Connnecticut public schools woefully underfunded by state - Courant.com

Connnecticut public schools woefully underfunded by state - Courant.com: "In Connecticut and nationally, courts have consistently ruled that underfunded schools amount to constitutional violations of children's right to an education.

In New York, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Washington and many other states, courts determined that there is a causal connection between students' poor performance and inadequate school funding.

Unlike the modern corporate education reformers, who vilify teachers and educational experts, courts value their firsthand knowledge of school conditions and the resources needed to give all students an equal opportunity to learn.

When shown evidence of conditions in schools, courts consistently find what CCM contends — without adequate funding, schools cannot provide an adequate education."

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U.S. officials tell state to use same standards to grade charter schools - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

U.S. officials tell state to use same standards to grade charter schools - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Under Pennsylvania law, every charter school is considered its own district. So by using the grade span methodology, about 59 percent of charters made AYP -- a figure that supporters touted, comparing it with the 50 percent of traditional schools that hit the target.

Yet only 37 percent of charters would have made AYP under the individual school method. Delisle ordered Pennsylvania to re-evaluate charter schools' AYP status using that standard by the end of the fall semester.

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El Paso Rattled by Scandal of ‘Disappeared’ Students - NYTimes.com

El Paso Rattled by Scandal of ‘Disappeared’ Students - NYTimes.com: "EL PASO — It sounded at first like a familiar story: school administrators, seeking to meet state and federal standards, fraudulently raised students’ scores on crucial exams.

But in the cheating scandal that has shaken the 64,000-student school district in this border city, administrators manipulated more than numbers. They are accused of keeping low-performing students out of classrooms altogether by improperly holding some back, accelerating others and preventing many from showing up for the tests or enrolling in school at all."

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Want to Ruin Teaching? Give Ratings - NYTimes.com

Want to Ruin Teaching? Give Ratings - NYTimes.com: "But the solution being considered by many states — having the government evaluate individual teachers — is a terrible idea that undermines principals and is demeaning to teachers. If our schools had been required to use a state-run teacher evaluation system, the teacher we let go would have been rated at the top of the scale.

Education and political leaders across the country are currently trying to decide how to evaluate teachers. Some states are pushing for legislation to sort teachers into categories using unreliable mathematical calculations based on student test scores. Others have hired external evaluators who pop into classrooms with checklists to monitor and rate teachers. In all these scenarios, principals have only partial authority, with their judgments factored into a formula."

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The High Inequality of U.S. Metro Areas Compared to Countries - Jobs & Economy - The Atlantic Cities

The High Inequality of U.S. Metro Areas Compared to Countries - Jobs & Economy - The Atlantic Cities: "The Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk (.537) metro — which includes not just the gritty factory town that gives it its name, but stately Westport and über-affluent Greenwich — shares a Gini ranking with Thailand (.536). “The richest Thais earn 14.7 times more than the poorest,” said Gwi-Yeop Son, an United Nations Development Programme representative, a few years ago. “The bottom 60 percent of the population's share of the income is only 25 percent.”"

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Hugh Bailey: Mistrust of reformers is well-earned - Connecticut Post
the online magazine Salon about the school-reform movie "Won't Back Down," screened last week at a Bridgeport theater, and it's one of the kinder reviews out there.
Quality aside, the movie is a clear attempt by the right-wing billionaire who funded it to turn public opinion even further against teacher unions. The message is that organized labor, not poverty, is what's holding back our schools.
Local advocates chose this story, one that turns school reform into a morality play with unions as the villain, as something to emulate.

Read more: http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Hugh-Bailey-Mistrust-of-reformers-is-well-earned-3903354.php#ixzz297qdW2B3

Bridgeport Charter Vote Their Fight is Our Fight!

Bridgeport Charter Vote Their Fight is Our Fight!: "As we start the school year, our colleagues in Bridgeport are fighting against a charter revision vote which is at the core of the privatization reform agenda."

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Don’t Mess With Big Bird - NYTimes.com

Don’t Mess With Big Bird - NYTimes.com: "I know that you told Fox News this week that you were “completely wrong” for making that now infamous 47 percent comment, but probably only after you realized that it was a drag on your poll numbers. Your initial response was to defend it as “inelegantly stated” but essentially correct. That’s not good, sir. Character matters. Big Bird wouldn’t have played it that way. Do you really believe that Pennsylvania Avenue is that far away from Sesame Street? It shouldn’t be."

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5/4/12 Education Update #1: “No Comment” - Wait, What?

Leeds Equity has a stated goal of breaking into the public education market, a market that was estimated by Rupert Murdoch to be $50B a year.

5/4/12 Education Update #1: “No Comment” - Wait, What?: "Jonathan Gyurko, a principal at Leeds Equity, the firm being paid $195,000 through SERC, also declined to comment when Dixon asked about the situation.  Gyurko had previously served as the Director of Charter Schools for the City of New York.  Achievement First, Inc. the charter school management company that Stefan Pryor helped create and lead as one of its Directors for eight years until he resigned to become Malloy’s education commissioner, runs ten schools in New York City and ten schools in Connecticut.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that emails between the various players indicates that the contract with Leeds Equity was originally written to run through an organization called the Council of Chief State School Officers.  It now appears that some other organization or individual may have transferred $195,000 to CCCSSO to pay for that contract, but a decision was made, at the last moment, to switch strategies and run the Leeds Equity contract through SERC instead."

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News Flash: Michelle Rhee had co-conspirators in the attempt to buy this week’s Democratic Primary. - Wait, What?

News Flash: Michelle Rhee had co-conspirators in the attempt to buy this week’s Democratic Primary. - Wait, What?: "Both organizations are directed by Patrick Riccards, ConnCAN’s CEO, and both organizations were created by the very same people who created and have been funding Achievement First, Inc., the Charter School Management company that was actually co-founded by Stefan Pryor, Malloy’s Commissioner of Education.

