In Case You Missed It – December 18, 2023

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 Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It will be on hiatus until January 8. Thank you for your support of public education.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"The evidence that grade retention will work over the long run is mixed, at best. And making students repeat a grade has negative social and emotional impacts, especially for poor children and students of color. Let’s hope Indiana officials keep all that in mind in their efforts to improve reading." -- Steve Hinnefeld in More on Reading and Retention

GRADE RETENTION

Retention of students in grade has been used for decades as a way to help slower learners "catch up." In recent years state legislatures have required third-grade students to pass a reading test or be retained. Yet retention alone doesn't seem to help in the long run.

Do we even know if the tests accurately measure student learning?

Grade Retention Sleight of Hand

Peter Greene is a retired English teacher. Here he uses his knowledge to explain how words are used to put a positive spin on grade retention while downplaying the need for additional help for struggling students aside from retention.

From Curmudgucation

Flunking 8 and 9 year olds because they didn't pass a Big Standardized Test is easy; giving additional supports and resources to students in poor and under-resourced schools is hard. "Flunk everyone who didn't make the cut score," is quick and simple. Broad support systems require investments of time, money, and staffing. And, of course, the retention is a hot new reform idea, while the broad support for students who need it has been the request of teachers since the invention of dirt.

Maybe this research is solid, or maybe it's just well-packed baloney. I'm not going to get into that now (though my suspicions have a first name). But even if this is legit, the framing of it is irresponsible; it's a sleight of hand trick aimed at getting you to pick the card they want you to pick. Whenever someone brings up this report, ask them why they didn't write the sentence the other way.

More on reading and retention

Steve Hinnefeld at School Matters wants to know if 'parental rights' will be ignored when it comes to the retention of students in grade.

From School Matters

Indiana legislators say they want more children to repeat third grade if they don’t pass the state’s IREAD-3 test. Data released last week suggest that would be a big change in elementary schools.

According to the Indiana Department of Education, nearly all third-graders who weren’t proficient on IREAD-3 in spring 2023 were promoted to fourth grade anyway. Many of those students had “good-cause exemptions” because they were in special education, were English learners or had previously been held back twice. But even among the 8,337 students without such exemptions, 95% were promoted.

WHAT HAPPENED?

The Rise and Fall of Moms For Liberty

Moms for Liberty has had some difficulties lately...

From The Progressive: Public Schools Advocate

On June 30, 2023, a Washington Post headline declared “Moms for Liberty didn’t exist three years ago. Now it’s a GOP kingmaker.” On November 10, 2023, after a raft of school board elections across the country, the Post ran another headline: “Voters drub Moms for Liberty ‘parental rights’ candidates at the ballot.” Moms for Liberty (M4L) not only didn’t make any kings, it didn’t even make many school board members. What happened?

FRACKING OUR ATTENTION

John Thompson: The Most Important Lesson That Students Need Today

Can we restore our attention?

From Diane Ravitch

D. Graham Burnett, Alyssa Loh, and Peter Schmidt begin their New York Times opinion piece, “Powerful Forces Are Fracking Our Attention. We Can fight Back,” with an eloquent version of a statement that should have long been obvious:

We are witnessing the dark side of our new technological lives, whose extractive profit models amount to the systematic fracking of human beings: pumping vast quantities of high-pressure media content into our faces to force up a spume of the vaporous and intimate stuff called attention, which now trades on the open market. Increasingly powerful systems seek to ensure that our attention is never truly ours.

Then Burnett, Loh, and Schmidt use equally insightful language to explain why “We Can Fight Back” against “the little satanic mills that live in our pockets.” They recall that “for two centuries, champions of liberal democracy have agreed that individual and collective freedom requires literacy.” Today we face widespread complaints that reading is being undermined by “perpetual distraction,” due to commercial use of digital technologies. They add, “What democracy most needs now is an attentive citizenry — human beings capable of looking up from their screens, together.”

FORT WAYNE LOCAL NEWS

Fort Wayne Community Schools board awards superintendent with raise, bonus

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Superintendent Mark Daniel’s salary will increase by 3% under his second raise since returning to Fort Wayne Community Schools more than three years ago.

