken, he had to run out of the room at the end of Karen's speech. 

She also did a great job of unpacking Rahm's demagogy on the longer school day, testing madness, privatization of public space ("the public/private partnership means private") and pension theft. 

Gov. Rauner, received particular attention from Lewis, who said the governor was "busy trying to make the term 'collective bargaining' into dirty words." Rauner, she said, "thinks that only certain people are worthy of a high-quality education."

More Lewis:

Rauner ran on a platform about nothing, He's wasted no time attacking the wages of working-class people, attacking their labor unions and threatening massive cuts to social service programs, which help the most vulnerable people in our state. That is the real Bruce Rauner. He's not some easygoing, blue-jeans-wearing, $20-dollar-watch-having good guy who's coming to save the day. He is (Wisconsin Gov.) Scott Walker on steroids.

With three weeks to go before the primary (I'm counting on a run-off), I hope Karen's spunk and speak-truth-to-power fortitude will be contagious.

How do you know Rahm's lying? Lips are moving.

S-T's Al Podgorski fact-checks Rahm's claim that under his rule, newcomers are flocking to Chicago. Turns out, it's total BS.

After the debate, I asked the mayor's campaign spokesperson, Steve Mayberry, for a source for Rahm's assertion. He sent me a link to a press release about a "study" last year by the eminent demographic researcher, United Van Lines.

As you might expect, there's no mention of the city's loss of more than 200,000 African-Americans over the past decade. Loss of manufacturing jobs, cuts in neighborhood city services, demolition of public housing, rising gun violence, and massive school closings, have all contributed to the exodus.

Podgorski is dead-on when he concludes:

Does Friday's stretcher by Emanuel mean you should be skeptical about other claims he makes about his administration's triumphs? Yes.

And in the remaining debates, a suggestion for the mayor's challengers: when Rahm boasts of some particular achievement, ask him, "Is that another of your United Van lines?"

DODGE CITY...Even Rahm's $11 million election propaganda machine couldn't cover up last month's 40% jump in the city's murder rate from a year ago. And that's if you believe Supt. McCarthy's numbers. I don't.

As long as the city's gun violence pandemic is seen by this mayor primarily as a policing/jailing matter, as opposed to one of improving conditions of life in the city's bleeding neighborhoods, there's little hope in sight.

I haven't forgotten how Rahm blocked Obama's gun-control initiatives when he worked in the White House. Remember:

Holder had told reporters that the administration would push to reinstate the assault-weapons ban, which had expired in 2004. The comments roused the powerful gun lobby and its water carriers on Capitol Hill. ‘Senators to Attorney General: Stay Away from Our Guns’ read a press release issued by Senator Max Baucus of Montana-a Democrat, no less.

“Emanuel was furious. He slammed his desk and cursed the attorney general. Holder was only repeating a position Obama had expressed during the campaign, but that was before the White House needed the backing of pro-gun Democrats from red states for their domestic agenda. The chief of staff sent word to Justice that Holder needed to ‘shut the fuck up’ on guns…”

Now chickens have come home to roost in Rahmville.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Rahm Emanuel attends a 2011 fundraiser at the Chicago home of Rajiv Fernando, the CEO of Chopper Trading, a firm that has donated to Emanuel and ultimately benefited. (Nuccio DiNuzzo, Chicago Tribune)

Rahm is vulnerable

 "It's easy to see he's vulnerable by the amount he's raising that is absolutely obscene by any standard," said two-term Alderman Bob Fioretti, a frequent voice of dissent on a City Council that often backs the mayor's ideas. -- AP

CTU Pres. Karen Lewis

“We've had 25 years of this mayoral control and it's not working,” CTU President Karen Lewis says, noting that a union poll last year said 65 percent of Chicagoans favor an elected school board. -- Crain's

Meeks: Test or else

PARCC or else

“Therefore, we are directing you to administer the PARCC assessment to all students. If any district does not test, ISBE will withhold its Title I funds. We will also seek to recoup the state funds spent on any test booklets unused by the district, as well as any restocking fees charged to ISBE by our testing vendor.” -- ISBE Chairman Rev. Meeks and State Supt. Koch,  Sun-Times

Sugata Mitra

"We need a pedagogy free from fear..." -- TED

School closings were great, 'thoughtful', 'coordinated', 'strategic' says BBB.