ConnAD and ConnCAN’s effort to influence public policy is extensive.  Even before Governor Malloy’s “education reform” bill was proposed, these two organizations spent more than half a million dollars lobbying on behalf of charter schools.

The two organizations ramped up their lobbying after Governor Malloy and Commissioner Pryor introduced Malloy’s “education reform” bill.  Although their ethics reports appear to be filled out incorrectly, in violation of Connecticut’s ethics laws, it appears that ConnAD, the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Advocacy, Inc., spent nearly $825,000 in their effort to pressure legislators to support Malloy’s bill."

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The Charter School Achievement First - Hartford and their “Reorientation Room” - Wait, What?

The Charter School Achievement First - Hartford and their “Reorientation Room” - Wait, What?: "According to a September Hartford Courant story about Achievement First –Hartford’s newly opened high school, “Rolling one’s eyes at a teacher will get a freshman sent to the school’s Reorientation Room, where Dean of School Culture Peter Uwalaka said “’they get the extra culture they need.’”

The Achievement First Family Handbook goes into far more detail about the school’s discipline policy.

Having spoken with parents who have had students attending an Achievement First school, the “Reorientation Room” is a place that students go to work on improving unacceptable behaviors.  Students temporarily lose the privilege of wearing the school uniform. Instead, they wear a practice shirt. Students are not allowed to communicate with their peers. Students must stay after school to reflect on their behavior issue and to write apology letters to their teammates. Because students lose transportation privileges (they have lost the trust to take a bus unsupervised), parents need to pick their child up from school. Students remain in this room until they have shown dramatic behavior improvement."

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RESEARCH-BASED OPTIONS FOR EDUCATION POLICYMAKING

RESEARCH-BASED OPTIONS
FOR EDUCATION POLICYMAKING


From the NEPC:

If the objective is to improve educational performance, outside-school factors must
also be addressed. Teacher evaluation cannot replace or compensate for these much
stronger determinants of student learning.  The importance of these outside-school
factors should also caution against policies that simplistically attribute student test
scores to teachers.

The results produced by value-added (test-score growth) models alone are highly
unstable. They vary from year to year, from classroom to classroom, and from one
test to another.  Substantial reliance on these models can lead to practical, ethical
and legal problems.


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CTU Strike! Their Fight is Our Fight!

CTU Strike! Their Fight is Our Fight!: "The strike was a success!  The CTU was able to win many of their demands in the new contract.  Below is a partial list of the language in the new agreement between the CTU and CPS:"

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Wendy Lecker: Helping kids, or helping charter school companies? - StamfordAdvocate

Wendy Lecker: Helping kids, or helping charter school companies? - StamfordAdvocate: "Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor, a founder of the Achievement First charter franchise, declared that having Jumoke take over a public school was "an important transition in the charter school movement."

The comment indicates that some reformers apparently believe that expanding charter schools is more important than addressing children's needs."

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5 Biggest Lies About America's Public Schools -- Debunked | Alternet

5 Biggest Lies About America's Public Schools -- Debunked | Alternet: "Since pundits and politicians often engage in education rhetoric that obscures what’s really going on, here are five corrections to some of the more egregious claims you may have recently heard.

Lie #1: Unions are undermining the quality of education in America.

Teachers unions have gotten a bad rap in recent years, but as education professor Paul Thomas of Furman University tells AlterNet, “The anti-union message…has no basis in evidence.” In fact, Furman points out, “Union states tend to correlate with higher test scores.”"

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Daily Kos: 10 Reasons Not to See "Won’t Back Down"

Daily Kos: 10 Reasons Not to See "Won’t Back Down": "Won’t Back Down avoids the real issues. Writing in variety, Peter DeBruge points out the film is “grossly oversimplifying” education reform.  Rather, it’s a “disingenuous pot-stirrer [that] plays to audiences’ emotions rather than their intelligence.”"

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Eugene Robinson: Standing up for teachers - The Washington Post

Eugene Robinson: Standing up for teachers - The Washington Post: "According to figures compiled by the College Board, students from families making more than $200,000 score more than 300 points higher on the SAT, on average, than students from families making less than $20,000 a year. There is, in fact, a clear relationship all the way along the scale: Each increment in higher family income translates into points on the test.

Sean Reardon of Stanford University’s Center for Education Policy Analysis concluded in a recent study that the achievement gap between high-income and low-income students is actually widening. It is unclear why this might be happening; maybe it is due to increased income inequality, maybe the relationship between income and achievement has somehow become stronger, maybe there is some other reason.

Whatever the cause, our society’s answer seems to be: Beat up the teachers."

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Analysis: Striking Chicago teachers take on national education reform | Reuters

Analysis: Striking Chicago teachers take on national education reform | Reuters: "And the monopoly that the public sector once held on public schools will be broken with a proliferation of charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately run - and typically non-union.

To reformers, both Democrats and Republicans, these changes offer the best hope for improving dismal urban schools. Many teachers, however, see the new policies as a brazen attempt to shift public resources into private hands, to break the power of teachers unions, and to reduce the teaching profession to test preparation.

In Chicago, last-minute contract talks broke down not over pay, but over the reform agenda, both sides said Sunday. The union would not agree to Emanuel's proposal that teacher evaluations be based in large measure on student test scores."

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The Chicago Teachers’ Strike, in Perspective - NYTimes.com

The Chicago Teachers’ Strike, in Perspective - NYTimes.com: "In the absence of any bold effort to alleviate the pressures of poverty, in the absence of any bold investment in educating our children, is it fair to ask that the schools — and by default, the teachers — bear sole responsibility for closing the economic divide? This is a question asked not only in Chicago, but in virtually every urban school district around the country."

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Judge Strikes Down Wis. Law Limiting Union Rights - ABC News

Judge Strikes Down Wis. Law Limiting Union Rights - ABC News: "A Wisconsin judge on Friday struck down nearly all of the state law championed by Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public workers.