Maria Norman, school board president, announced the board’s decision to increase the superintendent’s compensation and award him a $5,000 bonus during Monday’s meeting. She noted the raise aligned with the raises other employees received.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – December 11, 2023

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 Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Private schools cannot be counted on to protect students’ civil rights...Private schools are always selective. They can select the students they prefer and push out students whose behavior or academic problems challenge staff. Many of the schools created as segregation academies continue to discriminate by race as do many private schools created more recently. Private schools can keep out students whose sexual orientation or gender identity violates the school’s religious preference. Unlike public schools which are required by the Individuals with Disability Education Act to provide services that accommodate the needs of each child, private schools can choose whether to provide appropriate programs and specially trained teachers. Sometimes the schools promise special services but fail to provide qualified staff." -- Jan Resseger in Public Schools: Our Essential Democratic Institution

PUBLIC SCHOOLS: ESSENTIAL TO DEMOCRACY

Public Schools: Our Essential Democratic Institution

Public schools are essential to our democracy. What kind of nation do we want?

From Jan Resseger

For generations, public schooling has been our society’s largest and most widespread civic institution. Back in 1992 when The Good Society was published, Bellah and his colleagues could not have anticipated the widespread expansion of educational individualism in the form private school vouchers state governments are supporting today, but they did notice our society’s ethos of radical individualism as a threat to our essential institutions: “Freedom, for most Americans, is an essential ingredient to a definition of a good society, and one we affirm… But in the great society of today, freedom cannot mean simply getting away from other people. Freedom must exist within and be guaranteed by institutions, and must include the right to participate in the economic and political decisions that affect our lived idea of a good society.” (The Good Society, p. 9)

Most of us who oppose today’s explosion of bills across the states to establish or expand private school tuition vouchers are skilled enough to argue accurately about the practical detriments of private school tuition vouchers as they drive money out of states’ public school budgets. We have learned that today in most states, the students taking the vouchers are already enrolled in a private school and only using the money to discount the tuition their parents are already paying. Researchers have also documented conclusively that on the whole, students lose ground academically when they leave public schools and carry a voucher to a private school. (Chris Lubienski, T. Jameson Brewer, and Joel Malin, “Bait and Switch,” The School Voucher Illusion, pp. 127-147), and (Josh Cowen.) We know that vouchers divert tax dollars away from small towns and rural areas where the population is too small to support any private schools. And we know that many privatized schools fail to provide programming for English learners and special needs students, leaving behind the most expensive students to educate in the public schools.

PLAY IS CHILDREN'S WORK

Is Too Little Play Hurting Our Kids?

This fascinating article on children's mental health is a transcript from the Scientific American podcast, Science, Quickly.

From Scientific American

[Joseph] Polidoro: In the September issue of the Journal of Pediatrics, [Peter] Gray and his co-authors observed a continuous increase in depression, anxiety and suicide rates among children and adolescents since at least 1960. And they link it to a decline in unsupervised play and other independent activities.

[Peter] Gray: Play is how children pursue what’s fun for them. That’s an immediate source of mental health—part of mental health really means “I’m happy” or “I’m most satisfied with my life right now.”

Polidoro: Gray says that play and other independent activities also have far-reaching long-term effects on children’s mental health and resilience.

Gray: I think that the real crisis is that young people are losing a sense of, “I can solve problems, I can deal with bumps in the road of life.” And the way the children learn to do these things is through play where they are responsible to solve their own problems. They negotiate with their peers. They figure out how to solve quarrels among themselves. If somebody gets hurt, they figure out what to do about being hurt.

CARNEGIE UNIT UNDER FIRE

John Thompson: The Carnegie Unit in the Line of Fire

"Given the failed track record of the disruptive change, as well as Petrilli’s advocacy for it, we need to pay attention when he goes on record saying that the under-reported story of ‘multiple pathways—via multiple diplomas' could create 'multiple pitfalls.'"

From Diane Ravitch

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, noticed that the Carnegie Unit is under fire. Do you know what a Carnegie Unit is? It’s a measure of time spent learning a subject. Here’s the definition on the website of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching:

The unit was developed in 1906 as a measure of the amount of time a student has studied a subject. For example, a total of 120 hours in one subject—meeting 4 or 5 times a week for 40 to 60 minutes, for 36 to 40 weeks each year—earns the student one “unit” of high school credit. Fourteen units were deemed to constitute the minimum amount of preparation that could be interpreted as “four years of academic or high school preparation.”

Why is this controversial?

