Walton Family Foundation charter schools

STOP THE PRESSES! The NYT ran a cover story today on how the Walton Family Foundation has provided enormous support to charter schools and other ed reform efforts across the country.

 

I must say, I began to read the story with some trepidation, worried about a hatchet job, but the article is fair – yes, it has some critics repeating the usual myths, but it quotes supporters as well.

 

What the Waltons have done puts them in the philanthropy hall of fame. Whether you agree or disagree with their agenda, their impact has been extraordinary. It is impossible to overstate it. I've had a front-row seat for many years and can say with certainty that the ed reform movement would be much smaller and less successful, impactful and influential than it is today without the Walton Foundation's support. Most importantly, MILLIONS of kids have a brighter future today because of the Waltons' generosity.

 

My favorite quote in the article:

"Those who want to criticize any philanthropy group for giving money to kids to change their futures," said Dr. Clark, "there's something wrong with them."

The expected quote from Randi:

"What they're doing in terms of education is they're trying to create an alternative system and destabilize what has been the anchor of American democracy," said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the country's second-largest teachers union.

My response: Your union, Randi, has been a major contributor to the rise and entrenchment of an ineffective, unjust system that, rather than anchoring American democracy, is destabilizing it. It's a system that provides a mediocre education to the middle 60% of students and a catastrophic failure to the bottom 20% – almost entirely poor, minority students – the ones who most need great schools and teachers to escape the circumstances into which they were born, yet we instead stick them with the worst.

 

Re. Dennis Van Roeckel's comment:

"Any foundation that invests the money has to ask themselves, is their money impacting the system as a whole?" said Dennis Van Roeckel, president of the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union.

My response: I certainly hope so!

Newark’s mayoral election

With Newark's mayoral election less than a month away (on May 13^th), I can't emphasize how important it is that we reformers step up and support my friend Shavar Jeffries, about whom I wrote a month ago:http://edreform.blogspot.com/2014/04/shavar-jeffries-for-mayor-of-newark.html. He's rapidly closing the gap and I think he'll win, but only if he can raise money to get his message out, so please watch his latest campaign video and donate here: https://act.myngp.com/Forms/-952792796165570560

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s support for universal vouchers

Yesterday's email about Sen. Elizabeth Warren's support for universal vouchers elicited lots of feedback (goodness how I love stirring the pot!), including (from a friend in Massachusetts) "No one I know is sure where she stands on charter schools." and plenty of skepticism, such as: "Oh, c'mon  Whitney. Senator Warren probably also supports letting people use different branches of the U.S. Postal System. This is not reform. These are not vouchers. This is not serious."

 

So, let's acknowledge that she hasn't been much of an ed reformer (so far) and her view of vouchers only gives parents choices within the public school system – but I still think it's a big deal when someone as prominent and progressive (read: far to the left) as Elizabeth Warren: a) acknowledges the vast and outrageous inequalities among our public schools (and, of course, that the poor and minorities are almost always the ones getting shafted), and b) favors empowering parents by giving them more choices (rather than the current status quo, in which poor parents have only one choice: send their children to the nearby public school, even if it has been dismally students for decades)…

Diane Ravitch on Sen. Warren

The most interesting feedback was from Ravitch, who posted this (clearly in response to my email):

Elizabeth Warren and I

By dianeravitch

April 16, 2014 //

http://dianeravitch.net/2014/04/16/elizabeth-warren-and-i

I have recently read that Senator Elizabeth Warren is a supporter of school vouchers. This made people who despise public schools, like certain hedge fund managers, tingle with joy. At last, a progressive who is as contemptuous of public education as they are! At last, someone who will support their efforts to dismantle our nation's precious democratic institution whose doors are open to all.

About a month ago, I visited Senator Warren in her office in Washington, and she said without reservation that this was untrue.

She told me that she was, like me, a graduate of public schools. Without public education, she said, she would not be where she is today.

I gave her a copy of "Reign of Error," which she promised to read.

Since I am writing this on an iPad from Louisville, I can't figure out how to add the photo of me and Warren, holding the book. But I will tweet it.

I hope to hear from her again. More on this when I do.

Hedge fund managers, don't be so sure of yourselves. You can't buy everyone.

It's absolutely classic Ravitch: filled with anger, attacks and misrepresentations. Specifically:

 

A) "people who despise public schools, like certain hedge fund managers". I find it so ironic when Ravitch calls for people to tone things down when she's writing utter crap like this. I have never written that Ravitch "despises children and tingles with joy when her union buddies successfully screw them by protecting teachers who are sexual predators", so let's be clear who's dragging the debate into the gutter. And I and my fellow hedge fund managers and ed reformers love public schools – that's why we're fighting so hard to improve them – and against actions the unions take that turn our schools into something out of the longshoreman's union handbook.

B) Re. "whose doors are open to all", see the article below about whose doors are REALLY open to all.

 

C) Before we turn to Ravitch's account of her meeting with Sen. Warren, keep in mind that one would be well advised to treat Ravitch's descriptions of any meetings she has with a healthy degree of skepticism, in light of her completely fabricated, defamatory story about her meeting with RI Ed Superintendent (and ed reform warrior) Deb Gist in 2011, in which she initially claimed that Gist "interrupted me whenever I spoke, and filibustered to use up the limited time…Gist continued to cut me off. In many years of meeting with public officials, I have never encountered such rudeness and incivility. I am waiting for an apology." Unfortunately for Ravitch, a documentary film crew had it all on tape – a tape that to this day, Ravitch refuses to allow them to release (Gist wants it released). See my coverage of this here, here, here, here and here.

 

D) So with that in mind, Ravitch writes that Sen. Warren "said without reservation that this was untrue". Hmmm, what does Ravitch mean by "this"? Did she ask Sen. Warren whether she supports hedge fund managers' "efforts to dismantle our nation's precious democratic institution whose doors are open to all"? If so, I would hope that Sen. Warren said no!

