Please look below the PURE article for new posts!


Diane Ravitch lecture

September 16 at 6:00pmTemple Sinai in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

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PARENTS IN BALTIMORE SHOULD VISIT THIS CHICAGO GROUP AND CONSIDER ORGANIZING YOUR OWN GROUP!


**Join PURE News for e-mail news and updates.

**PARENTS! Need help with special education problems? PURE's Wanda Hopkins is the expert you want on your side. Contact her for details: 773-663-5420 or wjhoppo4@yahoo.com.

**On ESEA:

Parents Across America position paper on ESEA reauthorization.

Chicago School Reform: Lessons for the Nation - Monty Neill and Julie Woestehoff, 2007. Download here.

Failures of Arne Duncan's Renaissance 2010: Research summary by Dr. Pauline Lipman.

**On High-Stakes Testing:

Since 1996, Chicago has flunked tens of thousands of students. The policy doesn't work, harms students, increases the drop out rate, and costs over $100 million per year. Read more here.

Read PURE's 2010 Office for Civil Rights complaint against CPS's high-stakes testing and retention policy here.

**On School Privatization/Charters:

Read about the accountability problems PURE uncovered in Chicago's charter and turnaround schools: Our report.

**Parents are Powerful! PURE's How-To Books (giant files!):

The Power of Parent Participation: How to Create a Powerful Parent Organization

Chicago Parents' Fair Testing Campaign: How Parents Used Multiple Strategies to Force Change in the CPS Student Testing Policy

**Here's What Works!

What Works in Schools, PURE style.

Research shows that LSCs are more effective than turnarounds! LSCs work!

What are Local School Councils? Fact sheet.
LSC Basics Lesson 1.
LSC Basics Lesson 2.
About the PURE Thoughts blogger
Julie Woestehoff is PURE's executive director. Julie's work has earned her a Ford Foundation award and recognition as one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in Chicago.

- See more at: http://pureparents.org/?p=21278#sthash.wV4DmzgZ.dpuf
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Indeed, all these schools in Baltimore receiving extra funding pretend they are using it to upgrade underserved schools and are open for underserved students---but everyone knows underserved students will not meet these Race to the Top requirements and will fail out of the system.  That is how you clear families from communities--give no opportunity for education.  We do want to raise achievement for our underserved students who have had an underfunded and resourced system for decades....but failing them out of the best schools===is not the answer.  Please do  not give up on politics.....we simply have to run candidates who have the intregrity not to sell out!  All the politicians you named knew the goal was displacing these low-achieving students.  The schools that they will attend----very poor, vocationally tracked schools.  This is a violation of equal opportunity/access education but sadly even the Maryland ACLU and NAACP which should have fought this education reform is actually part of implementing it!

From a friend:

This is how the Leadership at MICA feel about the Black children in Baltimore Design School! Wake up! Gotdammit!!! I trusted Councilman Carl Stokes, and Joan Carter - Conway....COUNCILMAN MOSBY seemed sweet...BUT, WHY ARE PEOPLE WHO SUPPOSEDLY HAVE A BURNING PASSION FOR EDUCATION TURN A BLIND EYE TO CRIMINAL ACTS AGAINST CHILDREN! Imagine...YOU WORK HARD, ABSENT OR NOT YOU DO ALL WORK, JUMP AT PROJECT, TUTOR YOUR PEERS YET...YOUR GRADES ARE HIGH...YET A DEMONIC TEACHER GUIDED BY TISHA EDWARDS/ANDRES ALONSO, STEAL YOUR FUTURE FOR FEDERAL FUNDS.

Look...THE NINTH GRADERS BEING ROBBED AND FAILED ARE GOING TO REPEAT THE GRADE! That is ROBBERY!!! Not one person I NAMED WILL DEMAND THAT THE DISTRICT INVESTIGATE...BECAUSE THEY KNOW IT IS GOING ON!

Clearly, SOME MISCOMMUNICATION IS GOING ON! Criminals lie when they are caught! Go to the school HOLD AN ASSEMBLY ONE GRADE AT A TIME AND INQUIRE WHO CAME TO BDS WITH HIGH GRADES AND WATCHED EACH QUARTER THEIR GRADE DROP NOT BECAUSE YOUR DESERVE IT...BECAUSE THE DISTRICT NEEDS THE LOW ACADEMIC NUMBERS TO OBTAIN FEDERAL FUNDS! That is a CRIME!!!!

These NAMES ABOVE HAVE BEN INFORMED, AND THEY CAN DO SOMETHING....CALL THE WHITE HOUSE AND DEMAND A FEDERAL INVESTIGATION!

This ENTIRE CITY IS CORRUPT. WHY BOTHER TO VOTE FOR ANYONE? You vote BLACK...CORRUPT...YOU VOTE WHITE...BIGOTRY! Lose LOSE situation!

I pray that EVERY SINGLE POLITICIAN EXPERIENCE TEN TIMES THE WICKED TREATMENT OUR CHILDREN ARE RECEIVING AS THEY ALLLLLLLL TURN A BLIND EYE, AND ACT LIKE I AM THE PROBLEM! If you wanted us gone WOULDN'T it make more sense to LEAVE THE ADVOCATES CHILD OUT OF YOUR CRIMINAL ACTS!?

REMEMBER ALL OF YOU CRIMINALS HAND TIED, AND AFRAID THE EXPOSURE IS COMING TO YOUR DOOR....REMEMBERRRRR....I HAD NO IDEA ABOUT GRANT THEFT, GRADE THEFT, POOR EDUCATION UNTIL THEY EXPOSED MY DAUGHTER!

Be angry at DENISE BUTTS FROM EDISON LEARNING, MONTEBELLO EX PRINCIPAL, BLAME TISHA EDWARDS FOR BEING EMOTIONAL AND A BULLY, IGNORING THE RETALIATION! Blame JOAN CARTER CONWAY, AND CATHERINE PUGH FOR ALLOWING ALL OF THIS EVIL TO GO ON UNDER THEIR VERY NOSES!

Blame YOURSELVES BECAUSE WHERE I COME FROM...WE DO NOT ALLOW ANYONE TO HURT OUR CHILDREN!!! Where I COME FROM...WE STAND UP!

Anyone who fears this machine HURTING OUR CHILDREN...SWITCH GEARS AND TRUST GOD! Surely, someone on THE MISSING AIR PLANE...THOUGHT THEY WERE TOO POWERFUL TO FALL....SURELY THE MILLIONAIRES ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER ON 9/11 FELT THEY WERE TOO POWERFUL TO PARISH ON THAT FATEFUL DAY! God...IS MORE POWERFUL THAN A DOUBLE EDGE SWORD...WHEN THEY ATTACKED MY CHILD...I MADE ENEMIES...NO SENSE IN WORRYING NOW!

I have not reported the CORRUPT ATTORNEY AMANDA COSTLY, UNTIL TODAY! I have not begun CALLING FOR A FEDERAL INVESTIGATION UNTIL THIS PAST WEEK...I HAVE BEEN MORE THAN PATIENT WITH THESE CRIMINALS!

Harriet Tubman, was a wanted THEIF FOR STEALING SLAVE CARGO, WHICH WAS FREEING SLAVES...I AM MAKING ENEMIES BECAUSE I am suppose to humbly request that THE CRIMINAL TEACHERS DO THE RIGHT THING, I AM SUPPOSE TO UNDERSTAND THAT ASS KISSING IS WHAT WILL HELP??? Wrong, THERE ARE ASS KISSING PARENTS STANDING IN THE OFFICE THREATENING LEAGAL ACTION...SOME KNOW SENATOR PUGH... THIS IS HARDENED ,CRIMINAL ACTIVITY, AND MY DAUGHTER DESERVES BETTER!!!

So instead of feeling angry at ME...know...THE SYSTEM BROUGHT THIS MOMMA WRATH UPON THEMSELVES!!!

EVEN WHEN YOUR HANDS ARE TIED YOU CAN GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUR CHILDREN!! The PEOPLE TRUSTED YOU POLITICIANS!


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I encourage all Maryland and Baltimore parents and students to ask this Loyola study in Chicago to look at our state as there will be no assessment here!


Please share this testing survey with 5th-6th grade parents/students

PLEASE SHARE THIS IMPORTANT SURVEY WITH CPS 5th and 6th grade PARENTS AND STUDENTS!

Deadline April 23.

Dear Parent or Guardian,

I am conducting a research study entitled “High-Stakes Testing: The Student Voice” with 5th and 6th grade student in the Chicago Area. We are interested in examining the student perspective of high-stakes standardized tests. Ultimately, my hope is to learn if students feel that high-stakes testing affects them emotionally or academically. We are requesting that you allow your child to participate.

Participants in the study will be asked to complete an online survey which consists of 45 questions. Afterwards, 10-25% of the students will be selected to participate in a one-on-one interview. The total time to participate in the study will be approximately two hours. Students who participate will complete the survey online.

There are no foreseeable risks to participating in the study.

Names will be used in filling out the study’s forms, but all responses will be anonymous. No one at the school will have access to any of the information collected. Surveys will be kept on Loyola University server and will be accessible only to the researchers.

Participation in the study is entirely voluntary and there will be no penalty for not participating. All students for whom we have parent consent will be asked if they wish to participate and only those who agree will complete the forms. Moreover, participants will be free to stop taking part in the study at any time.

Loyola University Chicago’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) has approved this study. Should you have any questions about the study please contact Dr. Noah Sobe at (312) 915-6954 or, if you have questions about your rights as a research participant, you can contact the Loyola University Office of Research Services at (773) 508-2689.

Confidentiality will be maintained to the degree permitted by the technology used. Your participation in this online survey involves risks similar to a person’s everyday use of the Internet.

Please print this letter for your records.

Sincerely,
Julianna Cechowski
Culture of Education and Policy Studies
Loyola University Chicago


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Blog about Baltimore Education Coalition's Education Governor's Forum:

We need to ask ourselves as Baltimore residents why is this one education group, Baltimore Education Coalition BEC the only voice allowed in almost all the discussion on education in Baltimore. Even during Baltimore's city-wide public forums on closing schools and funding schools building, BEC sent someone to sign in all of their associated groups before anyone else arrives leaving the first half of the process fully all their spokespeople talking about their issues. Parents who are left out of this debate at every turn are left to the end of the forum talking to an emptying room.

It happens all the time. Baltimore Sun quotes the BEC, WYPR and Marc Steiner has this group time and again asking the questions. That is the key. WHO ASKS THE QUESTIONS CHOOSE THE ISSUES THEY WANT AIRED. Politics in Maryland is so crony and captured and media provides no free speech or free press because of this closed system of voices.

Who is BEC? It is a group of private non-profits working together to promote privatization of public education and using the schools as development tools ----it is a group supporting education policy advanced by Johns Hopkins -----Arne Duncan and Bill Gates seeing schools as businesses, seeing vocational tracking and testing, Teach for America and VISTA in the classrooms as viable education structures. They represent what schools and parents across America are fighting very strongly. In Baltimore, the citizens have no voice in shouting against these policies either within this group or in public forums. Across Maryland you see similar attempts to fight it silenced. Even the teacher's unions fearful of retaliation against rights have finally come forward to slow the reforms organizations like BEC push in Baltimore schools. They don't support this you say? Do you ever hear them advance any questions in this regard? NO.

I went to BEC to join the group and I was asked to leave. I needed to be invited to be a member of this group and my stance on charters, Teach for America, and school privatization simply did not fit. I was of course not asked to be part of this Governor's Forum even as I am the candidate from Baltimore, with the most experience in education academically and in the classroom and would have given policy stances that were fresh and real and different from the corporate written stance of BEC and the 3 candidates for governor invited.

For those in the city who want to see charters used to segregate and gentrify I need to shout to you that the goal of education reform in Baltimore is building a private structure for K-12 funded by corporate donations and tied to corporate vocational training. These schools will be primarily online lessons with the classroom teacher replaced by education techs that simply move from one online lesson to another. This will not happen only to underserved schools as is happening now....it will be expanded across the state and include middle-class public schools as well. See what people are shouting against all across the country?

So, citizens of Baltimore are being caught in what for some is an attractive gentrification policy without knowing what the goal of all this school privatization will be. Wall Street already has its model for this privatized charter school market that will earn billions for the same people owing billions to the State of Maryland for fraud. Tracking children from pre-school to college in a vocational track decided by the results of tests in pre-school. They are already doing this in Baltimore. Parents will be left out of where their child will attend and what vocational track. See why BEC doesn't want anyone else asking questions? It is a disaster of a policy. Funding for pre-school is great but when you are dealing with education privatizers, that funding will go towards building structures for data collection just as all the funding spent on education in Maryland during O'Malley/Brown has been to consultants and education businesses corporatizing our universities and now building testing, evaluation and the Common Core curricula. Don't worry they say Common Core is just a guideline and will not capture content....only Rupert Murdoch lessons are already in Baltimore classrooms. If you look at the billions of dollars spent in making Baltimore City schools businesses you could have easily rebuilt all schools.

Remember, the only thing wrong with achievement is lack of funding, resources, and an education reform in Reagan/Clinton terms that took a #1 ranked education in the world and left us with children not able to read and write. This Reagan education reform was written by the same Ivy League schools; Stanford, Princeton, Harvard as is writing this reform. The reform in Reagan's term took textbooks out of the classroom, lose the rigor and accountability and told teachers to use calculators in math classes because people were not going to have to calculate manually anymore. I quote this as a teacher graduating from education school at the time this was happening. So, students cannot read or do math ----couldn't see that coming could they? So, we know why children haven't achieved these few decades and it has little to do with teachers or children. Placing texts back into schools and taking the calculators away will reverse much of the problem. Rigor and accountability existed in the 1950s-1970s....with no Wall Street education business development. This is ridiculous, it wastes money, it places the teachers in positions no one wants, and it places undo stress on children. One of the primary tenets of teaching and education is creating an environment to learn. These policies dismantle all of this. What makes it equally frustrating is that none of the data collected will be able to assess. There are too many variables in every school and community to standardize these data and all across the country parents, teachers, and students are saying these policies are of no use. What they will be used for is selling of data and for tracking children through schools.

Funding for education will soar when we stop spending all education funds on private education businesses, consultants, and corporatizing university campuses. Funding will soar when all the sources for education funding.....property taxes/gambling.....are collected and not allowed to be avoided. Baltimore and Maryland is moving full speed toward ending all property tax for corporations. Brown/O'Malley have leveraged and TIFed, and credit-bonded the state into a revenue crisis in the near future. A tax shelter for corporations called REIT has itself eliminated much property tax. All of Enterprise Zones are sheltered from tax. So, this is the problem in Baltimore with funding schools and school buildings. Did you know that O'Malley/Brown sold the issue of gambling as revenue for schools ----over 60% going to the state for education for slots. Fast forward today and most of the gambling revenue is from table games at around 20% and then that revenue is tied to the communities around the casinos. See the pattern in all of the school funding revenue sources? They are all a myth. A candidate like Cindy Walsh will talk about it and do something about it----see why I am not one of the people given a voice in Baltimore on education?

Indeed, the citizens of Maryland have so much money coming back to them from the financial frauds of last decade to build all Baltimore schools and fund much of K-college for years. Simply rebuilding the white collar criminal agencies in Maryland will stop fraud and corruption causing revenue losses in the billions each year. So, if you vote for Gansler, Brown, and Mizeur who will not even speak of this...you will not get any school funding. Did you know Mike Miller in the Maryland Senate made a statement that he intends to stop state funding of schools? See the privatization connection to which I spoke earlier. The intent is to have schools tied to corporations which, because they are not paying taxes will simply make schools part of their business operations. You see that in Baltimore right now. Can you imagine if Johns Hopkins corporation paid taxes on its business empire rather than sponsoring all of these charters having health care as an elementary -college theme for example. Indeed, in Baltimore charter schools are allowed private funding having corporate donations and private donors giving one school tons of money while other schools can barely pay for toilet paper. You know, that equal opportunity and access to education right out the window. Tiered funding in Baltimore has the underserved and special needs children literally warehoused in schools where teachers are overwhelmed and unable to give the attention needed to both of these groups needing the most attention. Talk about winners and losers in Baltimore! It isn't even Constitutional and it happens because corporations do not pay taxes and because property taxes are not allocated properly. See why I never get to talk.

Sadly, all of what I am saying is true. Let's look at what O'Malley/Brown and their appointed school board....which by the way looks just like the BEC----charter schools, Teach for America, business people, and very few education people have done with tiered funding, schools as businesses, and closing community schools for reasons of development. If you live in an Enterprise Zone you will have that billion dollar school building leverage deal giving you new schools. Remember, this deal ties schools to Wall Street and makes lots of money for the 'stakeholders'. Meanwhile, we are waiting to receive from Wall Street billions of dollars in fraud from the last leverage deals made with them. So, do we collect fraud to pay for the schools, or do we allow Wall Street to get more public money from what will be really, really, really bad school building leverage deals. What happens with schools tied to these deals when the economy crashes? That's right...municipal default. Whooops. Private investors own our schools. See the privatizing theme? I have documented and shared this with City Hall and School Board, to Attorney General Gansler and all of Maryland media. So, let them know this when they say---we didn't see that economic crash coming!

So, lot's of education money and actual school buildings being lost in all these Wall Street leveraging school deals that all the candidates are ready to continue.

What about quality teachers for Baltimore schools? Well, cuts for teachers, followed by stagnant wages for a few years, but wait....a 1% increase and renegotiated pensions because O'Malley/Brown threw teachers pensions to localities to balance state budgets. Is that commitment to education? Don't worry. The plan is not to have teachers but Teach for America/VISTAs passing through schools. Now, use the and lose them is the motto here and Baltimore schools are suffering under these policies. The people being placed into schools in this capacity hate it, the students hate it, the parents hate it yet Baltimore is ground zero for the Michelle Rhee nightmare. It is not only the underserved schools having to deal with this....it is what education privatizers see as an instruction model for goodness sake because after all, students will simply be using online lessons and will not need strong teachers in the classroom. See why BEC and Baltimore media will not allow me to speak?

I could go on-----the education data is skewed and often found inaccurate. Administrators pressured to provide numbers that no one could. In Baltimore, we even see principals 'donating' thousands of dollars of their own money to support their schools because corporations do not pay taxes.

What is important for all citizens of Maryland is that Baltimore is considered a template for school business models that end public education. Whether you are republican and conservative and like charters----these will not be your friendly neighborhood charters....they will be national charter chains-----or from middle-class Baltimore County, this privatized school structure is coming to your neck of the woods. See why the Maryland State Education and Baltimore City education will not give a voice to parents on something as important as education----it is all written by Bill Gates and Wall Street and neo-liberals are determined to roll it out!

See what issues are important to the Maryland public? See how you will never hear this from simple questions like 'how will you make sure funding is equal for everyone'. It is disappointing to have public media as captured as corporate media and the level of orchestration on education discussion is amazing in Maryland. Needless to say, Gansler, Brown, and Mizeur did not mention any of this and that is why they are given media attention....they are neo-liberals ready to move these policies forward.

Please check my website...Citizens Oversight Maryland.com for more education issues and policies. Please take time to listen to parents and communities all across the country fighting this reforms and urban centers facing the brunt of it since they are the platform for this privatized structure. These privatized policies will affect 90% of families and children. Only 10% of children need access to liberal arts/humanities based democratic education say these Race to the Top education reforming- neo-liberals!




Detroit Teachers Can Win if We Take Back Our Union Now!  It’s Time for the        DFT to Act Like a Union Again, and Not an Arm of the Administration! Vote EON/BAMN Slate for the DFT Delegates to the     2014 AFT National and State Teachers’ Union Conventions Ballots should arrive at your home, and are due by Mach 28   ¨     

Elect Leaders Who Will Fight Proudly and Aggressively for Pay Raises, Smaller Class Sizes, and an End to the Scapegoating and Mistreatment of Teachers! ¨      Elect Leaders Who Will Fight the Politicians’ Phony Education Reform Agenda and Emergency Manager Dictatorships Whose Real Goal is to Liquidate Public Schools and Public Services, and Implement a New Era of Jim Crow Inequality! ¨      Equal, Quality Education for the Young People of Detroit!  Build the New Civil Rights and Immigrant Rights Movement!  Fight for Dr. King’s Vision for America!   This election presents Detroit teachers with a huge new opportunity. We can elect Steve Conn and the other rising new leaders of the EON/ BAMN slate, and begin the process of turning things around in the DFT and DPS. Or we can let Keith Johnson and his UTR group continue to destroy our union, allowing our enemies to take back decades of Detroit teacher victories. There is absolutely no going forward in pay or job security or teaching conditions until we resolve the problem of leadership in the DFT.  Keeping Johnson, VP Edna Reaves and their team would leave us utterly defenseless against the next wave of paycuts, class size hikes, layoffs, school closings, etc. Again and again, Steve Conn and EON/BAMN have proved their worth as leaders, most recently in the fights to save Catherine Ferguson Academy and Day School for the Deaf, and the fight at the US Supreme Court to overturn the racist ban on university affirmative action programs in Michigan. Your ballot should arrive at your home in late March.   Remember to Vote EON / BAMN and return it.   And tell everyone in your school and any other DFT members you know to do the same.   As Detroit teachers, we have so much to be proud of. We work extremely hard, every day, on jobs which are essential to the future of our society.  Why shouldn’t we have a union leadership that believes in us, and will proudly speak out for us and represent us at every juncture? The people of Detroit – and most importantly the youth – are ready to give all-out support to any union or political force willing to take on the pitiful conditions in the schools, the relentless destruction of living standards, and the inequality and segregation that are rapidly expanding throughout America. The growing wave of opposition to the EAA testifies to the fact that the overwhelming majority of the people of Michigan support public education.  In spite of all the anti-public education propaganda by the politicians and media, people do not want their schools shut down or replaced by charter schools. The EAA is championed by Snyder, but teachers should never forget that the EAA was initiated by the Democrats and has always been a bipartisan project.  Thus once again, we see the bankruptcy of the teachers unions’ political strategy of tying themselves to “friendly” Democrat and Republican politicians. But we cannot win this fight in Detroit alone.  The problems we face are national; they require a national solution. That’s what makes your vote for the EON / BAMN slate in this election especially important!  If elected to represent you at the upcoming conventions, the candidates of the EON / BAMN slate will be able to organize the thousands of others delegates to join this struggle – delegates from  New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and countless other cities and towns throughout the country. It is time for Detroit to lead the nation again in building a national movement for civil rights and equality.  You can play an important role in this effort by casting your vote in the upcoming elections for the EON / BAMN slate, and organizing others at your school to do the same! Equal Opportunity Now By Any Means Necessary ============= EON/BAMN   Steve Conn Myra Akpabio Bea Carter Charles Thomas Beattie Asenath Richmond David T. Brennan Ucal P. Finley Angela Johnson Derrick Marable Patricia McCoin Leslee Przgodski Mark Davis Greg Dunmore April Chambers Eti Umana Joseph Arfre Chrystal Cannon Barbara Selley Leah Paukovits Alvera Smith March 19, 2014 

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Iris Kirsch

Attention Baltimore teachers, students, parents, and all those concerned about public ed in this town: City Schools teachers and staff will, next Thursday, be called upon to sign a new version of our merit pay contract. WE MUST VOTE NO! The negotiations have been completely opaque. The merit pay system is hurting students and driving good teachers out. Let's take our time to find the right solution, and not be forced to jump up in one week and sign a contract we were only made privy to today. Please contact me if you'd like to help spread the word.
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Thanks to the AFT for getting in the stop privatization protest.  Please shout out in Maryland as Baltimore is building a template for the state!

Check out Cashing in on Kids, and help us
spread the word by sharing with
your social networks.

American Federation of TEachers


For-profit charter schools that operate in the dark without
basic public transparency and without strong public control too often put their
bottom line ahead of the public interest and high-quality public
education.

  Is the rapid expansion of charter schools about helping kids
learn or about enabling for-profit operators to rake in millions in tax
dollars?

Find out.

So, last week, in partnersh...ip with In the Public Interest, the AFT launched the
website Cashing in on Kids—a one-stop shop for the facts about for-profit
education in America.

While we are working to reclaim the promise of
public education, these for-profit charters are cashing in on kids. Help us call
them out.

The site profiles five for-profit charter school operators:
K12 Inc., Imagine Schools, White Hat Management, Academica and Charter Schools
USA. It identifies several issues that need to be addressed in charter school
policy, including public control, equity, transparency and accountability, and
it analyzes the impact of profit-taking and privatization in charter schools,
where student results are mixed and mismanagement is widespread.

Curious
to see how Jeb Bush’s friends are cashing in on kids? Check it out.

We
built this site because we want parents, educators and policymakers to be better
informed about the impact of profit, money and private interests in education,
particularly charter schools.

Check out Cashing in on Kids, and help us
spread the word by sharing with your social networks.

In unity,

Randi Weingarten
AFT President

P.S. Don’t forget to “like” Cashing
in on Kids on Facebook and to follow it on Twitter.

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If the goal is providing the cheapest education for placing the majority of people in low-wage jobs......then how can community colleges as job training be anything other then a trap for low-paying jobs?  How many students finish these certificate programs and go on to higher education as they pretend will happen?  ALMOST NONE!  THE MONEY IS NOT THERE FOR THEM TO DO IT BECAUSE ALL THE MONEY GOES TO PAY FOR JOB TRAINING.

Chicago ‘Reinvents’ Community College The city is retooling its community colleges to graduate more students ready for the workforce. Some worry the changes aren't focused on finding graduates the best kind of jobs.

by Chris Kardish | March 2014 
GOVERNING

Gabriel Barrington, a student at one of Chicago's community colleges, is seeking a bachelor's degree in manufacturing technology. Ana Vargas 58  70  1  10  0         Gabriel Barrington is positioning a small piece of metal onto an engine lathe in the shop room at Richard J. Daley College on Chicago’s South Side. The room is the size of an airplane hangar, but with the raw industrial trappings of a place devoted to fashioning metal into useful things. After demonstrating how the engine lathe allows him to narrow the diameter of the metal bit, Barrington explains he’s back in school to rack up manufacturing certifications and credit hours for an eventual transfer to the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he’d like to earn a bachelor’s degree in manufacturing technology.

A 27-year-old resident of the city’s mostly black Bronzeville neighborhood, Barrington had been working as an uncertified welder—not illegal, but not lucrative—when he read a newspaper story about major changes at Chicago’s seven city colleges (the local version of community colleges). The changes at City Colleges of Chicago are meant to tailor programs to the skills that employers demand. The story got Barrington’s attention because he wanted to learn complex machining in ways that his existing job didn’t permit. “As a welder,” he says, “you see the stuff that comes off the machines and think, ‘Wow, I’d rather be a part of that.’ There’s just such a wealth of materials and possibility.”

Barrington is a City Colleges dream student. The certifications he’d like to get under his belt—welding, blueprinting and the science of measurement—could offer him a better full-time job than he had when he entered, and if he completes that bachelor’s degree, he’s all but guaranteed higher lifetime earnings.

After taking a hard look over the past several years at why its City Colleges students weren’t graduating in sufficient numbers or attracting the attention of employers, Chicago decided to make big changes. Today it’s in the midst of an overhaul that aims to get more certifications and diplomas in the hands of students like Barrington. The initiative seeks to make the two-year city college curriculum more economically relevant and ease the path to completion through direct business input on curriculum, maps for students that show the most efficient way to reach their destination and new scheduling that allows students to enter the workforce while they are still studying. The ideas aren’t necessarily new; a small number of institutions across the country have tried them. But Chicago is a seven-college system of 115,000 students, and it’s experimenting with a broad range of strategies in an ambitious effort to plug gaps in the region’s workforce needs for years to come.

What city and college officials have called “reinvention” is focused in large part on increasing the rate of transfers to bachelor’s degree programs and the number of those earning other post-secondary credentials in fields where jobs are plentiful and wages are good. It’s that latter goal that some faculty members have challenged, arguing that City Colleges has become too focused on churning out certifications for jobs of limited opportunity. But college officials are equally adamant that nothing in the reforms stymies student choices—if anything, they say, those choices are now more informed and better guided.

So far, there is reason for optimism: The graduation rate has nearly doubled at the seven campuses since the overhaul began in 2010, the number of degrees awarded has climbed significantly and City Colleges has attracted the attention of the World Bank, which thinks its new model can be replicated elsewhere around the world. But the ultimate impact of the changes won’t be known for years—until it’s possible to see how many students reach the goals envisioned.

City Colleges’ makeover got its start in 2010, when then-Mayor Richard M. Daley signaled a serious overhaul by installing new leaders from the private sector and giving them two years to develop a plan that would “reinvent the system from top to bottom.” He recommended Martin Cabrera, a 39-year-old financier and founder of an investment bank, as the new chairman of the board of trustees. To run the sprawling system as chancellor, Daley brought on Cheryl Hyman, an executive at the electric utility ComEd. A native of Chicago’s West Side, Hyman is the perfect choice in many ways. She is a high school dropout who later graduated from City Colleges’ own Olive-Harvey College in 1993. She turned her associate degree into a bachelor’s in computer science at the Illinois Institute of Technology and climbed the ranks at ComEd while picking up two master’s degrees, including an MBA from Northwestern University.

She convened groups of faculty, staff, community leaders and outside experts to diagnose the City Colleges’ problems and offer solutions from within the state and around the country. She found that her system’s problems weren’t unique, but they ran deep: Just 7 percent of first-time students attending full time were completing a certificate or degree within two or three years, about three times below the national rate for similar institutions. About 80 percent of programs were graduating fewer than 45 people per entering class, and those programs weren’t tied to actual need in the regional economy. Some 54 percent of degree-seeking students were quitting in their first six months.

To Hyman, it was clear that the City Colleges honored the hallowed community college principle of providing access to all, but they weren’t using the vast information at their disposal to track and improve outcomes for all. “My goal became bigger than just City Colleges of Chicago: My goal became how can I shift the paradigm of community colleges nationally? How can I take City Colleges as an example and create an initiative that shows us how we can couple access with success?”



Chancellor Cheryl Hyman is working with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to boost completed student certifications of "economic value." (Kalle Eko)

In 2012, newly elected Mayor Rahm Emanuel put his own stamp on the overhaul with the announcement of plans that would effectively double down on the goal of boosting completed student certifications of “economic value.” He announced a “College to Careers” program to further revamp the occupational curriculum with direct input from employers, firmer relationships on the career services side and labor-market analysis of job needs. Under College to Careers, six of the seven campuses have taken on specializations within City Colleges’ occupational programming, each in an area where there is the potential for high job growth in the next decade. More than half of City Colleges’ $520 million capital plan is going to a new campus at Malcolm X College, the system’s center for training health professionals, and a new transportation, distribution and logistics center at Olive-Harvey College, which specializes in the transportation field.

City Colleges has set several goals it plans to achieve by 2018, including seeing degrees go up 37 percent a year and certifications jump 25 percent. The system is also gunning for 55 percent of its students to transfer to four-year schools (up from 42 percent) and 71 percent of those completing occupational certifications to have jobs in their areas of study (up from 60 percent).

Borrowing from Valencia College in Orlando, Fla., an award-winning school that graduates about half of full-time students in three years, City Colleges has developed model maps for all of its programs, laying out exact sequences of courses by semester. Even before students get a map, they are asked by an adviser to choose from among 10 focus areas, such as business and professional services, health care, and information technology. Advisers also determine whether the student intends to transfer to a four-year school. Each focus area comes with lists of the certifications that can be earned on the way to an associate or bachelor’s degree, and examples of jobs at each level. A sample for health professions starts with a nurse assistant earning $9 to $12 an hour, builds to basic certifications such as medical billing that can earn up to $17 an hour, then goes into advanced certificates and associate degrees offering up to $33 an hour, and finally bachelor’s programs at a four-year school. The document even gives the number of jobs expected to be available at each level annually.

It’s the clarity of those maps and the clear connection to phased, achievable outcomes that sets Chicago apart, says Davis Jenkins, a senior researcher at Columbia University’s Community College Research Center. “That is a completely different mindset, and you don’t see that much anywhere except in a few colleges across the country.”

City Colleges is rolling out those road maps for students this semester; in the months that follow, the schools will reinforce them with new scheduling and grouping initiatives. Instead of logging in online at the end of the semester to choose whichever classes are available the next time around, students will automatically be enrolled in the course that appears next on their maps. Whole program enrollment will remain the default option, but students will be able to select individual options manually. City Colleges will also start advancing students in the same program together as one group to generate mutual support.

The whole system is built on an increasingly popular idea called “stackable credentials,” in which students are presented with new thresholds of attainment throughout their college experience (each independently qualifying the candidate for increasingly higher-paying jobs). Previously, a certificate didn’t necessarily earn credit toward an associate degree. Daley College has never in its history offered a welding certificate for college credit. Now it will not only offer the certificate, but it will also link it to the backing of accrediting organizations so that it will acquire real industrial value.

But stackable credentials haven’t conclusively proven their worth. The organization Complete College America, which advocates for many of the ideas being tried in Chicago, concluded in 2010 that there wasn’t yet any evidence that students “actually are stacking short-term certificates and building them into longer-term certificates or degree. Moreover, it is not at all clear that these short-term programs, even if they are steppingstones to career qualifications, independently offer adequate labor market returns that will pay off for students.”

That conclusion encapsulates the concerns of many in academia as well as critics within the City Colleges. They feel that students are being pushed in potentially contradictory directions. They are being given a map that envisions an associate degree and then enrollment in a four-year college. But at the same time, those students are being urged to accept the modest job opportunities that emerge as they work through the curriculum step-by-step. Critics say the students will be powerfully tempted to accept the lower-level positions and give up on the higher degrees and the brighter futures that those may offer.

“I think you’re sacrificing the long-term interests in the student and the graduate to his or her short-term interest, and I don’t think that’s smart. I think that’s limiting,” says Stanley Katz, a Princeton professor who’s written about the push for greater post-secondary training.

Hyman challenges the contention that College to Careers consigns students to bad jobs. “People like to talk about vocational training like it’s a bad word,” she says. “We’re talking about nurses, we’re talking about high-skilled manufacturers, we’re talking about people who start their own businesses. Some of our students can’t afford to wait two years until they get a good-paying job.”

Perhaps most notable in Chicago’s overhaul is the level of private-sector involvement. Companies taking a hand in molding the workforce that comes out of community colleges is common enough around the country, but the scope of what is happening in Chicago is different. The City Colleges have formal partnerships with more than 100 corporations. The companies run the gamut from local hospitals to multinational corporations, and offer direct input into curriculum and on which credentials matter.

Emanuel says he wanted to take individual partnership models he’d seen in the past to a systemwide scale. Many of the schools were ready-made for specializations. Harold Washington College, located in the downtown Loop, was already the center of business programs. Malcolm X College, the system’s health sciences school, is in the heart of Chicago’s West Side medical district. Emanuel cites a successful partnership between Dow Chemical Company and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, saying he saw no reason the same couldn’t be done at City Colleges. “[I thought] ‘Well, we’re going to do it sector-by-sector, industry-by-industry and align each with Chicago’s diversified economy,’” he says.

On the business side of City Colleges, that’s meant taking steps like creating a class focused on three Microsoft Office certifications, giving sales classes more of a focus on actually managing accounts (not just luring clients), and incorporating “soft skills” like communication and reading cues into more aspects of the curriculum. In health care, it’s meant considering an end to certificates in fields such as dialysis technology that industry partners already provide in-house, while building out programs that train community health workers in partnership with Rush University Medical Center, one of the biggest employers in Chicago. In manufacturing, it’s meant getting industry accreditations for students in welding and machining, and designing a broader manufacturing technology associate degree that allows students to specialize in one particular area. In every college it’s meant inviting industry representatives to speaking engagements, jobs fairs and stints as guest instructors. “It’s very hard to change entrenched public systems of any kind, to put a stake in the ground and say you’re really committed to it,” says Dr. Larry Goodman, Rush’s CEO. “But they’ve made it work.”




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That's what we are talking about!!!!  Thank you Chicago, they are building coalitions!

 Teachers at Rahm’s kids’ private school support ISAT opt out Announced on CTU web site:

by Maureen Schmidt – Faculty Association President, University of Chicago Laboratory Schools  |  03/11/2014

The members of the Executive Board of the Faculty Association of the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools stand in solidarity with our fellow  educators in the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois. We support the teachers who are currently boycotting the administration of the ISAT in several Chicago Public Schools, along with the parents who have decided to opt their children out of the test.

We believe that their firm stance demonstrates the need for a continued and participatory discussion about the role of standardized testing in schools today.
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THIS IS A RESPONSE TO AN ARTICLE IN THE BALTIMORE SUN THAT NEVER ONCE MENTIONED THE ISSUES BELOW EVEN AS THEY ARE THE CENTRAL CAUSES OF THIS ESCALATION OF SCHOOL CLASSROOM VIOLENCE.  AS WITH MARYLAND MEDIA THAT FOCUSES ONLY ON THE RISING CRIME AND VIOLENCE IN BALTIMORE -----NEVER IS THE 50% UNEMPLOYMENT, THE THOUSANDS OF CITIZENS LEFT HOMELESS AND FIGHTING TO FIND SHELTER, AND CUTS TO COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES THAT HAS LEFT BALTIMORE'S CHILDREN WITH IMPOSSIBLE CHALLENGES THAT ARE OF COURSE BROUGHT TO SCHOOL.  THIS IS A PUBLIC POLICY ISSUE WORSENED BY RACE TO THE TOP CORPORATIZATION OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS.  I could not copy this article and the only comment was with FACEBOOK because FACEBOOK comments will not appear as record with the newspaper.  So, this is purely being used as a further reason to segregate populations and create undemocratic policy.



First, I would like to take the information in this article to show why it was that Baltimore City teachers may not have been able to attain achievement that Alonzo claimed was a matter of 'bad teachers'. Baltimore City teachers spent much of their time with these discipline problems and they were often left by themselves to do it. We all know that some teachers are not good at instruction, but we all knew that the massive dismissal of teachers and administration by Alonzo was bad policy and should have been illegal. Next, I would like to say that the policy of Baltimore City School Board of privatizing classrooms with Teach for America and VISTA....immigrant teachers etc in lieu of teachers that lived in these school's communities WAS AS BAD AS THEY GET. A policy could not have been more anti-education than this. At-risk students need stability more than any student and someone familiar with their struggles in poverty in Baltimore City. These temporary teaching staff that come and go are the opposite of what is needed and no doubt, far more acting out by students occurs because of this policy. Teachers from the community know better how to defuse tension....perhaps get better results with action. When schools are placed on a tiered level of funding with underserved students getting less and with classrooms integrated with special needs students all with one teacher who is no doubt unable to handle it all.....THIS IS A POLICY PROBLEM THAT MAKES MATTERS WORSE. Combine that with policies that have students online and without recess as some schools do and students get bored and angry. The level of poverty in Baltimore is equal to third world countries as public policy keeps unemployment close to 50%, social service cuts, and community public centers closing all of which cause these behaviors to escalate. So, strong public policy that sends money to all communities and community-based programs that give outlets for these students outside of classrooms is a must. As I hear, underserved schools can barely buy toilet paper, have maybe one nurse and a few councilors for 300-400 students. THE PROBLEM IS WITH A SCHOOL BOARD WITH NO EDUCATORS WANTING TO MAKE A BUSINESS OF OUR SCHOOLS!


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English is doing what most unions leaders in MD do..they do what they are told to do by the MD Assembly and Governor O'Malley.  As teachers point out that is the opposite of how unions operate as it is the membership that writes these contracts.  Unions have leadership that is captured just as with all our leaders today in business and government.  This corporate capture has corrupted the process on union deals just as it has our public policy that now is made public right before a vote.  You hear in this article this is exactly what the teachers are protesting.

So, throwing a pre-written contract/legislation in front of members/citizens is what neo-liberals call democracy and union leaders call representation.

Baltimore Teacher's Union website is the most bland and silent union site in the country.  If you look at NYC, Chicago, San Francisco etc. you have blogs on these union sites with all kinds of open debate and much of it is centered on how teachers, parents, and students do not like and do not benefit from these reforms.  It is this openness to discussion that English and Balt Teacher's union is trying to quell.  When the goal of Baltimore's reform is having Hopkins writing the policy and national corporate non-profits telling schools how to operate..there is no room for outside solicitation no doubt!

There is no openness or honesty happening and that does not bode well.



City teachers upset about mail clause in proposed contract They criticize clause shutting down communication channels                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

• By Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun 8:33 p.m. EST, February 5, 2014
  
  
  

On any given day, a teacher's mailbox is usually chock full of messages: leaflets advertising professional development, discount coupons for office supplies, publications from curriculum companies, and book club invitations.

But under a contract that teachers are expected to vote on Thursday, they fear that such communication would cease — unless it comes from the Baltimore Teachers Union.

City teachers are criticizing an unusual clause included in the proposed contract that appears to give the union the exclusive right to disseminate information via email or through teachers' mailboxes. They say the new language is too broad and attempts to silence dissenters and disempower those who organize outside of union parameters.

"The limitation of communication is really disturbing," said Kris Sieloff, a teacher at City Neighbors High School who called the clause a clear First Amendment violation.

The new clause states that "individuals and organizations other than the union shall not be permitted to use the school system's interdepartmental mail and email facilities, or the right of distribution of materials to teachers' mailboxes."

Mike Pesa, a Patterson High School teacher, called the communication clause "nothing less than a gag rule designed to silence any opposition from rank-and-file members of the union."

Marietta English, president of the Baltimore Teachers Union, said the clause was intended to ensure that the union's messages were reaching teachers, and she denied that the clause was intended to muzzle teachers. She said teachers have more than enough ways of communicating.

"Today, it isn't even relevant because everybody tweets and blogs," English said. "More people blog and Facebook more than anything. If you want to communicate, you can communicate. I don't see how we can stop you, when you have every means of communicating today."

But Sieloff, who has taught in Baltimore for a decade, said she was concerned about how teachers would be able to get the word out about forums and other discussions that teachers like to attend to discuss topics in education.

"Teachers want more access to things like that," she said. "It doesn't happen unless you get the word out."

The union announced the new tentative agreement with the district last week after months of negotiations, praising it as a good deal that builds on the successes of the previous contract and preserves benefits that teachers in other districts nationwide are sacrificing.

The three-year pact calls for teachers to receive this month a stipend equal to 1 percent of their annual salary if the contract is ratified, and a 1 percent raise every year through 2016. The contract also calls for teachers' health insurance to stay intact.

The contract maintains key elements of the agreement ratified three years ago, which overhauled the district's pay structure. Traditional "step increases," or automatic annual pay raises, were replaced with a pay-for-performance career ladder that teachers could climb with good evaluations and "achievement units," earned by attending professional development, taking courses or other activities.

"We think this is a good contract," English said. "Last time, this was a whole new contract. We've lived with this now, we've ironed out a lot of the kinks that we had before."

But some city teachers have complaints in addition to objections over the communication clause. Many called the ratification process a rush job designed to suppress debate.

Corey Gaber, a teacher at Southwest Baltimore Charter School, said he took issue with the "fundamentally undemocratic process" of having teachers scrutinize and vote on the contract in a week.

"If you value what your members think about something, then you give them an opportunity to consider the new contract, provide feedback, make changes if necessary, and then vote on it," he said. "This timeline excludes such possibilities, meaning our concerns are not only not being represented by our representatives, there's not even a genuine attempt to listen to them."

English said the vote needed to take place quickly because the contract expired and was extended through Friday.

Teachers also said the contract fails to address long-standing issues with teacher evaluations and working conditions. And some teachers said that while they are happy to keep their benefits, the 1 percent pay increase fails to keep up with the cost of living.

Bobbi O'Brien, a teacher at Patterson High School, said she believed the contract was "unfair."

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BTU Contract 2014

The News: Baltimore (City) Teachers Union (BTU) has reached a tentative agreement with the Baltimore City Public School System (BCPSS) on a new contract. This news was announced last Thursday 1/30/14, with information sessions scheduled for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and a vote scheduled for this Thursday, 2/6/14.

Our old “revolutionary” new three-year contract had run out last June, but an extension was signed so that contract negotiations could continue into this school year. According to the BTU reps sent out to our school yesterday, however, that extension expired on January 31, so we are now completely without a contract and are considered “at-will” employees.

Here is why I plan to vote “NO” this Thursday on the new contract: Tactics

• Rushing to a vote. By releasing the new contract and rushing to a vote only a week after it is announced, it seems like they are trying to rush us into voting on this contract without having adequate time to read and discuss its implications.
• Bribery. Just like last time, a stipend is offered as soon as we approve/ratify this contract. While I appreciate and can use the extra money, this stipend seems an underhanded way to convince us to vote for something we might otherwise find distasteful.
• Closed negotiations. Teachers had no information on, nor direct input to, the negotiation session.
• Scare tactics. When I raised a question in shock at yesterday’s meeting, that we were working without a contract, the BTU reps responded in a way that seemed meant to scare and intimidate us into voting for the contract, by highlighting that we are now (as of 2/1) at-will employees without a contract, and could be fired at any time for any reason. When another teacher asked what would happen if we voted down this contract, they came back to this. If this is true, why on earth did they not do their job and bring this to a vote long before our old contract ran out? Scare tactics like this make me less inclined to vote for the contract.

Substance: What’s in the Contract

• COLA. We get a 1% raise each of the next three years. As a teacher pointed out yesterday, our average 1.5% raise each of the last three years has been less than the cost of living increases each year, as calculated by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). This is likely to continue to be the case, therefore we are accepting a de-facto pay cut.
• Mailbox blockade. “Individuals and organizations other than the Union shall not be permitted to use the school system’s interdepartmental mail and email facilities, or the right of distribution of materials to teachers’ mailboxes.” As worded, this seems to imply that I, as an individual other than the union, cannot send another teacher an email or place something in another teacher’s mailbox. Even though this level of silliness is not likely to be enforced, this does seem chilling to the democratic process. For example, a petition to change union elections to be held electronically or at more sites, that was passed around a few years ago, could be blocked from being distributed to teachers.

Substance: What’s Not in the Contract My biggest concerns with the old new contract passed in 2010 are actually not with language in the contract itself, but with how it’s been implemented. I find it extremely probable that the new new contract will be implemented in the same way, since it contains no language addressing these concerns.

• Achievement Units (AUs).
  • Coursework – this seems to have gone well.
  • Contributions to Student Learning – After being promised we would finally get paid for all the extra work we do like running a student club, the details of how this was rolled out were completely counter to what we were sold on. The criteria for this type of AU was not released until two years into the term of our three-year contract. I put in for some of these AUs last school year, and was summarily denied because I had missed a deadline (after BCPSS was two years late on their deadline). I know of one teacher who did succeed in getting this type of AU – he only got 1 AU, after putting in hundreds of hours of work, and said that the amount of time spent on documenting and proving student learning was absurd. Note that 12 AUs are required to before any increase in salary.
  • Contributions to Colleagues, and Contributions to School and District – Three and a half years into a three year contract that promised we would have access to this type of AU, these two types are still “In Development”. See link here and screenshots below. To me, this is ridiculous. The last contract promised things it never delivered on, which is a strong reason not to trust the new contract.

AUs web page

Zoomed in on the lower left of the page – AUs still in developmen

• Evaluation Structure. We are being held accountable in our professional evaluations for factors beyond our control. This year 50% of our evaluation is based on whole-school numbers. (More details in my post here.) Next year and going forward, it will be 15% (the School Performance Index). Any amount, to me, is unacceptable, because this creates a disincentive for great teachers to teach at poor-performing schools. This is exactly the opposite of what should be done.
• Evaluation Implementation. This is not anywhere in writing in the contract, but is clearly a consequence. Since there is not an unlimited amount of money, the fact that some teachers are racking up AUs and seeing large increases in salary, while a few are becoming model or lead teachers with the accompanying huge jump, the school system has to find a way to pay other teachers less. How that has played out, it seems to me in talking with other teachers, is a lowering of evaluation scores. Teachers who for many years had been evaluated as proficient were now being told they were only satisfactory, and thus received fewer AUs, which are tied to pay. This year, with the introduction of a fourth category, “developing”, in between satisfactory (renamed “effective”) and unsatisfactory (“ineffective”), with even fewer AUs, there seems to be pressure from North Ave to rate everyone even lower and thus decrease the number of teachers who advance a step on the pay scale.

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We do not want to lessen minority and special needs students as they work their way through school and graduate..but we need to correct the statistics because if allowed to stand, then subpar education programming will gain hold.  O'Malley has a history of fudging stats and this is one.  The problem is that the Baltimore Sun allows these articles to go out without question.  So, you will see this headline in O'Malley's 2016 campaign which is what this article is for.

We have had numerous articles, government watchdogs, parents and social justice advocates shout that the underserved and special needs are being warehoused and given horrible education opportunities since Race to the Top and O'Malley ended Brown vs Board of Education equal access and opportunity.  How is that for a headline?  Does it sound like the one on this article?  Of course not.  The tiered funding/use of charter schools to segregate and vocationalize the underserved in Balt is horrendous and the definition of what can be termed high school graduation has been watered so that off campus classes in non-profits that do not meet standards..even going as far as sending students to PA for graduation is absurd.

These students are encouraged to stay home for state/national tests so MD will look higher in stats than it is.  We are spreading the word!

I have friends in BAltimore taking their children out of special needs schools and homeschooling because conditions are so bad now for Baltimore students it is unacceptible.

Students are sitting in front of canned computer lessons checking boxes with no attempt to make learning interesting in many schools.  So, if you are going to create a tiered system of education warehousing the underserved and special needs....you need to state that so people do not confuse MD with states giving equal opportunity and access public schooling!


Maryland graduation rate rises to 85 percent More African-Americans, special-education and Hispanic students graduated in 2013

• By Liz Bowie and Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun 8:26 p.m. EST, January 28, 2014
  
  
  
  

Maryland's high school graduation rate has been climbing steadily for the past four years and reached nearly 85 percent — far above the national average — this past June, according to data released Tuesday.

More students from every corner of the state are staying in school to earn a diploma, but the increases were most pronounced among Hispanic and African-American students.

State education officials credited the passage of Maryland's Dream Act, which gave hope to Hispanic students who want to attend college in the state, as one of the factors for the 2.5 percentage point increase in the graduation rate for Hispanics.

The Dream Act, which offers in-state tuition to undocumented college students, "has given a level of hope and possibilities for the future," said state school Superintendent Lillian Lowery.

The use of technology and online classes in helping students catch up as well as a general sense among parents that a high school diploma is necessary for any job have also helped boost the graduation rates, officials said.

Statewide, the graduation rate is up 1 percentage point from last year, to 84.97. In addition, the dropout rate has fallen to 9.3 percent, the lowest on record.

"The challenge now is: What is it going to take to get everyone to 90 percent or higher, and can we do that any quicker than 1 point a year," said Robert Balfanz, co-director of the Everyone Graduates Center, which researches and analyzes national graduation and dropout trends. "There is no job to support a family in the 21st century without a high school diploma. We need to be preparing at least 9 out of 10 of our students for that reality."

Balfanz said Maryland's upward trend in the last three to four years mirrors the nation's.

The national graduation rate for the class of 2010 was 78 percent, the latest data available. Vermont graduated 91.4 percent of students, the highest rate in the country.

Balfanz said Maryland's increases in the rates for minority and special education graduates were particularly encouraging.

The graduation rate for African-Americans rose nearly 2 percentage points to 78.3 percent, and the rate for students who are economically disadvantaged was 75.8 percent.

Baltimore, Baltimore County and Howard County had some of the largest increases in the graduation rate. Howard County increased its four-year graduation rate to 93.25 percent, up nearly 3 percentage points. Baltimore and Baltimore County rose 2 percentage points and 2.5 percentage points, respectively.

After he arrived 18 months ago, Baltimore County Superintendent Dallas Dance made a strategic plan to help students catch up who were just a few credits shy of graduation and to address the dropout rate. City officials said they have spent the past two years focused on improving instruction, adding a more demanding curriculum and encouraging more students to go to college.

At Overlea High School in Baltimore County, which has a high percentage of minority students, the graduation rate rose from 75.4 percent to 81.2 percent in one year.

Overlea Principal Marquis Dwarte said the district made sure every school had a committee that met regularly to focus on how to help students who were in danger of dropping out and "engage families and students in a conversation saying they are not on track to graduate."

Baltimore County's graduation rate increase was the largest single-year gain in four years and a jump of nearly 5 percentage points in three years. Only three of the county's 24 high schools didn't see gains, and two of those already have rates over 98 percent.

Nearly every demographic group saw increases in the county, and the gap between the percentage of white and black graduates narrowed to less than 3 percentage points. There were large jumps for students whose second language is English, as well as special education students.

Mark T. Bedell, assistant superintendent for high schools in Baltimore County, has taken the charge personally, going to schools to tell students his own story of growing up the eldest of eight children among "a lot of poverty, neglect and abuse."

He has encouraged students to stay in school and said he hopes to make a home visit to a student who dropped out just one credit shy of graduation to support a new baby. He would like to persuade the student to come back and finish.

Bedell said the school system has successfully spread its use of online classes to students who have fallen behind. For example, a student who enters senior year having failed some classes can catch up by taking online classes during school hours. In addition, teachers have worked in small classes after school and on Saturdays to teach students concepts they were lacking so they could catch up.


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Governor O'Malley is the zero tolerance king and none of his policies have done anything but great harm to all Maryland and Baltimore citizens. Zero tolerance means you do not know how to create public policy that works so you do the most regressive thing you can. We all know zero tolerance hurts the poor the most as these students have the most behavior problems. We know as well that keeping underserved and special needs students out of school on test taking days skewed Maryland achievement scores as does this expelling rule.

You know what the citizens of Maryland want as the next zero tolerance policy-------a WAR ON CORPORATE FRAUD AND GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION IN MARYLAND! Can you imagine the successful policy that would bring and the real bad guys would actually be caught this time. Criminalizing the low-income people in Maryland with these policies that are aimed right at them is cowardice and failure.


Keep them in class [Editorial] Our view: State board of education is right to tackle excessive suspensions


12:00 p.m. EST, January 29, 2014

The State Board of Education took an important step toward improving educational opportunities for students throughout Maryland this week when it approved new regulations designed to reduce the number of young people suspended or expelled from school. Educators have long recognized that kicking kids out of classes for relatively minor, nonviolent offenses rarely leads to improvements in behavior and may even be counterproductive. The new policy aims to encourage teachers and principals to find alternative ways of disciplining students that allow them to remain in school whenever possible so they don't fall behind in their studies or develop even worse problems outside the classroom.

The new rules reflect a move away from the "zero-tolerance" policy that required educators to impose unreasonably harsh punishments on students for infractions such as talking back or poor attendance, and which often disproportionately affected poor and minority children. Most such offenses involved no real threat to the safety of other students or staff, and in some cases they simply gave teachers an excuse to get rid of disruptive or otherwise troublesome kids.

The board's action has sparked a backlash from some, particularly teachers who feel the new approach simply saddles them with the challenging task of dealing with disruptive kids. Certainly, school districts will need to give teachers better support and training, but recent experience suggests that the new policy is workable.

Since 2008, suspensions in Maryland schools have been drifting steadily downward. Overall, 7.3 percent of students in the state were suspended for three or more days that year, but by the 2012 school year that number had dropped to 5.1 percent. In Baltimore city suspensions fell from 11 percent in 2008 to 7.3 percent over the same period, and in Dorchester County, which had the state's highest rate of suspensions, the percentage of kids pushed out of school declined by nearly a third from just under 15 percent in 2008 to about 10 percent five years later.

