In Case You Missed It – December 27, 2021

Here are links to last week's articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the new Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

CHARTER SCANDALS FROM NPE

Another Day Another Charter Scandal

The Network for Public Education has a charter scandal page up on its website. One more reason to support public schools over privatization...

From The Network for Public Education

Our Another Day Another Charter Scandal page now includes a sorting feature that allows you to search charter scandals by state and by 12 different categories. You can also search by keyword. Just use the ‘X’ to clear search terms and return to the full list of scandals.

1619 IS OUR HISTORY

1619 belongs in classrooms

Steve Hinnefeld, who blogs at School Matters, makes a convincing argument for including 1619 in our history instruction. Race has been a continuing theme in the United States for four hundred years...the nation was built on the enslavement of an entire group of people. Africans were kidnapped and enslaved for 250 years of history on this continent. Race is embedded in the US Constitution (Article I, Section 2). Throughout the 19th and 20th-century laws were enacted to limit the rights of people of color. Laws limiting the rights of people of color lasted for another 100 years. It wasn't until 1965 that a voting rights act was passed to make sure that the right to vote was guaranteed to everyone. Even that is now being threatened.

From School Matters

We remember the canonical years from our American history classes: 1492. 1776. 1861-65. It’s past time to add 1619 to the list. I just read the 1619 Project book, and I’m convinced.

It was in August 1619 that Jamestown, Virginia, colonists bought 20 to 30 enslaved Africans from English pirates. “They were among the more than 12.5 million Africans who would be kidnapped from their homes and brought in chains across the Atlantic Ocean in the largest forced migration in human history until the Second World War,” writes Nikole Hannah-Jones in the book’s introductory essay.

Arguably no event had a more pivotal and long-lasting impact on the United States. As the 1619 Project makes clear, chattel slavery and the accompanying doctrine of white supremacy shaped American history and American attitudes, and they continue to do so today.

INDIANA GENERAL ASSEMBLY READY TO JOIN THE CRT BATTLE

Indiana Republican lawmakers want parents to review school curriculum

According to Indiana's Governor Holcomb, Critical Race Theory isn't being taught in Indiana's schools because it's not part of the standards. The Republicans in the legislature want to pass laws making sure that it's not taught. They likely don't have any idea what Critical Race Theory is. Our guess is that they consider it anything that makes white people look bad, or feel guilty, because of the racist history of the nation.

From Chalkbeat*

In the wake of contentious school board meetings throughout Indiana over critical race theory, leading Republican lawmakers said they will propose allowing parents to have more of a say in what their children are taught in schools.

Critical race theory has migrated from a little-known academic framework, which examines how policies and the law perpetuate systemic racism, into a political touchstone for Republicans nationwide. It has animated debate about how schools teach about the role of race in this country.

Indiana Republicans are drafting multiple education bills for the 2022 legislative session in response to these controversies, without mentioning critical race theory by name.

ESSAY BY MIKE ROSE

New Book Includes Wonderful Retrospective Essay by the Late Mike Rose

Jan Resseger reviews an essay by Mike Rose.

From Jan Resseger

Rose considers the many possible lenses through which a public can consider and evaluate its public schools: “Public schools are governmental and legal institutions and therefore originate in legislation and foundational documents… All institutions are created for a reason, have a purpose, are goal driven… Equally important as the content of curriculum are the underlying institutional assumptions about ability, knowledge, and the social order… Public schools are physical structures. Each has an address, sits on a parcel of land with geographical coordinates… By virtue of its location in a community, the school is embedded in the social and economic dynamics of that community… The school is a multidimensional social system rich in human interaction… With the increasing application of technocratic frameworks to social and institutional life, it becomes feasible to view schools as quantifiable systems, represented by numbers, tallies, metrics. Some school phenomena lend themselves to counting, though counting alone won’t capture their meaning… And schools can be thought of as part of the social fabric of a community, serving civic and social needs: providing venues for public meetings and political debate, polls, festivities, and during crises shelters, distribution hubs, sites of comfort.”

“Each of the frameworks reveals certain political, economic, or sociological-organizational aspects of the rise of comprehensive schooling while downplaying or missing others,” explains Rose. “It might not be possible to consider all of these perspectives when making major policy decisions about a school, but involving multiple perspectives should be the goal.”

*Note: Financial sponsors of Chalkbeat include pro-privatization foundations and individuals such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, EdChoice, Gates Family Foundation, The Walton Family Foundation, and others.

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In Case You Missed It – December 20, 2021

Here are links to articles from the last two weeks that received the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the new Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

FORT WAYNE'S KAREN FRANCISCO ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT

Without question, the most widely read post from the last two weeks was the editorial announcing the retirement of The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette's editorial editor, Karen Francisco. Below the following excerpt, there's a link to a post by Diane Ravitch...which, in turn, links to a post that Francisco wrote for Ravitch's blog.

The Fort Wayne area has been lucky to have Karen Francisco as an advocate for public education. While we at NEIFPE wish her well in her well-deserved retirement, she will be missed.

'The quiet and thoughtful voices'

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

This is a good stopping point for a 40-year career in newspaper journalism. In two Indiana cities and at three newspapers, it's been a fascinating and fulfilling job on both the news and opinion sides of the newsroom. Thank you to everyone who has shared your time and stories. Thanks to all who have contributed letters, op-ed columns and comments about what I've written. Thank you to my co-workers and editors and, especially, to Journal Gazette President Julie Inskeep, whose unwavering support for opinion journalism is increasingly rare in this industry.

You can read about my successor on Page 14A. I know he shares my belief that our editorial pages can make a positive contribution toward a better city, region and state.

I'm now looking forward to days without deadlines and to moving close to loved ones. I'll continue to follow the news here and wish the best for all who call it home.

Thank You, Karen Francisco!

From Diane Ravitch

Indianans will miss her.