FWCS TEACHER HONOR ROLL

Teacher Honor Roll: FWCS educator collaborates to find best plan for students

Focus on FWCS teacher, Nicole Block.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Why did you become a teacher? I volunteered at my son’s elementary school and his second grade teacher, who later became my best friend and mentor, encouraged me to pursue teaching. As a volunteer, I directly saw the impact teachers have on children and I was inspired to do the same. My family and I relocated to Fort Wayne, I enrolled in a master’s program in special education, and I met (Snider Principal) Chad Hissong at Purdue’s Educator Career Fair. I have never looked back.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – December 4, 2023

Here are links to the last two 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 Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Taxpayers can end up paying for the same building multiple times. First, the taxpayers pay for the school district to build it. Then they pay for the charter operator to buy it from the school district. Then, in cases like the White Hat fiasco, they end up not owning the building at all, as the CMO [Charter Management Organization], or some CMO real estate subsidiary, walks off with the building when the charter fails. In the worst of situations, this means that CMOs actually win whether the charter school succeeds or not." -- Peter Greene in Charter School Real Estate Profits

PRIVATIZATION: CHARTERS

Charter School Real Estate Profits

How many times should the public purchase a single school building? With charters managing their own real estate, it can be more than once.

From Curmudgucation

The ultimate problem with charters getting into the real estate business is that it exacerbates a fundamental flaw of the "run schools like a business" approach of free market based school choice-- if a school is a business, then its interests conflict with the interests of students. Every dollar spent educating students is a dollar not spent enriching the business and its owners, and vice versa. The argument that the free market will punish the business for not spending enough on students is not really valid; in a free market, the challenge for an education-flavored business is not how to provide the very best education for students, but how to find the bare minimum they can get away with and still make a profit. Maximizing profit means minimizing service provided.

That tension is present in all free marketeering of education. But when the most attractive driver of profit is not even the service, but the building the service is housed in, it just makes matters worse.

PRIVATIZATION: VOUCHERS

It’s time for private schools to open the books

Private schools that use taxpayer dollars need to be open about where the money is being spent. Note, too, that most vouchers go to religious institutions which pay no taxes of their own.

From Indiana Capital Chronicle

Maybe you saw the yard signs this summer? Across the state, a private organization — the Institute for Quality Education — put money toward promoting the dollar amount a child can receive from the state of Indiana to help pay for private school.

It’s around $6,000 this school year, per the yard signs. In 2023-24, almost all Hoosier children qualify for a private school voucher if they can find a private school that will accept them.

A program that was founded on the premise of providing opportunities for low-income and minority families has grown significantly since it was first challenged in court in 2012, one year after state legislators passed legislation establishing it. Yet while the program has expanded to include almost all families, the same problems persist: little accountability for taxpayers and few protections for families.

As the state sends millions more tax dollars to private schools this year — an estimated $500 million, more than 35 times the initial cost to taxpayers in the 2011-12 school year — taxpayers still have no idea how these voucher dollars are being used by the schools that receive them. Is the money going into the classroom to help students? Unsure. Is the school financially distressed? Who knows.

There are no state-required audits as there are for public schools. There are no public school board meetings in which to ask questions.

Indiana vouchers grew less than expected

Small comfort...

From School Matters

Indiana’s private school voucher program grew by a third this fall, according to data from the state Department of Education. Some 69,271 students were awarded state-funded vouchers to pay for private school tuition. That’s up from 52,614 in fall 2022.

It’s less of an increase than was expected when the Indiana General Assembly dramatically expanded eligibility for the program. Families now qualify if their income is no more than four times the threshold for reduced-price school meals. That’s $220,000 for a family of four.

An estimated 97% of Hoosier students should qualify. When the voucher expansion passed as part of the state budget, the state Legislative Services Agency projected the program and its cost would grow by over 70%, to over a half billion dollars in 2023-24.

That seemed like a reasonable guess. According to last year’s state voucher report, over 35,000 students attended private schools with their families paying their own way. If most of those families now qualified and opted for vouchers – and if the increasingly generous program drew more students to private schools – a big increase in the program would be expected.

TIME TO PAY TEACHERS MORE

How Can Anyone Afford to Teach Anymore?

Normally, when there's a shortage of workers, the pay goes up. Not so with teachers. Is it because teachers are mostly women? Is it because privatizers want an employee base of workers who can be replaced cheaply? Whatever the reason, teachers continue to take a pay cut just by their choice of profession. America's priorities need some adjustments.