The fact that during this period there was no sudden upsurge in student violence or breakdown in school order shows that the vast majority of kids who were suspended under the old rules posed no serious threat to themselves or others and that most of them could just as easily been disciplined by less harsh measures than suspension. Under the new guidelines kids can still be suspended for violent behavior or bringing weapons to school, but teachers and principals will have far greater latitude to use their discretion in determining what punishments are appropriate. The idea is to make suspension or expulsion a penalty of last resort rather than the first.

This change comes after a number of well-publicized incidents in which school officials clearly overreacted by suspending students, including some very young children, over issues that might have been better handled by a frank talk in the principal's office or by a school security officer. We're reminded of the case of the Anne Arundel County 7-year-old who was suspended from school for two days after officials claimed he chewed a pastry into the shape of a pistol and waved it around or of the Baltimore youngster kicked out of class for bringing a water gun to school. Yet even the absurdity of those decisions pales by comparison when one considers that Maryland school systems suspended dozens of 3- and 4-year-olds in 2013 and nearly 700 kindergartners the previous year.

Were all those kids deadly menaces whom teachers were powerless to correct other than by banishing them from the classroom? We doubt it. In fact, kindergarten (and pre-K) is the very place where children are supposed to gain experience using the basic skills of social interaction that allow them to learn and play well with others. That's why they're there in the first place. Kicking them out because they haven't fully learned their lessons defeats the purpose.

There will always be some kids whose behavior is so erratic, threatening or violent that suspension may be necessary. But such cases are exceptionally rare. One Baltimore city middle school that suspended 41 percent of its students in 2012 has a suspension rate of just 1 percent today. Educators have learned that alternatives to suspension — such as in-school suspension, after-school detention, Saturday detention and out-of-school detention in places where students are still required to show up every day and continue their schoolwork — produce better results over the long run and have the advantage of keeping kids where teachers can still keep track of their activities and monitor their progress. Simply kicking them out and hoping they'll return better than when they left is wishful thinking, and Maryland is right to change a system that puts thousands of its students at risk that way.


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What these 'public private partnerships' are doing is privatizing Baltimore's public school system.  The only problem with Baltimore's schools is a chronic lack of funding and a school adminstration racked with fraud and corruption as is now the case throughout City Hall.  These schools were forced to carry on with a basic level of funding dealing with all of the behaviors that come with a student population coming from poverty.  As a teacher told me when I first moved here....all we can do is baby sit and handle discipline problems.  As the Algebra Project lawsuit won a decade ago showed with $700 million awarded to Baltimore schools for underfunding the city, these schools and communities simply lacked to resources to suceed.

So, enter the education reform that has Baltimore schools now a development tool moving the poor and working class out and the affluent in.  We do not need private non-profits handed all those funds missing for decades to do the work teachers and parents have wanted to do for decades.  It is a disgrace to think that these schools are again starved of funds as money is sent through these corporately funded private non-profits in lieu of paying the taxes needed to fund schools!  Giving control of education policy to these groups so corporations write policy and then donate money to control this policy and get a tax break for doing it is OUTRAGEOUS!


A local war on poverty [Commentary] 50 years after the national effort, Baltimore is starting a new battle

This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America. … It will not be a short or easy struggle, no single weapon or strategy will suffice, but we shall not rest until that war is won. The richest nation on earth can afford to win it. We cannot afford to lose it.

— President Lyndon B. Johnson, January 8, 1964

Last week, the nation marked the 50th Anniversary of Lyndon Johnson's announcement of a federal War on Poverty, igniting a national discussion about the war's legacy and what a renewed effort to address social inequality might look like.

But what about us here in Baltimore?

We aren't doing so well. According to the U.S. Census, 23.4 percent of all residents — almost one quarter of Baltimore's population — live below the federal poverty level.

A third of all children under 18 in the city live in households whose incomes fall below the federal poverty level, and nearly two thirds of children under 18 live in households whose incomes are below 200 percent of the poverty level.

The consequences for these families and children — for their future education, employment, health and well-being — are dire and well documented. They are also severe for the rest of us in the lost productivity and potential of our fellow citizens and in the higher social costs we all share.

The accumulated research evidence is clear: The way out of poverty is through opportunity — and especially through education and skills.

What can we do about it?

We can marshal our collective resources and will across government, philanthropy and the not-for-profit sectors here at home around a couple of key strategic goals at citywide scale. We can redouble our efforts to ensure more children enter school ready to learn, have access to high-quality public education, graduate with skills and experiences to succeed in college and work and that their parents and guardians have the skills and training to pursue jobs at family-sustaining wages.

Public/private leadership groups are currently supporting innovative programs and strategies to achieve some of these goals. A few examples:

•The Baltimore Campaign for Grade-Level Reading is a collaborative effort of funders, nonprofits and public organizations working to close the gap in reading achievement that separates many low-income students from their peers.

•The Open Society Institute-Baltimore is leading a comprehensive and strategic effort that has driven down school suspensions for students in the city schools and has supported a robust collaborative that includes more than 25 organizations working to improve student attendance.

•The Baltimore City Opportunity Youth Collaborative, a broad city-wide coalition, is developing a collective approach to re-connecting young people ages 16-24 to school and work.

And I recently had the great privilege of working with representatives from across the city, including the Mayor's Office of Employment Development, on a strategy to improve the labor market prospects of low-income city residents through education, training and transitional employment with a focus on sectors where growth is projected.

We certainly don't lack for effort, but we do lack urgency.

So let's call in the generals, set citywide targets, coordinate investments to sustain and scale what is working and continue to experiment where our approaches are not yet robust enough. Let's combine these efforts into an intentional, strategic and vigorous campaign — a war if you will — to tackle the pervasive poverty that is holding our city back.

I know this may appear naïve. Certainly there are circumstances well beyond our control. But, like President Johnson said 50 years ago, we can't afford not to do better. A new war on poverty: Why not here? Why not now?

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I'm telling you Maryland, this is coming and is already starting to be used in Baltimore!
YOU KEEP VOTING FOR THE POLS ALLOWING THIS!!!!!  RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE

Philadelphia School Partnership pushes for private management of student placement
by Helen Gym on Oct 24 2013   Notebook

For months, the Philadelphia School Partnership (PSP) has been working to put in place a new citywide process for placing students in schools. Most troubling is that PSP wants this process to be run by an outside, private entity that is created by PSP and could eventually charge a per-pupil fee from participating systems.

“Universal enrollment,” as it is called, would match students to either a District, charter, or parochial school whenever they decide to transfer, move, or transition to another school level.

The PSP proposal would not only take the current student-placement program out of the District’s hands -- unprecedented in any other city -- it would also include parochial schools and coordinate the selection process with the availability of scholarships, which are now often provided through two controversial, voucher-like business tax subsidy programs in Pennsylvania.

PSP’s audacious plans were unveiled at a briefing before City Council last month. I spoke with several attendees at the briefing, including a member of Parents United for Public Education, and received a copy of PSP's PowerPoint presentation.

PSP, which describes itself as a philanthropic organization interested in the movement of students into "high performing" seats, had aimed to launch a pilot universal enrollment effort this year with parochial schools and some charters. Since the briefing, PSP has now decided to delay the program until next year, when it proposes to assume enrollment responsibilities for all District schools, including special admission schools as well as charter and parochial schools. 

The program raises serious questions about students' privacy rights, church-and-state separation, and public disclosure issues. It also potentially weakens the guarantee of a neighborhood school option and removes from District control a central mission and function – all without any meaningful public disclosure, discussion, or oversight. 

District officials are distancing themselves from PSP’s independent effort. Spokesperson Fernando Gallard told me the District is using its own enrollment process this year.

“There has been no decision made regarding the high school selection process for future years,” Gallard wrote in an email. “The use of a third party and the per pupil fee is a question that should be answered by PSP since we are not part of that effort.”

Lobbying council on universal enrollment

PSP introduced its independent universal enrollment program in a briefing before City Council on Sept. 18. According to attendees, the presentation sparked controversy, leading to a pointed back-and-forth between a number of Council staff and PSP leadership.

The briefing was led by PSP’s executive director Mark Gleason, a one-time publishing entrepreneur and former South Orange-Maplewood, N.J., school board member. Gleason identified PSP’s chief consultant in the project as Ramsey Green, a real estate investor and consultant from New Orleans, where a similar program has been criticized by a number of public education advocates.

Sources told me that Gleason promoted the new process as a way to “outsource the enrollment and placement” of all students in the city’s District, charter, and, in a surprising twist, Catholic schools. In most cities with a universal enrollment plan, the effort has focused on the public sector, presumably to avoid First Amendment conflicts.

At the Council briefing, Gleason announced that the District in August had pulled out of the universal enrollment process for this year, saying officials have "a lot on their plate right now.” As a result, he said, PSP would take on the effort unilaterally by setting up a separate nonprofit called PhillySchoolApp.

PhillySchoolApp will be overseen by a private entity, the Compact Working Group, whose members represent the Great Schools Compact, a body that includes District and charter school leaders, and which PSP also staffs. Gleason said PSP was already interviewing applicants for the executive director position of PhillySchoolApp.

Private philanthropy would cover the effort for the first three years, after which PhillySchoolApp would charge a per-pupil fee for participating schools. When asked about the potential cost by a Council aide, Gleason said it could be in the range of $10 per student, according to several people who were at the briefing.

According to the PowerPoint presentation made at the briefing, PhillySchoolApp would run a “centralized lottery and school matching service” that would assign each student only one option for a school.

Under the current system, students at the high school level are assured a neighborhood school option, can be admitted to as many as five District schools, and can apply to as many charter and private schools as they want. Under PSP’s proposed system, students would be matched to a single school. Students would have a right to refuse that school, but would lose their opportunity in the selective first round, then bump down to a second- and third-match round, where fewer schools are offered.

The PowerPoint said PSP had intended to secure the participation of “50-plus charter and Catholic schools” this year. Students assigned to Catholic schools would be matched "only if it was determined that scholarship assistance would be available." The tax-credit programs, Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) -- often deemed similar to vouchers -- are increasingly the most common means of scholarship assistance.

Attendees at the briefing said at least one staff aide asked a question about potential church-and-state conflicts.

“The question was asked, but it felt like it wasn’t taken seriously,” said one attendee. “They [PSP] just shrugged it off. They said there was no real conflict and started talking about the nature of the process, and how involved they were, and so on.”

Kristen Forbriger, communications manager for PSP, told me last week that, although the effort has been delayed till next year, the Compact Committee has “developed a common application,” which has been made available to District, charter, and Catholic schools. District officials said they are using their own application that is completely separate from an application through the Compact.

“The goal is to introduce the full system [“PhillySchoolApp”] in the future, hopefully by next year,” Forbriger wrote in an email.

One attendee at the briefing said Gleason asked Council members and staff to support the effort by putting their name behind neighborhood meetings to promote PhillySchoolApp. Forbriger explained over email that the purpose of the Council briefing was to “ensure Council members and staff were fully briefed on the program should it have rolled out this year, so they could share information with families.”

Susan Gobreski, executive director of Education Voters PA, said her organization had supported a common enrollment process, which could deal with inequities. For example, some charters have been flagged for complicated application processes that create "barriers to entry" for some students.

But Gobreski expressed surprise at PSP’s newly forged, independent role.

“While we support the implementation of some form of common enrollment for high school students with an eye on equity, I am very concerned about it being run by a private entity,” Gobreski said. “School placement for public education must be the function of a public entity and changes to our current process need to be thoroughly examined in a public manner with an opportunity to raise questions.”

An untested experiment in school choice

Universal enrollment is another untested reform initiative coming from the Gates Foundation, which has a history of funding experimental, and often controversial, ideas in K-12 education (requiring student test scores as a major part of teacher evaluations, for example) and higher education. The most established universal enrollment programs are in New Orleans and Denver. Newark and Washington, D.C., recently announced they intend to introduce universal enrollment in 2014-2015.

Karran Harper Royal, a New Orleans parent advocate, shared her concerns with me this week about how the universal enrollment program has rolled out in her hometown. Harper Royal said that, in New Orleans, parents are handed a long list of school names with letter grades, which give little information about the quality of school services. Parents have raised concerns that universal enrollment actually limits choice options by directing families into a single computer-generated selection. Parents no longer have the guaranteed option of their nearby neighborhood school, even if it is a few blocks away and desired.

One mother, who lived on the West Bank of New Orleans, only listed schools on the West Bank, which were all full “according to the computer,” Harper Royal said. That parent was assigned to an “F”-rated school on the far east side of New Orleans slated for closure the following year.

“I’d be concerned that this is just another tool to segregate schools and steer some families to some schools and other families to other schools,” Harper Royal said. “This isn’t an informed choice that families are making.”

In New Orleans, where more than 70 percent of students are in charters, the “OneApp” (as it is dubbed) is a daunting 20-page package requiring two to four written pages per child. Notably, PSP’s PowerPoint presentation before City Council included a sample application form from the New Orleans OneApp. One report said that more than one in five families simply don’t participate in the process.

Tomika Anglin, a leadership member of Parents United for Public Education who attended the City Council briefing, said she was concerned that universal enrollment would “further starve already emaciated neighborhood schools.” 

“This is another way of telling people to get out of the public schools, and then blaming people if they don’t,” she said.

Anglin said she was most alarmed at the role of a private entity formed by PSP controlling the enrollment process. 

“How can parents be assured that this is about my child and not the agenda of PSP?” Anglin asked. “They are creating a process that, once implemented, will render the District and participating schools dependent – and then the bill will come. They have created their own source of profit, and the city’s schoolchildren will be held hostage.”

PhillySchoolApp will have unrestricted access to private student data in order to mine student information to facilitate their placement. A “central database can integrate with every school’s student data system,” one slide of the PSP PowerPoint shows.

Student data systems contain highly sensitive information, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers, grades, test scores, race,  students' economic status, special-education status, disciplinary status, and much more. They can also contain information that is appropriate for a school but may not be appropriate for third-party vendors, such as reasons for leaving a school or parental status (custody rights, foster care, etc.). Granting access to such information to a third party outside the School District could violate the confidentiality of such information.

New York City parents, for example, have launched a major battle around privacy rights against a private contractor, which collects student data and has the right to sell that information, recently highlighted in a New York Times article.

Privacy and First Amendment concerns aside, providing meaningful choices to Philadelphia’s families will take more than a clever computer algorithm. Choice advocates make a mistake in presuming that parents have real options when there is a dysfunctional school system that reformers largely refuse to improve.

Harper Royal, in New Orleans, said: “They’re not talking about leveling the playing field. They’re not talking about providing transportation, or dealing with school fees, or addressing quality of services, especially for students with special needs."

“They have hijacked the word choice. This is not choice. It’s the illusion of choice.”

Part 2 coming soon: “Public money, private gain: Philadelphia School Partnership's expanding role in political lobbying”

Helen Gym is a founder of Parents United for Public Education and a Notebook blogger.


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I would invite Mr Manney and this commenter to address the goals of this education reform as regards Head Start.  We know that funding for pre-K has hit the list for legislators because pre-K is where testing starts and that pre-K testing will be used to track children into vocational directions according to skills assessments.  THIS SHOULD HAVE EVERYONE CONCERNED.

We know that neo-liberals pushing this reform are looking to the Chinese model of tracking children into vocations and testing along the way to the end game of job training at what level. It will involve as well the selling of student and teacher evaluation information...I know, MD is not going to do that only it will.  States around the country are already doing it and so will MD.  So, parents/students will not choose their career of choice.....Bill Gates and the 1% paying for this reform will decide.

This is what should have teachers, students, and parents shouting to end this kind of reform as is happening all over the US.  Why is everyone silent in MD?  The media and government does a good job keeping it quiet.....that's what all those private non-profits are for and all those privatization graduates as school leaders do.  Whether Lowery, Dance, Alonzo or his replacement, Johns Hopkins is the driver of school privatization in Baltimore and City Hall pushes it for them.  Simply run and vote for labor and justice!


Head Start is about more than students' test scores [Letter]


Edie Manney's thoughtful op-ed on Head Start ("Head Start helps children and parents," Dec.25) should be mandatory reading for all legislators and think tank gurus.

Too many policymakers and social science researchers look at Head Start as only an education program; test scores of four year olds are taken to be the sole criterion of Head Start's effectiveness. Ms. Manney's story shows how Head Start's multiple services — parent involvement and support, health care, nutrition, child development and more — are effective in strengthening families and providing genuine economic opportunities.

Community Action Council of Howard County is an award-winning program, and Ms. Manney credits the Middletown, N.Y., Head Start program as vital to her and her siblings' career achievements.

The number of officially poor in America is the highest it's ever been at 46.2 million. The income gap between the top 1 per cent of Americans versus the rest of us is the widest it's ever been. Ergo, poverty-reducing, economic security programs like Head Start should be expanded.

Don Mathis, Havre de Grace

The writer is president/CEO of the Community Action Partnership in Washington, D.C.

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School choice is simply a development tool used to move the working class and poor out and more affluent into a community.....that is all.  We know that all over the country the policies of schools choice and open admission are being ignored.  Now, if you are middle-class wanting your community gentrified, why should you worry about this?

The entire concept of equal opportunity and equal access gave rise to the middle-class last century.  Do not think that selecting the lower class out now will not advance to the middle-class next.  Autocratic societies do not have a middle-class and that is why neo-liberals are working just as hard as republicans to take their wealth.....so your next generation family members are likely to end up with this tiered education that keeps people from accessing quality education and higher education.


December 19, 2013

School choice sounds great in theory—but who does the choosing?
By Andre Perry

Say it ain’t so—public-school leaders in New Orleans tinkering with admissions rules to cherry-pick students? No way. These are open-enrollment public schools, aren’t they?

Apparently, public schools in the highly decentralized environment of New Orleans are making independent choices. Two of the most historic high schools in the Crescent City, McDonogh 35 and Eleanor McMain Secondary School, enrolled about a quarter of their newly admitted ninth-grade classes after both schools declared that no seats remained.

Specifically, McDonogh 35 and McMain admitted more students after the Orleans Parish School Board allowed them to leave the centralized, anonymous system (OneApp, which was built to ensure a transparent and fair enrollment process) and after they told hundreds of families that no seats were available. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, both schools required students to attain certain test-scores to get in. Regardless of their past history, an injustice exists when students are denied available seats in public schools.

Neerav Kingsland, CEO of New Schools for New Orleans, and Caroline Roemer Shirley of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools find fault with the much-maligned Orleans Parish School Board for allowing the schools to leave the OneApp process. But before casting blame on specific leaders, let’s examine what underlies the choice lobby.

“We need more choice!” is the rallying cry of a large faction in the current education-reform movement. Post-Katrina reform activists leveraged the lack of seats in a waterlogged district to advance a choice agenda.

Choice is certainly an important ideal. Charter groups co-signed and continuously support the elimination of attendance zones. New Schools for New Orleans and the Charter School Association stood by silently as Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal rushed his voucher legislation through the state legislature.

I find finger-waving from charter advocates confusing. It’s like they’re saying we want you to have choice—just the kind of choice that we think is good, and when we want you to have it.

I find finger-waving from charter advocates confusing. It’s like they’re saying we want you to have choice—just the kind of choice that we think is good, and when we want you to have it.

Organizations like the Black Alliance for Educational Options bring more credibility to choice arguments, as they have promoted choice by supporting charter-school legislation and Gov. Jindal’s voucher/scholarship policies. However, the federal government may require greater oversight over Jindal’s voucher policies, for they may weaken districts’ longstanding efforts to make public schools look like the public they are meant to serve.

Last year, Jindal said, “To oppose school choice is to oppose equal opportunity.” Choice is as American as apple pie and incarceration. That people need and want choice in America is like saying humans need oxygen—who can really argue with that? But making blanket statements about the goodness of choice is too easy. As a result, politicians loosely mete out choice to parents like it is oxygen. However, there are limits to choice because our choices impact one another. Should parents have complete say regarding the education of their children? The Supreme Court, in Brown vs. Board of Education (1954), partially answered that question. Limits on school-choice systems should balance individual family wants and the public interest.

America’s racial and ethnic groups—as well as its socioeconomic classes—have an almost unconscious tendency to want to be educated with, hang out with and work with their social peers. For the longest time, our segregated communities demanded that schools and colleges organize themselves accordingly.

For better and worse, schools created great traditions in these segregated contexts. Particularly in New Orleans, white middle- and upper-middle-class flight in the 1960s and 70s solidified Catholic and private-school enrollments, which helped establish NOLA’s “saint and sinner” identity. Too many white parents abdicated their community responsibility to build better public schools on the moral ground that they must make a private decision for their family, even though family effectually meant their ethnic or socioeconomic group. The black middle classes also established their own legacies: Magnet schools McDonogh 35 and McMain, as well as black parochial schools like St. Augustine and Xavier Prep (now St. Katherine Drexel Preparatory High School), helped protect and organize the black middle class.

While I’m a staunch public-school advocate, I have sympathy for black middle-class families who don’t feel comfortable sending their children to largely white environments. They’re also uncomfortable with public schools that do not cater to high-achieving students, highly educated families or those who don’t qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. Ironically, a majority-black city has limited educational options for the black middle class. McDonogh 35 and McMain represent those spaces.

These great institutions emerged because of choice, and there is still a need to have such options, particularly for middle-class black families. However, public policy must strive for higher democratic principles. A “my kind of people” ethic has influenced education policy for too long. This ethic essentially gives up on the notion that “we are all in this together,” which should drive all education policy.

Even though a child may look, sound and smell different, he or she is our social relative. Most students in our communities and schools are either citizens or potential citizens. We should all learn together. This should be too basic to mention, but parents and policymakers tend to forget this from time to time.

No parent will “risk” compromising his or her child’s education in the name of democracy, however. Parents will make selfish decisions when it comes to the education of their children. But public policy can’t forget that our current schooling problems are the result of polices not based on the notion that we’re all in this together.

Choice can be limited in ways that honor the real concerns of families. New Orleans can make attendance zones large enough to ensure choice, but small enough to honor neighborhood characteristics. New Orleans must end the inefficient practice of busing students miles past schools that meet or exceed the academic standards of the families’ school of choice. New Orleans can have more themed schools that authentically attract students with similar interests. In short, New Orleans needs more quality public options.

New Orleans can’t afford another private school on the public’s dime. After their recent actions, McDonogh 35 and McMain should be compelled to rejoin the OneApp process to ensure fairness and transparency.



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How many people could see that coming......not Maryland school administrators appointed by O'Malley!!!


Smartphone Use Linked to Lower Grades
December 11, 2013 Inside Higher Ed

More evidence that all that texting you see isn't about academics? Researchers at Kent State University tracked how much time students spend on their phones, and their grades. More use of phones is negatively related to grades, but positively related to anxiety. The research appears in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.



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Dance is part of an education policy written in Texas and adopted by Chicago's Arne Duncan and Obama so that is why he was in Illinois.  Maryland through O'Malley and neo-liberal democrats are pushing this school as business privatization policy that all know is just a Wall Street takeover of public education.  If you talk to him you see it is not talent that places him in this position.  The reason Lowery and Dance as well as Alonzo and his replacement are all people of color is that this education reform ends Brown vs Board of Education that gave equal opportunity/access to people of color.  They are killing public education that is critical for all citizens, but was a landmark for America and MLK was its inspiration.  Illinois teachers are fighting this reform like heck because of this and only a few people of color would be willing to put their face to ending Brown vs Board of Education!

See why Dance is popular?  If you listen to him you will hear nothing about long-standing education research on what makes strong education environments and inspires student learning.  His goal is simply to place children in front of canned online lessons and make principals into CEOs...running a business not a school.  We do not want Dance or our business-only Baltimore City School Board staying in place!


Dance quits consulting job with company doing business with school system Baltimore County superintendent did not get board approval before taking position

• By Liz Bowie and Erin Cox, The Baltimore Sun 9:38 p.m. EST, December 14, 2013
  
  
  
  

Superintendent Dallas Dance quit a consulting job Saturday amid questions over the propriety of his work for a company that does business with the Baltimore County school system.

In an email Saturday to school board members, Dance said he had called the Illinois-based SUPES Academy and told them that he would no longer coach Chicago public school principals.

"While I stand unequivocally behind the fact that nothing is being done wrong, after re-evaluation, I do believe it is in the Baltimore County Public Schools' best interest for me to not continue in any capacity with the SUPES Academy," he wrote in the email.

The issue had become "a distraction," Dance said in an interview. "I don't want that and we don't need it."

The Baltimore County Board of Education still plans to hold a closed-door session Tuesday to discuss Dance's part-time employment with SUPES Academy, board president Lawrence E. Schmidt said.

"I think all of the board members want to talk to him," Schmidt said.

Dance had also been criticized for taking another job when the county schools have been struggling with the implementation of the Common Core and a new teacher evaluation system.

SUPES Academy provides training for school administrators from around the country who are seeking jobs as principals or superintendents.

Dance received training from the company in 2011, before he became superintendent in Baltimore County. Then a year ago, after he got the county job at an annual salary of $260,000, the school board approved an $875,000 contract with SUPES to train 25 principals a year for the next three years.

In August, Dance took a part-time job with SUPES that pays him $15,000 to coach Chicago principals. He flew to Chicago once a month on Saturdays to meet with the principals and talked with them by phone. He said he intends to donate any money he makes, minus travel expenses, to a scholarship for Baltimore County graduates.

The superintendent proposes contracts that come before the school board for approval.

Baltimore County Del. Pat McDonough said Dance's decision to quit the job does not resolve questions about whether it was appropriate to accept it.

"I really believe the whole episode is a case of bad judgment and a lack of sensitivity," said McDonough, a Republican.

Under his contract with the Baltimore County school board, Dance is permitted to do private consulting work with prior approval of the board, as long as the work does not interfere with his job as superintendent.

Dance did not get approval, and the board was unaware that he was working for SUPES until recently.

"In the future, if I decide to do something, I'll tell them first," Dance said Saturday. "But my focus is on Baltimore County. This was a one-time thing for me."

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I want to say that in Baltimore and other states KIPP is allowed to keep its school and student achievement data from public eyes even as it is a 'public' charter.  We also had media report that Baltimore has a high rate of suspending pre-school children.....this article shows what this is all about!!!!  KIPP is one of the national charter chains that will go private if the charter structure is made permanent as is happening in Baltimore.


Posted on December 12, 2013

What if there was an easy peasy way to solve the skills gap, the STEM gap, the achievement gap, the expectations gap and the next, yet-to-be-named gap? Great news, reader! According to the New York Times a solution to our STEMtacular crisis lies within imminent reach. You see, reader, our failed and failing public schools rely on conventional methods to teach math and science, resulting in the many gaps listed above. But thanks to the unconventional methods utilized by the Knowledge is Power Program or KIPP, lower-income minority students are no longer being held back. Just what are these unconventional methods? Safety goggles on—we’re headed into the excellence lab…

*Awkward*
According to the Times, the secret ingredient in the KIPP dip is expectations. “Teachers at KIPP schools maintain high expectations of all students, working intensively one-on-one with children until they comprehend every important concept.” But here’s where our story takes a sharp turn down Awkward Avenue. On the very same day that the Times ran its paean to outstandingness, the New York Daily News had an exclusive on another of KIPP’s unconventional methods: a tiny padded room where kindergarten and first graders attending the chain’s KIPP STAR academy in Washington Heights are sent to *calm down.* Billed as the *tot cell* by Daily News reporters, the room is said to be the size of a walk-in closet and is empty, save for a mat on the floor. Officials at the school say that the tot cell is needed and have pledged to keep it open despite opposition from angry parents.

STEM cells
Unconventional? To be sure. But as the Times editors acknowledge in their edvertorial, *lower-income blacks and Hispanics* must be prepared to work long and hard in order to scale the excellence ladder, especially if they are to ring the elusive STEM bell perched at the ladder’s very highest rungs. Long after the Times editors’ own children are home from school, or enjoying a veritable banquet of enrichments, the KIPPsters, even the wee KIPPlings at STAR, are still at it. Longer school days, summer school—whatever it takes, opine the Times’ writers, *to help lagging minority students improve test scores in math, reading and science.* And while a few eggs get broken along the way (the Times references some unnamed haters who dog on KIPP’s dropout rates and admissions policies), the test score pay off is huge, note the editors, with KIPPsters gaining months of bankable STEM knowledge.

And now for a little cold H20
Remember the divining rods of old, reader? Standardized tests are the modern day equivalent, foretelling pools of excellence that lie beneath. Except that a new study by MIT neuroscientists, conducted with education researchers at Harvard and Brown, appears poised to throw some seriously cold H20 on the dowsing abilities of standardized tests. Researchers found that gains on standardized test scores failed to translate into so-called *fluid intelligence,* the higher-order reasoning and problem-solving that New York Times editorial writers spend much of their time fretting about these days. 

In a study of nearly 1,400 eighth-graders in the Boston public school system, the researchers found that some schools have successfully raised their students’ scores on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). However, those schools had almost no effect on students’ performance on tests of fluid intelligence skills, such as working memory capacity, speed of information processing, and ability to solve abstract problems.

The researchers calculated how much of the variation in MCAS scores was due to the school that students attended. For MCAS scores in English, schools accounted for 24 percent of the variation, and they accounted for 34 percent of the math MCAS variation. However, the schools accounted for very little of the variation in fluid cognitive skills — less than 3 percent for all three skills combined.
…
Even stronger evidence came from a comparison of about 200 students who had entered a lottery for admittance to a handful of Boston’s oversubscribed charter schools, many of which achieve strong improvement in MCAS scores. The researchers found that students who were randomly selected to attend high-performing charter schools did significantly better on the math MCAS than those who were not chosen, but there was no corresponding increase in fluid intelligence scores.

A paper summing up the study’s findings will be published in the leading psychology journal, Psychological Science, next month. Even in our post-evidence world, the findings are provocative enough that they should at least prompt a conversation about test-score mania, not to mention the growing acceptance of the *by any means necessary* approach to boosting the scores of *lagging minority students.* Meanwhile I’m willing to bet that our search for the best way to build fluid reasoning skills won’t lead us to a STEM cell—a tiny padded room the size of a walk-in closet.

Send tips and comments to tips@edushyster.com.


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See what shouting loudly and strongly can do!!!!!!!!  Voting out city hall and the mayor helps as well!


NYC Council passes anti-testing resolution Not convinced about the pizza, but check this out:

Press Contact: Jane Hirschmann, 917 679 8343

HISTORIC VOTE BY CITY COUNCIL ON HIGH-STAKES TESTING

The New York City Council passed today Resolution 1394.  This is historic because it is the first time that a legislative body has sent a clear directive to the DOE, NYSED and Governor that high stakes standardized tests must be replaced by multiple measures.  As heard in testimony endorsing the Resolution, “Learning is complex, assessment should be too. A one-size fits all approach to learning and testing fails children, teachers and families.  And, as we have seen, the so-called testing reform approach used by Bloomberg/Klein for the last 12 years resulted in many negative unintended consequences and failed to deliver quality education.

Resolution 1394 was modeled on a national piece of legislation that has been endorsed by many Boards of Education across the country, and more than 500 organizations. In Texas alone more than 80% of the school boards endorsed a similar position. “The New York City resolution is an important step in the growing, grassroots-powered national movement seeking to replace testing overkill with better, educationally sound forms of assessment. Across the U.S. parents, students, teachers, community leaders and, increasingly, local elected officials, are saying ‘Enough is enough!’ to politically mandated standardized exam misuse and overuse, said Robert Schaeffer, Public Education Director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing (FairTest)

“Our New York City electeds have taken the lead by passing Resolution 1394, ” said Evelyn Cruz of Time Out >From Testing. “The City Council is sending a loud and clear message that we have had enough of this testing mania which drives curriculum. When these tests have such high stakes attached to them —graduation, promotion, school grade, teacher evaluations, school closings and even principal bonuses—there is no question that teachers will teach to the test. This is not a 21st Century education. We want more for our children.”

“All of us think our children should be challenged by difficult tasks in school and that the performance of teachers in the classroom should be judged by the highest standards, but there is no scientific validity whatsoever to the use of high stakes tests as the primary instrument for evaluating children and teachers. We cannot kid ourselves that just because high-stakes testing has become predominant in our schools, it is moral or even rational,” said Jeff Nichols of Change the Stakes.

” This action by the City Council is of central importance to all those who care about public education. Since NYC has been seen as the leader of the so called “reform” movement, the fact that our City Council took action will be regarded nationally as a critical moment—turning around a 12 year failed experiment, said Dani Gonzalez, Co-chair of Time Out From Testing.

- See more at: http://pureparents.org/?p=21055#sthash.S5mEi7O0.dpuf

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A comment from a teacher reading the article below!

I am a highly qualified high school science teacher that left BCPS at the end of last year - the writing was on the walls. New student achievement standards and curriculums the same year a new teacher evaluation system is rolled out? Increase classroom sizes, get rid of special ed teachers and put the burden on the classroom teachers, cut outdoor science, reduce alternative programs, get the kids out in 4 years at any cost (including changing grades on transcripts and bogus online make-up courses where any benchmark can be waived), getting rid of no tolerance policies to reduce suspensions rates... I couldn't stand the immorality of it all. For what? No child left behind money and diversion of funds to make classrooms more "high-tech". Dance seems like a reasonable guy so he must simply be unaware of what is going on. He needs to get off his phone and look around. Spend more time in the classroom, listen to what people have to say, go one day without tweeting, and start paying attention to the desperate acts people are forced to take when they are expected to meet unattainable standards.

The idea that it is implementation and not structural design and content that makes most people not want Common Core. If Common Core were being used only for STEM courses that would not be as much a problem as STEM is based on fact. So, standardizing STEM is no problem. It is the standarization of liberal arts and humanities that is a huge problem and this is not a republican/democratic issue. We all know we do not want some corporate CEOs deciding what US history, culture, civics, and psychology entails and that is what this will lead to. Ask teachers now and they tell you these lessons are being given to them to teach and they are being written by education corporations connected with Common Core. If you standardize these lessons across the country..every US student will be learning the exact same thing about these very regional and individual concepts. That is autocratic and not democratic and people need to run from this!

The problems with reading and math stem from the last education reform these same Ivy League institutions forced on US teachers in the late 1980s under Reagan and Clinton. This reform had teachers take text books out of the classroom because they stifled creativity, had calculators given to beginning math students because all they would need to do now was push a button for math. THESE ARE THE POLICIES THAT CREATED POOR ACHIEVEMENT that teachers were made to follow just as they are these education reforms today. What teachers are telling you as are most academics across the country and indeed the world....is this is very bad policy. Why are teachers willing to do this? Do you think they are being threatened with job security or unions threatened with lost collective bargaining?

There is a reason this is being pushed beyond all reasonable objection....no one wants it and the school privatizers are too afraid to delay because people will organize against this bad policy. America was #1 in the world with students commonly graduating with algebra and trig under their belt. It is not education businesses needed, it is funding and resources in the classrooms. Stop blaming teachers for the failures of public policy and stop pretending an education business bubble on Wall Street is not behind this education reform!


Teachers tell Dance they are frustrated by Common Core, other reforms During town hall, they say curriculum has brought large problems that still need to be addressed

Baltimore County teachers file grievance over workload from Common Core.

By Liz Bowie, The Baltimore Sun 8:33 p.m. EST, December 5, 2013

Baltimore County teachers at a town hall meeting Thursday night told Superintendent Dallas Dance they are desperately trying to keep up with the fast pace of state-mandated educational changes that have brought them more work and much frustration.

Teachers, some in tears and some angry, said the first year of the county's introduction of its new curriculum tied to the Common Core had significant problems that have yet to be addressed. More than 100 teachers attended the forum, the first Dance has held with teachers.

Vicki Charikofsky, a Millbrook Elementary School teacher, said she is an experienced teacher who had mentored colleagues but that she was having difficulty with the workload.

"I am struggling," she said, adding that she is spending 13 to 16 hours a week planning and working after school to try to keep up.

"I am not sure if it is possible for you to understand what we are going through without going through it with us," she told Dance. "What can you do this year to give us a break? … I don't know if we can make it until next year."

Maryland is one of 45 states and the District of Columbia that has required school districts to teach to the new, more rigorous Common Core standards. Each school district has been writing its own curriculum to go with the standards. But Baltimore County's rollout of its curriculum has been particularly troubled, and the Teachers Association of Baltimore County filed a grievance last month, saying teachers had been working long hours and had not been supplied with the curriculum and materials in time to do their jobs.

Dance acknowledged the problems that the teachers brought up Thursday. He said the first unit of curriculum for the new Common Core standards had been written too quickly and was "awful." But, he said, he believed the curriculum that is now being written is improving.

Some teachers also expressed concern that the new standards are so high that their students had not obtained the skills in previous years to be prepared for what they are now required to do.

In elementary school, one teacher said, the curriculum says students should take notes on a text so they can write a research paper. But, she said, they have never been taught to take notes and don't know what a research paper is.

Jenna Loomis, a Seventh District Elementary School teacher, told Dance: "The curriculum only comes to life through the hard work and enthusiasm of quality teachers. Excellent teachers are considering different career paths because of the debacle in Baltimore County, and those who are not looking elsewhere are tired and defeated. At some point we need to be a priority."

Kelly Baker, a West Towson Elementary teacher, said she was glad that Dance was listening to teacher concerns but that it wasn't enough.

"I thought he definitely showed he was supportive," she said after the meeting. "I wish there were more answers to the things we are facing. When is the help going to come?"


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O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake are SHOCKED that such underhandedness and outright manipulation of education achievement data happened in Baltimore under their watch!!!! 

We know that most of the improvements in graduation rates in Baltimore under Alonzo was just these kinds of manipulations that do nothing for the youth graduating under false circumstances and is done only to save money and boost stats.

What parents need to know is that this is pervasive.  It is not being done only with low-income or at-risk students----it is being done throughout the system.  IT STARTS WITH THE EDUCATION REFORM IN THE 1980s that took text books out of the classroom and put calculators in the math class----teachers were directed to do this just as they are being directed to do the reforms today.  When youth go through elementary years unable to do math and read, then teachers in secondary education have nothing to do but pass the students on because it is to late to correct years of bad education policy.

This is what we are seeing in this move to hide failure and pass students off to these horrible education experiences.  Baltimore has some of the worst education policy in the country and we must remember that it is Johns Hopkins that runs this company town. 



We also need to look at the continuing privatization of social services as it will hide these actions under the guise of private non-profits!

We also want made clear that MD has one of the lowest social service funding programs in the nation and on top of that, is ranked at the bottom in the nation for fraud and corruption so much of the funding that is sent to social services is just stolen through fraud.

Please note that MD is a neo-liberal state, not a democratic and this is why wealth and profit win again and again. We need to take back the democratic party by running labor and justice in all primaries. We hear one after another of these incidences of bad policy, false data, and and no oversight and citizens of MD are demanding a rebuilding of white collar crime and government oversight agencies in the state. We have no such Rule of Law in this state!

Md. excluded large number of special-education students in national test Scores on NAEP were likely inflated

Maryland's scores on a national reading test may have been inflated because the state's schools excluded a higher percentage of special-education students than any other state, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education.

By Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun 9:27 p.m. EST, November 25, 2013

The Baltimore Department of Social Services on Monday pledged a comprehensive review of alternative education programs for foster children, after revelations that it paid $40,000 to send students to a school in Philadelphia where they obtained a diploma in one day.

The Crooked Places Made Straight Academy, where 80 youths from Baltimore took a three-hour exam to obtain a Pennsylvania high school diploma, shut down its one-day program Friday after inquiries from The Baltimore Sun.

Molly McGrath Tierney, director of Baltimore's social services department, said in a statement Monday that the department remains committed to providing an array of options to foster care youths for whom education is the key to their success.

While she noted that many who received diplomas from Crooked Places have gone on to colleges and jobs, she said the department would review policies and procedures over the next several weeks and make any changes needed to ensure a "standard of excellence."

"Our experience with Crooked Places Made Straight reminds us that we have a solemn obligation to ensure that every alternative we provide is properly accredited, governed and authorized to do its work," Tierney said in the statement.

The head of the private Christian school's accrediting body, the National Association of Private Schools, compared Crooked Places to "a diploma mill" after inquiries from The Sun. Students took a series of exams, which the school's leader identified only as "diagnostic tests."

The school's principal, Winona Stewart, said that while she meant well, she realized that "shortcuts don't work."

Many youths in foster care take traditional roads to graduation or obtain a General Education Development (GED) certificate, but Tierney emphasized that alternative education programs have helped some students when traditional settings have not.

She has also said some students enroll in the city school system's programs that help students as old as 21 meet the state's graduation requirements at an accelerated pace. These are separate from the programs offered by the social services department.

The Crooked Places program was described as similar to a GED, though it deviated significantly from the regulated, nationally recognized program that requires a mastery of skills on several tests taken over two days and usually includes preparation classes.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a statement that she understood the social services department's desire to help the youths find quality programs that meet their unique needs. She pointed out that foster children typically have higher rates of homelessness, incarceration and unemployment.

"We should take a look and evaluate all programs with a focus on strengthening those that are proven to work and getting rid of those that don't, as we have done with several other programs in city government," Rawlings-Blake said.

The city social services department is run by the state's Department of Human Resources. A spokesman for Gov. Martin O'Malley referred to Tierney's statement and declined to comment further.

Some advocates say the use of Crooked Places Made Straight as an alternative program for Baltimore children highlights deficiencies in the foster care system's efforts to ensure youths get a quality education.

Mitchell Y. Mirviss, an attorney at the Baltimore law firm Venable LLP who has represented foster care youths in a class action lawsuit that has been litigated for more than 25 years and led to a consent decree against the state, said he was "shocked" to learn that sending students to the Philadelphia school was a systematic practice.

"It's obviously a sign of serious problems," said Mirviss. "The government ... should not be selling false illusions to foster kids."

Mirviss said the Department of Social Services has not made education a priority. He pointed to court filings that show the agency struggles to meet the educational provisions of the consent decree.

In June, the department reported in its latest filing that about 61 percent of foster youths had an educational plan, while the consent decree requires 90 percent. Of the youths who had educational plans, the department reported that it had met the plan's obligations, such as providing tutoring, for about 25 percent.

The department also reported that it referred about 79 percent of special-education students for services but made a "reasonable effort" to secure services and attend education plan meetings for only 3 percent of them.

Mirviss said the department has struggled with educational issues because a greater percentage of foster children in their care are older and more insistent on making their own decisions.


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In Baltimore I have parents tell me all the teachers are going along with both the Common Core and Testing and Evaluation.  Even as parents complain, the teachers and administrators refuse to acknowledge problems.  We hear the 'delay' mantra but not the 'end' mantra.

I went to an education advocacy group meeting that actually allowed a teacher to speak how he really felt about what was happening in the classroom.  He spoke from an teacher in an underserved high school classroom in Baltimore County.  He stated that the school had one student support staff for about 350 children.....so they didn't have one.  Guidance counselors having over a hundred students each.....so they didn't have one.  He spoke of the same feeling of pressure to be ready for testing and Common Core with absolutely no way to do that.  His schools didn't even have the online access needed to take the tests for example.  THERE IS NO WAY ANY OF THIS IS READY AND IT IS BEING PUSHED ANYWAY.  That is because this policy is so bad.....they are afraid to delay will give parents and teachers time to stop it!

I asked him how he felt he would be able to meet evaluation objectives regarding student achievement goals as a teacher in an underserved school.  It is obvious to most that middle-class schools will see achievement faster and have an easier time of it while underserved schools have such a deficit from which to work with none of the support that we hear is given to these schools.  It's not that underserved students can't do it.....they simply have been left with no resources for so long that they will need time to catch up.  TEACHERS UNDERSTAND THAT THIS EVALUATION IS BASICALLY UNFAIR AND UNACHIEVABLE.  He made a good point in trying to meet what the neo-liberal policy goals want-----we would need to test our students twice.....once at the beginning and then on scheduled dates in order to see the improvement.  He said he didn't want to do that because teaching to the test is bad, but to use an evaluation like they want.....we will need a baseline each year.  Now, neo-liberals want to simply compare all schools and achievement all together to get a designation as passing!


Grievance Over Common Core Filed In Baltimore County:
Baltimore County’s teachers have filed a grievance against the county school board, alleging that the new education standards being imposed under the so-called “Common Core” are forcing them to work hours significantly exceeding their normal workdays. County teachers say that lesson plans under the Common Core are only coming available weeks before they have to be taught, and they say the website used to access those lessons is difficult to use. They say that teachers have had to work as many as 40 extra hours in a two week period in order to comply with the new standards. The grievance was filed on behalf of all 87-hundred teachers in the County; the Baltimore Sun reports that such a wide scope is unusual for a grievance filing. Maryland is one of 46 states moving to the Common Core curriculum.



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Note that all the data and media reports from Maryland and Baltimore public education leaders and advocates give stats that say just the opposite------that Baltimore is keeping more kids in schools.  We have spinning of data all the time and this is yet another.  This report fails again to highlight the headlines that O'Malley will use in a campaign....O'Malley is king of zero tolerance by citizens but oddly, MD is ranked at the bottom in fraud and corruption by the wealthy.  No zero tolerance there says O'Malley.

Once again we must note that simply because money is designated to pre-K doesn't mean it gets there as all the private non-profits get the money and not so much the schools.  We have a system that starves the public school of funds and sends all the money to private non-profits so we want to evaluate the effectiveness to the funding more so than the issue!  Does funding pre-K help----YES!  Do funds get to pre-K programs through private non-profits----I THINK NOT!

Pre-K suspensions common in Maryland schools Baltimore leads in suspensions of 3- and 4-year-olds in metro area


Baltimore leads in suspensions of 3- and 4-year-olds in metro area
By Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun 9:08 p.m. EST, November 11, 2013



Dozens of pre-kindergartners were suspended last school year in Maryland, with the most suspensions in Baltimore, highlighting a little-known practice that some education experts say is too extreme for toddlers who are just being introduced to educational settings.

The number of out-of-school suspensions in Baltimore for children ages 3 and 4 nearly doubled since the previous year to 33, according to data provided by the city school system.

Some other area districts reported just a handful of pre-K suspensions in the last school year, while Anne Arundel County reported 19 and Howard County officials said they have never suspended a child that young.

The practice comes to light as the city school system is revising its suspension policy to require schools to eliminate automatic suspensions for certain violations and first requiring other interventions, such as parent conferences.

The pre-K suspensions also underscore a broader debate about zero-tolerance policies, sparked by young children being suspended for actions such as making gun hand gestures and chewing a breakfast pastry in the shape of a gun. Such policies are aimed at making schools safe, but some say they have been taken too far.

David Beard, education policy director at Advocates for Children and Youth, said any school system should be hard-pressed to find a reason to suspend 3- or 4-year-olds, because they are too young to understand such a consequence.

"Anything before third grade, really, a suspension makes no sense," Beard said. "Just in terms of their brain development … they don't know the difference from a vacation. It's really concerning for these really young kids, because that's a really critical time when they're supposed to be learning their letters and their numbers."

Across Maryland, 91 pre-K students were suspended or expelled in the 2011-2012 school year, the most recent year with statewide data available. That compares to 75 in 2009 and 105 in 2010.

Most of the students were suspended for physical attacks on teachers or students, though a handful were suspended for offenses such as sexual activity, possession of a firearm or other guns, inciting a public disturbance, and vandalism.

The data also show that pre-kindergartners were suspended for insubordination and disrespect, classroom disruption and refusing to obey school policies.

Bill Reinhard, a spokesman for the Maryland State Department of Education, said the state is concerned about suspensions at all grade levels and "believes that too many students are suspended out of school for nonviolent activity, and that too many suspended students do not receive the educational services to which they are entitled under the law."

The state school board is overhauling its discipline regulations to require districts to eliminate "zero-tolerance" policies and greatly reduce the number of suspensions for nonviolent offenses such as insubordination.

Beard noted that the proposed state regulations, which he supports, may not have an impact on pre-K students because the policies target older students who are out of school for long periods of time.

He hopes the state's discipline reforms will evolve to differentiate among grade levels because data show that children's chances of suspension rise when they become full-time students.

He pointed to state data showing a suspensions jump between pre-K and kindergarten. In the 2011-2012 school year, 673 kindergartners were suspended in Maryland — a number that has risen each year since 2008.

"The multiplier there is huge," Beard said. "I don't know what happens to these kids, whether or not they go to summer camp with the devil or something. But it seems it's our patience with them that changes."

Walter S. Gilliam, director of the Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy at the Yale School of Medicine, said it would be in the state's best interest to investigate how it can reduce the number of students who are pushed out of school before they've started full time.

Maryland school districts have funneled millions of dollars into pre-K programs — Baltimore City's costs about $29 million per year — and there are continual efforts to expand them.

"We invest in preschool programs because the research says that it yields results," Gilliam said. "The truth of the matter is the cost-benefit analysis is on children who are at risk and need it the most, so you're basically undercutting your investment."

He added, "If there's ever a child who needed preschool, it's the kid who is kicked out of it."


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This article shows why labor and justice should not be voting and supporting neo-liberals. How did Corey Booker win in New Jersey when we know he is a raging Wall Street shill? Why is the same thing happening in Maryland with Anthony Brown? All neo-liberals are pushing the handing of schools over to corporations for profit and to use as job training K-college. WHY WOULD LABOR AND JUSTICE SUPPORT THAT? RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE.

SADLY, IT IS PEOPLE OF COLOR BACKING THESE POLS THAT ARE ENDING BROWN VS BOARD OF EDUCATION AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY/ACCESS EDUCATION. WORSE-----IT IS ENDING DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION FOR MOST AMERICANS.

Lean In or Stand Up?
Thursday, 14 November 2013 09:30 By Jenny Brown, Labor Notes | Op-Ed

Sheryl Sandberg’s hyper-publicized book Lean In is the Facebook COO’s “sort of a feminist manifesto” and it’s full of engaging, self-critical stories as she tries to trim back her workaholic ways to enjoy her family life. These appear alongside enraging anecdotes about the sexism she and women co-workers endure in the male-dominated tech world, and advice on how to deal with it.

But one anecdote jumped out at me. Sandberg tells the story of a dear friend with 14-month-old twins who cut her paid hours by two-thirds and ended up doing all the household work. Sandberg wants her friend to say yes to an exciting new job offer, advising that it will make the husband step up to his responsibilities.

The job she’s suggesting turns out to be administering a $100 million donation from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to the Newark schools.

Things worked out great for Sandberg’s friend—she took the job and her husband learned to buy groceries. Things didn’t work out so well for the Newark schools.

The $100 million from Zuckerberg had a goal: to institute merit pay in the teachers’ contract. “Highly effective” teachers would get a bonus of between $5,000 and $12,500. Teachers deemed unsatisfactory by supervisors could be disciplined or even fired. (The contract also created two tiers: teachers with masters’ degrees could opt out of the merit pay scheme, and most did.)

Teachers unions have rightly resisted this kind of subjective basis for raises because it rewards brown-nosing and shreds solidarity.

Nonetheless, after the contract passed with 60 percent of the vote, AFT national President Randi Weingarten celebrated the new contract with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

At the same time, Newark Mayor Corey Booker was privately pushing to close schools and replace them with charters, with Zuckerberg’s foundation picking targets. Newark parents rose up in arms when they found out.

Emails released due to a parent lawsuit revealed that Sandberg was heavily involved, corresponding with Booker’s office, which was trying to make it look like the community was engaged, without actually engaging the community.

The emails revealed a desire to spread merit pay to teachers nationally, although Sandberg sounded queasy about emphasizing this. “I wonder if we should basically make this focused on Newark with just a touch of ‘and this will be a national model,’” she wrote.

Teach Harder!

From Sandberg’s boss’s-eye view of the world, pay-for-performance leads to excellence. Teachers just need incentives to teach harder. In the real world, merit pay schemes increase pressure but don’t actually improve teaching. “It’s not as if teachers are sitting on their best lessons waiting for a bonus,” said public education defender Diane Ravitch in a recent talk.

“Now that components [of the contract] are being implemented,” Newark teacher Brandon Rippey told Labor Notes, “it’s turning teachers’ lives upside down.” He said some supervisors are using the evaluation tool vindictively.

They’re also using it narrowly. Only 5 percent of Newark’s teachers got merit pay in the last cycle, a total of $1.4 million out of the $50 million that was promised over three years. Where’s the rest of the money going? To pay Sandberg’s friend to administer it, for one.

But that’s not the end of the story—Newark teachers angry about the contract formed a caucus and promised a vigorous fight against the billionaires’ agenda. They won 18 of 29 e-board seats and almost took the presidency. Instead of leaning in, they stood up, together.

Which happens to be a pretty good strategy for dealing with sexism, too, Ms. Sandberg.



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We want to remind Maryland parents that citizens across America, both democrat and republican, working/middle class are fighting these reforms because it has nothing to do with student achievement and quality, democratic education.  It has only to do with privatizing public education and creating a education market that wants to go global....that is it.  The data collection by evaluations and testing will be used to track students according to someone else's opinion of the child's skills and all personal data will be sold to data mining and education businesses.  This is already happening in some places.

So, the model uses Chinese-style autocratic vocational schools that take all that is democratic and first world---humanities/liberal arts/civics---all needed for leadership and becoming good citizens and gives us job training K-college.  We do not want our school run by Wall Street and these reforms are written by corporate America.  With Bill Gates funding the implementation you can go to MD Education events and have Microsoft pens handed to you it is so corporate.

Common Core standardizes not only content buy who presents this content.  IT IS ONLY CONCEPTS SAY STATE EDUCATION PRIVATIZERS AS WE HEAR TEACHERS ARE WAITING FOR LESSONS TO BE WRITTEN BY CORPORATE UNIVERSITIES LIKE STANFORD and MIT!  It is ridiculous!  No public comment as citizens will listen to what they want done!


It's also important to know that the MD Education Assoc as with the National Education Assoc are organizations staffed with Arne Duncan Race to the Top business leaders -----not the teachers in the classrooms.  As we heard from a Balt City teacher on WYPR last year...the MD Education Assoc does not speak for us!

If you look across the country you will see teacher's unions shouting out against most of Race to the Top as bad education policy and academics like myself have been writing and creating research that shows none of these reform policies have created value.  Duncan can pull stats that show for example that in DC, where 1/2 of the population of the city has been gentrified out scores rose simply because higher achieving kids moved into DC. That does not speak to the effects of the reform policies but social engineering.  Public education is the key to democracy and first world quality of life.  It came to the country with founding fathers because it was developed for people who were citizens.  That is what America was about-----freedom and democracy and citizens as legislators.  You need to know all about history, social studies, civics, and art to be able to be a citizen legislator.  That is why broad-based education has always worked.  It was reforms in the late 1980s by Reagan that killed this in the US with attacks on textbooks and calculators in classrooms!


Teachers struggling to implement reforms, survey shows Teachers union releases survey on new common core standards and evaluation system
By Liz Bowie, The Baltimore Sun 3:11 p.m. EST, November 13, 2013

Teachers report that schools from Ocean City to Garrett County are struggling to put in place two major shifts in education policy this year, leaving them working longer hours and sometimes feeling overwhelmed, according to a new survey by the state teachers union released Wednesday.

In the teacher survey, 87 percent of teachers say there are still challenges in their schools to understand and implement the more rigorous common core standards, and one in three said they were adequately prepared to do the work.

"I think it confirms what we have been trying to say. There is a lot of education reform coming at teachers and principals at one time," said Cheryl Bost, vice president of the Maryland State Education Association.

The teachers union supports the new common core as well as the new evaluation system, which judges teachers on student progress, but says the state needs more time to implement them well.

