September 2, 2016
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September 2, 2016
Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice
Why do kids go to school? Americans are divided on the answer, a new poll shows
Valerie Strauss, Answer Sheet
What is school for? A new poll released Monday night shows that Americans are divided on the issue. And in an era when public education has been under attack, most public school parents still think highly of their children’s schools—and an overwhelming majority of Americans do not want failing schools to be closed down but would rather see them improved.
Despite Vergara ruling, teacher-tenure battles set to heat up
Brenda Iasevoli, Education Week
The California Supreme Court last week upheld an appellate decision rejecting key contentions in Vergara v. California, the much-watched suit that argued the state's teacher-protection laws make it nearly impossible to fire "grossly ineffective" teachers and thus pose a direct harm to students. But while the ruling put an end to the case, it's not likely to resolve the battles over teacher tenure and other teacher job protections in the state or elsewhere. The Vergara lawyers' strategy of casting tenure laws as a violation of students' constitutional rights, which won support at the trial-court level but not on appeal, has already provided a blueprint for activists and politicians intent on chipping away at teacher protections in the courts and state legislatures. That could make it more difficult for teachers' unions to put the focus back on what they see as the real problem in weeding out ineffective teachers—the more mundane issue of a lack of funding.
LAUSD superintendent Michelle King on public schools
Madeleine Brand, KCRW; Guest: Michelle King, LAUSD
It’s not even September yet, but LA’s 650,000 public school students have already been back at their desks for two weeks. Statewide test results recently showed those students improving but still below the state average. Thirty-nine percent meet English language standards. And only 29 percent meet math standards. Black and Latino kids are doing even worse. Meanwhile, more students are enrolling in charter schools, which means less money for LAUSD. What’s the outlook for LA’s public schools?
Language, Culture, and Power
Schools that teach in two languages foster integration—so how come so many families can’t find programs?
Conor Williams and Catherine Brown, The Hechinger Report
Fortunately, this round of interest in integration is sparking in a new context. America’s schools and communities are more diverse than ever — particularly in regards to language. For the first time in history, our public schools are majority minority. These new conditions suggest new opportunities for integrating schools through instructional programs that actually requirediverse student enrollment to function.
Children from “underserved minority” backgrounds have strengths for learning
Barbara Rogoff, University of California, Santa Cruz; AERA Ed-Talk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81ecAsH2FP0
Political education in polarized times
Diana E. Hess, University of Wisconsin-Madison; AERA Ed-Talk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP-4Qs2vmPg
Access, Assessment, and Advancement
Legislators send new visual and performing arts standards for California schools to governor
Priska Neely, KPCC
Visual and performing arts standards for schools in California are about to get a makeover. State legislators passed a bill Tuesday to update the state's content standards in the arts for the first time since 2001. Arts education advocates say the changes are overdue: while California educators have updated standards for most school subjects in recent years to reflect changing technology, research and educational priorities, arts standards have languished.
A new school year brings renewed focus on attendance
Elissa Nadworny, KPCC
Like many schools, Gibson Elementary in St. Louis had big problems with attendance — many students were missing nearly a month of school a year. Melody Gunn, who was the principal at Gibson last year, set out to visit homes and figure out why kids weren't showing up. Her biggest discovery? They didn't have clean uniforms to wear to school. Many families, she found, didn't have washing machines in the home, and kids were embarrassed to show up at school wearing dirty clothes. The result was that often, they didn't come. Gunn thought this was a problem she could fix. She called Whirlpool, which agreed to donate some washers and dryers. Gunn had them installed at the school and then opened the doors for parents to use the machines. If folks couldn't make it during the school day, the school would offer access to the laundry machines after hours. It hasn't made every kid show up, but Principal Gunn says it's working.
Inequality, Poverty, Segregation
In reversal, kindergarten readiness gaps narrow
Sean F. Reardon, Stanford University; Ximena A. Portilla, MDRC
In a sharp reversal of a decades-long trend, the gap in kindergarten academic readiness between high- and low-income students narrowed by 10 percent to 16 percent between 1998 and 2010, according to new research published today in AERA Open, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association.
