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January 6, 2017

Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice

 

Education issues to watch in 2017 – and predictions of what to expect

John Fensterwald, EdSource

The first week in January is like the first day of spring training: Everyone’s an expert on predicting what Gov. Jerry Brown will sign and veto and who’ll win the World Series. Some forecasters, though, are more clairvoyant than others. A year ago, I predicted with absolute certainty that state voters would defeat a $9 billion school construction bond (they passed it) and that the courts wouldn’t even take up the Vergara lawsuit, involving teacher protections, in 2016 (they ruled on it). More on those predictions below. Unchastened, I offer 10 K-12 issues to follow in 2017, with a forecast of what, if anything, will happen during the year. The scale ranges from 1 to 5 “Fensters,” with 1 meaning no chance, and 5 meaning highly likely. Keep one eye on Washington and the other on Sacramento this year to see if the Trump and Brown administrations are in conflict or in concert on a bunch of issues this year. There may be contentious disagreements.

 

California schools chief urges districts to declare themselves ‘safe havens’

Joy Resmovits, Los Angeles Times

California’s top education official has urged the state’s public schools to declare themselves “safe havens” for students who are in the country illegally. In a letter sent Wednesday to county and school district superintendents, charter school administrators and principals, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson asked them to “remind families about existing laws that protect them and their students’ records from questions about immigration status.” The letter comes in light of concerns about President-elect Donald Trump’s promises during and after the campaign to deport immigrants who are in the country illegally. In his letter, Torlakson included a link to a “safe haven” resolution passed by the Sacramento City Unified School District as an example that other districts might follow. 

 

Teachers are stressed, and that should stress us all

Cory Turner, NPR

We all experience stress at work, no matter the job. But for teachers, the work seems to be getting harder and the stress harder to shake. A new report out this month pulls together some stark numbers on this: Forty-six percent of teachers say they feel high daily stress. That's on par with nurses and physicians. And roughly half of teachers agree with this statement: “The stress and disappointments involved in teaching at this school aren't really worth it.” It's a problem for all of us — not just these unhappy teachers. Here's why: “Between 30 and 40 percent of teachers leave the profession in their first five years,” says Mark Greenberg, a professor of human development and psychology at Penn State. And that turnover, he says, costs schools — and taxpayers — billions of dollars a year, while research (like this and this) suggests teacher burnout hurts student achievement, too.

  

Language, Culture, and Power

 

Living in America 101: When refugees arrive, what do they need to learn?

Gabrielle Emanuel, NPR

I was standing by the airport exit, debating whether to get a snack, when a young man with a round face approached me. I focused hard to decipher his words. In a thick accent, he asked me to help him find his suitcase. As we walked to baggage claim, I learned his name: Edward Murinzi. This was his very first plane trip. A refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, he'd just arrived to begin his American life. Beside the luggage carousel at Washington's Reagan Airport, he looked out at the two lanes of traffic and the concrete wall beyond. "So this is America?" he said. From finding his bag to finding his apartment and finding a job, there was a lot for Edward to learn. Later, he acknowledged that while he was standing in the airport looking for his luggage, he felt the magnitude of the task before him. He says questions were zipping around his head: "How will I start? You get scared. How will I manage?"

 

These are the classes you get when you give college students control

Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times

For much of each week, UC Berkeley senior Caelle McKaveney studies chemical signaling in spiders, nucleotide coding patterns and other serious science. But Monday evenings were different last semester. She was able to nerd out in a non-textbook way in a class designed by students for fellow students who shared a childhood obsession: Harry Potter. In a class called “UC Hogwarts: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter,” McKaveney could leave the muggle world of the nation’s top public research university behind and bond with fellow Potter geeks over Hermione’s feminism and the metaphorical links between werewolves and those afflicted with HIV/AIDS. She let loose and channeled her inner Snape during a class skit, allowing her long hair to cover her face and dropping her voice to the deep tones of the brooding master of the dark arts. 

 

‘I’m a college student, but I was treated like a criminal. How can I not incorporate that into my world view?’

Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post; Zachary Wood, Uncomfortable Learning

When I hear the words “police brutality,” I don’t just picture the footage on the news. I think of the time I saw a police officer slam an elderly man on the pavement and press his boot into the side of his face for asking people to donate money for his medical operation. I recall the time my father told me that on his way home he was cornered by several police officers with their guns aimed, all because he was a black man who resembled the burglar they were looking for. For many minority students like myself, racism is not an abstraction. It is a keenly felt experience. We often see examples of racism in videos of police brutality and connect those examples to personal experiences with police and the microaggressions and bias that happens on campus. Knowing how to deal with all of that as a college student can be difficult, and activism can often come out as indignation.

 

Whole Children and Strong Communities

 

Community school district movement launches in LA

Bill Raden, Capital & Main

In a sign that California is quickly emerging as the nation’s progressive conscience-in-exile, a new Los Angeles education-reform group has launched an ambitious initiative that it claims could close historic student achievement gaps in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Members of Reclaim Our Schools LA (ROS-LA), a coalition of educators, labor unions and social justice organizations, told a December media event attended by about one hundred parents, students and supporters in the library of South L.A.’s Dorsey High School, that the key to substantive school reform is to transform LAUSD into a “community school district.” Community schools, which have roots in the progressive movement of the early 20th century but have been undergoing a recent revival, look beyond academics to the entrenched, poverty-related social, emotional and health barriers that keep kids in high-needs districts from succeeding in school. The approach redresses those needs by partnering with families, local government and community-based organizations to provide “wraparound services” — health clinics, mental health counselors, after-school programs or parent support services — on school grounds.

 

Schools must have a role in ending dating abuse

Kathy Moore and Patty Giggans, EdSource

Young people experiencing dating abuse often live in a world of isolation, self-doubt and fear that affects every aspect of their lives, including school. Jessica, a survivor of teen dating abuse, has a story that is all too common. When Jessica was a sophomore at Fairfield High School, she began dating a fellow student. She believed that the intensity of his feelings for her caused his initial jealousy. But that soon transformed into a pattern of overbearing control. He declared that no one else existed besides the two of them. He forbade her from talking to girlfriends and young men. He dictated that she not wear makeup or skirts. Beginning to feel her independence diminishing, Jessica became depressed and agonized over how to end a relationship with someone who said he would commit suicide if she broke up with him. Not surprisingly, her classroom participation declined. In a class she and her boyfriend shared, she fell silent and stopped participating in a group project when he stared at her with threatening disapproval at the prospect of her interacting with other boys in the group. She felt humiliated and defeated. One in four youth in the United States struggles through some form of dating abuse. Nearly half of students who have experienced dating abuse report that at least part of the abuse occurred at school. It’s not unusual for a student’s academic performance to suffer as a result, as it did in Jessica’s case.

 

In a paved, urban world, nature makes a rare appearance — delighting kids near MacArthur Park

Esmeralda Bermudez, Los Angeles Times

Nathan Hobbs couldn’t believe his eyes. He rubbed them with his fists, he blinked, then he looked once more. There it was, just a few days after Thanksgiving, perched on the branch of a coral tree outside Ms. Gil’s classroom. Some sort of owl with long legs, white brows and bright, yellow eyes. Nathan, 9, had no idea how the bird found its way to the courtyard of his school, Esperanza Elementary, near MacArthur Park in the middle of the city. “This is a big deal,” he thought. Nathan told a teacher, who then told Brad Rumble, the school’s principal and a man who takes bird matters very seriously. Rumble pulled a few students out of class to observe the visitor, identified as a burrowing owl. In a neighborhood of asphalt, street vendors and crowded apartment buildings, this was their closest encounter yet with nature.

 

Does handing out sanitary pads really get girls to stay in school?

Nurith Aizenman, NPR

Talking publicly about women's menstruation has long been a taboo. But in 2016 the world made big strides getting over the squeamishness. There was the Chinese swimmer at the Rio Olympics who had no qualms explaining that she was on her period after she finished a race grimacing in pain. Some medical students in India launched a "haiku" contest on menstruation. New York joined the growing number of states that have ended taxation of tampons and sanitary pads. The new openness has also sparked a widening conversation about how menstruation might affect girls in poor countries — their health, their confidence, even their education. Marni Sommer, a professor at Columbia University, was among the first social science researchers to look into this topic — and, for a while, one of the only ones. "When I started doing this in 2004 it was a pretty lonely world," she says. But not anymore. The work that she and other pioneers have done suggested that girls are having difficulty managing their periods — and it could be harming their education. And that has helped spur a groundswell of interest from girls' advocates, policymakers and researchers.