All of us who believe that public schools belong to the public will miss her too!

In April, when I was scheduled to have open heart surgery, I asked a number of friends to write something original for the blog to keep it alive in my absence.

Karen Francisco wrote this one, which I scheduled on the day of my surgery, April 8, called “Why I Fight to Save Public Schools.”

CHARTER SCANDALS

Another Day Another Charter Scandal

This holiday season, the Network for Public Education is bringing you 12 Days of Charter Scandals to celebrate their new, free research tool.

Look up #AnotherDayAnotherCharterScandal by state, by category, or by search term.

CHARTER SCHOOLS: CAVEAT EMPTOR

When a Charter Network Discriminated Against My Daughter, I Fought Back

Charter schools often claim to be public schools -- when it's to their advantage, but they are not. Charters and private schools and, apparently, have the right to reject some students.

From Public Voices for Public Schools

My oldest had just started first grade when our lottery number came up and I received a call from the charter school. We were living on the north side of Scottsdale, Arizona and had been looking for school options for my then five year old. Great Hearts Academies, a chain of charter schools, immediately caught our attention with their advertising and the claims they made regarding student achievement. And so we joined their waiting list. More than a year later, the school called to tell us we were in. “You have two days to decide.”

Our visit the next day impressed us. Orderly children, all in uniform, seemingly well mannered and happy. We opted out of our district school then and there and enrolled at Great Hearts. And things went well for a couple of years, so well in fact that I hoped to send my youngest, then four, there for her kindergarten year.

That all changed at the start of 2016 when Great Hearts rolled out a new policy targeting transgender kids. Written with the help of Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-LGBTQ law foundation with close ties to the charter network’s founder, Great Hearts’ “Biological Sex and Gender Policy” was the most anti-trans student policy in the country. The ignorance of the new policy was striking, but for me, the issue was personal. My youngest daughter is transgender. Thanks to this policy, it would be impossible for her to go to this school, be successful, and be herself.

PRIVATIZATION FORMULA:

• Starve Public Schools
• Claim They Have Failed
• Send Public Funds to Private Schools

Missouri Parent to Legislature: Don’t Defund Our Rural Schools with Charters and Vouchers

Another state goes down the failed road of privatization.

From Diane Ravitch

I tell you the story of rural schools because we are in a fight to keep our public schools funded and open in Missouri. In my state, we are 49th in funding for public schools. We don’t provide public schools with enough for the basics. The state funds just 32% of schools’ budgets, which means that residents must pay for the bulk of their local school expenses through property taxes. That means that our system is highly inequitable. The defunding of Missouri public schools has happened over the last decade, but has been on warp speed in the last five years. The school funding formula was adjusted to lower the amount a few years back, meaning we lowered the funding bar to be able to claim we met the bar. And now, even more bad news for Missouri rural schools: a voucher scheme.

INDIANA GENERAL ASSEMBLY TRIES TO FIX TEACHER SHORTAGE THEY CREATED

The state or districts? Indiana lawmakers weigh who should have the authority to license teachers

Over the last two decades, the Republican-dominated Indiana legislature has enacted a series of laws guaranteed to discourage young people from becoming teachers in Indiana public schools. Teachers no longer have seniority, collective bargaining has been seriously limited, and Indiana's average starting salary, average salary, and per pupil spending are all in the bottom third of the USA.

Last year, the Governor's Next Level Teacher Compensation Commission released it's report on ways to increase salaries which the commission stated was 18 percent below the national average. Among the suggestions were

• Encourage and implement expense reallocation measures, so more dollars currently spent on other needs can be redirected to teacher salaries,
• Increase sources of revenue available for teacher pay, and
• Improve teacher compensation-related policies.

While the Governor has promised Indiana tax payers a refund of $125, there doesn't seem to be enough money for the state to invest much in its public school teachers.

From Chalkbeat*

Indiana lawmakers on Tuesday debated giving school districts the authority to license their own educators as a solution to ongoing teacher shortages.

The Interim Study Committee on Education discussed the topic as part of its charge to recommend ways to deregulate state education policies.

Final recommendations approved on Tuesday ask the Indiana Department of Education to provide input on “streamlining workforce programs and licensing and other regulatory requirements for teachers,” among ten other recommendations.

Also see New Orleans Tribune: No One Wants to be a Teacher Anymore, No-Duh!

LEFTOVERS

Do Not Forget the True Purpose of School
The Tip Of The Weisberg

*Note: Financial sponsors of Chalkbeat include pro-privatization foundations and individuals such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, EdChoice, Gates Family Foundation, The Walton Family Foundation, and others.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has changed its online access and is now behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is important, and one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/

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In Case You Missed It – December 13, 2021

Due to personal illness, NEIFPE is off again this week. Thanks for supporting Public Education.

Hopefully, we will be back on Monday, December 20. Use the links in the right-hand column to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for the latest in Public Education news.

Be sure to enter your email address in the new Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

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In Case You Missed It – December 6, 2021

Here are links to last week's articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the new Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

THIS WEEK

We have news about Allen County school systems...gaining students, buses, and pay raises. Read about it below.

Sheila Kennedy takes Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita to task for jumping on the "critical race theory" bandwagon in his attack on public education school boards and his quest for the office of Governor.

Finally, there is an article about school vouchers in Missouri, the banning of books around the country, and a reminder that standardized testing isn't a panacea.

ALLEN COUNTY NEWS

County districts maintain gain

School systems in Allen County are growing.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Calls for a student boycott on fall count day didn't upend Northwest Allen County Schools' decades-long streak of gaining students.

Like the three other Allen County public school districts, NACS saw its average daily membership -- a term used in state code -- increase.

These totals do not reflect student enrollment, stressed Holly Lawson, Indiana Department of Education spokeswoman. Enrollment reflects actual students in attendance Oct. 1, and that statewide data was being finalized as of mid-November.