 

E) "She told me that she was, like me, a graduate of public schools. Without public education, she said, she would not be where she is today." I'm glad to hear it! I'm sure she's also in favor of the flag, motherhood and apple pie. But what does this have to do with Sen. Warren's support of parental choice?

 

F) "Hedge fund managers, don't be so sure of yourselves. You can't buy everyone." Ah yes, the "hedge-fund-managers-buy-every-politician" myth. I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's not an opinion, but a provable FACT that we reformers, even if you count the big foundations, are outmanned and outspent – not by a little, but by A LOT – by the unions/Blob.

Sen. Warren’s support for parental choice

Here's another article about Sen. Warren's support for parental choice:

The headlines write themselves. Warren agrees with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA); pigs fly; hell freezes over.

The idea that unites Warren and Cantor: Allow students to attend any public school in their area, regardless of where they live. In other words, get rid of neighborhood schools, with their traditionally small attendance areas.

Warren argues this would decouple school quality from property values. A school in a wealthy subdivision would no longer be better than a school in a poor one. Students would be assigned based on their interests and preferences, not their family income.

It's a familiar idea. Cantor attached an amendment to an overhaul of No Child Left Behind last summer that would have allowed students to take their federal money with them to attend the public school of their choice.

But, philosophically, Cantor and Warren are very different. And Warren's views aren't entirely out of step with the education reform wing of the Democratic party.

The key word here is 'public'

"School choice" — the idea that public education ought to include options for students and parents beyond just the neighborhood school — is a big tent, one that contains Cantor, Warren, President Obama, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Sen. Cory Booker, Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Rand Paul.

…Meanwhile, Warren's vision could become reality in Washington, DC, which is mulling the end of neighborhood schools.

How selective – and unequal – the NYC public school system is – in marked contrast to charter schools

James Merriman, the chief executive officer of the New York City Charter School Center, with a powerful op ed in today's NY Daily News about how selective – and unequal – the NYC public school system is – in marked contrast to charter schools:

Most New Yorkers are familiar with velvet ropes, the ones that can keep hopeful clubgoers waiting for hours to be admitted — and that, for the rich and the beautiful, are whisked aside.

But while we expect exclusivity in private life in New York City, it is startling to see the same phenomenon at work in our most public institution, the public-school system. With admission to gifted and talented schools now in process, thousands of New York City families have their noses pressed against the glass of public establishments their children are not able to enter.

And that curious feeling of being kept out doesn't stop with just a handful of our schools. Between formally selective admissions policies and economically restrictive enrollment zones, many schools are effectively off-limits, particularly to our low-income families — surrounded, as it were, by invisible velvet ropes.

A look at New York City's enrollment guides finds these velvet ropes everywhere, not just confined to the selective high schools like Stuyvesant that get almost all the attention.

In middle and high school, fully one in three seats are in schools with a selective admissions process. Let that sink in.

Most elementary schools admit students from a neighborhood enrollment zone, but these zones reflect the same dramatic inequalities of access as the housing market itself. As Senator Elizabeth Warren recently wrote, "Schools in middle-class neighborhoods may be labeled 'public,' but parents have paid for tuition by purchasing a $175,000 home within a carefully selected school district."

(To see the private side of public education, just try changing the lines of an affluent school zone and listen to parents describe how much they spent to buy their way into the school zone.)

In the context of such a deeply stratified system, it's easier to judge the true role played by public charter schools, all of which admit their students by random lottery and without regard to academic record — except when, as ever more frequently happens, they request and receive an exemption to give preferences to students at risk of academic failure, such as students who are in foster care or who are behind academically.

As a result, and despite a lot of rhetoric to the contrary, most of it by the teachers unions and their paid-for front groups, charter schools serve a genuinely progressive function, providing disadvantaged families some of the city's best combinations of accessibility and quality.

Support for teachers

I'm not the only one tired of hearing that we reformers hate teachers (when precisely the opposite is true). Here's TFA alum and writer Conor Williams, a Senior Researcher in New America's Early Education Initiative, who tells of his own (mediocre) educational experience and how he was mugged and beaten to within an inch of his life while walking home from school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn during his second year of teaching:

I write about American public education for a living. As someone who cares profoundly about inequality and the state of social mobility in the United States, I've come to truly love my work.

But it's time for me to confess: I am a "teacher hater." I'm also bent on "undermining public education" in service of my "corporate overlords." Or, at least, that's what my inbox tells me every time I write something about charter schools, Teach For America, or education politics in general.

And while unsolicited hostility is part and parcel of the politics writing game these days, this particular line of attack cuts particularly deep.

Look: I went to pretty dodgy public schools for my entire K-12 career. My hometown's schools were — and are — admirably racially and socioeconomically diverse. When I arrived at college, I was shocked to find out from others relating their K-12 experiences that this degree of racial integration remains a rarity in American school districts.

Unfortunately, the schools were also academically moribund. Paradoxically, this is how I learned to love teachers; for every great instructor I had, I suffered through countless classes where significant learning was only a fantasy.

When people tell me that the "education reform" movement is a corporate enterprise run by wealthy adults who scorn teachers, I'm genuinely confused. I consider myself part of the education reform movement because I know the dire state of American public school instruction. I know the difference that great teaching can make—because it was so rare in my schooling. Those outstanding few were my heroes.

…But — like most TFA teachers — that wasn't my approach. Nor was it my reason for leaving.

Rather, I left because I woke up bleeding in the hospital one fall night during my second year of teaching. I'd been found face-down and wallet-free on a street corner on the walk to the subway stop near my school. I barely remembered leaving our building—let alone how I'd been attacked.

I missed two days of school — one in the hospital, and one at the precinct, filing a report. Those were the first two days I'd missed since becoming a teacher.

Most of the scars aren't visible (though I have a few persistent marks on my face). But the physical recovery has taken years. The post-concussion symptoms were particularly brutal; I had months of headaches and developed an incessant eye twitch. The rest of my body wasn't spared: I limped on bruised knees for weeks after the attack.

