Before we talk seriously about "Every Child Succeeds"

A comment on the old education law, "No Child Left Behind" (Susan Ohanian, December, 2006).

 

When Congress passes

No Child Left Unfed,  

No Child Without Health Care and

No Child Left Homeless,

Then we can talk seriously about

No Child Left Behind.

 

Updated version: A comment on the new education law, "Every Child Succeeds."

 

When Congress passes

Every Child is Well-Fed,

Every Child has Proper Health Care and

No Child is Left Homeless,

Then we can talk seriously about

"Every Child Succeeds"

Does reducing standardized testing mean lower test scores?

Sent to the Concord Monitor, Dec. 15
Does reducing standardized testing mean lower test scores?

The Monitor's headline, "Initial education pilot program results show less than half of students in participating districts meet achievement levels in reading and math," (Dec 14) suggests that reducing the amount of standardized testing results in lower test scores. 
In the pilot program, students took fewer standardized tests and more teacher-made tests. Before we conclude that these students did worse, we must have a basis for comparison.  We do not have data from previous years, nor do we know what the achievement levels were in districts with students with similar backgrounds: It is well-established that factors such as poverty have a powerful influence on test scores.
We also do not know if the pilot group had more or less total time dedicated to testing and test-preparation than other students.
Finally, statements about the percentage of students at or above "proficiency" levels are misleading.  Many experts have claimed that American "proficiency” levels are set much too high, in a deliberate effort to make schools look bad: According to our standards, a large percentage readers from high-scoring countries would be ranked as non-proficient. New Hampshire is among the highest scoring states in the US, but fewer than 40% of  New Hampshire students scored at the proficient level or above in Math in 2014.
Stephen Krashen
Original article: http://www.concordmonitor.com/community/town-by-town/concord/20044856-95/initial-education-pilot-program-results-show-less-than-half-of-students-in-participating-districts
Sources:
Proficiency levels: Bracey Offers the Answer Sheet on NAEP. (http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2009/04/bracey-offers-answer-sheet-on-naep.html)
State test scores: http://my.doe.nh.gov/profiles/profile.aspx

More on the St. Louis KIPP Abuse Incident

From the St. Louis American:

Tammy Howard’s five-year-old son normally took the bus home from his former school, KIPP Victory Academy Elementary School, located in North St. Louis.
But on November 10, Howard decided to pick her son up from the school, located at 955 Arcade Ave. On her way to his classroom, she briefly spoke to then-assistant school leader Andrew Sears in the hallway. Sears didn’t mention that her son may have been acting up that day, or that he had allegedly reprimanded her son by grabbing his face and leaving bruises and nail marks.

“Nobody called me to tell me anything happened,” she said. However, the marks were clearly visible by those who later examined him, she said.

Sears has since resigned from his position, and as of December 3 he no longer works at the school. It is unclear if the school is still investigating Sears’ actions. In response to The St. Louis American’s inquiry, Kelly Garrett, executive director of KIPP schools, said, “We have no additional statement on this matter.”

KIPP Victory Academy, which opened July 2014, is a charter school overseen by Washington University. The board chair of KIPP St. Louis is John W. Kemper, president and COO at Commerce Bancshares, Inc.

When she arrived at her son’s classroom, Howard saw his face and immediately asked him how the marks got there. Her son told her, “Mr. Sears grabbed my face.”

After some confusion in the main office about what to do, Howard accompanied her son to the school nurse’s office. The nurse took pictures. Then Howard called the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department because the school leader, Tiara Abu, wasn’t in the school at the time and no one seemed to be able to orchestrate an investigation.

The police officer took one look at her son’s face and wanted to put Sears in handcuffs, Howard said. But Howard’s attorney, Hope Whitehead, said that Abu arrived and was able to convince the officer to just take Sears to the station without handcuffs. Garrett said the school placed the administrator on administrative leave pending an investigation.

Since then, police claim they were unable to prove any claims of physical abuse. The department did not respond to The American’s request for the police report. On December 11, The American submitted a Sunshine Law request to obtain the report.

After Howard left the school, she took her son to Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital, where they took pictures and had someone from their abuse and neglect department talk to her son.

