It's the kind of document that only a federal bureaucracy could create, and you still have a little over two weeks to comment on it. Meet the DRAFT POLICY STATEMENT ON FAMILY ENGAGEMENT FROM THE EARLY YEARS TO THE EARLY GRADES.
It's a policy so bureaucraticky that it took two departments-- Education plus Health and Human Services-- to come up with it. Like all good government documents, it ranges from dull to obvious to dumb to terrifying. And it wants to address, in particular, pre-K. Also pre-pre-pre-K. Its stated purpose is to formulate some policies "on systematically engaging families in their children’s development, learning, and wellness, across early childhood and elementary education settings."
Announcing the Problem
I tell my students never to open a piece of writing with a Bulletin from Captain Obvious (The Sun Also Rises is a book that people have read), but this opus leaps right in with "Families are children’s first and most important teachers, advocates, and nurturers." That's not a problem, but the kind of governmental attitude that gives some folks fits starts to show up just one paragraph later with this sentence:
Both Departments recognize the critical role of family engagement in children’s success in the early and elementary education systems.
Does it? Why, that's mighty good of it, like a guy who says, "Lady, I think you look perfectly okay," or a white guy telling a brown guy, "Hey, I've decided it's perfectly okay for you to be here." Still can't see it? Then look at the definition of "family engagement."
We refer to “family engagement” as the systematic inclusion of families as partners in children’s development, learning, and wellness.
Congratulations, families! The government is going to "include" you as partners. It is the government's table. You're invited to have a seat at it, but it's their table. Consider how different this is than the feds saying, for instance, "We hope that families will allow us to serve as their partners as they do the important work of raising their children."
Can you imagine calling a parent in to a conference and opening with, "I'd like to invite you to help me raise and educate your child properly." If you can't, you are not prepared to be a government bureaucrat.
Gallery of the Obvious
We kick things off with some over views. First, there's an overview of the research ranging from the ridiculously obvious ("warm, responsive and sensitive parenting promotes social-emotional competence and academic success") to the poorly reasoned (we know there's a connection between reading to children and later vocabulary and success, but we get confused about correlation and causation) to blindingly obvious information that we often ignore in our other policies (growing up in poverty and unstable families makes learning hard).
We recap policies like Head Start and IDEA and ESEA that recognize some of this engagement stuff. Because bureaucracies have no sense of irony, we will not note that the USED has done its best to completely trash IDEA.
We will also fuzzy up the language by mixing up engagement with families and engagement within families.
Then we'll reach a conclusion that despite the obvious importance of family and stuff, "family engagement is not equally valued or implemented across the early childhood and elementary systems." Because passive voice is a great way to avoid explaining exactly what you're talking about/ Who is not valuing family engagement? That would probably be useful to know if we're going to fix the problem, but it remains a mystery.
The Obstacles
The feds have some theories about why the valuing and implementing isn't happening.
* The perception that engaging with the family is just sort of extra, and that the mission is to work on the child. Somehow these unnamed persons miss that a small child's life is "intertwined" with lives of the family. Are those unnamed person clueless dopes?
* The local, state and federal authorities give too little guidance or requirements. Yup. When people screw up, it's because The Authorities didn't micro-manage them enough.
* Not enough resources. Well, now, there you may be onto something.
* The system is trying to do family engagement, but neglects to notice, understand or respect the culture and language of the family.
* "Teacher and provider workforce" (!!??) doesn't get trained properly in family engagement.
But The Authorities have figured out that something needs to be done-- and that something reveals yet another obstacle, because here's the federal idea of a solution:
”High-quality” early childhood programs should systematically include specific, measurable, and evidence-based family engagement strategies that are attuned to the needs and interests of a diverse array of primary caregivers, including but not limited to fathers/male caregivers, mothers/female caregivers, young parents, grandparents, foster parents and others.
No, I'm not talking about the list of caregivers-- that's perfectly fine. What exactly is a "specific, measurable and evidence-based" strategy for connecting in a working relationship with a family? The administration's data fetish has taken it to some ridiculous places before, and this might be even worse. Will we develop a Parent Pair-Bonding Stability Index? Will there be a standardized test to measure how well the parents and teachers like each other? Or will these data be generated by unicorns dancing through fields of shamrocks looking for the coordinates of El Dorado?
How To Do The Engagey Thing
The feds offer up their list of principles of effective family engagement practices. Let's get clued in.
First (like even before #1), you have to "establish a culture where families are seen as assets and partners in children's development, learning and wellness." Once again-- apparently it's our world, and families just live in it. Maybe we could see ourselves as the families' partners instead, which is definitely better than just assuming that of course Those People can't parent properly. But in the interests of balance, we have to note some families are not actually assets in their children's development. We all have stories of students who would have been better off raised by wolves: the student who was always tired because the trailer she lived in was always cold because Dad spent the utilities money on beer; the student whose mother was in prison after trying to run over that student with a car when the student was eight years old; the student whose parents shaved her head because she was defiant. So, yes, it's a mistake to assume that families aren't in the game when it comes to raising their kids, but it's also a mistake not to pay attention when they tell us through word and deed that they are not involved, interested or invested in their children. Point being, this little note tossed off by the document builds the whole structure on a foundation carved out of some huge and complicated assumptions. Just saying.
But assuming we somehow find such a culture, what are those principles?
Create continuity for children and families. I thought this might mean something useful like "don't staff the school with two-year TFA temps," but no, it means something far more alarming:
Implement a vision for family engagement that begins prenatally and continues across settings and throughout a child’s developmental and educational experiences.
So, yeah. As soon as you know you're pregnant, the government will be there to get a-workin' on your child. Um. Yikes.
Value equal partnership between families and professionals. Equal? So, the family is not the primary party responsible for raising this child? Yeah, this is going to go over super-well with conservative parent groups.
Develop goal-oriented relationships that are linked to development and learning. Oh, man. I'll try to summarize this in a minute but reading the bureaucracy-speak makes me feel all slimy. Basically, the relationship between families and professional staff takes time, but they should learn to work "jointly" on goals and strategies and learning. Like many paragraphs in the document, this one barely suggests that we are talking about helping a real live human being grow up.
Prioritize engagement around children's social-emotional and behavioral health. Damn. "Ensure constant monitoring and communication regarding children's social-emotional and behavioral health." Good lord, faceless bureaucrats-- do you even hear yourselves?? "Constant monitoring"??!! And then "ensure that children's social-emotional and behavioral needs are met" like somebody has the magical powers to do that.
Ensure that everything is culturally and linguistically "responsive." While this is an exceptionally valid point, it does not appear to make allowances for cultures that say that the family is responsible for the child and the government is responsible for backing the hell up.