…I'm tired of being told that I have no standing in these debates, or that I hate teachers. You want to have a debate on the merits? Fine. But don't accuse me of being disingenuous. Because I care about public education, and I have the teaching scars to prove it.

Balanced article in NYT about the Vergara case

A balanced article in today's NYT about the Vergara case, whose importance can't be underestimated:

These are two vastly different portraits of California's education system. In one, poor and minority students are frequently placed in front of incompetent teachers whose blackboards are filled with basic misspellings and who play irrelevant movies instead of devising lesson plans for class time. In the other, the vast majority of teachers are providing students with all they need to learn, and well-run school districts are able to ferret out and dismiss the ones who are not.

For more than two months, lawyers have been arguing in state court over whether California's laws governing teacher tenure, firing and layoffs violate students' constitutional right to an education. And by the beginning of July, Rolf Treu, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, will deliver the first legal ruling on the case, which has attracted national attention. In states around the country, opponents of tenure rules, who have tried and largely failed to bring about changes through state legislatures, are looking to this case as a test of whether taking their arguments to court could prove more successful.

Ravitch’s take on the Vergara lawsuit

Here's Ravitch's take on the Vergara lawsuit:

the Vergara trial, in which a rich and powerful coalition of corporate reformers are trying to eliminate due process rights for teachers.

In the end, he argues, the outcome of the trial won't change much for poor kids.

If the plaintiffs win, some very good veteran teachers may be fired to save money.

The legislature will enact some new laws, perhaps basing layoffs on "effectiveness" (i.e. test scores) rather than due process, but as we know from the recent report of the American Statistical Association, test-based accountability (VAM) is fraught with problems and will end up stigmatizing those who teach in high-poverty schools

… My view: the trial continues the blame game favored by the Obama administration and the billionaire boys' club, in which they blame "bad" teachers as the main culprit in low academic performance.

You can always tell the strength of someone's argument by how they defend their point of view – so if this is the best Ravitch's got, then I'm feeling very bullish. Just the usual attacks and clichés, and nowhere does she address, much less defend, the three things this case is about: a) how quickly and easily teachers get tenure; b) how utterly impossible it is to fire a teacher once he/she "earns" tenure; and c) how doing layoffs via LIFO (last-in-first-out) completely screws kids, especially poor and minority ones. This case is NOT about eliminating all due process or teachers rights – just bringing the pendulum back toward the middle from the insane extreme it's at now.

Larry Sand in City Journal on the insanity of tenure as practiced in California

Here's Larry Sand in City Journal on the insanity of tenure as practiced in California (and pretty much all public schools):

In California, a public school teacher can be fired at any time without cause during the first two years of employment. After that, however, about 98 percent of teachers manage to attain tenure—or, more accurately, "permanence." Principals make tenure decisions in March of a teacher's second year, which means they have to decide whether to offer such job security to employees with just 16 months on the job. A good case could be made that college and university professors need job protections—the academic freedom to conduct possibly controversial research and to teach without administrative meddling is vital. But can the same be said for elementary and high school teachers?

That question is at the heart of a lawsuit underway in Los Angeles, where a group of nine students is challenging the legality of California's permanence, seniority, and dismissal statutes. The trial in Vergara v. California concluded late last month; Superior Court judge Rolf Treu will issue a ruling by July 10. If the students prevail, several union-backed statutes will be eliminated from the education code and declared unconstitutional. It would then be up to each school district to come up with its own policies on tenure and seniority.

Protecting teachers from being fired because of race, political views, pregnancy, or personal appearance is justifiable. But after those basic protections were enshrined in law decades ago, labor leaders pushed legislators to expand rights and entitlements for public school teachers—at the expense of educating kids. In the last ten years, only 91 teachers out of about 300,000 (.003 percent) who have attained permanence lost their jobs in California. Of those, only 19 (.0007 percent) have been dismissed for poor performance. Is it possible that Golden State teachers are that good? Such an astronomical permanence rate doesn't square with the performance of California's fourth- and eighth-graders, whose scores on National Assessment of Educational Progress tests persistently rank near the bottom.

That so many unworthy teachers remain on the job is a disgrace, and most teachers know it.

LIFO

 And here's Larry Sand on the insanity of LIFO:

Despite bellyaching from the union crowd, the California education code's last in/first out (LIFO) statute must be tossed.

California's fiscal problems have taken a toll on the teaching profession in California. And the Golden State's arbitrary seniority system, whereby staffing decisions are made by time spent on the job, has made things much worse. A recent Sacramento Bee story spells out the details:

Young teachers have become far more scarce in California classrooms after school districts slashed their budgets to survive the recession.

From 2008 to 2013, California saw a 40 percent drop in teachers with less than six years' experience, according to a Sacramento Bee review of state data.

As the state cut funding, districts laid off teachers with the least seniority and stopped hiring new applicants. Those employment practices, in turn, discouraged college students from pursuing the profession in California, as enrollment in teaching programs fell by 41 percent between 2008 and 2012. (Emphasis added.)

Not surprisingly, while traditional public schools have been taking a beating, charters – which are rarely unionized and don't honor seniority – have flourished. In fact, there are over 50,000 kids on charter school wait lists in California.

Charter schools educate about 10 percent of Sacramento County's students, but last year they employed 40 percent of the region's first- and second-year teachers. Teachers at five schools in the Sacramento City Unified District – all charters – averaged less than five years in the profession in 2013. They were Capitol Collegiate Academy, Sol Aureus College Preparatory, Yav Pem Suab Academy, St. Hope Public School 7 and Oak Park Preparatory Academy.

Studies that have been done on seniority have nothing good to say about it. For example, The New Teacher Project found that only 13 to 16 percent of the teachers laid off in a seniority-based system would also be cut under a system based on teacher effectiveness.