From The Progressive

Teacher shortages have been reported in all fifty states, and 86 percent of public schools are hard pressed to fill vacant teaching positions. Low pay is often cited as a cause of the shortages. Let’s put that in context.

On average, teacher pay in the United States is nearly 25 percent less than what other college graduates receive, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). If you are a teacher in New Hampshire, as I am, your paycheck is nearly 30 percent less than other college graduates. Let that sink in.

People who go into teaching are taking on the same level of debt as other college graduates (or more), yet they are receiving nowhere near the same financial benefits. The typical U.S. graduate with a four year degree walked away with their diploma and $29,417 in debt in 2022. In my home state, the average debt for a bachelor’s degree topped the nation at an astounding $39,928.

TRUST TEACHERS

Standardized Tests Lie

Your child's teacher knows more about education than do the legislators in Indianapolis. Your child's teacher knows more about your child's progress than can be shown on any standardized test. Trust educators.

From Gadfly on the Wall

Whom do you trust?

So much in life comes down to that simple question.

When two groups disagree, which one do you believe?

...Those with the most exposure to the most diverse educational experiences are teachers and testing companies.

On the one side you have teachers who instruct students for at least 180 days a year, giving formal and informal assessments throughout to provide a classroom grade. On the other you have the testing companies that give students a single assessment over a period of hours or days.

And often they come to different conclusions.

Many times children get high classroom grades but low scores on the standardized test.

So let us ask the question that the media never does: which should we believe?

FORT WAYNE LOCAL NEWS

4 northeast Indiana school districts get state literacy grants

Indiana has jumped into the Science of Reading Movement. For information, see the Executive Summary of The Science of Reading Movement: The Never-Ending Debate and the Need for a Different Approach To Reading Instruction by Paul Thomas of Furman University, published by the National Education Policy Center.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Indiana has awarded nearly $15 million in grants to support literacy, including more than $850,000 to four northeast school districts.

The Indiana Department of Education announced on Monday that 72 school corporations would receive the grants, which are expected to reach more than 65,000 students in kindergarten through third grade. The grants are meant to support the implementation of evidence-based practices aligned with science of reading.

Science of reading integrates instructional practices with efforts focused on phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension, the news release said.

Fort Wayne Community Schools Plans for 'Success'

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

FWCS Superintendent Mark Daniel is looking forward to when the students who are in eighth grade now become high school seniors.

That’s because the class of 2028 will be the first to experience the Schools of Success, Fort Wayne Community Schools’ new approach to high school.

Snider's Kurt Tippmann one of five national Power of Influence Award winners

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Snider football coach Kurt Tippmann is one of five coaches to win the Power of Influence Award, the American Football Coaches Association announced on Thursday.

School district donates land to Fort Wayne trail project

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Fort Wayne Community Schools is contributing to the city’s Hanna Street Trail construction efforts.

Fort Wayne Community Schools plans $2 million in North Side stadium upgrades

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

A Fort Wayne high school athletics facility is set for nearly $2 million in upgrades, including installation of synthetic turf.

Northwest Allen County Schools tweaks school capacities as redistricting eyed

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The demographic firm Northwest Allen County Schools hired to develop redistricting scenarios will have updated school capacity information to consider as it creates options for the growing district.

Audit reveals equity priorities at Fort Wayne Community Schools

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Fort Wayne Community Schools board members informally indicated their support Monday for requiring culturally diverse training for employees.

“Diversity is huge in our district,” President Maria Norman said during an hourlong work session about equity. “I think anything that we can do to help people better understand different cultures, different races...”

Fort Wayne Community Schools addresses student behavior with $10,000 grant

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

A consultant will provide educators at a Fort Wayne middle school with strategies to reduce unwanted student behavior, thanks to a $10,000 grant from the Indiana State Teachers Association Foundation.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – November 20, 2023

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 Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

NOTE: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It will not be published next week. We'll be back with more updates on December 4, 2023. Thanks for supporting Public Education.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"The Finnish and Estonian education systems are far from perfect, and Finland’s PISA scores have dipped a bit in recent years. But both countries have done more than just achieve high rates of high performers — they’ve achieved some of the world’s lowest rates of low performers, with remarkably small performance gaps between schools and between richer and poorer students. Being disadvantaged is less of a disadvantage in Finland and Estonia than almost anywhere else." -- by Adam Grant in What Most American Schools Do Wrong

INTERNATIONAL ASSESSMENTS

Adam Grant: What We Can Learn from International Assessments

Using techniques developed in the USA, other countries are showing educational performance gains.