Train staff people to engage with families. Gotta tell you-- if somebody doesn't know how to engage productively with other carbon-based life forms, I'm not sure you can train them to do it well. But certainly people who aren't born to the community in which they're teaching need to learn about that community. (Probably take more than five weeks, though)
Build families' capabilities and connections. Building connections sounds awesome. Robert Putnam's book Our Kids talks about how having connections is one of the privileges of wealth. Giving families ways to reach out, get help, and be heard-- that would be swell.
Embed family engagement within programs, school, and community stuff. And continuously learn and improve. That last one seems obvious and hardly worthy of saying out loud until you remember that NCLB and ESSA and certainly Common Core (not technically a federal program-- just a federally beloved program) have no such provisions. So hooray for federally recognizing a need for a program to learn and improve, I guess.
Implementing effective family engagement practices to promote positive child outcomes will require bold leadership and dedication from all institutions where children learn.
First, "positive child outcomes" is the kind of cold, soullessly vague language that makes people hate the bureaucrats. Second, it doesn't really require "bold leadership." Connecting and involving and helping parents is a marathon, not a sprint, and it benefits from solid, steady, stable work. What the Folks In Charge can do is give teachers (and staff) the space and resources to do their jobs.
Now, if you want organizations and schools to lead an incursion into people's homes, that may require leadership. Not so much "bold" leadership as "pushy, intrusive, dismissive of the people you're there to serve" leadership.
State-level Stuff
The plan goes on to delineate what state and local authorities should do.
On the state level, recommendations include investing and allocating resources and training to get programs all engagey. Plus establishing policies that help. Plus "communicate constant messages" aka drop some PR bombs on the issue.Because "messaging" is almost as important as actually doing something. Also, make sure that colleges and universities are training people to do this stuff.
Pretty pedestrian stuff. But then there's this recommendation.
Develop and integrate family engagement indicators into existing data systems
They offer a couple of suggestions of where such data might be found, like child care quality rating systems, higher education coursework, and family surveys, so, no-- they don't have any idea how to measure these things they say they want to measure.
And they would like states to set up an incentive to reward folks for doing this stuff that we don't know how to measure the effectiveness of, though it does look like they might be willing to go old school and measure inputs, whether those programs reap identifiable results or not.
Local Stuff
The plan has recommendations for local establishments as well. These run a bit more specific than the others, and come closer-but-no-cigar to crucial elements missing so far.
The devil, as always, is in the details. "Families as Decision Makers" is an encouraging heading, but it's followed by "Schools and programs should establish policies that ensure parents and families are prepared to participate in planning, decision-making and oversight groups." So families can have a seat at the table if they show us they're ready to do it the right way.
Some of the recommendations will be familiar as Things Many Districts Already Do, such as home visits. That also includes local versions of the same things featured elsewhere in the report. That includes the data fetish. Look-- here's a detail that's not scary at all.
Local schools and programs should track progress on family engagement goals, as detailed in family engagement plans.
So, you know-- the feds would like families to think of them as another family member. Maybe an older, wiser, brother. Honestly-- does anybody ever read these documents and think about how they look to civilians?
What's Missing
If we go waaaaaaaaaaayy back to the beginning, we find citations of evidence about the ways that poverty and family instability get in the way of student learning. But we have to go waaaaaaayyy back to the beginning because those facts are never acknowledged again.
There's no question that some families need help, and that the children growing up in those homes have more decks stacked against them than a drunk in crooked back-jack parlor. I sympathize, as I will bet almost every teacher does, with the point of view that says, "Well, we can't just stand back and do nothing and hope for the best." I certainly don't sympathize with the point of view that says, "Well, you know, there's no helping Those People."
But somehow, when I think of outreach and help and support and strengthening of families and community, my first thought is not, "Well, what these folks need is constant data monitoring from the moment they conceive." Nor do I sympathize with a stance that says, "I'm from the government and I'm here to offer to let you help me raise your child."
I'm not a mushy person, but I cannot read a report like this without being struck by the complete absence of warm, human language in addressing a human challenge. I don't know how you address these issues without using words like "love" and "respect" and "empathy" and "kindness," but I know you definitely can address them without resorting to "data."
Most importantly
Remember what I said waaaayyy back at the beginning-- this document is open to comment until January 4th. If reading all this just gave you a huge headache, zip on over there and comment. Who knows-- maybe Acting Pretend Secretary of Education John King might send it back to the drawing board. At least you will have helped generate some data.
Friday, December 18, 2015
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Gulen Charters In Trouble Again
The Gulen network of charters is perhaps the most transparent abuse of the charter school system in the US, and their troubled nature is on display again in the midwest.
A clout-heavy charter-school firm that operates four taxpayer-funded schools in Chicago is suspected of defrauding the government by funneling more than $5 million in federal grants to insiders and “away from the charter schools,” according to court records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.
The Sun-Times reports that the FBI is investigating "a scheme to defraud federal programs" running back to "at least 2007." The probe is being run out of the FBI's Cleveland office, which would not comment because the investigation is ongoing.
This particular scheme involved the Concept Charter School chain, and involved bringing in E-Rate funds and funneling them to private companies "affiliated with" Concept's chief information officer, including funneling that money through the Bank of Asya in Turkey, a bank alleged founded and operated by Gulen followers.
That information officer has since sort of, well, vanished from the US. But a computer consultant named Stephen Draviam, who worked for Concept until they cur him off and replaced him with other vendors who have "extensive ties" to the charter operators (read any story about Gulen schools and you'll run into the phrase "extensive ties" many times) has apparently talked to them. He may want to be careful about that. Another former Concept official named Mustafa Emanet broke ties with Concept and suddenly found himself arrested in Turkey for heroin possession. He lives in Ohio now.
The story that emerges here is the same one that emerged in the work of reporter James Pilcher of the Cincinatti Enquirer in October of 2014. Folks with Gulen ties open a charter school, staff it with foreign teachers on H-1B visas, and then begin strip-mining US taxpayers. Grant money, state funding, anything not tied down is sent back to The Movement. Even the teachers are expected to kick a percentage of their salary back to The Movement. The particular brand of fraud that the Sun-Times is writing about is grant fraud-- writing fake grants for tech grants for the schools while simply using vendors with "extensive connections" to just send those grant dollars to The Movement.
The stories are legion. Chicago Public Schools denied Concept two more charters, so Gulen-connected folks took some Illinois politicians on a trip and CPS was overruled by the state. You can find entire blogs devoted to Gule shenanigans, like this one or this one.
Concept is one of the top charter companies in the Great Lakes region-- and their purpose is to collect US tax dollars to send to Gulen's supporters.
So what's a Gulen? Fethullah Gulen is most often referred to as a "reclusive cleric," a displaced political figure from Turkey who is currently out of power, cooling his heels in the Poconos and supposedly waiting for his chance. You can read plenty about his thoughts on his website. The Turkish government would like to have him back-- they've issued a warrant for his arrest. The US has shown no inclination to send him home, but he's also under investigation by the FBI.