 

The nonpartisan California Legislative Analyst Office found that basing employment decisions on the number of years served instead of teachers' performance "can lead to lower quality of the overall teacher workforce." 

 

Also, by not using seniority, fewer teachers would need to be laid off. Due to the step-and- column method of paying teachers, veteran teachers, whether they deserve to or not, make considerably more than younger ones.

Standards in NYC are being weakened

An article about how standards in NYC are already being weakened:

So it is with the collapse of standards. What started as a trickle is now a gusher wiping away the tentative progress on accountability.

The biggest blow came with an innocuous-sounding press release from city Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña. She announced a new promotion policy for grades 3 through 8 that "takes the temperature down around testing" while allowing "educators to make decisions about the students they know best while maintaining high standards."

In plain English, that means that even if tests show Johnny can't read, we're giving him a gold star and sending him on to the next grade, where he'll fall further behind before being passed on again. That's the gist of social promotion, and it's now ­official city policy.

Mayor de Blasio later boasted of the move, saying, "We're ­going to in every way we can move away from high-stakes testing."

Presumably, that means he favors low-stakes testing, which is testing that doesn't matter. Welcome to the new mayor's education plan, where he'll be able to claim victory because failure has been outlawed.

Sadly, Gotham isn't alone. Across the state, too many students and too many teachers couldn't measure up to tougher standards, so the bar is being lowered or stashed in the closet.

NYS Education Commissioner John King

Thank goodness NYS Ed Commissioner John King is standing strong! (And kudos to Arne Duncan for supporting him!)

New York state's education commissioner, John B. King Jr., who has faced sharp criticism over the rollout of new tests and teacher evaluations, went on the offensive Thursday, vowing to push ahead with higher standards for students.

"We are not—not—going backward," Mr. King told a packed Manhattan room of more than 200 students, faculty and others at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. "We are not retreating."

…Expressing his support, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan introduced Mr. King at the event, saying he saw an "amazing opportunity" for the city and state "to help lead the country where we need to go" by expanding preschool, refining teacher evaluations and enforcing higher academic standards, known as the Common Core.

Jeb Bush's support for Common Core

Nate Silver on polling which shows that Jeb Bush's support for the Common Core won't hurt him among Republicans

The case against Bush, as articulated by Ben Smith of BuzzFeed, turns mainly on the notion that Bush's moderate stances on immigration and education could prove problematic in the primaries.

According to the polls, however, Republican views on both issues are more flexible than Smith and other news media commentators might assume. This post will look at the polling on education reform — specifically, support for the Common Core, which Bush has championed and which sets a set of recommendations for what students should know in kindergarten through high school.

 

By the way, I really hope Bush runs and gets the nomination, even though that reduces the chances of Hillary (or another Democrat) winning. He's smart, thoughtful, moderate – and really passionate about ed reform (with a track record as governor to back it up – for more, see the slides I posted here: www.tilsonfunds.com/FLEdReform-9-11.pdf) 

Rein in abuses of for-profit education institutions

A spot-on editorial in the NYT today on how the DOE needs to stand strong on regulations to rein in the abuses in for-profit higher ed:

The for-profit industry is fighting hard against even the more limited proposed rules, and it is lobbying Congress to stop them. It claims that the new federal requirements would limit educational opportunity, particularly for poor minority students who might not qualify for traditional private or public colleges. The facts, however, show that for-profit schools often hurt the poor by luring them into questionable programs that cost considerably more than comparable courses of study at community colleges.

According to federal data, graduates of two-year, for-profit career training programs average a loan debt of $23,590. By contrast, most community-college graduates owe nothing.

The Department of Education recently reported that, of the thousands of for-profit programs it analyzed, an astonishing 72 percent produced graduates who, on average, earned less than a high school dropout who worked full time. This means that the most debt-ridden students are unlikely to earn enough to ever repay their loans. While students at for-profit colleges are 13 percent of the total higher education enrollment, they account for nearly half of all student loan defaults.

The department's analysis, which covered both for-profit and nonprofit career programs, found that 98 percent of the students enrolled in the lowest-performing programs are in for-profit schools.

Catholic Schools

Good to see this lifeline for Catholic schools:

American parochial schools from Westchester County to Washington State are becoming magnets for the offspring of Chinese real estate tycoons, energy executives and government officials. The schools are aggressively recruiting them, flying admissions officers to China, hiring agencies to produce glossy brochures in Chinese, and putting up web pages with eye-catching photos of blond, tousled-haired students gamboling around with their beaming Chinese classmates.

The students, some of whom pay more than five times as much as local students, are infusing an international sensibility into these schools, and helping with their often-battered finances after many have suffered steep declines in enrollment.

Kristof on our education system

 Kristof on how our educational system is one of the things dragging us down (and kudos to my friend and mentor HBS Prof. Michael Porter for developing this measurement system; and he's no leftie – he's a Republican):

We in the United States grow up celebrating ourselves as the world's most powerful nation, the world's richest nation, the world's freest and most blessed nation.

Sure, technically Norwegians may be wealthier per capita, and the Japanese may live longer, but the world watches the N.B.A., melts at Katy Perry, uses iPhones to post on Facebook, trembles at our aircraft carriers, and blames the C.I.A. for everything. We're No. 1!

In some ways we indisputably are, but a major new ranking of livability in 132 countries puts the United States in a sobering 16th place. We underperform because our economic and military strengths don't translate into well-being for the average citizen.

In the Social Progress Index, the United States excels in access to advanced education but ranks 70th in health, 69th in ecosystem sustainability, 39th in basic education, 34th in access to water and sanitation and 31st in personal safety. Even in access to cellphones and the Internet, the United States ranks a disappointing 23rd, partly because one American in five lacks Internet access.

"It's astonishing that for a country that has Silicon Valley, lack of access to information is a red flag," notes Michael Green, executive director of the Social Progress Imperative, which oversees the index. The United States has done better at investing in drones than in children, and cuts in social services could fray the social fabric further.