Walker's administration immediately vowed to appeal, while unions, which have vigorously fought the law, declared victory. But what the ruling meant for existing public contracts was murky: Unions claimed the ruling meant they could negotiate again, but Walker could seek to keep the law in effect while the legal drama plays out."

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Chicago's Teacher Problem, and Ours : The New Yorker

Chicago's Teacher Problem, and Ours : The New Yorker: "Another problem is that talk of breaking teachers’ unions has become common parlance among the kind of people whose kids do not live below the poverty line, polite Pinkerton agents of education reform, circling at cocktail parties. No doubt there are some lousy teachers in Chicago, as there are everywhere. But blaming teachers for the failure of schools is like blaming doctors for the diseases they are seeking to treat."

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Teacher accountability and the Chicago teachers strike | Economic Policy Institute

Teacher accountability and the Chicago teachers strike | Economic Policy Institute: "The strike represents the first open rebellion of teachers nationwide over efforts to evaluate, punish and reward them based on their students’ scores on standardized tests of low-level basic skills in math and reading. Teachers’ discontent has been simmering now for a decade, but it took a well-organized union to give that discontent practical expression. For those who have doubts about why teachers need unions, the Chicago strike is an important lesson."

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Teachers in Chicago School Strike Deserve Respect - Susan Milligan (usnews.com)

Teachers in Chicago School Strike Deserve Respect - Susan Milligan (usnews.com): "And what is often forgotten, in the resentment of public sector salaries, is that it has been unions that set the labor standards for all of us. The weekend? The 40-hour workweek? It was unions that got those established as a general standard. Cutting salaries for public-sector workers would indeed ease the pressure on government budgets, but it also lower the standard for the workforce as a whole. If public salaries go down, private sector compensation will follow.

"

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Chicago's Teachers Just Went On Strike -- Here's Everything You Need To Know About Why | Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC)

Chicago's Teachers Just Went On Strike -- Here's Everything You Need To Know About Why | Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC): "Why are these 29,000 teachers and school workers going on strike in the nation’s third-largest public school district?

Because they want what all workers want: fair pay and decent working conditions. They also want what all teachers want — to serve their students to their best of their abilities.

Here’s a few things you need to know about the strike, and why the CTU is right and Mayor Rahm Emanuel — who has failed to fairly bargain with the union — is wrong:"

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In Chicago Teachers’ Strike, Signs of Unions Under Siege - NYTimes.com

In Chicago Teachers’ Strike, Signs of Unions Under Siege - NYTimes.com: "If the famously feisty Mr. Emanuel wins this confrontation, he could set the table for a major setback for teachers’ unions nationwide and a potential rethinking of teachers’ enthusiasm for Democrats in this year’s elections. Advocates of sweeping education changes like Michelle Rhee, the former head of the school system in Washington, will be able to declare that if Chicago’s mighty union was willing to accept such changes, so should teachers’ union locals across the nation.

“The teachers’ unions are on the defensive on many more fronts than they used to be,” said Chester E. Finn Jr., a longtime education analyst who heads the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative-leaning education policy group in Washington. “It used to be they could just fight vouchers and charter schools. But now they face this huge set of issues,” not to mention budgetary pressures that have caused large-scale layoffs. Weakening the unions’ leverage and ranks, more than 300,000 school employees have lost their jobs since the recession ended in June 2009."

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Teachers’ Strike in Chicago Tests Mayor and Union - NYTimes.com

Teachers’ Strike in Chicago Tests Mayor and Union - NYTimes.com: "Outside the schools here, though, in the lines of marchers, the issues seemed ever broader. Many teachers said they were troubled by a new evaluation system and its reliance on student test scores. Teachers spoke of rising class sizes, much-needed social workers, a dearth of air-conditioned classrooms and slow-to-arrive reference books, and, again and again, a sense of disrespect.

Teachers also clearly saw the strike as a protest not just of the union negotiations in Chicago but on data-driven education reform nationwide, which many perceived as being pushed by corporate interests and relying too heavily on standardized tests to measure student progress.

At Lane Tech College Prep, where many passing motorists honked their support for the teachers, Steve Parsons, a teacher, said he believed the city was ultimately aiming to privatize education through charter schools and computer programs that teach classes online.

“We need to stay out as long as it takes to get a fair contract and protect our schools,” he said."

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CTU Prepares to Strike!

CTU Strike!

Their Fight is Our Fight!

As we start the school year, our colleagues in Chicago are getting ready to strike for a fair contract.  

THE ISSUES

Chicago Public Schools wants to extend the school year by 2 weeks and add 80 minutes to the school day--with a 2% raise.  Learn more.

Chicago teachers want a “Better Day” not just a longer one.  Learn more.

HOW IT AFFECTS US

Chicago has been “ground zero” for the current trends in school reform.  What has started in Chicago has recently come to Connecticut in the form of SB 24.  Learn More.

WHAT WE CAN DO

Send messages of support.

Contribute to the solidarity fund.

Wear red on Monday, September 10th.

Learn More.

Everything You've Heard About Failing Schools Is Wrong | Mother Jones

Everything You've Heard About Failing Schools Is Wrong | Mother Jones:
This is a long narrative but a nice read.  Enjoy.

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Wendy Lecker: Tests fail at measuring student growth - StamfordAdvocate

Wendy Lecker: Tests fail at measuring student growth - StamfordAdvocate: "The DOE also decided what point on each scale represented appropriate achievement levels for each grade; i.e., what the "cut scores" were. Score above this point and you are "proficient." Score below it and you "fail." As the late education expert Gerald Bracey explained, cut scores are set by deciding in advance what percentage of students you want to fail; a procedure that is "both arbitrary and political."

So, what does the vertical-scale score tell a parent about how her child has progressed in math or reading? Not much. It is a rough approximation of what someone has called math or reading achievement.

The DOE claims that these vertical scales are tools to improve instruction and improve schools. However, as testing guru W. James Popham told me, scale scores have "essentially no diagnostic value whatever to teachers, parents or students.""

