Monthly Archives: November 2018

Comments Oct. 17th, 2018-Nov. 17, 2018

“Build and Support” news

Stanford Professor David Labaree: Public schools for private gain: The declining American commitment to serving the public good. http://www.kappanonline.org/labaree-public-schools-private-gain-decline-american-commitment-public-good/

USA Today followed 15 of America’s teachers on a day of frustrations, pressures and hard-earned victories https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2018/10/17/teachers-appreciation-pay-union-jobs-schools-education/1509500002/

Where in the world are teachers most respected? https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/11/15/where-world-are-teachers-most-respected-not-us-new-survey-shows/?utm_term=.b2a9390e3ad4

NCEE: Nine building blocks of successful school systems. http://ncee.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/9-blocksv011217.pdf

Why is Canada a superstar in education? Low inequality, high teacher pay, and selective entry into teaching. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40708421?fbclid=IwAR3fxf3OYpkL2y6ikd9Wi-e2hwZO7_d59pUqCTp6egGBxopELb9u1P-2eO0

WestEd report on implementation. Our chief takeaways from three years of research: Implementation isn’t simple or linear. Implementation is iterative, recursive, and never-ending. https://thecenter.wested.org/insights/2017-18-ca-standards-implementation/implementation-is-iterative/

The Learning Policy Institute produces a first-rate, balanced report on school choice. Toward A System of Schools Worth Choosing https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/product-files/Tapestry_American_Public_Education_REPORT.pdf

California districts make collaboration a key component of teacher evaluation https://edsource.org/2018/california-school-districts-make-new-investments-in-teacher-evaluation/603903

Improving teaching conditions goes hand in hand with boosting student success. https://www.educationdive.com/news/improving-teaching-conditions-goes-hand-in-hand-with-boosting-student-succe/541279/

How teachers designed a school centered on caring relationships. https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/52413/how-teachers-designed-a-school-centered-on-caring-relationships

Michelle Pearson, a Colorado teacher of the year, argues for schools to stop neglecting social studies and civics. http://educationpost.org/if-you-really-want-to-make-america-great-again-stop-ignoring-social-studies/?utm_source=Education+Post+Mailing+List&utm_campaign=98b00bcbbd-Weekly_Newsletter_091517_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1b7a185fca-98b00bcbbd-265230545

Another plea for revitalized civic engagement education. https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/opinion/tn-dpt-me-patrice-apodaca-column-20181031-story.html

What does improvement science look like in the classroom? https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/52336/what-does-improvement-science-look-like-in-real-classrooms?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=ExactTarget&utm_campaign=2018114MindshiftNewsletterSubscribers&mc_key=00Qi000001WzO2NEAV

School Poverty Rates: How High Before They Harm Students? https://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/newsletter-poverty-102518

Correlation of poverty, race, and college preparation in five charts. https://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/newsletter-poverty-110818

A must read article about how one district made huge gains in teaching reading by avoiding “balanced literacy” guessing strategies and explicitly teaching phonics. https://www.apmreports.org/story/2018/09/10/hard-words-why-american-kids-arent-being-taught-to-read

The importance of phonics in developing foundational reading skills. https://hechingerreport.org/teacher-voice-we-need-phonics-along-with-other-supports-for-reading/

Sue Pimentel on starting a national conversation on reading instruction. https://edexcellence.net/articles/expanding-the-important-national-conversation-about-reading?utm_source=National+Education+Gadfly+Weekly&utm_campaign=b3fbfbbc87-20160918_LateLateBell9_16_2016_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ef00e8f50e-b3fbfbbc87-71635837&mc_cid=b3fbfbbc87&mc_eid=ebbe04a807

What literacy skills do students actually need? https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/09/26/what-literacy-skills-do-students-really-need.html?cmp=eml-enl-cco-news1-rm&M=58649690&U=56558&UUID=963b3ee1b30e99b18f611b1fbc9d893e

Pamela Burdman report from Just Equations, The Mathematics of Opportunity: Rethinking the Role of Math in Educational Equity https://justequations.org/wp-content/uploads/je-report-r12-web.pdf?mc_cid=49599120e7&mc_eid=23699a8162

Marc Tucker argues for better preparation of non-four-year college students. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/top_performers/2018/10/the_great_american_growth_machine_and_how_to_fix_it.html

MDRC’s review of Career/Tech programs. https://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/CTE_Paper-Final.pdf Finds evidence of success but raises several areas to improve.