 

Access, Assessment, and Advancement

 

Nation's schools get middling grade on quality counts report card

Sterling C. Lloyd and Alex Harwin

As a new political and policy era dawns in Washington, the status of the nation’s schools remains stable, though still earning a grade of C from Quality Counts 2017, the 21st annual report card issued by the Education Week Research Center. The C corresponds to a score of 74.2, which is nearly identical to the 74.4 the nation posted in 2016, when it also received a C. The steadiness of national results, notwithstanding, a handful of states saw their scores increase or decline by a full point or more. Quality Counts

 grades the states and the nation on educational performance across a range of key indicators, issuing overall A-F grades based on a traditional 100-point scale. The overall grade is based on three custom indices developed by the Research Center: 1) The Chance-for-Success Index uses a cradle-to-career perspective to examine the role of education in promoting positive outcomes throughout an individual’s lifetime. 2) The school finance analysis evaluates spending on education and equity in funding across districts within a state. 3) The K-12 Achievement Index, last updated in 2016, scores states on current academic performance, change over time, and poverty-based gaps.

 

Number of college courses taught in high schools increasing statewide

Fermin Leal, EdSource

This spring, juniors and seniors at Redlands Unified School District in San Bernardino County will take community college courses at their high schools, including engineering, sociology, business administration and music appreciation. The courses, offered at no cost to students at Redlands High, Citrus Valley High and East Valley High, will allow students to earn college credits while in high school that they can transfer to most colleges and universities, including all University of California, California State University and state community college campuses. “These courses offer our high school students the opportunity to get a jump-start on their college education,” said Stephanie Lock, the district’s assistant principal on special projects – college and career pathways. “For some kids who might not be thinking of college right away, this will get them to the next level.” Redlands Unified is among the rapidly growing number of school districts in California offering dual, or concurrent, enrollment programs, which allow high school students to take college courses during the school day.

 

Freshman applications to UC San Diego at record high

Gary Warth, The San Diegon Union-Tribune

Freshman applications to UC San Diego are at an all-time, with 88,451 students vying to enroll in fall 2017. The applications mark a five percent increase from last year. UC San Diego had the second highest number of applicants among all University of California campuses. UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla credited the school’s reputation for attracting the record applicants. “UC San Diego’s continued increase in applications is a testament to the university’s excellence in research and education, and our efforts to enhance the student experience,” Khosla said. “We are proud to attract top scholars who will contribute to the vibrancy and diversity of UC San Diego’s community.”

 

Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

New guidance outlines civil rights protections for students with disabilities

Christina Samuels, Education Week

During the Obama administration, the U.S. Department of Education's office for civil rights has taken an activist stance on civil rights enforcement, especially when it comes to students with disabilities. And as the clock winds down on this presidency, the Education Department is continuing its efforts though the release Wednesday of three new guidance documents for schools. The first document is a parent and educator resource guide on Section 504. Section 504 refers to a portion of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibits discrimination by recipients of federal money, which includes public schools as well as charter schools.

 

Disparity in Maryland’s public higher education goes on trial

Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, The Washington Post

Inequality in Maryland’s higher education system will take center stage next week in a trial to resolve a decade-old lawsuit over the lack of investment in the state’s historically black colleges and universities. A coalition of alumni from Maryland’s four historically black institutions have been locked in litigation with the state since 2006, aiming to dismantle what they say are the vestiges of racial segregation. The group says Maryland has underfunded its HBCUs and allowed other state schools to duplicate their programs, placing pressure on enrollment. Federal Judge Catherine C. Blake recommended mediation in 2013 to redress what she called a “shameful history of de jure segregation” at Morgan State University, Coppin State University, Bowie State University and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. Yet the coalition and the state could not reach an agreement.