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Hugh Bailey: So much for keeping politics out of it - Connecticut Post

Hugh Bailey: So much for keeping politics out of it - Connecticut Post:

A mayoral-appointed board raises the specter of cronyism. To combat this perception, Bridgeport's Charter Revision Commission created what was to be called a Candidate Qualifications Board, a panel of educational stakeholders that would need to approve any choices. This was to be the bulwark against pure politicization, and was a major selling point in the commission's efforts.

As of May 24, the proposed new charter read: "There shall be a Candidate Qualifications Board composed of five (5) members whose sole function shall be to evaluate and certify the Mayor's prospective appointees to the Board of Education."

Except now it won't. The name of the new panel has been changed to Advisory Council, and it's not just semantics. A note on the final version of the new charter approved by the City Council, dated July 23, reads: "It was determined that the role of the Board was purely advisory to the Mayor and thus would be an advisory council to the Mayor. However, the findings of the Council with regard to candidates formally nominated for the Board of Education would be subject to review by the City Council."

So instead of a Qualifications Board specifically designed to approve or turn down prospective school board candidates -- to keep the politics out of it, which everyone swears is the ultimate goal -- it will be up to the mayor and City Council alone.

This is a bad idea, for a simple reason. Even if you trust this mayor, and think he nothing but the best intentions for the schools, he won't be mayor forever.

Read more: http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Hugh-Bailey-So-much-for-keeping-politics-out-of-3779619.php#ixzz23bZLFV2d
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Parents give “Won’t Back Down” movie trailer a thumbs down « Parents Across America

Parents give “Won’t Back Down” movie trailer a thumbs down « Parents Across America: "The trailer for “Won’t Back Down,” an upcoming film starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Holly Hunter and Viola Davis, shows parent power triumphing over bad teachers and claims that the film is “inspired by actual events.” But members of Parents Across America (PAA) say the film will tell a false story and is funded by right-wing forces to spread an anti-public-education message."

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Sorting out the effects of inequality and poverty, teachers and schooling, on America’s youth

Recently, Diane Ravitch posted a chapter written by David Berliner on the effects of wealth inequality and how they impact education.  It's a fairly long piece with a lot of information.  What follows are some notes and annotations touching on the main of the article.

Notes on Berliner article

Our schools are not failing, it's our policies which are failing.  General, one-size-fits-all policies are being created to address the specific needs of specific communities.  These policies are being created to address the wrong problem.

• --teacher not the greatest impact on student
• --general case: poor stay poor, teachers cannot change that 
• --only 9% of poor achieve college degrees (pre-recession)
• --NCLB & extra testing as stick to motivate the lazy is failed policy

Negative side effects of high stakes testing

• --1/3 all schools failed to make ayp 08-09
• --2012 estimates 80% not make ayp
• --2014 goal of 100% students at grade level is unattainable
• --PISA (Program for International Student Assessment): nations with high-stakes testing have generally gone down in scores from 2000 to 2003 and then further in 2006.
• --Finland (no high stakes testing) shows growth & improvement
• --we compare results with Finns but not policies (all social policies, not just educational)

Impact of Out of School effects

• --school effects account for 20% of variance in scores, teachers are a part of that 20%
• --out of school effects account for 60% of variance
• --according to PISA, socioeconomic factors explained 17% of variance in USA
• --Less than 10% in Norway, Japan, Finland, Canada
• --policies can be created to help students from impoverished communities do well 

Examination of US education achievement

• --less than 10% free lunch = great scores (highest in the world in math & science)
• --10-24.9%=quite high still
• --only 4 other nations in the world beat this group
• --25-49.9% (three groups make up over 1/2 of all US students) still do well
• --Over 50% free lunch do poorly

• --almost 20% of students attend school where over 75% of students are free lunch
• --these schools are funded differently-- poor schools get less money
• --scores on PISA are lower than every OECD country except Mexico
• --price of housing leads to segregated communities
• --40% of black & hispanic students attend schools that are 90 to 100% minority (whites=under 1%)
• --pervasive myth: schools with 90% minority & 90% poor can achieve 90% passing if there are competent educators.

Effects of income inequality

• --poverty in the midst of wealth may make the negative effects of poverty more powerful
• --USA has greatest income inequality in the world
• --THE LEVEL OF INEQUALITY WITHIN A NATION STRONGLY PREDICTS POOR PERFORMANCE (If CT has the greatest inequality then it makes sense it would have the greatest gap)
• Effects of inequality:
• --Child well-being
• --Mental health
• --Illegal drug use
• --Infant & Maternal mortality
• --School Dropouts
• --social mobility
• --school achievement 
• --teen pregnancy
• --Abuse
• --rates of imprisonment (in CT for every 11 white males, 254 black & 125 hispanic)

Policies which would have positive impact

• --Living wage
• --higher taxes
• --early childhood education programs (7% to 10% return on investment through savings in prisions, health care, remedial education)
• --small class size
• --summer educational opportunities (academic & cultural)
• --retention policies for failure
• --reduce teacher 'churn' (turnover?) in poor communities
• --wrap-around policies
• --adult education programs

Conclusion

• WWII to 1979=wealth convergence, spread more evenly
• "Certainly poverty should never be an excuse for schools to do little, but poverty is a powerful explanation for why they cannot do much!"
• School and economic policies are not independent of each other

Introduction to David Berliner (Video)

From the NEPC website:

"David C. Berliner is Regents' Professor Emeritus in the College of Education at Arizona State University. His research interests include school vouchers, high-stakes testing, classroom teaching and learning, teacher education, and educational policy. In December 2005, he received the New England Association of Schools and Colleges' Charles W. Eliot Award for his outstanding and permanent contribution to education at all levels."

In this video, Berliner summarizes his work and his educational philosophy.


You can read more of his work here.  Recently, Diane Ravitch posted a chapter written by Berliner on the effects of wealth inequality.  Notes from that piece can be found here.