The survey — which the state teachers union conducted between Nov. 4 through Nov. 8 and includes responses from 745 teachers — is not a scientific poll. The union, which represents 70,000 teachers in every school system in Maryland except Baltimore City, is calling it an impressionistic look at how the state's teachers view the changes they are undergoing.

Some school systems, the survey shows, have had difficulty writing curriculum under the common core standards quickly enough to get materials to teachers in advance. More than 40 percent of teachers say they are getting the curriculum two weeks or less before they are expected to deliver it to students.

"You can't adequately teach if you are getting curriculum two weeks before you teach it," Bost said.

In Baltimore County, for instance, the county is writing the language arts curriculum for the elementary grades as the year goes on. For weeks after school started, glitches to a website for teachers prevented them from having access to the resources they needed to teach the lessons.

Jack Smith, the chief academic officer for the Maryland State Department of Education, is more optimistic about the introduction of the new initiatives. He believes "the implementation is going well" although he said it isn't smooth or perfect everywhere.

"It is just hard switch from one system to another. It takes time. We have a lot of classroom teachers out there who have to think differently about the curriculum now," he said.

Teachers are also juggling a new evaluation system that judges them for the first time not just on how they teach, but whether their students are making progress. The evaluation systems, which are more complex than ever before, are being introduced this year. About two-thirds of teachers said they do not feel prepared for their new evaluation system, and 83 percent said there are challenges in putting it in place even if they had been trained in how it works.

While principals oversee the teacher evaluations, the new rules require teachers to pick out an area or skill that their students need to improve in the beginning of the school year and then provide a target they believe students should reach by the end of the year.

For instance, third-grade teachers might decide that 95 percent of their students should be able to do multiplication tables correctly by the end of the school year. The process of picking out those objectives has been an additional burden during a year when they are also transitioning to a new curriculum.

"Teachers are working hard and doing their best for their students, but these results should be huge red flags to policymakers and parents," MSEA President Betty Weller said in a statement. "Frustration is mounting and our schools and students are unfairly paying the price of this poorly thought-out implementation process."

Weller is calling for changes in the implementation plans to allow for a more orderly transition.

New curriculum and teacher evaluations will quickly be followed by the introduction of new tests — called Partnership for Assessments of Readiness for College and Careers — in all schools in the spring of 2015. A paper and pencil test can be given at schools for the first three years, but eventually schools will have to have enough bandwidth and computers for students to take the tests.

Only 9 percent of teachers say their schools have the technological or physical facilities to deliver the PARCC tests entirely on computers by 2015, while 20 percent said they don't know.

This spring, students in one classroom in each elementary and middle school in the state will be field testing the PARCC assessments. Those results will not be reported to the public, but they will be used as a trial. The remaining students will take the old Maryland School Assessments.

The introduction of the new initiatives has left teachers with a pile of extra homework. Teachers reported that they are spending several hours more each week trying to better understand the new standards and curriculum and prepare lessons.

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Tisha Edwards along with Councilmen Young/Stokes were involved in charters in the downtown Eastside Enterprise Zones that were used for some years to funnel low-performing students and low-income families from schools slated to become affluent -from Federal Hill, East Balt, and City Center.  Once all these families and students were moved from their local schools to these charters, where all indications are the instruction was not stellar the idea was to close these schools as failing and displace all the families and school children.  It was a great big gentrification play with schools called public.

All of these school closings are based on gentrification and movement of poor and working class families out of their communities by having 'choices' that take kids across town on buses or to vocational schools that are just as  bad as these charters closing.  We have seen no progress in achievement because these city students and teachers have a Herculean task of surviving these education policies!  Edwards from what I hear is like many appointed to the Balt School Board--having no education background and business/education privatizers.  That is what Alonzo worked toward while he was here and we have a school as business model that is completely underfunded and lacking resources unless you are the selected schools chosen for private donations.  This is not public schools.


We want to remind people that Baltimore has plenty of revenue for school building and none of these schools need to close.  First, we have billions of dollars yet to come from the massive subprime mortgage fraud that what little was collected so far is going right back to banks through investment development paying for demolition.  Not a cent went to schools in these same communities victimized by the massive fraud.  Second, the state owes the city schools almost $1 billion in underfunded city school lawsuit the state approved some years ago.  That in itself would pay for much of what neo-liberals working for Wall Street want as a $1 billion financial instrument with leverage and bond credit at a time of near economic crash.  We have the money----just get it for goodness sake!  The idea a state can ignore a court is BANANA REPUBLIC.

Can you imagine if we had Rule of Law and billions stolen in health fraud alone came back?  Enterprise Zone fraud involving contractual terms never met?  WOW----there is the money!  So, the school closings are unconstitutional in equal access and opportunity since the entire scheme is based on development and not need!

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Here is what a city can do when its school board and teacher's unions are activists and parents aren't silenced.  You see here that the power structure has placed this school privatizer in place with the business sector's direction.  Note that as in Baltimore the private non-profits they say are fighting the school board are the same as in Baltimore-----they are corporate non-profits led by directors appointed by corporations.


October 28, 2013
Civic leaders mobilizing to support L.A. schools chief
By Louis Freedberg This story also appeared at:




Ed Source A University of California regent is gathering support from civic, business and philanthropic leaders to pressure the seven member Board of Education of the Los Angeles Unified School District to “make every effort” to retain the services of John Deasy, its embattled school superintendent.

George Kieffer, a prominent attorney in the law firm of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, is seeking signatures from well-known Los Angelenos for a letter to the board that he is circulating. The letter highlights the divisions that have opened up regarding Deasy’s shaky status and rumors of his possible departure.

Second-grade teacher Claudine Phillips working with one of her small reading groups at Roscomare Road Elementary in Los Angeles. (Photo: Pat Wingert)

The letter describes a “tremendous sense of disappointment, approaching anger that the Los Angeles community is feeling” as a result of the ongoing conflicts between Deasy and the board.

A number of other actions are being planned for this week on Deasy’s behalf, including press conferences and rallies before the Board of Education.  The United Way of Greater Los Angeles is convening the coalition of community and civic groups it  helped organize last spring, Communities for Los Angeles Student Success, or CLASS, and will hold a telephone conference call of its members on Monday morning to plan its mobilization efforts.

The letter  being circulated by Kieffer asserts that “the leadership of the business community and the non-profit community strongly supports Superintendent Deasy and we encourage the school board to meet with him immediately to work out a plan to continue his tenure as our Superintendent of Schools.”  It notes the multiple reforms currently under way in the district, and concludes by saying “it will be very difficult to make good decisions for our children if we do not have a strong and experienced leader in the superintendent’s office. ”

“Firing Superintendent Deasy, or making his life so miserable that he has no choice but to leave, is not in the best interests of the students of Los Angeles,” the letter states.

What seems clear is that the city’s power structure is likely to mostly back Deasy.

Mayor Eric Garcetti has already come out unequivocally in support of Deasy. “I think the adults at the school district, across the board, need to remember that there are kids who (will be) the collateral damage to any loss of leadership, any loss of momentum, and any dysfunction and fighting,” he said las week.

He indirectly criticized the board of micromanaging, saying, “a board is there to set policy, is there to guide the direction. But at the end of the day, they are not the ones who are supposed to run the district. That’s supposed to be the superintendent.”

One clear opponent has been the United Teachers Los Angeles – whose members approved a referendum expressing no confidence in Deasy, who succeeded Ramon Cortines in 2011 – and gave him failing grades last summer.

A Los Angeles Times article reported last Thursday that Deasy had proffered his resignation, but Deasy in a text message to EdSource on the same evening said “I have not resigned. Have not submitted letter of resignation.” But he has not publicly addressed reports that he has told some board members that he intends to resign, or is contemplating doing so.

Matters could come to a head on Tuesday, when he is scheduled to go through an performance evaluation in a closed session with the board.

The rapidly approaching evaluation may have prompted the letter being circulated by Kieffer. Kieffer was appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown during his second term as governor in 1980 to serve on the Board of Governors for the California Community Colleges, where he eventually became chair. He was chair of the L.A. Charter Review Commission, which rewrote the city’s charter. He was twice elected chair of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. Even though the chamber opposed the recall of then Gov. Gray Davis, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger – who ousted Davis in the recall election – appointed Kieffer to a 12-year term on UC Board of Regents in 2009.

Kieffer did not respond to an email from EdSource seeking a comment on the letter.

The following is the full text of the letter:

Dear Members of the Board of Education:

This letter is to inform you of the tremendous sense of disappointment, approaching anger, that the Los Angeles community is feeling today because of the inability of the School Board to develop a plan with Superintendent Deasy to move forward together for the benefit of the students of the Los Angeles Unified School District (“LAUSD”).

LAUSD has seen important gains across the board in student achievement over the last few years. Under LAUSD Superintendent Dr. John Deasy’s leadership, the District has improved student test scores and other student success indicators such as the number of students accessing college preparation courses. It has also seen decreases in student drop-out rates and truancy rates.

The District is embarking on a massive roll out of professional development and technology tools that will prepare teachers and students to implement the new, and highly more rigorous, state education Common Core standards and student assessments. Further tests to Dr. Deasy’s leadership will be presented as the District prepares to develop its Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP), as part of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) that was passed by the State Legislature and signed by the Governor earlier this year. The LCFF is a much needed step in the right direction to ensure that all California schools receive equitable funds from the state.

All of these and other important initiatives are crucial to ensure students are succeeding academically and graduating prepared for college and 21st century competitive careers.

We believe that John Deasy has the unique skills and commitment necessary to move the district forward on each of these topics. The leadership of the business community and the non-profit community strongly supports Superintendent Deasy and we encourage the School Board to meet with him immediately to work out a plan to continue his tenure as our Superintendent of Schools.

In the next few months, and for the first time in several years due to an increase in funding, the Board will make critical decisions about the budget and technology programs. It will be very difficult to make good decisions for our children if we do not have a strong and experienced leader in the Superintendent’s office.

Firing Superintendent Deasy, or making his life so miserable that he has no choice but to leave, is not in the best interests of the students of Los Angeles. We urge you to pull the board together and make every effort to retain one of the top Superintendents in the country.

This story appears courtesy Ed Source. Reproduction is not permitted.



_________________________________________________________________
WHY AM I NOT HEARING ABOUT ACTIONS LIKE THIS IN BALTIMORE?

PSAT for 10-29-13: Plan to attend 11/21 forum on student data privacy
October 29th, 2013
PURE, Parents Across America, More Than a Score, the Chicago Teachers’ Union, and other groups are co-sponsoring an important forum on the threat to student data privacy.

The free, public event will take place in Chicago on Thursday, November 21, 2013, from 7 to 8:30 pm at Fosco Park, which is conveniently located at 13th and Racine.

Childcare and Spanish translation will be provided.

The main speaker will be Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters in New York City. Leonie is the nation’s foremost parent expert on inBloom and the current threat to student data privacy.

You can find some excellent background information on the CSM website, and local highlights on the More Than a Score website.

Why is this forum so important right now?

Beginning in January 2014, the state of Illinois may begin collecting up to 400 “data points” about each CPS and Illinois student under a contract with inBloom. This information that may be shared with for-profit companies. The program, called the Illinois Shared Learning Environment, or ISLE, is already being piloted in Bloomington and Normal.

PURE, MTAS and other groups sent letters to state superintendent Christopher Koch and CPS CEO Barbara Byrd Bennett on October 10 expressing opposition to the overall concept of sharing confidential student and teacher information with third parties without permission of parents or teachers, especially for commercial purposes. To date, we have not received a response from either school official.

Our letters detailed our concerns about the possibility of data breaches and potential unintentional misuse or future inappropriate use of the extensive private information about children, families and school employees that will be gathered and stored. We know that InBloom refuses to guarantee the security of this data. We also know that Wireless Generation, which designed the operating system for inBloom, is a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, and that Murdoch has been accused in the UK and the US of wiretapping and phone hacking.

The information to be collected about individual students may include name, address, grades, test scores, detailed disciplinary and health records, race, ethnicity, economic status, disabilities & other highly sensitive personal and family details. In the past, students’ school records could not be shared outside of school agencies without parents’ permission, but the federal government recently rewrote the regulations protecting student privacy to allow student data to be shared with for-profit companies involved in “educational programing.” This can be any company CPS or the state board of education chooses.

For more on this serious threat to our children’s privacy, read the MTAS fact sheet and backgrounder, “More Testing, Less Privacy?”

And please plan to attend the important forum on November 12. You can download a flyer to share here. - See more at: http://pureparents.org/#sthash.nKXw9Bnt.dpuf

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This will be happening in Baltimore and Maryland soon.  We need to be fighting this data collection that has only profit as its motive.

PSAT for 10-29-13: Plan to attend 11/21 forum on student data privacy PURE, Parents Across America, More Than a Score, the Chicago Teachers’ Union, and other groups are co-sponsoring an important forum on the threat to student data privacy.

The free, public event will take place in Chicago on Thursday, November 21, 2013, from 7 to 8:30 pm at Fosco Park, which is conveniently located at 13th and Racine.

Childcare and Spanish translation will be provided.

The main speaker will be Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters in New York City. Leonie is the nation’s foremost parent expert on inBloom and the current threat to student data privacy.

You can find some excellent background information on the CSM website, and local highlights on the More Than a Score website.

Why is this forum so important right now?

Beginning in January 2014, the state of Illinois may begin collecting up to 400 “data points” about each CPS and Illinois student under a contract with inBloom. This information that may be shared with for-profit companies. The program, called the Illinois Shared Learning Environment, or ISLE, is already being piloted in Bloomington and Normal.

PURE, MTAS and other groups sent letters to state superintendent Christopher Koch and CPS CEO Barbara Byrd Bennett on October 10 expressing opposition to the overall concept of sharing confidential student and teacher information with third parties without permission of parents or teachers, especially for commercial purposes. To date, we have not received a response from either school official.

Our letters detailed our concerns about the possibility of data breaches and potential unintentional misuse or future inappropriate use of the extensive private information about children, families and school employees that will be gathered and stored. We know that InBloom refuses to guarantee the security of this data. We also know that Wireless Generation, which designed the operating system for inBloom, is a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, and that Murdoch has been accused in the UK and the US of wiretapping and phone hacking.

The information to be collected about individual students may include name, address, grades, test scores, detailed disciplinary and health records, race, ethnicity, economic status, disabilities & other highly sensitive personal and family details. In the past, students’ school records could not be shared outside of school agencies without parents’ permission, but the federal government recently rewrote the regulations protecting student privacy to allow student data to be shared with for-profit companies involved in “educational programing.” This can be any company CPS or the state board of education chooses.

For more on this serious threat to our children’s privacy, read the MTAS fact sheet and backgrounder, “More Testing, Less Privacy?”



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Did you know that cell phones are used by students for more than lessons?  Did you know that even colleges have stop using computers in lecture halls because all the students surfed the web while they taught?  Did you know students---those sly youth----have been using texting to give answers on tests and drive teachers to distraction in an effort to keep all these issues neutralized.  EVERYONE KNOWS THAT!  So, why do Maryland school boards seem determined to keep students connected to technology 24/7? 

The education reform that MD is making was written by tech businesses and Wall Street and is only meant to make a market for an education tech bubble.  That is all.  These corporate types want our children to get used to lessons online because that is what they are moving towards...the cheapest education model is having children sitting in front of canned lessons presented by selected professors.  It is a cheapening of education folks with a consolidation of what content is taught and by whom.

Parents understand that the socialization of school is critical.  They understand the value of individual instructors with hands on ability and broad subject matter as a tool for teambuilding, communication, and leadership.  All that comes with Race to the Top is making education cheap and marketable as charters become businesses and national chains that trade on Wall Street.

Parents start petition for cellphone moratorium at Howard schools

• By Sara Toth, stoth@tribune.com 11:16 a.m. EDT, October 24, 2013
  
  
  

The new, relaxed rules allowing more cellphone use in Howard County schools have been in place for about two months, and while some parents are saying they enjoy the new freedom students have with their electronic devices, others are speaking out against the guidelines.

An online petition calling for a moratorium on the new rules has gained nearly 200 signatures since it was launched Oct. 1, with parents saying cellphones have no place in the schools, and that they should have been included in the decision- making process to relax the restrictions.

"The biggest concern for us was not just the new rules themselves, which we're not crazy about, but the way parents weren't included in the process," said Ying Matties, a Centennial High School mother of two, who started the petition with some friends. "We learned about it after school had started, when the new rules were already put in place. It was a shock and a surprise, and it shouldn't have been."

The Howard County Public School System this year relaxed cellphone use in schools. Three high schools — River Hill, Mt. Hebron and Long Reach — are piloting a bring-your-own-device program, which allows students to use their own phones, tablets and computers in class. In the other high schools, students are able to use their phones between classes and during lunch, and in middle schools students are able to have their phones with them, but out of sight and silent. In elementary schools, students must keep their phones turned off and in their backpacks. According to the new guidelines, "each school will work toward permitting cellphone use during cafeteria/recess and hallway/transition times by the end of first semester."

The Board of Education this summer approved a new policy outlining responsible use of technology for staff and students. That policy went through the public hearing process and was established by two policy committees that did include parents and students. An administrative action, however, led to the Bring Your Own Device pilot for the three high schools, said Frank Eastham, the system's executive director of school improvement and administration, and the decision to enact it and the new rules didn't include parent input.

"The policy opened up the possibility of devices in schools," he said. "We had to revise the code of conduct so student wouldn't be violating the rules by participating in the pilot."

Schools spokeswoman Rebecca Amani-Dove said the new policy has "a strong emphasis on meeting people where they are and how we communicate. There was resounding support for the policy and the direction it's taking the school system."

Petition-signers say allowing cellphones is schools is distracting, takes away from social and academic learning, and highlights inequities among the students.

"When my kids are home and have free time, they are glued to their electronics," said Karen York, a mother of three, including a daughter at Centennial. "I don't want that to be the case when they're at school. I want my daughter to have access to her phone in case of emergencies, yes, but between classes, at lunch, put your phone away and talk to people."

Beyond cellphones "having no place in the classroom," the new relaxed rules put pressure on families, said Michele Aylaian, a parent of two students at Centennial and one at Burleigh Manor Middle School.

"Kids are going to feel that, if everyone has cellphones, they should have one, too," she said. "That's an unnecessary social pressure for a sixth-grader, to feel that they have to have a phone because everyone else does."

York worries allowing students to use their phones could draw a line between the haves and the have-nots, or kids who have smartphones and those who don't.

"If the county wants the child to have his or her phone in class, the county should provide them," she said. "I shouldn't have to take on the financial burden to buy a phone and pay for service for the county's use. I worry, too, that it will be a form of ammunition. I don't want my daughter ostracized because other kids have the latest, greatest technology and she doesn't."

The Centennial PTSA executive board recently voted in favor of the petition started by Matties (who is an executive board member but abstained from the vote, she said). That vote is not indicative of the parent opinion at the school, said Ann Marie Krahe, a mother of two Centennial students.

"I think it's ridiculous," Krahe said. "The kids were using their phones anyway and to not think so would be naive. Now, if they're allowed to use it in the hallways or cafeteria, there's no reason for them to leave class and go to the bathroom to use it.."

Krahe's daughters don't have smartphones, and they're not going to have smartphones any time soon, but the family "has never worried about trying to keep up with the Joneses," she said, and if students are going to tease others about not having the "latest and greatest," that was going to happen with or without the new rules.

Another Centennial parent, Michelle Berry, said she was happy when she heard about the new cellphone rules. Since the start of the school year, she feels morale among her three children has risen.

"I've always felt that if you told a kid 'no, no, no,' at a certain point, it doesn't work," she said. "Giving them this freedom helps their learning. It helps put them in a better frame of mind to focus in class, and it frees up the teachers and administration to pay attention to the important things, rather than trying to police my kid who's trying to send a text. Before, especially in the middle schools, they were so strict about it. Even if the school day was over, kids would get in trouble for taking out their phones in the hallway."

While the majority of petition-signers are from the Ellicott City area, people from all over the county have signed on in protest. Support for the relaxed cellphone rules also is spread across the county, from parents who said the rules make life easier on them as well as their children.

"I like the idea," said Jackie Coleman, a Hammond High School parent. "My child can call me if there is any emergencies and she can use her phone for any apps or as a calculator (to help with schoolwork)."

Besides, Coleman said, if her daughter isn't having her phone taken away from her, Coleman doesn't have to go to the school and pick it up, as was common practice before this year.

It's a sentiment echoed by Keri Ekert, a parent at Reservoir High School.

"I think it's very convenient for both the parents and the child," she said. "I can send a text without worrying if my child is going to get their phone taken away (if they text back)."

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Remember, the poverty line for a Living Wage....the wage at which a person can live a first world quality of life with no public assistance is $30,000.  These are employees in our schools earning slightly over poverty.  How do you inspire people to achieve when the jobs they can attain keep them at poverty?  Does this inspire the children in these classes? 

The problem with student achievement before this education reform was lack of funding and resources in the classroom.  The problems are the same with the reform only heightened by policies that provide no value to teacher or student!

Updated: 10/17/2013
Teacher Aide:
Assists teaching staff of public or private elementary or secondary school. Takes attendance. Grades homework and tests and records results. Distributes teaching materials to students. Maintains order within school and on school grounds.

Operates learning aids, such as film projectors and... [+] More
Cost of Living Data A renter's cost of living for someone making $36,212 in Baltimore, Maryland is 109.1% of the US National Average.


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Below you see Maggie McIntosh......indeed she is behind the $1 billion school building fund that ties Baltimore's schools to yet another Wall Street financial instrument at a time when the economy is ready to collapse from an imploded bond market.  Look at how she and Baltimore school superintendent say nothing about massive corporate fraud that causes Maryland and Baltimore to lose billions of dollars that should be coming to city schools but rather,......they both want our schools to receive charity instead.  Don't worry they say----you can donate to a school of your choice!  THAT'S HOW PUBLIC EDUCATION ROLLS IN BALTIMORE.  WINNERS AND LOSERS MAGGIE SAYS!  We can have one public school getting first tiered funding per student and tons of private donations while other schools get low tiered per student funding and no private donations leaving some barely able to buy toilet paper.  MAGGIE SAYS THAT IS THE DEMOCRATIC WAY!!!!!!!

Below you see what communities raise these private donations to go to their schools.  They are the same communities in Enterprise Zones getting all public development investment and all kinds of taxpayer money.....fenced in tax revenue and ALL KINDS OF PRIVATE DONATION.  Exelon wants a Harbor Point highrise.....WE'LL DONATE A MILLION DOLLARS TO THAT CHARTER SCHOOL NEXT DOOR while starving government coffers of tax money that would support all public schools!

MAGGIE MCINTOSH IS A GREAT BIG NEO-LIBERAL WORKING FOR WEALTH AND PROFIT AND AGAINST FIRST WORLD DEMOCRACY----AS ARE ALL MARYLAND DEMOCRATS.  SHAKE THE BUGS OUT OF THE RUG!
A Baltimore school superintendent going to charity to fund public school uniforms?  REALLY?

2013 Events Shaving Day! - Tuesday, October 1st, 7 pm
Banditos (Federal Hill) Come and get your shave on! Join your fellow growers and supporters for the kickoff of this year’s growing season. Come clean shaven, or come ready to shave there!

Week 2 Check-In - Tuesday, October 8th, 7 pm
Speakeasy Saloon (Canton) The first check-up for your newborn stache. Show off that peach fuzz and get that next profile picture in the books!

Week 3 Check-In - Tuesday, October 15th, 7pm
Dogwatch Tavern (Fells Point) People are noticing you have a fuzzy lip sweater. Some are staring, a few have offered you B-movie deals. Come drink with us in a “mustache safe space”!

Week 4 Check-In - Tuesday, October 22nd, 7pm
Sticky Rice (Fells Point) The final check-in before Stache Bash. Have you planned your costume? Come get that Week 4 picture in the books and check out your competition!

STACHE BASH! - Saturday, November 2nd, 6-9 pm
MEX (Power Plant Live) Our CAN’T MISS final event! Come costumed and ready to show your stuff and your ‘stache.




Friends,

As you know, I am very proud of the role I was able to play earlier this year in passing legislation to implement a 10 year, $1 billion long-term plan to make vitally needed capital improvements to the Baltimore City Public Schools. This legislation will have a far-reaching impact on Baltimore’s children, ensuring that they have 21st century buildings in which to learn. However, many individual classrooms lack resources and teachers often have to pay for supplies out-of-pocket.

That’s why I’m asking you to join me in supporting the men (and women) at Mustaches for Kids Baltimore to help fund great classroom projects throughout the city. Since 2008 they have raised over $170,000, impacting nearly 90,000 students.

For the third consecutive year, my District Manager, Matt Stegman, is growing a ridiculous-looking mustache in support of Baltimore City classrooms. If you are able, consider making a small donation to the classroom project of your choice at his giving page. You can either choose your favorite project or give to the one in most urgent need and all donations are tax deductible.

Click Here to Donate to a Baltimore Classroom

 

Donations are collected by Donors Choose, a nationally-recognized charity that ensures your money will go directly to teachers in need. You can learn more about them here. I hope these classrooms can count on your support.

Sincerely,

 

Maggie

PS – When you donate, put ‘MALL20’ in gift/match box and you’ll have up to an extra $20 added to your donation for free.

PPS – If you’re interested in growing your own charity ‘stache, it is not too late! Visit http://m4kbaltimore.org to sign up!

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I'M TELLING YOU FOLKS THIS WILL GET UGLY IF YOU DO NOT START SHOUTING LOUDLY AND STRONGLY AND RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE IN ALL ELECTIONS!

Fox in the Schoolhouse: Rupert Murdoch Wants to Teach Your Kids! News Corp.'s major move into the education business. —By Stephanie Mencimer

| Fri Sep. 23, 2011 3:00 AM PDT104

Rupert Murdoch UPPA/ZUMA PressRupert Murdoch's reputation precedes him—but one thing he's not well known for is his education reform advocacy. But that could soon change. Next month, Murdoch will make an unusual public appearance in San Francisco, delivering the keynote address at an education summit hosted by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has lately been crisscrossing the country promoting his own version of education reform.

The high-profile speech to a collection of conservative ed reformers, state legislators, and educators is just the latest step in Murdoch's quiet march into the business of education, which has been somewhat eclipsed by the phone-hacking scandal besieging his media empire. (On Tuesday, word of Murdoch's appearance at Bush's conference came just hours after reports that News Corp. had agreed to pay more than $4 million to the family of a 13-year-old British murder victim, Milly Dowler, whose voicemail was hacked by reporters for Murdoch's News of the World. ) But Murdoch has made it very clear that he views America's public schools as a potential gold mine.

"In every other part of life, someone who woke up after a 50-year nap would not recognize the world around him…But not in education," he remarked in May during a speech at the "e-G8 forum" that preceded the G8 summit in France. "Our schools remain the last holdout from the digital revolution."

Last November, News Corp. dropped $360 million to buy Wireless Generation, a Brooklyn-based education technology company that provides software, assessment tools, and data services. "When it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the US alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs that extend the reach of great teaching," Murdoch said at the time.

A few weeks before the deal, News Corp. had hired one of the nation's most prominent education figures, Joel Klein, away from his job as New York City schools chancellor. As it happens, Klein was already familiar with Wireless Generation, which began working with the New York City school system during his tenure.

Advertise on MotherJones.com

While Murdoch's arrival to the education business is being cheered by Jeb Bush and other conservatives, the idea of the parent company of News of the World and Fox getting into the school biz hasn't gone over well with the education establishment. Murdoch's new venture has stirred controversy in New York, where this summer the state sought to enter into a $27 million contract with Wireless Generation to track student performance. Given Klein's hiring, the deal prompted an outcry by teachers' unions and other critics who saw the public school system becoming just another example of revolving-door politics and crony capitalism. ("They chose us because we're good," and not due to any connection to Klein, says Wireless Generation's spokeswoman, Joan Lebow.)

In early August, New York teachers' unions demanded the state rescind its plans to contract with Wireless Generation. "It is especially troubling that Wireless Generation will be tasked with creating a centralized database for personal student information even as its parent company, News Corporation, stands accused of engaging in illegal news-gathering tactics," representatives from the state and New York City teachers' unions wrote.

Wireless Generation had caused controversy even before Murdoch purchased the company. Last year, when New Jersey lost out on millions of federal education funding due to a screw-up on its grant application, the company landed at the center of the debacle. The state, after all, had reportedly paid the firm $500,000 to ensure the accuracy of its application, among other things.

News Corp.'s entrance into the education sector raises broader education policy questions, says University of Arizona education professor Kenneth Goodman. Having a multinational corporation in charge of assessing kids' reading skills, he notes, shows that "decision making in education is so far removed from people who have anything to do with kids." And like many educators, he is suspicious that Murdoch will bring his conservative ideology to his education ventures: "They'd like everything to be privatized."

Already, Murdoch's phone-hacking baggage is hurting his bottom line. In late August, New York rejected its plans to contract with Wireless Generation. The reason, according to the state's comptroller: "vendor responsibility issues involving the parent company of Wireless Generation."





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Just imagine that Enterprise Zone corporations getting hundreds of millions of dollars in property tax breaks actually paid them rather than being allowed to skirt these taxes and donate money to non-profits to build football fields or LaCrosse Museums.  Billion dollar corporations getting tax breaks that keep money out of public education is not only a really, really, really bad policy....it should be illegal.  Actually, if you look close enough most of these tax deals never have compliance making them illegal!

We need a school board that sees public schools as independent community assets.  To do that one would expect the Superintendent to shout out against these tax deals...did I hear Edwards shouting with us at the Harbor Point development deal for $100 million?  NO I DID NOT.  Do I hear Edwards shouting out against this policy of skirting city coffers for designer donations that select winners and losers and have nothing to do with public education?  NO I DID NOT!

Baltimore City has billions of dollars owed it from massive corporate fraud across all business sectors.  Whether electricity rate fraud, LIBOR interest rate fraud, Entitlement fraud, for-profit education fraud, subprime mortgage fraud..Baltimore is ground zero and has gotten pennies on the dollar stolen.  So, a school superintendent wanting a strong and independent public school system need not look for donations!


City school system launches fundraising campaign for school uniforms District faced lawsuit over burdensome uniform policies last month


By Erica L. Green 6:23 p.m. EDT, October 8, 2013  Baltimore Sun

The Baltimore City school system has launched a campaign to raise $400,000 to help families afford school uniforms, interim CEO Tisha Edwards announced Tuesday.

“We all have the opportunity to make sure that every student has a uniform, and that it’s never a barrier to them coming to school," Edwards said.

Edwards announced the campaign, which will be hosted by Combined Charities of Baltimore City, at the city school board meeting, following through on an idea she proposed this summer to help families afford school apparel.

Before she took her as post as interim CEO -- Edwards served as former city schools CEO Andres Alonso's chief of staff -- she convened a task force to explore school dress codes and found that students were inhibited by some schools' expensive and stringent uniform requirements.

But the move also came weeks after a local advocacy organization filed a federal lawsuit against the school district for policies they said exacerbated hardships for homeless students. You can read that story here.

The suit was filed by the Public Justice Center on behalf of three homeless families who said their students were denied federally mandated services such as transportation and were unfairly penalized because they couldn't afford uniforms.

One mother reported that her son was sent home for the first week of school because he couldn't afford the $150 uniform required at his school.

Edwards said that she was asking every employee in the school system -- the school system  apparently raises the most funds of any city agency in the Baltimore Combined Charities campaign -- to donate to the fund.

The charity number for the city schools uniform fund is 8721, she said.


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It was Alonzo's job to paint the bad educational achievement on teachers and principals because if you are going to cheapen and privatize schools you must get rid of public school structures.  This was his great achievement and why the 1% in Baltimore loved him.  Many teachers and principals .....not surprisingly black,......have left.  Meanwhile parents and students all hate the administrative structure left behind and test scores and student's love of learning are decreasing.

Ridding a public school system made up of mostly students of color and sending in Teach for America who know nothing about the communities is a deliberate attempt to take away any ability for these communities to organize and fight what is VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY BAD EDUCATION POLICY FOR ALL....BUT ESPECIALLY FOR PEOPLE OF COLOR.

Principals Walking Away From Baltimore Schools
August 11, 2011 8:21 PM
Gigi Barnett



BALTIMORE (WJZ)– City school shake-up. A high number of principals are walking away from the Baltimore schools.

As Gigi Barnett explains, it’s a turnover rate that started when the current CEO took the helm.

Since taking over city schools four years ago, Baltimore City Schools CEO Dr. Andres Alonso slashed positions and moved employees. So much so that only 25 percent of principals who were on the job when he arrived are still there.

His response: The job is tough.

“The expectation since I arrived is that kids come first,” Dr. Alonso said. “And we’re going to move fast. And in the process, that wasn’t the way many of them wanted to work.”

Dr. Alonso says there are several reasons why 75 percent of the principals who once headed schools when he arrived are now gone. Some of them were promoted and had to come to the central office. Others retired. And then there were those, Dr. Alonso says, who just weren’t a good fit for the job.

“If you’re not good enough for our kids, then maybe you should work some place else,” he said.

And that’s causing a stir. Especially among civil rights activists like Marvin “Doc” Cheatham. He heads the Baltimore chapter of the National Action Network and he feels that experienced principals won’t be around.

“It’s not as much we’re second-guessing Dr. Alonso,” said Cheatham. “We’re saying that we have to raise concerns. These principals have been there for a while.”

Plus, Cheatham fears that those replacing outgoing principals may not have a strong connection to students or the community.

“They need to understand and appreciate and respect the culture which they are going to be principals over,” he said. “And it takes a while to do that.”

With a little more than two weeks before the new school year, Dr. Alonso says he’s almost finished filling all of the 42 vacant principal positions. This week he hired 15 new principals.

Only about nine vacant principal positions remain. Dr. Alonso says he’ll make a final choice for those by August 23.




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We encourage people to join a law suit heading to court to stop this $1 billion school funding bill as it is illegal and public malfeasance.  As has been said before, the economy is getting ready to crash with a bond bubble that will be bigger than the 2008 crash next year.  The bond market is ready to implode and there is a dash out of the market that will bring interest rates on bonds that are now manipulated to near zero by Fed policy to what is expected to be 2-3% in just a few years.  Now, just a .5% increase adds hundreds of millions onto the cost of the project, so 2-3% will add billions.  It is a scam just as any Wall Street financial instrument ends in the public losing billions.

This is the least of the problem believe it or not.  When the market crashes the public sector will be hit so hard with debt as before...only worse because O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake has loaded Maryland with all kinds of bond debt....that a default will occur that will move these schools from the public's hands to the private hands.  This is the goal of this deal...to privatize ownership of these public schools.  Not to be cheated out of all they can get, these school building deal makers will use CDS to insure these bonds against default and cash in to an insurance policy that will pay them 100% while everyone around them loses all.....SOUND FAMILIAR?  LIKE MAYBE THE LAST CRASH?  So, there will be another insurance corporation like AIG that will sell all these CDS for municipal bonds that will go bankrupt and the public will bail them out just as we did AIG.

THIS IS WHAT THIS SCHOOL BUILDING FUNDING PLAN IS ALL ABOUT.  This is why it is illegal.  Public officials know all this and cannot place the public in harms way; that is malfeasance.  For those who think that building these school overrides all of this.....WE HAVE BILLIONS IN FRAUD COMING BACK TO BALTIMORE FROM THE LAST ROUND OF WALL STREET FRAUDS FOR GOODNESS SAKE....DEMAND THAT PAY FOR ALL SCHOOLS TO BE REBUILT!  Join us in this lawsuit to stop this school building scam!



School construction agreement moves ahead at North Avenue and City Hall Document sets out details of $1 billion plan by the state, city and school system to upgrade Baltimore's dilapidated schools.

Fern Shen September 25, 2013 at 12:01 pm Story Link 2

School construction memorandum approved by city school board represents years of advocates’ efforts, including rallies like this one in Annapolis in February.

Baltimore’s school board last night approved a Memorandum of Understanding that advances the massive school construction initiative approved in the last legislative session – and congratulated the team that hammered out the 54 pages of terms in the city, state and school system agreement.

“I can’t say enough how exciting this moment is,” said Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners Chair Shanaysha Sauls.

Interim city schools CEO Tisha Edwards chimed in with a simple “Yippee!”

The document was also approved by the city Board of Estimates at today’s meeting and still requires approval by the Maryland Stadium Authority (MSA) and the Inter-agency Committee on School Construction (IAC). It becomes final upon approval by the Maryland Board of Public Works, which is scheduled to consider it on October 16.

The agreement obligates the parties to a combined $60 million per year in funding for a comprehensive plan to renovate and replace the city’s outdated and dilapidated public school facilities.

The agreement launches an initiative that will finance $1 billion for building 15 new schools and fully renovating another 35. It’s the first phase of efforts to address what advocates say are $2.4 billion of critical facilities needs district-wide.

Roles and Responsibilities

The agreement specifies the roles and responsibilities of the parties, making clear that the Stadium Authority is to oversee financing of the so-called 10-year plan (also referred to as “The 21st Century Building Plan”), and that the city school board has final say on educational issues.

It also sets up a structure for parties to address a range of issues, including architectural design, local hiring, procurement rules and minority business participation.

“Opt-out” points are provided for the parties as well, including MSA’s right to withhold funds if the school board fails to proceed with scheduled school closures as part of the initiative’s consolidation plan.

Revenue contributions – including receipts from the city’s bottle tax and 10% of rent and table game proceeds from the new Baltimore casino – are also specified.

Interim City Schools CEO Tisha Edwards and School Commissioners Chair Shanaysha Sauls at last night’s meeting. (Photo by Fern Shen)

Already taking place in neighborhoods where the new schools are planned are “visioning” meetings to get broad input on how best to use the 3,000 square feet in space for community uses promised in each new school.

“Are there medical clinics that can be housed in the building? Day care? Career education? If there is a pool, should there be community access? These are things the schools and the community will be meeting to talk about,” said Bebe Verdery, director of the Education Reform Project for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland.

“We are way beyond bathrooms with stall doors that close and windows that open and shut,” Verdery said. “Those things are a given.” (A separate MOU between the schools and the city is being prepared to specify community and after-hours use of school facilities.)

Addressing the commissioners, activist Kim Trueheart said a visioning meeting she attended at Forest Park High School the previous night was “wonderful,” but added that there were no parents in attendance. “We’ve got to work on that.”

Trueheart also said the Memorandum of Understanding should have specified a role for not just city school officials (“You all are appointed”), but for the City Council, “the elected representatives of the people.”

Spreading Benefits Beyond School Buildings?

Another speaker who addressed the commissioners was state Sen. William C. Ferguson IV (46th District), floating the idea of creating “community investment zones” to revitalize the neighborhood around a renovated school, as well.

“The problems of Baltimore’s neighborhoods are greater than the problems of just city schools,” he said. “To overcome the challenges we need a holistic approach.”

He described creating “a structured, targeted zone where development resources could be concentrated” and investment in schools could be “leveraged” with other resources. He described involvement by non-profits and by the city housing department through its “Vacants to Value” program.

Tisha Edwards, Shanaysha Sauls and David Stone listen to remarks by state Sen. Bill Ferguson. (Photo by Fern Shen)

Speaking later with The Brew, Ferguson said he had been thinking generally about the idea and saw it well articulated in an op-ed by a local architect, Davin Hong, who also addressed the commissioners.

During questioning by the board, Commissioner Cheryl Casciani asked Ferguson if he was proposing these zones for all of the new or renovated schools?

“Ideally it would be everywhere,” he said. “Realistically, it might just start in some pilot sites.”



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The same thing is happening in Maryland with the Baltimore Mayor handing our school board to O'Malley who is filling the board with business people and school privatizers. These are neo-liberals working for wealth and profit....please run and vote for labor and justice in all elections!


Friday Sep 27, 2013 4:10 pm

‘People’s Board’ Takes On Rahm Emanuel’s Handpicked School Board By Matthew Blake

In December, teacher Jason Cooper testified to empty chairs at a Chicago Board of Education meeting after board members retreated from protesters. (Linda Lutton / Flickr  

Jitu Brown, an education organizer at Chicago’s Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, has been a fixture at Chicago Board of Education meetings for the last few years. Almost every month, he excoriates the board for signing off on policies like the unprecedented closure of 50 public schools this May or budgets that drain money from neighborhood schools. 

But Brown says his days of complaining to deaf ears are over.  

Kenwood Oakland Community Organization and groups such as Action Now, many of which are loosely allied with the Chicago Teachers Union through shared citywide activist coalitions, were conspicuously absent from Wednesday morning’s Board of Education meeting in downtown Chicago. Instead, these advocates convened Wednesday night at Mt. Carmel Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood to hold the inaugural “People’s Board of Education.”

The few dozen attendees—including several high school students, members of the teachers union, and representatives of Chicago neighborhood organizations—were there to try out a new organizing strategy. Instead of engaging a Board of Education that is appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and serves entirely at the pleasure of the mayor (Emanuel appointed a completely new board when he took office in April 2011), they will fight for legislation in the state of Illinois that would usher in a school board decided by Chicago voters.  

Brown says that his recent organizing efforts to get parents, teachers, students and community members to attend official Chicago Public Schools events, like the monthly board meetings and hearings this spring on the school shutdowns, amounted to wasted energy. 

“We went to school closing hearings organized by CPS as opposed to steering people away from those meetings and toward the fight for an elected school board,” Brown said in an interview with Working In These Times after the People’s Board of Education meeting. “We had furious anger but it was misdirected. It was like pouring water into a glass with a hole in the bottom.”

The People’s Board of Education actually decided to design their meeting similar to an official CPS event. Community activist board members gave brief opening remarks about the need to “fight a focused fight,” in the words of Brown, and persuade state lawmakers to support an elected school board. The people’s board then turned the meeting over to short talks by audience members, much like the Chicago Board of Education lets registered public speakers address the board for up to two minutes. 

Anita Orakoff, a resident of the Hyde Park-Kenwood neighborhood, emphasized the need to increase the visibility and pull of Local School Councils—elected bodies at each Chicago public school that have the power to hire the school’s principal and make some budget decisions.  Orakoff pointed out that the members of LSC’s are currently the only education officials in the city that are directly accountable to voters. 

Juanita Douglas, a teacher at Lincoln Park High School, said that she would like CPS central office officials to spend more time in the schools. “I would tell the board to come undercover. Come see what’s going on, sit with the teachers,” Douglas said. “It’s not all ugly; I love everything about teaching my kids to grow.”

Pauline Lipman, an education professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago who attended the meeting, said that while the structure was similar to Board of Education meetings, the difference was that the People’s Board members listened.

“I have gone to the Board of Education and stood in line starting at 6:00 in the morning only to speak for two minutes to people who are texting and reading the newspaper while we’re talking to them,” Lippman said.

Lipman co-authored a 2011 University of Illinois-Chicago study that compared elected to appointed school boards across the country. The study cited examples such as school boards in Milwaukee and San Francisco, where elected boards voted against matters proposed by district officials, such as school closings, after a community input process. 

Lipman says that while an elected school board is “no magic bullet,” it is a “necessary condition to restore democracy in education to Chicago.” 

Still, the strategy of giving up on the current board and fighting for a new one is risky. 

Introduced in January 2013 by State Rep. Elgie Sims, a South Side Chicago Democrat who says that he works closely with education activists, Illinois House Bill 2793, which calls for an elected Chicago school board, is currently in the state’s House Rules Committee. Brown noted that committee is traditionally where “bills go to die.” 

Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, a Chicago resident who is up for re-election next year, supports an elected Chicago school board, putting him at odds with Emanuel. But state legislative leaders like House Speaker Mike Madigan, also a Chicago Democrat, have stayed quiet on the matter. 

Brown says he will try and persuade downstate lawmakers that the law is one way to better align Chicago—the only district in the state with an appointed, instead of elected, school board—with the rest of Illinois. 

Sims says that “before we push forward” on getting a Rules Committee vote, he will wait and see if advocates are successful in getting more lawmakers to support the measure.  

Meanwhile, other Chicago education advocates, like the “Common Sense Coalition of LSC’s,” are still trying to engage the appointed board. Coalition member Kate Bolduc said that the group is pushing the mayor and CPS officials to tour schools hit by recent budget cuts that eviscerated art and music programs. The coalition is also pushing the city to invest surplus Tax Increment Finance dollars—property tax revenue currently diverted to economic development projects of City Hall’s choosing—in Chicago schools.

“We have no position yet on an elected school board,” Bolduc says. “We’re focusing on fiscal reform right now.” 


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The Baltimore School system is rife with violations of equal protection/equal access to education laws and will be seeing lots of lawsuits in this regard as we see the effects of policy like tiered per student funding and schools that are barely funded while others are getting not only higher per student funding but all kinds of private donations.  The system is one big violation.

What we see are young students forced onto city buses to attend schools outside their communities in the guise of getting to a better school while the city's universities have fleets of school buses moving college students around the city.  PUTTING YOUNG CHILDREN ON CITY BUSES WHEN RESOURCES ARE THERE TO DO OTHERWISE?

We are seeing as well with arbitrary school closings done for the sake of the Master Plan and the Baltimore Development Corporation that students will be forced to transit dangerous neighborhoods to get to school in other communities.  NO PROBLEM WE WILL DO COMMUNITY SAFE TRANSIT.  Really?

All of this school policy is illegal and immoral.  While we know it is meant to clear the working class and poor from neighborhoods being developed as affuent, we know as well that the money being used is often Federal and/or part of the settlement for subprime loan directed to underserved communities and we expect to see money flooding in to rectify these gross violations.


Baltimore school system sued over homeless students Federal lawsuit claims system failed to provide transportation, other assistance to homeless students

Tameka Pridget and her son are plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the school system that alleges it is failing to provide federally mandated services to homeless families. (Algerina Perna, Baltimore Sun / September 22, 2013)

By Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun 12:01 p.m. EDT, September 24, 2013

Homeless families in Baltimore have filed a federal lawsuit against the city school system, contending that their children have been denied transportation to school and been stigmatized because they couldn't afford field trips and uniforms.

The class-action lawsuit, filed by the Public Justice Center on behalf of three homeless families in U.S. District Court, seeks an injunction against the district to stop policies and practices that hurt the already struggling families.

"These barriers are symptomatic of larger failures when it comes to identifying and serving these kids, and ensuring that they have the same opportunity to succeed as housed kids, which is what the law requires," said Monisha Cherayil, an attorney with the Public Justice Center Education Stability Project.

Among the plaintiffs is the family of a fourth-grader who receives special-education services and misses on average two days of school per week because he doesn't get transportation to and from his shelter, according to the lawsuit and his mother.

Another family contends a seventh-grader had to stay home the first week of school because he didn't have the required $150 uniform with his school's logo on it. And a third family said two siblings won't attend a field trip to a local farm Thursday because their mother was denied a waiver from the $20 fee.

The families aren't seeking monetary damages beyond what they had to pay or borrow to cover transportation and other costs.

City school officials said that in recent years the district "has increased its focus on and strengthened the services provided to homeless students." They declined to comment further, citing the pending litigation.

The Public Justice Center has filed similar lawsuits against Prince George's, Baltimore, and Montgomery counties, prompting those districts to improve accommodations for homeless students.

The Baltimore City lawsuit alleges the district violated students' rights under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Improvements Act of 2001. That law requires that "each homeless youth has equal access to the same free, appropriate public education … as provided to other children and youths."

Under the law, school systems must provide transportation to the same school students were attending when they became homeless, for the duration of their homelessness.

Tameka Pridget said she repeatedly requested transportation for her fourth-grader to James Mosher Elementary from the Marian House, a Northeast Baltimore shelter where she and her two sons have been living since July.

She said school officials told her Sept. 12 that the transportation request would take another seven days to process. As of Monday, she said, her son still had not received transportation.

The mother of two said she had to borrow gas money to get her 9-year-old son to school, and on time, neither of which happens regularly. She said they twice had to walk miles to his West Baltimore school when she ran out of gas.

Pridget's older son attends a school closer to the Marian House, but she said he's often late because she's not back in time to help him make the 8 a.m. bell.

"It's been really stressful," Pridget said. "I'm spending money that I don't have, borrowing money that I can't pay back. ... He asks all the time if he's going to school, and some days I don't know what to tell him because I just don't have the money."

Pridget, 30, lost her job in March, and was evicted from her home months later. She said she expects to lose her welfare benefits at the end of the month because she hasn't participated in a work program — the times conflict with when she needs to take her sons to school.

Pridget said school officials told her that her son may have to transfer schools because he's missing too many days. But she doesn't want to move him from where he's attended since 2011 and is now thriving. He has an individualized education plan, which provides him special-education services.

"He's already behind because of his disability," she said. "So to get more behind will be harder on him."

The federal law also requires that school districts review and revise "practices or policies that may act as a barrier to the enrollment, attendance, or success in school of homeless children and youth."

Cherayil said some policies, such as those requiring uniforms, have been "literally making kids wear the poverty on their sleeves."


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We want to be clear....there are many things to hate about Common Core.  The problem teachers in this article try to relate is that with tiered education funding having some schools deemed public privately subsidized while other schools are getting a bare-bones level of funding will never allow for any equitable system of assessment.  IT IS IMPOSSIBLE.  Underserved and special needs students are so far behind the curve because of a decades-long failure to fund and resource city schools properly that if a reform that has only curricula that builds towards a graduation goal connected to each grade....those students that cannot manage now will be out of public schools.

This is serious as this education reform is moving so fast as this teacher says...it is being written as implemented...with absolutely no value says most academics ....and students will suffer.  Teachers have and will be frustrated and de-valued.

The reason for the rush is that this reform is about creating private market-driven schools attached to corporate interests and canned lessons given online as the cheapest vehicle.  IT IS KILLING PUBLIC EDUCATION AND THAT IS WHY NO PUBLIC DEBATE IS ALLOWED!


Teachers complain about access to new curriculum Baltimore County educators say they have trouble finding lesson plans as curriculum is written just weeks before it will be taught
By Liz Bowie, The Baltimore Sun 5:02 a.m. EDT, September 23, 2013


Westowne Elementary teacher Kathleen Mannion has spent long hours after classes using a cumbersome website to access the curriculum she is supposed to teach the next day.

"I almost feel like I am living in an alternative universe," said Mannion, who told of how she and fellow teachers at the Catonsville area school regularly leave school at 9 p.m. "I do feel frustrated."

One month into the new school year and rigorous new standards known as Common Core, a number of glitches have arisen within Maryland's public school districts. In Baltimore County, officials are still writing local versions of the lessons. In Anne Arundel, teachers had trouble getting lesson plans because of a limited number of computers.

And in Carroll County, officials are debating whether the curriculum should have been implemented. The County Commissioners announced plans for a citizen study group to examine concerns about the impact of Common Core.

While proponents say the new standards put more emphasis on teaching students to analyze, write and read nonfiction, teachers, parents and others complain implementation has been rushed and some schools are ill-prepared.

Baltimore County Superintendent Dallas Dance acknowledged problems but expressed confidence the glitches would be worked out, and that teachers and students would adjust.

"We are building the plane as we fly it," he said, adding, "but let's be clear our passengers are safe."

The Baltimore County teachers' union has fielded dozens of complaints on behalf of elementary teachers working as late as 10 p.m., as they grapple with accessing the new language arts lessons, and parents say they are concerned their children are being put at a disadvantage.

Carmita Vogel, the parent of a third-grader at Cedermere Elementary near Reisterstown, said it's unfair to put "amazing" teachers in a situation where they can't do their best.

The school system "needs to do their job. Their approach to this is shoddy at best," Vogel said.

Shirelle Jones, a teacher at Chatsworth Elementary School in Reisterstown, said teachers have not received proper training. At her school, she said, the principal has pitched in to help train teachers.

"We are all pretty stressed and confused right now," Jones said, referring to teachers' problems accessing the curriculum. "We are truly fortunate to have a principal who understands our pain. We are all trying to fly the plane while we are making it."

Mannion, who is a veteran teacher, said when she signs on to the Baltimore County school website that allows her to see part of the curriculum, it takes her dozens of clicks to locate the materials and the remainder of the lessons she needs to teach.

County officials say they are working to correct the problems. The chief academic officer, Verletta White, said officials expected the transition to be challenging.

"We do care about and value how we are supporting our school-based personnel," she said.

She added the school system has been delivering printed versions to schools for teachers until computer access is improved, probably by the end of October.

The county has not attempted to put its middle or high school English lessons on the digital platform yet, according to White. In the meantime, White said, teachers have been given training on how to adapt the old curriculum to the Common Core and have been told to work the new standards into their existing lessons.

Curriculum, teachers say, is at the heart of what goes on in the classroom. The Common Core standards tell teachers what students should know at a certain grade level, but they don't dictate how those skills are taught.

For instance, the new standards state that by the end of fifth grade, students should be able to "compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text."

But it is left up to local school systems to decide what poetry or stories the fifth-graders read and how they are taught to compare and contrast characters.


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This is a republican review of a very bad meeting in Baltimore County on Common Core.  There have been no one from labor and justice fighting against these reforms in Maryland and that is whom these reforms hurt the most.  This lady writing the article is right.....Dance completely rephrased most questions at this forum.  My question was rephrased to WON'T NATIONALIZED EDUCATION BE BAD?  My question was this:

We all know the goal of education reform is to place children in front of computers to listen to canned online lessons from professors chosen by people at the top and these canned lessons distributed around the country.  We know that where Common Core may be OK for fact-driven courses like STEM is will take all democratic and social development out of history, social sciences, and art as regional teachings give individual opportunity to build its voice.  What the 1% are trying to do is capture all information disseminated in schools from K-college and that means people will not be citizens.  It also means that public schools having Common Core and its planned incremental learning for all will have underserved students who do not have the learning skills to catch up will fail out of the system and will go into what will become a shadow system that already shows signs of including special needs children.  ALL OF THIS IS CRITICAL FOR BALTIMORE PARENTS AND NONE OF IT IS SPOKEN.

I know that this reporter with a conservative view has different reasons for concern.  Centralized education and not liking the Federal government is one.  Now that the government is controlled by corporations this should concern all.  The underserved are not all black and Hispanic....we know that the republican centers fall into this category as well so this is a bad issue for both parties.

What is especially bad is that black education leaders are being made the faces of this reform that kills democratic education....equal opportunity.  I heard in Dr Lowery's voice after she was made to give the required answers to Dance's pre-altered questions-----she realizes she is being used by the 1% to do very bad policy.  I BET LOWERY WILL NOT ALLOW HERSELF TO BE USED AS THE FACE OF THIS REFORM!

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: School Supers have parent arrested from Common Core meeting (Video)
 September 20, 2013

School Superintendents receive an F grade for Common Core meeting

Dr. Dallas Dance, Superintendent of Baltimore County Public Schools, and Lillian Lowery, Maryland Superintendent, had the opportunity Thursday night to make minor amends at an MSDE-sponsored informational meeting after a three-plus year information blackout on Common Core, the new federal curriculum for Maryland schools.

Instead, Dr. Dance added insult to injury by screening, omitting, and editing parents’ questions.

Questions from the audience of about 160 people, which consisted of parents, PTA members, teachers, and school administrators, were submitted on cards prior to and during the 1-1/2 hour meeting for the Q&A period which lasted about 40 minutes.

Dr. Dance chose which questions to read or omit, opting for teacher and school administrator or softball questions. But he also altered the wording of the questions themselves.

My submitted question:
“What is the process for parents to review what data has been or will be collected on our kids, where it is stored, how it will be used, and with whom it has or will be shared? What are parents options for opting out of data collection on our kids?”