The ongoing Gulen network scandals are a reminder of just how big a tool for fraud and theft of US taxpayer money the charter movement can be. We tend to talk as if charter school fraud is "vacation home in Aruba" scale theft, when in fact the accusations against Gulen point out that we're actually talking "maintain a foreign government in exile" scale of money. The narrative about the Gulen movement using US charter schools to scam US taxpayer dollars to run an entire Turkish religious-political movement is both convincing and scary, and more importantly, it's a reminder of just how badly the charter movement can be turned against the interests of American children, taxpayers, and voters.
A clout-heavy charter-school firm that operates four taxpayer-funded schools in Chicago is suspected of defrauding the government by funneling more than $5 million in federal grants to insiders and “away from the charter schools,” according to court records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.
The Sun-Times reports that the FBI is investigating "a scheme to defraud federal programs" running back to "at least 2007." The probe is being run out of the FBI's Cleveland office, which would not comment because the investigation is ongoing.
This particular scheme involved the Concept Charter School chain, and involved bringing in E-Rate funds and funneling them to private companies "affiliated with" Concept's chief information officer, including funneling that money through the Bank of Asya in Turkey, a bank alleged founded and operated by Gulen followers.
That information officer has since sort of, well, vanished from the US. But a computer consultant named Stephen Draviam, who worked for Concept until they cur him off and replaced him with other vendors who have "extensive ties" to the charter operators (read any story about Gulen schools and you'll run into the phrase "extensive ties" many times) has apparently talked to them. He may want to be careful about that. Another former Concept official named Mustafa Emanet broke ties with Concept and suddenly found himself arrested in Turkey for heroin possession. He lives in Ohio now.
The story that emerges here is the same one that emerged in the work of reporter James Pilcher of the Cincinatti Enquirer in October of 2014. Folks with Gulen ties open a charter school, staff it with foreign teachers on H-1B visas, and then begin strip-mining US taxpayers. Grant money, state funding, anything not tied down is sent back to The Movement. Even the teachers are expected to kick a percentage of their salary back to The Movement. The particular brand of fraud that the Sun-Times is writing about is grant fraud-- writing fake grants for tech grants for the schools while simply using vendors with "extensive connections" to just send those grant dollars to The Movement.
The stories are legion. Chicago Public Schools denied Concept two more charters, so Gulen-connected folks took some Illinois politicians on a trip and CPS was overruled by the state. You can find entire blogs devoted to Gule shenanigans, like this one or this one.
Concept is one of the top charter companies in the Great Lakes region-- and their purpose is to collect US tax dollars to send to Gulen's supporters.
So what's a Gulen? Fethullah Gulen is most often referred to as a "reclusive cleric," a displaced political figure from Turkey who is currently out of power, cooling his heels in the Poconos and supposedly waiting for his chance. You can read plenty about his thoughts on his website. The Turkish government would like to have him back-- they've issued a warrant for his arrest. The US has shown no inclination to send him home, but he's also under investigation by the FBI.
The ongoing Gulen network scandals are a reminder of just how big a tool for fraud and theft of US taxpayer money the charter movement can be. We tend to talk as if charter school fraud is "vacation home in Aruba" scale theft, when in fact the accusations against Gulen point out that we're actually talking "maintain a foreign government in exile" scale of money. The narrative about the Gulen movement using US charter schools to scam US taxpayer dollars to run an entire Turkish religious-political movement is both convincing and scary, and more importantly, it's a reminder of just how badly the charter movement can be turned against the interests of American children, taxpayers, and voters.
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Homework and Flipping
It was an odd juxtaposition. There on my twitter feed, side by side, a link to an article arguing against homework, and a link to an argument favoring the flipped classroom.
The arguments against homework are many-- as many as there are different types of homework. Students don't really benefit from it. Students don't really do it. And those are just educator arguments-- my students will also argue that after they leave the school building, that time is their time, for work, for family, for whatever pursuits they choose to pursue. That's the point of view that leads commenters to say that homework is bad for the whole child.
And yet what is a flipped classroom except a classroom that runs on huge amounts of homework.
I have no strong feelings about the flipped classroom-- I've been doing it my whole career, only instead of saying "Go home and watch this video," I've been saying "Go home and read this book." I don't do a lot of traditional homework beyond some occasionally "Go forth and practice this skill on your own." But my honors students in particular are expected to do the readings and write the papers primarily on their own time.
I read teachers who have success flipping, and I have encountered the following conversation among students many times as well:
Chris: Did you watch that video last night?
Pat: Nah. He's just going to have to explain it all in class anyway.
I have found technology useful for extending the classroom. Back when my school district still used Moodle, I could run entire units as on-line segments, which made a nice way to compensate for the class time that I was losing. This year I have a class of students who are required to blog, sometimes on prompts related to classwork, sometimes to other prompts, and always on other topics of their own choosing. And I've found on-line elements can be a good way to do units that involve "Go figure out what this is and then explain it to me in your own words with either created or found examples" (e.g. logical fallacies). Those then become part of the tool box that I expect them to be able to use in class work.
So am I good teacher because I'm using technology to extend the learning experience beyond the temporal and physical boundaries of my classroom, or am I terrible teacher because I still give homework?
Fortunately for my professional peace of mind, I follow this rule: I neither accept or reject tools and techniques as a matter of policy, but use my best professional judgment to use activities and techniques that advance student learning and growth, and to avoid activities and techniques that do not. This, it should be noted, has to be decided on a case by case, class by class basis.
It's a perfect example of exactly why the solution to educational issues is not for the state or federal government decide for me how I should do my job and then mandate either the use or avoidance of particular pedagogy. I do not need a government regulation telling me I must always or never assign homework. At most, I may be well-served by a knowledgeable administrator who sits me down to say, "Here's where it looks like you're not hitting the mark right now."
But in the meantime, while I will continue to keep myself informed about the issues and viewpoints involved, I have no interest in the Great Homework Debate or the Great Flipping Push, and even less interest in having policymakers decide either discussion. I'd like to just do my job, thanks, and that includes using my informed professional judgment to make the best instructional decisions for my students. Just let me teach.
The arguments against homework are many-- as many as there are different types of homework. Students don't really benefit from it. Students don't really do it. And those are just educator arguments-- my students will also argue that after they leave the school building, that time is their time, for work, for family, for whatever pursuits they choose to pursue. That's the point of view that leads commenters to say that homework is bad for the whole child.
And yet what is a flipped classroom except a classroom that runs on huge amounts of homework.
I have no strong feelings about the flipped classroom-- I've been doing it my whole career, only instead of saying "Go home and watch this video," I've been saying "Go home and read this book." I don't do a lot of traditional homework beyond some occasionally "Go forth and practice this skill on your own." But my honors students in particular are expected to do the readings and write the papers primarily on their own time.
I read teachers who have success flipping, and I have encountered the following conversation among students many times as well:
Chris: Did you watch that video last night?