Fall count day was Sept. 17, but the state Department of Education only recently released the final numbers, which are used to determine basic grant funding for schools.

SACS plans nonteaching staff to get 5.5% raises

SACS provides an increase in salaries for essential workers.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Southwest Allen County Schools is awaiting the board's approval to invest $425,000 in pay increases for nonteaching personnel.

The district can support the across-the-board 5.5% raises for classified staff based on additional funding from the state and the 116-student increase in average daily membership, Business Manager Mark Snyder told the board Wednesday.

“Classified staff”refers to employees such as cafeteria workers, maintenance and custodial staff, bus drivers, mechanics, nurses and support workers.

“We are excited to be able to offer a 5.5% increase for all of our classified staff,” Snyder said, adding these employees have received 3.5% and 2.5% raises in recent years.

SACS driver shortfall to worsen: Busing options considered as district growth expected

SACS is growing and needs bus drivers.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The houses popping up along Bass Road underscore how today's school bus driver shortage has the possibility to get worse as Southwest Allen County Schools' enrollment grows.

“Bass Road is putting in hundreds of houses – hundreds of houses – so we've got a lot of growth that we have to prepare for,” Steve Lake, transportation director, told the board Wednesday. “We have to be ready for all those new kids to come in.”

The pandemic has exacerbated a widespread school bus driver shortage, officials have said. Locally, this has led to excessive transportation delays at Fort Wayne Community Schools and temporary route cancellations at SACS.

“Do I see an end to the issue of driver shortage? I don't see an end to that right now,” Lake said during his annual report on transportation. “So, we're going to have to get smarter and be a lot more efficient.”

PANDERING IN INDIANA

Rokita Again

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita panders to those who are against teaching history. His choice is to further polarize the electorate in order to increase his chance for the office of Governor. Sadly, it just might work.

From Sheila Kennedy

The entire “Parents Bill of Rights” is a “look at me–I’m with you” message to the angry and misinformed parents who have descended on school board meetings to demand a curriculum with which they can feel comfortable. I will refrain from characterizing their desired curriculum, except to note that historical accuracy and civics education–especially study of the First and Fourteenth Amendments (Separation of Church and State and the Equal Protection clause)– are not what they are demanding.

If we’re looking for the causes of “polarization,” we need look no farther than Rokita, the lawmakers who agree with him, and the parents that they and the other Republican culture warriors are gleefully manipulating.

I would love to believe that the transparency of Rokita’s pandering, along with his other off-putting behaviors, will repel Indiana voters and dash his gubernatorial ambitions. He is, after all, held in considerable disdain among Hoosier politicos– very much including Republican ones.

But this is Indiana.

MISSOURI VOUCHERS

Missouri Parent to Legislature: Don’t Defund Our Rural Schools with Charters and Vouchers

More vouchers...this time in Missouri.

From Diane Ravitch

From Public Voices for Public Schools

I tell you the story of rural schools because we are in a fight to keep our public schools funded and open in Missouri. In my state, we are 49th in funding for public schools. We don’t provide public schools with enough for the basics. The state funds just 32% of schools’ budgets, which means that residents must pay for the bulk of their local school expenses through property taxes. That means that our system is highly inequitable. The defunding of Missouri public schools has happened over the last decade, but has been on warp speed in the last five years. The school funding formula was adjusted to lower the amount a few years back, meaning we lowered the funding bar to be able to claim we met the bar. And now, even more bad news for Missouri rural schools: a voucher scheme.

WHO GETS TO CHOOSE WHICH BOOKS ARE BANNED?

I Teach Banned Books

Should parent groups be allowed to ban books in public schools? Do parents have the right to choose what other parents' students read? What if I want to ban a book that you don't want to? 

That's what we have school boards and book adoption committees for!

From Gadfly on the Wall Blog

If you want people to do something, forbid them from doing it.

As a middle school language arts teacher, that’s always worked for me.

Many of my students are reluctant readers.

If a text is longer than a Tweet or a YouTube description, most of them would rather skip it.

And when it comes to books, many of them wouldn’t intentionally crack one open under any circumstances.

Unless you tell them not to.

Unless you point out a specific book on the shelf and say it’s off limits.

Unless you open it up right in front of them before quickly snatching it away and saying, “Oops! I forgot! We can’t read that one!”

So most of my curriculum is made up of banned books.

The Giver, Silent to the Bone, The Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill a Mockingbird – all forbidden in one place or another.

Just not in my district.

In fact, my school board has included each of these books on the approved reading list.

That doesn’t mean I have to use them.

TESTING, TESTING, TESTING...NOT GONE YET!

A Reminder About The Uselessness Of Test Scores

Do test scores tell us anything? 

From Curmudgucation

As we move through the latest stage of the pandemic in schools, we still get a lot of noise about how we Really Need to get those Big Standardized Test scores collected and crunched, because only then can we address Learning Loss or Pandemic Stumble or general Falling Behind.

In doing so, we once again make the same old mistake of trying to use Big Standardized Test scores as a measure of future success (at its most extreme in the "students will suffer with years or lost earnings" think pieces). There is no particular reason to believe this is true...

In other words, a rich kid who drops out of high school has as much a chance of success as a poor kid who graduates from college.

There are plenty of theories about why this is so. A Georgetown study concluded that early tests scores are less predictive of future success than socio-economic status. Those researchers point to an idea that echoes the issue of social capital that Robert Putnam explores in Our Kids-- that wealthier families have connections that both help locate opportunities for children (My kid really likes ponies, and I know a guy who runs a stable) as well as providing a safety net. As the Georgetown report puts it

When students from affluent families stumble, they have a softer landing and assistance getting back on track, while those in adverse environments are more likely to land on rocky ground and never recover.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has changed its online access and is now behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is important, and one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/

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In Case You Missed It – November 29, 2021

Here are links to last week's articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the new Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

THIS WEEK

We hope you had a Happy and Safe Thanksgiving.

