2013 - Page 11 of 65 - The Center for Education Reform

Ci Vediamo! A final note from CER president Jeanne Allen

October 31, 2013 By The Center for Education Reform

Dear Friends:

Only a few times in my life have I had writer’s block, or been speechless, but lately it’s happening every day! Maybe it’s because my time as president of the Center for Education Reform is now coming to an end, and it is indeed bittersweet.

I’m so proud of all that we’ve accomplished together. As I told those gathered at our big 20^th Anniversary bash, it’s a new day, and an exciting one at that! I’ve been honored and fortunate to have spent so much time with thousands of people doing the hard and often invisible work of recreating American education so that new methods, new innovations and new research could take hold in our behaviors, governments and classrooms.

The progress of the last 20 years is owed to the extraordinary accomplishments of each and every participant. Allow me to say thank you one last time in my capacity as president of CER.

• Thank you for staying strong and for supporting @edreform
• Thank you for taking the hits, daring to challenge the status quo and being willing to fight the good fight when we disagree.
• Thank you for being part of what we do at the Center, helping to make schools better for all kids.

We could not have done it alone, and the millions we have yet to reach are the next conquest. CER’s energetic, dynamic and knowledgeable new leadership will take us capably into the future and accomplish so much with your continued support. I leave my post but not my affinity for the organization, and in addition to staying involved as a CER board member I will serve as senior fellow and president emeritus. I will be “on call” and will continue to write and address key issues of the day, even as I pursue my own new, additional paths to a better America and a better future for all children.

I urge you to support the Center either for the first time or at increased levels than you have in the past. If you’re not certain why you might do that, take a look at this compilation of testimonials from those whose own achievements are significant and recognize what our familiar sun stands for.

Ci vediamo presto!

We’ll meet again, soon.

Jeanne

Filed Under: News & Analysis, Breaking News

Daily Headlines for October 31, 2013

October 31, 2013 By The Center for Education Reform

Click here for Newswire, the latest weekly report on education news and commentary you won’t find anywhere else – spiced with a dash of irreverence – from the nation’s leading voice in school reform.

NATIONAL COVERAGE

Common Core, uncommon solutions
Editorial, Portland Tribune, OR, October 31, 2013
Despite what you might read in the blogosphere, the latest movement in public education reform is not an example of big government run amok.

Obamacare prompts cutbacks for school part-timers
Richmond Times-Dispatch, VA, October 31, 2013
The health care reform law championed by President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress is prompting Richmond-area school divisions to cut part-timers’ hours.

US threatens to take $3.52 billion from California schools in testing dispute
Daily Democrat, CA, October 31, 2013
Reinforcing its threat to punish California for dumping its old standardized state tests next spring, the U.S. Department of Education said that decision could cost the state at least $3.5 billion.

STATE COVERAGE

COLORADO

Denver Schools Seeing Growth, Achievement Challenges
CBS Denver, CO, October 30, 2013
Parents and students are taking a more active role in picking the school that’s right for them. The district has moved toward the portfolio schools movement, offering a variety of charter schools and charter-like schools as well as district-run schools.

GEORGIA

State Charter Commission Turns Down Large Number of Applicants
WABE-NPR, GA, October 30, 2013
A number of startup charter schools hoping to open their doors during the next school year are frustrated. That’s because the State Charter Schools Commission only approved one out of eight charter schools considered today. The commission was created earlier this year after the approval of a controversial amendment to the state’s constitution.

State commission nixes proposed Hephzibah charter school
Augusta Chronicle, GA, October 30, 2013
A charter school proposed mainly to serve children in Hephzibah was denied by the State Charter Schools Commission on Wednesday because of issues with the attendance zone.

FLORIDA

Nine apply to give new charter school local oversight
Tampa Bay Times Blog, FL, October 30, 2013
At its first meeting since May, University Prep’s governing board took steps Wednesday toward providing local oversight of the new St. Pete charter school

ILLINOIS

Illinois grade school test scores plunge — especially in poor communities
Chicago Tribune, IL, October 31, 2013
The push to toughen state exams for Illinois grade school students triggered widespread drops in 2013 scores, with hundreds of schools in some of the state’s poorest communities seeing performances plunge, test results show.

New charters added to warning list, many removed from last year’s list
Chicago Tribune, IL, October 30, 2013
Four privately run charter schools have been put on an academic warning list by Chicago Public Schools and a fifth was kept on the list for a second year, pushing it to the brink of being shut down.

LOUISIANA

EBR feeling competition pinch for students
The Advocate, LA, October 30, 2013
She briefly considered looking into private schools, then learned about the new Baton Rouge Charter Academy at Mid City. After doing some research and attending an informational meeting, she agreed to transfer Ednijaha Bindon, now 9, to the school.

White remains committed to Common Core
Alexandria Town Talk, LA, October 31, 2013
State Superintendent of Education John White remains firmly behind the plan to implement the Common Core standards in Louisiana, but he wants to reassure teachers about the evaluations that come with them.

In school voucher lawsuit, feds say state’s demands unduly heavy, ask for delay
Times Picayune, LA, October 30, 2013
The U.S. Justice Department says Louisiana has made unnecessary demands for documents in federal government’s school vouchers desegregation lawsuit, and is asking Judge Ivan Lemelle push back a document-filing deadline.

MASSACHUSETTS

State to take over 4 struggling schools, including 2 in Boston
Boston Globe, MA, October 30, 2013
Alarmed by chronically low MCAS scores, Massachusetts education officials announced Wednesday they will take over four schools, including two in Boston, in an attempt to rejuvenate academic programs and put students on a path to success.

MICHIGAN

Legislation would require third-graders to be held back if they can’t read
Port Huron Times Herald, MI, October 30, 2013
Lawmakers in the Michigan House are debating whether third-grade students should be “handled with kid gloves” or face “tough love” if they can’t pass a reading proficiency test.