Mike Rose proves test scores don’t accurately measure student growth. https://janresseger.wordpress.com/2018/11/16/18057/

Jack Schneider proposes broader methods of measuring schools performance. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/17/10/what-makes-great-school Also see Larry Cuban’s review: https://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2018/10/23/what-makes-a-great-school-jack-schneider/ and Washington Post opinion piecehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/10/15/how-are-americas-public-schools-really-doing/?utm_term=.fb670ddfeb35

Another alternative way of measuring schools from Massachusetts http://mciea.org/images/PDF/MCIEA_SQM_Framework_short.pdf

Connecticut’s richest women stops funding charters and instead invests in public schools https://dianeravitch.net/2018/10/23/a-billionaire-stops-funding-charters-and-tfa-starts-funding-public-schools/

Peter Greene bemoans society’s failure to invest in schools. http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2018/11/failing-brown-v-board-of-education.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FORjvzd+%28CURMUDGUCATION%29

Jeff Bryant: Advocating for public school support helped Democrats tremendously in Nov. elections in the Midwest. http://educationopportunitynetwork.org/education-issues-in-the-midwest-may-have-saved-the-democrats/?link_id=1&can_id=cea050dcef20333abf235c3ba9bc6d51&source=email-education-issues-in-the-midwest-may-have-saved-the-democrats&email_referrer=email_452322&email_subject=education-issues-in-the-midwest-may-have-saved-the-democrats

Jeff Bryant on what school funding advocates should learn from the midterm elections.  http://educationopportunitynetwork.org/what-school-funding-advocates-should-learn-from-midterm-elections/?link_id=1&can_id=cea050dcef20333abf235c3ba9bc6d51&source=email-what-school-funding-advocates-should-learn-from-midterm-elections&email_referrer=email_455315&email_subject=what-school-funding-advocates-should-learn-from-midterm-elections

Marc Tucker warns of teacher colleges’ performance. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/top_performers/2018/11/teachers_colleges_the_weakest_link.html?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=top_performers and http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/top_performers/2018/11/teachers_colleges_as_the_weakest_link_part_2.html?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=top_performers

Strict immigration enforcement harms children. https://siepr.stanford.edu/research/publications/immigration-enforcement-harms-schoolchildren

 

Tribulations of “Reform” and Privatization policies

Diane Ravitch on Forbes article: How American is Breaking Public Education; By Forgetting the Cardinal Rule of Success (Treat your employees as professionals) https://dianeravitch.net/2018/10/30/forbes-how-america-is-breaking-public-education-by-forgetting-the-cardinal-rule-of-success/

John Morrow reviews the failure of “reform”.  https://themerrowreport.com/2018/10/17/as-ye-sow-so-shall-ye-reap/

John Thompson: The Negative Effects of Corporate Reform and Disinvestment in Education https://dianeravitch.net/2018/10/21/john-thompson-the-negative-effects-of-corporate-reform-and-disinvestment-in-education/:

What happens when government services are privatized? The cautionary tale of the National Weather Service. https://dianeravitch.net/2018/11/16/restore-reason-what-happens-when-government-services-are-privatized/

John Thompson: Is the Corporate Reform Goliath Truly Dead? Part One.

http://www.livingindialogue.com/npe-conference-2018-corporate-reform-goliath-truly-dead/

Report by C. Kirabo Jackson in the conservative Education Next finds that measures primarily emphasizing test scores and neglecting non-cognitive skills penalize the most effective teachers and schools. https://www.educationnext.org/full-measure-of-a-teacher-using-value-added-assess-effects-student-behavior/ I find that, while teachers have notable effects on both test scores and non-cognitive skills, their impact on non-cognitive skills is 10 times more predictive of students’ longer-term success in high school than their impact on test scores. We cannot identify the teachers who matter most by using test-score impacts alone, because many teachers who raise test scores do not improve non-cognitive skills, and vice versa.