“Now I’m in the process of getting him counseling, because he is traumatized,” Howard said. “Why would someone grab my child like that and no one let me know? If you resign from your job, you did something wrong.”

After the incident, a father of a second-grade student came forth about another incident of abuse, Whitehead said. She is hoping to communicate with other parents who might have concerns about the school before taking any legal action. 

Concerned parents may contact Whitehead at hopeesq@gmail.com.

The Siege of Philadelphia Public Schools is Now a Full-Scale Assault

By Ken Derstine

December 13, 2015

For background, see this previous post:
The Siege of Philadelphia Public Schools: Update | Defend Public Education! – October 11, 2015

 
The Pennsylvania Legislature

Introduction

The bipartisan celebrations in Washington D.C. over the enactment of the Every Student Succeeds Act were barely over when the Pennsylvania Senate passed a bill which goes to the heart of the states’ rights dangers opened up by the new law.  In a bipartisan 42-9 vote on December 10th, the Senators approved a school code bill that would require the state to turnover to private interests five “persistently low performing “ schools each year. The only school district in the state affected would be Philadelphia.

As detailed by Kevin McCorry in Newsworks, the Pennsylvania Department of Education would have five intervention options:

• Turn over operations of the school to an outside education management organization
• Convert the school into a neighborhood-based charter
• Close the school and facilitate transferring students to higher performing schools
• Authorize a new charter and guarantee admission preference to students who reside in the area around the low performing school
• Replace the principal and at least half of the school's staff

The action is in line with the charter mandate in the Every Child Succeeds Act. As detailed by Jim Horn of Schools Matter in his article Massive Charter Giveaways in ESEA Re-Write, Part 1,

With a continuing federal mandate to fix the bottom five percent of schools, the ESEA rewrite will provide at least a billion dollars each year to fund charter school expansion, thus further weakening public education.  The new grant programs will be fashioned to provide minimal oversight and maximum autonomy to charter companies and their corporate support organizations, and for the first time, private non-profit corporations will be classified as “state entities,” thus eligible to apply directly for federal grant programs.

The Historical Background of the Bill

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Protesters Disrupt UNC Board of Governors Meeting

Other videos shot by participants here.  From Chapel Hill, NC:


   

And So Begins the Ravitch Dissembling on ESSA

Even as Obama's signature was barely dry on this god-awful continuation of the NCLB testing and privatization onslaught, Diane Ravitch was already revved into "Randi Protection Mode":

The Every Student Succeeds Act was released to the public on November 30, passed both houses of Congress with large majorities within 10 days, and was signed into law today by President Obama. That was fast. The good news is that No Child Left Behind is gone. There is so much we don’t know because there has been so little time to read it, discuss it, and hear different perspectives on how it will work.

Really? So little time?  Did Ravitch not read the Senate passed version last April, when you made her endorsement of it. Remember?  

One may quibble with details, but the bottom line is that this bill defangs the U.S. Department of Education; it no longer will exert control over every school with mandates. This bill strips the status quo of federal power to ruin schools and the lives of children and educators. . . .This is a far better bill than I had hoped or feared.

Does she think her flock is still so gullible?  She goes on:

Randi Weingarten here explains the charter portion of the law. Sure, some would prefer that the federal government stop subsidizing privatization. But this is a Republican-controlled Congress, so what did you expect? School choice is their favorite school reform.

Does Ravitch include herself in the "some" who "would prefer the federal government stop subsidizing privatization?"  Is that quibbling I hear?  

I guess we do know what to expect from privatizing Republicans and from Hillary Clinton's camp, for that matter, who praised her favorite school reform, too, the expansion of "high-quality" charter schools in ESSA. 