MINNESOTA

Rybak’s next challenge: improving education
Star Tribune, MN, October 30, 2013
Long a champion of city schools but held back by competing demands as mayor, R.T. Rybak said Wednesday that he’ll become executive director of Generation Next, a year-old collaborative that aims to close the achievement gap between white and minority students.

NEW JERSEY

Pro-school reform group noticeably quiet in 2013 election campaign
New Jersey Spotlight, NJ, October 30, 2013
Founded and funded by two hedge-fund giants, the Better Education for Kids (B4K) organization and all its offshoots appeared at their creation to be a pro-reform counterweight to the New Jersey Education Association.

NEW MEXICO

NM can’t regress to pre-reform school days
Albuquerque Journal, NM, October 31, 2013
AYP, aka Adequate Yearly Progress, was a key component of the federal No Child Left Behind legislation, a landmark 2001 law that finally put the public schools system on record for how it educates all of its students: the poor, ethnic minorities, non-English speakers and disabled as well as the upper- and middle-class, the B students and high-achievers.

NEW YORK

Audit raises red flags about charter school
Albany Times Union, NY, October 30, 3014
A South End charter school could have saved as much as $2.3 million by buying its Krank Street building rather than leasing it from the nonprofit foundation that has played a significant role in each of the city’s 10 remaining charter schools, a state audit said.

Charter School Benefits Extend Beyond Classroom
Wall Street Journal Blog, October 30, 2013
The benefits of a charter school extend well beyond higher test scores and academic performance. Students at the Promise Academy in Harlem fared better than their peers in and outside the classroom, with lower rates of incarceration and teen pregnancy, new research shows.

Ed department to approve more than 20 new co-locations
Capital New York, NY, October 30, 2013
The city education department’s Panel for Educational Policy (P.E.P.) is expected to approve 22 co-location proposals tonight, including ten of charter schools with existing district schools.

Sorry, charter schools aren’t rich
Opinion, New York Post, NY, October 30, 2013
I started my career as a teacher, then worked as a principal at a school I founded — then worked to copy that successful model as we opened three more schools. I now lead a network of charter schools called Explore Schools, all located in central Brooklyn.

NORTH CAROLINA

Why punish students by sending them home?
Commentary, News & Observer, NC, October 31, 2013
Debbie Pittman, assistant superintendent of Durham Public Schools, said that school system is seeking alternatives to suspensions. “We want to teach, re-teach and get them back on track,” Pittman said of students engaged in inappropriate behavior. “We want them to be successful.”

OHIO

Ohio among the leaders in using student performance to evaluate teachers
Akron Beacon Journal, OH, October 30, 2013
Student test results increasingly are becoming the basis for grading teachers.

OREGON

Panel: Tie more incentives to teacher evaluations
Statesman Journal, OR, October 30, 2013
Oregon should create a more direct link between teacher evaluations and their pay, as well as license renewal and professional development, a national education advocacy group recommends.

PENNSYLVANIA

Grade Scale: PPS, union at odds over teacher-evaluation standards
Pittsburgh City Paper, PA, October 30, 2013
In early October, when Pittsburgh City Council called for a moratorium on school closings, councilors threw themselves into a nationwide controversy when they also decided to challenge Pittsburgh Public Schools’ new system of teacher evaluations.

Parent rally urges lobbying, march on York City school board
York Dispatch, PA, October 31, 2013
There was a mellow, almost somber, mood in the cafeteria of New Hope Academy Charter School until Yolanda Thomas took the mic.

TEXAS

Dallas’ Teachers Unions Are Ready for Combat over Merit Pay
Dallas Observer, TX, October 31, 2013
The real issue the teachers unions have with Dallas school Superintendent Mike Miles is not Mike Miles. It’s merit pay. They don’t like it.

WISCONSIN

Legislature needs to fix glaring flaw on school vouchers
Editorial, Journal Times, WI, October 31, 2013
If you want to open a brand-new voucher school, you don’t need to have a budget and you don’t need a building. You can start accepting students and then figure out the rest later

Under-enrollment may bring $1.4 million loss for Rocketship Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel Blog, WI, October 30, 2013
California-based Rocketship Education’s first school in Milwaukee fell short of its enrollment projection of 485 students on the third Friday of September, which will likely lead to a $1.4 million shortfall for the school, according to new documents.

ONLINE LEARNING

Online classes in Monroe County schools’ future
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, NY, October 30, 2013
Students at high schools across Monroe County may start attending class together starting next year through an online learning consortium now under development.

Teaching technology with students
Daily Freeman-Journal, IA, October 31, 2013
While most students dread giving a book report, Northeast Hamilton Elementary School third graders took it all in stride when their class gave an iPad presentation at the Iowa Technology and Education Connection conference on Oct. 14 in Des Moines before 30 Iowa educators.

Filed Under: Daily Headlines

Daily Headlines for October 30, 2013

October 30, 2013 By The Center for Education Reform

NATIONAL COVERAGE

Are You Competent? Prove It.
Column, New York Times, NY, October 30, 2013
After more than a century, the system equating time with learning is being challenged from high quarters.

Should High School Last Six Years?
Debate, New York Times, NY, October 29, 2013
President Obama recently visited a six-year high school in Brooklyn, highlighting it as a model for American education. Should high school last six years instead of four?

STATE COVERAGE

ARKANSAS

Parents push for charter middle school in West Little Rock
KTHV-TV, AR, October 29, 2013
Parents told THV 11 that they are frustrated with a lack of options for public middle school and high school in West Little Rock, saying the Little Rock School District has failed to meet the growing demand for public secondary education.