DATA-DRIVEN... EdWeek's headline reads: Chicago's Closures Drove Most Students to Better-Rated Schools. But dig down in into the story and you learn that Univ. of Chicago researchers found "a higher-than-expected percentage of students enrolled in schools that were rated as Level 3, the district's designation for the lowest-performing schools" and that "only 21% attended Level 1 schools."

They found that the majority of students who enrolled in schools other than their assigned replacement wound up in lower-performing schools. The U. of C. study also found that the district's criteria for what constitutes a good school were often different from those of families considering where to enroll and that for most parents, higher test scores weren't their top consideration when deciding which school their children would attend. Safety was.

The study also indicated there simply weren't enough available seats for displaced students in higher-rated schools.

"I think the main takeaway for us, or for me at least, is nearly all the displaced students attended schools that were higher performing than the closed ones. But those schools were not substantially better than the ones that closed," said Marisa de la Torre, one of the study's authors.

 "The things that keep coming back again and again are these issues of safety and transportation and not enough good options near where the families live."

Then there's schools chief Byrd-Bennett's take-away:

...the report "demonstrates that we kept our promises and upheld our commitments to our students and school communities... These results are based on the strategic, thoughtful, coordinated approach we took to managing the transition process."

Are we looking at the same study?

Duncan goes to war with Chicago over PARCC testing delay

Arne Duncan gives his more-testing announcement at Seaton Elementary School in Washington, D.C.

Sometimes the news is so bizarre that I can't believe what I'm reading. Case in point -- the latest on Chicago testing madness. First Arne Duncan gives his more-and-earlier testing speech to the nation. The speech is an attempt to pacify the testing industry and its backers and somehow push a new version of No Child Left Behind through a Republican controlled congress.

Then, just as Duncan is trying to work something out with Republican Lamar Alexander, the new head of the Senate Education Committee, Chicago school chief, Barbara Byrd-Bennett announces a one-year moratorium on administering the PARCC test because of a "lack of computers" (hold your laughter, please). BBB says the test will only be given this year to about 10% of CPS' 600 schools. The decision to postpone the test is made of course, not by BBB, but by Rahm Emanuel's hand-picked board and comes in the face of growing parent and teacher protest against Common Core over-testing and a burgeoning opt-out movement. It also comes weeks before the mayoral election.

POLITICO's Stephanie Simon sez:

Chicago’s stance could well inspire copycat insurrections in other districts, analysts said — and that could undermine not just the Common Core, but more than a decade of public policy that relies on standardized tests to hold schools and teachers accountable for helping kids learn.

BBB might have pulled it off if she hadn't joined a growing chorus of IL district superintendents openly attacking PARCC testing. She calls the test “unproven” and complains that adding such a long exam to a year already crammed with standardized tests would be overwhelming to students, teachers and principals. The PARCC test takes nine to 11 hours, depending on a student’s grade level.
Here comes the topper. Just as Pres. Obama is recording his endorsement ads supporting Rahm's re-election campaign, Duncan goes off on Rahm/Byrd Bennett and threatens to cut off potentially $1.2 billion in state aid unless CPS backs off and gives the test. The threat comes in a previously unpublicized letter to Illinois Schools Superintendent Christopher Koch from Duncan's deputy, Deborah Delisle.

Meeks freaks

Meeks freaks over possible billion-dollar loss of federal funds.  "We are greatly concerned about it," the Rev. James Meeks, Gov. Rauner's new chairman of the state school board, tells Greg Hinz at Crain's.

Hinz writes:

Her [BBB's] defiance was striking in a district that has long been viewed as a national leader in test-based accountability. It was also rich in symbolism because Chicago public schools were once run by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, a huge cheerleader for both the Common Core and the new exams, developed with $370 million in federal funds.

Politically, the problem is that, given national wrangling over school standards, Duncan cannot be seen as being easy on Chicago, said one source close to the center of the flap. That doesn't mean Illinois would lose all of the money, but a sizable hit is likely.