Pat: Nah. He's just going to have to explain it all in class anyway.
I have found technology useful for extending the classroom. Back when my school district still used Moodle, I could run entire units as on-line segments, which made a nice way to compensate for the class time that I was losing. This year I have a class of students who are required to blog, sometimes on prompts related to classwork, sometimes to other prompts, and always on other topics of their own choosing. And I've found on-line elements can be a good way to do units that involve "Go figure out what this is and then explain it to me in your own words with either created or found examples" (e.g. logical fallacies). Those then become part of the tool box that I expect them to be able to use in class work.
So am I good teacher because I'm using technology to extend the learning experience beyond the temporal and physical boundaries of my classroom, or am I terrible teacher because I still give homework?
Fortunately for my professional peace of mind, I follow this rule: I neither accept or reject tools and techniques as a matter of policy, but use my best professional judgment to use activities and techniques that advance student learning and growth, and to avoid activities and techniques that do not. This, it should be noted, has to be decided on a case by case, class by class basis.
It's a perfect example of exactly why the solution to educational issues is not for the state or federal government decide for me how I should do my job and then mandate either the use or avoidance of particular pedagogy. I do not need a government regulation telling me I must always or never assign homework. At most, I may be well-served by a knowledgeable administrator who sits me down to say, "Here's where it looks like you're not hitting the mark right now."
But in the meantime, while I will continue to keep myself informed about the issues and viewpoints involved, I have no interest in the Great Homework Debate or the Great Flipping Push, and even less interest in having policymakers decide either discussion. I'd like to just do my job, thanks, and that includes using my informed professional judgment to make the best instructional decisions for my students. Just let me teach.
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
PA: Budget Fluffernuttery Threatens Schools
We have a budget problem in Pennsylvania. You could call it a budget "crisis," but that makes it sound like it just sort of happened, like a hurricane or male pattern baldness. You could call it a budget "impasse," but that suggests two grown up sides that can't find a compromise. Perhaps budget "screwup" or budget "failure so stupid it is raising the collective blood pressure of the entire state."
If it seems like we've been budget fiasco for a long time, that's because we have. Today is Day 168 of the ongoing budget not-done-on-time event.
There was a time when I would have agreed with a bi-partisan assessment. In the early stages, the GOP controlled PA House and Senate wanted to act as if the previous GOP governor had not been decisively kicked to the curb. Newly-elected Governor Tom Wolf, whose previous work experience is running a successful family business, did not initially seem to grasp that he is not a CEO who can order the legislature around as if they are his minions.
But many of the parties got on a learning curve and seemed to make progress.
At first it seemed like a manageable catastrophe. After all, we're used to this-- we've had five late budgets in ten years.
True, there was fallout. You may remember that the Chester Upland school district, underfunded by the state and sucked dry by charters, had to ask its teachers to work for free when the state missed its first subsidy payment. Ha. Those were the days, when the budget baloney was only fifty days old.
Meanwhile, many other districts turned to loans, lines of credit, or simply ate up whatever savings they had in the banks.
As the clock ticked, Wolf and the Senate GOP worked out a deal. Each gave up some features that they had wanted in the budget, but that's what happens when grown-ups negotiate. But as that budget gathered steam, it became evident there was still a major obstacle-- the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Noted for their lack of leadership, the House GOP could not get its act together. Or, I should say, cannot get its act together, because as of today, their act is still not together.
By this time, the state should have paid out almost all of its school support money. At this point, it has paid out $0.00. The school districts of Pennsylvania are collectively billions of dollars short.
They can get parts of their act together, including the part that allows them to double take-over some more Philly schools. Philadelphia schools were taken over by the state decades ago, but the state has incredibly failed to magically transform them, so the state would now like to take them over from the state (you can read more about that foolishness here).
Now some schools, including a few districts just up the road from me, have decided they may just stay closed after Christmas break rather than borrow more money and incur more fees and interest.
Only--ha!-- the joke is on them because the Associated Press now reports that Pennsylvania's budget snafu is so spectacular that school districts may not be able to borrow money even if they want to!
"While we consider school aid to be a priority state expenditure, the budget stalemate has led us to conclude that Pennsylvania's state aid payments are no longer a reliable and stable source of funds," Standard and Poor's wrote.
The final icing on the cake? Believe it or not, it is now time for school districts to begin working on their budgets for 2016-2017. Yes, the state's convoluted system requires school districts to declare soon if they want to raise taxes above the index, although that presumes funding based on property taxes, which is one of the bones of contention in the budget and of course schools right now as I type this have no idea how much money they're eventually getting from the state for THIS year, let alone where they will stand going into NEXT year.
Will the House budge? At last count the House GOP was about half a billion dollars and a few ideological points away from the Senate GOP, and while many Pennsylvanians are ready to move past wringing hands to wringing necks, there are also folks cheering the House on for "standing firm." Note that Pennsylvania is a spectacularly gerrymandered state, to the point that while Democrats win more votes, Republicans win more seats. But gerrymandering invariably means that politicians must play to their base, and many House Republicans are doing just that.
It is hard to follow the unfolding mess because so much of the action takes place in back rooms. But there is literally no sign that this is going to be resolved any time soon. In the meantime, however, there is the real possibility that the incompetence of House politicians may actually bring education in Pennsylvania to a stumbling, gut-wrenching, collapsed-in-a-heap halt.
If it seems like we've been budget fiasco for a long time, that's because we have. Today is Day 168 of the ongoing budget not-done-on-time event.
There was a time when I would have agreed with a bi-partisan assessment. In the early stages, the GOP controlled PA House and Senate wanted to act as if the previous GOP governor had not been decisively kicked to the curb. Newly-elected Governor Tom Wolf, whose previous work experience is running a successful family business, did not initially seem to grasp that he is not a CEO who can order the legislature around as if they are his minions.
But many of the parties got on a learning curve and seemed to make progress.
At first it seemed like a manageable catastrophe. After all, we're used to this-- we've had five late budgets in ten years.
True, there was fallout. You may remember that the Chester Upland school district, underfunded by the state and sucked dry by charters, had to ask its teachers to work for free when the state missed its first subsidy payment. Ha. Those were the days, when the budget baloney was only fifty days old.
Meanwhile, many other districts turned to loans, lines of credit, or simply ate up whatever savings they had in the banks.
As the clock ticked, Wolf and the Senate GOP worked out a deal. Each gave up some features that they had wanted in the budget, but that's what happens when grown-ups negotiate. But as that budget gathered steam, it became evident there was still a major obstacle-- the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Noted for their lack of leadership, the House GOP could not get its act together. Or, I should say, cannot get its act together, because as of today, their act is still not together.
By this time, the state should have paid out almost all of its school support money. At this point, it has paid out $0.00. The school districts of Pennsylvania are collectively billions of dollars short.