CALIFORNIA

John Deasy to stay on as L.A. Unified schools chief
Los Angeles Times, CA, October 30, 2013
Supt. Deasy gets a ‘satisfactory’ evaluation, automatically extending his contract. The news is met with both excitement and dismay.

School vouchers not an effective solution for failing public schools
Opinion, Daily Titian, CA, October 30, 2013
The California educational system needs some work, that’s not news to anyone. Parents are growing more and more frustrated with underperforming and underfunded public schools not providing quality education for their children.

COLORADO

Setting the record straight on Amendment 66
Column
Vail Daily, CO, October 29, 2013
It was with great concern that we recently read a litany of falsehoods from the Eagle County Republican Party published in these pages regarding Amendment 66, the school finance ballot issue. Eagle County deserves to vote on the facts, not fiction.

CONNECTICUT

Hartford Officials Explain Charter School Choice
Hartford Courant, CT, October 30, 2013
City school officials on Tuesday cited chronic absenteeism, declining enrollment and years of low test scores as reasons why Clark Elementary School should be converted into an Achievement First charter school.

GEORGIA

State Officials: Latest Results Not Out, but Charter Schools Ahead on Most Standardized Testing
WABE-NPR, GA, October 30, 2013
The Georgia Charter Schools Association recently held a bus tour to visit several charter schools they say are excelling. The tour comes in a year where state officials report that charter schools overall are doing slightly better than traditional ones on most standardized testing.

Student urges DeKalb school board to approve Druid Hills charter cluster
Atlanta Journal Constitution Blog, GA, October 29, 2013
Sophie Binney is a senior at Druid Hills High School where she is editor of the opinion section of the school newspaper, the Spotlight.

FLORIDA

Myths about Common Core
Opinion, Miami Herald, FL, October 29, 2013
Conversations have been occurring around the state about the improved standards for education in Florida following the Department of Education’s series of public forums. There has been a lot of talk about what the new standards are, but not about what they aren’t.

LOUISIANA

Louisiana grapples with assessing alternative charter schools
The Advocate, LA, October 29, 2013
It is a problem that raises a series of difficult philosophical and legal issues about what actually constitutes an alternative school, who should attend them and how high to set expectations for students who face the most difficult circumstances.

Recovery School District announces charter operator plans, Istrouma and Glen Oaks will close for 1 year
Times-Picayune, LA, October 29, 2013
Five Recovery School District schools in North Baton Rouge will have new charter operators next year, while Istrouma High School and Glen Oaks Middle School will close temporarily, district officials announced Tuesday.

MAINE

Democrats aim at education in Maine Legislative Council
Portland Press Herald, ME, October 30, 2013
A bill that would change how the state distributes federal anti-poverty education funds to local schools is a top priority for Democrats going into Wednesday’s meeting of the Legislative Council in Augusta.

MASSACHUSETTS

Emotions spill over as Spirit of Knowledge Charter School closes
Worcester Magazine, MA, October 30, 2013
A night that started with a group of senior students proudly proclaiming themselves a part of the Spirit of Knowledge Charter School ended with many of them in tears, a woman removed by police and outraged parents railing against school leadership and demanding to know why it had all come to this.

MINNESOTA

Enrollment up by nearly 1,000 among St. Paul charter schools
Star Tribune, MN, October 30, 2013
But if you are looking for the story about enrollment growth in St. Paul today, it’s not among the city schools, but at charter schools such as the St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists (SPCPA) — just across the street from City Hall.

NEBRASKA

Nebraska parents group urges repeal of state’s truancy law
Omaha World-Herald, NE
October 29, 2013
Saying Nebraska’s truancy law continues to put good parents and sick children under suspicion, a parents group is calling for the law’s repeal.

NEW YORK

UNY approves six new co-located Eva Moskowitz-run charters
Capital New York, NY, October 29, 2013
Six of the eight schools will be in Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academies charter network.

OKLAHOMA

Barresi’s office: ‘No confidence’ plea just attacking messenger on poor A-F school grades
Tulsa World, OK, October 30, 2013
Sniping about the A-F school grading system needs to stop because parents deserve better, a state Department of Education spokeswoman said Tuesday in response to one superintendent’s plea for a “no confidence” vote on State Superintendent Janet Barresi.

Creating a learning environment a real challenge in some schools
Editorial, The Oklahoman, OK, October 30, 2013
“WE can’t have education achievement if we don’t have a safe environment for students and teachers.”

PENNSYLVANIA

Judge rules PM charter school’s custodian will remain in place
Pocono Record, PA, October 30, 2013
A judge Tuesday denied requests from two unlikely allies who were seeking the removal of a court-appointed custodian who is helping to run the Pocono Mountain Charter School.

New Hope, York City at odds over process
York Daily Record, PA, October 29, 2013
The district is sharing transition plans, but the charter school thinks it’s creating confusion.

The need for seniority in schools
Opinion, Philadelphia Inquirer, PA, October 30, 2013
RECENT efforts to eliminate seniority and tenure protections for Pennsylvania’s professional school employees demonstrate a lack of understanding about the benefits that an objective selection process provides to all – faculty, students, parents . . . or to anyone who wants a system free from the cronyism which once ruled the city and its school district.

TENNESSEE

Boys Prep Charter School Fights To Stay Open
WTVF-TV, TN, October 29, 2013
Charter schools are funded with your tax dollars. If they’re not successful, they close. After high turnover and low performance, Boys Prep in Madison is trying to prove that they’re worth the investment.

School voucher battle gearing up again in Tennessee
Memphis Commercial Appeal, TN, October 30, 2013
An all-out, hard-line lobbying campaign by proponents of broad-based school vouchers sank a more limited voucher bill proposed by Gov. Bill Haslam last spring, and the proponents of a broader program are now trying to build public support before the Tennessee legislature reconvenes in January.