 

Most computer science majors in the U.S. are men. Not so at Harvey Mudd

Rosanna Xia, Los Angeles Times

Veronica Rivera signed up for the introduction to computer science class at Harvey Mudd College mostly because she had no choice: It was mandatory. Programming was intimidating and not for her, she thought. She expected the class to be full of guys who loved video games and grew up obsessing over how they were made. There were plenty of those guys but, to her surprise, she found the class fascinating. She learned how to program a computer to play “Connect Four” and wrote algorithms that could recognize lines of Shakespeare and generate new text with similar sentence patterns. When that first class ended, she signed up for the next level, then another and eventually declared a joint major of computer science and math. Cheering her on were professors who had set out to show her that women belonged in computer science just as much as men did.

 

Public Schools and Private $

Why Michigan doesn't have school vouchers and probably never will

Arianna Prothero, Education Week

With President-elect Donald Trump's selection of Michigan billionaire Betsy DeVos to head up the U.S. Department of Education in his administration, there's been a lot of focus on school choice in Michigan. The DeVoses have been influential advocates and philanthropic supporters of school choice policies in their home state and beyond—helping launch and shape Michigan's charter school sector over the last two decades. But the DeVoses are also big proponents of school vouchers, which allow students to use public money to attend a private school. So if the DeVoses have been so successful in influencing charter school policy in the state, why doesn't Michigan have a single voucher program? The answer has to do with something in the state's constitution called a Blaine Amendment.

 

County board overrules LAUSD to keep the embattled Magnolia charter schools open

Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times

A little-known county board overruled its own staff and the powerful Los Angeles Unified School District this week to allow three embattled charter schools to remain open. The reprieve represents a full turnabout for Magnolia Public Schools, which faced the shutdown of its campuses after L.A. Unified moved against them in October. The L.A. Unified board voted 6 to 0 to shutter the schools at the end of the current school year. But the charter group had the option of appealing to the board of the L.A. County Office of Education, and that body reached a different decision Tuesday, by a 4-1 vote, after three hours of testimony and discussion.

 

State Board of Education hears report detailing declining count of low-income charter students

Billy Ball, The Progressive Pulse

As we reported at Policy Watch Tuesday, a new state reports shows the percentage of North Carolina charter students classified as low-income is on the decline, exacerbating a significant gap between traditional public schools and their charter counterparts. According to the draft state report, more than 50 percent of the students served by traditional public schools would be categorized as “economically disadvantaged.” But charters count less than 30 percent of their student body as low-income, a share that has dropped every year since 2012.

 

Other News of Note

 

A guide to rebuilding the Democratic Party, from the ground up

Theda Skocpol, Vox.com
For 2016, Democrats put all their chips on a bet that demographic destiny would sweep Hillary Clinton into the White House on the backs of the “rising” Obama coalition of young, minority, and female voters. This gamble came up just short — in a narrow Electoral College loss with huge consequences for the country.  Now partisans and pundits alike are debating the “crisis of the Democratic Party.” Such stocktaking would have been needed in any event. Since the heady days of 2008, Democratic elected officeholding has plunged in all but coastal liberal states plus a few islands of blue in the center of the country. In addition to facing full GOP control in Washington, Democrats currently hold only 18 of 50 governorships and 31 out of 99 state legislative chambers.

 

Putting the public back in public education—from protest to public-making

Harry C. Boyte, Education Week

Dear Deb and Colleagues, Greetings in a consequential New Year. I see possibilities amidst the dangers. As I've said before, I appreciate your experiments in Central Park East and Mission Hill schools in democratic decision making. We can learn a lot from them. We can learn from other kinds of stories as well. These include examples when the “so what?” habit of mind you taught in your schools has been taken to scale, and publics became involved in thinking about and taking action on the purpose of education. David Mathews, president of the Kettering Foundation likes to call it, “the public in public education.” I'm eager to identify such stories, draw others in, and begin collective harvesting of experiences as prelude to and background for effective action. Today Diane Ravitch and others are “sounding the alarm” about the Trump team's drive to privatize education, which threatens to further marginalize public purposes.  But sounding alarms only works when publics exist to take action. Otherwise alarms are ineffective protests.

 

 

 

Just News from Center X is produced weekly by Leah Bueso, Anthony Berryman, Beth Happel, and John Rogers. Generous support from the Stuart Foundation allows Center X to provide this service free to the general public.

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