They can get parts of their act together, including the part that allows them to double take-over some more Philly schools. Philadelphia schools were taken over by the state decades ago, but the state has incredibly failed to magically transform them, so the state would now like to take them over from the state (you can read more about that foolishness here).
Now some schools, including a few districts just up the road from me, have decided they may just stay closed after Christmas break rather than borrow more money and incur more fees and interest.
Only--ha!-- the joke is on them because the Associated Press now reports that Pennsylvania's budget snafu is so spectacular that school districts may not be able to borrow money even if they want to!
"While we consider school aid to be a priority state expenditure, the budget stalemate has led us to conclude that Pennsylvania's state aid payments are no longer a reliable and stable source of funds," Standard and Poor's wrote.
The final icing on the cake? Believe it or not, it is now time for school districts to begin working on their budgets for 2016-2017. Yes, the state's convoluted system requires school districts to declare soon if they want to raise taxes above the index, although that presumes funding based on property taxes, which is one of the bones of contention in the budget and of course schools right now as I type this have no idea how much money they're eventually getting from the state for THIS year, let alone where they will stand going into NEXT year.
Will the House budge? At last count the House GOP was about half a billion dollars and a few ideological points away from the Senate GOP, and while many Pennsylvanians are ready to move past wringing hands to wringing necks, there are also folks cheering the House on for "standing firm." Note that Pennsylvania is a spectacularly gerrymandered state, to the point that while Democrats win more votes, Republicans win more seats. But gerrymandering invariably means that politicians must play to their base, and many House Republicans are doing just that.
It is hard to follow the unfolding mess because so much of the action takes place in back rooms. But there is literally no sign that this is going to be resolved any time soon. In the meantime, however, there is the real possibility that the incompetence of House politicians may actually bring education in Pennsylvania to a stumbling, gut-wrenching, collapsed-in-a-heap halt.
Monday, December 14, 2015
Arts and Community
My output will likely be down a bit this week because I have rehearsals every night and a performance Friday evening. I'm singing in a community chorus about 100 people who get together every other year to perform a big chunk of Handel's Messiah along with some other seasonal stuff.
We are all volunteers who have real jobs doing other things. I sing in a section with my doctor, a couple of students, my father-in-law, a psychologist-counselor, a few retired folks, including some who used to work building coal mining machinery. We'll be accompanied in performance by a small pick-up orchestra.
We'll perform in the town's one theater, a performance space that was purchased and reconditioned by the local community theater group about twenty years ago. If this goes like most years, the concert will be close to selling out.
For most of the people involved, this is a typical use of spare time. Many of the singers also sing in their church choir. For me, this is how I spend much of my off-duty time. I play in a 159-year-old town band-- concerts on the bandstand in the city park and everything-- that is also filled entirely by non-professional amateurs. And I work with community theater, also loaded with people who have a real job, but who somehow seek out artistic activities in their lives.
Arts and music are under attack in many school systems. This is not new. They have always been under attack. It's just a little worse now that the forces of reformsterism have been busy stripping public schools of resources; when the budget gets tight, the arts always look like an easy target for destruction.
The arts matter. We spend a lot of time trying to defend how they matter to individual students, how they enhance the school life of children throughout the system. But the arts matter more than that.
I live in a small place, a not-particularly-wealthy place. We don't have a paid symphony orchestra, a paid chorus, a paid regional theater.Sure, we can travel, or pop in a recording, or watch a video.
But the life of this community is also enriched by people who sing and play and perform and create, and do it all right here. This Friday we are not going to present the best rendering ever of the Messiah, but it will be damn good, and it will be live, and it will be here. Live matters in the arts. It always matters. Anybody who says differently should try kissing a picture of their beloved.
There is a richness and depth to the arts, live and in person and especially produced by members of your own community, that cannot be found anywhere else. The arts are good for students because students who have grown up in the arts are good for their communities, for their families, for their friends. The world is a better place for students who have grown up with understanding and abilities in the arts.
So stand up for the arts in your school system, not just because they are good for your students and your school, but because they are good for your entire community, for the world you live in. Reflect on that as the holiday season advances and we search for meaning in it the best way we know how-- not just through words or essays or speeches, but through the kind of deep and true expression that best comes through the arts.
We are all volunteers who have real jobs doing other things. I sing in a section with my doctor, a couple of students, my father-in-law, a psychologist-counselor, a few retired folks, including some who used to work building coal mining machinery. We'll be accompanied in performance by a small pick-up orchestra.
We'll perform in the town's one theater, a performance space that was purchased and reconditioned by the local community theater group about twenty years ago. If this goes like most years, the concert will be close to selling out.
For most of the people involved, this is a typical use of spare time. Many of the singers also sing in their church choir. For me, this is how I spend much of my off-duty time. I play in a 159-year-old town band-- concerts on the bandstand in the city park and everything-- that is also filled entirely by non-professional amateurs. And I work with community theater, also loaded with people who have a real job, but who somehow seek out artistic activities in their lives.
Arts and music are under attack in many school systems. This is not new. They have always been under attack. It's just a little worse now that the forces of reformsterism have been busy stripping public schools of resources; when the budget gets tight, the arts always look like an easy target for destruction.
The arts matter. We spend a lot of time trying to defend how they matter to individual students, how they enhance the school life of children throughout the system. But the arts matter more than that.
I live in a small place, a not-particularly-wealthy place. We don't have a paid symphony orchestra, a paid chorus, a paid regional theater.Sure, we can travel, or pop in a recording, or watch a video.
But the life of this community is also enriched by people who sing and play and perform and create, and do it all right here. This Friday we are not going to present the best rendering ever of the Messiah, but it will be damn good, and it will be live, and it will be here. Live matters in the arts. It always matters. Anybody who says differently should try kissing a picture of their beloved.
There is a richness and depth to the arts, live and in person and especially produced by members of your own community, that cannot be found anywhere else. The arts are good for students because students who have grown up in the arts are good for their communities, for their families, for their friends. The world is a better place for students who have grown up with understanding and abilities in the arts.
So stand up for the arts in your school system, not just because they are good for your students and your school, but because they are good for your entire community, for the world you live in. Reflect on that as the holiday season advances and we search for meaning in it the best way we know how-- not just through words or essays or speeches, but through the kind of deep and true expression that best comes through the arts.
KY: Considering Charters
Kentucky has never jumped on the charter bandwagon. Some folks have been trying for years, but the legislature has always had trouble getting a bill passed, and so the charter sector has been dying on the vine. But the new governor would like to change that.
Matt Bevin, the new governor whose previous job was investment management, has repeatedly stated his intention to expand school choice through charter school expansion in Kentucky. Bevin seems to believe in the power of competition. Here he is in an interview laying out his thoughts:
There is a lot of concern about academic competition; competition is good, and for those who are quick to say that this is somehow going to come at the expense of public education – we need strong public education. That is where the vast majority of our students are getting their education and will continue to get their education, and we have to be able to support the teachers and administrators that are a part of it. So we don’t want to turn the whole thing upside down. But we have schools that have been failing for generations now. So let’s start with public charter schools. The students going there are public students, the funding comes in a similar manner, everyone will be better for this.