When Outsiders Take Over Schools: Lessons From Memphis
The Atlantic, October 29, 2013
Tennessee’s new Achievement District gives control of some public schools over to charter networks, with mixed results.

WISCONSIN

Charter school bill would cost all of us
Opinion, Marshfield News Herald, WI, October 30, 2013
State Sen. Kathleen Vinehout recently wrote about a bill before the Wisconsin Senate Education Committee that would encourage out-of-state companies to run our local schools with our tax dollars!

Most students with vouchers weren’t in public schools
Leader-Telegram, WI, October 29, 2013
A large majority of the local students who received a publicly subsidized voucher to attend parochial schools this year already were enrolled at those schools.

ONLINE LEARNING

Digital learning
Editoral, Ketchikan Daily News, AK, October 29, 2013
Parnell expects the project will attract Alaska’s top educators and make them available to all Alaska students. They will be in direct contact through interactive, digital learning.

Teacher ‘flips’ class
Dawson News, GA, October 30, 2013
One Dawson County teacher is flipping math class on top of itself. Kristina Priest, an eighth-grade math teacher at Dawson County Middle School, is teaching her students via videos that can be viewed at home.

Filed Under: Daily Headlines

ESA Court Victory in Arizona

October 29, 2013 By The Center for Education Reform

The Arizona Court of Appeals rendered a unanimous ruling in favor of the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program, which you can read here. In so doing, they completely rejected all of the arguments made by those seeking to destroy the program.

Congratulations to our crack legal-eagles at the Institute for Justice, Goldwater Institute and Arizona Attorney General’s Office. If you are not in the mood to read a long legal decision, here are some highlights drawn out by Jonathan Butcher. The Cain decision is the Arizona Supreme Court decision which found vouchers unconstitutional on the basis of our Blaine amendment. The Appeals Court however finds very big distinction between ESAs and

The parents of a qualified student under the ESA must provide an education in reading, grammar, mathematics, social studies, and science. Whether that is done at a private secular or sectarian school is a matter of parental choice. The ESA students are pursuing a basic secondary education consistent with state standards; they are not pursuing a course of religious study.

The ESA does not result in an appropriation of public money to encourage the preference of one religion over another, or religion per se over no religion. Any aid to religious schools would be a result of the genuine and independent private choices of the parents. The parents are given numerous ways in which they can educate their children suited to the needs of each child with no preference given to religious or nonreligious schools or programs. Parents are required only to educate their children in the areas of reading, grammar, mathematics, social studies, and science.

Where ESA funds are spent depends solely upon how parents choose to educate their children. Eligible school children may choose to remain in public school, attend a religious school, or a nonreligious private school. They may also use the funds for educational therapies, tutoring services, online learning programs and other curricula, or even at a postsecondary institution.

The specified object of the ESA is the beneficiary families, not private or sectarian schools. Parents can use the funds deposited in the empowerment account to customize an education that meets their children’s unique educational needs.

Thus, beneficiaries have discretion as to how to spend the ESA funds without having to spend any of the aid at private or sectarian schools.

Thus, unlike in Cain II, in which every dollar of the voucher programs was earmarked for private schools, none of the ESA funds are preordained for a particular destination.

The supreme court has never interpreted the Aid Clause to mean that no public money can be spent at private or religious schools.

This program enhances the ability of parents of disabled children to choose how best to provide for their educations, whether in or out of private schools. No funds in the ESA are earmarked for private schools.

First, the ESA does not require a permanent or irrevocable forfeiture of the right to a free public education.

All the ESA requires is that students not simultaneously enroll in a public school while receiving ESA funds. This same restriction applies to any children who attend private school or are homeschooled.

Second, parents are not coerced in deciding whether or not to participate in the ESA…Parents are free to enroll their children in the public school or to participate in the ESA; the fact that they cannot do both at the same time does not amount to a waiver of their constitutional rights or coercion by the state.

Finally, the ESA does not limit the choices extended to families but expands the options to meet the individual needs of children.

Jay P. Green’s Blog.

Guest Post by Matthew Ladner

Learn more about Arizona’s ESA program here.

Filed Under: Unions & Establishment

An Unfair Attack on Education Reform

October 29, 2013 By The Center for Education Reform

In her new book, “Reign of Error,” Diane Ravitch seeks to discredit many of the arguments advanced by the education reform community. She doesn’t like standardized testing, merit pay for teachers or what she misleadingly calls “privately run” charter schools. From the National Assessment of Education Progress, on whose board she served, to international tests and graduation rates, Ravitch finds no reason for education reform – saying that underperforming schools are primarily a byproduct of poverty.

These views are conventional among a segment of the “status quo” education policy community. What makes them noteworthy is that Ravitch was, until about a decade ago, a leading voice in the fraternity of conservative education reformers. She’s now made an ideological U-turn. And she’s fanned the flames with a level of blogging and tweeting that would suggest she’s 16 years old, not a septuagenarian.

Along the way, she’s amassed a following of teachers and administrators who feel that they are unfairly blamed for the poor performance of so many students. But while Ravitch has some relevant anecdotes that merit attention, the underlying premise of “Reign of Error” is simply wrong.

Let’s start with her views on how well U.S. schools are performing. Ravitch dedicates several chapters to a review of the datasets frequently cited by education reformers to illustrate the need for change. Her read of the data is that American students are doing better than ever, and that poor performance is due to poverty, out of wedlock births, diversity (or the presence of immigrants for whom English is a second language) and the fact that U.S. students don’t take tests like the NAEP and PISA seriously.