From Diane Ravitch

I have been critical of the focus on international tests because real life teaches us that the test scores of 15-year-old students do not predict future economic success for nations. I find it bizarre that people say that America is a great country but its schools are no good. That doesn’t make sense.

Adam Grant, a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, injects a dose of common sense into that newspaper’s education coverage:

He writes:

Which country has the best education system? Since 2000, every three years, 15-year-olds in dozens of countries have taken the Program for International Student Assessment — a standardized test of math, reading and science skills. On the inaugural test, which focused on reading, the top country came as a big surprise: tiny Finland. Finnish students claimed victory again in 2003 (when the focus was on math) and 2006 (when it was on science), all while spending about the same time on homework per week as the typical teenager in Shanghai does in a single day.

Just over a decade later, Europe had a new champion. Here, too, it wasn’t one of the usual suspects — not a big, wealthy country like Germany or Britain but the small underdog nation of Estonia. Since that time, experts have been searching for the secrets behind these countries’ educational excellence. They recently found one right here in the United States.

NPE VIDEOS AVAILABLE

Network for Public Education 2023 Conference Videos

Videos from the Network for Public Education’s D.C. conference are out! Watch keynote speakers as well as seven of forty-four panels and highlights of previous conferences.

From the Network for Public Education


Watch This! Gloria Ladson-Billings Speaks at NPE Conference about Attacks on Public Schools

From Diane Ravitch

If you missed the 10th annual conference of the Network for Public Education, you missed some of the best presentations in our ten years of holding conferences.

You missed the brilliant Gloria Ladson-Billings, Professor Emerita and formerly the Kellner Family Distinguished Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ladson-Billings gave an outstanding speech that brought an enthusiastic audience to its feet.

PRIVATIZATION

A Useful Guide to the Privatization Movement: Please Add Your Nominees!

From Diane Ravitch

Maurice Cunningham, a retired professor of political science and an expert on dark money in education elections, prepared A CITIZEN’S GUIDE TO SCHOOL PRIVATIZATION.

It is posted on the website of the Network for Public Education.

It is a glossary of the organizations and individuals who lead the effort to privatize education.

Please open the guide and see if you have names and groups to add.

FORT WAYNE LOCAL NEWS

FWCS board OKs security vehicles purchase after successful referendum

Referendum money at work...

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The Fort Wayne Community Schools board on Monday approved a request that voters made possible only days earlier – the purchase of four security vehicles.

The Ford Explorers will be funded by the safety and well-being referendum, which will generate up to $96 million in additional property tax dollars over eight years or up to $12 million annually. Unofficial results showed 53% of voters last week supported the initiative.

The district budgeted a $7.2 million spending plan for 2024, and officials are laying the groundwork now to ensure those plans become reality. Matt Schiebel, executive director of safety and community partnerships, described those efforts after the board meeting.

“It was important to us to show people meaningful change quickly and also to be responsible, fiscally responsible, with the money that we will be given,” he said.

FWCS’ job listings now include student advocate, a new referendum-funded position responsible for a school’s safety and security. The district eventually wants 56 total student advocates, but Schiebel said it is planning to start with 24, with priority on the middle and high schools.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – November 13, 2023

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 Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"...depending on the state, homeschooled families might not have to report what they are doing at all.

"...in most states, there is no oversight and no evaluation by anyone of the academic program and of students' progress.

"...the truth is, in many states, the rules and oversight can be so lax parents don't ultimately have to teach their kids anything at all." -- John Oliver (see HOMESCHOOLING, below).

HOMESCHOOLING

John Oliver: What You Need to Know About Homeschooling

"...in a perfect world, we'd make sure that homeschooled kids were both safe and actually receiving a functional education..." -- John Oliver

Note that the videos linked below contain language and imagery that might be objectionable to some.

From Diane Ravitch

John Oliver is a brilliant, intelligent comedian who is known for his sharp commentaries on current events. From 2006 to 2013, he was a writer for Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show.

His analysis of the charter school industry was viewed by millions of people.

This new take on homeschooling is worth your time.

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

The Plight of the Poorest Students in America’s Public Schools Is Hidden in Plain Sight

We have forgotten to attend to the needs of our children...or perhaps we, as a nation, just don't have the well-being of our children as a high enough priority.