This week we have a collection of articles that were high on our list since our last posting. Note that Peter Greene, blogger at Curmudgucuation, has half of the articles...a testament to his ability to keep up with what's happening in public education.

We'll start with FWCS, move on to the State of Indiana, then to the US national scene, and the final article, while from Canada, is also appropriate to the USA.


FWCS PRESCHOOLS GET FEDERAL RELIEF DOLLARS

Aid to benefit FWCS preschools

Preschool is important...and FWCS will use federal coronavirus relief dollars to expand preschool programs in the city.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Fort Wayne Community Schools plans to use federal coronavirus relief dollars toward preschool play.

The board Monday unanimously approved acceptance of Build, Learn, Grow Stabilization grants from the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration.

These non-competitive grants are capped at $500,000 per licensed preschool program for the 2021-23 academic years and will be distributed statewide in three-month increments until the $540 million state allocation is exhausted, according to information provided to the board.

At FWCS, the dollars will support preschool programs at Abbett, Adams, Bloomingdale, Brentwood, Fairfield, Forest Park, Franke Park, Harrison Hill, Holland, Indian Village, Lindley, Maplewood, Northcrest, Scott, South Wayne, Study, Washington, Waynedale and Whitney Young.

INDIANA TEACHERS WANT BARGAINING RIGHTS

After progress on pay, Indiana teachers want more bargaining rights

From Chalkbeat*

As they celebrate recent legislative wins on starting salaries, Indiana teachers again are calling on the legislature to restore their ability to negotiate with school districts on working conditions like hours and class sizes.

Collective bargaining for working conditions has been a long-standing issue since the state stripped away the right in 2011. But teacher unions have struggled to gain traction in a Republican-controlled legislature.

This year, the Indiana State Teachers Association says it has voters on its side: A survey commissioned by the union last summer found that eight in 10 Hoosiers supported making working conditions part of the collective bargaining process, according to ISTA President Keith Gambill.

Teachers see slight raises in state: Educators say more can be done, legislators say wait

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

As school districts around Indiana finalize new teacher contracts, a state report on the 2020-21 school year showed overall modest pay growth for teachers.

In 2021, teacher pay rose by $91.6 million statewide – an average salary bump of $1,791, according to the Indiana Education Employment Relations Board summary of collective bargaining reports.

But that growth was less than in 2020 when $126.6 million in new salary dollars went to teachers – an average increase of $2,215.

Indiana State Teachers Association Vice President Jennifer Smith-Margraf said last year saw only minor progress on the minimum salary while health insurance amounts being paid by teachers increased, reducing take-home pay.

“The state of teacher salaries in this summary justifies ISTA's concerns this past legislative session about stagnant or, in many cases, backward movement on pay increases. The report confirms the need for significant funding increases,” she said.

INDIANA IN THE TOP TEN MOST HOSTILE TO PUBLIC EDUCATION

Introducing the Public Education Hostility Index

Indiana teachers could have told you that the Super-majority legislature has been hostile to public education for (at least) the last decade. Now there’s documentation.  

From Curmudgucation

Here at the Curmudgucation Institute, we have always realized that we are lacking one thing that every good thinky tank and Institute and Foundation has--reports. So we finally buckled down and created the American Public Education State Hostility Index (APESHI). This report now has its very own website.

The goal was to address the question, "Which states are the most hostile to public education right now?" To answer that question, we picked some factors to consider, like funding and state leadership and gag laws, assigned states numerical ratings, and added all the numbers together. Critics might argue that we have just assigned a bunch of numbers to subjective value judgments, but A) as far as I can tell, that's how the game is often played and B) they're numbers, so, you know, science.

Much of the rankings worked out to be pretty close together, though Florida's unsurprising domination of the field was unchallenged. So there is very little difference between 10th place Idaho and 11th place South Carolina. But it's still a handy tool for discussion. The full spreadsheet is available on the site; feel free to let me know in the comments where I missed something.

I'll share some results here. The top ten Most Hostile states, in order, with scores, so you can see the ties

Florida (55)

Arizona (48)

Louisiana (43)

North Carolina (43)

Arkansas (39)

Ohio (39)

Oklahoma (39)

Indiana (38)

Georgia (35)

Idaho (35)...

PANDEMIC UPDATE -- NO CHANGE

Current Pandemic Update (11/21)

Peter Greene gives a personal account…

From Curmudgucation

So I was going to tell you how things are going in this neck of the woods. We get so many updates from major cities, I've figured all along that we might as well have updates from rural NW PA, an area that seemed, 20 months ago, to be well-positioned to weather this storm.

I was going to tell you that local schools are back to having spot outages. A class sent home to quarantine here...

I was going to tell you that the already-thin substitute ranks are down to near-nothing. That when teachers miss, the dominoes fall all over the building trying to fill the gaps...

I was going to talk about how the notification and tracking business is only marginally less ad hoc than last year...

I was going to talk about how there's a sense that there's less above-ground discussion of the situation, but lots of undercurrent...

I was going to talk about how that it all still remains concerning to we three children of my parents, who are in their mid-eighties and facing some of the challenges that come with being so well-seasoned...

I was going to talk about all that today, and was prepping that very piece, when I got word that my two four-year-old boys apparently spent a day at pre-school earlier this week playing with another child who has since tested positive for covid...

So I'm in a mood…

 

CHARTER SCHOOLS WANT TO DISCRIMINATE

Charter Schools Fight For Their Right To Discriminate

Charter schools don’t want an even playing field. The bottom line is that they want to make money from public funds. 

From Peter Greene in Forbes

Two recent news stories from opposite sides of the nation highlight battles between charter schools and state regulations. They underline critical ways in which some charter schools, which often claim to be “public” schools, do not embrace the mission of public education...