Education reform’s central myths - Salon.com

Education reform’s central myths - Salon.com: "To begin with, the U.S. public school system is hardly the abysmal failure portrayed in the conventional wisdom. The international comparative data is skewed, by vocational tracking in Europe (all American high school students are sometimes compared to select Gymnasium and Lycee students in Germany and France) or geography (the entire U.S. is compared to the Shanghai metro area, rather than to all of China — the French educational system would look pretty bad, if it were compared in its entirety to Westchester County, New York).

Furthermore, non-Hispanic white Americans who are mostly the products of suburban public K-12 schools, are at the very top of global comparisons....

Before we abandon our existing, mostly-successful system of public education for an untested theory cooked up by the libertarian ideologues at the University of Chicago Economics Department and the Cato Institute (who, as it happens, have been wrong about almost everything else in the last quarter century), shouldn’t we see if there is any evidence to support their claims?"

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Private firms eyeing profits from U.S. public schools | Reuters

Rememeber when Paul Vallas said that anyone thinking there was money to make in this business was crazy?  It looks like there are a lot of crazy people out there:

Private firms eyeing profits from U.S. public schools | Reuters: "The K-12 market is tantalizingly huge: The U.S. spends more than $500 billion a year to educate kids from ages five through 18. The entire education sector, including college and mid-career training, represents nearly 9 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, more than the energy or technology sectors.

Traditionally, public education has been a tough market for private firms to break into -- fraught with politics, tangled in bureaucracy and fragmented into tens of thousands of individual schools and school districts from coast to coast.

Now investors are signaling optimism that a golden moment has arrived. They're pouring private equity and venture capital into scores of companies that aim to profit by taking over broad swaths of public education.

The conference last week at the University Club, billed as a how-to on "private equity investing in for-profit education companies," drew a full house of about 100."

'via Blog this'

Diane Ravtich at the AFT convention (video)

Students First is having a contest. We should participate.

From comments on Jon Pelto's blog

Students First...the Rheeject is offering prizes for the best blog post promoting PRO REFORM....whatever that may be.

Feel free to choose your favorite post here and send it along...email is included below...a Mrs. Robinson.

Copied from Ravitch...choose your two favorite pro reform posts from Jon's blog....maybe one of us can win the restaurant gift card. Yippee! This is not a joke. Sadly, it is real.

She even says she looks forward to reading our comments. Let's send as many as possible.

From: Catherine Robinson <crobinson@studentsfirst.org>
Date: July 26, 2012 9:58:12 PM EDT
To: Catherine Robinson <crobinson@studentsfirst.org>
Subject: rapid responses needed – and a contest!
Hi all,

I’m going to be in Orlando all next week for the KIPP Conference. If you’d like to meet up and discuss ways you can get more involved in our movement, please let me know!

Also, starting right now, there will be a monthly contest for the best rapid response. The more comments you leave on blog posts, the more times you can enter! Post a polite and persuasive pro-reform comment and email me the link so I can check it out.

That’s all you have to do!

At the end of the month (August 26th at midnight) I will announce the winner. Not only will that winner get a gift card to the restaurant or store of choice, but he or she will also be promoting the cause of real and transformative change in public schools! What could be better?
I look forward to reading your comments!

Have a wonderful weekend,
Catherine

–

Catherine Durkin Robinson
Regional Outreach Manager
Florida
M: (813) 453-4274
www.StudentsFirst.org
</crobinson@studentsfirst.org></crobinson@studentsfirst.org>

CT News Junkie | OP-ED | It’s Time to Reframe the Education Reform Debate

CT News Junkie | OP-ED | It’s Time to Reframe the Education Reform Debate: "Dianne Kaplan DeVries, project director for the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding (CCJEF) reminded members of the Education Cost-Sharing (ECS) Task force at a July 13 hearing that Connecticut “faces a serious school funding lawsuit, CCJEF v. Rell, a constitutional challenge brought because of the state’s systemic and long-term failure to adequately and equitably fund the public schools . . . The state may well argue that it has no more money to invest in Bridgeport or the schools, but that argument doesn’t cut the mustard. In state after state, judges are deaf to such arguments and are adamant that it’s the constitutional rights of school children that must trump all. Either the state will have to find new revenues or seriously rethink its prioritization of how it spends taxpayers’ money.”

Instead of seriously addressing funding, our governor chose to focus on teacher bashing and test scores, as if that’s worked well for the last 10 years. Additional funding for Connecticut’s 30 most needy districts (the “Alliance Districts”) is “conditional upon clear plans for reform.”"

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Wendy Lecker: State uses double standard when judging schools - StamfordAdvocate

Wendy Lecker: State uses double standard when judging schools - StamfordAdvocate: "Vertical-scale scores track changes in test scores at all performance levels. Considering barriers to achievement, such as poverty, language barriers and special education needs, the vertical-score system is a fairer view of student progress.

Nonetheless, AYP, not vertical-scale scores, forms the basis of major decisions regarding the fate of public schools and districts."

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Wendy Lecker: The cost of underfunding schools is high - StamfordAdvocate

Wendy Lecker: The cost of underfunding schools is high - StamfordAdvocate: "Society's failures fall on the doorstep of our schools. Children routinely suffer anxiety over possible eviction or a parent's unemployment. Teachers teach students who have children themselves; and those who rely on backpacks of donated food to ensure a meal.

Without enough social workers, school nurses and guidance counselors to mitigate these ills, children cannot concentrate on learning.

It is easy to see how the resource gap is directly related to the achievement gap."

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The Trouble With Online Education - NYTimes.com

The Trouble With Online Education - NYTimes.com: "A truly memorable college class, even a large one, is a collaboration between teacher and students. It’s a one-time-only event. Learning at its best is a collective enterprise, something we’ve known since Socrates. You can get knowledge from an Internet course if you’re highly motivated to learn. But in real courses the students and teachers come together and create an immediate and vital community of learning. A real course creates intellectual joy, at least in some. I don’t think an Internet course ever will. Internet learning promises to make intellectual life more sterile and abstract than it already is — and also, for teachers and for students alike, far more lonely."