Randi writes:

“This is what is in the bill on charters:  

“The program is reauthorized through FY 2020 and replaced the current charter school grant program with a program awarding grants to states, and through them subgrants to charter school developers, to open new charters and expand and replicate high-quality charter school models. At the same time, ESSA strengthens and updates the charter school program by: · ensuring charter school quality, accountability and transparency including required fiscal audits; · incentivizes stronger charter school authorizing practices; · requires charter schools to improve community outreach and engagement · provides dedicated funding to expand and replicate the highest quality charter schools so that they can reach more students; · focuses on charter school practices recruitment, retention and discipline practices, particularly for underrepresented groups such as homeless and foster students. There is a grant priority for charter management organizations that operate racially integrated schools and prioritize serving a majority of low-income students. There is money for facilities assistance as the bill reserves 12.5 percent of the charter school program funding to be used for facilities assistance. ESSA also requires the Secretary of Education to address the recent findings of the Office of the Inspector General pertaining to operational challenges within the Charter School Program.”

I posted the following comment at the Ravitch blog, but since she does not post any of my comments, here is what she had to read before she hit "delete."

Weingarten is either mistaken or is lying.  In either case, she is wrong.  

First, she says that this ESEA rewrite includes a charter program that is based on  "awarding grants to states, and through them subgrants to charter school developers. . . " 

Not so.  This Act defines 4 "state entities," any of which may apply for and receive federal charter school grants.  And as you can see below, one of those "state entities" may be "a charter school support organization."  From p. 194:

‘‘SEC. 4303. GRANTS TO SUPPORT HIGH-QUALITY CHARTER SCHOOLS.
‘‘(a) STATE ENTITY DEFINED.—For purposes of this section, the term ‘State entity’ means—
‘‘(1) a State educational agency;
‘‘(2) a State charter school board;
‘‘(3) a Governor of a State; or
‘‘(4) a charter school support organization.
‘‘(b) PROGRAM AUTHORIZED.—From the amount available under section 4302(b)(3), the Secretary shall award, on a competitive basis, grants to State entities having applications approved under subsection (f) to enable such entities to—
‘‘(1) award subgrants to eligible applicants to enable eligible applicants to—
‘‘(A) open and prepare for the operation of new charter schools;
‘‘(B) open and prepare for the operation of replicated high-quality charter schools; or
‘‘(C) expand high-quality charter schools; and
‘‘(2) provide technical assistance to eligible applicants and authorized public chartering agencies in carrying out the activi- ties described in paragraph (1), and work with authorized public chartering agencies in the State to improve authorizing quality, including developing capacity for, and conducting, fiscal over-
sight and auditing of charter schools. ‘‘(c) STATE ENTITY USES OF FUNDS.—
‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—A State entity receiving a grant under this section shall—
‘‘(A) use not less than 90 percent of the grant funds to award subgrants to eligible applicants, in accordance with the quality charter school program described in the State entity’s application pursuant to subsection (f), for the purposes described in subsection (b)(1);
‘‘(B) reserve not less than 7 percent of such funds to carry out the activities described in subsection (b)(2); and
‘‘(C) reserve not more than 3 percent of such funds for administrative costs, which may include technical assistance.

Secondly, there is NO "grant priority for charter management organizations that operate racially integrated schools. . ."  This Act incentivizes the continued resegregation via charter schools.

Below are is the Priority section, p. 202:

‘‘(2) PRIORITY.—In awarding grants under this section, the Secretary shall give priority to a State entity to the extent that the entity meets the following criteria:
‘‘(A) The State entity is located in a State that—
‘‘(i) allows at least one entity that is not a local educational agency to be an authorized public char- tering agency for developers seeking to open a charter
school in the State; or
‘‘(ii) in the case of a State in which local edu-
cational agencies are the only authorized public char- tering agencies, the State has an appeals process for the denial of an application for a charter school.
‘‘(B) The State entity is located in a State that ensures
equitable financing, as compared to traditional public schools, for charter schools and students in a prompt manner.
‘‘(C) The State entity is located in a State that provides charter schools one or more of the following:
‘‘(i) Funding for facilities.
‘‘(ii) Assistance with facilities acquisition.
‘‘(iii) Access to public facilities.
‘‘(iv) The ability to share in bonds or mill levies. ‘‘(v) The right of first refusal to purchase public
school buildings.
‘‘(vi) Low- or no-cost leasing privileges.
‘‘(D) The State entity is located in a State that uses best practices from charter schools to help improve strug- gling schools and local educational agencies.
‘‘(E) The State entity supports charter schools that serve at-risk students through activities such as dropout prevention, dropout recovery, or comprehensive career counseling services.
‘‘(F) The State entity has taken steps to ensure that all authorizing public chartering agencies implement best practices for charter school authorizing.