...In both cases, we have a charter school that is determined to resist the notion that a public school should serve all students in its community, no matter what their background. Exclusivity is supposed to be a feature of private schools only, and not a feature for which taxpayers should be footing the bill.

THE FIGHT TO SAVE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

What Democrats Get Wrong about the Fight to Save Public Schools

From Peter Greene in The Progressive

Recently, former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and former Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant teamed up to discuss five ways to “put aside partisan politics and think big on education,” with an eye toward putting “the interests of children first in a bipartisan or nonpartisan fashion.”

Maybe they hoped to calm acrimonious discussions about education policy and concerns about widespread attacks on school boards by offering an opportunity for folks to join hands and move forward together, perhaps toward some of the duo’s favorite education reform policies.

It’s worth noting that the op-ed was published in The Washington Times, a rightwing news organization. When I read the piece, the recommended items on the sidebar were “Dr. Fauci’s deadly lie of omission” and, ironically, “Ex-Obama education chief [Duncan] compares anti-mask Americans to suicide bombers.”

The article notes that Duncan and Bryant co-paneled at the 2021 Reagan Institute Summit on Education, so one gets the impression that Duncan is barely trying to look progressive these days.

Duncan and Bryant also shared their pride that Mississippi did well compared to other states on the 2019 NAEP test, the nation’s report card, but neglected to mention that those national scores showed a historic dip.

So what were their suggestions?

PUBLIC SCHOOLS...A PUBLIC GOOD

The View from Canada: Why Public Schools Are Public

From Diane Ravitch

This article was written by a Canadian educator who was educated in the U.S.

Why public schools are public

Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia

Parents seeking programs that they believe are in the “best interests” of their own children sometimes act as if the education they seek is a private benefit. In seeking an education that is in a child’s or grandchild’s best interest it is easy for parents or grandparents to lose sight of why public schools are public.

If education were primarily a private benefit, it would not be something supported by governments; it would be left to families to determine the why, the what, and the how of educating the young. But in enrolling their children in public school they do not have that discretion.

Governments provide for schooling because it is a public good, something of benefit to everyone. Few people read the legislation establishing public schools but doing so is instructive. The purposes of education are often set out in a public schools or education act that is readily accessible...

 *Note: Financial sponsors of Chalkbeat include pro-privatization foundations and individuals such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, EdChoice, Gates Family Foundation, The Walton Family Foundation, and others.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has changed its online access and is now behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is important, and one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/

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In Case You Missed it - November 15, 2021

NEIFPE is off this week. Thanks for supporting Public Education.

We'll be back after Thanksgiving. Use the links in the right-hand column to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for the latest in Public Education news.

Be sure to enter your email address in the new Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

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In Case You Missed It – November 8, 2021

Here are links to last week's articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the new Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

THIS WEEK

Racism is in the news, again...state laws against teaching about race, book banning, elections which focus on race in school...It's all here. We also highlight a new charter school in Minnesota, along with some articles left over from last week.

WHITE SUPREMACY, BOOK BANNING, AND RACE IN SCHOOL

I Triggered Bill Maher By Writing About Standardized Testing and White Supremacy

Commedian Bill Maher didn't like what Steven Singer wrote...chances are he didn't actually read the post...

From Gadfly on the Wall Blog

...Maher disagrees with what I wrote.

In fact, the very idea annoyed him as a prime example of namby-pamby liberals taking their agenda too far.

What did I write in the article?

Only that standardized testing is a tool of white supremacy.

In fact, that was the title of the article, which seems to be about as far as Bill read because he ignored any arguments, facts or historical citations in the piece.

On his show, “Real Time with Bill Maher” this week, he posted the title of the article and the graphic that appeared with it when it was republished on commondreams.org.

What he didn’t post was my name. I am the author, after all, but I guess that’s not important.

The crucial bit was how triggered Bill was by my assertion.

By connecting such allegedly alien concepts as standardized testing and racism, Maher thinks I devalued the meaning of “white supremacy.”

Replying to Moms for Liberty: What about These Books?

Peter Greene reviews his twitter conversation with Moms for Liberty and gives them some idea about how to ask their questions politely.

From Curmudgucation

This is my reply to Moms for Liberty...

...banning a book is huge, huge deal. Having it pulled from a school library in an attempt to keep it away from students is a huge, huge deal. Not only that, but it doesn't work. The good people of Boston banned Huckleberry Finn (too much friendliness between a white boy and a Black man), and they turned it into a best seller. I guarantee you that the books that have turned up on these current banning lists are now being sought out by the students [Moms for Liberty] wanted to protect.

I see a huge irony in your current movement. Many of your folks are also anti-vax and anti-mask, arguing that simply letting students be exposed to the virus will not be a problem because natural immunity and their own strength will protect them. And yet when it comes to "these books," the approach is to prevent exposure at all costs.

More Rough Days Ahead For Public Ed

Critical Race Theory in public K-12 schools was the main issue in the Virginia elections even though it's not being taught in any K-12 schools. The point is that those parents against talking about race are "hurt" because the history of the United States isn't perfect. We wonder if they think we ought to not teach the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution because both documents contain racist references...

From Curmudgucation

...it seems reasonable to assume that a whole bunch of GOP politicos have, in the wake of the Virginia governor's election, will conclude that a winning strategy is to treat public education as a punching bag. Filled with indoctrinators! Naughty books! Race stuff! A bunch of commie lesbians turning your kids trans! A scam to make the unions rich! And, of course, they suck at educating children!

We'll hear it all from various candidates for the next three years because, as of right now, it appears to work. There are, of course, alternative explanations (e.g. Virginia has, 11 out of 12 times, elected a governor from the party out of national power). But this seems like a simple one, and it's easy to do, and the ground troops are already in place in the form of a hundred anti-CRT/masks/vax/closed schools groups. Brandishing the dirty book can be the 21st century's wave the bloody shirt. I'm afraid we're in for three years (at least) of calls for banning books and regulating teacher speech.

Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman Seizes Control of the State Board of Education

From Jan Resseger

On Friday, two members of the Ohio State Board of Education, including the board’s elected president, were forced to resign because the all-powerful president of the Ohio Senate opposed their vote to retain an anti-racism resolution passed by the state board last year following George Floyd’s murder and not to retract that resolution.

The two who were forced to resign were in the minority when the state board voted in October to replace last year’s Resolution 20. Here is how, yesterday, the Plain Dealer‘s editorial board summarized the original Resolution 20: “The resolution… condemned ‘in the strongest possible terms, white supremacy culture, hate speech, hate crimes and violence in the service of hatred’ and said the board itself would work to ‘engage our members in open and courageous conversations on racism and inequity’ while offering training ‘to identify our own biases.’ The resolution directed the Ohio Department of Education to examine curriculum and standards to see if any changes were needed to ‘eliminate bias’ and ensure accuracy, and to encourage and support school districts, parents and communities in examining their own practices.'”

CHARTERS

Midwest Dispatch: Minnesota Launches a Pro-Police Charter School

A police run charter school...what could go wrong.

From The Progressive

Should cops be allowed to start their own charter school using public funds? This is the question facing residents in Ramsey County, Minnesota, the second largest county in the state.

Ramsey County is home to Sheriff Bob Fletcher, the purveyor of a self-styled, Cops-like YouTube channel called “Live on Patrol.” Fletcher started the livestream in late July 2020, in the middle of ongoing uprisings over the murder of George Floyd. His alleged intention was to build more trust between law enforcement officers and the public, though he has been accused of uttering racist comments during his broadcasts.

Now, Fletcher and other Ramsey County Sheriff Department staffers have co-founded a charter school. The School of Leadership for Public Service, which is set to open next fall, would enroll students in grades six through ten and has raised a host of red flags.

LAST WEEK'S LEFTOVERS

Diary Of A Socialist Indoctrinator

From Peter Greene in Forbes

One vision of what a teacher's journal might be like in a parallel universe as envisioned by Donald Trump Jr.'s critique.

Illinois: Parent Groups Sue to Remove COVID Safety Measures

From Diane Ravitch

Organized parent groups in Illinois are suing school boards, the state board of education and the Governor to remove mask mandates and other safety measures from the schools.

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In Case You Missed It – November 1, 2021

Here are links to last week's articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the new Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

THIS WEEK

If you read one complete article from those below, make sure it's the first one. Peter Greene, who blogs at Curmudgucation explains the complexities of teaching controversies to students. Greene taught secondary students, so age-appropriateness is, of course, required when working with children of all ages, but his comments are insightful and helpful to understanding the processes present in classrooms across the nation.

In other news this week, the Wall Street Journal posted an op-ed by a libertarian who denies that public education is necessary, followed by a rebuttal. We also have three local news articles about teacher salaries and the push from a Fort Wayne legislator to politicize school board elections.

TEACHING CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS

How I Taught Controversial Texts

How should a teacher cover controversial topics without getting into trouble with parents or administrators? Peter Greene used honesty, openness, and care. This is worth your time to read if you're interested in how the Critical Race Theory uproar is affecting public education...

or if you're a current teacher trying to teach under the scrutiny of the Critical Race Theory uproar...

or if you're a parent whose children are attending public schools during the time of the Critical Race Theory uproar.

From Curmudgucation

So the critical race theory panic has, in many cases, boiled down to a good old-fashioned desire to ban books, most notably in Virginia where, somehow, Toni Morrison's Beloved is being debated (and, I should add, spoiled for those who haven't read it). I am not going to make my argument against banning here, because that's a book in itself. But I am going to talk about what the teaching of these scary texts can actually look like in a classroom.

One of the things that inevitably happens when the book banning talk starts is a reductiveness, a highlighting of little pieces, ripped from context in the same way that a seventh grader might start showing his buddies "just the dirty parts" of some book.

But context is everything--both the context within the book and the book's context within the classroom. Despite David Coleman's attempt to separate reading from context, context is, if not everything, pretty damn close to it.

THE LOGICAL OUTCOME OF THE CRT NOISE

Imagine a class with 25 kids — and all of their parents insist on telling the teacher what to teach

How much input should parents have in the curriculum for their child?

From the Answer Sheet

Imagine you have a class of 25 students, and the parents of each one of them have their own ideas about how the teacher should — or should not — lead a lesson on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Each parent or set of parents proceeds to email, call, text or show up at school to discuss with the teacher their view of the lesson. Some demand that the lesson be posted online (a practice some state legislators want to mandate). Children tell their parents about the lesson and those who are unhappy complain to the teacher, possibly the principal, the superintendent and the school board, and may organize protests.

Now consider how many lessons a teacher teaches in a day. And let’s note that some classes have many more than 25 students, especially now, when classes are being doubled in many schools because of teacher shortages.

Of course, all parents won’t weigh in on every lesson, and they won’t do it every day, but the result would still be untenable for any school.

“It’s absurd for parents to tell teachers what to teach,” said Diane Ravitch, an education historian and advocate for public schools. “The result would be chaos, and in most cases would be parents telling teachers to teach the way they were taught decades earlier.” What’s more, she said, “It thoroughly discredits the teacher’s professionalism and expertise,” adding: “I can’t think of a more effective way to demoralize teachers and drive them out of the classroom.”

WALL STREET JOURNAL OP-ED: PUBLIC SCHOOLS SHOULD NOT EXIST

WSJ: The Libertarian View of Public Schools

Don't read this without reading the next post, too. In these two posts, Diane Ravitch reports on the WSJ op-ed and its rebuttal.