Review of a new book demonstrating the disastrous effects of closing 50 schools in Chicago in 2013. Eve Ewing’s new book, Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side, explores the blindness, deafness, and heartlessness of technocratic, “portfolio school reform”* as it played out in 50 school closings in Chicago at the end of the school year in 2013. https://janresseger.wordpress.com/2018/10/11/stunning-new-book-contextualizes-tragedy-of-2013-school-closures-in-chicagos-hyper-segregated-history/

Another report on the detrimental effect of privatization in Chicago. https://cloakinginequity.com/2018/11/16/new-chi-town-educator-and-community-based-activism-confronting-a-legacy-of-education-privatization-in-the-nations-windy-city

Examining the myth of accountability, high-stakes testing and the achievement gap

by Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig https://cloakinginequity.com/2018/10/26/examining-the-myth-of-accountability-high-stakes-testing-and-the-achievement-gap/

Laura Chapman’s take on Ohio’s destructive use of report cards. https://dianeravitch.net/2018/11/02/laura-chapman-on-ohios-nonsensical-and-destructive-report-cards-for-schools/

Take heart, NC teachers. You are more than you EVASS score. http://notesfromthechalkboard.com/

Diane Ravitch reviews a report by William Gumbert on what taxpayers should know about privatization in Texas by Bill Gumbert and asks: This is an important collection of data about the funding of public schools and charter schools in Texas. Do you think that taxpayers know that they are funding two separate school systems, one governed by elected, accountable school boards and the other governed by private, self-selected, unaccountable school boards? Do you think that the public knows that district public schools outperform charter schools?  https://dianeravitch.net/2018/10/27/william-j-gumbert-what-taxpayers-in-texas-should-know-about-privatization/

Peter Greene in Forbes magazine tells the sad story of how privatization and neglect destroyed education in Kansas City. https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2018/10/22/kansas-city-is-there-hope-for-a-struggling-education-ecosystem/#31a20ec85028 and Tom Ultican finds a similar result. https://dianeravitch.net/2018/11/13/tom-ultican-how-the-destroy-public-education-movement-destroyed-the-public-schools-of-kansas-city/

Connecticut school district tried and rejected Summit Learning Program which focused on computer driven instruction. https://dianeravitch.net/2018/10/18/cheshire-connecticut-the-town-that-beat-mark-zuckerberg/; New York students walkout to protest Summit Learning Program https://dianeravitch.net/2018/11/12/new-york-city-high-school-students-walkout-to-protest-zuckerberg-summit-learning-program/; an explanation of the walkout https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2018/11/brooklyn-students-fight-against-summit.html; and a letter to Zuckerberg by students explaining why the program wasn’t working. https://dianeravitch.net/2018/11/16/dear-mr-zuckerberg-students-take-their-grievances-about-summit-platform-to-mark-z/

Here two critiques of personalized learning, the first by a top teacher in AltSchools. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/11/screen-time-backlash/567934/ and another by NPR https://www.npr.org/2018/11/16/657895964/the-future-of-learning-well-it-s-personal

A three part series by Nellie Bowles in the NY Times article on how the rich are avoiding digital screens for their children while it is being foisted on poor children. Silicon Valley: “The Devil Lives in Our Phones.” Why Tech Experts Limit Access to Technology for Their Own Children.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/phones-children-silicon-valley.html; In America’s Schools, the Rich Get Teachers, the Poor Get Computers https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/digital-divide-screens-schools.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article; Why Silicon Valley Nannies Are Paid to Keep Children Away from Screens. https://dianeravitch.net/2018/11/15/why-silicon-valley-nannies-are-paid-to-keep-children-away-from-screens/

Michael Petrilli argues that sub-group differences may be overblown https://edexcellence.net/articles/the-concern-about-subgroups-in-essa-accountability-systems-may-be-overblown?utm_source=National+Education+Gadfly+Weekly&utm_campaign=a02d845a1f-20160918_LateLateBell9_16_2016_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ef00e8f50e-a02d845a1f-71635837&mc_cid=a02d845a1f&mc_eid=ebbe04a807

