Schools

Proposed State-Run STEM School Raises Questions, Suspicions

October 17, 2017 Bill Raden, www.capitalandmain.com Educate! California, Education, Schools, Science

By Bill Raden for Capital and Main - A hastily revised bill introduced in Sacramento last month is attempting to address the state’s STEM crisis by adding a single new privatized state STEM school to California’s already contentious K-12 landscape. The plan to create an 800-student “State School for Instruction in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)” that would serve grades six through 12, and be located somewhere within Los Angeles County, has met heated resistance from public school advocates. Part of their concern lies in just how much the proposed new breed of state STEM schools resembles charter schools, which are privately managed but taxpayer-funded. School districts have long contended that charters siphon off their higher achieving students while leaving the districts with less money to teach a larger percentage of far-needier kids. Authored by Assemblymember Raul Bocanegra (D-San Fernando), Assembly Bill 1217 stipulates that the new STEM school would operate similarly. It would be managed by a private non-profit corporation and get its funding from the same combination of private philanthropy and the state ADA (average daily attendance) money that would follow its 800 students, probably from Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).

Confederate Statues Down, But Structural Racism Still Stands Tall

June 12, 2017 Ashana Bigard, www.progressive.org Educate! Confederacy, New Orleans, Racism, Schools

By Ashana Bigard for The Progressive - Many New Orleanians celebrated at the removal of confederate monuments around the city in recent weeks. But on the same day that Robert E. Lee’s bronzed image came down from Lee Circle, two black boys (like hundreds of boys throughout the city and state of Louisiana) were not allowed to graduate for arbitrary, punitive, and potentially illegal reasons. The monuments may be gone, but structural racism continues to create barriers for students of color in New Orleans schools. Take the cases of Rahsaan Ison and Rashaad Brown, both enrolled at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts. They had requested a tutor in Spanish, and one was provided to them under state and federal law protecting students with disabilities. But the tutor turned out to be so unprofessional that their school claimed he had cheated on a test by answering questions for them, and refused to accept any of their work, making it impossible for them to achieve their graduation requirements. I acted as a student advocate for the boys, and I asked for an accommodation on the 504 plan so they could graduate with the rest of the class.

School Choice Is A Scam In Segregated Neighborhoods

May 25, 2017 Jitu Brown, www.chicagoreporter.com Organize! Education, Schools, Segregation

By Jitu Brown for The Chicago Reporter - Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos seems not to hear the fierce protests of parents, teachers and school officials over school closings and charter expansion in New York, Chicago, Oakland, Detroit and other American cities. How else to explain her continuing tone-deaf comments praising the glories of school choice? In truth, school choice does not exist in most black and brown communities in the United States. That is why her words ring false and her promises sound empty to the people living in those communities. Whatever hope existed that DeVos would learn on the job and inform her boss, President Donald Trump, of the need to respect that history and build on the effectiveness of American public schools while improving them, has been dashed. During her confirmation hearings, DeVos was criticized for her lack of experience with and knowledge of the public education system. Her later words at the Brookings Institution exemplified someone in a position of great power, who just does not get it: “How many of you got here today in an Uber, or Lyft, or another ridesharing service? Did you choose that because it was more convenient than hoping a taxi would drive by?

Schooling For Myths And Powerlessness

May 19, 2017 Ralph Nader, www.blog.nader.org Resist! Education, Schools

By Ralph Nader for The Nader Page - All over America, school children are completing another academic year before their summer vacation. This invites the questions, what did they learn and what did they do with what they learned? I’m not talking about their test scores, nor the latest fads in rebranding education, like the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) curriculum that de-emphasizes the first two thirds of the old mantra – reading, writing and arithmetic. Rather, I am questioning what they learned about their real-world surroundings, about preparing themselves for life as citizens, workers, consumers, taxpayers, voters and members of various communities. Not very much, sad to say. The same is true of my generation. Instead of receiving an enriching and well-rounded education, we were fed myths. All societies perpetuate lavish myths that enable the few to rule over the many, repress critical thinking and camouflage the grim realities. Our country was, and remains, no exception. In school we learned that our country was number one, the greatest in the world. We sang “Onward Christian Soldiers” in music class.