From Diane Ravitch

The Wall Street Journal recently published a screed against the very existence of public schools, written by a libertarian lawyer. Imagine teaching in a school where children are allowed to learn only what their parents already believe, no matter how bizarre or hateful it may be. Imagine the difficulty of having a coherent society where there are no compromises, no bonds of mutuality among people of different faiths and ethnicities. The illustration accompanying the article shows the government turning diverse children into identical cookie cutter people. No one today could reasonably argue that the people of the United States, 90% of whom were educated in public schools, have identical views, values, and beliefs. It is Libertarians who would have all of our children molded into clones of their parents and grandparents, with everyone attending schools that narrowly confined them to their own religious, racial, and ethnic enclave. In reality, private sectarian schools are far more likely to “indoctrinate” children than are public schools that include teachers and children from different backgrounds.

Peter Greene Responds to the WSJ Attack on Public Schools

From Diane Ravitch

Peter Greene responded to the opinion piece by law professor Philip Hamburger, who claimed that public schools are not “constitutional” because they suppress parents’ freedom of speech, that is, their ability to ensure that their children hear, read, and learn only what their parents want them to learn.

Greene begins...

CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD PACKED WITH PRIVATIZERS

West Virginia: Privatizers Control New State Charter School Board

Note...there are no supporters of public education on this new West Virginia charter school board.

From Diane Ravitch

A regular commenter on the blog, known as Chiara, reports the composition of West Virginia’s new board for authorizing charter schools. The legislature endorsed new charter schools in a state that has never had them. Several of them will be for-profits. Two will be virtual charters. There are three other entities that can authorize the privately run schools that are publicly funded.

SHOULD SCHOOL BOARD CANDIDATES DECLARE THEIR PARTY AFFILIATION?

Partisanship of politics has no place in school policy

Do we really want to politicize school board elections? 

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

What would partisan school boards look like? Expect the political gridlock seen in Congress or the supermajority rule found in the state legislature. Board members would be accountable not to students, parents and taxpayers, but to the party officials who determine their political fate. Education policy would be filtered through a Democratic or Republican lens.

While school board members don't currently declare a party affiliation or seek nomination in a primary election, their political leanings aren't necessarily unknown. Some are active in party politics; some use school board service as a springboard to higher elected office.

Nonpartisan elections, however, have served the state well in separating politics and district policy, and voters appear to favor that approach. Last year, Fort Wayne Community Schools District 2 voters threw out incumbent Glenna Jehl after she retweeted right-wing posts that criticized the state's COVID-19 policies and accused Democrats of “supporting terrorists.”

ALLEN COUNTY INDIANA TEACHER SALARIES

FWCS officially approves pay hikes

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

It's official – Fort Wayne Community Schools is investing almost $21 million to give most employees 4% raises this year and next.

Of that, $13.8 million will go to teachers – $6.8 million in year one and $7 million in year two –while $3.4 million will go toward non-teaching staff each year, Kathy Friend told the board Monday. She is the district's chief financial officer.

Board members – who discussed the teachers contract in September – again thanked lawmakers for approving a state budget that allows the almost 30,000-student district to increase salaries and wages.

“I think that that's an important point to make, that we couldn't do it without them,” member Jennifer Matthias said. “Hopefully, we'll continue to see those increases.”

SACS teachers close to pay raise

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Southwest Allen County Schools teachers are days from working under a new one-year contract that will raise the minimum base salary by $2,500.

The proposed base salary range is $43,500 to $78,500 under terms the board considered Thursday. The maximum reflects a $3,000 increase from the previous agreement.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has changed its online access and is now behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is important, and one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/

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In Case You Missed It – October 25, 2021

Here are links to last week's articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the new Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

THIS WEEK

How can we keep teachers in the classroom? Who will be tomorrow's teachers? The U.S. is in the midst of a teacher shortage crisis exacerbated by the difficulties of the global coronavirus pandemic.

Today's posts also cover school choice, testing, right-wing groups invading school board meetings, and some important local news for the Allen County Indiana area.

THE TEACHER SHORTAGE

Appreciating Good Teachers In These Tough Times for Educators

Teachers are not ok. The exodus of teachers from public school classrooms began before the pandemic, but with the difficulties of transitioning to virtual, hybrid, masked, and pandemic-stressed classrooms, greater numbers of teachers are deciding to call it quits. Where will tomorrow's public school classroom teachers come from? Who will teach your children...or their children?

From Jan Resseger's Blog

A trio of columns circulated by the Washington Post‘s Valerie Strauss should raise alarm about the pressures today driving teachers to leave the profession. An 8th grade language arts teacher from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area, Steven Singer describes widespread teacher burnout in this second school year disrupted by COVID-19: “The teachers are not okay.”

...The superintendent in Virginia’s Fauquier County Public Schools, David Jeck wonders: “Who would want to be a teacher right now? Have you seen how teachers are being treated? Teachers have had to endure revolting public comments at school board meetings, floggings via social media… Teachers are indispensable to our society but sadly, they are not treated as such.”

...Strauss also featured Larry Ferlazzo, a high school English and social studies teacher in Sacramento and a skilled writer, who explains: “I teach in an almost ideal situation and I’m exhausted after just the first month of this year.” Ferlazzo describes teachers “dealing with the stress of potentially getting COVID-19… coping with the challenge of a substitute shortage requiring teachers to give up all their planning time (or to teach double classes) to cover absences; having to cancel medical appointments and mental health days because of not wanting to burden colleagues by making them cover even more classes… and being overtaxed by providing even more than the usual emotional support we provide to our students.”

Dear Substitute-Desperate Districts. What Are You Doing About It?

How can schools incentivize hiring? What are your administrators doing about the lack of substitute teachers?

From Curmudgucation

There's a great deal of hollering about the lack of substitute teachers. Like the challenge of filling regular teaching positions, this is not a new problem, but the pandemic has exacerbated it considerably. Everywhere you turn, you can find administrators bemoaning their lack of subs.