For Kentuckians who haven't had a lot of exposure to the issues that come with charters, this must sound pretty reasonable (Bevin buried his opponent pretty decisively). This post is for them.
Dear Kentuckians-- here are some things you may want to keep an eye on if you decide to jump into the charter end of the pool.
Transparency
Despite the use of the word "school," a charter school is much more like a private business than a public institution. You can't walk into the kitchen at McDonalds and demand to see how the special sauce is made, and you can't demand a tour of a Ford assembly plant. Likewise, charters tend to assert their right to be opaque and secretive. In one of the more famous examples, the Success Charter chain in New York went to court to prevent the state auditor from looking at their books to see what they were doing with the tax dollars the state was giving them.
You're being told that the way it works is that the state contracts with the charter operator-- the state hands over a pile of money and the charter promises to hit certain benchmarks. Are you sure that's all you want to know? Is there any other time you can think of when it would be okay for a public institution paid for with your tax dollars to refuse to tell you what they were doing with those dollars?
Local Control
Currently you are entitled to know how your district spends every cent, and while some may not be great at meeting that letter of the law, if you're unhappy with what your school is doing, you are entitled to attend a school board meeting where you are legally entitled to hear everything that goes into making decisions about your schools. If you don't like what you hear, you can say so by speaking formally or hollering informally. You can fight for the election of board members that you support.
But with a charter-- you can do nothing. You are not entitled to attend a board meeting, and nobody who runs the school is required to take your call, talk to you, or explain anything to you. They do not answer to the taxpayers, and they do not stand for election.
"I'll just pull my child out of school if I object strongly," you say? What if you don't have a child in school? Are you upset that your tax dollars are going to support a school that teaches communism is great or runs on a Sharia Law model? Too bad. Nobody has to listen to you. And if you are a parent arguing with the school after Counting Day (the day on which official enrollment is tallied), they will be happy to see you go, because the money associated with your child is already in the school's bank account.
Piles of Wasted Money
Do you think you could own and operate two homes for the same total cost as one home? No, me neither. But a charter system duplicates buildings, administrators, and a host of services that could be more efficiently in one building. Opening charters automatically must increase the total cost of education in your community.
Sucking Public Schools Dry
The classic simple charter funding model is to just have the per-pupil cost follow the pupil wherever she goes. If 5% of your high school students leave for a charter, 5% of your funding goes with them. Here's the problem-- if your school population drops by 5%, do your costs drop by 5% as well?No. You don't have 5% fewer buildings, 5% fewer buses or 5% fewer light and heating bills. You don't have 5% fewer administrators. You probably won't lose, say, an entire classroom's worth of third graders, so when you need to cut teachers to help make the budget, it's more likely to be an art or music teacher. Maybe a librarian.
And because charters are usually set up to help students "escape" the worst public schools, it is the most challenged and troubled schools that will lose the most resources. Unless your legislature decides to fully fund charters without simply moving money from the public system, this is a zero sum game where the public system must lose. And it's awfully hard to "compete" when someone keeps taking away the resources you need to be competitive.
Who Is Served?
Charter schools won't have room for everybody. Any kind of application process will favor families that understand the system and have the motivation to jump through the hoops. Even where all students have the possibility of entry into the charter, charters have many techniques for pushing out students-- particularly those with special needs.
Success?
Does any of the above really matter if charters get results? It's a fair question-- should we favor public schools out of tradition if charters can serve our children better?
Kentuckians are being told about great charter successes in New Orleans and other charter hubs around the country. These stories are exaggerations at best. Study after study finds little evidence that charters do any better than public schools. Where there are signs of success, we find that the charters are serving fewer students with greater disabilities and fewer English Language Learners. "Successful" charters also often have extra resources from private sponsors and contributors. In other words, the secret of charter success-- more resources, and only the more easily taught students-- is no secret, and could easily be applied to existing public schools-- if we were willig to change the mission of pblic education.
You should also examine the definition of success. Some charters define success very simply-- the students will score well on the Big Standardized Test. These schools maintain a tightly disciplined focus on a culture of compliance and endless test prep.
The "achievement gap" and "student achievement" refer to only one thing-- scores on standardized tests that cover math and reading. That is far too narrow a definition of success, and certainly does not represent "college and career readiness." ("We'd like to hire you because you take standardized tests really well," said no employer ever).
Stability
Charter schools are businesses, and they make decisions for business reasons. This does not make them evil, but it does mean that they are not going to keep an unprofitable school open in your neighborhood just because it's a nice thing to do. A public school cannot say, "You know what? It's just too hard to keep working at education in this community with such a tiny revenue stream, so we're just going to close up shop." A charter school can say such things-- and they often do. As of last fall, 200 charter schools had closed up shop in Ohio.
Follow the Money
The amount of money wrapped up in the education sector is huge, and charter schools have become a powerful tool for unlocking much of that. The largest chunk of investment in charter schools is not from educators or school-related industries, but from hedge fund managers looking for good return on investment. And just because a charter school operators is "non-profit" doesn't mean it's not making big money. Some charter school operators are scrupulous and ethical; some are not. And some practices are legal but eyebrow raising, like paying charter school chiefs nearly a half-million dollars, or leasing buildings from yourself.
This report from the National Education Policy Center shows the many ways in which charter schools can be used to funnel money to places it doesn't belong. Some states have instituted some stricter oversight, but states like Ohio show just how widespread scandal, fraud and waste can become when nobody is minding the money-saturated store at all (go ahead-- google "Ohio charter school scandal" and see what pops up).
The amount of money at stake means you need to be wary of people who are trying to sell you something. When a car salesman tells you that the 2016 Superwheels will change your life and make your family smart and beautiful, you would be wise to take it with a few hundred grains of salt. The money trail is often more tricky to trace when it comes to charter schools, but it is worth your while to trace it.
Watch the Big Picture
Ultimately, how Kentucky manages public education and the charter business is about more than just money (though it is certainly about that).
Kentucky is one of the states that has watched the farm industry turn into a factory model business. Farmers are now technicians who are simply meant to take orders from their corporate masters. Animals are now just product to be mass-produced with no concern for anything except their ability to be turned into meat. And the system is kept tilted in favor of the big corporations by a revolving door between corporate and government offices.
Modern education reform is an attempt to apply those same transformations to schools. Teachers are just to follow instructions and deliver pre-packaged lessons. Students are there to produce good-looking test results; their other concerns are unimportant. Charter schools are a leading edge of these transformations.
Charters represent a seismic shift. From he idea of public education as a shared good, a service provided by the community for every single one of its students, we move to the idea that schools are a consumer good, provided for a select few, and primarily serving the business interests of their investors. If you aren't careful, when you install charters, you change the very idea of what schools are for.