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http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Hugh-Bailey-For-city-s-future-it-s-development-3705635.php

Gee, a connection between taxes and services like education??? What a novel idea.

Workingman's Constitution - NYTimes.com

Workingman's Constitution - NYTimes.com: "The distributive tradition has evolved, but its gist is simple and durable: you can’t have a republican government, and certainly not a constitutional democracy, amid gross material inequality.

That’s because gross economic inequality produces an oligarchy in which the wealthy rule. Insofar as it produces a lack of basic social goods at the bottom, gross inequality also destroys the material independence and security that democratic citizens require to participate on a roughly equal footing in political and social life. And access to such goods is essential to standing and respect in one’s own eyes and those of the community.

In the face of the court’s new constitutional offerings to the assault on the welfare and regulatory state, liberals must remind Americans of the constitutional promises and commitments that led us to create that state in the first place. They must remind lawmakers that there are constitutional stakes in attending to the economic needs and aspirations of ordinary Americans, their dread of poverty and their worries that mounting inequalities are eroding our democracy and its promises of fairness and opportunity."

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Well-known teacher leader assumes CEA administrative helm

Well-known teacher leader assumes CEA administrative helm: ""Connecticut's new law has the potential to be a model for the nation. However, it can only reach its potential if it is carefully rolled out with full consideration given to every consequence for students and teachers," said Waxenberg. "I look forward to working with incoming CEA President Sheila Cohen, Vice President Jeff Leake, the Board of Directors, and our association's distinguished staff as well as teachers across the state," he added.
Waxenberg, a former East Hartford Middle School math teacher, is highly respected among education stakeholders and in political circles. He served as Governor Lowell Weicker's director of policy. His credentials as a teacher leader are well established, since he served as CEA president for two terms beginning in 1988. After serving in that position, Waxenberg joined the CEA staff, holding positions as a field representative and director of government relations."

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Public Education: This is what democracy looks like: NEA leader says social justice key to teacher unionism

Public Education: This is what democracy looks like: NEA leader says social justice key to teacher unionism: "Covering a range of issues including voter suppression laws, Citizens United, inequality and poverty, immigration, stop and frisk police practices, and racial profiling, Stocks explained how the union has begun to deepen its ties to national civil rights and faith organizations to act against injustice.

At one point in his 28-minute speech after explaining the problem of racial profiling Stocks asked members to think about three questions:

“Does racial profiling start in our schools?”
“Does the pipeline to prison for minority students begin in our schools?”
“And if it does, what are we going to do about it?”

He recounted his and other NEA members’ participation in a recent march in New York City against the NYC police policy of “stop and frisk.”"

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www.saveourschoolsmarch.org

www.saveourschoolsmarch.org:
Last summer, we brought thousands of people to the SOS March and Rally in D.C. This August, teachers, parents, students and community activists are gathering again in the nation’s capitol at the SOS People’s Education Convention. Join us to adopt a People’s Principles on the most urgent issues facing public education. Let’s use this meeting as a chance to have our voices heard as we head towards November’s elections.

The three-day Save Our Schools Convention will include engaging workshops and panel presentations. Some of these will be informational. In each of the sessions, issues paramount in public education today will be discussed. Several sessions will facilitate brainstorming. Together attendees will develop new collective statements about public education. Other practicum will provide training on direct actions that can be shared at the state and local levels. Whatever your interest in education, we feel certain one of the caucuses will speak to you.

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Arbitrator rules for unions: Turnaround firing, rehiring reversed | GothamSchools

Arbitrator rules for unions: Turnaround firing, rehiring reversed | GothamSchools:

Unhappy that teacher evaluation talks had fallen through weeks before, Bloomberg made the plans a surprise centerpiece of his “State of the City” speech and said the city would purge the schools of “ineffective teachers” with or without tougher evaluations.

To make that happen, the city had to engineer what amounted to overnight school closures. But the UFT and the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators argued that even though the city followed its school closure process, the changes were “sham closures” designed for political ends.

The two sides made their cases this month during a fast-tracked, high-stakes arbitration process during which Bloomberg himself testified – a rare occurrence in city-union disputes, UFT President Michael Mulgrew said. Today, an arbitrator, Scott Buchheit, agreed with the unions.

“This decision is focused on the narrow issue of whether or not the mayor’s ‘new’ schools are really new,” said a union statement issued moments after the decision came down. “The larger issue, however, is that the centerpiece of the DOE’s school improvement strategy — closing struggling schools — does not work.”

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In a response to Education Week's article about expansion of charter schools below is a spot on assessment as far as I'm concerned. The title of the news article is Published Online: July 5, 2012

Prominent Charter Networks Eye Fresh Territory

This is the comment:
"Some teachers and administrators in charter schools may be doing great things (and some are doing terrible things), but scaling up the number of charters has broad ramifications, including the de-stabilization and possible destruction of American public education. 

There are numerous ways in which the high-intensity charter schools that serve low-income students have wound up with a more select group of students than that served by public schools serving roughly the same population:

1) Fewer students with disabilities 
2) Fewer students with serious disabilities
3) Fewer students with serious behavior problems
4) Students come from the more motivated/better-resource families among the overall low-income population--parents with the wherewithal to find out about the new school and the motivation and resources to put in an application for their child.
5) The high-intensity curriculum weeds out weaker students--they either self-select out or, in some cases, are pushed out.

Some of the charter chains have received massive financial support from private philanthropists. 

A 2010 article noted that nonprofit networks of charter operators such as Uncommon, KIPP and Aspire Public Schools — "have created only about 350 [schools] in the past decade, and required $500 million in philanthropic support." Some KIPP schools spend 50% more per pupil than comparable public schools.

With better resources and a more selective student body, it is no surprise that many charters boast better test scores. (Of course, many charters are at the bottom of the barrel in test scores, and scandals have plagued the for-profit charter world) 

However, as the charters expand, private support will be spread more thinly and the student body served will become less and less selective.