This Social Progress Index ranks New Zealand No. 1, followed by Switzerland, Iceland and the Netherlands. All are somewhat poorer than America per capita, yet they appear to do a better job of meeting the needs of their people.

The Social Progress Index is a brainchild of Michael E. Porter, the eminent Harvard business professor who earlier helped develop the Global Competitiveness Report. Porter is a Republican whose work, until now, has focused on economic metrics.

"This is kind of a journey for me," Porter told me. He said that he became increasingly aware that social factors support economic growth: tax policy and regulations affect economic prospects, but so do schooling, health and a society's inclusiveness.

 The Republican Party is so screwed up that there's not even consistent support for the Common Core or charter schools, so this is good to see:

Kevin McCarthy sends GOP to school

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/kevin-mccarthy-charter-schools-105638.html

Shavar Jeffries for Mayor of Newark

Dear friends,

 

I’ve been involved in Newark for more than a decade, supporting both the TEAM charter schools (part of the KIPP network) and Cory Booker. With Cory having moved on from the mayor’s office to the U.S. Senate, the city is at a critical inflection point: will it continue on its upward trajectory or slide back to its notorious old ways?

 

The answer to that question depends largely on who is elected mayor on May 13^th, and the choice couldn’t be clearer: my friend Shavar Jeffries, a courageous reformer, is running against a classic old-guard politician, Ras Baraka, whom David Brooks describes well in his NY Times op ed today:

 

Baraka has the support of most of the major unions and political organizations. Over the years, he has combined a confrontational 1970s style of racial rhetoric with a transactional, machine-like style of politics.

 

Shavar is a 5^th-generation Newarker, has an astounding personal story (see below), and was the founding board president of the KIPP schools in Newark. I’ve known him for years and can attest to his character, smarts, and leadership ability.

 

But to win, he needs a lot of money fast, as the election is less than two months away, so I hope you’ll join me in supporting him – just click here: http://bit.ly/1lLB7Sb

 

Thank you!

 

Whitney

 

PS—Here’s an excerpt from Brooks’s op ed (full text below):

Now Jeffries is running for mayor of Newark against City Councilman Ras Baraka. The race has taken on a familiar shape: regular vs. reformer.

Baraka has the support of most of the major unions and political organizations. Over the years, he has combined a confrontational 1970s style of racial rhetoric with a transactional, machine-like style of politics. Baraka is well known in Newark and it shows. There are Baraka signs everywhere there.

Jeffries is the outsider and the reformer, promising to end the favor trading in government and modernize the institutions. Three months ago, it looked as though he had no shot of winning. And, according the close observers, he has not organized a particularly effective campaign. But he is an eloquent speaker and has strong people skills. His candidacy has become something of a cause célèbre among New York Democrats who fear Baraka would reverse the strides Newark has recently taken. Jeffries is still the underdog, but the election is much closer than it was.

The election on May 13 will be decided on two issues, one cultural and one structural. Jeffries is being portrayed as a Duke- and Columbia-educated law professor, not somebody who is truly of and for Newark. There’s a veiled or not-so-veiled debate here over what it means to be authentically African-American.

Then there is the split, which we’re seeing in cities across the country, between those who represent the traditional political systems and those who want to change them. In Newark, as elsewhere, charter schools are the main flash point in this divide. Middle-class municipal workers, including members of the teachers’ unions, tend to be suspicious of charters. The poor, who favor school choice, and the affluent, who favor education reform generally, tend to support charters.

These contests aren’t left versus center; they are over whether urban government will change or stay the same. Over the years, public-sector jobs have provided steady income for millions of people nationwide. But city services have failed, leaving educational and human devastation in cities like Newark. Reformers like Jeffries rise against all odds from the devastation. They threaten the old stability, but offer a shot at improvement and change.

------------------------

How Cities Change

By DAVID BROOKS

NY Times, March 17, 2014

Shavar Jeffries was born in Newark in 1974, the son of a 19-year-old mother who was unprepared to take care of him. He spent the first nine years of his life shuttling between different relatives. Then his mother came back into his life and moved him to California.

Shortly after they moved to Los Angeles, there was a problem with the lock to their apartment door. Jeffries’ mom called the locksmith and soon began a relationship with him. One evening the locksmith was looking over her phone bill and found a number he didn’t like. He smacked her in the head and sent her hurtling across the room. The beatings continued from then on.

Once his mother picked up Jeffries from Little League wearing big sunglasses, her eyes blackened underneath. Another day she tried to bar the locksmith from their apartment, but he kicked through the door. She moved to Burbank and got restraining orders, but on Nov. 25, 1985, the locksmith stalked her workplace and killed her with a sawed-off shotgun.

Jeffries was brought back to Newark and lived for a few months with his father. But one day he came home and his father had vanished, without leaving a note. By this time, he was numb; he just figured this was the way life is. His grandparents took him in and he spent the spent the rest of his childhood with them, living on a street called Harding Terrace in the South Ward of Newark.

William Spear, who grew up on Harding Terrace a few years later, describes the street the way Jane Jacobs describes Greenwich Village in the 1950s: There were eyes everywhere. “You couldn’t cut class, because the neighbors would see you and call you on it,” Spear recalls. The neighbors couldn’t and can’t stop the worst violence — Spear’s brother was killed in 2012 when a street fight sent bullets flying through a block party — but they could keep some kids in line.

Jeffries’ grandparents brought stability to his life. He became active with the Boys and Girls Club. He did well in grade school, won a scholarship to Seton Hall Prep, then won scholarships to Duke and Columbia Law School, got a prestigious clerkship and began a legal career.

And then, having escaped Newark, he moved back to the crime-ridden South Ward. He has worked as a civil rights lawyer. He was the founding board president of a charter school in the Knowledge Is Power Program called Team Academy. He became an associate law professor at Seton Hall and took a leave from that to serve as assistant attorney general. In 2010, he ran for the Newark school board and became its president.