While there’s been a slight uptick in the performance of U.S. students on these tests, what our kids need to do now in order to get or create the jobs of tomorrow is far more complex than the skills they once needed. Our competition is no longer the kid next door or in the neighboring state but the students in Bangalore or Seoul who are being far better prepared for life in the information age. What’s more, those doing poorly are not only disadvantaged children; many of our best and brightest are not as competitive as we once thought they were.

In a report prepared for the Bush Institute, Jay Greene of the University of Arkansas looked at how each of America’s 14,000 school districts compares to schools in 25 other industrialized nations and found that “students in suburban public school districts were not only trailing their international peers, but … they were barely keeping pace with the average student in other developed countries.” Greene also observed that “out of the nearly 14,000 public school districts in the U.S., only 6 percent have average student math achievement that would place them in the upper third of global performance.” This despite the United States spending more per-pupil on its schools than any other developed country, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Ravitch also charges there’s been a “corporate take-over” of our schools, which she says has led to excessive reliance on testing and an industry of programs and providers spawned to help address the poor test scores.

Ravitch points to the growth of charter schools as an example of this takeover. Charter schools are independently managed but publicly funded schools that were conceptualized by the late Albert Shanker to give educators greater financial and legal autonomy to try new ideas in exchange for improving student learning. In the last 20 years, 42 states and D.C. have passed charter school laws and 6,000 charter schools are currently serving 2 million students around the country – mostly in inner-city settings where the need for educational options is greatest.

Ravitch laments the fact that 35 percent of charter schools are run by charter school “chains,” calling them Walmarts and Targets. But she doesn’t explain that only 15 percent of charters are run by for-profit education management companies; another 20 percent are run by non-profit management companies. Sixty-five percent – the vast majority of charter schools – are non-profit, single-site schools.

What’s more, the largest charter school chains have fewer than 150 schools and the majority of what Ravitch considers chains only have between five and seven schools in their network. These so-called “chains” include schools like New York City’s Success Academies, whose students came out with flying colors on the recent Common Core assessment, and schools like BASIS in Arizona, whose students recently topped the world on the PISA test.

Some traditional public schools have similar outcomes, but there seems to be no interest in scaling these programs. What’s different about the so-called charter chains is that they are trying to replicate their success – and why wouldn’t we want them to?

Charter schools disproportionately serve low-income and minority children, the two student groups doing the worst in traditional public schools. Thousands of charter schools across the country have found the secrets to success for these children. Stanford University’s Center for Research on Educational Outcomes recently found that low-income students, minority students and students still learning English attending charter schools outperform their peers at district schools.

Ravitch closes her book with some common-sense ideas supported by many in the education reform community: expanded access to pre-natal care, higher quality early childhood education, focusing every school on a rich and balanced curriculum, reducing the focus on high-stakes testing and strengthening the teaching profession. But her dismissal of any efforts to improve our schools by demanding rigor and accountability and inviting the private sector (for profit or not) to partner with our schools to help them succeed is disingenuous at its best and harmful to American children at its worst.

by Nina Rees

President and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools

U.S. News & World Report

Filed Under: Unions & Establishment

NEWSWIRE: October 29, 2013

October 29, 2013 By The Center for Education Reform

Vol. 15, No. 40

CHARTER LAW LESSONS. We’ve long said that creating charter school authorizing commissions is a policy prescription that actually works against quality charter school growth. First hand evidence of bureaucratizing the process in New Mexico, politicizing it in Maine or building new barriers to entry that have little to do with quality like in Idaho, are just some of the many problems that occur when states create new entities and expect them to be independent and forward-thinking. So the Peach State’s experience this week is sadly just another example of where the Commission’s approval process fails to result in more options for kids. Despite a hard fought campaign to sanction the Georgia Charter School Commission, only one new school out of 11 proposed will be approved this year. One operator — who is being denied — reports that the Commission felt their proven school model is too controversial. Good choices are controversial for kids? Time for policymakers to review pending proposals and for the National Alliance to review its model legislation, which gives big credit to states that create such commissions.

UNIVERSITIES STILL BEST MODEL. State charter commissions that are often beholden to political interests and red tape are less effective at producing quality schools. On the other hand, universities, which already have an infrastructure and are serious about quality, have a proven track record of giving families the proper accountability and schooling opportunities they deserve. Pennsylvania lawmakers think that by adding a few words about universities authorizing into a proposed bill to allegedly improve charter schooling in the Keystone State is enough. The reason that Pennsylvania bill SB 1085 is bad for educators and families looking for more accountable charter options is because the bill actually makes all aspects of chartering, no matter who the authorizer, beholden to the state education department, an entity designed to regulate, not create charter schools. Furthermore, the law adds unnecessary ethics provisions for charter school boards that are often redundant and can be best addressed with quality authorizing. Charter schools will be able to thrive only when university authorizers are given the proper autonomy and permitted to implement accountability standards as they see fit.

OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE. The Justice Department is being anything but just in its continued attempts to stop the Louisiana Scholarship Program from helping poor kids get the education they deserve. In the latest installment of the Department of Justice lawsuit saga, DOJ is now opposing an attempt by parents to join the State in defending the scholarship program. Federal attorneys argue that parents do not have standing to legally intervene because the scholarship program itself is not being threatened, even though an injunction has kept it from fully functioning, and there is legal precedence for parents acting as interveners in these types of cases. This latest incident may not be as outrageous as the initial lawsuit, but is representative of the persistent curtailment of Parent Power in Louisiana, and the ability of low-income students to escape failing schools.

BIG OPPORTUNITIES IN THE BIG APPLE. New York college student Lamont Sadler, who is now a college student enrolled in the SUNY network, published an op-ed stating he would not be where he is today without the charter school he attended. As an elementary and early secondary student, Lamont said he struggled early and as a result was placed in classes that were not conducive to his academic and developmental needs. But that all changed when he was selected to attend Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School, which instilled in him not a belief, but a guarantee that he would achieve more and one day go to college. He concludes with what should be a simple request, but will likely go unfulfilled given that the next likely mayor, Bill de Blasio is against charter school creation: that students across New York City are afforded the same opportunity he had to seek out a better option, and ensure a bright academic future. Unfortunately, it looks like those students in need are in trouble absent a real reformer in City Hall.