What Dr. Dance read:
“As a parent, I’ve heard a lot of information around the state Longitudinal Data system. What is the process to review what data is being collected on students, where is it stored, how will it be used, with whom will it be shared?”

After the question was answered, I called out, “Can parents opt out?”, but was ignored.

My submitted question:
“Although Common Core was adopted by MDE three years ago, in exchange for a quarter Billion dollar federal incentive grant through Race To The Top which is conditioned upon adherence to Common Core, parents weren’t informed until after its implementation. The MDE has not valued nor requested parental input. Instead, there was no transparency or even the courtesy of notifying parents much less consulting them. No wonder parents are up in arms. You’ve awakened the Mama Bear. Why haven’t parents across the state heard of Common Core until the month of its implementation?”

What Dr. Dance read:
“As a parent, I was a little disappointed that I’m just starting to hear so much information around the Common Core state standard. I want to be informed as most parents across our state. As a parent, how can I learn more information around Common Core?”

Parent removed and arrested from the meeting for speaking out of turn

As the pom-pom and rah-rah session neared an end about 20 minutes before the meeting close, parental frustration was mounting as our questions were still going unanswered. One parent, Robert Small, decided to interject to try to force some answers (see video at top of article).

He said: “I want to know how many parents here are aware that the goal of the Common Core standards isn’t to prepare kids for full-fledged universities, it’s to prepare them for community college.....Parents, take control. We’re sick of this. This is not a CNN political game. This is a public town hall... Listen, don’t stand for this. You’re sitting here like cattle. You have questions. Confront them. They don’t want to do it in public.... Parents, you need to question these people....Do the research, it’s online.”

Mr. Small was arrested after being removed from the auditorium and charged with second degree assault of a police officer and a second charge of disrupting a school function.

The video clearly shows that, if anyone was aggressive, it was the security guard, not Mr. Small. What may have happened out in the hall however, is unknown.

In the second video clip (click here), you can hear multiple parents call out how their question was not read and they were ignored.

There will be one more out of four Common Core meetings hosted by county school boards in Maryland. This one is on October 1 in Prince George’s County. Click here for more info.

STAY INFORMED: Please subscribe above to receive free email notifications each time I post a new article. Thanks for supporting a conservative writer in Maryland!




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Posted at 6:00 AM ET, 03/10/2010

The problem(s) with the Common Core standards
By V alerie Strauss

'But even assuming that you don’t share those views and believe that national standards make sense, there are legitimate concerns about this Common Core effort and the notion that it is reasonable to ask every kid in every grade to know certain things'.   


There is not a thing wrong with wanting young people in every state of the country to know how to do the same important skills and understand the same key concepts.

If knowing the Pythagorean theorem is important for kids in Florida, it should be important for kids in Hawaii, too.

That is the reasoning behind the Common Core Standards, which as my colleague Nick Anderson, wrote today, are being released today in a blueprint for what all students should learn in English and math, in each grade, from kindergarten through high school.

The national standards are meant to replace the individual state standards now in place, some of which are said by educators to be essentially useless to guide instruction because they are too vague, poorly written and/or incomplete.

Many educators and parents oppose national standards, fearing that this will lead to a national curriculum and national assessment test that would take away local control of education as well affect how teachers operate in the classroom.

But even assuming that you don’t share those views and believe that national standards make sense, there are legitimate concerns about this Common Core effort and the notion that it is reasonable to ask every kid in every grade to know certain things.

The fact that it took well less than a year to write these very important standards doesn’t necessarily mean they are inadequate, but it makes me wonder.

The fact that few if any classroom teachers were involved in the drafting of the standards--(none were asked to help draft theNo Child Left Behind law)--doesn’t necessarily make them inadequate, but it makes me wonder.

The fact that much of the drafting process was done in secrecy doesn’t necessarily make them inadequate, but it makes me wonder.

What I especially worry about is a stepping up of what we have already seen happen with curriculum in the NCLB era. The “push down” effect has essentially pushed into lower grades the things kids are supposed to be able to do and know.

Once, schools gave youngsters a chance to learn how to read according to their own development. Now, a child who still can’t read by the end of first grade is in deep trouble from which it can be hard to emerge.

With the proposed standards, what happens to these children in fourth grade when they are expected to explain major differences between poetry and prose, and to refer to such elements as stanza, verse, rhythm and meter when working or speaking about a poem?

What about eighth-graders who fell behind in fifth grade math and, try as they might, don’t understand how to use linear equations to solve for an unknown and explain a proof of the Pythagorean Theorem on properties of a right triangle, as the proposed standard demands?

I know people who didn’t really start to enjoy reading into late in elementary school and even middle school, but later became voracious readers because a teacher was able to reach them and spark an interest. I know people (myself included) who didn’t understand Algebra until 10th grade.

Telling teachers that they must teach certain things to each child in a specific grade ignores this notion of individual development.

Another concern about the new standards is that they are only for math and English. The emphasis on those subjects in No Child Left Behind's assessment scheme led to a dangerous narrowing of curriculum in public schools; the arts disappeared in many systems, science and history and physical education took a back seat too.

As education historian Diane Ravitch wrote in her new book "Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education:"

"Our schools will not improve if we continue to focus only on reading and mathematics while ignoring the other studies that are essential elements of a good education... Our schools will not improve if we value only what tests measure... Not everything that matters can be quantified."

There is a common notion in American education reform circles that we are falling behind other countries with high-achieving school systems in large part because we don’t have national standards.

But in her new book, “The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future,” Stanford University Professor Linda Darling-Hammond, who served as Barack Obama’s chief education adviser duringn the presidential transition, makes clear that this isn’t the case.

She explains how Finland--now widely hailed by U.S. policymakers--turned around its school system. But, contrary to popular belief, it didn’t do it by establishing a highly centralized national system with detailed national standards.

It “shifted to a more localized system in which highly trained teachers design curriculum around very lean national standards,” she wrote. All assessments are school-based, designed by teachers, rather than standardized.

For promoters of national standards, it is important to remember that standards alone may be useful, and even necessary, in education, as cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham wrote here recently.

But they are not enough. Both Willingham, a University of Virginia professor, and Darling-Hammond make clear that no set of standards has much meaning without equitable resources to ensure that teachers are trained well enough to reach kids who live in all circumstances.

If the organizations that were so gung-ho to produce the national standards don’t see that their job has just begun, and that the next, even larger, effort is to secure equitable resources for schools, then the document being released today will have little meaning.

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Roland Park teaching to be subject of documentary Brain-targeted teaching has garnered international attention

Ramona Persaud, producer of "Grey Matters," films Josiah Johns (left), 9, as he reads. At right, Avon Johnson, 9, listens. Persaud is working on a documentary about the Brain-Targeted Teaching Model and Roland Park Elementary/Middle School is one of the schools featured. (Kim Hairston, Baltimore Sun / September 18, 2013)

By Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun 5:00 a.m. EDT, September 19, 2013

When filmmaker Ramona Persaud decided to home-school her children, she soon realized how difficult it would be.

"I would keep asking [my daughter], 'Why aren't you getting this? Why aren't you remembering?' And telling her, 'We can sit here all day,'" Persaud said. "She was getting visibly frustrated and stressed, as was I. It was just not working."

Then Persaud came across a teaching approach — the Brain-Targeted Teaching Model developed by a Baltimore educator in one of the highest-performing schools in the city — that she said gave her a reality check. Her daughter wasn't retaining information, she realized, because of the way our brains are wired.

Now Persaud is filming a documentary at Roland Park Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore that will illustrate the neuroscience-based teaching model. Teachers across the city and nation have been trained in the model, which tailors teaching practices to how students' brains process, store and retrieve information.

"The whole idea of fun in learning — because you remember the fun stuff — we don't think about that as grown-ups because life is hard, life is work," Persaud said. "When we hear fun, we hear frivolous. What this film is going to do is show these fun learning environments and the progress."

Persaud said the documentary will show a "complete paradigm shift in education" under the model, which has drawn international attention since Roland Park's former principal, Mariale Hardiman, created it more than a decade ago.

Upon researching the model, Persaud realized that her interactions with her daughter lacked a positive emotional connection — the first of the six targets to be achieved under the model. In short, her daughter wasn't enjoying the learning process.

"I just really sucked at teaching," said Persaud, who continues to home-school — but now follows the brain-targeted model.

The remaining targets are: creating physical climates conducive to learning, designing big-picture concepts, encouraging mastery of skills through arts integration or repetition, incorporating real-world application in lessons, and performing ongoing evaluations of student performance.

Hardiman left Roland Park in 2006 to join the Johns Hopkins University, where she is now a professor of education and heads a cross-disciplinary program called the Neuro-Education Initiative. She said the model became a culture at Roland Park.

While the targets may seem like common-sense teaching practice, she said, "teachers' heads are sometimes spinning, throwing out the old for the new that comes with the focus of the year."

The model mirrors best practices under what's known as the Common Core curriculum, which teachers in Maryland and around the country are adopting this year. For instance, the Common Core requires students to show mastery of content through more writing and projects.

"We're about 10 years ahead of Common Core," Hardiman said. "But Common Core will be the avenue through which children will be able to learn this way all the time."

Every target is directly linked to a part of the brain that is responsible for learning.

For instance, setting a positive emotional climate is important because "information that comes to the brain is processed first in this emotional center before being processed in the cognitive or 'thinking' center, located in the frontal lobe of the cerebrum," the model explains. And students' physical environments are important because "the active brain constantly scans the environment seeking stimuli."

"It's not a curriculum, it's not a marketed product; it's a philosophy, it's a way of teaching," Hardiman said. "When teachers get it in their bones, the model becomes invisible. When I walk around today, I see it everywhere. There may be teachers who can't tell you what all of the brain targets are, but they've embodied them."

Even the staircases — covered in murals — are meant to inspire and stimulate students.

And in Justin Holbrook's classroom at Roland Park, the model manifests itself in the teacher's childhood Tonka trucks lining the shelves, his fist pumps for correct answers and "whoosh claps" to congratulate students for a job well done.

Lessons include mapping out thoughts, becoming scientists and exploring an imaginary Grand Canyon, or requiring students to pretend they are floating to get a tissue or use the bathroom to reinforce the laws of gravity.

For her documentary, Persaud will follow two students who are relatively new to Roland Park, and track their progress through the end of the year. Persaud also plans to film the model in use at a New York high school and a Pennsylvania college.

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This is one of the worst education policies in an plethora of worst public education policies.  There is a reason teachers have tried to limit phones in classrooms...... students miss-use them and they distract students from the lessons at hand.

When MIT University takes its online course instruction out of its university instruction because administrators noticed that all of the college students spent the lecture period simply surfing the web......WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUNG STUDENTS WILL DO? 

The biggest concern for people wanting to educate children is that these phones have been used for years to TEXT answers to class assignments and tests taking away incentive for the student to do his/her own work.  The biggest reason for the current politicians to put these phones in the classroom is that Maryland education policy is driven by market and profit.  So, these pols want to create an education technology bubble for Wall Street and want to get students used to getting their courses online.

There is overwhelming evidence and research that shows all these policies are bad.  Polls show parents, teachers, and academics all do not want them and the reason Maryland leads in these bad policies is that we have neo-liberals as pols that should be democrats.  Democrats do not place market-based policy ahead of strong public education!  We need everyone fighting these education policies!


Cellphones now common, welcome sight in Howard schools

• 1/10 By Sara Toth, stoth@tribune.com 9:08 a.m. EDT, September 19, 2013

Last year, if David Fisher used his cellphone during the day at River Hill High School, he would have gotten in trouble. His phone could have been taken away, and he could have been written up.

"If I had to email or text someone, I would have kind of have to do it on the sly," the River Hill senior said. "Not that I ever did that. Maybe."

It was a problem, Fisher said; as president of the school's Student Government Association, he said his phone is an extension of his work because he frequently has emails or texts to respond to. Now, however, the Howard County Public School System has relaxed its restrictions on student cellphone use, and some schools — like River Hill — want their students to use their smartphones, tablets and laptops in class.

The relaxed cellphone guidelines are part of the school system's recent work to encourage the use of technology in schools, said Coordinator of Instructional Technology Julie Wray. Earlier this year, the Board of Education approved a set of new and revised policies allowing for the use of social media and outlining acceptable uses of technology.

As a result, cellphone restrictions are down, a focus on digital citizenship is up and three high schools — River Hill, Mt. Hebron and Long Reach — are piloting a bring-your-own-device program to foster education in new ways.

"It's so much easier, so convenient," said Emily Thornton, a sophomore at River Hill. "Just being able to use your phone and not get into trouble."

The old rules were "silly," said Bailey Heneghan, another River Hill sophomore: cellphones could be used before the first bell and after dismissal, but otherwise they were supposed to be on silent, out of sight if not out of mind.

"I mean, to not even use them in the hallways or the cafeteria?" she said. "It was ridiculous."

Just because students weren't allowed to use their phones doesn't mean they didn't, said sophomore Sophia Knowlton-Latirm. They would just text under their desks, or make phone calls in the bathroom. Now the days of smart phone hide-and-seek are over.

"There's less resistance among the kids, and we have a more relaxed atmosphere," River Hill Principal Nick Novak said. "We were spending so much time focusing on the negative things surrounding cellphone use, we couldn't focus on the positive. This is a more balanced approach."

Wray also considers it a more enlightened one.

"That's the key thing: the ability for students to have access to technology and use technology that they're comfortable with," Wray said. "It lends flexibility so the students are more able to be more creative and express their understanding."

The bring-your-own-device pilot, in which students can use their phones, tablets and laptops in class as part of the instruction, is ramping up and will fully be under way at the three high schools in the next few days, Wray said. Many teachers at the pilot schools started taking advantage of the opportunity right off the bat.

"We're working on college application essays, so the kids can sit on their laptops, look at sample essays and work on their own," said Kristin Mitchell, who teaches AP English and the leadership class at River Hill.

Allowing cellphones in schools also opens up new opportunities for the school itself, Mitchell said. Now, students can vote for homecoming court, prom court and SGA candidates on their phones. Students on the yearbook staff can take photos just as good as ones from a digital camera, and teachers can send out notifications instantly to alert students about anything they need to know for an upcoming class.

Maddie Collen, a freshman, used her phone recently to type an essay and send it to her teacher. Granted, it was four paragraphs, and she took her time making sure everything was spelled correctly, but she said it's a relief to have cellphone use encouraged rather than disciplined.

"We'd have our phones taken away if we tried to do that last year," she said. "If it was a chill teacher, they'd give you your phone back at the end of class, or the end of the day. If it was a strict teacher, your phone would have to be picked up at the office by your mom or dad. That was embarrassing."

Fewer rules doesn't mean no rules, Wray said. Students have to sign acceptable use of technology forms before using devices in schools, and if teachers believe that students aren't abiding by classroom rules, the students are still subject to disciplinary measures.

"The main focus is on instruction," Wray said. "At the pilot schools, teachers are asking students, 'Take out your phones and look this up,' and if a student isn't doing what they're asked, if they're causing a distraction or not staying on task, there are still consequences."

Ultimately, using the cellphones in class as part of the pilot is an honor system, Mitchell said. Three weeks into the school year, Novak said, he was not aware of any students being written up for inappropriate cellphone use. Part of that, he said, is the focus on teaching good digital citizenship, and the students realize the need for them to be responsible and respectful.

"You have to be smart about it," River Hill senior Natalie Tran said. "There's a difference between class time and your time. Just because we're allowed to use this technology doesn't mean we're going to use it willy-nilly. We understand this. We understand having phones in class is a pilot and if we're not responsible, we could ruin it for everybody."

Wray said the bring-your-own-device pilot would be evaluated this fall, and a report would go before the board this winter. She said she hoped the pilot would expand to all high schools.

"We want students to build up their 21st-century skills, to give them the tools they need in the world," she said. "We want students to understand their roles as responsible citizens in the digital world, and we're starting as young as kindergarten with the curriculum — things as simple as 'don't talk to strangers when you're playing outside' translate to the digital world, too. There's also a social component, understanding the difference between digital friends and face-to-face friends. With communication, there's texting, but it's not talking, so it's about striking the right balance and making sure kids have the social skills to be able to talk to someone in person."

That was one concern when the cellphones rules were relaxed, Novak said — that students would stop talking to one another.

"But obviously, you can see a vibrant discussion happening," Novak said, standing outside the boisterous River Hill cafeteria last week. "Social interactions have by no means disintegrated."


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Baltimore and Maryland are in the hands of hard-core education privatizers in O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake and the push comes from Johns Hopkins here in Baltimore.  Neo-liberals see education and health care as the next markets for Wall Street and that is what Race to the Top and Affordable Care Act do----make public education and health a market-based structure.

Charters, Teach for America, and school choice are being used as urban gentrifiers so many parents do not see the long-term goal being Wall Street.  The intent is to privatize all of K-12 with these policies and not only schools for the poor.  STOP ALLOWING WALL STREET HAVE OUR PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES AND K-12 BY ELECTING NEO-LIBERALS!  All of Maryland democrats are neo-liberals.  WE NEED LABOR AND JUSTICE RUNNING CANDIDATES IN ALL ELECTIONS.  It is the Mayor and Governor who controls education policy in Maryland and Baltimore.  We have Rawlings-Blake handing our school board over to O'Malley and he then appoints all corporate/business educators to all government positions.  WE CAN AND MUST REVERSE THIS BY SIMPLY STOPPING THE FARM TEAM OF CORPORATE POLS!

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Sunday, Sep 15, 2013 07:00 AM EDT
Diane Ravitch: School privatization is a hoax, “reformers” aim to destroy public schools

Our public schools aren't in decline. And "reformers" with wild promises don't care about education — just profits By Diane Ravitch

Excerpted from "Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools" As long as anyone can remember, critics have been saying that the schools are in decline. They used to be the best in the world, they say, but no longer. They used to have real standards, but no longer. They used to have discipline, but no longer. What the critics seldom acknowledge is that our schools have changed as our society has changed. Some who look longingly to a golden age in the past remember a time when the schools educated only a small fraction of the population.

But the students in the college-bound track of fifty years ago did not get the high quality of education that is now typical in public schools with Advanced Placement courses or International Baccalaureate programs or even in the regular courses offered in our top city and suburban schools. There are more remedial classes today, but there are also more public school students with special needs, more students who don’t read English, more students from troubled families, and fewer students dropping out. As for discipline, it bears remembering a 1955 film called “Blackboard Jungle,” about an unruly, violent inner-city school where students bullied other students. The students in this school were all white. Today, public schools are often the safest places for children in tough neighborhoods.

The claim that the public schools are in decline is not new. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Anti-intellectualism in American Life,” Richard Hofstadter characterized writing on education in the United States as “a literature of acid criticism and bitter complaint . . . The educational jeremiad is as much a feature of our literature as the jeremiad in the Puritan sermons.” From the 1820s to our own time, reformers have complained about low standards, ignorant teachers, and incompetent school boards. He noted that anyone longing for the “good old days” would have difficulty finding a time when critics were not bemoaning the quality of the public schools.

advertisementThere is a tendency nowadays to hark back with nostalgia to the mythical good old days, usually imagined as about forty or fifty years ago. But few people seem to realize there never was a time when everyone succeeded in school. When present-day critics refer to what they assume was a better past, they look back to a time when a large proportion of American youths did not complete high school and only a small minority completed four years of college. In those supposedly halcyon days, the schools in many states were racially segregated, as were most colleges and universities. Children with disabilities did not have a right to a free public education until after the passage of federal legislation in 1975 and were often excluded from public schools. Nor did schools enroll significant numbers of non-English-speaking students in the 1940s and 1950s or even the 1960s. Immigration laws restricted the admission of foreigners to the United States from the early 1920s until the mid-1960s. After the laws were changed, the schools began to enroll students from Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, Russia, Africa, and other parts of the world that had previously arrived in small numbers.

Thus, those who now sharply criticize the public schools speak fondly of an era when most schools were racially segregated; when public schools were not required to accept children with physical, mental, and emotional handicaps; when there were relatively few students who did not speak or read English; and when few graduated from high school and went to college.

Indifferent to history, today’s corporate reformers insist that the public schools are in an unprecedented crisis. They tell us that children must be able to “escape” their “failing public schools.” They claim they are “for the children,” unlike their teachers, who are not for the children. They would have the public believe that children and their teachers are in warring camps. They put “children first” or “students first.” Their policies, they say, will make us competitive and give us “great teachers” and “great schools” in every community. They say they know how to “close the achievement gap,” and they claim to be leading “the civil rights issue of our time.” Their policies, they say, will make our children into “global competitors.” They will protect our national security. They will make America strong again. The corporate reformers play to our anxieties, even rekindling dormant Cold War fears that we may be in jeopardy as a nation if we don’t buy what they are selling.

The critics want the public to believe that our public schools are a clear and present danger to our society. Unless there is radical change, they say, our society will fall apart. Our economy will disappear. Our national security is in danger. The message is clear: public education threatens all that we hold dear.

Recognizing that most Americans have a strong attachment to their community schools, the corporate reformers have taken care to describe their aims in pseudo-populist terms. While trying to scare us with warnings of dire peril, they mask their agenda with rhetoric that is soothing and deceptive. Though they speak of “reform,” what they really mean is deregulation and privatization. When they speak of “accountability,” what they really mean is a rigid reliance on standardized testing as both the means and the end of education. When they speak of “effective teachers,” what they mean is teachers whose students produce higher scores on standardized tests every year, not teachers who inspire their students to love learning. When they speak of “innovation,” they mean replacing teachers with technology to cut staffing costs. When they speak of “no excuses,” they mean a boot-camp culture where students must obey orders and rules without question.

When they speak of “personalized instruction,” they mean putting children in front of computers with algorithms that supposedly adjust content and test questions to the ability level of the student but actually sacrifice human contact with a real teacher. When they speak of “achievement” or “performance,” they mean higher scores on standardized tests. When they speak of “data-driven instruction,” they mean that test scores and graduation rates should be the primary determinant of what is best for children and schools. When they speak of “competition,” they mean deregulated charters and deregulated private schools competing with highly regulated public schools. When they speak of “a successful school,” they refer only to its test scores, not to a school that is the center of its community, with a great orchestra, an enthusiastic chorus, a hardworking chess team, a thriving robotics program, or teachers who have dedicated their lives to helping the students with the highest needs (and often the lowest scores).

The reformers define the purpose of education as preparation for global competitiveness, higher education, or the workforce. They view students as “human capital” or “assets.” One seldom sees any reference in their literature or public declarations to the importance of developing full persons to assume the responsibilities of citizenship.

Of equal importance are the topics that corporate reformers don’t talk about. Seldom do they protest budget cuts, no matter how massive they may be. They do not complain when governors and legislatures cut billions from the public schools while claiming to be reformers. They do not protest rising rates of child poverty. They do not complain about racial segregation. They see no harm in devoting more time and resources to standardized testing. They are not heard from when districts cut the arts, libraries, and physical education while spending more on testing. They do not complain when federal or state or city officials announce plans to test children in kindergarten or even pre-kindergarten.

They do not complain about increased class size. They do not object to scripted curricula or teachers’ loss of professional autonomy.

They do not object when experienced teachers are replaced by recruits who have only a few weeks of training. They close their eyes to evidence that charters enroll disproportionately small numbers of children with disabilities, or those from troubled homes, or English-language learners (in fact, they typically deny any such disparities, even when documented by state and federal data). They do not complain when for-profit corporations run charter schools or when educational services are outsourced to for-profit businesses. Indeed, they welcome entrepreneurs into the reform community as investors and partners.

If the American public understood that reformers want to privatize their public schools and divert their taxes to pay profits to investors, it would be hard to sell the corporate idea of reform. If parents understood that the reformers want to close down their community schools and require them to go shopping for schools, some far from home, that may or may not accept their children, it would be hard to sell the corporate idea of reform. If the American public understood that the very concept of education was being disfigured into a mechanism to apply standardized testing and sort their children into data points on a normal curve, it would be hard to sell the corporate idea of reform.

If the American public understood that their children’s teachers will be judged by the same test scores that label their children as worthy or unworthy, it would be hard to sell the corporate idea of reform. If the American public knew how inaccurate and unreliable these methods are, both for children and for teachers, it would be hard to sell the corporate idea of reform. And that is why the reform message must be rebranded to make it palatable to the public.

The leaders of the privatization movement call themselves reformers, but their premises are strikingly different from those of reformers in the past. In earlier eras, reformers wanted such things as a better curriculum, better-prepared teachers, better funding, more equitable funding, smaller classes, and desegregation, which they believed would lead to better public schools. By contrast, today’s reformers insist that public education is a failed enterprise and that all these strategies have been tried and failed.

They assert that the best way to save education is to hand it over to private management and let the market sort out the winners and the losers. They wish to substitute private choices for the public’s responsibility to provide good schools for all children. They lack any understanding of the crucial role of public schools in a democracy.

The central premise of this movement is that our public schools are in decline. But this is not true. The public schools are working very well for most students. Contrary to popular myth, the scores on the no-stakes federal tests— the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) — are at an all-time high for students who are white, black, Hispanic, and Asian. Graduation rates are also at an all-time high.

More young people than ever are entering college. Even more would go to college if the costs were not so high.

Of course some schools and districts have very low test scores and low graduation rates, and this has always been true. Most of these schools and districts have two features in common: poverty and high concentrations of racial minorities. The combination of these two factors is associated with low test scores. Children whose parents are poor and have low educational attainment tend to have lower test scores.

Children who are poor receive less medical attention and less nutrition and experience more stress, disruption, and crises in their lives. These factors have an ongoing and profound effect on academic performance.

That is why poor children need even more stability, more support, smaller class sizes, and more attention from their teachers and others in their schools, but often receive far less, due to underfunding.

Unfortunately, many people are unwilling to address the root causes of poor school outcomes, because doing so is either too politically difficult or too costly.

They believe it is faster, simpler, and less expensive to privatize the public schools than do anything substantive to reduce poverty and racial isolation or to provide the nurturing environments and well-rounded education that children from prosperous families receive.

Instead, the privatization movement nonchalantly closes the schools attended by poor children and destabilizes their lives. The privatization agenda excites the interest of edu-entrepreneurs, who see it as a golden opportunity to make money. But it is bad for our society. It undermines the sense of collective responsibility for collective needs. It hurts public education not only by attacking its effectiveness and legitimacy but by laying claim to its revenues. The money allocated to privately managed charters and vouchers represents a transfer of critical public resources to the private sector, causing the public schools to suffer budget cuts and loss of staffing and services as the private sector grows, without providing better education or better outcomes for the students who transfer to the private-sector schools.

Reformers in every era have used the schools as punching bags. In one era, progressives complained that the schools were obsolete, backward, mindless, rigid, and out of step with the demands of the modern age. Then, in their turn, came anti-progressives or “essentialists” who complained that the schools had grown soft, standards and curriculum had collapsed, and students were not learning as much as they once did.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, reformers lambasted the schools, saying they were too academic and ignored the economy’s need for trained workers. In 1914, Congress passed the first federal legislation to encourage industrial and vocational education so that schools could prepare young people for jobs on the nation’s farms and factories. In the 1930s, with millions of people out of work, reformers blamed the schools for their inability to keep students enrolled and out of the ranks of the unemployed. Reformers called on the schools to be more attentive to the needs of adolescents so as to entice them to stay in school longer. The New Deal created the Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Youth Administration to provide education and training for young people during the Depression.

In the 1940s, reformers complained that the schools were obsolete and were failing to give students the skills they needed for life and work; “life adjustment education” became the reformers’ battle cry. In the 1950s, reformers said that the schools had forgotten the basics and needed to raise academic standards and return to time-honored subject matter disciplines. In the 1960s, reformers said that the schools were too academic and that students were stifled by routine and dreary assignments; the reformers wanted more spontaneity, more freedom, and fewer requirements for students. At the same time, the civil rights movement achieved major gains, and the schools became the focus of national legislation and Supreme Court rulings that required desegregation.

In the late 1970s, a backlash against the reform ideas of the 1960s and early 1970s led to the rise of minimum competency testing and, once again, a return to the basics. Despite the pendulum swings, despite the critics and reform movements, the American public continued to be grateful for public education and to admire its community schools.

Then came the 1980s, with a stern warning in 1983 from the National Commission on Excellence in Education that we were “a nation at risk” because of the low standards and low expectations in our schools. Our national slippage was caused, said the commission, by “a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.”

This mediocre educational performance was nothing less than “an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.” The alarmist rhetoric was excessive, but it was enough to generate media attention and caused many states to raise their graduation requirements. In response to the dire warnings in the 1983 report, standards, testing, and accountability became the national agenda for school reform.

Many policy makers agreed: set higher standards; test to see if students have mastered them; hold back students or prevent them from graduating if they don’t pass. There was no research to support these strategies, but they were widely accepted anyway, as were proposals to reward the schools that succeeded on state tests and penalize those that did not. The first Bush administration embraced these ideas, as did the Clinton administration. The second Bush administration made testing and accountability the federal agenda with passage of its No Child Left Behind legislation.

Somehow, in the midst of all this nonstop controversy and criticism, the public schools continued teaching generations of students. And somehow, despite the endless complaints and policy churn, the American economy continued to be the largest in the world. And somehow, American culture continued to be a creative and vibrant force, reshaping the cultures of other nations (for better or worse). Our democracy survived, and American technological innovations changed the way people live around the globe. Despite the alleged failures of the schools that educated the vast majority of them, American workers are among the most productive in the world.

After the publication of “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform” in 1983, public discourse about the nation’s educational system settled on the unfounded belief that America’s public schools were locked into an arc of decline. Report after report was issued by commissions, task forces, and study groups, purporting to document the “crisis” in American education, the “crisis” of student achievement, the “crisis” of high school dropouts, the “crisis” of bad teachers.

News magazines like Time and Newsweek published stories about the crisis, television networks ran specials about the crisis, editorialists opined about the causes of the crisis. The steady drumbeat of negative journalism had its effect: Public opinion about the quality of American public education dropped from 1973 to 2012. In 1973, 58 percent of Americans felt confident about the public schools, but by 2012 their approval rating had dropped to only 29 percent (which still was higher than public confidence in banks and big business, which stood at 21 percent, or Congress at 13 percent).

In striking contrast, Americans whose children attended public schools continued to have a very high opinion of their own schools. In another Gallup poll in 2012, only 19 percent of the public gave an A or a B to the nation’s public schools, but 77 percent of parents awarded high marks to their own public school, the one they knew best. Two-thirds of respondents said they read mostly “bad stories” in the media about public schools. So, the parents who had the most direct experience with the schools thought well of them, but the relentless negative coverage by the media very likely drove down the general public’s estimation of American public education.

More recently, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation dedicated its considerable energies to persuading the public and policy makers that the nation’s public schools are failing. In 2005, Bill Gates told the nation’s governors that the nation’s high schools were “obsolete” and “broken.” At that time, he wanted to redesign the American high school by making schools smaller, with the goal that every student would be prepared to enter college. Three years later, his foundation abandoned its small-school initiative, having spent $2 billion to persuade districts to replace their comprehensive high schools with schools too small to offer a balanced curriculum. Despite this setback, Gates remained certain that the public school system was obsolete and broken. The solution, his foundation now believed, was to develop new evaluation systems that could identify ineffective teachers so that there would be an effective teacher in every classroom.

In 2012, Melinda Gates was interviewed on the PBS “NewsHour.” When the interviewer asked her what was “working and what can scale up,” she responded:

If you look back a decade ago, when we started into this work, there wasn’t even a conversation across the nation about the fact that our schools were broken, fundamentally broken. And I think that dialogue has changed. I think the American public has woken up to the fact now that schools are broken. We’re not serving our kids well.

They’re not being educated for the — for technology society.

The Gates Foundation and others financed a lavish, well-coordinated media campaign to spread the word about our broken public schools; its leading edge was a documentary film called “Waiting for Superman.” The film, which included interviews with Michelle Rhee, Bill Gates, and the economist Eric Hanushek, among others, made the central points that public education was failing, that resources don’t matter, and that the best ways to fix the national crisis of low test scores were to expand the number of privately managed charters, fire ineffective teachers, and weaken the unions that protected them. It was released in September 2010 with an unprecedented publicity campaign, funded in large part by the Gates Foundation, and was featured on the cover of Time magazine. The film was also the centerpiece of a week of programming on NBC, which the network called “Education Nation,” as well as the subject of two programs on Oprah Winfrey’s popular television show.

The film told the story of five children who were desperate to enroll in privately managed charter schools and whose hopes depended on winning the lottery to gain admission. Each child was adorable, and the viewers’ emotions became engaged with their plights and their dreams of escaping from awful public schools (and in one case a Catholic school). The film painted public schools as failures whose teachers were self-centered, uncaring, and incompetent. The statistics in the film about poor educational performance were misleading and erroneous, as was its idyllic portrait of charter schools. Yet the producers and promoters of the film made sure it was viewed as widely as possible, giving free screenings throughout the country to parent groups, state legislatures, even to the national conference of the PTA.

“Waiting for Superman” provided the charter school movement with a degree of public visibility it had never had. It also gave the movement a populist patina, making it seem that if you were concerned about the plight of poor inner-city children, you would certainly support the creation of many more charter schools. The film burnished the claim by charter advocates that they were involved in “the civil rights issue of our time,” because they were leading the battle to provide more choice to poor and disadvantaged children trapped in low-performing public schools.

The film’s narrative, as well as the larger public discussion, was directed away from the controversial issue of privatization to the ideologically appealing concept of choice. Reformers don’t like to mention the word “privatization,” although this is indeed the driving ideological force behind the movement. “Choice” remains the preferred word, since it suggests that parents should be seen as consumers with the ability to exercise their freedom to leave one school and select another. The new movement for privatization has enabled school choice to transcend its tarnished history as an escape route for southern whites who sought to avoid court-ordered desegregation in the 1950s and 1960s.

To advance the privatization agenda, it was necessary never to mention the P word and to keep repeating the C word. After all, the public had no reason to be enthusiastic about the takeover of one of its essential public institutions by private financiers and entrepreneurs. Privatization of libraries, hospitals, prisons, and other basic services had long been hailed by those on the political right, but how could one persuade entire communities to hand over their children and their public schools to private sector corporations, some of which hoped to turn a profit off their children, in order to reward their shareholders? The only way to accomplish this sleight of hand was to pursue a skillful public relations campaign that drummed in the message, over and over, that our public schools are failures, that these failures harm our children and threaten our nation’s future prosperity. Repeat it often enough, and people would come to believe that any alternative would be better than the current system.

Once that message sank in, Americans would be ready for the antidote: eliminating the public schools they had long known and cherished as the centers of their communities.

The prestigious Council on Foreign Relations issued a report in 2012 intended to provoke fears that the public schools not only were failing but endangered the future survival of our nation. Joel I. Klein, former chancellor of the New York City public schools, and Condoleezza Rice, former secretary of state in the administration of President George W. Bush, were co-chairs of the task force that produced the report. The report warned that the nation’s public schools were a very grave threat to national security. It recited doleful statistics showing that students in the United States were not leading the world on international assessments but scoring only in the middle (but not mentioning that this was the same complaint that had been expressed in “A Nation at Risk” thirty years earlier). It asserted that employers could not find qualified workers and that the schools were not preparing people to serve in the military, the intelligence service, or other jobs critical to national defense.

On and on went the bill of indictment against the public schools. The task force offered three recommendations. One was that the states should adopt the Common Core standards in mathematics and reading, already endorsed by forty-six states. Since the Common Core standards have never been field-tested, no one knows whether they will raise test scores or cause the achievement gap among different racial, ethnic, and income groups to narrow or to widen. One study, by Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution, predicted that the standards would have little or no effect on academic achievement; he noted that “from 2003 to 2009, states with terrific standards raised their National Assessment of Educational Progress scores by roughly the same margin as states with awful ones.” Loveless reported that there was as much variation within states, even those with excellent standards, as between states.

The task force’s second recommendation was that the schools of the nation should have a “national security readiness audit” to see if they were doing their job in preparing students to meet the nation’s economic and military needs. This seemed like a hollow attempt to revive Cold War fears, given that there was no military adversary comparable to the Soviet Union. The report did not suggest what agency should conduct this audit, what it would cost, and what would happen to those schools that failed it.

The key recommendation of the task force, whose members included leading figures in the corporate reform movement, was that more school choice was needed, specifically the expansion of privately managed charter schools and vouchers.

If it were true that the nation faced a very grave security threat, this was not much of a call to arms to combat it, since most states had already adopted the Common Core standards and were increasing school choice in response to the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program.

Perhaps the most curious development over the three decades from “A Nation at Risk” to the 2012 report of the Council on Foreign Relations was this: what was originally seen in 1983 as the agenda of the most libertarian Republicans — school choice — had now become the agenda of the establishment, both Republicans and Democrats. Though there was no new evidence to support this agenda and a growing body of evidence against it, the realignment of political forces on the right and the left presented the most serious challenge to the legitimacy and future of public education in our nation’s history.

Excerpted from “Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools.” Copyright © 2013 by Diane Ravitch. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.



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Regarding education reform in Baltimore:

Did anyone hear the latest in the worst education policy in the country?  Allowing K-12 to bring their mobile devices to classrooms because they may want to check email or make calls during the day.  Now, I thought this was a gag.....but it is actual policy.

I have a friend whose child had to have an IPOD for school.  We are of the belief that children are connected to computers far too much and should have time away from computer screens big or small.  With classroom policy though, it is less about what can be taught on an IPOD and more of 'HOW DOES A TEACHER KEEP A STUDENTS ATTENTION WITH MOBILE DEVICES IN CLASS FOR GOODNESS SAKE'!  When I was in the classroom, as a teacher I was constantly dealing with telling students to pay attention, stop surfing, and most importantly STUDENTS USE THEM TO CHEAT ON TESTS!  It is common for students in a classroom to TEXT one another answers to classwork and tests and impossible for one teacher to monitor all the time.  One student asking a question....and don't think this isn't a known scheme for these innocents!....keeps the teacher's attention away from a classroom full of TEXTers.  It will only be yet another obstacle against quality education in Maryland.

So why do they do it?  They are first and foremost getting students used to having all instruction online.  IT IS CONDITIONING FOR WHAT EDUCATION PRIVATIZERS WANT CLASSROOMS FOR MIDDLE/LOWER CLASS STUDENTS TO BE....ALL DONE ONLINE WITH CANNED LESSONS.  As important, these pols making the education policy....O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake working for Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.....do not see achievement as important as creating this structure for marketed education.  Cheating to get good grades?  THAT SOUNDS LIKE THE LYING, CHEATING, STEALING ETHOS OF ELITE INSTITUTIONS LIKE STANFORD, HARVARD, PRINCETON, AND JOHNS HOPKINS!  Wait......that is who is writing this policy with Bill Gates and the tech businesses!

I want to remind people that these same institutions gave us the policies in the 1980s that lead to students not being able to read and do math and they did it for the same reasons.  They wanted to dumb-down the best education system in the world and they wanted to make a business lots of money....in that case it was Hewlett Packard and the calculator crowd and Stanford and the 'creative lessons without textbooks' crowd.  Education policy that takes textbooks out of the classroom and calculators for math into the classroom is the same policy that thinks mobile devices for all is a good thing.  IT IS ONLY MEANT TO SELL PRODUCTS AND TO FOSTER THE BEHAVIOR OF ONLINE CLASSES.

We have in Maryland the worst of the worst in leadership that have no commitment to people and the public good.  They are completely focused on what will make profits for the few.

Maryland citizens will find these policies in their classrooms soon if not right now as this is the education reform that leads to corporate control of education and education as a market.  We are losing billions of education dollars spent on this effort and we need people to STOP VOTING FOR NEO-LIBERALS AND RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE IN ALL COMING ELECTIONS!  Remember, it is the governor and mayor who makes these education appointments and policy and right now.....MARYLAND HAS NO DEMOCRATS RUNNING FOR STATE OFFICE....ONLY NEO-LIBERALS WHO WILL CONTINUE THESE POLICIES!

'Critics of programs aimed at putting a mobile device into every student's hand say that in tight budget times, the money spent on technology like iPods and iPads or programs that ensure each child has a computer in school might be better spent on hiring and training good teachers'.


Schools increasingly turn to mobile devices in classrooms
Posted: 01/17/2012

• By: By ANGELA DICE, Scripps Howard News Service

BREMERTON, Wash - A classroom full of fourth-graders scrambled to their seats as teacher Scott Wisenburg announced it was time for a reading lesson.

Some reached straight for iPods and others hurriedly wrote down predictions about the text they were soon to read.

Last year, he and two other teachers in fourth and first grades began using iPods, and this year the program -- called iLearn -- has expanded to 15 classrooms. "They're a great discipline tool," Wisenburg said of the devices, which he is using in his classroom at View Ridge Elementary School in Bremerton. But Wisenburg and other educators say that mobile devices like iPods and touch-screen tablets are much more than that.

While they're far from ubiquitous in classrooms, a growing number of schools are turning to them to try new ways of teaching and get kids excited about lessons.

"They're full-on computers in the hands of kids," Wisenburg said.

It might be too early to say for sure whether mobile technologies help kids learn better; tablets and iPods in the classroom are so new, there are few studies, said Dennis Small, educational technology director at the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction in Washington state.

"My gut sense is that, as with so many things with technology, if it's being used to support strong instructional practices it can absolutely enhance learning," he said.

Bremerton's program was modeled after one in Escondido, Calif. Both have used iPods to help students read, and both report that students in the programs improve their skills at a faster rate than in other classrooms.

On a recent afternoon, Wisenburg's students recorded themselves reading from a worksheet about animals.

As they played back their recordings, they circled words skipped or mispronounced.

"You get to see the words you miss," explained fourth-grader Austin Curry.

On the back of the worksheet, they wrote down key facts they had learned and started browsing the Internet to find more, eagerly showing Wisenburg photos of their animals.

Though the devices were initially used for reading, kids and teachers went beyond using them as pricey voice recorders and began to find a wide variety of uses.

"It's the most transformative thing I've ever seen in a classroom," said Kathy Shirley, technology director at Escondido Union School District.

As an example, Wisenburg recalled a day when he had an extra 10 minutes in class.

He asked the kids to look up information on an upcoming field trip to the Museum of History and Industry.

"I said: 'We're going to MOHAI. What is it?' Within five minutes, they had what it was and had it mapped on Google Earth," he said. In another five, he had the class finding and adding up costs for the trip.

Critics of programs aimed at putting a mobile device into every student's hand say that in tight budget times, the money spent on technology like iPods and iPads or programs that ensure each child has a computer in school might be better spent on hiring and training good teachers.

But equipping a classroom with iPods is far cheaper than a full set of computers for a classroom.

A set of 30 iPods and a protective cart that allows a teacher to charge and update software on the devices cost about $8,500, said Steve Bartlett, technology supervisor with Bremerton School District. New computers would cost $1,000 apiece, and refurbished ones can be $350 to $500 each (about $10,500 to $15,000 for a set of 30).

And while the district plans to expand the program and find new uses for mobile technologies, they are unlikely to be used in every classroom in every grade, Bartlett said.

"I'm not going to say that iPods are the right tool for every teacher in every classroom," he said. "We struggle all the time with what are the right tools. ... It's really a matter of finding the lowest-cost technology tool that can assist the teachers to be successful with their students."




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While we know that O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake have stacked the Baltimore School Board with education privatizers and they will also have the BEC testifying....another private non-profit filled with education privatizers...we encourage parents, teachers, and community leaders fighting this education reform to come out to these meetings.  Getting people's voices on record helps in turning these reform policies around once we regain control of the Baltimore School Board.

Alonzo and O'Malley have worked hard to implement the Bill Gates/Wall Street education reform that gives us charters, school choice, Common Core, and lots of testing and evaluation.  Schools tied to business and vocation that teach to the test in just a few subjects and that fill schools with Teach for America is all the worst policy in education that could possibly be implemented.  WORST OF THE WORST and parents and teachers know it!


The problem for Maryland and Baltimore is that neo-liberals hold the democratic party and as such make these appointments.  So, when Rawlings-Blake gives control of our schools to O'Malley and he appoints Wall Street people to our education committees...we lose control of our schools.  The solution:  STOP ELECTING NEO-LIBERALS WHO WORK FOR WALL STREET!  All of candidates for Governor right now are neo-liberals and will continue this privatization of public schools.  So, getting labor and justice candidates in these governor and mayoral races in democratic primaries is key to returning public schools to the public.  First, go to these public meetings and get active in your communities to organize for strong PUBLIC schools

City invited to weigh in on school superintendent search Community forums, focus groups will shape job description for next schools CEO


By Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun 6:48 p.m. EDT, September 10, 2013

The Baltimore school board will launch the first public phase of its search for the next schools CEO —a community input campaign that will allow city residents and school communities to weigh in on issues and the characteristics and qualifications they believe are important for the next superintendent to have.

The campaign, announced Tuesday, will begin with an online survey that will be available through Oct. 15. Additionally, the school board will hold a series of forums across the city in early October. Non-public focus groups will also be held with political leaders and community organizations.

"The board understands how much interest community stakeholders have in reform 2.0, and we want to make sure that everyone who wants to be is engaged in this process," said Shanaysha Sauls, chair of the city school board.

The forums and focus groups will be led by the executive search firm Ray and Associates Inc. The firm was awarded a $46,800 contract to conduct the search for a new CEO after Andrés Alonso resigned in May.

Tisha Edwards, Alonso's former chief of staff, signed a one-year, $225,000 contract in June to serve as interim CEO while the search is conducted.

The input from the community will guide the board in building a profile for the new schools chief, Sauls said, which will be used in recruiting candidates and making them fully aware of the city's expectations.

"In some ways the next lift is going to be the heaviest," said Sauls, citing a new focus on achievement and the district's 10-year plan to overhaul its dilapidated facilities. "So it requires commitment and buy-in of everyone."

She said the board would be looking to retain the next superintendent for at least four years, though eight would be ideal. Alonso, who held the job for six years, was the longest-serving superintendent in two decades, but left two years shy of the term of his most recent contract.

While the ultimate decision will rest with the school board, and there are no plans to make the search open, Sauls said the board is "accountable to the community for the decision we make."

She said the board is hoping to attract a local and national pool of candidates and conclude the search by March.

erica.green@baltsun.com



Community forums

Oct. 1: 6 p.m. at Polytechnic Institute

Oct. 2: 6 p.m. at Digital Harbor High School

Oct. 3: 6 p.m. at Frederick Douglass High School

Oct. 3: 6 p.m. at Southeast Anchor Branch – Enoch Pratt Free Library

Oct. 3: 8:30 a.m. at school headquarters, 200 E. North Ave.


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One has only to look at who funds Education Trust to know that it is an organization that promotes school privatization and corporatization of classroom instruction and that is indeed what Santelises oversaw with Alonzo.  It has nothing to do with achievement or quality education as most citizens in Baltimore will tell you, her mission was simply to set the structures in place for capturing public education for corporate use with evaluations, Teach for America/Vista filling school teaching spots, and evaluations that no one think have value as written and implemented.  As we read with Common Core math...'looking deeply and not broadly' taking student's introduction to analytic math away in elementary years placing middle/lower class children at great disadvantage in exceling in advanced math classes.  No, this is not about quality education, it is about creating a tiered level of education that has 90% of children in substandard education.  That is what Education reform promoted by Obama and written by the Education Trust funders Bill Gates, Ford, WalMart, etc. gets you.  Johns Hopkins is the local privatization in chief.  Wonder why media in Maryland does not have open discussion about education reform?


Baltimore needs to take back its control of education from corporate capture.  The mayor hands the school board to the governor who appoints all of the school board members who by the way are all business people and Teach for America.  We need a mayor who wants control for the city and wants an elected board filled with educators who want schools to be about democratic education and not vocational tracking for businesses.

It matters who runs for mayor and governor and so far.....all the candidates announced are neo-liberals who will advance this education privatization policy.  If your labor and justice organizations are not shouting against this and running candidates against these corporate incumbents....they are not working for you and me!



City's academic chief departure comes amid critical instruction year Observers say departure of Sonja Santelises will require system to persevere through new academic landscape

By Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun 5:00 a.m. EDT, September 5, 2013

Sonja Santelises stood before a room of Baltimore educators whose faces were filled with angst as she spoke about a rigorous new curriculum that would soon change everything they thought they knew about teaching.

Three years later, when she pulled up a new English and language arts curriculum aligned with new standards — known as the "common core" — that will be rolled out this year, a room of educators erupted into cheers.

"That didn't mean that everything is perfect, because there's no magic bullet to this common core thing," Santelises, the city schools' chief academic officer, recalled recently. "That meant that there is a troupe of people here who were ready to do this work."

Santelises, who will leave her $175,000 job with the city school system Sept. 20, reflected on such displays of confidence as she visited educators settling into a school year that will mark the most substantive changes to classroom instruction in decades. Her resignation is the second key leadership departure in Baltimore's school system in as many months.

Santelises, 46, acknowledged that her departure is significant, particularly coming on the heels of the resignation of city schools CEO Andrés Alonso in June. Education stakeholders and observers say that while Santelises has built a solid foundation for the school system's academics, the pressure is on to find strong leaders in the coming year.

"There's just a lot going on, and there's a leadership void right now," said James Campbell, who works at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education and served on the school board that hired Alonso.

Campbell called Santelises "an outstanding leader who emphasized excellence," and whose "emphasis was always on quality education and taking the system to the next level.

"There's a lot of top leaders leaving, so the constant has to be the board," Campbell said. "I hope they focus on the search to get the best person they can get for the job."

City school board President Shanaysha Sauls called Santelises' departure a "significant loss to the district."

"She was an important part of our sense of optimism and possibility moving forward," Sauls said. "We are confident her work and her leadership, on behalf of students and staff, has been strategic. And Baltimore is left in a better place than where it started."

Santelises, who will head to Washington to serve as the vice president of K-12 policy and practice at the Education Trust, has maintained a low profile since Alonso brought her on in 2010 to orchestrate one of the most critical academic transitions in recent years.

The mother of 4-year-old twin girls and a 7-year-old will still live in the city, and her children will continue to attend city schools.

Alonso said in 2011 that she was the first person he called when he knew he would take the job in Baltimore, and she turned him down three times before agreeing to leave her job in Boston's public school system, where she was assistant superintendent of a network of charter-like, autonomous programs.

When she arrived, he said, people "began paying attention to standards in a way that hadn't occurred in the district before."

Santelises said that while she had hoped the district's test scores would not be stagnant during her tenure, she told Alonso six weeks into the job that she "didn't care about his reading scores, I'm in schools and kids aren't reading."

Her early emphasis on literacy has resulted in a reversal of low reading scores among middle school students, who posted some of the few gains on state tests last year.

And last year, Baltimore kindergartners showed an unprecedented rise on the state's standardized "readiness" assessment — even as scores in the highest-performing districts were flat or declined — a change that state and city officials attributed to the system's advanced introduction of the common core in pre-K programs.

This year, all Maryland public schools will be using a new curriculum, a change dictated by the state's decision to sign on to the voluntary national common core standards, which are designed to require higher-level thinking and more rigorous lessons.

Linda Eberhart, a retired teacher and former director of teaching and learning in the school system, said educators should take solace in the fact that what Santelises built cannot be easily dismantled.

"No one is comfortable with all this change, and she's been the one there saying, 'This will be OK,'" Eberhart said. "It's going to be hard, but it's going to be hard even with her here."


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Why do you think Baltimore with as much bank fraud as Philly is ignoring the fact that billions could be coming back to the schools....rather, they are going to Wall Street for more debt and public money paid in fees.


THAT'S WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT.....TENS OF TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN FRAUD COMING BACK TO THE SCHOOLS!


Philly Schools Consider Suing Wall Street Banks For Fraud-Induced Losses
Philadelphia Citypaper

“The School District of Philadelphia is considering filing suit against Wall Street banks … for illegally manipulating a major interest-rate index underpinning complex derivatives that have cost cities and schools billions of dollars … Philadelphia and other cities have filed similar lawsuits, contending that such “interest-rate swaps” – billed as a protection against rising borrowing costs – were tilted in banks’ favor … A successful lawsuit, however, could provide sorely needed revenue to Philadelphia schools, which are experiencing the most recent and severe of recurrent fiscal crises. Budget cuts orchestrated by Gov. Tom Corbett have exacerbated historic underfunding, while rampant charter-school growth has siphoned money and students.”
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I include Chicago's parents organization here because Baltimore has no education advocates for education.  All of Baltimore organizations are created to support charters, school choice, and tests/evaluations.
Remember, we do need some reform but the reforms we are getting are not about quality ....they are about cheapening and tracking students and privatizing public education.

What you can do about some of the hot issues in public education  PURE

Downloadable pdf version here. Also, see companion piece, “How They’ve Been Taking the Public and Education out of Public Education.”

• Track federal ESEA reauthorization (PURE and PAA have news services to help you – see below). The federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) expired in 2007 but Congress has yet to agree on how to fix it. Unfortunately, the “bipartisan” take on education looks a lot like the corporate reform version – charter schools, parent “choice,” testing. Please see PAA’s charts comparing the Republican House and Senate Democratic proposals (attached). Experts we listen to do not think an agreement is possible in the next year or two, but it is still important to inform and influence your representatives. Proposals or parts of proposals that are in the works now can end up as federal law.
• Watch out in your own state for some of the following (PAA news lists will help with this – see below):
  • Parent trigger and other “parent empowerment” laws
  • Voucher bills
  • Final mandates for test-based teacher evaluation
  • State boards of education agreeing to share confidential student data without parental consent
  • Other testing mandates related to the Common Core
• Join PURE’s news list: http://pureparents.org/?page_id=40 or just use the link at the top of our web site home page, www.pureparents.org. You will receive regular posts – news, opinion, and a weekly action alert for Chicago and/or the nation.

• Join Parents Across America’s newsletter list: http://parentsacrossamerica.org/sign-up/ or click on “Take Action” at the top of our home page, www.parentsacrossamerica.org. You will receive a weekly newsletter with updates about PAA and our chapters and affiliates, and a weekly action alert. Join the PAA News listfor regular news and updates on education: Send an e-mail to PAAnews-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
• Consider starting a PAA chapter. Chapter leaders should be current or former public school parents. Details here: http://parentsacrossamerica.org/join-us/
• Why would anyone who cares about public schools shop at WalMart? When you shop at WalMart and other businesses, your money ends up paying Michelle Rhee, Teach for America, and fat cat charter school operators. Boycott them and spread the word!
• Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing (http://timeoutfromtesting.org/nationalresolution/). If you belong to a group, have them endorse it, too.

- See more at: http://pureparents.org/?p=20803#sthash.EydxeAbd.dpuf
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Please be aware that media across the nation are no longer reporting facts and simply allow people and institutions to say what they want.  We are seeing data deliberately skewed to show successes that are not true!
Baltimore is ground zero for these news scams as politicians here say anything and it is printed without question.  Please keep your school honest and accountable as simply saying a school has good grades or graduation rates does not help make your school better.....IT IS JUST THE OPPOSITE.  IF THEY ARE LYING YOU ARE NOT GETTING THE QUALITY YOU DESERVE!


Tribune keeps repeating lie about charters’ “100%” grad rate

I sent the Tribune “Corrections and Clarifications” department a note today about the error in Sunday’s report about Hales Franciscan going coed, which included this passage about Chicago’s single-sex charter schools:

“Urban Prep Academies’ three campuses in Englewood, Near West Side and Bronzeville and Young Women’s Leadership Charter School in Bronzeville reported 100 percent graduation and 100 percent college acceptance in recent years.”