So, the question is: Is all this just a show? Or is Obama's Dept. of Education really going to war with Rahm Emanuel over testing on the eve of Chicago's mayoral election?

MORE PUSH-BACK ON PARCC COMMON CORE TESTING

Supt. Trish Kocanda

This time it comes from the leader of one of the nation's wealthiest and most progressive districts. Supt. Trish Kocanda of Winnetka Public Schools has written a "warning letter" to parents,  community members, and staff about the PARCC Common Core exam scheduled for March and May.

Kocanda's letter is published in today's Washington Post:

As we learn more about the assessment, we grow wary. We are concerned about the amount of instructional time it will displace, the impact this will have on students, and the usefulness of the results.

The Post's Valerie Strauss writes:

Winnetka, just north of Chicago, is one of the most affluent communities in the country. The Winnetka Public Schools district Web site says that the system has “led the nation in progressive education and served as model for educators who value the development of the whole child.” There are about 2,000 students in the system’s schools, all of whom leave the eighth grade and attend nationally recognized New Trier Township High School.

Kocanda's letter comes on the heels of Ed Sec. Arne Duncan's call for even more and earlier high stakes standardized testing.

Back in November, the superintendent of neighboring Evanston Township launched a blistering attack on PARCC testing.

“Students taking both PARCC mathematics and reading language arts tests will spend more time taking PARCC tests than aspiring lawyers will spend sitting for the Bar Exam with no payoff,” said Pete Bavis, District 202 assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction.

Last week Chicago Public Schools delayed most PARCC testing for a year, with Supt. Byrd-Bennett claiming that that not enough computers were in place to administer the tests to more than 10% of CPS students. She made no critique of Common Core testing but was obviously worried about possible results and fallout from the tests.

But you can bet Winnetka's blast at Duncan's testing madness won't be the last.

Florida Blues?

F. Klonsky pic

I can think of worse things than being stuck down here in Sarasota while the east coast is buried in snow. I'm flying back to Chicago and trying to get there before my class starts on Wednesday evening. I'm  wondering if the chain reaction from backed-up N.Y. flights will affect airports here. But not panicked either way. Although the sun's glare on the windshield makes driving down the coast difficult and the price of sunscreen hasn't gone down with the fall in oil prices.

In the meantime, I'm getting a close-up view of ed "reform"Florida-style where Tea Party Gov. Rick Scott wants to take $100 million from the state's public schools and hand it over to private-run charters and their operating companies. That's a $25 million increase from the current year.

According to the Bradenton Herald, "charter schools and traditional public schools have been battling over facilities funding since the economic downturn, when the state's school construction fund began drying up".

Gov. Scott & Michelle Rhee

Scott is privatization crazed and even tried to privatize FL's health-care system as well as the state's prisons.  According to the Center for Media and Democracy, prison privatization has resulted in a record number of inmate deaths.

Before becoming governor, he made millions in the privatized health care industry. In 1987, at age 34, he co-founded Columbia Hospital Corporation with two business partners; this merged with Hospital Corporation of America in 1989 to form Columbia/HCA and eventually became the largest private for-profit health care company in the U.S.

He resigned as Chief Executive of Columbia/HCA in 1997 amid a controversy over the company's business and Medicare billing practices; the company ultimately admitted to fourteen felonies and agreed to pay the federal government over $600 million, which was the largest fraud settlement in US history.

Oh yes, I almost forgot to mention Scott's right-hand education adviser -- Michelle Rhee.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

Rahm Emanuel

...said Saturday that nonbinding referendums calling for an elected school board on next month's mayoral ballot are a politically inspired effort to "trick" voters at the polls because the concept is going nowhere in Springfield

"You know, the governor said he's not for it. The legislature said that they're not for it and I don't think we should actually convince (or) trick people by having a political campaign issue as a way to fixing our schools." -- Tribune 

Bob Fioretti
... said conflict of interest issues were "running amok" within the current school board and that "we all ought to be embarrassed by what we see at CPS at this point."