Now Jeffries is running for mayor of Newark against City Councilman Ras Baraka. The race has taken on a familiar shape: regular vs. reformer.

Baraka has the support of most of the major unions and political organizations. Over the years, he has combined a confrontational 1970s style of racial rhetoric with a transactional, machine-like style of politics. Baraka is well known in Newark and it shows. There are Baraka signs everywhere there.

Jeffries is the outsider and the reformer, promising to end the favor trading in government and modernize the institutions. Three months ago, it looked as though he had no shot of winning. And, according the close observers, he has not organized a particularly effective campaign. But he is an eloquent speaker and has strong people skills. His candidacy has become something of a cause célèbre among New York Democrats who fear Baraka would reverse the strides Newark has recently taken. Jeffries is still the underdog, but the election is much closer than it was.

The election on May 13 will be decided on two issues, one cultural and one structural. Jeffries is being portrayed as a Duke- and Columbia-educated law professor, not somebody who is truly of and for Newark. There’s a veiled or not-so-veiled debate here over what it means to be authentically African-American.

Then there is the split, which we’re seeing in cities across the country, between those who represent the traditional political systems and those who want to change them. In Newark, as elsewhere, charter schools are the main flash point in this divide. Middle-class municipal workers, including members of the teachers’ unions, tend to be suspicious of charters. The poor, who favor school choice, and the affluent, who favor education reform generally, tend to support charters.

These contests aren’t left versus center; they are over whether urban government will change or stay the same. Over the years, public-sector jobs have provided steady income for millions of people nationwide. But city services have failed, leaving educational and human devastation in cities like Newark. Reformers like Jeffries rise against all odds from the devastation. They threaten the old stability, but offer a shot at improvement and change.

 

Charter school save in New York

The charter school movement has earned an enormous victory in NY State:

State leaders reached a tentative deal on a charter school reform package that will increase per pupil spending and provide government-funded rent for the schools for the first time.

Also under the deal, if a new charter approved by the city includes a request for space inside existing city buildings, the city would have five-months to make a "reasonable" co-location offer or pay for private space, the sources said.

What happened in NYS was due in large part to Gov. Cuomo, who has been beyond courageous and heroic (with a nice quote from DFER's Joe Williams):

Cuomo hailed as education hero after charter save

By Carl Campanile

March 31, 2014 | 6:24am

http://nypost.com/2014/03/31/cuomo-hailed-as-education-hero-after-charter-save/ 

Gov. Cuomo's actions to protect charter schools have made him a darling of education reformers who back student choice.

The group Education Reform Now has named the governor its honorary chairman for its annual national retreat, which will be held at the Whiteface Lodge in Lake Placid from May 4 to 6.

"Gov. Cuomo has emerged as a key national leader for education reform. The speech he gave at the charter-school rally in Albany showed that he stood on the side of innovation and quality education," said Joe Williams, president of Education Reform Now.

The group's board of directors is filled with hedge- fund investors who support publicly funded, privately run charter schools, which are largely exempt from union rules.

Williams said Cuomo has agreed to attend and speak at the event.

Cuomo, who is running for re-election this fall, countered Mayor de Blasio's plans to limit charter schools. The new $139 billion state budget would require the city to allow charter schools to co-locate in public-school buildings.

On the Rocketship: How High Performing Charter Schools are Pushing the Envelope

Richard Whitmire (who's out with a new book I just received but haven't had a chance to read yet, On the Rocketship: How High Performing Charter Schools are Pushing the Envelope; click here to pre-order) on the huge national implications of Cuomo and what just happened in NYS:

That fact that a governor like Andrew Cuomo, someone mentioned as a future presidential contender, came out so strongly in support of charter schools is something that won't go unnoticed nationally.

Congress is definitely paying attention. The House education committee is scheduled to update the federal Charter Schools Program — an update which would increase the share of program funds used to support facilities for charters. Do you really think conservative House members will allow themselves to be outdone by a liberal New York governor?

And then there are impacts in Democrat-leaning states. In nearby Connecticut, a state with weak charter school laws, the governor and legislature have to be wondering about whether the time is right to move in New York's direction.

In Massachusetts, Democrats may be rethinking their opposition to a law allowing high performing charters to expand. If Cuomo was willing to stand tall, does that make Gov. Deval Patrick look like, well, something less than tall? Um, yes.

Several Republican governors, some of whom remain a bit wishy washy on charters, will feel a bit skunked. In Pennsylvaniaand Tennessee, the governors have to be wondering: Why are we letting a Democratic governor like Cuomo make us look passive, maybe even a little wimpy, on charters?

On the flip side of the political picture, in progressive enclaves across the country, places where New York City's Mayor Bill de Blasio is regarded as the brightest political prospect they've seen in years, political leaders have to be wondering what went wrong. If the incredibly popular de Blasio got slam dunked while attempting a modest charters trim back, what hope do they have?

The Charter School Performance Breakout

A FANTASTIC op in the WSJ entitled The Charter School Performance Breakout: The oft-heard claim that charters perform no better than conventional schools is out of date and inaccurate:

But do they get results? Initial assessments were mixed. In the early days, charter authorizing was very loose, nobody knew what worked best, and lots of weak schools were launched. The system has since tightened. In Washington, D.C., for instance, seven out of nine requests to open new charters are now turned down, and 41 charters have been closed for failing to produce good results.

Nationwide, 561 new charter schools opened last year, while 206 laggards were closed. Unlike conventional public schools, the charter system allows poorly performing schools to be squeezed out.

As charter operators have figured out how to succeed with children, they are doubling down on the best models. Successful charter schools have many distinctive features: longer school days and longer years, more flexibility and accountability for teachers and principals, higher expectations for students, more discipline and structure, more curricular innovation, more rigorous testing. Most charter growth today is coming from replication of the best schools. The rate of enrollment increase at high-performing networks is now 10 times what it is at single-campus "mom and pop" academies.

