August 19, 2016
Just News from Center X is a free weekly education news blast.
Please
subscribe and tweet or share.
August 19, 2016
Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice
Harvard's new approach to America's teacher deficit
Alex Zimmerman, The Atlantic
When Kia Turner began college, she didn’t plan on a career as a public-school teacher. “I came into college thinking I was going to go into corporate law,” said 22-year-old Turner, who graduated from Harvard this spring. But after working at an after-school program, “I kind of realized I wanted to spend my time working for kids.” So instead of heading to law school this fall, she’ll be teaching constitutional law to a group of 10th graders at Brooklyn’s Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice, one of eight recent Harvard graduates who will step into New York City classrooms as part of a teacher-preparation program launching this year. That program, Harvard Teacher Fellows, is an attempt to reshape the way young teachers are trained to enter high-needs schools, and to avoid the pitfalls associated with asking inexperienced teachers to quickly take on the responsibilities of seasoned educators.
Want to address teachers’ biases? First, talk about race
Peter Balonon-Rosen, NPR
As Ayana Coles gazes at the 20 teachers gathered in her classroom, she knows the conversation could get uncomfortable. And she's prepared. "We are going to experience discomfort — well, we may or may not experience it — but if we have it that's OK," says Coles, a third-grade teacher at Eagle Creek Elementary School in Indianapolis. Coles is black, one of just four teachers of color among Eagle Creek Elementary's 37 staff. Throughout last year she gathered co-workers in her classroom for after-school discussions about race. Her goal? Create a common understanding of race and power, with hopes that teachers acknowledge, then address, how that plays out in the school. Coles says her son's schools have left him behind. That he's been suspended for minor reasons. That his teachers have never really connected with him. She wants teachers here to do better. First, that means exploring often-taboo topics: race, power and teachers' biases.
The pay gap for teachers is growing, new study finds
Kate Stoltzfus, Education Week
At a time when regional teacher shortages and high turnover rates are rife in school systems, a new report by the Economic Policy Institute may offer some explanation: The gap between U.S. teachers' pay and that of comparable workers is greater than ever before.
Language, Culture, and Power
CA voters will revisit bilingual education in November
Press Play with Madeleine Brand, KCRW; Guest: Patricia Gándara, UCLA
As Los Angeles public school students return to school Tuesday, more of them will enter language immersion programs. It’s an approach that’s become more and more popular despite Proposition 227, the state law that practically banned bilingual education back in 1998. A measure on the November ballot would repeal most of Proposition 227, effectively allowing teachers to teach in languages other than English. If it passes, how will instruction change for the 1.3 million English learners in California’s public schools?
How LA Unified plans to help schools track English Learners to proficiency
Kyle Stokes, KPCC
Back in her days as principal of a Los Angeles Unified school, Hilda Maldonado remembers sifting through lists of students still learning English, trying to figure out which ones needed help. She was trying to figure out which of these English learners had checked all three boxes to be officially "reclassified" as proficient in the language: they needed to pass California's language proficiency exam; pass the same standardized tests as their English-speaking peers; and get good grades.
Key education bills still alive – and some that aren't
EdSource staff, EdSource
The Legislature has less than three weeks to act on important remaining education bills. Many of the major education bills that were introduced at the start of the year, such as teacher evaluation reforms, either have died or, like more money for college preparatory courses, been incorporated into next year’s state budget. Of a dozen noteworthy bills still alive when the Legislature went on vacation in July, several were killed without explanation by the Assembly and Senate Appropriations committees in a crush of activity last week. Here’s a status report on nine of the survivors and three of the deceased.
Access, Assessment, and Advancement
The basics behind state's new school improvement system
John Fensterwald, EdSource
For the past year, EdSource has followed the development of the new school improvement and accountability system that the State Board of Education is leading. The 10-question primer that follows provides an overview of the work so far and what lies ahead.