Can it be done?
Charter schools can potentially be a great addition to a school system, but only under the right conditions. Kentucky is in a unique position to set the rules up right from day one. If I were the Kentucky legislature, and I were dead set on starting up with charter schools, here's what I would do.
* Fund them fully. Rather than trying to run several parallel systems with the same money that previously only ran one, I would make sure that both the public and the charter systems were fully funded. That means the cost of schooling will go up for the taxpayers. If you really believe in charters, sell the idea.
* Complete transparency. Charters must operate with the same transparency and accountability as public schools. They must account for every cent they spend. They must do their decision-making in public. They must be completely and fully accountable to the taxpayers.
* Locally controlled. The people who run the charter school in the community must be there, in that community. Do not allow charter schools that are run by a board of directors in some other state.
* Fully open. The charter must be prepared to accept and serve any student who lives in that community. No creating barriers to entry or push-outs once in the school.
* Professionally staffed. Charters have often pushed for the option of putting any warm (cheap) body in a classroom. That's not okay.
* Regulated to avoid financial shenanigans. There are too many scams out there that have demonstrated all the ways in which a charter school can be nothing more than someone's get rich quick scheme. Regulators (using the complete transparency from above) should be clear and tough when it comes to making sure that charter school dollars go toward educating students and not making someone rich.
With all these in place, go ahead and set up charters where teachers and education leaders can try new, innovative and free-from-the-usual-rules educational approaches. But make sure that you are running a school and not a business. Charter boosters are going to sell, and sell hard, but if Kentuckians aren't careful, they'll find they've purchased imaginary benefits at far-too-high a cost.
Matt Bevin, the new governor whose previous job was investment management, has repeatedly stated his intention to expand school choice through charter school expansion in Kentucky. Bevin seems to believe in the power of competition. Here he is in an interview laying out his thoughts:
There is a lot of concern about academic competition; competition is good, and for those who are quick to say that this is somehow going to come at the expense of public education – we need strong public education. That is where the vast majority of our students are getting their education and will continue to get their education, and we have to be able to support the teachers and administrators that are a part of it. So we don’t want to turn the whole thing upside down. But we have schools that have been failing for generations now. So let’s start with public charter schools. The students going there are public students, the funding comes in a similar manner, everyone will be better for this.
For Kentuckians who haven't had a lot of exposure to the issues that come with charters, this must sound pretty reasonable (Bevin buried his opponent pretty decisively). This post is for them.
Dear Kentuckians-- here are some things you may want to keep an eye on if you decide to jump into the charter end of the pool.
Transparency
Despite the use of the word "school," a charter school is much more like a private business than a public institution. You can't walk into the kitchen at McDonalds and demand to see how the special sauce is made, and you can't demand a tour of a Ford assembly plant. Likewise, charters tend to assert their right to be opaque and secretive. In one of the more famous examples, the Success Charter chain in New York went to court to prevent the state auditor from looking at their books to see what they were doing with the tax dollars the state was giving them.
You're being told that the way it works is that the state contracts with the charter operator-- the state hands over a pile of money and the charter promises to hit certain benchmarks. Are you sure that's all you want to know? Is there any other time you can think of when it would be okay for a public institution paid for with your tax dollars to refuse to tell you what they were doing with those dollars?
Local Control
Currently you are entitled to know how your district spends every cent, and while some may not be great at meeting that letter of the law, if you're unhappy with what your school is doing, you are entitled to attend a school board meeting where you are legally entitled to hear everything that goes into making decisions about your schools. If you don't like what you hear, you can say so by speaking formally or hollering informally. You can fight for the election of board members that you support.
But with a charter-- you can do nothing. You are not entitled to attend a board meeting, and nobody who runs the school is required to take your call, talk to you, or explain anything to you. They do not answer to the taxpayers, and they do not stand for election.
"I'll just pull my child out of school if I object strongly," you say? What if you don't have a child in school? Are you upset that your tax dollars are going to support a school that teaches communism is great or runs on a Sharia Law model? Too bad. Nobody has to listen to you. And if you are a parent arguing with the school after Counting Day (the day on which official enrollment is tallied), they will be happy to see you go, because the money associated with your child is already in the school's bank account.
Piles of Wasted Money
Do you think you could own and operate two homes for the same total cost as one home? No, me neither. But a charter system duplicates buildings, administrators, and a host of services that could be more efficiently in one building. Opening charters automatically must increase the total cost of education in your community.
Sucking Public Schools Dry
The classic simple charter funding model is to just have the per-pupil cost follow the pupil wherever she goes. If 5% of your high school students leave for a charter, 5% of your funding goes with them. Here's the problem-- if your school population drops by 5%, do your costs drop by 5% as well?No. You don't have 5% fewer buildings, 5% fewer buses or 5% fewer light and heating bills. You don't have 5% fewer administrators. You probably won't lose, say, an entire classroom's worth of third graders, so when you need to cut teachers to help make the budget, it's more likely to be an art or music teacher. Maybe a librarian.
And because charters are usually set up to help students "escape" the worst public schools, it is the most challenged and troubled schools that will lose the most resources. Unless your legislature decides to fully fund charters without simply moving money from the public system, this is a zero sum game where the public system must lose. And it's awfully hard to "compete" when someone keeps taking away the resources you need to be competitive.
Who Is Served?
Charter schools won't have room for everybody. Any kind of application process will favor families that understand the system and have the motivation to jump through the hoops. Even where all students have the possibility of entry into the charter, charters have many techniques for pushing out students-- particularly those with special needs.
Success?
Does any of the above really matter if charters get results? It's a fair question-- should we favor public schools out of tradition if charters can serve our children better?
Kentuckians are being told about great charter successes in New Orleans and other charter hubs around the country. These stories are exaggerations at best. Study after study finds little evidence that charters do any better than public schools. Where there are signs of success, we find that the charters are serving fewer students with greater disabilities and fewer English Language Learners. "Successful" charters also often have extra resources from private sponsors and contributors. In other words, the secret of charter success-- more resources, and only the more easily taught students-- is no secret, and could easily be applied to existing public schools-- if we were willig to change the mission of pblic education.
You should also examine the definition of success. Some charters define success very simply-- the students will score well on the Big Standardized Test. These schools maintain a tightly disciplined focus on a culture of compliance and endless test prep.
The "achievement gap" and "student achievement" refer to only one thing-- scores on standardized tests that cover math and reading. That is far too narrow a definition of success, and certainly does not represent "college and career readiness." ("We'd like to hire you because you take standardized tests really well," said no employer ever).
Stability
Charter schools are businesses, and they make decisions for business reasons. This does not make them evil, but it does mean that they are not going to keep an unprofitable school open in your neighborhood just because it's a nice thing to do. A public school cannot say, "You know what? It's just too hard to keep working at education in this community with such a tiny revenue stream, so we're just going to close up shop." A charter school can say such things-- and they often do. As of last fall, 200 charter schools had closed up shop in Ohio.