I wrote:

While these schools claim 100% college acceptance (which could mean nothing more than an aggressive counseling program coupled with requirements that students apply to many levels of college), neither of these schools claims to have a 100% graduation rate, which would be a much more impressive achievement.

The Tribune and other media have reported on the significant enrollment attrition between freshman and senior year for both of these schools.

For example:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-03-30/news/ct-met-urban-prep-20120330_1_students-graduate-graduation-rate-urban-prep-academy

See also http://pureparents.org/?p=18890

The Tribune had to correct a similar story in 2008 (see photo) but apparently hasn’t passed the word on.

We’ll see if they actually print the retraction.

- See more at: http://pureparents.org/?p=20816#sthash.9ksFupPY.dpuf

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Are they standing for children or stomping on unions?
  August 23, 2013 Boston Globe

The education advocacy group Stand for Children this week promised $500,000 to John Connolly’s campaign for mayor, and after being criticized by his opponents, Connolly publicly declined the pledge (“Connolly rejects outside funding,” Page A1, Aug. 22).

Last year Stand for Children rammed a new teacher evaluation system through the state Legislature. This pressure group’s agenda had been opposed by Massachusetts teachers unions, the state secretary of education, the state PTA, and state associations of school librarians and special education administrators. So, this group says it’s “for children,” but by and large, it has been opposed by actual child advocates.

I worked with Stand for Children 10 years ago, when it was a grass-roots organization working for public school funding. Teachers unions worked with them, too. Then we went our separate ways. I decided to become a public school teacher. The organization has taken millions of dollars from corporate donors, and attacks people who do what I do.

Several million people like me do the job of teaching all of America’s children. Our unions are our honest representatives. Stand for Children is not a grass-roots organization representing parents anymore. People should ask whom it is working for; I don’t think it is for children.

Tom Díaz

Lexington

The writer is a former member and chairman of the Lexington School Committee and is currently a social studies teacher in the Boston Public Schools.




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The cost of school lunches are going up because they are becoming more nutritious..that is a good thing as we need to pay more for the value of good food.  This is the problem.  School lunches should be free just as middle-class families say.  We are becoming a society that is making more and more people subsidized for ordinary things such as food and energy when the problems lie with corporations and their failure to pay tax and the massive amounts of fraud that move government revenue out of coffers.  That is the problem in this case.

We have had over a decade of school funding sent to build corporate universities that are just another mechanism to use the public for corporate gains.  State of the art research centers that pair with businesses are simply an extension of corporate R and D and the costs of tuition are driven too high to support this corporate structure.  We have colleges all having their own buses while we cannot afford school buses for K-12.  Children take long trips sometime with transfers on public transportation.  MD gives more business tax credits most of which are unneeded and no oversight means abuse of this process.  MD has tons of money for K-12 it simply doesn't spend it on K-12.  

Yes, all lunches should be free and the underserved need to stop being further marginalized in this breakdown of the public sector.


City school lunch prices to increase District will provide free meals to all low-income students

By Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun 5:00 a.m. EDT, August 22, 2013

The Baltimore school system is raising the price of student lunches to $3 — one of the highest among the nation's large, urban districts — under a plan that also provides free meals to every low-income student.

The price is up from $2.35 for elementary and middle school students and $2.65 for high school students. Some parents could end up spending $117 more this school year under the price increase, which is the fourth in seven years and the largest in that time. Others will save because their children will no longer have to pay the 40 cents charged for a reduced-price meal.

District officials said the new price structure will help increase participation in the lunch program and improve food, while also addressing rising costs associated with new federal guidelines that require more nutritious and expensive ingredients.

Advocates lauded the move to provide free meals to more children, who might not have been able to afford lunch in the past. But some parents said middle-class families in Baltimore could suffer from the increases, particularly if they are barely over the poverty cut-off to receive free lunches.

"I can't imagine a person who has two to three kids having to pay $3 a day," said Roni Ellington, a city parent and recent appointee to the Parent Community Advisory Board. "I think it's very representative of how the whole middle class is treated."

Child advocacy organizations said the district could have avoided imposing a financial burden on families altogether.

While the new plan eliminates the 40-cent charge for at least 4,000 low-income students, the city could have opted into a federal program called "community eligibility," which was designed for districts with high percentages of poor students. Under the program, the federal government would reimburse the district for at least some of the cost of providing lunch to all students, advocates say.

"We are very disappointed that Baltimore city schools are not implementing the community eligibility option," said Michael J. Wilson, director of Maryland Hunger Solutions. "It would have meant that every family gets freed up a little bit in their budgets. And we think when you have the opportunity to leverage those dollars for every individual family in the city, it would be well worth it."

Victor De La Paz, the school district's chief financial officer, said that if the system had decided to offer free lunch for all students, it would have lost state funding tied to the number of applications received for free and reduced-price lunches. The community eligibility option would eliminate the applications.

However, other districts around the country that have opted into the program have collected household income data in other ways.

And Madeleine Levin, senior policy analyst for the nonprofit Food Research and Action Center, said the community eligibility program has worked in other high-poverty districts.

"We've promoted this in cities like Baltimore because we see its success in places like Chicago and Detroit, where there's concentrations of low-income families," Levin said. "We see participation increasing and more students taking advantage of the free and healthy meals that they need every day."

Shanaysha Sauls, chair of the city school board, which approved the price increase this month, said that while the district has seen a number of improvements in the past few years, such as salad bars and fresh fruit programs, there is still work to do.

She said decisions would be made with school and household budget restraints in mind.

"The board recognizes that the new fee is not a trivial increase," she said in a statement. "What we should start to see is renewed attention to food quality and variety across the district. But we have to do so in a responsible way."

Under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010, new standards for school lunches include increasing the amount of produce and whole grain on students' lunch trays, and cutting down on sodium and saturated fats.

Since then, school districts across the nation have raised prices to adjust to the rising cost of producing lunches. Baltimore school officials said the district's food costs increased by $1.5 million from 2012 to 2013, and are projected to increase by $2.2 million next year.

"The price [of lunches] hasn't caught up to the cost," De La Paz said.

School systems receive a reimbursement for every student they serve through the free and reduced-price meal program. This year, Baltimore will receive a reimbursement of $3.01 for each free student and $2.59 for those federally eligible for reduced-price meals.

Under the new law, school districts are required to raise their rates 10 cents a year and have the option of raising them by more if they do not exceed the reimbursement they receive from the federal government.



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Senate democrats are big on Teach for America......neo-liberals want privatized education!


PSAT for 7-23-13: PURE---Chicago

How about an LSC no-TFA policy?

I came back from a week in DC at the Parents Across America annual meeting to find my friend Xian Barrett’s face on the front page of the Sun-Times. Xian, a top notch teacher, 2010 U. S. Teaching Ambassador Fellow, and all-around excellent human being, was just fired in the latest round of CPS budget death-blows. Read Xian’s wonderful, moving blog post, “Yes, I Was Fired and Still We Will Win,” here.

I first wrote about Xian’s Teaching Ambassador recommendation to Arne Duncan and his minions that LSCs are the best, most democratic way to run schools – just one of the many cool things he has done over the years.

It was inevitable that when CPS moved to lump-sum budgeting this summer, schools would feel forced to make choices between keeping fewer experienced teachers or hiring more new, less expensive teachers to maintain lower class sizes. Of course, our students need both experienced teachers like Xian AND lower class sizes, not one or the other.

Folks in power who don’t seem to care what students really need are pushing Teach for America (TFA), the heavily-funded program that puts college graduates with nothing more than a 5-week summer training course into struggling urban schools.

To teach.

Senate Democrats are big on TFA. They have been re-writing NCLB requirements that every child have a “highly-qualified” teacher to make it fit TFA newbies.

What can you do? Well, here’s an idea. Since Local School Councils are the policy-making bodies in their schools, why not pass a policy against hiring TFA interns? While it is the principal’s ultimate right to hire staff, the LSC does have the right and responsibility to make recommendations on hiring personnel, and can make policy based on the needs of the school and the students.

LSCs, you have the authority – why not use it?

- See more at: http://pureparents.org/?p=20767#sthash.9WdhVaRQ.dpuf


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Raise your hand if you think someone can get all the way through City and State Human Resources with a false resume like that!! That's right...no one believes that. It is likely that as happens in Baltimore with all private non-profits needing people of color at the lead, this young man was chosen to be the one who simply follows orders given from O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake's political machine. The Baltimore School Board is simply hand-picked school privatizers most only business people. As we see, this young man was made to look like he had an education degree but didn't. If one was looking for someone who qualified as having the 3 monkey syndrome.....see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.....then this resume looks like a qualified candidate for tenure under Rawlings-Blake and O'Malley!

The citizens of Baltimore need to wake up as Johns Hopkins and these school privatizers are creating the structure for charters as businesses and once established will be extended state-wide.....do not think that because you are middle-class or live in a republican area that this school privatizing is not coming to you!

City school board member resigns over questions about credentials Hopkins has no record of degree claimed by recent appointee Anthony Hamilton


By Liz Bowie and Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun 12:16 p.m. EDT, August 1, 2013

A recent appointee to the Baltimore City school board resigned Thursday, according to the mayor's office, which said it had discovered inconsistencies in his resume.

Anthony A. Hamilton, who was appointed to the school board in June, said he had a master's degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Education, according to biographical information on the board's website and a news release from Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Gov. Martin O'Malley announcing his appointment.

But a Hopkins spokeswoman said the university never awarded him a degree and a review of the school's database did not turn up a student by that name.

"We just have no record of him obtaining that degree from Johns Hopkins University," Hopkins spokeswoman Tracey Reeves said Wednesday.

The Maryland State Board of Education is supposed to vet all candidates for the city school board before they go to the governor and the mayor for a joint decision on the appointment.

The story raising questions about Hamilton's educational background was first reported by WBAL-TV.

"We are in the process of reviewing his application," William Reinhard, a spokesman for the state Department of Education, said Wednesday.

According to Hamilton's published biography on the city school system's website, he currently serves as the education program coordinator for the city's Office of Youth Violence Prevention. The mayor's office confirmed he is employed there.

The press release sent by the mayor and governor also says that he began his career as a Baltimore County teacher. Baltimore County schools spokesman Mychael Dickerson said it was unclear if he had worked for the school system. School officials found a substitute teacher named Tony Hamilton Jr. from 2000 to 2003 but no Anthony A. Hamilton listed as a teacher.

His school board biography was removed from the school system's website about 10:30 a.m. Thursday.

Attempts to reach Hamilton were unsuccessful.

The vetting process for school board members was changed in 2009 after a Baltimore Sun investigation found that the city's school board president, Brian Morris, had not be awarded the degree on his official resume and had a history of bad debts and court judgments.

He had given up his volunteer position on the school board to take a high paying job with the school system.

Morris never received a degree from the University of Maryland, College Park.

The detail, which resulted from two incomplete classes in his final semester and which Morris says he had been unaware of, was apparently not discovered by city and state officials when they vetted him for the job.

Five days after he took the school system job, he resigned.

The new process requires city school board candidates to give the state an official or unofficial copy of their transcripts from the university or college that awarded them their highest degree.

The state Department of Education did not say whether Hamilton submitted a false transcript.

Applicants must also answer a series of questions about whether they have paid their taxes, been convicted of a crime, have a civil judgment against them or have been disbarred from practicing law or had a professional license revoked.

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The main issue here is that almost no parent or community wants or likes what is being pushed in this education reform coming from corporate America.  From teachers to parents, from academics providing research that none of these reform policies have value...we are seeing politicians force education policy changes on the public that we do not want. 

We want to remind the public that handing public education over to corporate interests wanting to make schools individual businesses funded by performance is not democratic....it is not in the public's interest, and it will take away people's abilities to equal access and opportunity....fundamental principles of our Constitution.  For those thinking all of this is hitting the underserved schools....they intend to expand this to all public schools if these school policies gain hold.  This is why school administrators, academics, teacher's unions and public school advocates are all shouting against this across the country.  In Maryland, you hear none of this because we have a captured media and public justice organizations.

Some of the policies in this reform are not bad.  It is the overriding goals of this reform that kill what is fundamental in a democracy...free and equal access to democratic education!


Cheapening of classrooms by larger class size and online classes brought by lessening funding is not necessary.  It happens because corporations and the rich are not paying taxes to fund public schools.  The solution is electing pols that shout loudly and demand that corporations and the rich pay taxes and not act as patrons of individual schools!  VOTE OUT ALL INCUMBENTS AND SEND IN LABOR AND JUSTICE POLS TO TAKE BACK THE PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC PARTY!



School systems use test scores to place kids

Maryland State Superintendent of Schools Lillian Lowery (Noah Scialom, Patuxent Publishing / June 21, 2013)

By Liz Bowie 7:00 a.m. EDT, July 29, 2013  Baltimore Sun

Scores on the Maryland School Assessment aren’t just a barometer of whether schools are doing their jobs, they also may affect the kinds of classes students take and whether they can get into a magnet high school.

Officials blamed the test score declines on a change in curriculum, saying results were skewed this year because students weren’t necessarily taught the material they were tested on. For example, students are no longer being taught pie charts but could still encounter questions about them on the old MSA.

“The misalignment of tests and curriculum could have a huge impact on students. If we are not testing students on the curriculum being taught throughout the year, it is difficult to accurately assess what they comprehend and the areas in which they might need additional support,” Baltimore County School Superintendent Dallas Dance said in an email.

The scores are part of the criteria used to decide whether a student would go to a magnet school like Baltimore City’s Polytechnic Institute, which has entrance requirements.

In Baltimore County, scores are used in conjunction with other data to decide whether a student should be placed in a gifted and talented classroom.

New tests that align with the new curriculum won’t be ready until the 2014-2015 school year. In the meantime, Maryland plans to continue using the old tests for another year, so the disconnect between what is taught and what is tested will continue as well.

So some students may continue to be at a disadvantage.

City school officials said they will study the issue.

But for students applying for placement in a magnet high school for the next school year, “inclusion of MSA results remains appropriate,” city officials said in a statement.

MSA scores are part of an overall composite score used to determine whether a student is eligible to gain a spot in one of seven city high schools. The composite score also takes into account grades and attendance.

Officials point out the MSA scores may not pose a problem. Even if a student’s score declined, the percentile score when compared to other students may have remained constant. And that percentile can still be used to determine placement.

But Dance said the test scores could still have impact. “In terms of determining placement in specialty programs, assessment scores are only one part of the data used, but they are considered and therefore have some effect,” he said.

In St. Mary’s County, Superintendent Michael Martirano, who represents school superintendents in Maryland, said the MSAs would continue to be used as one in “a myriad of local assessments that I use with my students to make instructional and placement decisions into signature programs.”

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Alonzo was given huge pay packages for what was a manufactured success in Baltimore City schools. He came in and the school system recorded all kinds of achievement gains under his leadership the first few years and then, piece by piece we found that all those gains were manufactured either by data manipulation or simply easing definitions like 'dropout' or graduation. All of his term has shown to be built on false data.

Alonzo is a NYC Bloomberg education privatizer brought to Baltimore by Johns Hopkins,.....Bloomberg's and Wall Street's satellite. He was paid not for gains but for creating the structure for privatizing public education....the school as individual businesses.....the school board with mostly business and school privatizers....the use of charter schools for development tools....the tiered funding and private funding of schools that have a few schools getting tons of money and others closing for lack of resources. This is Alonzo's legacy and he is brought to you by O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake....two neo-liberals heading for national positions in the DNC for their corporate work!


Open Thread: Was the Former Baltimore Schools CEO’s Contract Too Generous? Andres Alonso was reportedly paid nearly $150,000 for accrued leave.

Posted by Adam Bednar (Editor) , July 29, 2013 at 05:00 AM  North Baltimore Patch

2 Comments Recommend 1--Andres Alonso, the former city public schools CEO, was paid nearly $150,000 in accrued leave, according to The Baltimore Sun.

Compensation experts told the newspaper that Alonso’s contract was overly generous and that it should have been more closely scrutinized before it was approved.  

Alonso announced his resignation in May and his last day was June 30.



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We want to be clear.....no one believes that this is happening by rogue education administrators.  We know the pressures placed upon these academics to raise test scores so as to allow the School Board Superintendent and the Governor to claim success in 'student achievement' and the policies of Race to the Top.  What we are seeing in education right now is the building of the same culture as in corporate environments where lying, cheating, and stealing to win is OK.  This is what schools as businesses will bring.  Meanwhile, the students are under great pressure to score well and then given example that acting unethically to achieve is OK. 

In Maryland we not only have the problem below running systemically through our schools....we see an active attempt to discourage the lowest performers on tests to not come to school on test days so as to skew the data.  We see charters that do not post their demographics publicly claiming to excel when they simply have hand-picked students that achieve.  So, the entire system built by Alonzo and school privatizers led by Johns Hopkins here in Baltimore is completely unethical, immoral, and dishonest!

Grade changes investigated in city school Teachers, parents say system policies make it impossible to fail

By Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun 11:01 p.m. EDT, July 22, 2013

Baltimore school officials are investigating allegations at a middle school that dozens of students were given passing grades so they could move on to the next grade, even though their teachers had given them failing marks.

Grade changes are being investigated at Booker T. Washington Middle School. Several teachers from the school told The Baltimore Sun that dozens of the grades they issued of 50 percent, the lowest possible, were later changed to 90 percent.

In some cases, students who never attended class received higher grades than students who showed up and did the work, according to the teachers, who spoke to The Sun on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

Sonja Santelises, chief academic officer for the school system, said district officials are "aware of the allegations and are in the middle of the investigation" at Booker T. Washington. She also said district officials are in the process of "furthering" the investigation into possible grade changes at other schools "to see just how widespread it could possibly be."

In addition, Santelises said, the school system plans to issue "more specific guidance" regarding districtwide policies that discourage holding students back a grade and encourage exhausting all options to help them pass. She said some schools could have misinterpreted the policies. She declined to comment further about Booker T. Washington, citing the pending investigation.

A decades-old debate has brewed in the school system about the district's grading policies and standards for promoting students to the next grade. As recently as 2011, the policies have been tweaked in an attempt to decrease subjectivity. Research shows that holding students back multiple times can be detrimental to their academic careers.

The Booker T. Washington teachers said changes were made to their students' grades in the school's computerized "student management system" without their knowledge. In that system, 60 percent represents a passing D-minus grade, and more than 90 percent an A.

"Two or three days after the school year, I checked the [student management system], and I couldn't believe it — my 50 [percent] students went up to the 90," recalled one teacher, who found that nearly 20 grades were changed.

A 50 percent is failing.

"In all cases, the exact grade that the student needed to pass, they got. Kids who were literally not present at all had gotten the same grades as those who were. Some of them walked out with higher grades than the kids who actually tried and could only manage a C," the teacher said.

It was not clear who may have changed the grades. Santelises said that "once grades are finalized, anyone with administrative access to the student management system can change grades." Access can also be granted to nonadministrators by principals.

Repeated calls to the school's principal and assistant principal were not returned.

Jimmy Gittings, president of the city's administrators union, said he was aware of the allegations and was working with school officials to resolve the matter.

Santelises said that the district's policies allow for a myriad of options to help students pass, including raising students' grades if they complete extra work. But she emphasized that in all cases, grades should be earned.

"We, as a district, have made sure that at every step of the way, students have options and safety nets to get back on track with their schoolwork," Santelises said. "I think what happens is you have 200-plus schools, and different interpretations based on different circumstances, and people misinterpreting what the actual practice should look like.

"We in no way endorse, encourage or tolerate the abuse of the policy. … What we're very clear about is that the grade changes need to be substantiated. If they are not, that is just unethical."

The Booker T. Washington teachers said the school's administrators had told teachers that efforts to prevent students from failing needed to be ramped up as the school year came to a close.

Santelises said there was no districtwide target for the number of students who can be held back a grade. She said, however, that the district discourages teachers from retaining students in kindergarten through eighth grade more than twice.

The Booker T. Washington teachers said they allowed students to do extra work, such as multiple projects, to help them pass. The efforts followed months of interventions, including parent meetings, home visits and other measures, to ensure students and families knew students were at risk of failing.

"We weren't against the idea of helping them because we wanted them to pass, but we wanted them to pass because they did the work," recalled the teacher with nearly 20 grade changes. "I had kids who really turned it around and surprised the hell out of me. Then I had kids who just didn't care."


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Do you know how we could do the same thing and not have a corporation involved?  We could do the old fashion thing and have public schools that have labs and science resources right there in each school!  No corporations needed.  If you go to the schools in the city you will see that there is no science resources because there was no funding of these schools. Hopkins is a driver of all policy and revenue in the city and could have done the right thing and made sure these schools were up to standards.  Given the trillion in taxpayer money Hopkins has received over the years it would be required.

Why does Hopkins feel the need to have control over these schools and programs?  Hopkins is pushing for the privatization of public schools and as such needs to have an excuse to 'partner' schools with business.  Hopkins says corps do not need to pay taxes..they simply will 'partner' with all public services and make them part of the corporate team.

Meanwhile, everyone else is saying 'we do not want our schools as businesses, we simply want them funded so we can have our own resources'..and want strong public schools with no business connection.  Why do we have a corporation telling the people what they will or will not have?  CORPORATE POLITICIANS NOT SERVING THE PEOPLE..WHICH IS THEIR JOB.  These are not democrats folks because the democratic party serves the people!



Launching minority students in the sciences Hopkins programs give young scientists classes in the basics and hands-on laboratory experience


1/9 By Liz Bowie, The Baltimore Sun 8:27 p.m. EDT, July 17, 2013

When Tyren Day found success in a biology class at a city high school, he began to fix on the idea of going to college and becoming a scientist.

But for a low-income student from a minority group that is under-represented in the sciences, statistics show the odds were long.

"Where I come from, you don't see too many kids say, 'I want to be a scientist,'" Day said.

It was students such as Day who inspired two city teachers to create MERIT, a program that provides the intensive academic support and mentoring that could enable them to become scientists.

Day, 18, is getting hands-on experience at a biophysics laboratory at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine after completing his first year at the Community College of Baltimore County.

Mark Wilcox and Tyler Mains, who came to Baltimore in 2009 as Teach for America teachers, have helped nearly two dozen low-income students from under-represented minority groups begin to compete with students from more-privileged backgrounds.

Since starting MERIT, Wilcox and Mains have completed their two-year Teach for America commitments and are studying medicine at Hopkins.

"If we are working to solve health issues facing low-income communities, it would be wonderful to have someone from one of those communities," Wilcox said.

As the nation works to address health disparities among ethnic and socio-economic groups, public health professionals have identified a need for more physicians and scientists from those communities.

Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans make up more than a quarter of the U.S. population, but only 6 percent of the nation's physicians. Of those who aspire to obtain a bachelor's degree in the sciences, only 16 percent of Hispanics and 13 percent of blacks complete the requirements within four years, according to the Higher Education Research Institute.

Universities such as Hopkins are using internships, summer training and other programs to draw candidates into the field.

MERIT, or Medical Education Resources Initiative for Teens, is open to all Baltimore public high school students, Wilcox said. Another program, Biophysics Research for Baltimore Teens, continues helping students after high school.

Through BRBT, students are paired with a Hopkins professor, a graduate student and an undergraduate student mentor, and students are given paid summer internships in Hopkins biophysics labs.

During the summer program, five graduate students teach the BRBT students basic science — biology, physics and chemistry — and lab techniques. Participants then do high-level science with their graduate student mentors and also work on their own projects.

"We see them as key players in helping to reduce health disparities," Wilcox said.

Day, who is in his second summer in the BRBT program, said he felt overwhelmed at first, but learned to take everything one step at a time.

"It was so much information," he said.

Now he is working to make proteins under the mentorship of Joseph "JD" Schonhoft, a Hopkins graduate student in pharmacology and molecular sciences.

Schonhoft said he has been learning from Day. Used to creating eight-week science experiments for graduate students, he said, he had to slow the pace for Day, who doesn't have the same background.

"He is very curious. He is very interested in whatever we are doing," Schonhoft said.

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The article below is written about Chicago politics.  Why is Chicago tied to Baltimore......IT IS THE SAME AS BALTIMORE WITH THE SAME PLAYERS!  O'Malley is running for National office and Obama is from Chicago and Exelon is an Obama supporter and a charter/school privatization leader.  Baltimore had its BGE utility sold to Exelon because of this run for national office and because of Johns Hopkins love of Exelon politics especially with TIFs and school privatization.  So, Exelon is a match for Hopkins public policy goals.  If you were at the Harbor Point TIF meeting at City Hall you heard that Exelon/the developer was to give 2 million dollars to a charter school at Harbor East pretending it would serve underserved school children bused in from around the city.  No one believes that.  The article makes clear Exelon is fighting to privatize schools as much as Johns Hopkins. It will become a super-funded affluent school in the midst of luxury development.  EXELON JUST HAD TO HAVE THE TIF BECAUSE IT GETS ITS WAY IN CHICAGO AND PENNSYLVANIA AS WELL.  As an aside, Exelon also raised rates on consumers in those markets so consumers could pay for all of their operation costs and infrastructure development just as they did in Maryland.  So, this Harbor Point project involving Exelon is a pay-to-play with a corporation that has a history of taking all from the people.  NICE NEIGHBOR O'MALLEY AND RAWLINGS-BLAKE IS LEAVING US WITH!

As I said last blog there is no reason to give this TIF......as we see time and again with Rawlings-Balke and O'Malley, public money is being handed hand over foot to the wealthy and it is RACKETEERING.  So why does the Justice Department come in and break up these rackets?  THEY DON'T SEE FRAUD, REMEMBER?

I want to note for the education side of the story below you will see how Rahm Emanuel, Arne Duncan, and Obama are doing in Chicago the same thing that Hopkins is doing in Baltimore as far as loading the school board with business people and turning all schools into charters.  In Chicago they went directly to private charters.  In Baltimore and Maryland they are taking the 'public' charter step before privatizing them.  REMEMBER, ALL POLICY DEEMED PUBLIC-PRIVATE IS JUST A STEP TOWARDS PRIVATE.

I want to remind people that all these public assets and services took decades of public money to establish and all of it is being rebuilt with public money and handed over to private hands.

NOTICE THAT TIFs ARE BEING USED TO DRAIN GOVERNMENT COFFERS SO THAT SCHOOLS ARE LEFT UNFUNDED AND NEEDING TO CLOSE AND BE HANDED TO PRIVATE CHARTER SCHOOLS.....SAME AS IN BALTIMIORE!


Rahm Emanuel, TIFs, Exelon, CPS and greed…it’s kids and community that suffers

Badger Democracy

The Chicago Teacher’s Union strike is in its second full day, and there is little sign the two sides are any closer to an agreement. Rahm Emanuel made more public appearances in the last 48 hours than he has in his entire first year in office. Emanuel was always seen with children the past two days, talking about how CPS and his office just wants “what is best” for the children.

Both sides claim they want what’s best for the kids. Emanuel elevated the rhetoric by calling the strike a “choice” of the union, saying it is unnecessary. What is going unreported by Chicago media is that the mayor is correct – this is a strike of choice. The choice, however, was not one made by CTU, teachers, or parents. It was made at the highest levels of corporate power that now dominate the city of Chicago. Teachers, students, taxpayers, and parents are just pawns.

The CPS School Board is appointed by the mayor, not elected by taxpayers and parents. In 2011, newly elected mayor Rahm Emanuel appointed seven people – only one with a public education background (Dr. Mahalia Hines). The board President (David Vitale) is in high finance, former President of the Chicago Board of Trade. The Vice President (Jesse Ruiz) is a corporate attorney who is an Exelon Board Member (this is important). There is another corporate attorney (Andrea Zopp), also an Exelon Board Member (again, important). The balance of the board is an economist/political scientist (Henry Bienen), real estate developer/multi-millionaire Penny Pritzker, and journalist/communications consultant Rodrigo Sierra.

The corporate dominant politics of Chicago have made it TIF (Tax Increment Financing project) central. Under Illinois state law, TIFs may only be used to prevent or remediate urban blight; or foster industrial development.  In Chicago, TIFs have become an addiction for developers and politicians looking to line their pocketbooks and garner influence. In the past decade, TIF districts have nearly doubled, from 87 in 2000 to 162 in 2010.

In Illinois, a TIF district is authorized for a period of up to twenty‐three years, with the possibility of renewal for an additional twelve. At the time of designation of a TIF district, the current Equalized Assessed Value (EAV) of all property is measured by the Cook County Assessor’s Office and
established as a baseline, which is often referred to as the “frozen” EAV.

During a TIF district’s duration, no tax revenue created from increases in property values are allocated to overlapping taxing  bodies such as Cook County, Chicago Public Schools, or the Chicago Park District. These jurisdictions are able to continue to collect taxes on the base level of EAV within TIF districts during its 23‐ year lifespan. Briefly stated – TIFs take money out of the CPS revenue stream; including loss of inflationary property value.

An academic study presented by Dr. Bruno Quesada, University of Illinois, in December 2011 quantified the CPS revenue applied to TIF districts from 1995-2010.  The fifteen year total reported in the study was over $2.2 Billion. The 2010 figure topped $260 Million. Huge numbers in a revenue challenged economy and district – CPS is facing a $700 Million+ deficit in the current budget. The study concludes that the TIF allocation presents a tremendous burden; allocated in a non-transparent process, on CPS. The study has been completely ignored by CPS and the mayor’s office.

A recent report from the Cook County Treasurer in August 2012 disclosed that $867 Million in TIF funds remained available, but unallocated for the current year. A public schools advocacy group petitioned Emanuel to use these funds to help plug the budget hole. Emanuel refused – at the same time he was pushing for a 90 minute longer school day without compensation to teachers under contract.

CPS Board Member Penny Pritzker (also a Hyatt Hotels Board  member) has drawn fire for a $5.2 Million TIF project to build a Hyatt Hotel in Hyde Park. The same area of the city was subjected to $3.3 million in school budget cuts, and 27 full-time positions cut.While the project development company received the TIF money, Hyatt will profit from franchise fees and profit share in the new hotel development.

The corporate influence on CPS is direct, and is placing private charter school development over real public school reform and improvement. To succeed, they must break the union. Leading the charge behind Emanuel are privatizing charter advocates on the CPS Board.

In the year 2000, Rahm Emanuel was an investment banker who played a key role in the formation of Exelon, along with David Axelrod. Recall, from above, that two current CPS Board Members have direct ties to Exelon as corporate attorneys and board members – Jesse Ruiz and Andrea Zopp.

The newly retired Chairman and CEO of Exelon is John Rowe. Rowe was a chief founder of the Renaissance Schools Fund (RSF) for the establishment of private charter schools in Chicago, along with Arne Duncan and Richard M. Daley. The top donors to the fund are privatization champions, and have direct connections with current CPS School Board Members:

Exelon Corporation and Exelon Foundation , Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rowe Family Charitable Trust, The Searle Funds, The Chicago Community Trust, The Walton Family Foundation, Inc., Pritzker Foundation, Bain & Company (yes, that Bain).

RSF boasts of its accomplishments on its website:

RSF has been the catalyst for the charter school movement in Chicago, raising over $50 million to open 70 new schools which will serve over 40,000 students at capacity.  We established the due diligence process and infrastructure for the selection, evaluation, and authorization of quality new schools.

In 2011, Rowe used funding from Renaissance Fund to launch “New Schools for Chicago” – and serves as its Chair. The New Schools fund has revised its mission, and it would appear that the CPS Board is complicit in its plan to dismantle and render obsolete public schools, public school teachers, and the union that represents them:

We will ramp up the growth of the best national and local charter schools, invest in next-generation school models, and drive innovation and accountability so only schools that deliver results serve children.  Our programs also engage parents and communities to demand and obtain the best education for their children. (emphasis mine)

The CPS push for teacher evaluation directly linked to test scores makes sense, in the above context. The corporate model, private charter school advocacy is being led by the CPS Board – the group charged with improving public schools in Chicago, for all students, not the select few served by select private charters with a narrow educational mission.

That is why the strike matters. It is about access, fairness, accountability for EVERY student – be it Chicago or Madison, or anywhere else there are grave inequities in the educational system. The crony educational system in Chicago is rotten from the mayor’s office, to the Board of Education, to the privateers.

At this moment, it is only the teachers walking the picket line and their supporters who stand in their way.




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IN MARYLAND ALL POLITICS IS CAPTURED AND ESPECIALLY FOR THE UNDERSERVED.....ALL JUSTICE GROUPS WORK AGAINST PEOPLE OF COLOR AND NOT FOR THEM.  MARYLAND CAN IS SIMPLY A BILL GATES/OBAMA PRIVATIZING ORGANIZATION THAT SEEKS TO SELL CHARTERS AND TEACH FOR AMERICA JUST AS RAHM EMMANUEL IS DOING IN CHICAGO....ONLY THESE ARE BLACK LEADERS DOING IT!

Does Curtis Valentine know that Obama's education reform is neo-conservative and intends to privatize all public education and to encompass structural changes that look like Chinese-style autocratic schools attached to businesses?

What these reformers are doing is ending Brown vs Board of Education and Equal Opportunity and replacing it with tracking students into vocational training controlled by how children test from pre-school. None of this is democratic, it will further impoverish people of color as they will no longer have access to quality education.

You need to read this to see that what is happening is not good for students of color.....WE NEED ORGANIZATIONS WORKING FOR THE GOOD OF PEOPLE OF COLOR....NOT AGAINST THEM!


Posted at 12:58 PM ET, 01/18/2012

Maryland’s ‘achievement gap’ highlighted by new advocacy group
By Michael Alison Chandler

A week after Maryland was named the Number One state in the nation for public education by Education Week magazine, a new advocacy group released its own report highlighting Maryland as one of the worst performing education states when it comes to achievement gaps.

“Success masks a dark underbelly of Maryland student achievement, ” said the report, the State of Maryland Public Education. The group unveiled its report at a press conference with state lawmakers in Annapolis Tuesday afternoon.

Among its findings (based on results of the National Assesssment of Educational Progress):

* Maryland has the second largest disparity in the country between low-income students and their wealthier classmates on the 8th grade math test

* Eighteen percent of African-American eighth graders scored at least proficient on the math exam, compared to 56 percent of white students — a racial achievement gap that has more than doubled since 1990

* Maryland has the fourth largest socio-economic disparity in the country on the corresponding 8th grade English test

“We have a lot of be proud of in Maryland when it comes to educating our kids...But we struggle to serve all Maryland students,” said Curtis Valentine, a former teacher and executive director of the new group MarylandCAN, in a press release. “We are home to deep achievement gaps between the haves and have-nots in our state.

The group is part of the national education reform group 50CAN, which advocates for many of the same kinds of reforms that have been promoted by the Obama administration, including encouraging charter schools, closing failing schools and tying teacher evaluations to test scores.

The national group has its roots in an education reform effort in Connecticut, starting in 2005. Now there are also branches in Rhode Island, Minnesota, Illinois, and New York, as well as Maryland.

MarylandCAN laid out three priorities for the 2012 legislative session: to increase funding for early childhood education, to pass a bill that would protect employees from punishment if they miss work to attend a school conference, and to update Maryland’s charter school law, which many charter advocates view as weak.

Start-up funding for MarylandCAN comes from the Walton Family Foundation and the Gates Foundation.

THESE ARE TWO GREAT BIG EDUCATION PRIVATIZERS AND THIS MARYLAND CAN WILL TARGET PEOPLE OF COLOR AND SELL WHAT WILL BE AN AUTOCRATIC SYSTEM AS A BOON.
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Chicago School Closings And The Joyce Foundation: The Obama Connection

By Steve Horn | July 9, 2013



President Barack Obama left, talks with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel right, after arriving at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2011. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty)

The Windy City is is undergoing a tumultuous historical moment, with the uprising of the Chicago Teachers Union occurring alongside the ongoing restructuring and privatization of the Chicago Public Schools system.

Most recently, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel oversaw the closing of 50 public schools, many of which will be replaced by charter schools. A bulk of the 550 laid-off teachers will be replaced by Teach for America contractors, many of whom teach in charter schools.

“Statewide enrollment in charter schools has surged from 6,152 students in 2000 to 54,054 this school year — with most of them in Chicago — according to the Illinois State Board of Education,” an April Chicago Tribune editorial explained. “The first charter school in Illinois opened in 1996. Now there are 132 campuses operating under 58 charters.”

A thus-far underreported story of the retooling of CPS concerns a foundation close the epicenter of it all: the Joyce Foundation.

Joyce is a major liberal foundation  (neo-liberal). President Barack Obama sat on its board of directors from 1994 to 2002, as did Valerie Jarrett, his former senior advisor and assistant to the president for intergovernmental affairs and public engagement .

A look at major organizations dedicated to restructuring U.S. education turns up a slew of current and former upper-level Joyce staff and board members.

Between 1995 and 2012, the Joyce Foundation spent $135.58 million on education reform.

“They’re really in bed now with conservative elements nationwide,” said Mike Klonsky, a Chicago public schools activist and professor at DePaul University, in an interview with Mint Press News. “Anything that has to do with corporate-style school reform, you’ll probably see Joyce’s name in it.”

A Mint Press News investigation reveals the veracity of Klonsky’s statement — and then some.

In the sphere of school privatization, Joyce mirrors Milwaukee’s Bradley Foundation, a key foundation of the Republican Party referred to by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as the “Bradley Empire” in a November 2011 investigation.

In his book, “The Gift of Education: Public Education and Venture Philanthropy,” Kenneth Saltman, Klonsky’s colleague at DePaul, describes the activity of Joyce and allied foundations in the sphere of education reform as “venture philanthropy” — transforming a once-public education system into a for-profit market.

“Such a view carries significant implications for a society theoretically dedicated to public, democratic ideals,” Saltman explains in the book’s introduction. “This is no small matter in terms of how the public and civil roles of public schooling have become nearly overtaken by the … perspective [of] public schooling as principally a matter of producing workers and consumers for the economy and for global economic competition.”

With assets of over $900 million, Joyce has helped in applying “shock doctrine”-type “venture philanthropy” to CPS, with tight-knit ties to the highest levels of the Democratic Party and the Obama administration.

Nuts and bolts: Mayoral takeover as launching pad for reform Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel — derided as “Mayor 1 Percent” by some activists and “One-Term Mayor” by others — formerly served as White House chief of staff under Obama.

Obama’s secretary of education, Arne Duncan, is the former CEO of CPS. Duncan’s federal policy agenda — notably the Race to the Top program — is Emanuel’s agenda in Chicago.

To understand the origins of that agenda, rewind to 1995, when Chicago joined numerous major U.S. cities in granting full control of the public school system to the mayor. Other members of that club included Boston, Cleveland, Washington, D.C., New York City and Los Angeles.

Photo of a September 2012 protest against school closings and budget cuts in Chicago, Ill. (Photo/Shutter Stutter via Flickr)

”I think the reason for the crisis in American education is that no one was accountable,” Duncan, then CEO of CPS, said in a 2002 article published in The New York Times. ”Mayors could throw rocks and criticize, but they couldn’t really do anything about it. If you have a mayor who says he’s in charge of the schools, he’s the one on the line, and he has to get results or he’ll be voted out.”

Mayoral control, though described by Duncan in terms of “accountability” because of the ability to quantify things like standardized test scores, is key for advocates of reconfiguring K-12 education systems.

“This is when the role of power philanthropy really began to play its role,” said Klonsky. “They were very much worried about this democratic movement. It was too broad, too difficult to control and there were too many radicals involved in it. Thus, they were afraid of how it would play out politically.”

Put most concisely, the mayoral takeover in Chicago served as a launching pad for the modern school reform movement in the Windy City.

The Chicago Public Education Fund and its Obama-run precursor Not long after the mayoral takeover took place, the Chicago Public Education Fund was created. The fund is a public-private enterprise bankrolled in part by Joyce. Its precursor was the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which launched in 1995 and morphed into its current form in 1999 via $2 million in seed money.

Obama, well before his rise to national fame, served as the chair of the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. He also sat on the board of the Joyce Foundation.

“[A] group of corporate and civic leaders in the Chicago area believed they could help their home city do a better job educating its students, so they put their minds, financial assets, and talents together, and the result was The Chicago Public Education Fund,” the right-wing organization Philanthropy Roundtable wrote. “The Fund’s strategy is to serve as a catalyst and investment partner … to invest dollars and ideas into high-impact programs that will improve student achievement and school leadership system-wide.”

An ode to “venture philanthropy,” Joyce invests somewhere between $1 million and $2 million of its assets in the Chicago Public Education Fund, according to its website. Joyce was the key funding stream behind the fund’s launch.

“Joyce… was one of the first foundations to commit significant dollars to The Fund,” Janet Knupp, former CEO of CPEF said in an interview with Philanthropy Roundtable. “They played a critical role in helping us forge relationships with larger foundations across the nation. They saw the value of our work on a local level but had enough of a national reach to start connecting us.”

The fund’s connections to power centers are illustrative:

– CEO Heather Anichini once worked in the CPS Office of Planning and Development under Duncan, leveraging that gig to become vice president of Teach for America.

– Jesse Rothstein, former chief economist at Obama’s Labor Department, sits on the fund’s External Advisory Council.

– Alice Phillips, who lobbied on the fund’s behalf in 2006 and 2007, formerly worked alongside Loretta Durbin — wife of U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) — as a lobbyist for Government Affairs Specialists Inc.

– Penny Pritzker, once a member of Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness and now his secretary of commerce, served on the fund’s board of directors and the Chicago Board of Education.

– Elizabeth Swanson, now the deputy chief of staff for education to Emanuel, formerly served as executive director of the Pritzker Traubert Family Foundation, which is overseen by Pritzker’s family. Earlier, Swanson led the CPS Office of Management and Budget under Duncan.

Arne Duncan: ‘Tapping into’ CPS restructuring with teacher incentive fund As CEO of CPS, Duncan “tapped into” President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind policy. He subsequently rebranded it as “Race to the Top” when he took over the U.S. Department of Education.

“Pushing competitive market approaches and armed with unprecedented funding and support from the president, he is possibly the most powerful education secretary ever,” The Christian Science Monitor wrote in an August 2010 article.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan, speaks to the U.S. Conference of Mayors 81st winter meeting in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013. (AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

A cornerstone of Duncan’s agenda as CPS head was the Recognizing Excellence in Academic Leadership/Teacher Advancement Program, funded by a five-year, $27.5 million U.S. Department of Education grant.

The program fit under the umbrella of Bush’s No Child Left Behind: standardized testing, “teacher accountability,” charter school promotion and the creation of an online charter school market. Its origins center around right-wing financier Lowell Milken’s System for Teacher and Student Advancement program, now overseen by his National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, founded in 2005.

The Teacher Advancement Program, or TAP, “was launched in 1999 as a comprehensive school reform that restructures and revitalizes the teaching profession by providing teachers with powerful opportunities for career advancement, ongoing professional development, a fair evaluation system and performance-based compensation,” the program’s website explains.

The now-extinct Chicago Teacher Advancement Program website explicitly states that the program is modeled after Milken’s program. Furthermore, Milken’s website lists the Joyce Foundation as a financial supporter of its national TAP system. The Chicago Teachers Union, then run under different leadership, signed the original contract to take part in TAP.

“When teachers are given powerful opportunities for career advancement, ongoing professional growth and recognition for outstanding achievement, we see increased student achievement in TAP schools,” Lowell Milken said in a December 2008 press release. “Chicago TAP schools are off to a strong start in continuing efforts to achieve these goals.”

Milken, unmentioned in most accounts, has a vested financial interest in school reform efforts and “fixing failing schools.”

That’s because Milken is a major investor in K12 Inc., a corporation traded on Wall Street that sells online schooling and curriculum to state and local governments. Milken invested $10 million in K12 Inc. in 2000, a stake that is now worth over $125 million, according to a July 2008 article in Forbes.

“If it were a school district, K12 Inc. would rank among the 30 largest of the nation’s 1,500 districts. The company, which began in two states a decade ago, now teaches about 95,000 students in virtual schools in 29 states and the District of Columbia,” The Washington Post reported in a November 2011 investigation.

Duncan now oversees the federal Teacher Incentive Fund, which “supports efforts to develop and implement performance-based teacher and principal compensation systems in high-need schools,” according to its website. It’s the funding arm for Race to the Top and served the same function for “No Child Left Behind.”

Yet another player is Deane Mariotti. According to her biographical sketch, she “led [the] joint effort with the Chicago Public Schools to secure the … Teacher Incentive Fund” while working as manager of program investments for the Chicago Public Education Fund in 2007.

In fall 2010, CPS received another five-year Teacher Incentive Fund grant, this time worth even more: $34.1 million. It did so, once again, with the helping hand of the Chicago Public Education Fund.

In a clear depiction of aligned interests, the Michigan-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy — funded by the right-wing Devos Foundation and Koch Family Foundations and a key proponent of “emergency financial managers” of cities in fiscal trouble, such as Detroit and Benton Harbor — praised Chicago’s TAP system and “merit pay” for teachers in a September 2008 policy briefing.

The prominent liberal group Center for American Progress — run by John Podesta, who served as co-chair of Obama’s transition team after he won the 2008 presidential race — also praised “merit pay” in a May 2009 report funded by Joyce. One of the co-authors of that report, Raegan Miller, is now the vice president of research partnerships for Teach for America.

Revolving doors, interlocking directorates: Joyce’s K-12 restructuring machine The government-industry revolving door and what sociologist G. William Domhoff coined as the “interlocking directorate” are the name of the game with Joyce. Joyce’s ties go straight to the commanding heights of power of CPS and national K-12 school restructuring.

The executive director of Joyce, Ellen Alberding, serves as a case in point of how intricately the web is wound.

Alberding was personally invited to an Obama-led event convened in June 2009 to “highlight innovative non-profits programs that are making a difference in communities across the country.” She also sits on the advisory board of Obama’s Skills for America’s Future initiative, which was launched in June 2011. Prior to being named secretary of commerce, Pritzker also served on the advisory board.

Alberding also sits on the board of directors of Advance Illinois, a powerhouse pro-charter school and school restructuring think tank.

Alongside Alberding on Advance Illinois’ board sits Obama’s former chief of staff, Bill Daley, who has tossed his hat in the ring to run for governor of Illinois in 2014. Dennis Hastert, former speaker of the U.S. House, also sits on Advance Illinois’ board, as does Timothy Knowles, who simultaneously serves on the board of the Chicago Public Education Fund.

Advance Illinois took $1.37 million from Joyce from 2010-2012, according to Joyce’s annual reports. Its policy director, Benjamin Boer, worked as an interim project manager for Obama for America during the 2008 election cycle.

The group’s lobbyists work for Taylor Uhe LLC, which is co-owned by Mark Taylor and Rob Uhe. Taylor formerly served as legal counsel for the Democratic Party of Illinois, while Uhe formerly served as chief counsel to Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.

John Luczak, former Joyce Education Program Director, left his gig to became a co-owner at Education First. One of the clients Education First highlights as a success story is Advance Illinois.

“Over the course of nearly a year, Education First, together with … the Joyce Foundation … researched effective practices and staffed a steering committee and launch team of prominent Illinois leaders,” the Education First website says. “Education First also prepared the organization’s first major report, a case-making analysis of why Illinois education performance must improve dramatically if Illinois and its residents are to prosper.”

That report, titled “The State We’re In: Advancing Public Education in Illinois,” served as Advance Illinois’ launching pad on Nov. 18, 2008, just two weeks after Obama was elected president. The report and the public relations pageantry surrounding it followed the “tobacco playbook” — the tactic of using of industry-funded research to promote industry objectives.

That’s because the Hill & Knowlton, the multinational firm that did PR on behalf of Big Tobacco during that industry’s zenith, also did the groundbreaking PR for Advance Illinois, a press release announcing its entrance into the public square demonstrates. Hill & Knowlton also did graphic design work for that initial report.

Luczak’s successor at Joyce’s education program was Angela Rudolph, now policy director for Democrats for Education Reform’s Illinois branch and vice chair of the Illinois State Charter School Commission.

Rudolph, wearing her Democrats for Education Reform hat, aided in spearheading a media blitz called “Put Students First” in fall 2012 to fend off the nascent Chicago Teachers Union strike.

Despite a campaign clearly meant to discredit teachers and unions, Rudolph told Catalyst Chicago in a June 2012 article, “What we have been most troubled by is this notion that we are anti-teacher or anti-union. We are a Democratic organization and one of the cornerstones of the Democratic Party is unions.”

The “man behind the curtain” in that PR campaign was Ben Schaffer, the owner of Media Mezcla and media consultant for Howard Dean’s 2004 run for president, according to a web domain search for the “Put Students First” website.

Rudolph’s successor, now head of Joyce’s education program, was Butch Trusty, who before coming to Joyce in May 2012 worked at The Bridgespan Group, a Bain Capital offshoot. Obama’s 2012 Republican Party opponent in the presidential race was Mitt Romney, a former upper-level executive at Bain.

Though most famous for its Romney ties, Bain actually gave far more money to Democratic Party candidates for elected office before the 2012 election than it did Republicans.

Teach for America’s ‘scabs’ and principal (CEO) development Just over a month after the 50 CPS school closings and firing of 550 teachers, the Chicago Board of Education announced an increase from $600,000 to $1.58 million in spending to hire 570 Teach for America teachers. Klonsky told Mint Press News that Teach for America contractors serve as de facto strike-breaking “scabs”  – usually unknowingly.

“They’re providing the non-union teachers for the charter schools and they’re almost like a scab organization,” he said. “What you do is you close public schools and fire hundreds of teachers like we’re doing here, then you open neighborhood charter schools and bring in Teach for America 5-week wonders who work cheap and last for about two or three years. Then they’re gone and another batch comes in.”

The Joyce Foundation gave $23.77 million to Teach for America in its first 20 years in existence, according to The Washington Post. It is one of 10 foundations whose funding accounted for over half of Teach for America’s budget during that time period. Joyce gave Teach for America another $400,000 grant in 2012.

The Chicago Public Education Fund also has lended a modest amount of money to Teach for America. Between 2000 and 2005, the fund gave just under $400,000 to the organization, tax filings reveal.

Since 2001, the Chicago Board of Education has doled out close to $6.6 million in contracts and hired 1,931 teachers from Teach for America, Board of Education contract records show. During that same period, thousands of CPS teachers got pink slips.

The rubber meets the road in the relationship between the Chicago school restructuring movement’s goal of creating CEO-type school principals and Teach for America’s Principal Leadership Pipeline, which was launched in September 2007. The Principal Leadership Pipeline was a collaboration between CPS and Teach for America, financed by the Chicago Public Education Fund and the Pritzker Family Foundation.

“CPS will recruit high-performing Teach For America alumni to attend a school leadership program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and then enter into a one-year residency under the tutelage of a principal at a Chicago elementary or high school,” a press release announcing the program’s launch explains. “After the residency, the new principals will then take the helm of some of Chicago’s most challenged schools…Over the next five years, Teach For America could have as many as 50 school leaders in the pipeline, a group that would reach some 15,000 Chicago children a year.”

The program arose out of the Public Education Fund’s “Great Principals Blue Ribbon Task Force,” formed in 2005. Its members included Pritzker and Duncan.

“A consensus has developed over the last few years that a principal is the most important person in the school building,” Pritzker said. “Just like a [CEO], the principal sets the tone, creates the culture, manages the team and ties it all together by articulating a shared vision for what the organization ought to be. So if we get the principal right, other things can fall into place.”

Battle for the ‘right to the city’ Pauline Lipman, an education policy studies professor at University of Illinois-Chicago and author of the book “The New Political Economy of Urban Education,” says that what’s taking place in Chicago — the heart and soul of the Democratic Party — is fundamentally a battle over the “right to the city.”

The concept, she explains in her book, was coined by French sociologist and philosopher Henri Lefebvre.

“[T]he city’s vitality is its diversity of people, ways of living, and perspectives — and thus its potential as a creative space of vibrant democratic dialogue and debate,” she wrote in the book’s conclusion. “Education is integral to a movement to reclaim the city… It is also a cry for education that develops our human potential, that prepares us to be subjects of history — to read and write the world.”

It’s a battle for the “right to the city” in Chicago, then, pitting the moneyed interests of Joyce and Friends against the Chicago Teachers Union and grassroots activists. The weeks, months and years ahead will determine who comes out on top.

Thousands of public school teachers rally for the second consecutive day outside the Chicago Board of Education district headquarters on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012 in Chicago. (AP/Sitthixay Ditthavong)



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Chicago Rising! A resurgent protest culture fights back against Rahm Emanuel’s austerity agenda.

Rick Perlstein July 2, 2013   |    This article appeared in the July 22-29, 2013 edition of The Nation

Karen Lewis, center, president of the CTU is joined by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, left, and United States Representative Bobby Rush, right, during a demonstration and march over the a plan to close fifty-four Chicago Public Schools through Chicago's downtown Wednesday, March 27, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
 
On a sunny saturday this past May, far down on the city’s black South Side where corner stores house their cashiers behind bulletproof plexiglass, about 150 activists assembled at Jesse Owens Community Academy. In just a few days, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s appointed Board of Education would vote on the largest simultaneous school closing in recent history. Owens, along with fifty-three other public schools, was on the chopping block. A recent Chicago Tribune/WGN poll found that more than 60 percent of Chicago citizens opposed the closings, and a healthy cross section of them had turned out for the first of three straight days of marches in protest.

About the Author Rick Perlstein Rick Perlstein is the author of Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, winner of... Also by the Author How the Powerful Derail Accountability: The Case of Intelligence Reform (Part II) (Government, Historical Events, Politics) When momentum gathered to reign in the national security state in 1976, the powers that be struck back with a distraction campaign that worked.

Rick Perlstein How the Powerful Derail Accountability: The Case of Intelligence Reform (Part I) (Society) In 1975, two hard-hitting congressional committees, and dogged media investigators, documented how badly broken the intelligence community was.

Rick Perlstein Women in red Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) T-shirts registered participants; a vanload of purple-shirted SEIU marchers lingered in excited anticipation; an activist from the city’s Anti-Eviction Campaign, which breaks into and takes over foreclosed houses, donned a parade marshal’s orange vest; two street medics from the Occupy-associated Chicago Action Medical checked on some elderly marchers who arrived in a church bus. The music teacher at Owens, a former minister, asked rhetorically, “Will I have a job on Monday?” She answers her own question: “That’s OK.” A white, middle-class mother with two kids in the system, who traveled almost 100 blocks to be here, told me that she is a Republican but that “people on the right don’t like being pushed around by overbearing government.” 

There were signs representing Jobs With Justice and the community-labor umbrella group Grassroots Collaborative. Another sign snarked: if rahm and his unelected school board ever set foot in a CPS school perhaps their math wouldn’t be so bad. The president of Michigan’s American Federation of Teachers spoke. Then a parent mocked public schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett’s recent invocation of Martin Luther King at a City Club of Chicago speech: “How can you call this a civil rights movement when you resegregate our schools, decimate our teacher corps and destabilize our neighborhoods?” 

The march stepped off, passing boarded-up houses and auction signs; a CTU staffer called cadence (“I don’t know but it’s been said/ Billionaires on the Board of Ed”). Supporters shouted out in solidarity from front porches. When we passed the first of five closing schools along our seven-mile route, a clutch of 10-year-olds bearing handmade signs joined in and got turns at the bullhorn. I noticed something striking: again and again, when the CTU yell-leader barked out the first half of a new chant (“We need teachers, we need books”), everybody already knew the second line: “We need the money that Rahhhhhhm took!” 