The combination of weak charters closing and strong charters replicating is having powerful effects. The first major assessment of charter schools by Stanford's Center for Research on Educational Outcomes found their results to be extremely variable, and overall no better than conventional schools as of 2009. Its follow-up study several years later found that steady closures and their replacement by proven models had pushed charters ahead of conventional schools. In New York City, the average charter-school student now absorbs five months of extra learning a year in math, and one extra month in reading, compared with counterparts in conventional schools.

Other reviews show similar results, and performance advantages will accelerate in the near future.

Success Charter Network teacher

A great WSJ op ed by a Success Charter Network teacher:

The newest theory regarding our test scores is the most outlandish. Jonathan Westin, executive director of New York Communities for Change, a union-funded nonprofit, was quoted in Bloomberg News saying that Success Academy is "trying to find ways to increase test scores; that's why they go into the wealthier neighborhoods."

Really? Is it just me—or does anyone else hear the prejudicial undertone in that statement? Is it really impossible for Mr. Westin to believe that Success Academy's poor black and Latino children can achieve at extraordinarily high levels? That with hard work and dedication, significant numbers of children in Harlem and the South Bronx and Bed-Stuy can be proficient at math and reading? That Success Academy might want all children—black and white, poor and middle class—to have access to great schools in various New York City neighborhoods?

Critics fail to understand how insulting and hurtful their remarks are to students and their parents. One of my students recently asked me, "Why are so many people mad at us if we are doing so well?" These children work incredibly hard, and they're proud of their success. No one, especially without knowledge of their situation or home life or personal effort, has the right to undermine their remarkable achievements.

There's an excellent reason why Success Academy scholars do extraordinarily well on the state exams: We believe they can. We believe all children can succeed, no matter their socioeconomic circumstances.

Our critics do not share that belief. To them, the achievement gap—with only 11% of African-American children and 12% of Latino students prepared for college—is a given, an unfortunate, but unavoidable fact of New York City's public schools.

Our students have flipped that "fact" on its head. Now it's time for educators to start believing that with the right changes, we can achieve these results for all New York City students.

Stand Tall, John King

TNTP's Tim Daly with a great article, Stand Tall, John King – amen!

At this weekend's annual meeting, representatives of the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) are expected to follow through on a longstanding threat to vote "no confidence" in the state's chief education official, John King. 

Put plainly, the intent of the vote is to intimidate King. He has steadfastly insisted on raising the standard for what it means to master basic subject areas in New York classrooms. The union has demanded that King delay—for years—any accountability for teachers to help students make progress against the Common Core State Standards. King has stood his ground. The planning process has already lasted four years. He believes that a 2010 law adopting new teacher evaluation parameters, passed with the union's hearty support, should now be implemented as agreed. In the recent state budget negotiations, the governor and the state legislature agreed with him and declined to make any changes to teacher evaluation. At least for now, the issue appears settled. 

Pre-K education in NYC

I'm glad de Blasio got funding for pre-K – now I hope he can execute well:

Mayor Bill de Blasio has every right to call the agreement between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders in Albany to finance a vast expansion of prekindergarten in New York City a major victory — for him politically and for tens of thousands of children who will be put on a path to a better future.

The amount — $600 million for two years, to start — is not everything Mr. de Blasio said he needed, and it won't be raised through a higher income tax on high-earning New Yorkers, an idea that Mr. Cuomo decisively rejected. But never mind, the de Blasio administration says, $300 million a year is enough to offer free, full-day, high-quality, prekindergarten classes across the city, at $10,000 per 4-year-old. New York is poised to make a commitment to preschool on a larger scale than any city in the country.

School discipline

A spot-on NYT editorial:

A new report released by the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, examining the disciplinary practices of the country's 97,000 public schools, shows that excessively punitive policies are being used at every level of the public school system — even against 4-year-olds in preschool. This should shame the nation and force it to re-evaluate the destructive measures that schools are using against their most vulnerable children.

Black students, for example, are suspended at three times the rate of white students. Minority children with disabilities fare worst of all; the race effect is amplified when disability comes into the picture. More than one in four minority boys with a disability — and nearly one in five minority girls — receive an out-of-school suspension. Students with disabilities make up 12 percent of the student population, but 25 percent of those are either arrested or have their disciplinary cases referred to the police.

This is distressing enough when it happens to adolescents. But the new data show that disparate treatment of minority children begins early — in preschool. For example, black children represent 18 percent of preschool enrollment but nearly half of all children who receive more than one out-of-school suspension.

Poor education for minority students

The DOE study provides further evidence for the immoral and outrageous truth that our educational system systematically gives poor and minority students – the ones who most need the best teachers and schools – the worst:

At the same time, minority students have less access to experienced teachers. Most minority students and English language learners are stuck in schools with the most new teachers. Seven percent of black students attend schools where as many as 20 percent of teachers fail to meet license and certification requirements. And one in four school districts pay teachers in less-diverse high schools $5,000 more than teachers in schools with higher black and Latino student enrollment.

Such discrimination lowers academic performance for minority students and puts them at greater risk of dropping out of school, according to previous research. The new research also shows the shortcomings of decades of legal and political moves to ensure equal rights to education. The Supreme Court's landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling banned school segregation and affirmed the right to quality education for all children. The 1964 Civil Rights Act guaranteed equal access to education.

Kudos to John and Laura Arnold!

Kudos to John and Laura Arnold!

In recent months, I have endured a number of intensely personal public attacks on my philanthropy—including lies (that I hid a donation to PBS when the writer found the information on our website), selective reporting (listing political contributions to Republicans as evidence that I aspire to be a "Koch brother," without noting that I am a Democrat and hosted a fundraiser for President Obama), and juvenile insults (that I have a "jug-eared face of a Division III women's basketball coach").