Follow the Money
The amount of money wrapped up in the education sector is huge, and charter schools have become a powerful tool for unlocking much of that. The largest chunk of investment in charter schools is not from educators or school-related industries, but from hedge fund managers looking for good return on investment. And just because a charter school operators is "non-profit" doesn't mean it's not making big money. Some charter school operators are scrupulous and ethical; some are not. And some practices are legal but eyebrow raising, like paying charter school chiefs nearly a half-million dollars, or leasing buildings from yourself.
This report from the National Education Policy Center shows the many ways in which charter schools can be used to funnel money to places it doesn't belong. Some states have instituted some stricter oversight, but states like Ohio show just how widespread scandal, fraud and waste can become when nobody is minding the money-saturated store at all (go ahead-- google "Ohio charter school scandal" and see what pops up).
The amount of money at stake means you need to be wary of people who are trying to sell you something. When a car salesman tells you that the 2016 Superwheels will change your life and make your family smart and beautiful, you would be wise to take it with a few hundred grains of salt. The money trail is often more tricky to trace when it comes to charter schools, but it is worth your while to trace it.
Watch the Big Picture
Ultimately, how Kentucky manages public education and the charter business is about more than just money (though it is certainly about that).
Kentucky is one of the states that has watched the farm industry turn into a factory model business. Farmers are now technicians who are simply meant to take orders from their corporate masters. Animals are now just product to be mass-produced with no concern for anything except their ability to be turned into meat. And the system is kept tilted in favor of the big corporations by a revolving door between corporate and government offices.
Modern education reform is an attempt to apply those same transformations to schools. Teachers are just to follow instructions and deliver pre-packaged lessons. Students are there to produce good-looking test results; their other concerns are unimportant. Charter schools are a leading edge of these transformations.
Charters represent a seismic shift. From he idea of public education as a shared good, a service provided by the community for every single one of its students, we move to the idea that schools are a consumer good, provided for a select few, and primarily serving the business interests of their investors. If you aren't careful, when you install charters, you change the very idea of what schools are for.
Can it be done?
Charter schools can potentially be a great addition to a school system, but only under the right conditions. Kentucky is in a unique position to set the rules up right from day one. If I were the Kentucky legislature, and I were dead set on starting up with charter schools, here's what I would do.
* Fund them fully. Rather than trying to run several parallel systems with the same money that previously only ran one, I would make sure that both the public and the charter systems were fully funded. That means the cost of schooling will go up for the taxpayers. If you really believe in charters, sell the idea.
* Complete transparency. Charters must operate with the same transparency and accountability as public schools. They must account for every cent they spend. They must do their decision-making in public. They must be completely and fully accountable to the taxpayers.
* Locally controlled. The people who run the charter school in the community must be there, in that community. Do not allow charter schools that are run by a board of directors in some other state.
* Fully open. The charter must be prepared to accept and serve any student who lives in that community. No creating barriers to entry or push-outs once in the school.
* Professionally staffed. Charters have often pushed for the option of putting any warm (cheap) body in a classroom. That's not okay.
* Regulated to avoid financial shenanigans. There are too many scams out there that have demonstrated all the ways in which a charter school can be nothing more than someone's get rich quick scheme. Regulators (using the complete transparency from above) should be clear and tough when it comes to making sure that charter school dollars go toward educating students and not making someone rich.
With all these in place, go ahead and set up charters where teachers and education leaders can try new, innovative and free-from-the-usual-rules educational approaches. But make sure that you are running a school and not a business. Charter boosters are going to sell, and sell hard, but if Kentuckians aren't careful, they'll find they've purchased imaginary benefits at far-too-high a cost.
Sunday, December 13, 2015
ICYMI (December 13)
Time for that Sunday reading list!
What's Your Purpose
Rob Miller has one of those posts that is great for refocusing and gearing up for the week to come-- plus a cool diagram
Shaming the Devil
Man. My hat is off-- way off-- to this blogger who decided to call out Steve Perry, the crowd-pleasing, money-grabing, self-aggrandizing reformster. Quite a tale here.
Testifying before Cuomo's Common Core Task Force
This is a throwback, but since Cuomo's Task Force offered up their recommendations this week, it seems like the perfect time to revisit Critical Classroom's account of testifying before the Task Force five weeks ago.
EdTweak
Some I had up till now missed this little diversion-- a short faux journal published every now and then in the style of everybody's favorite education news publication. Check out articles like "Reformers Address Deficiencies in Children's Screen Time."
Ex-Star Principal Tells of Her Downfall
Depressing. If you want a picture of how a principal can get caught up in culture of graft and corruption, read this Detroit Free Press article about one of the school officials caught in the federal investigation of misbehavior in Detroit.
Progressive Public School Shakedown
I've been remiss in not bringing this up sooner. The Progressive magazine has assembled a group f twelve fellows to cover education reform news for the magazine. The group includes top drawer folks like Jose Luis Vilson, Xian Barrett, Jennifer Berkshire, and Sabrina Stevens (and full disclosure-- I have also snuck into the group somehow). You can follow the project on twitter under @Progressive4Ed; the fellows offer up a new piece at least once weekly, and even those of you who may not consider yourselves in tune with the overall agenda of the magazine will find the Progressive Fellow pieces informative and useful.
What's Your Purpose
Rob Miller has one of those posts that is great for refocusing and gearing up for the week to come-- plus a cool diagram
Shaming the Devil
Man. My hat is off-- way off-- to this blogger who decided to call out Steve Perry, the crowd-pleasing, money-grabing, self-aggrandizing reformster. Quite a tale here.
Testifying before Cuomo's Common Core Task Force
This is a throwback, but since Cuomo's Task Force offered up their recommendations this week, it seems like the perfect time to revisit Critical Classroom's account of testifying before the Task Force five weeks ago.
EdTweak
Some I had up till now missed this little diversion-- a short faux journal published every now and then in the style of everybody's favorite education news publication. Check out articles like "Reformers Address Deficiencies in Children's Screen Time."
Ex-Star Principal Tells of Her Downfall
Depressing. If you want a picture of how a principal can get caught up in culture of graft and corruption, read this Detroit Free Press article about one of the school officials caught in the federal investigation of misbehavior in Detroit.
Progressive Public School Shakedown
I've been remiss in not bringing this up sooner. The Progressive magazine has assembled a group f twelve fellows to cover education reform news for the magazine. The group includes top drawer folks like Jose Luis Vilson, Xian Barrett, Jennifer Berkshire, and Sabrina Stevens (and full disclosure-- I have also snuck into the group somehow). You can follow the project on twitter under @Progressive4Ed; the fellows offer up a new piece at least once weekly, and even those of you who may not consider yourselves in tune with the overall agenda of the magazine will find the Progressive Fellow pieces informative and useful.
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