From Jan Resseger

For decades research has documented the correlation of family poverty and children’s school achievement. And at the same time, data also show that America’s neighborhoods (and therefore its school districts) have become more segregated by income. Demonstrating these trends a decade ago, Stanford University educational sociologist Sean Reardon showed that while in 1970, only 15 percent of families lived in neighborhoods classified as affluent or poor, by 2007, 31 percent of families lived in such neighborhoods. By 2007, fewer families lived in mixed income communities. Reardon also demonstrated that along with growing residential inequality is a simultaneous jump in an income-inequality school achievement gap. The achievement gap between the children with income in the top ten percent and the children with income in the bottom ten percent, was 30-40 percent wider among children born in 2001 than those born in 1975, and twice as large as the black-white achievement gap.

THE NETWORK FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION NATIONAL CONFERENCE 2023

The 2023 Phyllis Bush Award for Grassroots Organizing Goes to PEP

Public Education Partners in Ohio received this year's Phyllis Bush Award for Grassroots Organizing at the NPE National Conference. Here is their statement.

From Public Education Partners

Over the years, PEP has organized many community events, such as a statewide conference for public education advocates. Its members have lobbied at the Ohio Statehouse and have testified before the Ohio House and Senate. Board members host PEP rallies at the statehouse. PEP leaders have written countless letters to the editor on subjects like vouchers, charter schools, standardized testing. The organization educates and engages individuals on education issues, as it has grown its social media presence to over 30,000 followers.

The existence of Public Education Partners and the success PEP has experienced over the past eight years would not have been possible without Phyllis Bush.

Phyllis Bush Grassroots Group Award

NPE has posted the video of the Phyllis Bush Grassroots Award. As promised, click here to see the video.

From the Network for Public Education

NPE Action Board member presents this annual award in memory of NPE founding board member, Phyllis Bush, to the Ohio Public Education Partners.

Grassroots Education Network- October 2023 Newsletter

The Network for Public Education sends out a Grassroots newsletter every month. This month's newsletter is all about the 2023 NPE National Conference.

From the Network for Public Education

The NPE/NPE Action Conference, was held October 28 to the 29th, and was attended by over 400 passionate defenders of public education. The conference, held in our nation’s capital, was the 10th Anniversary of the NPE/NPE Action Conference. There were over 195 presenters and over 40 panels. The theme of the conference this year was Public Schools: Where Democracy Grows.

This newsletter is replacing our monthly Grassroots Network Education Newsletter. It features members of the grassroots network who attended and presented at the conference. A full write-up of the conference that will include all of the panels will be coming out soon on the NPE newsletter. Again, this newsletter highlights only the grassroots groups that presented. Our regular grassroots newsletter will resume in November.

FORT WAYNE LOCAL NEWS

FWCS talks Ford NGL at Mirro Center dinner

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The Fort Wayne Community Schools superintendent shared a message Wednesday night for the few hundred stakeholders celebrating the district’s recent designation as a Ford Next Generation Learning community.

The nearly 30,000-student district is preparing to implement its 158-page master plan, which calls for public-private partnerships, Mark Daniel said.

“Prior to this, schools have been pretty much on their own, sort of silos, and we’re breaking those silos,” he said. “We’re moving to this new process and way of thinking, which means, how do we bring real world into our classrooms?”

FWCS was named a Ford NGL community in August after a 16-month process that resulted in a master plan outlining the steps to transform education from pre-K through 12th grade.

As a member of the Ford NGL community, the district joins a network of schools supported by the Ford Motor Company Fund, which encourages schools to prepare students for success after high school.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – November 6, 2023

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 Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Somewhere in between our rush to put a man on the moon and the advent of computers in all our classrooms, we lost our “public good” mojo, the generous and very American impulse to stir the melting pot and offer all children, our future citizens, a level playing field, educationally." -- Nancy Flanagan in Talking About Public Education: The Good, the Deceptive, and the Destructive

PUBLIC EDUCATION IS A PUBLIC GOOD

Talking About Public Education: The Good, the Deceptive, and the Destructive

Have we become so selfish that we no longer consider supporting the Public Good essential?