Given that average charters currently do no better than average public schools on test scores, it's reasonable to predict that simply expanding the number of charters will lead to a situation in which the average charter does noticeably worse than the average public school. 

Given that public school teachers are generally paid better and have more job security than teachers at charter schools, an expansion of charters also means a further weakening of the middle class.

Individual charters here and there may be important laboratories for innovation, but when you look at the big picture, any dramatic expansion of charters probably weakens education and America. 

I ate my first McDonald's French fry in the 1960s. If even McDonald's can't consistently deliver hot crispy fries after all these decades, I can't imagine why anyone would think that market-based approaches would consistently deliver excellence in education, which is vastly more complex and filled with uncertainties."

Evaluate this… - Wait, What?

Evaluate this… - Wait, What?: "Now, Malloy’s Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor, and his new administrative team are rushing to put the evaluation system in place.  Heading up the effort for Pryor is the new “interim chief talent officer for the state Department of Education.”  You know the “corporate reformers” have taken over when they start creating titles like “interim chief talent officer.”  The title alone warrants a six figure salary."

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Twenty Miles: The impact of poverty and language barriers on educational performance - Wait, What?

Twenty Miles: The impact of poverty and language barriers on educational performance - Wait, What?:

Instead of recognizing the impact poverty and language barriers actually have on educational outcomes, the “education reformers” claimed that if we just hold teachers accountable, test scores will go up and students will succeed.

Leaving out the significant under-funding that exists for Connecticut’s poorer districts, the “reformers” are convinced that the focus on standardized test scores can take the place of dealing with the barriers students face and the lack of adequate resources that are being devoted to our children’s education.

Governor Malloy went so far as to make it clear that he doesn’t mind a policy of teaching to the test, as long as test scores go up.

As a result of this type of thinking, instead of dealing with the under-funding, Connecticut’s new “education reform” law leads with a new teacher evaluation program.  Further, it’s a teacher evaluation system that relies on standardized test scores as a key measurement of whether a teacher should be allowed to keep teaching or whether they should be fired.

But the reformers can’t dismiss the fact that test scores are driven by factors well beyond the control of the teachers.

According to the Connecticut Department of Education, Weston spends a total of $45,503 per pupil, per year, with $24,471 of that going for “direct instructional expenditures.”

Twenty miles down the road, Bridgeport, Connecticut spends $13, 101 per student, per year, of which $8,037 goes for “direct “direct instructional expenditures.”

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‘No Child Left Behind’ Whittled Down Under Obama - NYTimes.com

‘No Child Left Behind’ Whittled Down Under Obama - NYTimes.com: "Critics question whether the waivers have done much to genuinely shift the focus of federal education reform, given their continued reliance on standardized tests. The waivers “should probably make the meh list,” said Joshua Starr, superintendent of the Montgomery County schools in Maryland, which was granted a waiver in May.

Mr. Starr said he believed that education reform should focus on incentives to help teachers collaborate and help students learn skills that could not simply be measured by tests.

“It is another example to me of how we’re not focused on the right things in the American education conversation today,” Mr. Starr said. “I have a lot of respect for Arne Duncan,” he added, referring to the secretary of education, “but it’s just sort of moving around the chairs on the Titanic.”"

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‘No Child Left Behind’ Whittled Down Under Obama - NYTimes.com

‘No Child Left Behind’ Whittled Down Under Obama - NYTimes.com: "Critics question whether the waivers have done much to genuinely shift the focus of federal education reform, given their continued reliance on standardized tests. The waivers “should probably make the meh list,” said Joshua Starr, superintendent of the Montgomery County schools in Maryland, which was granted a waiver in May.

Mr. Starr said he believed that education reform should focus on incentives to help teachers collaborate and help students learn skills that could not simply be measured by tests.

“It is another example to me of how we’re not focused on the right things in the American education conversation today,” Mr. Starr said. “I have a lot of respect for Arne Duncan,” he added, referring to the secretary of education, “but it’s just sort of moving around the chairs on the Titanic.”"

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NEA - NEA Honors Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Paul Krugman with 40th Annual Friend of Education Award

The NEA has given the Friend of Education award to Krugman who makes the link between social/economic justice & education achievement.

NEA - NEA Honors Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Paul Krugman with 40th Annual Friend of Education Award:

“The failure starts early: in America, the holes in the social safety net mean that both low-income mothers and their children are all too likely to suffer from poor nutrition and receive inadequate health care. It continues once children reach school age, where they encounter a system in which the affluent send their kids to good, well-financed public schools or, if they choose, to private schools, while less-advantaged children get a far worse education.

“Once they reach college age, those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds are far less likely to go to college — and vastly less likely to go to a top-tier school — than those luckier in their parentage. At the most selective, “Tier 1” schools, 74 percent of the entering class comes from the quarter of households that have the highest “socioeconomic status”; only 3 percent comes from the bottom quarter.

“And if children from our society’s lower rungs do manage to make it into a good college, the lack of financial support makes them far more likely to drop out than the children of the affluent, even if they have as much or more native ability. One long-term study by the Department of Education found that students with high test scores but low-income parents were less likely to complete college than students with low scores but affluent parents — loosely speaking, that smart poor kids are less likely than dumb rich kids to get a degree.”

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NEA - New Student Program Chair: Activism is Critical to Everything You Do

It's going to be up to us to hold the NEA to these principles.

NEA - New Student Program Chair: Activism is Critical to Everything You Do: "What do you think are the most pressing issues affecting students and new educators?

I think we need to make sure our policy leaders are always putting the needs of the students above the needs of any financial interest or corporation. We can’t look at a bottom line for what’s best for education, we have to make sure we are always working for the common good and for social justice.

We need to make sure policy leaders understand that public education is a right, and that we provide the best education to all students, not just, as Mitt Romney said recently, those who can afford it."