RAISING ARIZONA PARENT POWER. The growing consensus surrounding policies that promote choice and parent empowerment is holding true in Arizona. A large sample of parents utilizing Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) have reported widespread satisfaction with their ability to spend the percentage of their child’s persistent public education funding, and enrich their educational experience. Parents are able to use funds for purposes such as private tuition, textbooks, additional learning programs, all of which are circumstances that allow education funds to quite literally follow the child. Thankfully, the ESA program recently survived a legal attack when it was upheld as constitutional, allowing it to potentially expand its benefits to eligible students.

Filed Under: Newswire Weekly, Newswire

Daily Headlines for October 29, 2013

October 29, 2013 By The Center for Education Reform

NATIONAL COVERAGE

A Distraction from Real Education Reform
Opinion, US News & World Report, October 28, 2013
Discussions of the Common Core standards are actually sucking all of the air out of the room, distracting attention from any serious efforts to reform our schools.

Are Successful Charter Schools Just Teaching To The Test?
Column, Forbes, October 28, 2013
Education reform critics will sometimes argue that high-performing charters are only improving student test scores by teaching to the test.

Author Maya Angelou blasts Obama’s Race to the Top
Washington Post Blog, DC, October 29, 2013
Renowned author and poet Maya Angelou was one of more than 120 authors and illustrators who recently signed a letter to President Obama asking him to curb policies that promote excessive standardized testing because of the negative impact “on children’s love [of] reading and literature.”

Between the Extremes on Charter Schools
Huffington Post, October 28, 2013
To get beyond the rhetoric, it needs to be universally accepted that charters have a useful role in the school system. The innovation and the good things they do should be celebrated. However they cannot have carte blanche to get whatever they want out of the system.

STATE COVERAGE

ARIZONA

Gilbert neighborhood embraces plans for charter school
Arizona Republic, AZ, October 28, 2013
Great Hearts Academies, which operates more than a dozen schools across the Valley, plans to build a K-12 campus on a 9-acre lot at the southwestern corner of Baseline Road and Quinn Avenue.

Two AZ Dems leave Democrats for [Conservative] Education Reform
Opinion, Tucson Citizen, AZ, October 28, 2013
Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) is basically a front group for the conservative “education reform” movement — i.e. privatization and corporate takeover of education.

CALIFORNIA

LAUSD needs Deasy
Editorial, Los Angeles Times, CA, October 29, 2013
There are so many dramas and mini-disasters at the Los Angeles Unified School District, they have to take a number and line up for attention. First, a special meeting was called for Tuesday so that the board could set a broad vision from which future policies would flow.

Los Angeles Schools Leadership Questioned
Wall Street Journal, October 28, 2013
The Los Angeles Unified School District is slated to meet Tuesday to discuss whether to renew its superintendent’s contract—a decision that could change the leadership of the nation’s second-largest school system.

Students can’t wait for school reform
Opinion, Orange County Register, CA, October 28, 2013
Have you ever wanted to know if your child is attending a chronically underperforming school? Well, start spreading the word: the list is out. Due to a law I wrote while serving in the California Senate, the 2010 Open Enrollment Act identifies the 1,000 chronically underperforming schools in California and empowers parents of kids enrolled in these to be able to seek enrollment in any higher performing California public school.

COLORADO

Bloomberg, Gates each put $1 million behind pro-Amendment 66 campaign
Denver Post, CO, October 29, 2013
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates top the donor list to proponents of Amendment 66, the school finance measure that includes a $950 million tax hike.

Would Amendment 66 be a big win for charter schools?
Durango Herald, CO, October 29, 2013
Advertisements for Amendment 66 say the proposed tax increase will help fund art, music and physical education. But for Animas High School Executive Director Michael Ackerman, the only subject that matters is math.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

D.C. kicks off school boundary overhaul
Washington Post, DC, October 28, 2013
D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s administration kicked off an effort Monday to overhaul school boundaries and feeder patterns for the first time in decades, a politically charged and long-delayed process that could limit access to some of the city’s most sought-after schools.

FLORIDA

Ben Gamla charter schools take in millions in public funds as founder lives half a world away
Miami Herald, FL, October 28, 2013
Peter Deutsch, the driving force behind South Florida’s controversial Ben Gamla charter schools, is a six-term former Democratic congressman with a unique status: He lives more than 6,000 miles away in Israel as an expatriate.

Classical curriculum sets school apart
Florida Today, FL, October 29, 2013
Kindergartners will learn Latin, students will read classical literature and every morning will start with the Pledge of Allegiance around the school’s flagpole.

Teachers Learn Best Practices From McKeel Academy Workshop
The Ledger, FL, October 28, 2013
The two attended the first of a series of free seminars McKeel Academy of Technology is sponsoring, thanks to a $250,000 grant that will allow the passing on of best practices to teachers and school administrators.

LOUISIANA

New state program offers nontraditional classes
The Advocate, LA, October 28, 2013
Under a new state program, Destin Valega spends half of his school day outside the classroom learning to be an electrician, which could easily pay him $42,000 per year for starters.

MARYLAND

Incentives for what?
Editorial, Baltimore Sun, MD, October 28, 2013
Giving school staffers ‘retention stipends’ to keep them on the job sounds like paying them extra to do what they’re supposed to be doing anyway

MICHIGAN

MEA should learn from its teachers
Editorial, Detroit Free Press, MI, October 29, 2013
But not everyone is on board with efforts to prevent bullying. While parents, teachers and administrators are fighting hard every day to put an end to it, the Michigan Education Association, our state’s dominant teachers’ union, remains sadly stuck in the past.