Taxpayers Spent 100s Millions More For Inferior Charter Schools

April 14, 2017 Steven Rosenfeld, www.alternet.org Educate! Charter Schools, Education, Schools

By Steven Rosenfeld for Alternet - A blockbuster report detailing how California’s charter school industry has wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars by opening and building schools in communities that don't need them and often end up doing worse than nearby public schools, is a nationwide warning about how education privateers hijack public funds and harm K-12 public schools. “This report finds that this funding [building, buying, leasing] is almost completely disconnected from educational policy objectives, and the results are, in turn, scattershot and haphazard,” the report's executive summary begins. “Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent each year without any meaningful strategy. Far too much of this public funding is spent on schools built in neighborhoods that have no need for additional classroom space, and which offer no improvement over the quality of education already available in nearby public schools. In the worst cases, public facilities funding has gone to schools that were found to have discriminatory enrollment policies and others that have engaged in unethical or corrupt practices.”

These For-Profit Schools Are ‘Like A Prison’

March 25, 2017 Sarah Carr et al, www.propublica.org Educate! Prisons, Profit, Schools

By Sarah Carr, Francesca Berardi, Zoë Kirsch and Stephen Smiley for Pro Publica and Slate - An alternative school for sixth- through 12th-graders with behavioral or academic problems, Paramount occupied a low-slung, brick and concrete building on a dead-end road in hard-luck Reading, Pennsylvania, a city whose streets are littered with signs advertising bail bondsmen, pay-day lenders, and pawn shops. Camelot Education, the for-profit company that ran Paramount under a contract with the Reading school district, maintained a set of strict protocols: No jewelry, book bags, or using the water fountain or bathroom without permission. Just as it still does at dozens of schools, the company deployed a small platoon of “behavioral specialists” and “team leaders”...

Jewell Elementary Offers PARCC (CMAS) Incentives

March 6, 2017 Peggy Roberson, www.bustedpencils.com Educate! Colorado, Education, Schools

By Peggy Robertson for Bust Ed Pencils - To catch new readers up to speed before I launch into the information about PARCC incentives, let me give you a quick recap. I taught at Jewell Elementary for four years. The first three years were absolutely amazing. We were working hard to become an inquiry-based democratic school. All of our hard work came crashing down in the 2015-2016 school year when we became a Relay Leadership School. All of our work, our beliefs, our identity, were erased, and we were mandated to follow the new mantra via Relay. My position at Jewell was eliminated last year. Needless to say, this year, 2016-2017, things have grown worse.

‘School Choice Is Not Serving The Most Disenfranchised’

February 16, 2017 Janine Jackson, www.fair.org Educate! Education, Schools

By Janine Jackson for FAIR - Janine Jackson: There were near-countless causes for concern about the appointment of deep-pocketed Republican Betsy DeVos as secretary of Education. She’s given money to 17 of the senators voting on her. She’s never taught or had her children in public school. She seemed to know little about core educational issues, like the debate over measuring students’ proficiency versus their growth, or whether or not the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act is a federal law. In the end, her line about needing guns in schools for grizzly bears might be the least worrisome thing about her. Yet here we are. It’s been said that the Education secretary has less day-to-day power than other agency heads. But what does the DeVos appointment represent in terms of this administration’s potential impact on children and schools, and how do we fight for a different vision?

Protesters Block DeVos From Entering DC School

February 11, 2017 Paulina FIirozi, www.thehill.com Resist! Education, Protests, Schools, Washington DC

By Paulina FIirozi for The Hill - “Keep giving money to senators and buying your way to the position,” one man holding a Black Lives Matter sign says to her, according to a video from ABC reporter Sam Sweeney. “I hope you’re proud of yourself." “Go back,” the protestor yells and she enters the car. “Shame! Shame! Shame!” DeVos was reportedly able to eventually enter the school for an event that included D.C. schools chancellor. Crowds of protesters gathered ahead of DeVos’s visit to the school, according to reports. Her visit, her first as secretary of Education to a public K-12 school, was reportedly organized by the Washington teachers union, which did not support her nomination.