He said an elected school board should represent "the diversity of our city so that we have the people that matter most in making those decisions — teachers, our parents, our students." -- Tribune  

Chuy Garcia

"Putting it into the hands of voters and the people as the rest of the state does is a good practice," he told the forum. "We need to try something else." --Tribune 

Linda Darling-Hammond

Nearly two-thirds of U.S. middle school teachers work in schools where more than 30 percent of students are economically disadvantaged. This is by far the highest rate in the world… The next countries in line after the United States are Malaysia and Chile. -- Want to Close the Achievement Gap?

More LDH

Now we have international evidence about something that has a greater effect on learning than testing: teaching. 

Tom Loveless, at the Brookings Institution on NY test scores

“If New York schools are in a state of crisis, they’ve been in a state of crisis for 20 years.” -- New York Times

Col. Tyrrell jumps ship, goes over the hill…

Tyrrell

If timing is everything, Col. Tyrrell's sucks. Today is his last day as CPS school-closings chief.

Just as the latest study of disastrous CPS school closings hits the streets, the military man Rahm brought in to engineer the assault on the city's black community,  jumps ship and goes over the hill (sorry, those are the only military metaphors I can come up with this early in the morning), leaving the mayor, a month before the election, to deal with the fallout from the report.

The colonel, who became the district's chief operating officer, was hired in 2012, with no background in education, to run the school closings operation. He had already been through the wars, but nothing like this. He cut his teeth on the prisoner exchange operation after the war in Kosovo -- talk about bad metaphors for "welcoming schools" and "safe passage". He then went on to work as Chief Operating Officer for the Intrepid Sea*Air*Space Museum in New York City, "helping instill in young people some of the virtues" of the military.

Tyrrell explained his Kosovo-style battle plan to the Sun-Times in 2013:

“I’m not saying it looks similar to now, but there was great distrust to the process on both sides but there was a lot of chaos and stress,” Tyrrell said at the time, laying out plans with Byrd-Bennett to transition children into new schools. What was similar, he continued: “It requires you to plow through the noise and get the planning done and get it done in detail, and then be flexible enough to adapt as the plan unfolds.”

Then he told WBEZ,

There are obvious differences between closing 50 schools and starting a new country or fighting terrorism. But there are also similarities. "Surge teams are available." 

Bloody but not bowed after 40,000 angry parents and community members turned out at neighborhood meetings to protest the closings, sending his boss's ratings in the black community into the dumper, Col. Tyrrell, courageously took on his next big assignments -- moving furniture from Clark Street over to CPS' new headquarters and then trying to sell-off Rahm's abandoned, shuttered school buildings. Neither project has won him any medals.

Tyrell walks

The Tribune reports that conclusions in the Consortium report, "echo the most stinging rebukes from school closing opponents — many of which are being aired frequently in the runup to next month's city election."

For example, Only 21% of displaced students attended schools that had a top rating under a now-retired CPS assessment model, the study said, slightly lower than what would have resulted if all students enrolled in their designated school in fall 2013.

But the report doesn't even scratch the surface of the damage the closings have done to suffering families living in further blighted and poverty-stricken communities. 80% of the children and parents impacted by the closings were black.

So Col. Tyrrell is toast but the CPS battle-wagons (caissons?) keep rolling along.

Injecting a 'little democracy' (but not too much) into schools

Monday's King Day rally at PUSH for an elected school board.

Our schools teach kids about the wonders of democracy. If it’s good enough for the classroom, it’s good enough for the school board. -- Sun-Times

Pathetic... A S-T editorial calls for "injecting a little democracy" into Chicago schools -- a little, but not too much lest they piss-off the Little Emperor.

Chicago remains the only district in the state without an elected school board. There's a growing resistance movement across the city, calling for an elected school board. There's also a non-binding but likely to pass referendum in 37 wards on the Feb. 24 ballot, and support from a majority of aldermanic candidates.

So the S-T board gives up a little to hide a lot.

Recent boards have tilted heavily toward the affluent and the powerful and have not included teachers and few or no current parents. It is a rare day when the board rejects or even tempers the mayor’s recommended policies.

Then they try their best to give Rahm a way to cover his left cheek by calling for the election of a few school board members while leaving the majority to be appointed by the mayor, including the schools C.E.O.

When I was back in high school, they used to call this, "sandbox politics" or pretend democracy.