Wasted school bonds reflect Detroit’s bedrock troubles
Editorial, Detroit Free Press, MI, October 28, 2013
There may be no better example of the tragic failure to manage Detroit’s long decline than the 110 vacant or torn down Detroit Public Schools buildings. It’s a sign of Detroit’s bedrock problems: The precipitous population decline, destabilizing neighborhoods and devastating the tax base, has been led by families with children, and the city’s inability to attract or retain families remains one of the city’s most significant challenges.

MISSOURI

Focus on parents who kept their children in Normandy schools
Letter, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, MO, October 29, 2013
It is interesting that the Post-Dispatch chose to include the relieved comment of school choice advocate Kate Casas in the article about the Normandy School Board’s vote to refrain from paying its transfer bills rather than the comments of parents who chose to keep their children in the Normandy Public Schools.

Who’s running the show?
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, MO, October 29, 2013
I was a member of the Missouri Senate 20 years ago when the General Assembly passed SB 380. I voted against the bill because it raised taxes without a vote of the people. At the same time I applauded the provision in the bill establishing a statewide test to measure the outcomes produced by those, now better-funded, school districts.

NEW JERSEY

School Choice openings capped
Cherry Hill Courier Post, NJ, October 29, 2013
The New Jersey Department of Education will limit the number of students it funds through the School Choice program next school year.

Students, staff pan Camden schools in survey
Cherry Hill Courier Post, NJ, October 29, 2013
Students and staff members in the Camden City School District reported their schools are unsafe, unsanitary and ill-equipped, according to a survey released Tuesday.

NEW MEXICO

Senate panel plans vote on education secretary
Santa Fe New Mexican, NM, October 28, 2013
The Senate may finally move to confirm Hanna Skandera, the governor’s designee as New Mexico’s top education official, in the upcoming legislative session in January — nearly three years after she was appointed to the post.

NEW YORK

16,000 students could suffer from De Blasio’s charter pledge
New York Post, NY, October 29, 2013
Bill de Blasio’s vow to impose a moratorium on opening new charter schools inside public-school buildings could freeze out nearly 16,000 students from the charter system, according to a new study.

A Bold Bid for Better Schools
Op-Ed, New York Times, NY, October 29, 2013
The state is on the precipice of something big. On Election Day next Tuesday, Coloradans will decide whether to ratify an ambitious statewide education overhaul that the Legislature already passed and that Gov. John Hickenlooper signed but that voters must now approve, because Colorado law gives them that right in regard to tax increases, which the overhaul entails.

Bronx parents win co-location battle at Public School 1
New York Daily News, NY, October 28, 2013
City decides struggling school is ‘making strides’ to improve. Most co-locations sail through the public review process.

Charter school backers seek long-term goals for Finn Academy
Elmira Star-Gazette, NY, October 28, 2013
The people behind a plan to bring Elmira its first charter school said they were stumped last summer when a state education official asked them where they see the school in 20 years.

NORTH CAROLINA

School board tackles ‘hot mess’ of teacher tenure
Times-News, NC, October 28, 2013
The transition away from teacher tenure in public schools is raising a lot of questions. Some questions are which teachers will be offered special contracts, who is going to pay for it and will the Alamance-Burlington School System be sued over it?

PENNSYLVANIA

Charter school reform appears to be anything but
Opinion, The Reporter, PA, October 28, 2013
THECAMPAIGN for unfettered expansion of charter schools in Pennsylvania has greatly intensified given a bill pending in the state Senate that would give life to a large number of deeply ill-advised proposals.

City charters without signed agreements get revocation threat
Philadelphia Inquirer, PA, October 29, 2013
In the midst of its continuing financial crisis, the School District of Philadelphia has lowered the boom on charter schools in the city.

Lehigh Valley superintendents tell feds they need fewer mandates, more money
Lehigh Valley Express-Times, PA, October 28, 2013
The competition between Pennsylvania’s traditional public schools and cyber and charter schools was also a huge focus of the discussion. Ritsch listened intently but also told officials they needed to be talking to Harrisburg, not D.C., on the issue.

Pittsburgh city schools’ enrollment still falling
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, PA, October 29, 2013
If the projections of Pittsburgh Public Schools had been right, the district this fall would have turned the corner on declining K-12 enrollment and would have seen the growth of 100 students.

Scores of Philadelphia teachers reassigned
Philadelphia Inquirer, PA, October 28, 2013
The fallout from the Philadelphia School District’s budget crisis continues: As of Monday, 139 teachers had been moved to new schools – seven weeks into the term, and shortly before students’ first report card grades are due.

RHODE ISLAND

Principals’ ratings of R.I. teachers weren’t too generous
Opinion, Providence Journal, RI, October 29, 2013
The Oct. 12 story “High marks for state teachers come with a caveat” offers the troubling suggestion that the implementation of the educator evaluation system in Rhode Island was compromised by the overly generous favorable ratings that principals gave their teachers. Perhaps more disconcerting to those in the field is the assumption that districts employ much higher numbers of developing or ineffective teachers.

TENNESSEE

Herenton closing 2 Memphis charters for kids in custody of court
Memphis Commercial Appeal, TN, October 29, 2013
The two charter schools that former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton opened inside Northside High for juvenile delinquents will close Friday because of low enrollment.

Pinkston to Metro: Don’t Forget to Audit Charters
Nashville Scene Blog, TN, October 28, 2013
Claims charter schools boot struggling students shortly before state exams and take in few kids with disabilities should be included in Metro’s audit of the city school system, says one school board member.