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Why Money Shouldn’t “Follow the Child” | AFT Connecticut

Why Money Shouldn’t “Follow the Child” | AFT Connecticut: "How much would a district have to lose before it just couldn’t afford to do business anymore? At what point does keeping a school district open remain viable? Remember what happened to our colleagues in Pennsylvania at the Chester Upland district. Charter school enrollment was growing, and it was generally felt that the charter schools were siphoning off resources from the public school district. The district reacted by cutting staff and abandoning classes in the arts and language, while the charter schools beefed up resources and offerings. But don't forget this: charter schools do not serve every student in the community, only select individual students. We must decide whether we are going to continue to support one of the institutions that has made our country great: public education for all. We need to keep investing in each child in the system, as well as investing in each other as a whole community."

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Education is no place for a quick fix - Connecticut Post

Education is no place for a quick fix - Connecticut Post: "Excel Bridgeport is "Amazed" by how much has been accomplished in only six months; they smile and gleefully say, "Imagine what can happen in a whole school year!" Indeed. Imagine. Because when the management team grifters leave, only your hopeful imaginations will remain. That's always the sad ending to a grfiter encounter. You have nothing but images of what might have been. Ask the families in Chicago and Philadelphia what's left after the grifters leave.

Let's consider some questions about what's needed in Bridgeport, all of which impact education "reform." Will the mayor, your city managers and the Bridgeport Regional Business Council have improved the number of jobs in your city? Will the conditions in which your children and you live have improved? "

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Timetable for new teacher evals short - Connecticut Post

Madness:

Timetable for new teacher evals short - Connecticut Post: "Under the system, pilot districts will essentially have the month of August to customize the system, train themselves and then others on how to carry it out.

Sandra Kase, chief administrative officer for Bridgeport Public Schools, said at least the process guarantees her cash-starved district additional money to train teachers, especially those deemed to be "developing" or "below standard."

"It is a lot of work all at one time," said Kase.

Bridgeport volunteered to pilot the teacher evaluation system even though it is also rewriting its curriculum this summer and is carrying out a multitude of changes designed to produce better student results.

The teacher evaluations will include four components, staring with an orientation during the first week of school, followed by a goal-setting conference between teacher and administrator, a mid-year check-in and an end-of-year summation.

Still unclear is what measure will be used to evaluate teachers who don't teach reading, math or science, the subjects on the state's standardized tests. That, officials say, is still being worked out."

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Daily Kos: Turning the tide on corporate education

Daily Kos: Turning the tide on corporate education: "If there's a dollar to be made by taking a public service provided by the government, privatizing it and inserting an unnecessary middleman to suck up profits at taxpayer expense, there will always be a corporation for that. The fact that these corporations who seek to profit at taxpayer expense have armies of lobbyists and politicians in Congress ready and waiting to do their bidding is bad enough, even when there is a progressive movement there to fight against it. But when this conservative shift toward private profit in any service is viewed by the public and the media as the progressive alternative to the status quo, that service may not be long for this world.
That is exactly the concern with the fate of public education."

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How can the Chicago Teachers Union win? | SocialistWorker.org

How can the Chicago Teachers Union win? | SocialistWorker.org:

What is working in their favor:
1. The CTU recommitted itself to organizing & activism.  Teachers elected new union representatives ready to fight back against corporatism rather than find compromise.
2. The Chicago Board of Ed. tried to ram through (or in some cases was successful) some of the "reform" changes we are seeing nationwide.
3. The CTU organized with community and parent activist groups like Teachers for Social Justice, the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization, Occupy Chicago, Chicago Parents for Quality Education, and Parents 4 Teachers.
4. The CTU has gained support from other unions: Amalgamated Transit Union Local 241 & National Nurses United.

What is working against them:
1. Politicians who give verbal support but who cast politically expedient votes.
2. Lack of solidarity from other unions.
3. The AFT & NEA willingness to collaborate with corporatist reformers.



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Wendy Lecker: School takeovers disenfranchise poor districts - StamfordAdvocate

Wendy Lecker: School takeovers disenfranchise poor districts - StamfordAdvocate: "The Department of Education's chief financial officer reported that the district has been flat-funded for four years, despite rising costs and the expiration of millions of dollars in grants. The district faces a deficit of about $2 million and the possible loss of 60 of its 427 staff members. In 2008, the district's per-pupil funding was just below the others in its (the poorest) comparison group, called District Reference Group I. Now, its per-pupil funding is $900 below DRG I.

Given New London's severe lack of resources, it is a wonder the district's scores did not drop precipitously. In spite of these obstacles, the district has been able to maintain a steady level of achievement the past few years.

Astoundingly, this stable achievement level was the commissioner's pretext for the takeover. Declaring that there has not been a clear positive trajectory of improvement, the commissioner called for the appointment of a special master."

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CT News Junkie | OP-ED | Once You Get Past the Tweets, School ‘Turnaround’ Shortcomings Abound

Sarah Darer Littman talks about Vallas' "success" as a reformer.  In case after case, Vallas rides in, enacts a series of reforms and then rides away with hundreds of thousands of dollars and does not have to live with the consequences of his decisions.  In each case, the long term success of the school districts Vallas has "reformed" is non-existant.

CT News Junkie | OP-ED | Once You Get Past the Tweets, School ‘Turnaround’ Shortcomings Abound:

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New teacher evaluations linked to student outcomes approved | The Connecticut Mirror

Note: Allan Taylor is on the advisory board of ConnCAN.  He is also the chair of the SBE.

New teacher evaluations linked to student outcomes approved | The Connecticut Mirror: "The State Board of Education Wednesday approved teacher evaluation requirements that pave the way for up to a third of a teacher's grade to be linked to how his or her students perform on standardized tests.

The state's 50,000 teachers will also be evaluated on the results of announced and unannounced classroom observations and anonymous parent or student surveys, if their local school board decides to use surveys to fulfill the feedback requirement.

"This is probably one of the most important things we are going to be doing this year," Allan B. Taylor, the chairman of the state board, said before the unanimous vote."

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