They know the words because they’ve been here before. The CTU beat Rahm in a historic strike this past September and hasn’t stopped fighting austerity and privatization since. They probably know the words across town too, where a simultaneous march along an even longer route on the even poorer black West Side was going on. 

But it isn’t just CTU members who know the words. The progressive tribes have been gathering in Chicago with force, efficiency, creativity, trust and solidarity, building a bona fide, citywide protest culture. And it’s working. Days before these marches, Mayor Emanuel, who has been talked up in some circles as possibly the first Jewish president, told the Chicago Sun-Times, “I am not running for higher office—ever.” This purring protest infrastructure is one of the major reasons why. 

To many national observers, this rebirth of the city’s militant protest culture seemingly came out of nowhere. But it didn’t. It’s the product of years of organizing from sources both expected and surprising. And while the radicalized CTU under the leadership of Karen Lewis has deservedly received much of the credit, the teachers union is just the current tip of the spear in a long and potentially transformative movement.
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The Baltimore Teacher's Union shouted loudly and strongly that Maryland's Teacher's Union leaders are not standing with the rank and file and instead working to push the agenda of the privatization pols like O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake!!

Wednesday Jul 3, 2013 2:31 pm
Reformers Win D.C. Teachers Union Election, Make Gains in Newark
By Bhaskar Sunkara

The district's push for so-called education reform has long been a sticking point for the Washington Teachers Union, as evinced by this poster criticizing officials Michelle Rhee and Adrian Fenty from a 2009 rally. The perceived capitulation of several WTU presidents to such an agenda has forced them to leave office.   (mar is sea y/Flickr/Creative COmmons)

This week, Washington Teachers Union (WTU) members elected a reform slate, ousting incumbent president Nathan Saunders in a run-off election.

With the vote, the WTU follows in the footsteps of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), which elected the insurgent Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE), led by Karen Lewis, in 2010. Like CORE, the DC reformers promise to resist school closures, privatization efforts, and the proliferation of high-stakes testing.

The WTU certified the results Monday night, with Elizabeth A. Davis winning 459 votes to Saunders’ 380.

Davis’ running mate, Candi Peterson, spoke to In These Times by phone this morning. This is Peterson’s second time assuming the office of WTU’s General Vice President, after being elected on a reform ticket with Saunders in 2010. In that campaign, Saunders and Peterson accused the incumbent WTU President George Parker of running a business union and critiqued his allegiance to American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten, who had encouraged the union to accept an unpopular contract—which included the implementation of IMPACT, a teacher evaluation system —supported by then-school chancellor Michelle Rhee and mayor Adrian Fenty.

Reflecting on her first stint as general vice president—she was dismissed by Saunders in 2011—Peterson says, “Saunders didn’t share my vision of what a participatory union looks like.” She paints a picture of a union that was run by one man and failed to sufficiently engage members to advocate for their own rights. This time, Peterson hopes, will be different; she and new president Elizabeth A. Davis promise more rank-and-file participation.

On certain substantive issues, the camps are not too far apart. Saunders remained hostile to many aspects of the corporate reform efforts, but it wasn’t enough to appease members. Speaking to the Washington Post, he said, “They want more aggressive change than what I was dishing out.”

That isn’t to say the former president’s tenure wasn’t filled with fireworks. Though Peterson was directly elected as general vice president in 2010, she was removed by Saunders the next year without any recall procedure, which violates union guidelines. She won in arbitration in September, but was not reinstated afterwards to serve the duration of her original term. Even now, she’s having trouble assuming office. The WTU constitution allows for no lame duck period, and when Saunders was elected in late November 2010, he took control of the union the next day. Yet Peterson and others in the reform slate were denied entry to the office yesterday. Peterson described the transference of power as a “hostile situation,” but while Saunders declined to comment, a staffer within his camp told In TheseTimes that he believes the old leadership would not vacate until the end of the month.

The nationwide push to standardize, privatize and shut down public schools has sparked an opposition movement both inside and outside teachers unions. Though media attention has focused on the actions of teachers and students in Chicago and New York, fronts have been opened in places like Newark and Washington, as well. In Newark, facing challenge from reformers local President Joseph Del Grosso was elected by a margin of just nine votes last Tuesday. The challengers, like the Washington teachers, were openly inspired by the example of CORE, and still won a majority of executive board seats.

As has become common in American union elections, only 1,200 of 3,000 Newark Teachers Union members cast ballots, but the showing against a long-time incumbent surprised many. The result there, like the one in Washington, will cause some alarm for Weingarten and her team. Not unlike tactics used years ago in Washington, the AFT leadership had recently mobilized national organizers in Newark to promote a contract that won the acceptance of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

The results in Newark and DC, long laboratories of neoliberal education reform, represent part of a grassroots backlash to these kinds of policies. It remains to be seen, however, whether these local efforts will be enough to stop what has long been a national push to redefine public education along corporate lines.

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Students opting out of PSAE


PURE


Some students from Gage Park High School are planning to boycott part of the Prairie State Achievement Examination (PSAE).

About 80 Gage Park students walked out of a NAEP exam earlier this year. NAEP is a national exam used to compare districts and states across the U.S. The students objected to having their time taken up with tests that had no bearing on their studies, at a time when some students didn’t even feel safe inside the school.

A WBEZ report quotes the students saying they are sick of test prep and opposed to the use of PSAE test scores to evaluate teachers, principals and schools.

The danger of the PSAE boycott is that the exam is a state graduation requirement — students don’t have to “pass” the PSAE but they do have to take it.

Here’s hoping that they will show up, sign their names to the test, answer at least one question, and then do whatever else they feel moved to do.


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A site to discuss better education for all
« Public Education Is Not Failing, But NCLB and RTTT Are The Unfairness of the “Parent Trigger” » Katie Osgood: The Difference Between Magnets and Charters By dianerav June 14, 2013 // 91 Katie Osgood teaches children in a hospital setting in Chicago. Here she responds to a comment from a charter advocate who insists that charter schools are no different from magnet schools:

Osgood writes:

In regards to magnet schools, I have always believed that there are equity issues surrounding this practice. However, they were begun with integration in mind and do tend to be, at least in Chicago, our most integrated schools (but with an overrepresentation of white/middle class students). Most that I know of do not have tests to get in, they are random lotteries (Maybe you are thinking of selective enrollment??). Magnets are also unionized schools with local school councils (democratic voice in community school governance for parents, teachers, community members and in high school, students) and some do provide special education services similar to neighborhood schools. They are staffed with fully-certified, experienced teachers and use proven creative curriculum and specialty programs. Their demographics tend to look like this:

http://www.cps.edu/Schools/Pages/school.aspx?id=610363

Charters are another beast altogether. They are almost without exception highly-segregated schools that tend to look like this: http://www.cps.edu/Schools/Pages/school.aspx?id=400033 There is no democratic voice, the teachers are often not unionized (although this is changing in Chicago, one school at a time), and many use questionable practices like hiring many uncertified teachers, having scripted curriculum, and using cruel, borderline corporal punishment “no excuses” discipline.

I would love for ALL schools to look more like magnets. I do not want all schools to look like charters. Charters provide low-quality education for low-income students of color. And that is wrong.

Budget Office Finds Fair Student Funding Not So Fair

Apr. 12, 2013
4:33 pm
by Maisie McAdoo
Ed Wize

The Independent Budget Office, in a report released on April 10, finds that the Bloomberg-era school allocation formula, known as Fair Student Funding, actually underfunds 94 percent of schools and “has a ways to go” towards creating a readily-understood and transparent formula.

The IBO report says the formula, which gives schools per-student funding weighted for need levels (extra dollars for an English language learner, for example) has more closely tied school funding with student needs. For example, middle school students, who were historically short-changed, now get an amount closer to their actual formula needs. But overall, schools are coming up short, the budget office writes.

“Effective per-capita [per student] funding is below per capita funding under the FSF formula in each year,” according to the report, which means that actual per-student funding in schools is generally below what the DOE’s own formula says they need — “a reflection of both the limited funding available and how available funds were distributed.”

Students funded below what the formula called for last year and at least two more out of the last five years were 1) middle school students below academic standards; 2) elementary and high school ELLs; and 3) high school collaborative team teaching students.

So as a budget strategy to direct money to students with the highest needs, Fair Student Funding doesn’t appear to have worked so well.

The UFT’s issue with Fair Student Funding was its potential effect on a school that had more senior teachers. Waving the banner of equity, the DOE began funding schools for their average teacher salary rather than the system wide average. This amounted to charging schools for the actual cost of salaries at their schools. The idea was to equalize funding for poor and wealthier schools. But the effect was to penalize some schools, forcing them to leave vacancies unfilled, raise class sizes and avoid hiring experienced teachers in order to meet budget.

But a 2007 IBO report found that teacher salaries were not even close to the main cause of inequities in school budgets. The main reason for disparities in spending was the numbers of students per teacher, it found, not teacher salary. That argument is not made in the new report. In fact, the new report perpetuates the idea that teacher salaries cause the inequities in school funding, a myth the IBO previously disproved.

The report is a major contribution on an important issue. If Fair Student Funding isn’t succeeding in creating fairness or sufficient funding, what is it actually accomplishing? Of course, the final irony is that Bloomberg’s insistence on principal empowerment means that when all the formulas have gone to bed, principals spend their budgets however they want, with little oversight of which students are getting extra help.

- See more at: http://www.edwize.org/#sthash.s9In2v0s.dpuf
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Market-Oriented Reforms Really Don’t Work. What Should We Do Instead?

May. 3, 2013
11:11 am
by Elaine Weiss
Ed Wize

[Editor's note: Guest blogger Elaine Weiss is the national coordinator of the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education.]

As many of us have long suspected, the impacts of popular market-oriented reforms are not as positive as their proponents would have us believe. Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, and then-CEO and now-Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who ran the school systems in New York, Washington, DC and Chicago, respectively, along with the mayors who controlled the school systems they led, all exaggerated their successes. In fact, the report I recently co-authored as National Coordinator of the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education, “Market-Oriented Reforms’ Rhetoric Trumps Reality,” discovers that using student test scores to make high-stakes decisions did little good and more than a little harm.

We found that across all three cities, student NAEP test scores rose less than they did in comparable high-poverty urban districts. In Chicago, reading scores, already below average, fell further. New York City students achieved the second-lowest average test score growth across fourth and eighth grade reading and math of the ten districts studied, beating only Cleveland. And Washington, DC students, who had been gaining ground in both subjects, saw that growth stop or even begin to fall. Moreover, what small gains did accrue went heavily to white and higher-income students, so many achievement gaps grew rather than narrowed. Closing schools neither helped students nor saved money, and drove teacher turnover, not teacher quality.

These would be terrible findings for any districts. They are particularly troubling, however, given these districts’ power (mayoral control), money (NYCDOE increased spending far more than other large urban districts, and DC Public School spending rose throughout the post-recession years), and the fact that they are held up as models by their own leaders and by philanthropists, policymakers, and organized advocates who advance their agenda.

The question, then, is not just how these three districts should change course, but how we can derive lessons from the findings that other districts, states, and the federal government can use to advance smarter policies.

We would say, first, look to the districts’ own small, less visible successes, which tell the flip side of the quick-fix reform story. New York City’s small schools delivered their best results by focusing on strong, sustained teacher-student relationships and hands-on learning experiences. Chicago’s multifaceted college-and-career readiness strategy contrasts sharply with test preparation that deprives students of real knowledge and skills. DCPS’ high-quality universal pre-kindergarten program nurtures all of children’s developmental domains and increases the diversity of the early childhood education setting.

Second, listen to teachers and principals. Stripping teachers of their morale and professionalism, and the teacher pool of the expertise that principals need to build strong teams, is a recipe for disaster. Montgomery County, Maryland’s Peer Assisted Review system, which leverages excellent teachers to assess and mentor novices, builds trust and promotes continuous improvement, not churn.

Third, pay attention to poverty. In urban, rural and, increasingly, suburban districts, student and community poverty pose impediments that, unaddressed, stymie even the best reform efforts. New York City and Chicago both house large clusters of full-service community schools that acknowledge, tackle and alleviate the effects of poverty. If the next mayor advances this supports-based approach, outcomes could look more like those in Cincinnati — more engaged, higher-achieving students, taught by satisfied and motivated educators.

Achievement gaps are driven by opportunity gaps: in kindergarten readiness, access to health care, qualified teachers, the capacity to navigate the college application process, and others. Only reforms that address those gaps in opportunity can deliver real change.

- See more at: http://www.edwize.org/#sthash.s9In2v0s.dpuf

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You had better believe that the school to prison pipeline is on overdrive with these school reforms......prison labor for $2 a day meets the wages corporations have in Asia!

Philadelphia to Close 23 Public Schools While Building $400 Million Prison


Pennsylvania’s School Reform Commission voted on June 1st to close 23 Philadelphia Public Schools, nearly 10 percent of the city’s total.


Additionally, due to a $304 million debt, students will return to school in the fall without many essentials; including books, papers, clubs, assistant principals, etc. Nearly 3,000 people will lose their jobs.

Meanwhile, the city has recently begun work on a $400 million prison project, said to be “the second-most expensive state project ever.”

From RT:

Newly unemployed teachers might consider submitting their resumes to the Department of Corrections, though, with the news that the supposedly cash-strapped government is digging deep to spend $400 million for the construction of State Correctional Institutions Phoenix I and II.

The penitentiary, which is technically two facilities, will supplement at least two existing jails, the Western Penitentiary at Pittsburgh and Fayette County Jail. Pittsburgh’s Western Penitentiary was built in 2003 with the original intention of replacing Fayette County Jail, but the prison has struggled with lawsuits claiming widespread physical and sexual abuse of prisoners.

Scheduled to be completed in 2015, the new prison’s cell blocks and classroom will be capable of housing almost 5,000 inmates. Officials said there will be buildings for female inmates, the mentally ill and a death row population.

81 percent of students impacted by school closings are black, even though they make up only 58 percent of the population.




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Divestiture: They vote with their feet, Catherine Ferguson Academy (CFA) Students & Supporters Walk Out to Demand a Real Education, Not Fake Education on the Cheap By Danny Weil on May 30, 2013 10:37 pm

  In the past I have written extensively on Detroit schools and especially the Catherine Ferguson Academy (CFA) (google Detroit Schools, Dailycensored.com).

Well, Detroit once again is leading a process of needed divestment from the ravages of privatization.  And, By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) is once again leading the pack with support from community leaders, parents and students.

TODAY: Thursday May 30, 2013 10:30AM in front of Catherine Ferguson Academy, 2750 Selden Detroit MI

Contact: Monica Smith 313-585-3637

Catherine Ferguson Academy (CFA) students are outraged at the blatant attempt of school administration and CNN to pass off a virtually nonexistent academic curriculum as a “Thinking School”.

Rather than participating in the cover-up photo opportunities happening at CFA today, students and their supporters are walking out in protest of this cover up and are demanding a return to actual academic instruction leading to high school credit and a diploma that actually means we are prepared for college.

CFA 11th Grader and BAMN (Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary) organizer Darshae White says, “I feel that I’m not learning and I’m supposed to pretend this is the best thing that has happened when this is the worst thing that has happened to me at school, and I’m sick of being told to just deal with it.”

CFA Teacher and BAMN organizer Nicole Conaway says, “CFA students will shortly be filing a lawsuit demanding the equal educational opportunities they deserve. “

In 2011, CFA was saved from closure when students and the teacher joined BAMN and organized marches, rallies, and an occupation to keep the school open. One year after the school was transferred to charter operator Evans Solutions, the academic program has been decimated and teachers have been forced to stop teaching and to act only as advisors for independent student projects limited to students’ supposed career choices.

Students have voted with their feet and enrollment has dropped from about 200 to about 50 students. Donna Stern BAMN National Coordinator 313-468-3398

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When the citizens of Baltimore listen to School Superintendent Alonzo become indignant over accusations that $25,000 of Race to the Top was misspent on activities not having to do with the underserved communities they were to target we want to remember this was not the first and it will not be the last incident of grants and funds slated to help struggling schools are spent for recruiting el al more affluent families and used to pay private consultants with extraordinary fees.

WE WANT PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDS TO GO TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND WE WANT THE DISTRIBUTION TO BE EQUAL AS THAT IS WHAT PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE ALL ABOUT!!!


City school credit, procurement cards show culture of spending Nearly $500,000 in charges include expensive dinners, extensive travel, and student lunch at Hooter's

Jerome Oberlton, the head of Baltimore's Information Technology Department, is leaving for Dallas. (Barbara Haddock Taylor, Baltimore Sun / April 26, 2012)

By Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun 3:39 p.m. EDT, August 25, 2012

Despite tightening school budgets and a perpetual rallying cry for more funding, Baltimore school administrators spent roughly $500,000 during the past year and a half on expenses such as a $7,300 office retreat at a downtown hotel, $300-per-night stays at hotels, and a $1,000 dinner at an exclusive members-only club, credit card statements show.

City school officials defend the majority of the credit card expenditures — outlined in statements and receipts obtained by The Baltimore Sun through a Maryland Public Information Act request — as "the cost of doing business," saying only a handful of "outliers" show questionable judgment or disregard for taxpayer money.

"We are working around the clock to engage our partners and move our agenda forward," said Tisha Edwards, chief of staff for the school system. "Every transaction has a business purpose in mind."

Among those transactions were a $450-per-person office retreat at the downtown Hilton, during which the 16 employees of the Information Technology Department were also treated to a $500 dinner at Brazilian steakhouse Fogo de Chao; and a $264 lunch for students at Hooter's.

A review of credit card transactions and receipts by The Sun found that the bulk of the expenditures — about $300,000, generated by 16 central office employees — were made under a new procurement-card program that has operated with virtually no controls or oversight since it began in January 2011.

Card statements show that many of the expenditures violated the school system's own protocols and restrictions for use of the cards, such as a prohibition on using them for travel or to buy gifts for employees.

Amid Sun inquiries, city school officials have acknowledged that they took a series of corrective actions:

•The head of the Information Technology Department will have to personally reimburse the system $5,000 for charges school officials deemed inappropriate.

•The district has launched an investigation into several restaurant charges made by a former employee — including a $136 visit to the Greene Turtle on his last day on the job.

•The school system's new chief financial officer has begun to overhaul the guidelines for using the credit cards, after The Sun found that many cardholders weren't following the rules.

City schools CEO Andrés Alonso acknowledged a "tension between controls and guidance" in the program he created last year.

Still, the schools chief — whose card, sometimes used by his assistant, incurred a $66.77 charge to Victoria's Secret on Valentine's Day that was later removed after the system reported it as fraudulent — defended the program.

"Overall, people use the program in exactly the way we thought they were going to," Alonso said in an interview. "There's always going to be a margin where you give people flexibility, and they're not always going to use it in the way that you want [them to]."

Other school officials also defended much of the cardholders' spending choices under the new program.

Edwards said the $13,600 of catering from David & Dad's and Jay's Catering brought into the central office reflects a "fellowshipping around food that has existed in city schools for decades."

The $67,000 in travel to conferences for a handful of office administrators, including an $8,000 trip to Las Vegas for a bullying conference, reflects the system's "overinvestment in professional development," she said.

And Edwards said that when a school administrator took a group of high school students to Hooter's during a student leadership conference in Atlanta, they didn't eat in the main dining room, where waitresses were wearing their trademark skimpy uniforms, but rather in a separate area served by a fully clothed manager.

Still, groups who scrutinize the spending of taxpayer money said the charges illustrate what can happen with loose oversight.

"It's clear that whatever the checks and balances in place are, they aren't working," said James Browning, regional director of Common Cause Mid-Atlantic, a government watchdog group. "And it seems that for many of these expenses, there should be approval and disapproval before they're ever made."


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RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE NEXT ELECTIONS....WE WANT TEACHERS RUNNING FOR OFFICE WHO SHOUT OUT AGAINST WHAT IS A VERY BAD REFORM!!!

Why America Needs An Education Spring
Well, someone in the mainstream media finally had to ask the question.

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, on his “All In” program on May 24, covered the forced closing of 50 public schools in Chicago – the largest incident of mass school closings in the nation’s history.

Joining Hayes were Karen Lewis, head of the Chicago Teachers’ Union, and education professor Pedro Noguera to discuss the rationale for the closures. Lewis said school administrators and Mayor Rahm Emanuel changed the rationale for the closings so many times that the case had become “murky.” Noguera declared the closings were “not a solution” for fixing or “reforming” schools.

Then Hayes dropped this: “Is this a strategy to – I’ll put it on the table: School closings as a strategy to kill public education?”

Good Question!

Neither Lewis nor Noguero answered the question directly. And it’s hard to imagine Emanuel or any of his surrogates on the board of Chicago Public Schools admitting they aim to “kill public education.”

But when political leaders push policies that have no track record of success and are obviously senseless – Noguero mocked the whole notion of school closures as a solution to education failure by asking, “If we had too much crime in a neighborhood would we shut down the police department?” – then skeptical audiences are bound to question the intent of the policies.

To put Hayes’ question in context, there are political leaders who really do want to get rid of traditional public schools. These people are not outliers. The person linked to above is a seven-term member of the House of Representatives of the North Carolina legislature. The last presidential election featured a legitimate candidate who spoke out openly in opposition to public schools.

Furthermore, policies pushed by the current leadership of the federal government could not be doing a better job of perpetuating the narrative that public education is a chronic and systemic failure incapable of being repaired.

Is ‘Reform’ An Experiment With Our Children?

Indeed, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has done much to contribute to the narrative. The very schools he was instrumental in creating when he ran the system in Chicago are now some of the schools being shut down, a local Chicago news source recently informed.

This incoherence coming from the nation’s leadership leaves parents with the feeling they are “part of one big experiment,” the reporter noted.

“Sometimes I think that we are all pieces in the game that they’re playing,” one parent said. “And the game doesn’t affect their lives. It affects our lives. It affects our children’s lives and the outcomes of their lives.”

Echoing this sentiment, Noah Berlatsky, writing at The Atlantic, explained, “Closings are only the latest example of a pattern of ‘reform’ and churn, in which neighborhoods without the resources or political clout to defend themselves are reorganized and experimented on.”

Berlatsky, who researched troubled Chicago schools for the Every Chicago Public School Is My School website, looked closely at the nature of the schools being closed and concluded, “School reform in Chicago is not a solution to anything. Instead, it’s a big part of the problem.”

New Fronts In A Growing Resistance

Disenchantment with education policies is not limited to Chicago. At the same time protestors filled the streets of that city, signs of discontent were evident in Newark,  Philadelphia, and Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Neither is the discontent limited to communities of the urban poor and people of color. A recent news report filed by an outlet covering the towns and cities of Western New York state put a completely different face to the resistance – mostly white, middle-class parents.

The reporter, Rachel Kingston, spotlighted the growing movement among parents to boycott standardized tests. She wrote, “Hundreds in school districts across Western New York – from Williamsville to West Seneca to Frontier – refused to have their children take the exams this April, in what’s becoming known as the opt-out movement.” The parents “worry their children are being deprived of a well-rounded education, and suffering both academically and emotionally because of it.”

But similar to the school closings in Chicago and elsewhere, what’s also driving concerns is that education policies are risky experiments with little prospect for success.

“It’s almost like the system is setting teachers up to fail, and setting students up to fail,” one parent stated.

“The assessments include field test questions which are sometimes above-grade-level – material the students being tested haven’t even learned yet,” Kingston reported. “Students don’t get their tests back once they’ve been scored. Their teachers don’t get to grade the tests. And parents never see the test booklet with the actual questions – only a score sheet with a number ranging from 1 to 4.”

Although not mentioned in the article, parent groups in New York have joined with the state teachers’ union, higher education advocates, and community activists to rally at the state capital to protest the over-reliance on testing and to support increased spending public education, pre-K through college.

“You may be able to bully school districts with ramifications or withholding state aid, but you cannot bully parents,” a parent told Kingston. “You may have hushed the teachers for a while, but you haven’t hushed parents.”

Is anyone else paying attention?

Of course, political leaders are unlikely to listen to protests coming from the streets until those voices turn into votes in elections. That’s happening.

In what is being called a “huge upset” to the political establishment, fifth-grade teacher Monica Ratliff won an election to the Board of Education in Los Angeles. Her “low-budget” campaign against an opponent who “had more than $2.2 million spent on his behalf and . . . was endorsed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s Coalition for School Reform,” succeeded in part by her campaign’s strong emphasis on her expertise as a teacher.

Ratliff’s upset victory comes on top of another “improbable” win by Steve Zimmer who beat an establishment challenger in the L.A. school board race earlier this year, despite being massively outspent by wealthy patrons of the “reform” movement. Zimmer, also a career educator, called on voters to resist education mandates pushed down from the top that have shown scant evidence of actually improving schools.

Political candidates elsewhere are taking notes. For instance, in upcoming mayoral elections in New York City, most of the candidates are running away from the reform agenda that has dominated the outgoing Bloomberg administration.

Faced with an electorate shaken with uncertainty about the fate of their neighborhood schools and filled with distrust about prevailing education policy, it’s likely more candidates will draw sharp distinctions about their education stances rather than run to the center.

When views once thought to be too radical for serious consideration – including getting rid of public schools – are now becoming mainstream, even in vogue, and when leadership policies are driven by incoherence – even blatant contradiction – then the center cannot hold.

Searching questions coming from the likes of Chris Hayes, the Chicago protestors, and parents in Western New York and elsewhere need answers.

What’s needed is a real disruption coming from the grassroots – an Education Spring – to demand the answers and a new way forward.






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Mass school closing are known to be bad for children's mental health....student achievement will be affected!!!

Media wrap-up from child mental health press conference

Thanks to Erin Mason, one of the speakers at the press conference yesterday, you can watch all the statements at our press conference on You Tube.

Chicago Tribune:

On Tuesday, at a news conference held by Parents United for Responsible Education, which opposes the closings, a group of child mental health experts called on CPS to add social and emotional supports for students in closing schools. The experts also said CPS should allow counselors who have worked with students at schools being closed to move with those children to their new schools.

Erika Schmidt, director of the Center for Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, said that in a few schools she has noticed more students acting out and expressing concerns about the safety of going to a new school.

“There’s a level of anxiety and uncertainty that is making the ending of the school year very difficult,” Schmidt said. “Many of (the students) are scared to leave because they are going to schools that have traditionally been in conflict with them. They don’t think the welcoming schools will really be welcoming.”

ABC-7 TV

Mental health experts are seeing first-hand how the biggest school closing in the nation is already affecting the students.

I think the most important part of this is they feel disregard devalued they feel like nobody cares their school matters to them,” said Erika Schmidt, of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis.

Schmidt works in closing and receiving schools. She and others say CPS is not even close to being prepared for handling the emotional needs of the kids. In addition, Schmidt says CPS is controlling what is being communicated to schools about the closings.

“My understanding is the principals are given scripts to talk to teachers about what could and couldn’t say about the closings,” said Schmidt.

When asked about the principal scripts, CPS and the mayor stuck to their script.

They spoke again about closing schools to provide a better education. As for emotional support, CPS says closing school students will have an 8 week class with a social worker.

Mental health experts say much more is needed.

CBS-2 TV did a nice piece at 5 pm, which I can’t find online, but which included footage of the press conference as part of a larger story about school closing protests. The story quoted Erin Mason, president of the Illinois School Counselor Association, describing students’ feelings about the possibility of their schools closing. It also included a clip of me speaking more generally about the closings.

They used the clip of me again at 10 PM with this quote: “This is the year for school closings and I think our mayor wants to be the number one school closer in the country.”

I’m still looking for a link to a WBEZ story this morning which included Erika Schmidt.


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'The per-pupil expenditures were calculated based on taking the districts' current spending on day-to-day operations and deducting payments to charter schools and capital funding. The remaining money was divided by the number of students enrolled in traditional schools. The amounts were not adjusted for inflation'.

May I raise my hand?  Which school districts are heavily involved in charter schools? NYC, Baltimore, and Miwaukee.  You are deducting the payments to charters and capital funding which all these cities have large percentage of funding..most charter have underserved students....ergo...the rest of the students in traditional public schools get more funding according to the tiered spending with per-pupil funding.  BALTIMORE IS HIGHEST BECAUSE IT HAS PLACED MOST OF ITS UNDERSERVED STUDENTS IN CHARTER SCHOOLS AND TRADITIONAL SCHOOLS HAVE MORE STUDENTS GETTING HIGHER PER-PUPIL FUNDING.

Once again, data is used by MD and Baltimore to make its education policy look progressive when it really is all about ending Brown vs Board of Education and creating separate and unequal by race and class.  That is what this data say.

Now, if you do not mind separate remember this..it is the democratic education of the last century that made the middle-class and had strong leaders in government and business as graduates of public schools.  These corporate pols are trying to end that!


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The charter schools system is not only allowing segregation by race and class but it is sending public education money to wealthy communities that do indeed effect per-pupil funding that creates ever more disparity.  Maryland is an example of this with its tiered funding favoring affluent schools and students.

IT CAN'T BE EQUITABLE AND IT IS NOT DEMOCRATIC....


Education
DC drifting towards separate school systems. Are they equal?

by Ken Archer   •   November 16, 2012 10:04 am

DC Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson announced yesterday that DCPS plans to close 20 schools. All of the closed schools are east of Rock Creek Park, and 9 are east of the Anacostia River.


Ron Brown Middle School in Ward 7, slated for closureIn these areas, charter schools continue to grow and DCPS neighborhood schools shrink, while families are clamoring to attend neighborhood schools in the wealthiest parts of the District.

The danger of this trend is that the District will drift toward two, completely separate public school systems: a neighborhood-based school system primarily in the city's west, and a charter school system in the east.

These two systems are very different and geographically separate. But are they equal? That's the central question that yesterday's announcement raises. And it's a question not for Henderson, who is responsible just for DCPS, but for the Mayor and Council.

DC is splitting into 2 separate school systems

For the past decade, more and more children who live in boundary for some traditional public schools, particularly west of Rock Creek Park, have wanted to enroll. The result has been a network of high-quality and popular local elementary schools—Janney, Key, LaFayette, Hyde-Addison, Murch, and so on—feeding into strong middle schools and ultimately into Wilson High School.

The Wilson boundary runs along 16th Street, next to the park that is re-dividing the city into the educational haves on the west and charter lottery applicants on the east. There are a few exceptions, like schools on Capitol Hill, or Ross Elementary in Dupont Circle, but even in these neighborhoods, most families leave DCPS after elementary school because they're not yet comfortable enough with the middle and high schools.

For decades, this boundary mattered far less as schools west of the park had spare capacity for many students east of the park in the out-of-boundary lottery. However, rising in-boundary enrollment west of the park will soon make bus trips across the park a thing of the past.

Wilson High was designed to serve 400 students per grade. Yet there are 750 4th grade students in the schools that feed into Wilson.

In much of the rest of the city, the local elementary school, anchor and civic space of the community, is too becoming a relic. As school closures due to under-enrollment eviscerate the institution of the neighborhood school, car and bus trips criss-crossing the city to charters are increasing in number.

Meanwhile, middle and high schools east of the park struggle to coordinate programming with schools in their feeder patterns as schools open and close and students come and go in droves.

These two public school systems are as separate as they could possibly be. Are they equal?

Is separation a problem?

Should we worry about this? Some, such as perhaps the Washington Post editorial board, might say there's not a problem. If one type of schools works well in some neighborhoods, but is failing in others, why not keep it where it's working and ditch it where it's not? Maybe we need a completely different educational approach for the poorest neighborhoods versus the richest.

However, even education experts still don't agree about whether a system of all charters will actually work better. Charter school critics repeatedly point to studies that show charter schools do not, on the whole, deliver better results than do traditional public schools. Of course, parents across the city know several charter schools that deliver amazing results.

The Public Charter School Board is supposed to address this problem by closing under-performing charter schools. However, they have been more likely to give charters extensions of time to improve. If that works, perhaps that is wise, but there's a real danger it just means more under-performing schools linger for years while doing their students a real disservice.

As out-of-boundary students get pushed out of the most desirable schools, many of them become less diverse. Many wealthier families choosing between public and private school cite diversity, both ethnic, income, and otherwise, as a major advantage of public education. And one of the best ways to help students with disadvantaged backgrounds is to include them in schools with many higher-performing peers.

Having 2 separate school systems could also create political problems. If there is one system that serves rich neighborhoods, and another service the poor neighborhoods, would well-meaning parents in the wealthier and more politically powerful neighborhoods lobby for more funding for traditional public education and inadvertently disadvantage less affluent areas? Or would politicians from the poorer wards of the District end up opposing DCPS's needs? A battle for resources between the haves and have-nots is not what we need, regardless of how it turns out.

From a transportation standpoint, it's not great to have most kids riding buses or being driven long distances to charter schools that might be nowhere near their neighborhoods, if there can be a good alternative nearby.

It's not like residents of the poorest wards want to abolish all of their neighborhood schools. Staffers for Councilmember Marion Barry explained that most of their constituents want neighborhood schools to stay open, to improve and succeed.

What can be done?

Both traditional public schools and charter schools clearly have important roles to play in our public school system. Few deny that. The question is, how do their roles fit together such that we don't end up with separate and unequal school systems?

For one, there needs to be leadership at a high level to reconcile these two systems. DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson will come in for the most strident and vocal criticism of the school closures. This is unfortunate, as she only controls DCPS.

It's difficult to fault Henderson for closing schools left under-enrolled by students leaving for charters. What is the alternative—keep many mostly-empty schools around?

The Deputy Mayor for Education and the DC Council are the bodies that should be thinking about the public school system as a whole, not Chancellor Henderson. Yet both bodies claim organizational impotence. The result is that no one is leading our public school system.

Second, these leaders need to think about this problem and explore ways to address it. For the more successful schools, they could consider a "controlled choice" system, which Michael Petrilli mentioned when interviewed for a recent Washington Post article, and which David Alpert discussed in a series of articles this year.

A related idea on the other side, which Councilmember Tommy Wells has been pushing and I previously discussed, is to give children who live near a non-specialized charter school a preference to attend. Charters would set aside some percentage of their spots for in-boundary families.

This would engage charters in the struggles of their community. While many charters will object that they need parents who are committed to their program, these objections miss the point of charter autonomy. Autonomy is supposed to be autonomy from the bureaucracy and red-tape of DC Public Schools, not autonomy from the educational challenges that students in one neighborhood present.

Ideas such as these for aligning and situating our two public school systems for the good of the entire system come up periodically from isolated councilmembers, advocates, and in the press. It's time for someone to rise to the moment, and forestall a return to separate and unequal school systems in the nation's capital.

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Seattle Teachers, Students Win Historic Victory Over Standardized Testing

Monday, 20 May 2013 13:59 By Amy Goodman, Democracy NOW! | Video

After months of protest, teachers, students and parents in Seattle, Washington, have won their campaign to reject standardized tests in reading and math. In January, teachers at Garfield High School began a boycott of the test, saying it was wasteful and being used unfairly to assess their performance. The boycott spread to other schools, with hundreds of teachers, students and parents participating. Last week, the school district backed down, announcing that the Measures of Academic Progress — or MAP test — is now optional for high schools, but those refusing the test must find another way to gauge student performance. We speak with Jesse Hagopian, a high school history teacher and union representative at Garfield High School.

Please check back later for full transcript.
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Baltimore Maryland has had more school closings than Chicago relative to population and there is silence. We have a completely captured social and political system that Third Way is trying to replicate in all major cities.....


Chicago lawyers agree – opposing schools closings a matter of conscience M E D I A  R E L E A S E

More than 125 Chicago-area Attorneys Sign “Letter of Conscience” Against Massive Chicago Public School Closings

Public interest law community expresses outrage, urges more equitable, inclusive and strategic approach

For More Information:

Patricia Nix-Hodes (708) 218-2320; Amy Smolensky, (312) 485-0053; Jill Wohl, (773) 562-0159

May 17, 2013, Chicago – 128 Chicago-area lawyers with an estimated combined 2000 years of distinguished experience and leadership working towards justice and equity in education, health, housing, employment, economic security, safety, discrimination, citizenship, juvenile justice, and civil rights signed their names to a letter urging a halt to the Chicago Public School’s proposed closings and consolidations of 54 schools – the largest school action of its kind in the nation – in less than one year.

Titled “An Open Letter Seeking Justice in the School Closing Crisis,” the letter will be delivered to Mayor Emanuel, CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and Board of Education Chair David Vitale on Monday, May 20, 2013, and requests a response to be directed to Paul Strauss, who offered to sign the letter on the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law letterhead without hesitation.

“The attorneys signing this letter cannot, in good conscience, stand by and remain silent as the Board of Education moves to vote on this potentially disastrous course,” says Strauss, “Closing this many schools in such a poorly-planned and uninclusive manner marks a dangerous precedent. It sets the civil rights in education movement back decades.”

Child advocate Stacey Platt (773-732-2554), one of the attorneys who joined the Open Letter comments “It is a sad injustice for the children and families of the City of Chicago that neighborhood schools –which parents value and children need most of all–are neglected and closed and parent voices ignored.”

The letter cites the Illinois School Code and research criticizing the outsized move to “right size” the District, specifically, that the law of the land squarely asserts that “the primary responsibility for school governance and improvement is in the hands of parents, teachers and community residents at each school.” [5/34-18.43(a)(6)] The letter also highlights the racial and economic distribution, number of homeless students, and students receiving special education services who will be adversely affected by the proposed school actions, which will be voted on by the Board of Education on May 22, 2013.

Highlights of the Open Letter:

“[If carried out, these actions] will dramatically alter the school environment for vulnerable elementary students. More than 47,500 elementary students will be affected including more than 3,906 students experiencing homelessness and 2400 students requiring special education services. No such massive school closure has been attempted in the history of our City or our nation. This alone must give all reasonable people pause.

[T]his massive undertaking is being executed in advance of the delivery of a 10 year school facilities master plan, as required by Illinois law… As the saying goes, measure twice, cut once. Closing schools before sharing a clear, well-thought out plan for the City’s educational and economic future signals a perilous lack of accountability from our public administrators.

Overwhelmingly and almost exclusively, the communities of Chicago targeted for massive school closures are those on the City’s South and West Side: communities that are dramatically impoverished and predominantly comprised of African Americans. Such disparity is at best unsettling and is, indeed, provoking racial and economic divisiveness. Tensions run high before the actual closures have even been approved.

The proposed removal of so many schools from impoverished communities of color has been read as an ominous statement on the prospects of those living there. It only adds to the distress and despair, creating a feeling that the City is disinvesting where economic growth and stability is so important –and that we are a City divided.”

The letter coincides with a three-day citywide march protesting the closings, and comes at the same time that numerous community groups, media outlets, local aldermen, state and county legislators and even CPS’ designated hearing officers are expressing opposition and grave disappointment in the lack of strategy, meaningful inclusion, consistency, equity and adherence to requirements throughout the planning and public vetting process conducted by CPS.



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A comment from someone other than me!!

School reform doesn't work

• 11:15 a.m. EDT, May 17, 2013  Baltimore Sun Opinion
  
  

In their commentary ("Six steps for post-Alonso school reform," May 14), Thomas Wilcox, Diane Bell-McKoy and Laura Gamble use many lofty and idealistic sounding words to promote their vision. However, it bears noting that education "reformers" are well-versed in using terms that have an appeal, yet bear little substance. It's part of the script to sell the public on a model for education that actually requires a deeper analysis and understanding. Words like "choice" and "accountability" have done for the corporate-model of education reform what buzz words like "whole grain" and "real fruit juice" have done for the food processing industry. Thus, commentaries such as this warrant a translation. My translation as follows is not grounded in empty rhetoric or phrases, but instead relies on facts and examples from other urban areas, to predict what such school, reform may indeed come to look like in Baltimore. The question will then remain: are we willing to buy this model? Or should we read the label more carefully?

Mr. Wilcox and company state that Baltimore City Public Schools should maintain a strict focus on school choice and "fair student funding," principles which "undergird a market-oriented approach." What does that mean? It means that advocates of this model for reform believe that public education should be run like corporations under a free-market framework. I'm not sure on what grounds they feel this will be a successful model for helping the most disenfranchised of our children. Is it the free market "success" of the housing and banking industries?

"Choice" is code for eliminating public schools and replacing them with "public" charter schools. There are several problems with this model. First of all, if other major urban centers can serve as cautionary tales, it is because "choice" via the free-market model and entrenchment of charter schools has led to greater racial segregation, fragmentation of the poorest neighborhoods and providing "choice" for only the "cream of the crop" students. Charters, no longer fettered by what Mr. Wilcox and others call "unnecessary compliance" can and have denied providing services to children with special needs, English-language learners and students with behavioral challenges. Thus, they can manufacture higher test scores, graduation success and operate at a lower budget.

What happens to those students? They fall in between the cracks, winding up perhaps at the dwindling community public school whose funding has been gutted by "fair student funding" which translates as an increased voucher system in which children with money attached to their foreheads have are siphoned off by charter schools. The Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University found in a 2009 report that only 17 percent of charter schools outperformed their public school equivalents, while 37 percent of charter schools performed worse than regular local schools, and the rest were about the same. Nevertheless, charter school operators and investors reap enormous profits and six figure salaries.

The writers claim that "families are choosing" charter schools now that 50 of the 200 public schools are being shut down as if this were something to brag about. If Chicago, Los Angeles, or New York are any indication, the only ones hailing this as a good thing are the corporations and non-profits that have something ideological, financial, or political to gain from such reform. Parents and communities all across the country are up in arms, protesting by the thousands and rallying to save their public schools. Bait-and-switch corporate moves such as the "parent trigger act," which was the brain child of The American Legislative Exchange Commission, use parents to advocate for school closures, and then corporate model-run charter schools like KIPP move in a serve as replacements. When parents in Los Angeles discovered they had been had by this new legislation, they fought back. Perhaps Baltimore can learn for their cautionary tale?

Mr. Wilcox and his allies claim that "unions are cooperating on contracts that reward performance." There is absolutely no research to date anywhere that shows that merit pay boosts teacher performance or students' achievement. None.

They state that "private sector investment in public education" is on the rise. They are right. The Common Core standards, and new PARCC assessments among other things will create historic-level profits for Pearson publishing, database management companies, computer sales, e-learning companies, and private test preparation and tutoring companies. There has been a national buzz among hedge fund investors rallying for interest in charter school investments because of the potential for financial return.

They also state that the city's "population is beginning to grow." Correct again. Education reform matters greatly in the maelstrom of gentrification. To attract white upper middle-class families into the city, development magnates must also offer appealing alternatives to the crumbling under-funded city schools occupied largely by poor black and brown children.

The organization which Mr. Wilcox and his co-authors serve is the Baltimore Community Foundation (BCF), whose largest contributor is the Annie E. Casey Foundation which promotes charter schools, school choice, and public-private partnerships. The BCF serves as a liaison for philanthropic giving. The BCF advocates for increased charter schools. One might consider that as education reform seeks to privatize education serves, philanthropic "giving" might yield some profitable returns. For example, the New Market Tax Credits offered from the U.S. Department of Treasury's Community Development Financial Institution Fund allows investors who subsidize charter schools and other projects in inner-city communities to write-off their donations, dollar-for-dollar, on their taxes. By using the NMTC, investors can double their money in no time.

If you want to know what's going to happen in Baltimore using this free market approach to education reform, simply follow what's happening in Chicago, New Orleans, New York, or Philadelphia. While the think-tanks and corporations are laughing all the way to the bank, none of these reforms have actually benefited the children they claim to serve. Community members and parents need to learn how to translate and make an informed decision based on the evidence given to us from these other locations, rather than be spoon-fed lofty platitudes proffered by corporate-minded policy which has no research to support its success for our children.

Morna McDermott, Catonsville



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We thank Baltimore Teacher's Union for shouting out what we all know...these evaluations and testing standards are untested and many feel fail to evaluate fairly or provide useful feedback.  As we know Maryland went to a tiered student funding and we know that Baltimore allows a great deal of private funding to go to selected schools creating all kinds of disparity in resources at each school.  It is ridiculous and it actually sets up teachers to fail when such disparities exist.  Students are being drilled to death to meet these goals with parents disgusted and teachers feeling to outrage from parents and teachers while being squeezed from above.  THERE IS A GOAL FROM ALL OF THIS!

What Education Reform wants to do is turn schools into businesses that are tracked vocational training, online classes overseen by what will be education techs not teachers.  The teachers will be selected by elite universities from their own people.  This will create a cheap job training program from K-college.  The testing is meant to track students into vocations and the evaluations are meant to keep teachers on program and to give reasons to dismiss if not.  It has nothing to do with achievement as none of these reform policies enhance quality education.

We want the teacher's unions and leader English to shout out against this testing/evaluation and the school closings....all unnecessary.


I would like to add that teachers and the union cannot stand up against this until parents, students, and communities shout loudly and strongly against these reforms.  I understand that there is a media blackout in Maryland as regards any negative protest against established policy but we can go national and we can grow too large to ignore!  If we become Chicago or NYC in our protest it cannot be contained!

Common Core is not a bad idea.  Standards in STEM may indeed be helpful as these classes involve established theory.....knowledge that is proven and static.  What we see though is an extension of Common Core into the social sciences and humanities where it does not belong as it is the job of society to form that class content.  So, what we are seeing by way of standardizing social class work and in some cases eliminating things like social studies and history is a dangerous missuse of power meant to indoctrinate not educate.  INDOCTRINATE MEANS A SOCIETY IS NOT FREE AND PEOPLE ARE NOT CITIZENS.  We the people are telling the Third Way corporate democrats pushing this at the national and state level to BACK OFF!  We will turn this around by running and voting for labor and justice next elections!!!


Baltimore Teachers Union supports call to halt Common Core consequences Marietta English says district's teachers are not fully prepared for high-stakes testing


Erica L. Green 11:26 a.m. EDT, May 15, 2013  Baltimore Sun

The Baltimore Teacher's Union has called for the district hold off on attaching penalties to schools' performance on the the new  Common Core assessments, citing insufficient professional development and resources to implement the new high-stakes curriculum.

In a news release, BTU's President Marietta English echoed the call of one of the nation's largest teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers, which called for a moratorium on penalties associated with the standardized testing that will measure a radically new curricula being rolled out across the nation, including Maryland, next year.

Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT--the parent organization of the BTU--called for states to hold off on any enforcing any high-stakes results that are attached to the standards. You can read her speech here.

Under No Child Left Behind, more than half of the nation's schools were being labeled failures--requiring a of corrective actions--and several states have moved to attach test scores to teacher evaluations.

English said in a statement, “Our national president is right to call for a moratorium on penalties associated with tests and evaluations, of Common Core."

In Maryland, new standardized tests, called Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), are being developed by states to evaluate students' performance under the new standards. They are expected to begin in the 2014-2015 school year.

The new standards are designed to raise the level of rigor in English, Language Arts, Math and Science drastically for students, beginning as early as pre-kindergarten. Last month, The Sun profiled efforts by Baltimore City school system to prepare its youngest learners for the new curricula they'll face when they head to kindergarten.

But, English said that Baltimore teachers have only had seven days of professional development in preparation for the standards, and will have 10 by the end of the school year.

She also said that the district has been operating under an "instructional framework," that standardizes subjects beyond those covered by the Common Core standards, and that the curriculum hasn't been developed yet.

"Because Common Core Standards have yet to be fully implemented, English said, it is premature to judge their effectiveness by evaluating students on a standardized
test," English said in a statement. "Worse, penalizing those schools that fail to pass those evaluations is unfair."

erica.green@baltsun.com


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Why are most schools in Baltimore not having recess.....since we have known this for decades?


Report: Recess may cut down on bullying in school Playworks operates structured recess program in Baltimore schools

UPDATED 7:04 PM EDT May 14, 2013   WBAL-TV
The results are according to a new Stanford University study prepared for a nonprofit group specializing in student recess programs.

The national organization is called Playworks. It helps schools come up with physical education programs and is based in more than two dozen Baltimore City schools.

The new study found that recess time can reduce bullying and improve student health, safety, and academic performance.

Recess returned to Liberty Elementary a couple of years ago in the form of a structured program for students.

"We're playing, we're doing sports and we're really exercising," student Shyasia Akoi said.

It turns out that beyond fun and games, recess is paying off. The study showed that compared to schools without a controlled program, there was 43 percent less bullying and that 20 percent of students feel safer at school.

The study also found that 43 percent of students were getting more physical activity and teachers were spending 34 percent fewer minutes preparing students to learn.

"The kids feel safer, and the teacher benefits because there's less transition into the classroom. So kids are ready to learn, kids are ready to succeed and they're having a great time on the playground as you can see," said Randi Hogan with Playworks.

"(I) like when we pick teams. We can like bond with each other to pass the ball to each other. In circle dodge ball, you can like pass the ball to the other person," student Antawan Bennett said.



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You have to look at the goal of Baltimore City/MD leaders to understand why an appointed Baltimore School Board Superintendent would not have an education background..it would also explain why it doesn't matter that the school she led..Freedom Academy closed.  Johns Hopkins University is pushing a public school privatization from K-college and this is the K-12 part of the process.  Ralwings-Blake declares the Baltimore City Schools are in the hands of the State so O'Malley can appoint a corporate school board headed by a Wall Street superintendent..Alonzo.  If you go to a Baltimore City School Board meeting you will see mostly business people, Teach for America, and charter school people most having no education background.  I had one of them give me a thumbs down when they learned I was an academic with degrees in education.  THIS SCHOOL BOARD IS HOSTILE TO PUBLIC EDUCATORS.

Johns Hopkins is a Michelle Rhee privatizer and this temporarily-assigned superintendent is indeed a product of Alonzo.  Anyone who follows school reform in Baltimore knows it is totally captured by private non-profits that control every inch of education policy in the city.  Even the media will not allow any citizen backlash shown.  No one likes what is happening.

To end with the goal..if schools are privatized they will only need an education tech who simply turns on online classes for students to watch.


Why doesn't Baltimore's schools chief need teaching experience?

Andrés Alonso, Baltimore Schools CEO, announces his resignation and introduces Tisha Edwards as the interim replacement. (Christopher T. Assaf/Baltimore Sun video)

By Luke Broadwater The Baltimore Sun 7:00 a.m. EDT, May 13, 2013

Why doesn’t Baltimore’s schools CEO need teaching experience, like other superintendents in the state?

It was a question on the mind of many education observers last week, after hearing that the city’s schools chief is not bound by the same requirements.

It was also an issue of confusion for city school officials who, early in the day Tuesday, believed Tisha Edwards, 42 — who will soon become the city’s interim schools CEO — would need to apply for a state waiver because while she has been a principal, she has never been a teacher.

But later Tuesday, after consulting lawyers, the state informed city school officials that Edwards need not apply for a waiver, because the structure of state law means such requirements won’t apply to her.

“Subsequent to our earlier conversation, the board was informed late afternoon by [the Maryland State Department of Education] that a waiver was not required,” said Edie House Foster, a city schools spokeswoman.

Put simply, officials said: Baltimore is unique. Why? The answer lies in the difference between a regulation and a law.

Maryland regulations — set by the state Board of Education — require superintendents to have a master’s degree, three years of teaching experience, and two years of administrative experience. They also require superintendents to meet requirements for certification in either childhood, elementary or secondary education and have completed a two-year graduate program in administration.

If prospective superintendents do not meet these requirements, they must seek a state waiver.

Last year, for instance, Baltimore County Superintendent Dallas Dance received a waiver from the teaching requirement on the condition that he complete guest teaching hours in a middle school and high school. It was the first time the state had granted such a waiver in 20 years.

But Maryland law, which trumps state regulations, says only superintendents of the various counties must be certified by the state superintendent. The law that outlines the qualifications for local superintendents — including the requirement for something as basic as a college degree — says specifically it does not apply to Baltimore.

The state law governing Baltimore’s schools chief executive officer says only that the CEO must report directly to the city school board, be a cabinet member of the mayor and designate individuals to be in charge of the various aspects of the school system. The law sets only one limit on the city schools CEO position: The contract cannot be written for a term longer than four years. 

Edwards, the school system’s chief of staff, will serve as interim superintendent through the 2013-2014 school year, as the school board searches for a permanent replacement for CEO Andres Alonso, who led the district for six years.


luke.broadwater@baltsun.com


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Activists head to court in effort to block D.C. school closures

By Emma Brown, Friday, May 10, 7:08 AM   brokencontrollers.com

D.C. education activists are expected in federal court Friday for a key hearing in their lawsuit seeking to halt the planned closure of 15 city schools.

The activists argue that the closures disproportionately affect poor and minority children and therefore violate a number of civil rights laws.

Graphic

Fifteen schools in the District will close within the next two school years.


“A local government may not, when it comes to equal access to education, treat some classes of its citizens different than it treats another class,” says the complaint, filed in March by five plaintiffs organized by the community group Empower D.C.

Thirteen schools are slated to close in June, and two more in 2014. The move will displace more than 2,700 children, almost all of whom are African American and Hispanic, according to the plaintiffs.

District officials deny that the closures are discriminatory, describing them as an effort to improve education across the city.

Chancellor Kaya Henderson, who announced her intent to close the schools in January, has long said that the school system must close buildings left half-empty after four decades of enrollment decline.

Those under-enrolled schools are expensive and inefficient to operate, Henderson has said. She argues that the closures will save $8.5 million a year, money that can be spent on improving classroom instruction and academic programs.

The city’s attorneys argue that having children change schools is not a violation of their rights. “Plaintiffs have no grounds to argue that [D.C. public schools] must continue to educate their children in precisely the exact same schools they currently attend,” they wrote in response to the lawsuit.

On Friday at 11 a.m., U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg is scheduled to hear a motion for a preliminary injunction to block the closures from going forward. Boasberg is expected to rule on the motion this month.

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I thank the author of this piece for the insightful look  at disparity in education and the ill affects of teach to the test education reform.  My comments may be at odds with her opinion as a whole, but I use it as a good springboard.  O'Malley did indeed tie MD to this Race To The Top education reform that requires all of what many parents, teachers, and students find a wrong-headed reform all for funding that should have come with no strings attached.  In Baltimore you can go to a supermajority of schools and see curricula described in this article.....teaching to the test and high-stakes achievement pressures.  All educators know this is bad policy as it does not engage and develop learning skills and a love of education needed for success in the long run.  Quite the opposite and academic studies show this to be the case.  It is failed education policy.  So why do it?  It is policy written by business people interested in making schools about efficiency, production, and data and it completely ignores the human aspects of learning and teaching.  It is killing our students and teachers.

As the article points out, there are schools in Baltimore that have escaped this policy and they are in affluent communities.  These community schools are thriving because they have kept the democratic, humanities based learning.  Roland Park and Mt Washington for example.  Why the difference?



In testing-dominated system, real learning comes outside the classroom After school, extracurricular activities offer profound benefits, but usually for the privileged

By Stephanie A. Flores-Koulish and Janell Lewis 1:47 p.m. EDT, May 9, 2013  Baltimore Sun

It's Teacher Appreciation Week, the standardized testing season has mostly ended in the public schools this year — and what have we learned? Parents have learned that their first-graders are developing test anxiety. Teachers have learned that they need to tell parents to accept the fact that these high-stakes tests are not going anywhere. But perhaps most importantly, some of us have learned that some of the best kind of learning happens after school, or once the testing demands have passed.

Though some are resigned to this reality, others across the nation are not complacent. Recently, for example, John Tierney described in The Atlantic how there is a growing wave of activism around standing up against the standardized testing movement.

Still, here in Maryland, school days are filled with tight mandates for teachers and students, leaving them with less time to spend on creative, open-ended activities. Frequently, students come home with worksheets, prepping them for skills-based material that will be tested once a year on a test that does little if anything to improve their learning. Instead, these tests seem intended to determine which schools have students from wealthier families with cultural capital who will score high on these tests, as opposed to the opposite. And the cycle continues.