B-LoEdScene: More Great News from Planet Weingarten!

B-LoEdScene: More Great News from Planet Weingarten!: Anyone confused as to whether the ESEA and/or Common Core Task Farce's "recommendations" are going to be good for teacher...

Students Take Action to Save Dusable High School Library

Get the full story here:

DuSable High School students have organized a sit-in to get CPS to bring back their librarian. 

BRONZEVILLE — At least 200 students from DuSable High School walked out of class Friday as part of a demonstration to bring back their beloved librarian and stop the library from closing.

Public Funds Pay for Soaring Charter Administrative Costs

Did someone say "gravy train?"  You bet.  

Bruce Baker and Gary Miron offer a revealing, must-read piece of research that takes us inside the dark spaces of the corporate welfare charter school business.  Download here.

A couple of charts will whet your appetite, I hope.  The first one shows salaries of charter kingpins for some of the most lucrative charter chains, all of whom take home larger salaries than the Chancellor for New York City Public Schools:

The second chart shows expenditure comparisons for Texas charters vs. public schools in a number of categories.  Note how per pupil expenditures compare in terms of instructional expense and admin/leadership costs.  

The Charter School Gravy Train

from Aljazeera America:

The policy framework for U.S. charter schools encourages “privatization and profiteering,” a research institute said in a report released Thursday.

Charter schools are able to siphon off large quantities of public money for private gain — and only substantial changes to state policies regarding charter schools can stop this, according to the authors of the report from the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at University of Colorado Boulder.

Many education reform advocates argue that the charter school model — under which publicly funded schools are administered by bodies other than the school board, such as private Education Management Organizations (EMOs) — promotes experimentation and newer, fresher teaching methods. But the same permissive charter regulations intended to boost innovation can also help EMOs pocket cash better spent elsewhere, the NEPC report said.

“What we found is that there are a host of real estate and tax laws that were not put in place with charter schools in mind, but that the owners of charter school enterprises are using in order to profit,” NEPC Director Kevin Welner said. “I think that understanding the nature of the charter school gravy train, as I call it, is extremely important for the public and policymakers."

For example, charter schools are sometimes able to purchase publicly owned real estate for their school facilities through a private, third-party entity. The report highlights how charter operators can make these purchases with taxpayer money, thus acquiring formerly public property at public expense. The third-party purchaser pockets overhead costs associated with arranging the sale.

“This particular type of transaction is usually legal and it can be very logical from the perspective of each of the parties involved,” said Rutgers University professor Bruce Baker, one of the report’s authors, in a statement. “But we should be troubled by the public policy that allows and even encourages this to happen.”

The report also contends that labor costs at charter schools tend to be unusually top-heavy, as EMO executives conserve funds by hiring young, relatively inexpensive staff — and then add the savings to their own salaries.

“Early studies of charter schools in Pennsylvania found charter teacher annual salaries to be on average $18,000 lower than teacher salaries in district schools,” the report said. In contrast, top EMO heads can draw comfortable six-figure salaries, the report said. Eva Moskowitz, a high-profile New York charter advocate and CEO of the city’s Success Academy network of charter schools, was found in the report to earn more than $475,000 annually.

In New York and other cities across the United States, charter schools have become a flashpoint for political fights between community activists, elected officials, teachers unions and EMOs. Over the past few years, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s support for charter schools has become a major point of contention and was one of the underlying grievances that helped drive a 2012 strike by the Chicago Teachers Union.

NEPC Director Welner said that it wouldn’t be realistic to eliminate the charter model, but that it could be markedly improved through reforms.

“I think a much more likely scenario wouldn’t be eliminating charter schools, but designing the rules around charter schools so that they accomplish the goals that we as a society have for our public education system,” he said.

The NEPC report suggests that state authorities impose stricter financial disclosure rules on charter schools, and that school districts should “maintain control over public lands and facilities,” among other policy recommendations.