Obama administration proposes rules for how school districts spend money meant for poor kids
Emma Brown, The Washington Post
The Obama administration released draft rules Wednesday that would govern how school districts allocate billions of Title I dollars meant to educate poor children, one of Capitol Hill’s most hotly contested education issues since Congress passed a new federal education law late last year.
How the Justice Department is trying to dismantle Georgia’s segregated special-education system
Edwin Rios, Mother Jones
Last week, the Justice Department announced it would sue the state of Georgia for running a network of schools that segregated students with disabilities from those without, denying them equal access to services and educational opportunities. The lawsuit, which seeks to desegregate the state's program of so-called psychoeducational schools, could prompt school districts across the country to look closely at whether they are illegally separating students with disabilities from their peers.
Public Schools and Private $
National Labor Relations Board decides charter schools are private corporations, not public schools
Emma Brown, The Washington Post
The National Labor Relations Board decided in two separate cases last week that — as far as federal labor law is concerned — charter schools are not public schools but private corporations. The decisions apply only to the specific disputes from which they arose, involving unionization efforts at charter schools in New York and in Pennsylvania. But they plunge the labor board into a long-running debate over the nature of charter schools: publicly funded, privately run institutions that enroll about 3 million students nationwide.
New book: Obama’s Education Department and Gates Foundation were closer than you thought
Valerie Strauss, Answer Sheet
Megan E. Tompkins-Stange is an assistant professor of public policy at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan who has written a highly revealing book about the power and influence of four major foundations in education-reform policy in recent years. She researched “Policy Patrons: Philanthropy, Education Reform, and the Politics of Influence” over several years, in which she was given access to officials in four foundations — Bill and Melinda Gates, Eli and Edythe Broad, Ford, and W.K. Kellogg— as well as permission to quote people without attribution. It would, of course, be better to know exactly who said what, but Tompkins-Stange is able nonetheless to give enough context so that the power of the words she recorded from 60 interviews contributes to the overall narrative. “Policy Patrons” looks at the effect of the unprecedented philanthropic engagement in public education reform during the Obama administration and raises questions about whether democracy is usurped when private individuals use their fortunes to bend public policy to their own priorities.
California teachers union launches campaign to link billionaires with charter schools
Michael Janofsky, EdSource
Fresh off a victory in a lawsuit that would have changed state employment rules for teachers, the California Teachers Association is launching a statewide radio campaign calling for more “accountability and transparency” of California charter schools. The campaign, which started Wednesday, is aimed at calling attention to “a small group of billionaires” the union says support charter schools to the detriment of traditional public schools.
Private investments in preschool, career-tech ed. fueled in new federal grants
Sean Cavanagh, EdWeek Market Brief
Federal officials have recently unveiled two new grant programs to support the design of “pay for success” models that would allow investors to pour money into preschool and career-and-technical education, and secure financial returns if there are positive results.
Other News of Note
Pretoria Girls High: A protest against sacrificed cultures and identities
Greg Nicolson, Daily Maverick
The videos appear to show a heated exchange, but when the protest turned confrontational on Saturday, matric students Malaika Maoh Eyoh and Palesa Sedibe*, both 17 years old, felt tired. They were in their fifth year at the school and had seen black students, even teachers, teased and humiliated, broken as they were forced to sacrifice their cultures and identities. “We just felt tired,” said Eyoh. Sedibe never wanted to go to the school. Her friends had gone elsewhere and Pretoria Girls strictly enforced “petty rules” – no hugging in the hallway, no drinking while walking. It was okay, she said at Hatfield Plaza on Monday, wearing black jeans, a black T-shirt and a doek, until last year when staff kept raising issues with students who have afros. Eyoh remembered how in Grade 9 she cut her relaxed hair and grew a small afro. A teacher said her hair was distracting other students from learning.
See also https://twitter.com/hashtag/stopRacismAtPretoriaGirlsHigh?src=hash
Just News from Center X is a free weekly education news blast edited by Jenn Ayscue.