School voucher campaign kicks off
WBIR-TV, TN, October 28, 2013
School Choice NOW is urging Tennessee lawmakers to approve legislation that would help provide scholarships to parents of disadvantaged children in public schools.

ONLINE LEARNING

The Cleveland schools have to hire more teachers ASAP
Editorial, Cleveland Plain Dealer, OH, October 28, 2013
Before the Cleveland school district’s teacher shortage leaves a lasting sour taste in the mouths of voters who’ll be asked to renew a hefty school levy in less than four years, CEO Eric Gordon needs to quicken the pace of hiring qualified teachers.

Filed Under: Daily Headlines

Profiles in Parent Power: Arizona ESA Program

October 28, 2013 By The Center for Education Reform

The state of Arizona has become a model of Parent Power in recent years, due in no small part to innovative reforms such as the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA). First enacted in 2011, ESAs were initially available to students with special needs. Today, approximately 200,000 students, or 1 in 5 public school families, are now eligible to set up an ESA.

Thankfully, a recent decision by the Arizona Court of Appeals upheld the ESA program as constitutional, much to the relief of parents in search of better educational options and much to the chagrin of anti-reform advocates seeking to uphold business as usual.

Using a state funding formula, 90 percent of a student’s persistent public funding quite literally follows the student into a private bank account managed by their parents, who can decide how to use those funds and ensure the best educational outcome for their child.

In addition to students with special needs, children who attend failing schools, come from a military family or were adopted from foster care are ESA eligible.

Now, the question becomes whether or not Arizona parents managing ESAs are satisfied with how their newfound freedom has affected the quality of their child’s education, and their ability to determine the educational experience that works best for their family.

According to an October 2013 study from the Friedman Foundation entitled, “Schooling Satisfaction: Arizona Parents’ Opinions on Using Education Savings Accounts,” the answer is a resounding yes.

Friedman, in conjunction with the AZ based Goldwater Institute sampled 179 parents, part of 37 percent of all students benefitting from ESAs. Of those parents, the entire sample expressed a level of satisfaction with the program, with not a single parent expressing dissatisfaction.

It’s important to note that respondents were self-selected, but still constitute a large portion of ESA beneficiaries with a diverse set of backgrounds.

The level of satisfaction comes as no surprise to those who recognize the benefits of parent empowerment, and the level of eagerness at which parents embrace their right to place their child in an environment that will foster success.

As programs like the Arizona ESA expand across the nation, so will the already growing consensus surrounding the need to give parents more access to education.

Filed Under: Choice & Charter Schools

iNACOL Annual Conference

October 28, 2013 By The Center for Education Reform

Follow the online learning conversation at iNACOL Annual Conference here.

Filed Under: Online Learning

Online Learning Remains Crucial Asset to Education Reform

October 28, 2013 By The Center for Education Reform

Surprising split in school reformer monolith

By Jay Mathews

Critics of current trends in education reform, such as historian Diane Ravitch, often complain that they are up against a phalanx of business executives and rich investors more interested in making money than improving schools. These people, the critics say, march in lock step to replace our traditional public schools with charters, vouchers and online campuses so they can squeeze profits out of taxpayer dollars.

That sense of unity among the corporate types has been shattered in the past few weeks by a bitter quarrel between two of the reform movement’s most prominent leaders. One is hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson, one of the original founders of Teach for America and Democrats for Education Reform and a long-time board member of the KIPP charter school network in New York City. The other is Jeanne Allen, founder and president of the Washington-based Center for Education Reform since 1993 and a former candidate for the Maryland General Assembly.

Their clash has been over K12 Inc., the nation’s largest private operator of public schools, which runs 54 taxpayer-financed online schools in 33 states and the District. Tilson started the fight with a presentation last month to the Value Investing Congress, in which he said, “K12’s aggressive student recruitment has led to dismal academic results by students and sky-high dropout rates, in some cases more than
50 percent annually.”

He said he was so disgusted that he was shorting the company’s stock — betting that its value would go down, when most of his investments are in companies he thinks will prosper.

K12 spokesman Jeff Kwitowski said that Tilson has since talked to company executives and declared he no longer believes K12 is deliberately enrolling kids it knows will fail.

Tilson is still shorting the stock, however. Tilson told me that “K12 is a good educational option for some kids, but a total catastrophe for others.” He went on: “In its early days, when the company was small, it was doing right by most students, but then it went public and ran amok, pursuing growth at all costs to satisfy Wall Street, with the result that, today, I believe a large faction — likely a majority — of its 100,000-plus students aren’t engaging and therefore aren’t learning.”

Allen has accused Tilson of sloppy assertions and wrongly giving credibility to academics and journalists who have long been critical of privately funded school reform efforts. “Data and integrity of data matter,” Allen said.

“Whitney tells us that he believes it a ‘catastrophe’ to permit low income students to be enrolled in an online school,” she said in a written response. “Really? It’s a catastrophe for a child whose schools and environment has not served him well and is disadvantaged and has any number of good reasons to do his schooling outside of a traditional classroom?”

Tilson is an excitable guy. His e-mails are full of his latest educational enthusiasms. He has been hard on Ravitch and others who think business executives have the wrong approach to school reform. But it is remarkable to see him publicly upbraid an organization like K12, started by people who share his fondness for charters and other new choices for parents.

The argument over K12 has exposed a long-standing but rarely reported split in the reform movement. Some reformers prefer to work for nonprofit organizations such as KIPP. Some think profit-making institutions like K12 will find more viable ways to improve schools. The profit-seekers, I think, have trouble attracting the best teachers and are more susceptible to bad press. But K12 revenue has grown 32 percent annually for the past decade, so the argument will continue. I don’t see much unity anywhere in the debate over what works best for our kids.

Filed Under: News & Analysis, Breaking News

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