Free community college and dual enrollment: two new programs to give LA Unified students ‘unfettered access to college’
Mike Szymanski, LA School Report
California’s largest coalition of community colleges is finalizing two new programs with the nation’s second-largest school district to give LA Unified students a free year of college tuition and encourage them to enroll in college classes while still in high school. The details are expected to be announced in September, with the goal of offering the first year of free tuition beginning next fall. The dual enrollment plan could start even earlier.
Helping college-bound Native Americans beat the odds
Claudio Sanchez, NPR
Native American students make up only 1.1 percent of the nation's high school population. And in college, the number is even smaller. More than any other ethnic or racial group, they're the least likely to have access to college prep or advanced placement courses. Many get little or no college counseling at all. In 1998, College Horizons, a small nonprofit based in New Mexico, set out to change that through five-day summer workshops on admissions, financial aid and the unique challenges they'll face on campus. Its director, Carmen Lopez, sat down with NPR to talk about the obstacles that bright, talented Native students face.
Inequality, Poverty, Segregation
The American public thinks very differently about wealth- and race-based educational inequality
Jon Valant, Tulane University; Daniel A. Newark, University of Southern Denmark
When asked about wealth- and race/ethnicity-based academic achievement gaps, Americans are more concerned about the gap between poor and wealthy students, more supportive of policies that might close it, and more prepared to explain the reasons behind it, according to new research published online today in Educational Researcher, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association.
Why American schools are even more unequal than we thought
Susan Dynarski, The New York Times
Education is deeply unequal in the United States, with students in poor districts performing at levels several grades below those of children in richer areas. Yet the problem is actually much worse than these statistics show, because schools, districts and even the federal government have been using a crude yardstick for economic hardship.
Schools enjoy endless winning streak at the polls
Tom Chorneau, Cabinet Report
When asked, California voters have almost always generously backed tax hikes and bond measure that benefit schools–this November, they are likely to do it again. First up is Proposition 55, which would extend the 2012 income tax increase on the state’s highest earners through 2030. Then, there’s a $9 billion statewide facilities bond and, finally, there’s a scattering of local school borrowing measures like the $1.2 billion Long Beach is asking for and the $280 million that Bakersfield needs.
Public Schools and Private $
With magnet and single-gender schools, LAUSD hopes to boost enrollment this school year
Sonali Kohli, Anna M. Phillips and Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times
New school year, new survival strategy. Faced with declining enrollment and a growing challenge from independent charter schools, the Los Angeles Unified School District opened the academic year Tuesday highlighting one balm for its problems: 16 new magnet schools. The nation’s second-largest school system hopes to replicate its established, successful magnets — which have strong test scores, diverse student bodies and waiting lists.Why did Black Lives Matter and the NAACP call for an end to more charter schools?
Kristina Rizga, Mother Jones
A few weeks ago, the Movement for Black Lives, the network that also includes Black Lives Matter organizers, released its first-ever policy agenda. Among the organization's six demands and dozens of policy recommendations was a bold education-related stance: a moratorium on both charter schools and public school closures. Charters, the agenda argues, represent a shift of public funds and control over to private entities. Along with "an end to the privatization of education," the Movement for Black Lives organizers are demanding increased investments in traditional community schools and the health and social services they provide.
Progress on covert for-profit colleges
Robert Shireman, The Century Foundation
By denying the nonprofit status of the Center for Excellence in Higher Education (CEHE), the U.S. Department of Education today took a big step forward in ensuring that colleges claiming to be nonprofit are actually behaving that way, dedicating their resources to education rather than operating as moneymaking enterprises for college trustees and executives.
Other News of Note
50 years of Kothari Commission Report
Shavali Tukdeo, CounterCurrents.org
This year marks 50thanniversary of Kothari commission report on education. In its after-life of half-a-century, the report continues to occupy an important place in discussions on education in India irrespective of the distinct ideological positions that may go on to frame these discussions. While some of the recommendations get echoed by a wide range of bodies including policy and planning groups, civic initiatives and organisations of radical persuasions, certain other issues raised by the report have been relegated to the back allies of our collective memory.
Just News from Center X is a free weekly education news blast edited by Jenn Ayscue.