But if you are one of these administrators, what are you actually doing about it?

Are you raising sub pay? Sub pay is notoriously lousy, particularly if you're hiring them via some substitute or temp service. I started out substitute teaching in 1980; sub pay in local districts has risen about $25 since then. When you factor in the lack of benefits, it's impossible to make a living substitute teaching and the pool from Way Back In The Day (Moms of school-age kids who wanted a little grocery money) is gone.

What is Taught in Public Schools? Volunteer as a Substitute Teacher and See for Yourself!

Here's a good idea. Politicians who regularly bash the public schools (mostly Republicans), can volunteer to be public school substitutes. It would be nice to see some non-educators put their money where their mouths are and stand up for the students. Legislators, substitute in your neighborhood public schools...if you dare!

From Gadfly on the Wall Blog

SOLUTION: VOLUNTEER AS A SUB

Just imagine!

Republicans uneasy about public school can get in there and see it all first hand.

And they’ll even get paid to do it!

Not as much as they make as lawmakers. Pennsylvania’s legislature is paid the third highest salary in the country! Way more than classroom teachers or certainly substitutes. But they’d get remunerated for their time.

All they’d have to do is watch over classes of 30 or more real, live students!

Not only would lawmakers have a chance to look over teacher’s lesson plans, but they’d get detailed instructions from the absent teacher about how to actually teach the lesson!

SCHOOL'S CHOICE, NOT PARENTS'

How School Choice Becomes School’s Choice

How do charters choose their students? It turns out that parental choice of schools is actually, the school's choice of students. High achieving, easier to educate students are incentivized so that charters can show a profit and high test scores. Where does that leave the rest?

From Peter Greene in Forbes

How did charter schools end up carefully curating their student bodies? The authors point to the modern charter movement’s connection to free market ideology.

A key assumption of market theory, which envisions charter schools as businesses and parents and their children as consumers, is that all potential customers are treated equally. In reality, however, charter schools perceive students as differently valued consumers...

Charter marketing requires charters to show strong test score performance, which means students who might bring the numbers down are not high-value customers. Likewise, some students come with needs that make them more expensive to educate.

This is the fundamental flaw in the “competition will make schools better” theory, because

the surest path to success for charter schools is to seize the niche of schools serving “lower cost” students with higher test scores and stronger out-of-school opportunities and privileges.

EXTREMIST GROUPS INVADE SCHOOL BOARD MEETINGS

The Proud Boys Are Coming for Public Schools

From The Progressive Public Schools Advocate

...now extremist groups—including the Proud Boys—are aiming their threats and violence at a new target: public schools.

In Orange County, North Carolina, the Proud Boys and other white nationalist groups have begun showing up at high school football games and school board meetings, “protesting the district’s COVID-19 and LGBTQ+ policies.” Their intimidating language, apparel, and physical gestures prompted officials to hire extra security and pass a resolution opposing “incidents of hostile and racist behavior,” according to a report in the News and Observer.

The resolution charged that the rightwing agitators had “shouted racist and homophobic slurs at students” and included “emails from teachers and students who describe how unsafe they feel being around the Proud Boys.”

RANKING SCHOOLS - A STUPID IDEA

Peter Greene to U.S. News: Ranking Schools by Test Scores is a Truly Stupid Idea

US News and World Reports continues the misuse of testing by ranking schools by test scores...which is the same as ranking schools by the income of the students' families.

From Diane Ravitch

Peter Greene points out that U.S. News used to be a news magazine, but has turned itself into a ranking agency, mainly of colleges, then high schools, and now…wait for it…elementary and middle schools! Does it get any more ridiculous than that?

Its rankings are based mainly on test scores, which are guaranteed to favor schools that are the whitest and most affluent.

LOCAL NEWS

EACS approves raises for teachers

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

East Allen County Schools will use more than $4.3 million to boost teachers' salaries under a new two-year contract approved Tuesday.

Together, the $2.6 million to be distributed this academic year and the almost $1.8 million to be distributed next year is $2.4 million more than was awarded under the last agreement.

“It was a wonderful bargaining session this time,” Andra Kosmoski, president of the East Allen Educators Association, told the board. “It went smoothly, and then just the fact that you and the administration are recognizing that the money needs to go to the teachers – we appreciate it.”

With one member absent, the board unanimously and enthusiastically endorsed the contract, which runs from July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2023.

Shortages force schools to be creative with lunch

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Supply chain disruptions aren't new for schools. Food service directors encountered shortages last academic year as food manufacturers and the trucking industry were affected by illnesses and quarantines.

The challenge, however, has evolved from schools trying to order the same items, said Leeanne Koeneman of Northwest Allen County Schools.

"This year," she said by email, "it seems to be extremely haphazard as to what might be out of stock."

Pandemic supply chain disruptions topped school meal program directors' concerns for the 2021-22 academic year, according to a summer survey of 1,368 directors nationwide.

NACS leader's safety letter contradicts sheriff official

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Northwest Allen County Schools Superintendent Chris Himsel addressed recent safety concerns at school board meetings in a letter to parents.

Northwest Allen temporarily ended public comments at board meetings in September because of safety concerns reported by the Allen County Sheriff's Department.

Himsel's letter, sent Friday, followed a WOWO radio interview Thursday with Troy Hershberger, chief deputy with the sheriff's department, during which he said the department has never directed the school district on how to conduct its meetings.

Hershberger, who is seeking the Republican nomination for sheriff next year, added he is unaware of any safety concerns being reported to the district by school resource officers.

Himsel's letter disputes Hershberger's claims and releases excerpts of emails that show safety concerns were shared by a school resource officer, who said other school resource officers had raised similar concerns. The officer, who is not named in Himsel's letter, said he and the other officers are “concerned for the safety of everyone at those meetings.”

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has changed its online access and is now behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is important, and one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/

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