One of those "good" schools happens to be our school, in Baltimore City — Roland Park Elementary/Middle, where one of us is a parent and the other a teacher. Yet still, a lot of the good stuff is happening after school hours. For example, Ms. Flores-Koulish's daughter's fourth-grade team for a club called Destination Imagination (DI) recently competed on the regional and state levels with great success. Their accomplishments qualified them to compete at the Global Tournament, which is being held in Knoxville, Tenn., this month. DI is the world's largest creative thinking and problem-solving competition. They will be competing against schools from all over the world. The club is parent-led and after school, and it is fortunate that we have the capacity and the time for it.

The school's middle school National Academic League (NAL) team recently competed in the final four of the national tournament. NAL is a quiz bowl league that follows "sports like" rules for students to answer trivia questions in math, science, language arts, and social studies as well as popular culture and current events. There are four rounds of stimulating play, and the students learn a lot from it while having a great time. NAL is led by Ms. Lewis and her teacher colleague, with the games running after school and practices held before school two times a week.

Sometimes, creative learning can actually still creep into the curriculum during the school day, and thankfully, we both see that at Roland Park. For example, fourth-graders recently had an art opening at Evergreen Cafe in the city that demonstrated their understanding of the Baltimore City school construction bill that they studied in social studies and art. Importantly, it was "real" curriculum and not simulated for a standardized assessment. Students could eloquently describe the process of legislative change while it was occurring.

In another example, Ms. Lewis' sixth-grade social studies students found the time to analyze the Disney film "Mulan" after studying Ancient China to determine the ways in which Hollywood alters history to tell a seamless tale and profit from it. These same students also held a fundraiser for Native American charities during an event in which they collaboratively shared their knowledge on posters about the real history of Native Americans in the U.S., from the "Trail of Tears" to the boarding schools, which they learned about in language arts and social studies. No doubt there are other examples. Knowledge of this sort cannot be shown in robust ways on a simple Scantron.

At the recent American Educational Research Association meeting in San Francisco, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke to a group of educational researchers, saying, "Ultimately, a great education involves much more than teaching children simply to read, write, add and subtract. It includes teaching them to think and write clearly, and to solve problems and work in teams. It includes teaching children to set goals, to persist in tasks, and to help them navigate the world."

Mr. Duncan needs to travel north and witness these qualities and then think about how we can have more of them, during the school day, for all students — not just the privileged. Teachers, parents, and especially children would find public school that much richer. And that would clearly show teachers the appreciation and respect they deserve this week (and every week).

Stephanie A. Flores-Koulish is an associate professor and director of the Curriculum & Instruction Program in the School of Education at Loyola University Maryland. Her email is sfloreskoulish@loyola.edu. Janell Lewis is a sixth-grade teacher at Roland Park Elementary/Middle School.



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Fear, Frustration, Failure and State Tests

Apr. 18, 2013
11:43 am
by Mr. Thompson


This will be the fourth year that my students and I have suffered through the New York State high-stakes elementary school tests.  Although the mayor and the chancellor tell us this year’s tests are all new, my stories from the classroom are similar to years past.

As a new teacher and New York City transplant, I was astonished to discover 3rd-, 4th- and 5th-grade students were held over based on their scores from a series of limited assessments.  After that realization, I was much less surprised to see the effect of these tests in the classroom.  Both schools I have worked at ended regular instruction in early February to opt for test prep units designed to milk a few extra points on the state exams. Students’ and teachers’ health began to slowly decline around the same time of year, and behavioral incidents began to rise.

In my own classroom, I have fought to ameliorate the stresses of testing season by reminding my students how hard they have worked and telling them that their only job on state testing days is to try their best. But my efforts have been less than successful. One year a 9-year-old 4th grader asked me if it was okay to put the classroom trash can near her desk in case she got sick to her stomach during her English language arts exam.  The next year a mental block caused a little boy to flip his desk over in a moment of panic and frustration while trying to craft an extended-response essay. Just last week, Natashi, a girl in my 5th-grade class who has only been in the country for two years and is still transitioning to English, asked me whether I would be disappointed in her if she tried her best and still wasn’t able to pass. “What if I just need another year in 5th grade to keep practicing, Mr. Thompson?” she said to me with tears in her eyes.

With a broken heart and tears in my own eyes, I turned to Natashi and told her I would always be proud of her. “You have fought so hard this year!  I will be proud of you no matter what score you get!” Natashi feigned a smile and asked to go to the bathroom to wash the tears off her cheeks.

My students, Natashi included, have been attending an extended-day program on Tuesdays and Wednesdays after school all year long. We have spent the last few months keeping students late on Mondays and Fridays for an hour and a half of extra instruction focused on test sophistication.  For the past two months, we have asked students to come to school from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturdays for extra help to boost scores on their state tests.

Still, all the Common Core-aligned data I collect are telling me that my students are not showing mastery on the vast majority of Common Core standards. Many of the “grade level” reading passages and math problems I share with my students are far beyond their ability levels. The confusion these tasks generate leads to an overwhelming sense of failure among my students. And, of course, when my students feel like they are failing, I feel like a failure myself.

Should it surprise any of us that high-stakes tests, coupled with new standards, little-to-no teacher training, and no citywide curricula are a recipe for disaster? Should cheating scandals, state test boycotts, low teacher retention rates, and teary-eyed students come as a shock to the American educational system?  Should I be surprised that my students score 30 percent lower than last year, as predicted by many educational experts? No!

The only surprising part about this whole process is the process itself. We have created a demoralizing atmosphere of fear, frustration and failure for teachers and students. I will always be proud of the hard work my students put into their education, and I sincerely believe they will succeed regardless of what their state test scores suggest. But if the mayor or the chancellor were ever to come up to me like Natashi did to ask whether I was proud of the reforms they had made to education, my answer to them would be quite different from my answer to her.

Mr. Thompson is the pseudonym of a fourth-year elementary school teacher in Brooklyn. A version of this post first appeared on the UFT blog edwize.org, where “New Teacher Diaries” is a regular feature. If you’re interested in writing a New Teacher Diary entry for edwize, send an email to edwize@uft.org.



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As you notice Wall Street's Alonzo is leaving and heading to Harvard.  He took Baltimore from an urban school system starved of money and resources for decades......simply needing money and resources to recover and made a system of charters as developing a platform for privatizing public education was his goal.  He indeed close schools in underserved communities and used school choice and charters to gentrify the working class and poor out of neighborhoods slated to become affluent....just as all Third Way corporate democrats are doing.  His focus was making schools work as individual businesses tying schools to corporate interests as vocational training centers.  His top achievement would be the tiered level of funding that allows private corporations and the rich donate large amounts of money to specific schools as resources flowed into some schools and most of the rest starved......and therefore closed for lack of performance.  He achieved nothing in student achievement as all the data was spun to make statistically negligible data sound like gains.  You notice O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake who captured Baltimore's school board with privatizers will be looking for more of the same.  LOUISIANA HAS NOTHING ON THIS CORPORATE STATE AS REGARDS PRIVATIZING PUBLIC EDUCATION!!!



City schools chief Alonso resigns His six-year tenure has been marked by bold yet divisive reforms; Tisha Edwards will be interim superintendent
By Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun 12:16 p.m. EDT, May 6, 2013

Baltimore schools CEO Andres Alonso, whose bold yet divisive reforms led to a drastic shift in the city's educational landscape, will step down June 30, school board Chairman Neil Duke has confirmed.

The schools chief, whose six-year tenure made him the longest-serving superintendent in almost two decades, is leaving to spend more time with his elderly parents in New Jersey and will teach part-time at Harvard University, according to Duke.

"I have loved this job and the people here deeply," Alonso, who is leaving two years into his four-year contract, said in a statement to The Baltimore Sun. "It's been incredibly rewarding. So often people would approach me and tell me about how hard it must be and I had to say, 'It's been the best job there is.' ...

"On the surface it was hard. But every time I went into a school or walked outside what I got was enormous validation and really a surprising kind of love. I held out as long as I could. What I know is that if not now it would have had to happen sometime soon and this seems the best way to avoid a disruption."

Tisha Edwards, Alonso's chief of staff since 2009, will serve as interim superintendent throughout the 2013-2014 school year, according to the school system.

"Tisha has been a great partner so her doing it takes away any regret," Alonso said. "I am proud of the work we have done, and it's hers as much as mine."

Duke agreed, saying "it's good to pass on the baton."

He added that the school board will conduct an "exhaustive" national search for a new superintendent.

"We'll make sure the decision is best for the schools and best for the community," Duke said. "This is a challenging district to run, and the person has to be up for that challenge."

Citing Baltimore's historic graduation rate and significant gains on state assessments, Gov. Martin O'Malley praised Alonso in a statement for "providing our children with a quality education and the tools they need to build a better future."

The governor highlighted statistics from last year that showed improvement over 2006: 30 percent more fifth-graders passed their reading and math exams; nearly 50 percent more eighth-graders passed their reading exams; and 84 percent more eighth-graders passed their math exams.

"Dr. Alonso has been an outstanding advocate and an effective leader who has taken our school system to a higher level of student achievement over the years, making significant contributions to help Maryland create the number-one public schools in the nation for five years in a row," O'Malley said. "His dedication and passion for our children will be sorely missed, but we wish him well in his future endeavors."

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake credited Alonso with making "significant progress improving student achievement, including rising test scores and graduation rates — all while overall school enrollment has increased, reversing decades of steady decline."

"I am confident that there are several qualified candidates across the country that would jump at the chance to be part of an historic school reconstruction effort," Rawlings-Blake said in a statement.

Alonso, 55, was hired from New York City public schools in 2007 and brought an aggressive plan to transform Baltimore's long-troubled school system.

The first half of his tenure was marked by a series of reforms: closing more than one dozen failing schools and programs and creating several others that have thrived; decentralizing the system by cutting the headquarters staff by more than half; empowering principals with budget decisions; creating choice for city families, and competition among middle and high schools; and inking a landmark pay-for-performance teachers' union contract that was hailed as a model in the nation.

The schools chief also set out to reverse grim statistics that had troubled the district's most vulnerable and at-risk populations, such as the behaviorally challenged students who for decades were pushed out of schools through suspensions; special education students; and dropouts.

The school system soon marked a turning point: graduation rates skyrocketed and dropout and suspension rates plummeted. Test scores saw historic growth. Enrollment and attendance in the city's schools noted steady growth.

And the former special educator led the district into a settlement agreement for the 25-year-old federal lawsuit, known as Vaughn G., that was lodged against the system in 1986 for the system's failure to serve special education students.

With the accomplishments, and the backing of a school board that granted him unprecedented autonomy to run the district as he saw fit, Alonso raised Baltimore's profile as a leader in urban education reform.



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We have to remember that Coppin is in an Enterprise Zone.  All Enterprise Zones are slated for affluent development.  So, this investment has more to do with what Baltimore Development sees that area to be in the future and not what it is now.  The same goes for Dunbar High School as money flows into this school connected with Hopkins.

I spoke with several people who see the defunding of Historically Black schools as intent to allow them to close.  Coppin struggles from severe losses of funding and the State of Maryland has refused to settle a court won case that awards Baltimore City schools and Historically Black Colleges with a $700 million award for failure to adequately fund.  So, the school does have the funds to run this venture....it just is not likely to get the funds.

We must remember as well that these Science and Technology Centers being built with taxpayer money are going to be extensions of corporate Research and Development....Third Way corporate pols like O'Malley are lining up our public universities and K-12 to serve as free research for corporate profits and free labor and training as schools become human resource centers.  Moving corporate expenses to the taxpayer maximizes profit and that is for what Third Way corporate democrats work.  We can turn this around by simply running and voting for labor and justice next elections!!!


Coppin to break ground on $80 million science center Groundbreaking set May 14; completion expected in early 2015

1/11 By Steve Kilar, The Baltimore Sun 6:55 p.m. EDT, May 2, 2013

Coppin State University is moving forward with an $80 million Science and Technology Center that it hopes will boost sagging enrollment despite concerns that the West Baltimore school will not have enough money to operate the building.

A ceremonial groundbreaking is scheduled May 14, though demolition has been completed and utility work is under way, said Maqbool Patel, Coppin's associate vice president for administration and finance. Completion is expected in early 2015.

"We have to create an area that attracts students and faculty," said Patel, describing the quad-like atmosphere the building will create on the south side of West North Avenue at Thomas Avenue. It will go up next to the university's Health and Human Services Building, which opened in 2008.

• Related
• Coppin State in disarray, students tell committee
• Maps
• Coppin State University, 2500 West North Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21216, USA
  

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The administration sees the 150,000-square-foot facility as vital to increasing enrollment and putting the historically black university on sound financial footing. Improving resources for science, technology and math programs is another step toward remedying years of "deferred development" caused by the state underfunding the school, according to the university.

Built to accommodate 6,000 students, Coppin now has about 3,800. Mainly due to a shortfall in tuition revenue, Coppin had an operating deficit of $1.4 million in fiscal year 2012, according to the Department of Legislative Services, which analyzes the budgets of each university in the state system. To balance the 2013 budget, Coppin eliminated 39 positions.

In February 2012, the faculty voted no confidence in then-President Reginald Avery after criticizing his management of the school's budget. Coppin has the lowest six-year graduation rate — 15 percent — in the state's university system.

William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, convened a committee in December to evaluate Coppin. Avery resigned in January. The committee recently heard complaints from students about the state of the school, ranging from teachers reading from textbooks to dorms without hot water. Its assessment is expected this month.

The classrooms and labs in the new Science and Technology Center will replace dated facilities at the Percy Julian Building, which was built in 1967 and renovated in 1991. The new building will house the school's natural science, math and computer science departments as well as its information technology division.

Coppin plans to move its business and graduate studies schools into the Julian building, which is inadequate for lab-style teaching.

Ziphezinhle Ncube, a senior majoring in biology, said the science labs at her high school in Montgomery County were better equipped than Coppin's.

Ncube said she was able to get into medical school — she's going to Loma Linda University in California. But some students who did not have lab exposure outside Coppin were not as fortunate, she said.

"I see the drive, I see the passion, but they weren't given the right tools to get there," Ncube said.

In 2001, a study team assembled at the request of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights to identify ways to improve Maryland's historically black colleges and universities determined that the Julian building was inadequate. The team concluded that the school "experienced drastic underfunding," causing its facilities to fall behind.

In 2004, the Baltimore architectural firm Richter Cornbrooks Gribble Inc. undertook a "functionality assessment" of the Julian building and determined that the science labs are "undersized and poorly designed, creating hazardous and inefficient teaching environments," according to written testimony submitted by Mortimer Neufville, Coppin's interim president, to the Maryland House Capital Budget Subcommittee in March.

Although the new science building is a "commitment identified in the state's partnership agreement with the Office for Civil Rights," the Department of Legislative Services said, it worries that the school's finances are not strong enough to pay the estimated $4 million a year operating costs for the high-tech building.

In its budget analysis, the department said it "remains concerned about [Coppin's] ability to support the annual operating costs associated with another major building on campus, particularly in light of the impact that the cost of operating new facilities has had in recent years on core services, such as instruction and student support."

Neufville, in his written testimony, said he expects the building's operating expenses to be paid by the state.

The new building should improve the school's financial health by supporting enrollment growth, Patel said. That, in turn, could reduce its requests for operating support from the General Assembly.

"Every student that is coming to Coppin will benefit from this building," Patel said. "If the student population increases, [the school's need for state support] will ease."

Mark Beck, director of the university system's office of capital planning who is acting as Coppin's vice president for administration and finance, said that when the Assembly makes a commitment to a new university building, it will support operating costs.



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Just an idea of how Chicago teachers and parents are handling the education reform and all the testing/evaluation issues!!!


Parents call CPS primary testing cutback a good, small step From More Than a Score

MTAS Play-In last week: parents have been demanding an end to standardized testing of primary students

Press release: For immediate Release

April 26, 2013

CONTACT: Kirstin Roberts: 312-316-2636

Cassie Cresswell, 716-536-9313

Chicago IL: More Than a Score (MTAS), a coalition of parents, teachers, students and community members working against the misuse and overuse of high-stakes testing in the Chicago Public Schools, is pleased about yesterday’s announcement from CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett that the NWEA MPG End-of-Year administration for grades K-2 has been cancelled for this spring. The change in CPS policy is a good, if small, first step towards a sounder, more appropriate CPS assessment policy.

We are glad that the voices of the people on the front lines dealing with the consequences of a misguided assessment policy are starting to be heard and heeded. For the past several months, MTAS has been collecting signatures on petitions demanding an end to all standardized testing in Prek-2nd grade, among other testing reforms. MTAS held a Play-In at CPS headquarters last week to demonstrate the need for more play and less testing in the early grades.


Nonetheless, MTAS still has many concerns about CPS assessment policy:

• For second graders, the NWEA MPG will simply be replaced with an administration of the NWEA MAP. From our understanding, this is the same assessment used for third graders, and CPS intends to use it to track 2nd graders by ability. According to the NWEA, the test is only for use with 2nd graders who can decode the instructions without audio help. Can all the 2nd graders who will be given this test do this? It will then be readministered to those same 2nd graders in the fall as a Beginning-of-Year exam, making its use as a baseline for 3rd grade instructional questionable.
• Although the reduction in this test is of a great benefit to five and six year old children, by the end of this school year, many, possibly the majority, of those same children will still have been subject to 13 standardized testing administrations (or more when school-selected exams are included): http://cps.edu/Performance/Documents/SY13PreK-2TrackRAssessmentCalendar.pdf Many of these are require one-on-one testing time by classroom teachers, further cutting into instructional time, particularly in classes of more than 30 students.
• The testing regimen for preschoolers through second graders in CPS is still not in line with the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s research based recommendations on standardized testing for ages birth to eight years includes the following:

“The use of formal standardized testing and norm-referenced assessments of young children is limited to situations in which such measures are appropriate and potentially beneficial, such as identifying potential disabilities.[...]When individually administered, norm-referenced tests of children’s progress are used as part of program evaluation and accountability, matrix sampling is used (that is, administered only to a systematic sample of children) so as to diminish the burden of testing on children and to reduce the likelihood that data will be inappropriately used to make judgments about individual children.” (http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/CAPEexpand.pdf)

• The value of the NWEA MAP test as an assessment tool is questionable for any grades. Research has found little benefit to MAP guided instruction for 4th and 5th graders: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/regions/midwest/pdf/REL_20134000.pdf. We are concerned that schools do not truly have the technological capacity to administer the MAP test efficiently, particularly in a way that does not restrict use of computer facilities for more important, non-assessment educational purposes.
• Although MTAS would like to see a reduction (and elimination in the early years) of standardized testing and time spent on test preparation in CPS, the high-stakes consequences of many standardized tests concern us equally as much. Standardized tests should not be used as the basis for decisions on student promotion, teacher and principal evaluation, and school probation and closings. For example, the results of the REACH exam being administered to children as young as preschool will be used to evaluate their teachers.
• We’re sure we’re not alone in wondering whether reducing the scores of test CPS now uses by a single test in two grades, was worth the resources put into conducting 17 focus groups to come to this decision. In addition, we would like to know whether CPS has already paid for the NWEA MPG spring administration. How much money was wasted on administering an exam on the entire school district twice this year and then deciding it was bad exam?

• Until CPS starts really listening to the demands of parents, teachers, and students, MTAS will continue encouraging and assisting parents and students in the process of opting out of CPS’ excessive and damaging standardized testing program.

 Rachel Lessem, CPS parent of 2nd grade student, commented: “I support the decision to suspend NWEA testing for K-1, but I believe CPS should extend the policy further. The change to 2nd grade may even hurt our children by administering a more difficult test without supports to emerging readers. All our children are suffering from excessive testing, and it’s hurting, not helping their education. They are stressed and bored by these tests, and their teachers are forced to teach to the test instead of creating engaging and creative learning environments for our kids. CPS must do more.”

www.morethanascorechicago.org

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The New York City teacher's union no doubt have a tougher road to travel as they have the elephant right in their room.....Wall Street and Bloomberg but we see a healthy and vibrant union action in the midst of this.  In Baltimore, we have an extension of the same Wall Street and Bloomberg in the form of Johns Hopkins who pushes for the same privatizing agenda as Bloomberg.  The difference for Baltimore is that politics and all public life in captured by this Wall Street/Hopkins dynamic and are silenced.  Community voices are silent as well often being used to support policy that will eventually hurt them.


Friday Apr 26, 2013 7:09 pm

New York Didn’t Pull a Chicago, But Dissident Teachers Aren’t Giving Up
By Sarah Jaffe New York's dissident teachers caucus, the Movement of Rank-and-File Educators, protest Bloomberg's school closings plan. (MORE)  

The United Federation of Teachers, the union that represents some 200,000 New York City teachers and public school workers, re-elected its president, Michael Mulgrew, and his Unity caucus to another term on Thursday, April 25.

As expected, Unity, which has been in power since the union's founding in 1960 and counts American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten among its alumnae, cruised to an easy victory with some 84 percent of the vote. Mulgrew, a former high school teacher, said in a victory statement, “I’m honored that thousands of UFT members have supported my re-election. I look forward to working with them for the next three years as we continue to fight for the best for our students, their families, and the schools.”

The re-election of Mulgrew itself wasn't surprising. But given that the Chicago teachers strike made major headlines this fall, and was led by a reform caucus that upset the union leadership in 2010 elections (the Caucus of Rank and File Educators, or CORE), many eyes were on the UFT election to see if its dissident caucus, modeled on CORE, would seize control in New York.

That caucus, the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE), came in second, passing the other opposition group, New Action, in every category except retirees, and coming within 160 votes of Unity in the high schools. That’s an impressive showing for a reform caucus that some six months ago was unsure it was even going to put up a slate of candidates to run. “Our fear was that we had so much work to do to build up our group that running in the elections would take so much energy away from our main goal of building up a strong activist network inside the schools,” says Brian Jones, MORE's candidate for UFT secretary. “I think what we found was that there was a way to run in the elections that actually allows you to build up that network.”

Calling itself the “social justice caucus of the UFT,” MORE has critiqued the UFT's support for mayoral control of schools and what the caucus sees as the union's lack of fight over school closures, high-stakes testing and the "co-location" of charter schools within district schools. As James Cersonsky reported for Working In These Times in March, the UFT has a long tradition of dissident caucuses—none of which have been able to make a dent in Unity's leadership. MORE stepped into the space formerly occupied by the Independent Community of Educators (ICE) and Teachers for a Just Contract (TJC), and beat the percentage of the vote captured by the 2010 ICE/TJC caucus in every division. (New Action, while it challenges Unity on several issues, does not challenge Unity's candidate for president.) 

One of the biggest factors in this election was the power of the retiree vote: Fifty-two percent of the ballots were cast by retired members. While MORE made the race competitive among active teachers, particularly in the high schools, the retirees returned 18,155 votes for Unity, more than ten times MORE's total. Many of the retirees live out of state, and there's no easy way for MORE to contact them.

For Jones, the increase in every category (in a year when overall turnout was down) is a victory for MORE, but the disparity between the high school vote, where they earned 40 percent, and the elementary school vote, where they won only 22 percent, is disappointing. Julie Cavanagh, MORE's candidate for president, is a longtime elementary school special education teacher.

“The positive thing is we had an elementary school person running for president and 40 percent of high school teachers voted for her,” Jones notes, pointing out that high schools are the traditional bedrock of the opposition within the union.

Moving forward from the election, the UFT faces an upcoming fight over teacher evaluations, and MORE plans to wade into the fray. The Unity leadership has said that it will accept a deal arbitrated by the governor, but MORE wants more rank-and-file involvement. 

“This is probably going to be the biggest change in our working conditions in a generation," says Jones. “This is going to be a dramatic change in what it means to be a teacher. We are going to try to figure out creative ways to fight, we're not going to shut up or be quiet about that.”

For Jones and MORE, the next steps involve building influence within the union and the city. That means more local events, encouraging members to build up MORE chapters in their schools, and doing political education on local and union issues. They're not content to hope, as the current leadership does, that the next mayor of New York will be more favorably disposed toward the union than billionaire Michael Bloomberg has been. “We want to build a real thriving network of activists and organizers who are educators and other school-based workers,” says Jones. 

They're also building up more democratic structures within the caucus, including an elected steering committee, to make sure that MORE represents the concerns of its members. While they still want to take over the union leadership, eventually, right now they're also interested in figuring out how to run the union in a different fashion, and that means building a movement.

“In any real movement, the question is not what have you done but what are you about to do,” Jones says. “What are you going to do tomorrow, what are you going to do next week? Those are the questions we're going to have to answer, in terms of the evaluation deal, in terms of high-stakes testing, in terms of whatever contract comes down the road and of course school closures and co-locations.”




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When I read that the budget for Experience Corp would be competing with VISTA and Teach for America the first thing you consider is exactly what is reflected in this article. Children from at-risk families need people in the classroom with which they can bond and trust. No matter how great a VISTA or Teach for America, that cannot be replaced by seniors from our own communities. We are shouting for more Experience Corps and less and less of the other groups.

Our classrooms need the community involved. We understand that in the underserved communities those volunteers are not as easily found but there are ways to increase participation and Experience Corp is one such methods. What makes the difference is the small stipend that benefits both the senior and their family just as with VISTA and students who get benefits from service. The underserved communities are in greater need of these kinds of paying programs for community members and should take precedent over college and Teach for America who are generally from out of the area and passing through the teaching scene.....


Retirees a calm, caring and helpful influence in city schools What the older adult volunteers in the Experience Corps program bring to Baltimore classrooms Fern Shen April 26, 2013 at 3:18 pm  Baltimore Brew

Baltimore Experience Corps volunteer Janet Joyner helps Bryan Orozco Godinez with a math problem.

In a classroom in Southwest Baltimore, during a reading exercise about the life cycle of the grasshopper, first-grader Brayan Orozco Godinez got a bit lost, but he didn’t interrupt the teacher.

“Can you help me?” Brayan said, taking the hand of the retired oncology nurse gliding quietly among the desks. He pointed to the question, “Where does the grasshopper lay its eggs?” and whispered, “I don’t know what to do!”

Janet Joyner sat down beside six-year-old Brayan and had him read the exercise aloud with her, placing a little red paper ticket under each line as they read along. Soon he was scribbling away.

In a dozen other classrooms at Lakeland Elementary/Middle School, retirees like Joyner – among them a former economist and a woman who worked for decades in manufacturing – were helping students as part of Experience Corps, a program affiliated with the American Association of Retired Persons that places older adult volunteers in city schools.

Sylvia Wooden and other volunteers help out in the cafeteria. (Photo by Fern Shen)

Participants who commit to the three-days-a-week, 15 hour total schedule receive a small stipend but Joyner raves about rewards that have nothing to do with money.

“I really like it. The children appreciate it so much,” said Joyner, who after 40 years in nursing, including at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, found retirement strange. “I’m used to getting up at 5:30,” she said. “Now I get up in the morning and I look forward to being able to come here and help them.”

“She Knows What We Need”

This year, for the second budget year in a row, the city is proposing to significantly cut back on its contribution to Experience Corps’s funding, requiring them to compete with other organizations for a finite piece of the budgetary pie. (City-wide, the program places 290 volunteers – whose average age is 68 – in 25 schools, serving 6,200 children.)

“I just don’t understand why they would target us,” said Burnett Davis, 71, the Experience Corps team leader for Lakeland.

Davis made a plea at a recent Baltimore Taxpayers’ Night hearing, presenting statistics to show improvements in academic performance and attendance at Experience Corps schools. He might just as well have invited city officials to Lakeland to see the phenomenon firsthand.

At Lakeland Elementary School, Experience Corps volunteers like Janet Joyner get a lot of hugs. (Photo by Fern Shen)

“It helps so much having her here to provide so much one-on-one time. It’s hard in a class of 25 to connect with kids as much as I’d want,” said teacher Meghan Ramsey, speaking of Joyner, who had just helped her students through a couple of intense hours of math and reading work.

“The kids come to her and love her – she’s awesome,” Ramsey said. “She brings in supplies and pencils. Without being asked, she knows what we need.”

Often, what Joyner does is just get the students to focus.

“Sometimes they don’t hear a word the teacher says because they’re talking or fighting,” she said. “They’re also really competitive though and want to do well. Some of them are very smart and come to the class and listen.” Joyner encourages them all.

Challenges Outside the Building

The volunteers “play a role somewhat like a grandparent,” according to Lakeland’s principal Najib Jammal, whose school is located in an impoverished corner of the city. “They really support our mission,” he said, noting that many of the volunteers have been coming to Lakeland since the program started there three years ago.

Of the 741 students at the school, 96 percent qualify for free and reduced price meals. Assisting a student body that’s about a third Hispanic, Davis’ team has taken a couple of informal Spanish classes but only came away with some rudimentary skills.

Jerry McPherson tries to be “a positive male role model.” (Photo by Fern Shen)

Still their greatest contribution, several said, in addition to instructional help, is just providing a wholesome personal influence, something boys need particularly.

“They need to see a brother doing something positive rather than negative,” said retired economist Jerry McPherson. “I’m a god-fearing man and although I’m not going to push religion on the children I am going to carry myself in a way that sets an example for them. And if I can affect even one child that way, I find it really satisfying.”

It’s not always easy – once McPherson got knocked over by some girls fighting in the cafeteria and vowed “never again.” But talking to “Mr. Jerry” afterwards, the girls “had to feel bad about it and I think, learned from it,” he said.

“Those Jobs Are Gone”

Like McPherson, Rhonda Sweet, 65, says working with students is “so rewarding” and “helps me stay sharp too.” But as a longtime worker in manufacturing who has watched that kind of job nearly vanish from the region, she worries what even the best students will be able to do in the future.

“There’s not a lot of those jobs anymore – they’re gone,” said Sweet, who ran a machine at Proctor & Gamble in Hunt Valley for 18 years (“It made Cover Girl compacts!”) and worked at Western Electric for 17 years. “They’re going to have to have a college degree.”

Rhonda Sweet worries about the future job prospects of the children she helps. (Photo by Fern Shen)

Sweet says she finds it satisfying to help students get skills that could brighten their future. But she has gotten some insights after three years of volunteering, on what else would help kids.

“If the parents would read to the children more and check over their homework and come to the parent breakfasts meetings that would really help,” she said. “I don’t know why they can’t do that more. Maybe they’re working themselves.”

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This just in:

My name is Emma Tai (@emmachungming) and I’m the Coordinator for Voices of Youth in Chicago Education, an organizing collaborative for education justice led by students of color from across Chicago (www.facebook.com/voyceproject).

Yesterday, some of our students went public with stories of being demoted from junior to sophomore status in March, a month before the PSAE state exam which is administered next week and only given to juniors, and which Mayor Emanuel has made major efforts to link to school closings and principal and teacher evaluations. Two VOYCE student leaders were on a list of 67 juniors in total who were demoted in March at a southwest side high school, or a third of that school’s junior class.

We’ve seen similar patterns at a number of other schools with junior classes that, by mid-April, are significantly smaller than senior or sophomore classes and are calling on the Illinois State Board of Education to formally investigate CPS officials. If you would like any more background information about this or to speak with our youth leaders, I’m happy to provide it.

Here is some coverage we got from that action: http://www.wbez.org/news/students-want-boycott-state-test-106735

As you can see, we are also aligning our efforts with Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools which is calling for a boycott of the PSAE next week in protest of the proposed school closings. You can follow the boycott preparations at @chistudentsorg or hashtags #cpsboycott and #cpsclosings.

We would really appreciate you sharing this information through your blog and twitter feed so we can raise the profile of student efforts to turn back the tide of closings, privatization and pushout in Chicago!

Thanks so much,
Emma

–
Emma Tai
Coordinator, Voices of Youth In Chicago Education (VOYCE)
emma@voyceproject.org
773-583-1387 ext. 208
http://www.voyceproject.org

Help us get 1000 likes on Facebook! Click here!




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As everyone knows this is exactly what we do not want to see in Baltimore or anywhere in the country as regards public education. It is the privatizer that has children attached to computers and classroom staff as education techs and not educators. Digital Tech is an offshoot of Wall Street's Bloomberg and the Johns Hopkins University who takes the lead in Maryland in privatizing all public education K-college. This capture of public education goes beyond these private non-profits that take over city schools and extend to public universities. It is odd that you do not see this in elite or private schools.....only in public schools because it is a cheapened and inferior canned sort of education!!




InvestMaryland Challenge: 3 startups win $100K each [VIDEO]

CoFoundersLab hits 10K members in online, ‘team-building’ platform [Startup Roundup]

There's nothing fishy about better professional development for teachers.

Is it time for a new model of professional development for teachers in the 21st century?

Shelly Blake-Plock thinks so.

From left: Shelly Blake-Plock, Margaret Roth and Rose Burt.

The co-executive director of the nonprofit Digital Harbor Foundation, Blake-Plock and cofounders Margaret Roth and Rose Burt have launched An Estuary, a for-profit, spin-out startup that’s “working to develop mobile technology and data around professional development in education,” he said.

Gone are the days when workshop-filled days branded as professional development adequately prepare teachers for innovation in elementary and high school education, Blake-Plock said. An Estuary is interested in making more relevant to teachers the technological gains in education — hardware, like tablets and smart phones, and new platforms, like online classes. For instance: how might a teacher use mobile apps to make lesson planning easier? Or how can school administrators use mobile tech to determine the effectiveness of the professional development programs they’re paying for now?

An Estuary will hold a 45-hour-long Summer Institute in July “based on the idea that inquiry-driven collaborative problem solving can work to expand the opportunity, essence, and spirit of learning,” according to its website.

Blake-Plock said that any startups that spin out of the Digital Harbor Foundation will “in some way give back” to the foundation, be that through monetary donations or other means.

Yet to be determined: how this fish on An Estuary’s homepage fits into all this, although it probably has something to do with what an estuary is.


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Public Education Fights for Its Life

Wednesday, 17 April 2013 16:46 By Max Eternity, The Eternity Group | News Analysis



Parents and teachers protest planned school closures during a public Philadelphia school board meeting at Martin Luther King High School in Philadelphia, Dec. 19, 2012. The Philadelphia school district has proposed a plan to close 37 schools by June, citing deep financial troubles and a growing budget deficit. (Photo: Mark Makela / The New York Times)

Austerity measures are eroding America’s public school system.  With massive increases in school closures and class cancellations, advocates say educational opportunities for students of all ages are increasingly being diminished.

This is not a new problem, per se.  It is, however, an escalating one, and one that is being resisted.

Currently in Chicago—under the auspices of Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, the former chief of staff for President Obama—it was announced in March that 54 public schools will be closed, with 61 schools scheduled to be closed before the 2013–2014 school year begins.  Emmanuel says that the closings are a “done deal.” Not everyone agrees with Emmanuel, and countering his assertion Karen Lewis says ‘it’s pretty much indicative that he [Emmanuel] has no respect for the law.”  Lewis is president of the Chicago Teachers Union, and says that there are supposed to be hearings for each school, and that Emmanuel’s unilateral actions show “the depth of his contempt for people” in the community, especially those who are not “wealthy” and well-connected.

Right now in California, City College of San Francisco (CCSF) is on the verge of losing its accreditation as a direct consequence of a $53 million dollar loss in state funding.  Because of this, many classes are no longer being offered.  Additionally, the cost of [in-state] tuition at CCSF has risen 25% in the last 2 years, and to boot, student enrollment is way down.

KQED reports that California’s community colleges have dropped to a 20-year enrollment low, and in a video report at the Real News Network, Alisa Messer, President of CCSF Faculty Union, says that “what happened in California in the last several years is that we’ve pushed a half million students out of the community college system.”  And though the faculty had agreed last year to a voluntary 2.8% pay cut towards assisting in alleviating budget woes, the district cut faculty wages by nearly 9%.

Elsewhere, like in Michigan, for instance, the Public Schools Emergency Manager, Roy Roberts, announced last year that “underperforming” schools will be targeted for closure, with 130 schools having been closed there since 2005.

In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg is attempting to close 17 schools, which are said to be low-performing.  However, the Urban Youth Collaborative and the Coalition for Educational Justice have filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education alleging the city’s school closures disproportionately affect “students of color and students with disabilities.”

Author and activist, Tolu Orlorunda, shared his findings on how race factors in on public school closings in an article entitled “Journey for Justice: Mass School Closings and the Death of Communities,” stating that:

From 2003-2012, in New York City, 117 schools were closed. Twenty-five more closings are scheduled for 2013. Sixty-three percent of the students affected are black.

Since 2001, in Chicago, 72 schools have been closed or phased out. Ninety percent of the students affected are black.

In 2008, 23 schools were closed in Washington, DC. Ninety-nine percent of the students affected were black or brown.

Since 2005, in Detroit, 130 schools have been closed. Ninety-three percent of the students affected are black.

Curiously, while public schools are rapidly closing, charter schools—using public funding for privately-operated schools—have sprouted and expanded to take their share of budget dollars.

Many find this educational shift troubling, including a public school teacher of 30 years, Stan Karp, who is director of the Secondary Reform Project for New Jersey’s Education Law Center, and the editor to Rethinking Schools.  Karp wrote in a March 8th commentary about charter schools, saying “nearly every teacher dreams of starting a school…[b]ut the current push for deregulated charters and privatization is doing nothing to reduce the concentrations of 70, 80, and 90 percent poverty that remain the central problem in our urban schools.”  He says a more “equitable” approach to school reform can be seen in Raleigh, North Carolina, where efforts “were made to improve theme-based and magnet programs at all schools, and the concentration of free/reduced lunch students at any one school was limited to 40 percent or less.”  That simple plan, Karp says, resulted in “some of the nation’s best progress on closing gaps in achievement and opportunity.”

Further making his case in the article, Karp says:

• Significant evidence suggests that charters are part of a market-driven plan to create a less stable, less secure and less expensive teaching staff…working to privatize everything from curriculum to professional development to the making of education policy.
• [C]harter school teachers are, on average, less experienced, less unionized and less likely to hold state certification than teachers in traditional public schools.
• As many as one in four charter school teachers leave every year, about double the turnover rate in traditional public schools.
• Charter schools typically pay less for longer hours. But charter school administrators often earn more than their school-district counterparts.

It’s past time to refocus public policy on providing a deserved quality education for all Americans, says  Shawn Fremstad, an attorney and Senior Research Analyst at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). Because inevitably, he believes, a good education leads to a good career and thus economic security. Fremstad says that actually the funding issue “goes to the larger issue of are we creating good jobs, and what happens when you don’t do that.”  Fremstad says there “are all sorts of people who want to start a career, but if there aren’t good paths—what’s available for you—then I think that lacking those resources, the criminal justice system ends up trapping a lot of people in its net.”  More and more, he says “the criminal justice system has become the dragnet that is replacing our safety net.”  This trend, he says “is a failure to invest in people,” causing undue harm to students, teachers, local economies and communities.


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Tuesday Apr 9, 2013 4:19 pm

Newark Students Walk Out Over School Closings: Is a Bigger Fightback on the Way?

By Rebecca Burns At high schools across Newark, New Jersey today, students walked out of their classes in protest of school closings and privatization. The action follows a weekend of strategizing at the second annual “Occupy the Department of Education” conference, from which more decentralized actions against corporate school reform are expected to emerge this spring.

About 1,000 students from across the district participated in the walkout, according to the Star-Ledger. After leaving their classes at noon, students convened outside of a State Assembly Budget Hearing on Education at Rutgers University, where lawmakers were discussing the education portion of Governor Chris Christie’s FY 2014 budget.

Students announced their plans to walkout over the weekend with the following video:



At the end of March, State Superintendent Cami Anderson divulged that the state-run Newark school district is facing a $57 million budget shortfall. Inequities in New Jersey school funding have long been a problem, so much so that a judicial order dating back to 1981 mandates that the state’s poor, urban school districts receive equivalent financing as its wealthy, suburban ones. In 2010, Governor Chris Christie attempted to cut $1 billion from the state education budget, but the New Jersey Supreme Court found that the cuts were unconstitutional. Student demonstrators note, however, that much of the lost funding has yet to be restored. The AP reports:

The students also sought to highlight the fact that the governor's $32.9 billion budget again fails to fully fund the state's own school aid formula.

"For the last three years, Gov. Christie has waged a concerted attack on Newark students," said organizer Jaysen Bazile. "He keeps saying that he's given New Jersey schools unprecedented levels of support, but what he doesn't say is that his hand was forced by the Supreme Court after they found his first-year cuts violated our constitutional rights to a thorough and efficient education."

Newark students also spoke out against school closings and excessive standardized testing. Last year, Newark closed six schools, some of which were then reopened as charter schools. In January, the Department of Education confirmed that it is investigating a civil rights complaint over school closures in Newark, as well as similar complaints in Philadelphia and Detroit.

Newark is home to an unusually strong student union that has mobilized mass walkouts before. In 2010, an estimated 5,000 students left school and rallied at City Hall against Christie's budget cuts. But student and community pushback against school closings is gaining momentum elsewhere, as well.

In Chicago, where administrators are attempting the largest-ever school shutdown in U.S. history, parent groups have been turning out in force to express their outrage during public hearings. But given Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s insistence last month that CPS plans to close 54 elementary schools are finalized—even though the district is still wrapping up the 180 hearings it’s required by law to hold, ostensibly to solicit public input —community activists are trying a new tactic: not showing up. Weary of “show hearings,” community activists in the city’s Austin neighborhood organized a boycott of the closings meetings over the weekend, opting instead to develop an alternative proposal to improve conditions at four community schools slated for closure. 

Even in cities where there’s not yet a critical mass of education activists, student and parent groups are gearing up opt-out campaigns against standardized testing. As I’ve reported previously, high-stakes testing has become a locus of the fight over education reform because public schools slated for closure are most often those deemed underperforming according to student test scores, a designation anti-closings activists say is pseudo-scientific. In Providence, Rhode Island, the Providence Student Union recently organized a mock testing day during which high schoolers administered the New England Common Assessment Program to adults from the community. More than half of them failed, according to the student union.





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This is indeed true as we are now receiving real data from education think tanks that show there is no value in what is being done....it has one purpose.....to privatize public schools into vocational tracking from K-college.


PURE

This week’s leg fax: corporate reform not working in Chicago In 2007, FairTest’s Monty Neill and I wrote a report called “Chicago School Reform: Lessons for the Nation,” which strongly cautioned against using Chicago and its mayoral controlled school district as a model for school improvement.

Six years later, our concerns have been confirmed by researchers Elaine Weiss and Don Long for the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education group.

I just shared their findings with the Illinois House and Senate Education committee members in this week’s PURE leg fax:

NEW REPORT: Market-driven school reforms, mayoral control causing more harm than good

A new study, “Market-oriented education reforms’ rhetoric trumps reality,” on the effects of market-driven reform in Washington, D.C., New York City and Chicago concludes that little has been accomplished and some harm has been done to students, especially the underprivileged.

Market-oriented education reform refers to a series of initiatives that include educator evaluations based in large part on student standardized test scores, the closure of schools that are considered failing or underenrolled, and an increase in the number of charter schools, many of which are operated by for-profit companies. (Washington Post, http://tinyurl.com/btyv4le).

States and districts have been forced to adopt many of these reforms to comply with NCLB or apply for Race to the Top grants, with added pressure from corporate-backed groups like Students First and Stand for Children.

The executive summary of the report (http://tinyurl.com/d2e8knv) concludes:

• Test scores increased less, and achievement gaps grew more, in “reform” cities than in other urban districts.
• Reported successes for targeted students evaporated upon closer examination.
• Test-based accountability prompted churn that thinned the ranks of experienced teachers, but not necessarily bad teachers.
• School closures did not send students to better schools or save school districts money.
• Charter schools further disrupted the districts while providing mixed benefits, particularly for the highest-needs students.
• Emphasis on the widely touted market-oriented reforms drew attention and resources from initiatives with greater promise.
• The reforms missed a critical factor driving achievement gaps: the influence of poverty on academic performance. Real, sustained change requires strategies that are more realistic, patient, and multipronged.

PURE ASKS YOU TO :

• Support the CPS school closing moratorium bills SB 1571 and HB 3283.

• Support community-based school improvement and stronger local school councils trained by independent, non-CPS training groups. (http://pureparents.org/?p=15681)
• Support an elected school board in Chicago.

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Below is a video from the author of the article attached.  Google the title to see a live conversation.  The article speaks to just what we have been saying about what works in school reform and it is not what we are being given by Third Way corporate democrats through Race to the Top and Wall Street's Alonzo......charters, Teach For America, and testing are a failure!!!!


"Improbable Scholars: The Rebirth of a Great American School System and a Strategy for America's Schools"

David Kirp

About the ProgramDavid Kirp, public policy professor at the University of California at Berkeley, profiles the Union City, New Jersey public school system.  The author reports that Union City, once one of the worst school systems in the state, now graduates ninety percent of its high school students and sixty percent of them go to college.  Mr. Kirp argues that these gains have been achieved by an emphasis on early education, support of teachers, and outreach to parents.   David Kirp speaks at Union City High School in Union City, New Jersey.

About the Authors David Kirp

David Kirp is the author of numerous books, including The Sandbox Investment: The Preschool Movement and Kids-First Politics.   He is a public policy professor at the University of California at Berkeley.







February 9, 2013

The Secret to Fixing Bad Schools

By DAVID L. KIRP

WHAT would it really take to give students a first-rate education? Some argue that our schools are irremediably broken and that charter schools offer the only solution. The striking achievement of Union City, N.J. — bringing poor, mostly immigrant kids into the educational mainstream — argues for reinventing the public schools we have.

Union City makes an unlikely poster child for education reform. It’s a poor community with an unemployment rate 60 percent higher than the national average. Three-quarters of the students live in homes where only Spanish is spoken. A quarter are thought to be undocumented, living in fear of deportation.

Public schools in such communities have often operated as factories for failure. This used to be true in Union City, where the schools were once so wretched that state officials almost seized control of them. How things have changed. From third grade through high school, students’ achievement scores now approximate the statewide average. What’s more, in 2011, Union City boasted a high school graduation rate of 89.5 percent — roughly 10 percentage points higher than the national average. Last year, 75 percent of Union City graduates enrolled in college, with top students winning scholarships to the Ivies.

As someone who has worked on education policy for four decades, I’ve never seen the likes of this. After spending a year in Union City working on a book, I believe its transformation offers a nationwide strategy.

Ask school officials to explain Union City’s success and they start with prekindergarten, which enrolls almost every 3- and 4-year-old. There’s abundant research showing the lifetime benefits of early education. Here, seeing is believing.

One December morning the lesson is making latkes, the potato pancakes that are a Hanukkah staple. Everything that transpires during these 90 minutes could be called a “teachable moment” — describing the smell of an onion (“Strong or light? Strong — duro. Will it smell differently when we cook it? We’ll have to find out.”); pronouncing the “p” in pepper and pimento; getting the hang of a food processor (“When I put all the ingredients in, what will happen?”).

Cognitive and noncognitive, thinking and feeling; here, this line vanishes. The good teacher is always on the lookout for both kinds of lessons, always aiming to reach both head and heart. “My goal is to do for these kids what I do with my own children,” the teacher, Susana Rojas, tells me. “It’s all about exposure to concepts — wide, narrow, long, short. I bring in breads from different countries. ‘Let’s do a pie chart showing which one you liked the best.’ I don’t ask them to memorize 1, 2, 3 — I could teach a monkey to count.”

From pre-K to high school, the make-or-break factor is what the Harvard education professor Richard Elmore calls the “instructional core” — the skills of the teacher, the engagement of the students and the rigor of the curriculum. To succeed, students must become thinkers, not just test-takers.

When Alina Bossbaly greets her third grade students, ethics are on her mind. “Room 210 is a pie — un pie — and each of us is a slice of that pie.” The pie offers a down-to-earth way of talking about a community where everyone has a place. Building character and getting students to think is her mission. From Day 1, her kids are writing in their journals, sifting out the meaning of stories and solving math problems. Every day, Ms. Bossbaly is figuring out what’s best for each child, rather than batch-processing them.

Though Ms. Bossbaly is a star, her philosophy pervades the district. Wherever I went, these schools felt less like impersonal institutions than the simulacrum of an extended family.

UNTIL recently, Union City High bore the scarlet-letter label, “school in need of improvement.” It has taken strong leadership from its principal, John Bennetti, to turn things around — to instill the belief that education can be a ticket out of poverty.

On Day 1, the principal lays out the house rules. Everything is tied to a single theme — pride and respect in “our house” — that resonates with the community culture of family, unity and respect. “Cursing doesn’t showcase our talents. Breaking the dress code means we’re setting a tone that unity isn’t important, coming in late means missing opportunities to learn.” Bullying is high on his list of nonnegotiables: “We are about caring and supporting.”

These students sometimes behave like college freshmen, as in a seminar where they’re parsing Toni Morrison’s “Beloved.” They can be boisterously jokey with their teachers. But there’s none of the note-swapping, gum-chewing, wisecracking, talking-back rudeness you’d anticipate if your opinions about high school had been shaped by movies like “Dangerous Minds.”

And the principal is persuading teachers to raise their expectations. “There should be more courses that prepare students for college, not simply more work but higher-quality work,” he tells me. This approach is paying off big time: Last year, in a study of 22,000 American high schools, U.S. News & World Report and the American Institutes for Research ranked Union City High in the top 22 percent.

What makes Union City remarkable is, paradoxically, the absence of pizazz. It hasn’t followed the herd by closing “underperforming” schools or giving the boot to hordes of teachers. No Teach for America recruits toil in its classrooms, and there are no charter schools.

A quarter-century ago, fear of a state takeover catalyzed a transformation. The district’s best educators were asked to design a curriculum based on evidence, not hunch. Learning by doing replaced learning by rote. Kids who came to school speaking only Spanish became truly bilingual, taught how to read and write in their native tongue before tackling English. Parents were enlisted in the cause. Teachers were urged to work together, the superstars mentoring the stragglers and coaches recruited to add expertise. Principals were expected to become educational leaders, not just disciplinarians and paper-shufflers.

From a loose confederacy, the schools gradually morphed into a coherent system that marries high expectations with a “we can do it” attitude. “The real story of Union City is that it didn’t fall back,” says Fred Carrigg, a key architect of the reform. “It stabilized and has continued to improve.”

To any educator with a pulse, this game plan sounds so old-school obvious that it verges on platitude.  That these schools are generously financed clearly makes a difference — not every community will decide to pay for two years of prekindergarten — but too many districts squander their resources.

School officials flock to Union City and other districts that have beaten the odds, eager for a quick fix. But they’re on a fool’s errand. These places — and there are a host of them, largely unsung — didn’t become exemplars by behaving like magpies, taking shiny bits and pieces and gluing them together. Instead, each devised a long-term strategy reaching from preschool to high school. Each keeps learning from experience and tinkering with its model. Nationwide, there’s no reason school districts — big or small; predominantly white, Latino or black — cannot construct a system that, like the schools of Union City, bends the arc of children’s lives.

David L. Kirp is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of the forthcoming book “Improbable Scholars: The Rebirth of a Great American School System and a Strategy for America’s Schools.”


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The citizens of Baltimore are not duped by the skewed data coming from the MD Department of Education..we have these schools in our communities and we know how they are performing..abysmally.  Unless that is you have a charter school that is funded by private donations and getting all kinds of outside resources that most all other schools in the city are not getting!  The schools are horribly resourced and the tiered per-student funding straight out of Banana Republic play books are all on Alonzo and his failures at anything other that turning the schools system upside down and privatizing it to everyones detriment!!!  Do I sound mad?  YOU BETCHA!  As a lifelong educator it sickens me to watch these Wall Street privatizers trying to dismantle the very platform of democratic principles..public education.

We all know that the gains that the media love to create as headlines for pols like O'Malley are so small as to be statistical errors for goodness sake and often result from deviations in test prep or application.  We all know the drop out rate decline came as a result of redefining what kinds of education programs are called 'active'.  Alonzo  took this from actually being in school to an expansive being in any number of school related programs.  That is why the numbers went down.  Do you see where explaining these numbers gives everyone a different perspective on successes?


Regarding tying the school building project to the Maryland Stadium Authority....

Development in Maryland and especially all involves politics and when a billion dollar project is approved by the Maryland Assembly you can bet the tie with the MSA has to do with who decides whom gets all the money....period.  The crime and corruption in public contracting is just as great at the state level as the local level so it has nothing to do with protecting against malfeasance, it is who gets to oversee the malfeasance.  The second issue has to do with the fact that the US economy will be crashing as soon as 2013 much harder than the 2007 crash and with that will go all kinds of public assets.  Tying the school building to the State gives some but not much protection against Wall Street taking control.

The one good thing I can hear coming from the MSA involvement is that MSA has a better record of hiring black minority/woman contractors at the levels required.  Baltimore pays no attention to these hiring requirements.
Principals union wants Alonso to return bonuses in light of cheating investigations New schools named in cheating investigations


By Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun 3:49 p.m. EDT, April 13, 2013

The Baltimore principals union is calling for schools CEO Andrés Alonso to pay back thousands of dollars in bonuses he received in years that schools were later found to have cheated on state tests.

The request comes as a contract, released through a Public Information Act request, names three schools that have not previously been publicly linked to cheating suspicions: Sinclair Lane Elementary, Rayner Browne Elementary/Middle and William Pinderhughes Elementary. The schools join Abbottston Elementary, alleged to have cheated in 2009, in an independent investigation.

Jimmy Gittings, president of the school system's administrators union, said Alonso's crusade to prove that cheating took place in several schools — particularly in 2008 and 2009 when the city's scores noted historic gains — should compel him to pay back a portion of the $29,000 in annual bonuses he received as test scores rose during those years.

"Dr. Alonso was the only one who saw financial gains when test scores increased in his first two years," said Gittings, who has vehemently opposed Alonso's decision to fire principals if he suspects cheating in their schools. "Now he's trying to prove that cheating took place in his first two years. So he should give back the money he received for those scores. That would be the ethical thing to do."

Alonso declined to comment about the bonuses. But school board President Neil Duke said that in addition to the test scores, other academic factors, including improved graduation and dropout rates, were tied to the bonuses.

"By any objective measure, the district has experienced an upward trajectory under the current administration within the context of academic achievement," Duke said. "No reasonable person would contend otherwise."

Gittings' call comes as 35 Atlanta educators face corruption charges associated with widespread cheating in the district, including former Superintendent Beverly Hall, who faces theft charges because she collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses for the inflated scores. Investigators say Hall orchestrated the operation through pressure, intimidation and retaliation.

It is also not the first time that a union has demanded Alonso return bonuses. In 2009, the Baltimore Teachers Union called for the schools chief to "do the right thing and forfeit" his bonus in light of dismal financial times, when city teachers and paraprofessionals — which the union called "the individuals who were directly responsible for the rise in test scores" — did not receive pay raises.

In Alonso's five-year tenure, he has confirmed cheating at three schools and has said that 16 other schools are under investigation. The schools chief has spent more than $1 million making high-profile moves to stop cheating in the district.

Most recently, he hired the national data forensic company Caveon Test Security to review thousands of booklets.

Alonso — who has previously called the district's cheating crackdown the most aggressive and transparent in the nation — would not say which schools, or how many, were being investigated when he hired the company in September for $275,000.

But, according to the Caveon contract, the company is investigating the 2008, 2009 and 2010 test booklets of Abbottston, Sinclair Lane, Rayner Browne, and William Pinderhughes.