The Racists Roots And Racist Indoctrination Of School Choice

January 17, 2017 Steven M Singer, www.gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com Educate! Education, Racism, Schools

By Steven M Singer for GAD FLY ON THE WALL BLOG - Every single referendum held on school choice in the United States has been defeated despite billions of dollars in spending to convince people to vote for it. But advocates aren’t discouraged that the public isn’t on their side. They have money, and in America that translates to speech. The Donald Trump administration is dedicated to making our public schools accept this policy whether people want it or not. But don’t think that’s some huge change in policy. The previous administration championed a lighter version of these market-driven plans. The main difference goes like this: Democrats are for charter schools and tax credits for private and parochial schools.

Where is Evidence that School Closures Actually Help?

December 3, 2016 Anthony Cody, www.livingindialogue.com Educate! Education, Schools

By Anthony Cody for Living In Dialogue - The latest report by the Education Research Association on New Orleans school reform, “Extreme Measures: When & How School Closures & Charter Takeovers Benefit Students,“ is consistent with the solid scholarship that informs its previous research. And it includes the important qualifying statement that, “prior evidence suggests that schools that are effective in generating high test scores are not consistently more effective with other student outcomes.” When the ERA released its landmark “What Effect Did the Post-Katrina Reforms Have on Student Outcomes?,” a diverse variety of scholars participated in the discussion of its findings.

Dear Mayor Emanuel: I Resign As Principal Of #1 Neighborhood School

August 31, 2016 Troy LaRaviere, www.troylaraviere.net Create! Chicago, Schools

By Troy LaRaviere for Troy LaRaviere's Blog - In 2010 Chicago Magazine ranked Blaine Elementary School as the 16th best elementary school in Chicago, and the 6th best neighborhood school. After being hired to lead Blaine in the fall of 2011, I told my Local School Council (LSC) I had a “six-year plan” to turn Blaine into the #1 neighborhood school in Chicago. I have the pleasure of informing you that I lived up to my promise to the Blaine LSC, and I did so a year earlier than promised.

Where Has All The Money For Our Schools Gone?

August 25, 2016 Scott Klinger, www.otherwords.org Educate! Education, Funding, Schools

By Scott Klinger for Other Worlds - State and local governments give away at least $70 billion a year to business subsidies, most of it in foregone tax revenue. Local property taxes are the most significant tax most corporations pay. In most communities, they’re also the backbone of local school finance. So when subsidies slash corporate property taxes, our schools often get hurt the most. In Chicago, for example, we already have a glimpse into the unsavory relationship between tax subsidies and school finance.

U.S. Military Releases High School Testing Data

August 24, 2016 Pat Elder, www.worldbeyondwar.org Educate! Military Recruitment, Schools, Testing, US military

By Pat Elder for World Beyond War - Data released by the Department of Defense on August 1st shows the military administered its 3-hour enlistment exam to nearly 700,000 students in 12,000 high schools during the 2013-14 school year, a 2% increase over the prior year. The Military Entrance Processing Command (MEPCOM) administers the exam, known as the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, (ASVAB). The database was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Do Unions Belong In Fight Against Corporate School Reform?

August 22, 2016 Staff, www.gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com Resist! Privatization, Reform, Schools, Unions

By Staff of Gad Fly On The Wall - In the fight for public education, the forces of standardization and privatization are running scared. They’ve faced more pushback in the last few years – especially in the last few months – than in a decade. The Opt Out movement increases exponentially every year. Teach for America is having trouble getting recruits. Pearson’s stock is plummeting. The NAACP and Black Lives Matter have both come out strongly against increasing charter schools.

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