Further, opponents seek to discredit me by mentioning the ironic but irrelevant fact that I was once a mid-level manager at a company that filed one of the most devastating corporate bankruptcies of all time. One blogger even went as far as accusing me of "fleecing" Enron investors, a vicious allegation for which she summarily issued a public apology.

In light of the level of vitriol and misinformation displayed by criticisms such as these, I feel compelled to more clearly shed light on what I do and why I do it.

PS—He's referring to Ravitch here: "One blogger even went as far as accusing me of "fleecing" Enron investors, a vicious allegation for which she summarily issued a public apology."

Preschool for 4-year-olds

 An important effort that I hope works and is expanded:

Amid a political push for government-funded preschool for 4-year-olds, a growing number of experts fear that such programs actually start too late for the children most at risk. That is why Deisy Ixcuna-González, the 16-month-old daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, is wearing a tiny recorder that captures every word she hears and utters inside her family's cramped apartment one day a week.

Recent research shows that brain development is buoyed by continuous interaction with parents and caregivers from birth, and that even before age 2, the children of the wealthy know more words than do those of the poor. So the recorder acts as a tool for instructing Deisy's parents on how to turn even a visit to the kitchen into a language lesson. It is part of an ambitious campaign, known as Providence Talks, aimed at the city's poorest residents to reduce the knowledge gap long before school starts. It is among a number of such efforts being undertaken throughout the country.

Overprotected kids

 A lengthy and fascinating article about overprotected kids:

Like most parents my age, I have memories of childhood so different from the way my children are growing up that sometimes I think I might be making them up, or at least exaggerating them. I grew up on a block of nearly identical six-story apartment buildings in Queens, New York. In my elementary-school years, my friends and I spent a lot of afternoons playing cops and robbers in two interconnected apartment garages, after we discovered a door between them that we could pry open. Once, when I was about 9, my friend Kim and I "locked" a bunch of younger kids in an imaginary jail behind a low gate. Then Kim and I got hungry and walked over to Alba's pizzeria a few blocks away and forgot all about them. When we got back an hour later, they were still standing in the same spot. They never hopped over the gate, even though they easily could have; their parents never came looking for them, and no one expected them to. A couple of them were pretty upset, but back then, the code between kids ruled. We'd told them they were in jail, so they stayed in jail until we let them out. A parent's opinion on their term of incarceration would have been irrelevant.

I used to puzzle over a particular statistic that routinely comes up in articles about time use: even though women work vastly more hours now than they did in the 1970s, mothers—and fathers—of all income levels spend much more time with their children than they used to. This seemed impossible to me until recently, when I began to think about my own life. My mother didn't work all that much when I was younger, but she didn't spend vast amounts of time with me, either. She didn't arrange my playdates or drive me to swimming lessons or introduce me to cool music she liked. On weekdays after school she just expected me to show up for dinner; on weekends I barely saw her at all. I, on the other hand, might easily spend every waking Saturday hour with one if not all three of my children, taking one to a soccer game, the second to a theater program, the third to a friend's house, or just hanging out with them at home. When my daughter was about 10, my husband suddenly realized that in her whole life, she had probably not spent more than 10 minutes unsupervised by an adult. Not 10 minutes in 10 years.

Vergara Lawsuit, California

Marcellus A. McRae, the lead co-counsel in the Vergara lawsuit, delivered an impassioned closing argument on behalf of the student plaintiffs: http://studentsmatter.org/marcellus-a-mcrae-delivers-plaintiffs-closing-arguments-in-vergara-v-california/ (56 minutes)

Brookings Debunks "Too Much Homework" Fad

 

A great 2-min video:

Brookings Debunks "Too Much Homework" Fad

"The average American student does not face an extraordinary homework burden, the assignment load has not increased meaningfully over the past 20 years, and parents are generally satisfied with the amount and quality of schoolwork assigned to their children," says Brookings.

http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2014/03/afternoon-video-brookings-debunks-too-much-homework-fad.html

State leaders reach deal on charter school reforms

BY Kenneth Lovett

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Thursday, March 27, 2014, 8:08 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/state-leaders-reach-deal-charter-school-reforms-blog-entry-1.1737363

 

Gov. Cuomo at a March 4 pro-charter school rally at the state Capitol on March 4. Senate GOP Leader Dean Skelos in in the blue blazer in the background.

State leaders reached a tentative deal on a charter school reform package that will increase per pupil spending and provide government-funded rent for the schools for the first time.

Also under the deal, if a new charter approved by the city includes a request for space inside existing city buildings, the city would have five-months to make a "reasonable" co-location offer or pay for private space, the sources said.

The charter can then accept the offer or challenge it before an arbitrator. If the school loses, the charter must pay its own rent or accept the original co-location offer, the sources said.

The charter issue became an unexpected budget battle after Mayor de Blasio stripped $210 million in capital funding from the city's charter schools and rescinded co-location agreements with three charters operated by former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz.

Gov. Cuomo and the birpartisan coalition that rules the Senate vowed to protect the publicly-funded, privately run charters in the budget process.

A de Blasio spokesman had no comment on the emerging deal Thursday evening.

Those briefed on the plan say that per pupil funding for the charter schools will jump by $1,100 over three years, including $250 per student in year one, $350 in year 2 and $500 in year 3.

Charter schools in New York City receive nearly 30% less in public funding per pupil than traditional public schools.

The state, not the city, will pick up the additional costs, the sources said.

The city, under the tentative plan, would be on the hook to pay up to $40 million to cover the rents of charter schools located in private buildings. The state and city would share the costs above the $40 million, a source said.

The plan does not make the charters eligible for state building aid to make up for the mayor' scapital funding cut, sources said.

As reported earlier this week by the News, the final budget deal will include $300 million in funding for de Blasio's push to implement universal full-day prekindergarten and additional money for after-school programs.

"The mayor will get what he needs and charter schools will be part of the city and state," said one legislative source.

Cuomo and the legislative leaders had hoped to wrap up the budget talks Thursday, but got bogged down on final details.