Diane Ravitch reports on dangerous privatization efforts in San Antonio https://dianeravitch.net/2018/10/22/disgrace-in-san-antonio-as-charter-vultures-destroy-public-education/

Bruce Baker finds fault with New Orleans market reforms. https://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/newsletter-baker-100918

District letter grades mostly grade poverty levels. https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2018/11/12/louisianas-2018-district-letter-grades-mostly-grade-poverty-no-surprise-here

Sweetheart deal or pure incompetence. Kansas will pay $270,000 to Teach for America for three teachers. https://dianeravitch.net/2018/11/17/kansas-will-pay-tfa-270000-for-recruiting-3-teachers/

 

Charter School and Voucher Issues

The story of a successful community based charter school. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/09/07/if-you-dont-know-what-community-school-is-you-should-take-look-this-one/?utm_term=.6cec8a97addb

Jan Resseger: Bruce Baker’s New Book on School Finance Develops a Scathing Critique of Charter School Expansion

https://janresseger.wordpress.com/2018/11/15/18026/

Sue Legg chronicles the detrimental history of school choice in Florida. https://dianeravitch.net/2018/11/08/sue-legg-twenty-years-of-school-choice-in-florida-part-1/; https://dianeravitch.net/2018/11/09/sue-legg-twenty-years-of-school-choice-in-florida-part-2/; https://dianeravitch.net/2018/11/10/sue-legg-twenty-years-of-school-choice-in-florida-part-3/; https://dianeravitch.net/2018/11/11/sue-legg-twenty-years-of-school-choice-in-florida-part-4/

NYTimes finds charter schools face backlash from a new wave of Democrats in NY and other states. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/nyregion/nyc-charter-schools.html

District encounters difficulties in closing a low performing charter school https://edsource.org/2018/bay-area-district-faces-challenges-in-attempt-to-shut-down-a-charter-school/603321

Edd Doerr on the long history of voter rejection of vouchers. https://dianeravitch.net/2018/11/11/edd-doerr-the-long-record-of-voter-rejection-of-vouchers

Diane Ravitch warning to Arizona: Vouchers Do Not “Save  Poor Kids from Failing Schools” https://dianeravitch.net/2018/10/28/arizona-vouchers-serve-kids-from-top-rated-schools/

Tennessee columnist rips arguments for vouchers. https://www.johnsoncitypress.com/Column/2018/10/28/Snake-oil-charter-schools-and-disengenous.html

Peter Greene asks “Is school choice at odds with community? http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2018/11/is-school-choice-at-odds-with-community.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FORjvzd+%28CURMUDGUCATION%29

New Bedford opposes charter school expansion. https://dianeravitch.net/2018/11/16/new-bedford-massachusetts-doesnt-need-or-want-more-charter-schools/

Charter founder in New Mexico goes to prison for embezzling millions https://dianeravitch.net/2018/10/18/new-mexico-charter-founder-sentenced-to-five-years-in-prison-for-stealing-millions/

Charter operator in Florida receives 20 yr sentence for fraud and $5mil fine. https://dianeravitch.net/2018/11/14/florida-charter-operator-gets-20-year-jail-sentence-for-fraud/

The promises charter schools don’t make. http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-promises-charters-dont-make.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FORjvzd+%28CURMUDGUCATION%29

The fraud in charter claims of 100% college acceptance rates. https://dianeravitch.net/2018/11/13/jose-espinosa-the-truth-about-charter-schools-that-boast-about-a-100-college-acceptance-rate/

Diane Ravitch: No Charter Waiting Lists! Charters Hire Firm to Market Their Brands NY city DOE busted for providing information on public school kids to outfits pitching charters..https://nypost.com/2018/11/04/department-of-education-probed-for-pitching-charters-to-public-school-kids/

Diane Ravitch: Stephen Dyer: The ECOT Scandal Was Even Worse Than We Knew

https://dianeravitch.net/2018/10/31/stephen-dyer-the-ecot-scandal-was-even-worse-than-we-knew/

Another Ravitch article. Parents in Arizona use voucher money for personal not educational expenditures. https://dianeravitch.net/2018/11/02/arizona-parents-use-voucher-money-for-personal-purchases-not-education/

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