The school system denied a Public Information Act request from The Baltimore Sun seeking reports outlining the investigations' results, saying that they are personnel records and that their release "would be contrary to the public interest."

Alonso's previous contract — which ran from July 2007 through June 2011 — stipulated that the school board could award "annual performance-based incentive bonuses" up to $30,000 a year: $12,000 for demonstrated increases in schools' academic performance, $12,000 for "management efficiencies" and $6,000 for implementing creative and innovative programs.

Duke said there has been no formal request made to the board to rescind bonuses that Alonso received from 2008 through 2010 — years schools were found to have cheated. Alonso received $29,000 in each of those years.

Among the accomplishments that Duke highlighted when the board awarded Alonso his performance bonus for the 2008-2009 school year was a visit by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Duncan came to Baltimore that year to celebrate the scores of one of the district's success stories: Abbottston Elementary.

One year later, Abbottston's scores plunged by as much as 50 percent in some grades. And in June 2011, Alonso announced that the school, praised by Duncan as a model for the country, had cheated.

The principals union fought the allegations and Alonso's decision to remove the school's administrators. Independent hearing officers hired by the district recommended the school's principal and assistant principal be reinstated after an investigation failed to prove that cheating occurred at the school and that the principals were responsible. The school board has reinstated the principal.

The district's test scores dropped for the first time in 2011, when Alonso sent testing monitors into schools. In July of that year, he signed a new contract, which did not offer performance bonuses.

Duke said the efforts to ferret out cheating "have paid huge dividends by demonstrating that our progress is real. One only need look around the country at school districts that took a different approach to recognize that the path we chose was the right track."

The district is also in the throes of hammering out a test-integrity policy that will govern testing practices and how cheating investigations are conducted.

State regulations require every district to have one, and Baltimore is the only one in the state that does not.

Instead, city school officials said, they have a "plan" that has evolved over time.

"Having a policy is meaningless without a plan," said Jennifer Bell-Ellwanger, chief accountability officer for the district. "We have a really strong plan, and now we want to make sure that our work surpasses any administration that's here."

Bell-Ellwanger said there are no repercussions for taking action against educators without a policy in place because the district followed state law. "The policy becomes the accountability measure for Alonso and the board," she said.



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Sorry, Rahm – “negotiations” are not over Mayor Emanuel may want to believe that “the time for negotiation” on school closings is over, but the community has a different plan.

As CTU President Karen Lewis told the crowd of thousands yesterday at the school closing rally, “It’s not over until you say it’s over.”

Lots of people took much better photos than mine, but I just wanted to point out that we took over the streets outside the Federal Building, the State of Illinois Building, and City Hall, the key landmarks of government, paid for by us taxpayers and filled with people whom we vote into and can vote out of office. It’s called democracy, Rahm, not “negotiation.”

Opening remarks at Daley Plaza in front of the Federal Building.

Filling the street by the State of Illinois Center

Outside City Hall

    

 Pinterest Tags: Chicago school closings, Karen Lewis, school closings

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THIS APPEARS TO BE A GOOD PUBLIC SCHOOL ORGANIZATION

*Join PURE News for e-mail news and updates. **PARENTS! Need help with special education problems? PURE's Wanda Hopkins is the expert you want on your side. Contact her for details: 773-663-5420 or wjhoppo4@yahoo.com.

**On ESEA:

Parents Across America position paper on ESEA reauthorization.

Chicago School Reform: Lessons for the Nation - Monty Neill and Julie Woestehoff, 2007. Download here.

Failures of Arne Duncan's Renaissance 2010: Research summary by Dr. Pauline Lipman.

**On High-Stakes Testing:

Since 1996, Chicago has flunked tens of thousands of students. The policy doesn't work, harms students, increases the drop out rate, and costs over $100 million per year. Read more here.

Read PURE's 2010 Office for Civil Rights complaint against CPS's high-stakes testing and retention policy here.

**On School Privatization/Charters:

Read about the accountability problems PURE uncovered in Chicago's charter and turnaround schools: Our report.

**Parents are Powerful! PURE's How-To Books (giant files!):

The Power of Parent Participation: How to Create a Powerful Parent Organization

Chicago Parents' Fair Testing Campaign: How Parents Used Multiple Strategies to Force Change in the CPS Student Testing Policy

**Here's What Works!

What Works in Schools, PURE style.

Research shows that LSCs are more effective than turnarounds! LSCs work!

What are Local School Councils? Fact sheet.
LSC Basics Lesson 1.
LSC Basics Lesson 2.


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Why Was Atlanta's Beverly Hall Indicted For Racketeering While Michelle Rhee Won't Be?
Wed, 04/03/2013 - 10:27 — Bruce A. Dixon
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By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Atlanta's black former school superintendent and 34 other black teachers and administrators have been indicted for “racketeering” in a cheating scandal. Why aren't others like former DC Schools chancellor Michelle Rhee and her team indicted? Should we be rallying the racial wagons around Dr. Hall and the other 34? No way.

Why Was Atlanta's Beverly Hall Indicted For Racketeering While Michelle Rhee Won't Be?

By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Last night former Atlanta superintendent of schools Beverly Hall, along with 35 teachers, principals and others, were indicted for racketeering. The core “criminal” activity alleged is that teachers, principals and test administrators, either under Hall's explicit direction or thanks to a “climate” that endorsed such behavior altered the results of hundreds, or thouands of standardized tests given to Atlanta's public school children.

In the political climate of Georgia, where black and white elites have been campaigning to demonize teachers, discredit the very notion of public education, and ultimately privatize it to get their hands on its multibillion dollar assets and stream of tax revenue, Fulton County's black district attorney has been able to convene a grand jury and morph cheating on tests into criminal racketeering indictments. Why is this happening?

Since the advent of No Child Left Behind in the early 1990s, schools districts have been forced by federal law to take up large portions of the instructional year giving standardized tests, and publishing ranked lists of the schools by test scores, with the lowest ranked schools branded as “failing.” The remediation for so-called “failing schools” is chiefly teacher firings, more tests, tying teacher pay and jobs to test scores, more tests, firing principals and administrators, budget cuts and still more tests, and finally, closing the school. Closed schools are generally replaced with privately owned charter schools, often with free or nearly free leases in the same buildings as the former public school which are largely exempt from many of the requirements of public schools like hiring qualified teachers, paying them a living wage, and accepting all the local students who apply.

Since scores on standardized tests, of course, track to income levels, and in the US, where residential segregation along racial and economic lines is the rule, majority black and Latino schools consistently get the lowest scores, are most often labeled as “failing” and the most frequently closed and replaced by favored charter operations. In this climate of fear cheating has become a national epidemic, with reports of industrial scale test manipulation in Los Angeles, Houston, Washington DC and elsewhere.

Dr. Hall pretty much implemented every misguided, corporate-inspired “reform” that the business and privatization-oriented consultants brought to her --- closing public schools in favor of charters, excessive testing, even purchasing the tests from firms with connections to the consultants who recommended them. Hall even helped Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin divert over a hundred million dollars a year in tax revenues which should have gone to Atlanta's public schools into a real estate and gentrification boondoggle called the BeltLine. Hall was in every respect a loyal asset to the forces who have been demonizing teachers and dismantling public education.

At some point, the Chamber of Commerce, Invest Atlanta and other local elite representatives realized that while Dr. Hall was perfectly willing to give away the store in return for her six figure salary and perks, something as radical as the utter privatization of public education needs a crisis --- and crises need villains, with mug shots and orange jump suits, preferably with waist and ankle chains. So after getting as much as they could from Dr. Hall, they cheerfully doused her with gasoline and set her on fire. The grand jury's lurid accusations, dribbled out to the eager corporate-owned media over the last two years have created a pervasive atmosphere of crisis, in which the Chamber and its allies can get far more than any superintendent could have given them.

Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of DC's public schools enjoyed a reign of terror over a couple years in which she fired hundreds of teachers, and a number of principals, and handed over public school properties to her favorite charter schools, and ceaselessly berated parents and educators. There are widespread allegations that she too fostered a “climate of fear” under which teachers and administrators knew that if scores on expensive, irrelevant tests did not rise, their schools would be closed. But DC is not Georgia, and Michelle Rhee remains the darling of the White House, corporate media and even cruise missile liberals like Bill Maher and Jon Stewart. Rhee has made herself into the permanent propagandist of the privatizers, from her stint at Teach For America (her former boss at TFA succeeded her as DC schools chancellor) to her one-person organization, Students First.

Georgia's elite has long been uncomfortable with the inclusion of blacks in its own ranks. The current Republican governor had to personally intercede with formal and informal bodies to get Atlanta's black mayor a seat at the table, for instance, in discussions over regional transit, even though nobody could be a more loyal servant of the one percent than Kasim Reed. Atlanta's black elite may be invited to some of the meetings, and share some of the spoils, but they don't own local corporate media outlets, where the constant association of black faces in high places with embezzlement, scandal and fraud is a daily news staple.

Would Beverly Hall be under indictment if she was white? Maybe not, but this is NOT an occasion to rally the racial wagons around her and the 34 indicted teachers and administrators, not a white face among them. Dr. Hall was no friend of public education and no champion of Atlanta's public school children or teachers. If Hall had real integrity she would have spoken out years ago, and resisted the imposition of unfair “standards” and the reliance upon standardized testing as the only method to evaluate school and teacher performance. Dr. Hall could have spoken up when Shirley Franklin diverted hundreds of millions in school revenues to repay a bond issue aimed at gentrifying Atlanta. Dr. Hall had plenty of chances to stand up for Atlanta's school children in her decade in the top office. She put her career and perks first. Hall has been indicted to create lurid headlines for a “crisis” that will get the privatizers even more than she could have given them. The same goes for the teachers and administrators under her.

Just because her enablers have turned on her doesn't mean we should turn toward her. As Roland Martin found out when he made noises suggesting that black people should protest to get him his CNN commentator's job back, it doesn't work that way.

Teacher heroes are teachers who resist the turn to excessive testing, like the teachers in Seattle. Teacher heroes are the thousands of Chicago teachers who struck last fall in the face of Mayor Rahm Emanuel carrying out Barack Obama's Race To The Top program, and who are resisting the closing of more than 50 Chicago public schools this year, the largest wave of public school closings in US history. We need more heroic teachers, like some of those who are occupying the Department of Education later this month. Dr. Hall is no hero.

Michelle Rhee for her part, is a bigger villain on a bigger stage than Dr. Hall's, and with better friends. If her fortunes since being dismissed from DC are any indication, she has a long and lucrative career ahead of her.

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report and a state committee member of the Georgia Green Party. He lives and works near Marietta GA and can be reached via this site's contact page or at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.



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March 6, 2013
Unions lobby power remains unmatched
By Sarah Butrymowicz and Geoff Decker This story also appeared at:  Heckinger Report




Teachers from across the state began descending on Albany Tuesday for a series of high-profile meetings with lawmakers, a small but significant part of their unions’ overall lobbying strategies.

A high school marching band helped start off the New York State United Teachers’ lobby day in the late morning, leading hundreds bused in from around the state on a parade outside the state Capitol building. At a rally, the crowd of teachers, students and community organizers asked for more school funding and called Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s budget, which increases state aid by 4.4 percent, “bananas” because it wasn’t enough.

Zakiyah Ansari, advocacy director for Alliance for Quality Education, an organization that co-hosts Lobby Day with NYSUT. (Photo courtesy GothamSchools)

Today’s message will feature a different union — the city’s United Federation of Teachers — with different budget priorities and a more powerful audience. The UFT wants money for teacher training centers, community schools, and child care, and it has reserved speaking slots at its rally for the legislature’s three leaders: Assemblyman Sheldon Silver, Senate Republican Dean Skelos and Senate Democrat Jeff Klein.

The two lobby days, which include union members and their supporters, are among the most visible manifestations of the unions’ annual behind-the-scenes effort to influence how state policies are shaped and money is spent. Each year, New York’s teacher unions spend millions to organize large rallies, launch statewide advertising campaigns and pay teams of staff lobbyists to work directly with elected officials on specific legislation.

The UFT spent more than $1.86 million on lobbying expenses in 2012, including thousands of dollars on catering for phone banks, cell phone reimbursements and postage, according to records filed with the New York State Ethics Commission. And while NYSUT spent dramatically less on lobbying than in previous years, the state union still spent $1.7 million last year.

The two unions, like many of their counterparts across the country, are an ever-present force at the state capitol, lobbying legislators and organizing their members to reach out to them. Put together, the unions represent about 800,000 teachers, school staff, nurses, college faculty (and even more than 1,000 lifeguards). By staying closely involved, they’ve been able to score key legislative victories – and soften the blows of some defeats.

Click to read entire series

“The real power of the unions is not so much the dollar amount in any given year,” said Joe Williams, director of Democrats for Education Reform, an advocacy group that contributes to reform-minded Democrats and lobbies for specific education policies. “The fact that they go at it year after year after year forces groups that are pushing ideas and the legislation that the unions [are] opposed to to be very smart about selecting issues.”

In their filings with the state’s ethics commission, groups are required to list any bill that they “expect” to lobby on. Each year, NYSUT and UFT list hundreds, many having to do with healthcare or schools, such as a bill to study the option of a four-day school week or one about radon testing in schools.

But other bills on the unions’ list fall outside of their normal purview. Among the bills that the UFT and NYSUT said they expected to lobby on in 2012 was one that would “direct the commissioner of health to establish a schedule of fees for the use and maintenance and repair of air conditioners used by residents of adult homes.” Another, Senate Bill 1255, would make the monk parakeet a protected bird.

Listing so many bills, the UFT said, is a way to err on the side of caution and guarantee that the list covers everything any union lobbyist might be asked about. In reality, the organizations pour the bulk of their time and resources into a few key bills.

Brownsville Academy senior Tyrone Francisco and several of his classmates meets with Senator John Sampson’s Chief of Staff. (Photo courtesy GothamSchools)

In 2009, the UFT pushed for incorporating transparency requirements for New York City school closures into the reauthorization of mayoral control; now there must be a hearing and impact statement before a school is shuttered. In 2011, the union was able to defeat Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s push for an end to seniority-based layoffs.

But even when bills that the unions opposed gained traction, they have been able to help craft compromises. UFT officials explained that when a bill clearly has enough support to pass, its lobbyists focus on helping to shape the specific details. In the 2012 teacher evaluation bill, for instance, they worked on an amendment to the appeals process. When legislators voted to raise the state’s charter school cap in 2010, the UFT succeeded in establishing a limit on how many of the schools could open in a given year and how many could be in New York City.

Traditionally, NYSUT has outspent the UFT — and virtually all other groups that lobby in Albany. In 2010, NYSUT spent $4.7 million, the second most of any lobbying organization, and $4.2 million in 2011, which ranked third, according to a report by the New York Public Interest Research Group.

But in 2012, NYSUT slowed its rate of spending on lobbying and was surpassed by the UFT, its NYC affiliate, records show. (In 2012, by contrast, the UFT slightly increased their lobbying expenditures from 2011.)

One reason, spokesman Carl Korn said, was that, compared to 2011, when the union spent big to kill a “Tier VI” bill that would have required its members to pay more to tap into their pension benefits, there were fewer contentious bills to fight.

The union usually advertises in local markets to urge voters to pass their proposed school budgets. But few of them were contentious in 2012, due to a property tax cap that limited budget growth to just a couple percentage points, Korn said.

“We typically do media buys on state budget and school budgets and if there is an extraordinary legislative measure,” Korn said.

Most of the money NYSUT saved on advertising went toward other political strategies. In a heated election year in which Democrats had a realistic shot at taking over leadership in the New York State Senate, the union poured $4.5 million into polling, advertisements, and direct contributions for its preferred candidates in hotly contested races.

NYSUT’s lobbying expenses come as the organization’s financial books are in question. The union reported a nearly $30 million deficit on its latest tax forms submitted to the federal government, first reported this week in the Albany Times Union. (Attributing the shortfall to an accounting issue involving pensions, Korn said the union’s actual deficit was closer to $7.8 million.)

Lobbying often means hiring an outside firm to persuade legislators. While each organization does have employees that devote part or all of their time to working directly with senators and representatives, together, their overall lobbying strategy is diverse, relying on member organization and public awareness as well.

In 2012, NYSUT spent at least $114,840 on advertising and $17,565 on member giveaways, including $1,666 for clacker noisemakers. That year, the UFT reported spending $11,144 on iPads and $10,185 on t-shirts. Another $51,770 went to make a bulk “first aid kit/nylon bag with UFT logo” buy; items such as the kits are given out at UFT booths at events like Harlem Week and the West Indian Day parade in Brooklyn.

Much of NYSUT’s more than $360,000 in itemized expenses went to member reimbursements for Lobby Days in Albany, where teachers visit the capitol and meet with legislators. The Alliance for Quality Education, an advocacy organization that receives funding from NYSUT and co-hosts its lobby day, has spent more than $200,000 on lobbying over the past two years.

At least $140,974 of the UFT’s 2012 expenses went to Lobby Day costs, such as buses, parking, buttons, and staff accommodations.

Not all of the unions’ lobbying efforts are captured in their spending reports. Mobilizing members is often a crucial lobby activity for teachers unions across the country, said Dara Zeehandelaar, a research manager at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education think tank. But expenses for such “internal communications” may not always be reported as lobbying expenditures, she said.

“The power of the union is not quantifiable with the dollar amount because you can’t put a price tag on sending an email,” Zeehandelaar said. “It’s part of the teachers union culture. As a teacher you expect to get that message from your union. … That’s not going to show up in your financial reports.”

Take, for instance, what happened months after New York City’s release of teacher performance data sparked nationwide outcry by teachers and their unions. Lawmakers sought to prevent it from happening again through legislation. The legislation faced considerable opposition from free speech advocates and, importantly, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is a significant donor to Senate Republicans. Bloomberg saw the public’s access to performance data as critical to a high standard of accountability.

NYSUT asked its vast membership to tell their legislators, in emails, letters, phone calls and even faxes, to support legislation that would bar the public from seeing teacher ratings. The campaign, which relied on teachers to voluntarily and individually lobby lawmakers, yielded 33,000 faxes and “thousands” more calls and letters, Korn said.

On June 21, much to Bloomberg’s frustration, the legislature passed a privacy law that would limit access to teacher ratings to the parents of each teacher’s students.

“NYSUT’S strength comes not from its lobbying but from the tens of thousands of energized teachers in districts across the state who are knowledgeable with the issues and will work with candidates who will support public education and organized labor,” Korn said. “Elected leaders listen to their constituents.”

In 2010, Democrats for Education Reform went head to head with the teachers unions in New York, pushing to raise the state’s charter cap and devoting more than $6.5 million primarily to produce ads in favor of the bill. DFER ultimately won a partial victory, but had to outspend the unions to do so.

“I can’t imagine that’s ever going to happen again,” Williams said of beating the unions, adding that his group would be unable to routinely challenge them. “You can’t afford to fight incremental battles with the union. They’ll demolish you.”

Sarah Darville contributed reporting.



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Here in Maryland Baltimore's pols backed what was cleverly disguised as policy that places parents in the position of power in school performance. What this policy really does is prepare for the adoption of Parent Trigger in Maryland. This is a process used by charter school privatizing groups to take advantage of parents and communities that are struggling with schools and want any solution.....they often do not understand that this is a step towards privatizing and vocationalizing public schools.

ALEC member, Naperville legislator sponsors Illinois parent trigger law

Thanks to Substance newspaper for alerting us to the introduction of a parent trigger law proposal in Illinois.

HB3295 is sponsored by Rep. Darlene Senger, R-Naperville. Senger is a member of the ALEC corporate “reform” legislation writing cauldron.  ALEC’s “Stand your ground” proposal became notorious in the wake of the Trayvon Martin killing. Senger’s proposed law is a clone of another ALEC-inspired proposal, the parent trigger.

Senger’s proposal:

Provides that the parents of at least 51% of students in a low-performing school may initiate reform measures at the school through the submission of a parent petition to the school board. Provides for submission of a notice of petition. Provides that the petition shall request that the school board fully intervene in the school and implement one of the following reform measures: (1) reopen the school as a charter school; (2) change the school leadership; (3) close the school and reassign students currently attending the school to another school at the appropriate grade level within the same school district; or (4) adopt a new school governance structure. Upon receiving a copy of a petition signed by the parents of at least 51% of the students in a low-performing school, requires the school board to implement the reform measures requested in the petition.

Naperville has no “low-performing schools” and no charter schools, though I did find this pending proposal for an 18-district virtual charter school including Naperville, submitted by former CPS Chief of E-Learning Sharnell Jackson. More on that here.

However, you may remember that our own Mayor Emanuel promoted parent trigger laws for a while during his mayoral campaign.

As with most pet proposals by the corporate reform set, parent trigger laws have never improved a school. In the few places where there have been attempts to implement a parent trigger law, big-budget Parent Revolution groups with funding from WalMart, Broad and Bill Gates sent paid organizers around who lie to parents in order to get them to sign their petitions to turn the school into a predetermined charter school.

Parents Across America has taken a position against parent trigger laws and in favor of local school council-style parent empowerment, which can actually improve schools. Our legislature should work to strengthen and support LSC rather than tout ALEC-style corporate reform.



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Parents Across America seems to be a good counter to the Michelle Rhee Students First movement that backs Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, and Wall Street. We need parents and communities to look at the big picture in school's performance.....it has always been about resources. More rigor? YES. More testing and evaluations? NO


Features » March 28, 2013

Building Parent-Teacher Unions Inspired by Chicago, teachers unions across the country are looking to parents and communities for support.

BY Jacob Wheeler 'The idea behind the home visit is that you come as a guest in their home,' says Ricker. 'You start by asking only two questions: "What are your hopes and dreams for your child?" and "How can we support you?" '

On a Saturday afternoon in early March, some 60 people packed into a classroom at a technical high school north of Saint Paul, Minn., to discuss the strategic course of Saint Paul Federation of Teachers (SPFT) Local 28’s upcoming contract negotiations. The remarkable thing is that most of them were not card-carrying union members, or even teachers. They were students, parents and community activists concerned about their schools and the attack on public education.

During the session, one group focused on the needs of teachers by answering the simple, yet important, prompt, “If you had the best school in the world, what would teachers deserve?” The other focused on students and asked, “If you had the best school in the world, what would students look like?”

The answers from the two groups mirrored each other. They called for wages and working conditions that sustain a teaching career and long-term professional growth, smaller class sizes, a focus on interdisciplinary and experiential learning, an emphasis on teaching over testing, and time set aside to allow students to learn, process and grow.

The session reflects what SPFT President Mary Cathryn Ricker calls the “new model” of community involvement, “with teachers, and parents, at the center of advocating for their profession, as opposed to teachers standing on the sidelines.” 

The success of the 2012 Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) strike emboldened and inspired other teacher organizations such as the SPFT by demonstrating what strong community alliances can do. “We’re very conscious of the false narrative in our society—that what teachers want is different from what parents and communities want,” says Paul Rohlfing, an SPFT member who joined the Chicago strike and worked with 12 schools on the South Side. He witnessed Chicago teachers engaging their communities and explaining to parents the consequences of the war on public education. That engagement paid off: Even as the national media and mainstream politicians maligned the seven-day strike, polls showed Chicagoans supported the union, 55 percent to 40 percent. This support helped the CTU hold firm until a contract agreement could be reached.

Such alliance-building strategies are not entirely new—for years, unions from Saint Paul to Chicago to Oakland have been building relationships with community organizations. In the past, these relationships have been mostly transactional, such as buying a table at an annual fundraiser. But today’s existential threat to organized labor adds a new sense of urgency, as unions realize they must deepen community relationships as bulwarks of defense.

SPFT has been ahead of the curve. Since 2011, the union has embraced Minnesota’s open meetings law—which makes teacher contract negotiations open to the public—and encouraged the community to attend and testify. As many as 100 community members attended sessions of the SPFT’s last round of contract negotiations, which ended in January 2012. Community members influenced the final contract by securing a cap on class sizes.

The local is gearing up for its next round of negotiations in May, encouraging parents and activists to take part in these meetings as a way for teachers to learn from community members what their children need at school and for the community to understand what teachers need in order to help. 

This strategy is spreading. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is now holding similar community town halls in 12 cities, and AFT has invited three community members and two union teachers from each of those cities to speak at its national conference in April.

Because SPFT believes community involvement must be reciprocal as well, the union hasn’t just been inviting parents into its territory; the union has also been inviting its teachers into their students’ lives outside of the classroom. “When an educator looks at an issue, we can almost always draw that line to how improving conditions [in the home environment] will improve teaching and learning conditions,” says Ricker. 

A major validation of this approach came in 2007 when then-Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed his “Cover All Kids” bill into law, which expanded healthcare access to approximately 40,000 more Minnesota children. Among those urging the legislation had been SPFT school nurses testifying at the Capitol about setting up triage care in their offices to deal with otherwise treatable afflictions, such as pinkeye, impetigo and even head lice.

SPFT is also working with housing justice groups such as Neighborhoods Organizing for Change to push for a legal moratorium on evicting families with school-age children during the school year, and teaming up with the Second Chance Coalition and TakeAction, Minnesota’s “Justice 4 All” campaign to emphasize rehabilitation, civic engagement and reintegration for criminals, instead of prison and punishment.

Local 28 has also partnered with the Parent/Teacher Home Visit Project, which began in Sacramento, Calif., 15 years ago and has since blossomed nationwide. “The idea behind the home visit is that you come as a guest in their home,” says Ricker. “You start by asking only two questions: ‘What are your hopes and dreams for your child?’ and ‘How can we support you?’”

If the Chicago teachers’ strike and SPFT’s previous contract negotiations are any indication, the community will reciprocate by supporting their teachers and public education system in the battles to come.


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The citizens of Maryland are seeing that education reform is about privatizing public education and creating a tiered level of education that is tied to vocational tracking and attached to businesses.  All of the evaluation and testing policies are meant as ways to do that tracking starting at pre-K and following to college.  O'Malley has spent his eight years fast-tracking this privatization of public universities and colleges.  He is the one as well bringing in from conservative/corporate states like TX, IN, and DE the administrators who have committed themselves to that objective.  This is why MD is ranked #1 in Education Week, an education magazine funded by Bill Gates and the education ALEC crew.

Baltimore is ground zero for the structural framework for this privatization as Johns Hopkins leads in the reform.  That is why you see all the charter schools and Alonzo breaking up Central Administration and sending the responsibilities to individual school..it is a business model.  Now, raise your hand if you see any business that works for the public good and not corporate profits..that's right NO HANDS.  These 'reformers' are heading for job training on the cheap.  This means education data will be sold just as social media data and soon to be health data; it means computer lessons with education techs in large class settings..not teachers.  These librarians know the score!!


Balto. Co. school librarians skeptical of changes Dance wants to eliminate language requiring each school have a librarian, shifts library science to testing, technology division
By Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun 7:56 p.m. EDT, March 14, 2013


Baltimore County school librarians are worried about their next chapter.

New schools Superintendent Dallas Dance wants to eliminate from school system policy a written requirement that each school have a librarian and has shifted library science functions from the instruction and curriculum department to testing and technology.

Dance said that neither the reorganization nor the proposed policy revisions are intended as a slight to librarians, and that he doesn't intend to reduce the number of librarians working in county schools. The policy is one of several being reviewed to make language clearer, more concise and aligned with state standards, school officials said.

"It is absolutely not the intent of the administration to eliminate library specialists from schools," Dance said. "They're not going anywhere."

But librarians say the moves send a different signal.

"We see ourselves as teachers, so we don't understand why we're being moved from instruction and curriculum," said Christine Beard, library media specialist at Ridgely Middle School. "And we can't just hand students laptops and say, 'Here, go use Google and Wikipedia.' That's not research. You have to teach them how to research."

The angst comes amid the first reorganization by Dance, who arrived in July, of Maryland's third-largest school system. It's also an example of tensions that can arise as libraries continue to move into the digital age.

Susan Ballard, president of the American Association of School Librarians, said that she was "stunned" to see a shake-up of any kind for the county's library program. She said the county has been at the forefront of embracing "hybrid positions," in which library specialists handle both traditional and digital instruction.

The county has an "enviable" reputation nationally, she said, and the longtime head of Baltimore County's library program, Della Curtis, was the only librarian to be named a national Leader of the Year by Tech & Learning Magazine in 2011.

"It doesn't make sense to me to some degree, because if any school system seemed well positioned to embrace hybrid positions, it would be Baltimore County," Ballard said. "They were technology leaders, and really a fulcrum where you could balance teaching and learning. I guess sometimes when you work so efficiently, people can take that for granted."

Under the reorganization, Dance moved the county's 162 library specialists from the Division of Curriculum and Instruction to the Division of Accountability, Performance Management, Research and Technology.

The move was intended to prepare the county for new reforms, such as the new common core standards, Dance said. The standards, being implemented by Maryland and numerous other states, are a more rigorous curriculum. As part of the program, the state is planning to incorporate online student assessments.

Beard pointed out that the curriculum standards mention the word "research" 76 times, and that libraries are going to be critical resources for students.

"We're going to be very busy," she said. "We're going to be teaching now more than ever."

Dance said that the district is facing the reality that the role of the library, and school librarians, will evolve. "If you look at the national trend of libraries right now, they're going digital," he said. "In the next five years, you're going to see them teaching children from a digital platform. So we have to prepare for that."

In the librarians' new division, Dance added executive directors of instructional technology and information technology.

Dance acknowledged that he hadn't had a conversation with librarians about the long-term implications of the changes but said he wanted curriculum and technology to be "married to each other."

"If the organizational structure is not in place, the conversation can't take place," Dance said. "But no way are we diminishing their roles. In fact, we are enhancing them."

Dance has proposed eliminating sections of school system policy that require librarians to be state-certified specialists and refer to them as educators who work closely with classroom teachers and are integral to shaping curricula.

In addition, he wants to strike sections that stipulate that all schools "provide and maintain school libraries and ensure sufficient staffing" and that the superintendent "annually request sufficient funds to maintain services."





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WHY DO YOU THINK MARYLAND AND BALTIMORE ARE SO INSISTENT ON A MASSIVE WALL STREET FUNDED LEVERAGED CREDIT BOND WHEN PRESSURE IS RISING TO INCLUDE SCHOOLS IN AN INFRASTRUCTURE STIMULUS THAT EVEN REPUBLICANS MAY SUPPORT?


Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 07:29 AM PDT  Daily KOS

Aging schools need $270 billion in basic repairs, twice that to be brought up to date
by Laura Clawson

attribution: U.S. Navy Our school buildings are being neglected just like our bridges. In 1995, a report found that it would take $112 billion to repair America's school buildings. Today, a new report estimates that that amount has more than doubled, and it would take $270 billion to repair school buildings, bringing them back to their original condition. And that's just to make the buildings function as they were supposed to when they were built, 50 or more years ago. Bringing them up to date would cost $542 billion.
The Center for Green Schools' researchers reviewed spending and estimates schools spent $211 billion on upkeep between 1995 and 2008. During that same time, schools should have spent some $482 billion, the group calculated based on a formula included in the most recent GAO study. That left a $271 billion gap between what should have been spent on upkeep and what was, the group reported. Each student's share? Some $5,450. [...]

Horror stories abound about schools with roofs that leak, plumbing that backs up and windows that do little to stop winds.

School funding is often reliant on property taxes, which means that schools in rich areas are better funded than schools in poor areas, and people without kids in the schools push to keep property taxes low, whether because property taxes are regressive and they're house-poor or because they just plain don't want to invest in the future if that means other people's kids and not their own. This desperate need for investment in school buildings highlights the bankruptcy of American politics coming and going. Repairing these buildings would create jobs, stimulating the economy and putting jobless people back to work. It would also make it easier for teachers to teach and students to learn, no longer struggling to deal with classrooms that are too cold in winter and too hot in summer, leaking roofs, or air too dirty to breathe—the 1995 report "indicated 15,000 schools were circulating air deemed unfit to breathe." But these needed repairs are for the most part left up to the patchwork of local politics, exacerbating inequality and straining local budgets when the sheer numbers involved demonstrate that this is an issue of national concern.

At some point there has to be a tipping point where the Republican pastime of saying America's the greatest and best and most powerful while doing everything possible to ensure that it doesn't make the investments in the future needed to be any of those things takes us past a point of no return, or at least a point where return will require generations of rebuilding. The question is, are we there yet?





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People need to wake to the fact that MD has one of the most centralized government structure in the country with the executive offices welding too much authority over policy and this is exactly why..governor appointees taking the helm of local public governance.

This is vital for every policy issue but it is critical with education.  O'Malley/the MD Assembly has embraced a privatization plan for education that will have all of public education in the hands of corporate handlers.  We see it clearly in how O'Malley has made our public universities into 'innovation centers' that basically make our campuses into private R and D departments complete with free student labor.  University professor as research scientist or simply a well-paid corporate researcher..one in the same.  Give the costs of failed research to the public and allow private business to run with the successful public research all while the student pays inflated tuition costs to pay for this corporatized model.  Now you see our public community colleges becoming vocational training centers leading to poverty employment.

K-12 is next as we see in Balt's charter system.  Don't think this model is only about tracking the poor into vocational schools..it is the model for all of K-12 to become vocational schools complete with testing at pre-K to determine what vocation these corporations will track your child! Wake up!

'Hybrid' school board bill defeated in state Senate delegation 4-4 vote deadlocks the vote so measure off table this session


Sen. Ed Kasemeyer cast the deciding vote in the Senate county delegation today against a bill that would have added elected members to the school board. (Staff photo by Jen Rynda / January 4, 2013)

By Jon Meoli, jmeoli@tribune.com 6:34 p.m. EST, February 19, 2013  Baltimore Sun

The state Senate's latest attempt to add representation to Baltimore County's Board of Education died again Tuesday morning when Sen. Ed Kasemeyer withdrew his support for the bill, causing a 4-4 deadlock in the Baltimore County delegation's vote.

The story was first reported by Patch.com.

Initially, the bill mirrored what was passed out of the Senate Education, Health and Environmenal Affairs committee last year: Six members of the board would be elected from school board districts drawn by the County Council, while five would remain appointed by the governor. The 12th member would continue to be a Baltimore County Public School student.

Currently, the governor appoints the 12-member school board with input from the Baltimore County executive.

But in recent weeks, amendments stalled it in the county delegation. The bill was amended to restore it to the form the county delegation approved last year, with seven elected members from the county's seven council districts.

But that amendment caused some members to rethink and even change their positions, county school advocate Karl Pfrommer said.

Advocates for adding elected representation to the county school board believed that last year's progress, which saw the Senate bill released from committee on Sine Die without coming to a full vote, would continue to the bill's passage this year.

But just as in past years, concerns about minority representation and a desire to maintain the status quo derailed the bill. Sen. Delores Kelley, whose District 11 includes parts of Catonsville and Woodlawn, has frequently questioned whether a new bill would help or hurt racial diversity on the board.

Additionally, several senators have sided with County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, who has consistently opposed the bill.

Last year, Kamenetz cited the ongoing search for a new superintendent as a reason not to change the board's make-up.

Now that S. Dallas Dance has replaced former Superintendent Joe A. Hairston, Kamenetz said time should be given to the new superintendent and board to see how responsive they are to community concerns.

Del. Steve Lafferty, who represents District 42 including Towson and Timonium and sponsored the companion bill in the House of Delegates, said progress on the House side is moot without a Senate bill reaching the floor as well.

"It's extremely disappointing," Lafferty said, citing the support from organizations like the county League of Women Voters and PTA Council as a reason for optimism this year.

"It takes a number of years to pass good legislation," Lafferty said. "We'll just see that next year's bill is a little stronger."



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WE KNOW THE BALTIMORE BUDGET IS STARVED OF REVENUE, WE KNOW THE FEDERAL BUDGET IS STARVED FOR REVENUE, WE KNOW THE WALL STREET STOCK MARKET IS LEVERAGED BEYOND $600 TRILLION JUST AS IT WAS BEFORE THE 2008 CRASH ONLY WITH MUCH MORE RISK, AND WE KNOW THAT FINANCIAL ANALYSTS ARE CALLING FOR A WORLD-WIDE RECESSION BY YEAR'S END.

WE KNOW THAT THE MUNI-CREDIT BOND MARKET IS MAXED AND ONLY FOOLS WOULD ENTER IT NOW........AND WE KNOW THAT THE CITY OF BALTIMORE IS OWED BILLIONS OF DOLLARS FROM CORPORATE FRAUD AND STATE MISAPPROPRIATION.  SO WHY ARE THE PEOPLE WHO WILL BE HURT MOST BY THIS POLICY STILL SUPPORTING IT?

Baltimore Teacher's Union

- On Feb. 25th, we shall join with other organizations to go to Annapolis to rally in support of the School Construction Bill. If this bill passes, many of the schools that are in serious need of repair will be renovated and there will be new schools built. Sign up with your BR and help us join those school districts with state-of –the art schools. Your students deserve them and so do you.

DO YOU LIKE UNDER ARMOUR WRITING YOUR EDUCATION POLICY WHILE DONATING TO THE PRIVATE NON-PROFIT FOR A TAX WRITE-OFF?  THAT IS HOW MAYOR RAWLINGS-BLAKE AND GOV MARTIN O'MALLEY ROLL.....

  The growing reliance on private money to fund public education Posted on August 15, 2011  New York times

Back in early August a group of private donors, led by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, donated $1.5 million in private funding that will allow students across the state to take the New York State Education Department Regents Exams in January 2012.

This idea of private philanthropists stepping in to help SED meet its responsibility to students has raised eyebrows across the state. On the one hand, there are some who argue that private monies already fund most education in New York — in the form of school taxes. On the other, there is a growing concern that private donors are using philanthropy in a way that pressures government to follow their public policy agendas.

“Regents Pay a Political Price for Their Free Advisers, Dissenters Warn,” an article in today’s New York Times, outlines concerns about New York’s privately funded Regents Fellows program and the role these “free” advisers will play in determining education policy.

Do you think the Fellows program is “a way to add resources and expertise at a time of severe budget cutting” as Chancellor Tisch says? Or should New Yorkers be concerned that the majority of the funding for the program seems to come from folks that are viewed by many in the education reform movement to be advancing an agenda of high-stakes testing and charter schools?


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We want the Baltimore Sun and Alonzo to state clearly the factors that contribute to these dropout statistics because we do not want anyone to think that anything Alonzo is doing is working.  He has been a disaster for the Baltimore City Public School system and we need to shout out the facts.

Whereas we do not want to stigmatize young people as dropouts or not, it is valuable to have data that provide comparable facts.  Look at how dropout is defined now and how it was defined earlier.  Also look at how dropout is defined nationally.  There are no statistics showing this because there is no standard which makes it impossible to determine success.  Teachers have that argument with the evaluation process as well.  Those of us know who do look at this is that students now attending alternative classes outside of the brick and mortar schools that would never qualify as public school graduate worthy are now designated as such.  It is good to get students into these programs no doubt but to delute the standards for public school graduation just to move this statistic up is not good.  We see this with MD Public School Assess as well.  If you look at the rigor of these tests some decades ago and look now you will see the decline in rigor as relates to the uptick in state performance statistics.  It is a gimmick that does not provide quality ed, it provides a political sound bite.


City schools report card Our view: Fewer dropouts suggests schools CEO Andrés Alonso's reforms are producing results 12:05 p.m. EST, February 14, 2013  Baltimore Sun

The latest statistics from the Maryland State Department of Education show Baltimore City making steady progress toward increasing the number of students who finish high school. Last year city schools awarded 149 more diplomas than in 2011, and the city's 3.3 percentage point decline in dropouts was the largest in the region. That's great news for all the teachers, principals and school staff who have worked so hard to get the city's schools back on track.

Since his arrival in Baltimore six years ago, schools CEO Andrés Alonso has made boosting high school graduation rates a priority of his reform effort, and during that period the schools' dropout rate has declined by more than half. That's an astonishing achievement in a city where for decades barely half the class of entering ninth-graders managed to graduate four years later. Though the city's current dropout rate of 14.1 percent remains higher than the state's best-performing school systems, for the first time in recent memory it has begun to approach those of neighboring districts such as Anne Arundel, Harford and Baltimore counties.

State schools Superintendent Lillian Lowery was right in saying neither Baltimore nor Maryland as a whole can afford to rest on its laurels. But as she said, "the new data indicates we are on the right road," and we need to stay on it.

In Baltimore, the improvements have grown out of what Mr. Alonso has called thousands of hours of "unbelievably hard work" by hundreds of principals, teachers and staff who have devoted themselves to keeping as many students as possible involved in their studies until they earn diplomas. The cornerstone of reform has been a systematic, long-term reduction in the number of out-of-school student suspensions and in rates of absenteeism and chronic truancy. Mr. Alonso's team clearly deserves an "A" for that effort.

The schools chief has insisted from the beginning that kicking troublesome kids out of class rarely solves anything, because when they return — if they come back at all — they're even less likely to stick it out until graduation day. Instead, he has urged principals to adopt alternatives to suspension as a disciplinary tactic, such as in-school, after-school and weekend detention programs that keep students out of trouble and engaged with school without depriving them of valuable instructional time.

Mr. Alonso has also encouraged school administrators to coax chronically absent and truant students back to the classroom, if necessary by tracking them down at home with personal appeals to parents, relatives and caregivers. Kids who are chronically absent or truant are half as likely to graduate as those who show up regularly, but often students stay away due to circumstances beyond their control. They may have medical or dental problems or issues regarding homelessness or abuse. Connecting such students with services that help them cope can make it easier for them to return to school.

Meanwhile, Baltimore must direct more resources toward early childhood education and the elementary school grades so that students are properly prepared for the academic and social challenges they will face during their middle and high school years. Students who have to struggle to keep up in middle school usually continue to struggle in high school, but many of those difficulties can be avoided if children are exposed early on to enrichment programs that begin in pre-kindergarten and extend throughout the K-8 curriculum.

Finally, a long-debated change in state law approved last year will gradually increase the age of compulsory school attendance from 15 to 17. The legislature should have gone further and required attendance until students turn 18, but the new law nonetheless sends a powerful signal to young people that the state has an important interest in seeing more of them graduate. High school dropouts are more likely to be unemployed than graduates, and they earn less money, live less healthy lives and are more likely to be incarcerated than their better-educated peers — all of which costs the city, state and federal government dearly in terms of increased social services costs.

Overall, the evidence suggests that the reforms put in place by Mr. Alonso since 2007 are working to benefit hundreds of additional students each year whose prospects for going on to college or the work world have brightened immeasurably. Now the school system needs to work just as hard to keep up the momentum for change that produced that happy result.


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WE THANK THE BALTIMORE TEACHERS WHO ARE STANDING UP AND SHOUTING OUT AGAINST THIS WALL STREET EDUCATION AND PRIVATIZATION SCHEME OF EVALUATION AND DATA COLLECTION THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH QUALITY EDUCATION AND EVERYTHING TO DO WITH TRACKING STUDENTS AND SELLING YET MORE PERSONAL DATA FOR PROFIT!!!



Issue: February 11, 2012Open Letter on Student TestingGarfield High School teachers announce boycott of MAP tests. (Source: Ann Dornfeld/NPR)Educators for Democratic Schools11 February 2013 - 00:00 ESTTo Teachers, Students, Parents, and citizens:

As teachers, and as activists for social justice, Educators for Democratic Schools is proudly in solidarity with all teachers, parents and students who are standing up to the madness of standardized testing. The teachers of Garfield High School and two other schools in Seattle, WA, have our love and support as they bravely risk their jobs and more by refusing to administer the Washington State Exams. We support the decisions of those educators because we, too, believe that these tests are harmful to students, and are being used to degrade the quality of education in this country in three major ways.

First, state testing is extremely disruptive to the cycle of learning. Hundreds of hours are wasted each year in Baltimore City Schools, as mandatory test preparations are given precedence over student-centered inquiry and learning. Even just administration of exams takes a minimum of 200 hours each school year, and in many cases more. Many students find this stressful, and resent the time taken away from real learning.

Second, tests are being used in ways they were never intended. Standardized tests are designed to give educators information about our students. Instead, they are being used to give politicians information about schools and teachers. As W. James Popham suggests in his report to the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, “Employing standardized achievement tests to ascertain educational quality is like measuring temperature with a tablespoon.” Furthermore, many students, parents, and teachers feel like guinea pigs in an elaborate science experiment designed to find ways to chart “effectiveness,” not increase it. That the charts are being drawn incorrectly—much of the data is being misrepresented, making American Education seem much less effective than it is—adds insult to injury.

Finally, these tests are one of many ways that education and other public services are being privatized. Corporations like Pearson and ETS collect billions of dollars for creating, packaging, and in some cases scoring the exams. Then, if schools don’t meet Adequate Yearly Progress, as defined by the No Child Left Behind legislation, they are often closed down and reopened as semi-private charter schools, which takes money, resources and control away from the public.

It is important to note that we are not opposed to all testing, and that we give tests in our classrooms and find them to be important instructional tools when used correctly. The Garfield High School teachers are continuing to test students as usual, with the exception of the MAP standardized tests required by the state, and we support them in their commitment to responsible testing. Although some mainstream journals, such as Education Week, are trying to portray the boycott as narrowly focused on this particular standardized test, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, in a rare show of true solidarity, officially widened the scope. She told Education Week, “It's broader than just this MAP test. What you have is a system where assessment and data collection are more important than teaching and learning, and that is wrong."

Our students deserve better. There are many more effective ways of measuring learning, such as student portfolios. They will take more time, and will not so easily translate into charts and graphs for the media to proliferate. We at Educators for Democratic Schools know that our students are worth the time. We also know that countries that trust their teachers have better results than those that narrowly rely on these failed exams.

Montgomery County, our close neighbor, has two great distinctions: they have one of the top education programs in the country, and they just agreed to a three year moratorium on standardized testing. They have this luxury because they do not rely on federal funds from Race to the Top, which requires districts not only to administer these tests, but to use them to evaluate teachers.

EDS supports our more fortunate neighbors as well as these courageous teachers in Seattle and the growing number of parents officially relieving their children from the burdens of these tests. We encourage all teachers, students and parents to think critically about why we believe in education, and what we’re willing to do to ensure that we are preparing the next generation to do more than just serve and consume.

                    In Solidarity,

                    Educators for Democratic Schools
                    A Caucus in the Baltimore Teacher’s Union


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Voices From DC: Speaking Up for Schools and a Quality Education in Communities of Color
Tuesday, 05 February 2013 13:12 By Tolu Olorunda, Truthout | Video Essay

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(Image: Teaching Class via Shutterstock)Parents, students, teachers and board members from school districts around the US converged on the nation's capital to protest school closures and education reforms that adversely impact minority communities. Here are some of their stories.

On Tuesday, January 29, representatives from more than a dozen minority school districts from across the nation gathered at the Department of Education (DOE) in Washington, DC to protest school closures they say disproportionately impact low-income students in black and brown communities.

Those who attended the DOE hearing on educational justice and civil rights included students, parents, school board members and activists who spoke with one voice to deliver the message that their stories are the same, that Jim Crow is alive and that they're "fired up - [and] won't take it no more."

The protestors represented cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, New York, New Jersey, Oakland, Boston, Baltimore, and Washington which in recent years have been hard hit with turnarounds, phase-outs and school closures that siphon valuable resources from public schools into private and public-private (charter) ventures, entrusting the education of low-income students to corporations and foundations.

The hearing lasted about three hours, and was followed by a rally and march to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. memorial, where they held a short vigil.

Below are videos of individual testimony from some of the participants:

Cheyenne Walker on Student Organizing and Seeking Justice

Cheyenne Walker, a student formerly at Central High School in Detroit (EAA), ended her testimony this way: "I hear people saying all the time that this generation is lost and this generation is failing. But this generation is not lost; this generation has been neglected. And if we're failing, it's because you guys have failed us."

She told personal stories of going to school with only three teachers for seven of her classes; she spoke of classrooms brimming with 67 to 73 pupils, where students took attendance, listened to music, played cards.

While at Central, Walker had co-organized a petition drive and a stay-at-home action with students to address the grossly separate and unequal conditions of the school. She also went to parent meetings to mobilize for more resources and teachers. The response from her principal was a hostile confrontation.

"I'm a senior and I feel this is my most important year, and I should be preparing for college; but instead I spend days stressing over my learning environment. Why do we have to deal with this? Why do I have to deal with this?"

Terrell Major On Recovery School District, School Closings and Charter Schools in New Orleans

Terrell Major is a graduating senior at Walter L. Cohen High School in New Orleans, Louisiana. He spoke about the Recovery School District (RSD), imposed on New Orleans post-Katrina, effectively wiping out the neighborhood public schools that, however imperfect, thrived before the storm. As a consequence, of the 42,000 students in New Orleans today, 80 percent attend charter schools.

"In our city, low-income families that send their children to school get treated like second-rate citizens," Major said. "What we came here for is to file our civil rights complaints with the US Department of Education because we feel like we've been discriminated against in the school system with the Recovery School District coming in and taking over our schools, phasing them out, closing them out because they say we have low performance."

The bitter irony: 100 percent of the 15 direct-run RSD schools are currently rated "D" or "F," as are 79 percent of the RSD charter schools.

"I wish to get my point across to the US Department of Education ... that this is discrimination and it is going against our civil rights," Major continued. "I just hope that our schools could get back to the way they used to be, being public schools, where you actually have a choice and the community has an input in what goes on in these schools."

Saeda Washington, Youth Leader, defines "Sabotage"

Saeda Washington, a staff member and leader at Youth United for Change, Philadelphia, defines "sabotage" and its correlation with school reform. "To me, sabotage is using our youth as collateral damage," she said. "Sabotage is when you close 37 schools that are in black and brown communities, and none of them in the suburbs."

Antonio Harris, From Detroit, Speaks on Fighting for the Future

This young student activist briefly makes the connections between school closings and the sort of future awaiting children denied a quality education. He also touches on the sense of abandonment many young people feel, having so much to fight for, yet so few fighting with them.

Violet Sims, Parent From Connecticut, on School Closings and Reform

Violet Sims is a parent advocate from Connecticut, representing the organization CT Parent Power.

In Connecticut, Sims said, public schools are facing pressures of turnaround and state takeover, which forces most schools into discriminatory practices like teaching to the test and tracking, abandoning many students and failing in providing "real education or creating a well-rounded student."

Public schools are drained of funds, students and resources, which are then funneled into charter and magnet systems, even while the schools are consistently shown to perform no better - if not worse, as in some cases - than public schools in the same districts.

Sims also talked about a lack of concern on a local level, which spurred her trip to DC to join a bigger movement sharing the same struggle.

"Reform should be an involved process where the community is involved, the parents are involved, the teachers - no one listens to the teachers that are in the trenches, dealing with students every day and knowing what they need and what support would help students succeed," she said. "Effective reform needs to stop being top-down, basically, and include the people at the bottom who know their struggle and know what could be best for them."

Jitu Brown on Helen Moore: "This is Our Sojourner Truth."

Jitu Brown, Chicago rap pioneer and education organizer for the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO), recognizes the value of Helen Moore to the struggle.

"This is our Sojourner Truth," Brown said. "This is our Harriet Tubman. This is our Mary McLeod Bethune. And so we don't have to open a book because every day, she writes a new chapter."

Moore has been an education advocate for more than 40 years. During her testimony at the Department of Education, Moore spoke against the dismantling of community control in Detroit and many other minority school districts across the country: "We send our children to the schools. They are our schools; they are our children; it is our money. And that is my attitude over all these years."

As a social worker and graduate of the law school at the University of Detroit, she has been involved in longtime organizing on behalf of Detroit's children, working with Rosa Parks for many years and filing a lawsuit against the state takeover of Detroit public schools in the late 1990s. She is also the mother of three boys and one girl.



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This is happening in all states and especially in Maryland.  All state and local debt is being financed in what are called municipal credit bond loans that will see interest payments inflate as this market bubble is about to burst......just like the subprime loan market.  All pension funding is being thrown into this credit bond market as are public assets like schools and parks.  What happens when all of these public assets are exposed to the next major economic collapse.....predicted very soon?  THAT'S RIGHT.....LOCAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS CAN'T PAY AND WALL STREET GETS OWNERSHIP....PENSIONS JUST DISAPPEAR.  Your Third Way corporate pols are working to hand public assets over to Wall Street just as they allowed the subprime loan market to thrive with massive fraud.  THE MONEY IS THERE WITHOUT THE DEBT!!!

DID YOU HEAR YOUR INCUMBENT SHOUTING THERE WAS MASSIVE FRAUD IN THE MORTGAGE MARKET?  DO YOU HEAR THEM SHOUTING THAT THE MUNICIPAL BOND MARKET IS READY TO BURST?  RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES NEXT ELECTIONS.


School budget cuts: 100% funding if CAFR billions, trillions disclosed
By Carl_Herman on January 31, 2013 10:58 pm /  TRUTH OUT

 Our high school principal asked our staff what suggestions we have to address our school and district’s budget cuts. You are welcome to adapt and share my response:

SRVHS budget/$ concerns versus California’s off-budget surplus billions, trillions

Dear Ruth and Social Science colleagues,

At our staff meeting, Ruth spoke of our parents contributing ~$1 million of their own money, and opened conversation for our staff to address our #1 issue of money and improved budgeting. I am willing to contribute a detailed response. I invite you to invest the time to read the following and/or allow me to brief you over a lunch or your conference period (I’m available periods 1-3 this semester), because I can document an existing solution.

As you may know, last April I was one of six international speakers at the Claremont Colleges’ monetary reform conference. We addressed this very topic of decreasing public budgets and increasing debt, and three areas of proven historical solutions. I’ll address one with you now.

This solution is professional economic cost-benefit analyses of California’s off-budget ~$600 billion in surplus taxpayer cash and investments. Professional and public consideration will conclude structural changes would instantly fully fund California’s budget. This $600 billion is disclosed in California’s 2011 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). About $100 billion is in cash, and $500 billion for investments claimed to fund California public pensions. To put this in perspective, our SRVUSD budget cuts are part of California’s budget deficit of $16 billion.

The page numbers with detailed account surpluses for our state’s CAFR are here.

Moreover, the current $27 billion state pension cost only received $1 billion net income from our $500 billion investment fund, with fund managers paid over $2 billion. The good news is that these colossal funds are unknown to the general public, and could be restructured to easily fully fund California’s budget. The great news is that data-sampling of California’s various 14,000 governmental agencies’ CAFRs show a grand total of $8 trillion in surplus taxpayer accounts (Los Angeles County = $66 billion, City of Los Angeles = $38 billion). This data is explained and documented with CAFR page numbers in the bullet points here.

This $8 trillion data-sampled estimate of California’s total taxpayer asset surpluses means that each of California’s ~12 million households has ~$650,000 in government-held surplus accounts. 

I know that this is news to you. What this means is if our district coordinates a political response with other school districts and interested parties, we can have these accounts known to the public and reconsidered to maximize public benefits.

Colleagues: I’m happy to sit down with anyone to explain and point to the documentation of these surplus assets. My suggestion is for a responsible party at the district and/or school board to be briefed by me, verify the data, and initiate a coordinated district response. 

If it helps to consider the value of investigating this data, please recall that I was a leader in an organization (RESULTS) that worked with both Republican and Democratic parties’ leadership for 18 years that led to two UN Summits for heads of state. We were, and still are, the principal proponent for microcredit (topic of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize). I have worked with policy that literally saves millions of human lives in the extremely complex issue of ending poverty. This history may suggest my capacity to reliably present economic data for professional and public consideration. And that said, as educators of objective facts, the real power of this data is anyone can independently verify its accuracy. I promise that you will easily understand this data when you see it.