From Nancy Flanagan, Teacher in a Strange Land Blog

Education is a major major public good where we tax the rich in order to provide a public benefit that you get just by right of being a citizen. When they talk about needing to do away with the entitlement mentality, the most problematic entitlement for them is not Medicare or Social Security. It’s education. Education is even more of a problem for them because teachers are trying to encourage kids to think they can do more. And that’s dangerous.

The core of the public confusion around schooling has been carefully cultivated for decades.

It’s worth talking about—the uniquely American principle of a free, high-quality education for every single child—even if the dialogue is heated. We’re in danger of losing the very thing that made us great.

NEW BATTLES IN THE READING WARS

Phonics Is Important. But There Is No “Science of Reading”

Indiana, like other states, is now dumping tax dollars into "the science of reading." Is it worth the money?

From Diane Ravitch

After the disgrace of the Reading First program, support for phonics dissipated. But in the past few years, journalists (led by Emily Hanford) have trumpeted the idea that the report of the National Reading Panel established the “science of reading.” New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote about the “Mississippi Miracle,“ claiming that the “science of reading” had lifted fourth grade reading scores, and no new spending was needed in a very poorly resourced state. Kristof did not explain why the SOR did not cause a rise in eighth grade scores in Mississippi, nor did he understand that retaining low-scoring third graders raises the percentage of fourth graders who get high test scores. State after state is now mandating the “science of reading.”

And so the cycle begins again.

CHARTER SCANDALS

Another Day Another Charter School Scandal

The Network for Public Education provides an ongoing listing of charter scandals nationwide. Real public schools have the oversight of publicly elected school boards.

Over 20 scandals were found in the month of October.

From the Network for Public Education

10/06/2023 - Indianapolis charter school closing permanently on Friday Just weeks into the school year, Vanguard Collegiate has announced it is closing.

Read More

FORT WAYNE LOCAL NEWS

Teacher contracts are in the news...

East Allen County Schools could top area districts in starting teacher pay

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

East Allen County Schools is poised to offer the highest starting teacher salary – $47,300 – in the county under a tentative agreement presented during a special board meeting Wednesday.

Raises for individual teachers could total nearly $4,000 in the first year of the two-year contract with the East Allen Educators Association.

“Overall, I think we’re quite competitive with our neighbors,” said Pat McCann, chief financial officer.

...Individual raises would be based on a points system that considers performance, experience and education. Teachers could earn up to seven points, which would be worth $555.28 in the first year.

Northwest Allen County Schools ratifies teachers contract, picks new school name

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The new Northwest Allen County Schools teachers contract includes compensation that shows respect for educators, the education association said moments after the board on Monday ratified terms including individual salary increases of up to 9.5%.

The elected leaders also approved the name of the district’s newest school. Construction on Willow Creek Middle School is expected to begin February or March, depending on weather.

The collective bargaining agreement with the Northwest Allen County Education Association brings the minimum base salary to $46,500 from $44,500.

The maximum salaries are $74,400 for teachers with bachelor’s degrees and $81,375 for those with master’s degrees. That’s up from $71,200 and $75,650, respectively.

The contract uses a performance-based salary compensation model, through which eligible teachers will earn increases of about 5.6% to 9.5%.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – October 30, 2023

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 Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"If anything is ever to change, we need to get off our asses to do the hard work of living in a democracy. We need to get informed, to get engaged, to get involved, to think, and to hold our elected officials to the same standard as we would hold our friends and families.

"Rather than waiting for Superman, we need to channel our own inner strength and roll up our sleeves to do what is necessary to change the world." -- Phyllis Bush, May 4, 2016, in Where Do We Go From Here?.

2023 PHYLLIS BUSH AWARD

Dan Greenberg presents the Phyllis Bush Memorial Grassroots Award to Public Education Partners at the Network for Public Education 10 Anniversary Conference in Washington, D.C.

[Note you need a Facebook account to follow the link above. The Network for Public Education often posts videos of their conference. If, or when the video of this presentation becomes available we will share a link for it.]

Our memories of Phyllis Bush come to life when this award in her honor is presented at the NPE Conference. Her legacy lives on through groups nationwide as they continue their work to fight for public education. Congratulations to Ohio's Public Education Partners, this year's award recipients, for their advocacy.

Below is a quote from one of our earliest blog posts, That's a lot of numbers, Grandma! which Phyllis wrote in 2013.

As I have grown older, I have become more aware of who I am. I will always be a teacher. Helping others discover their strengths and find their own voices is what I love doing. Standing up for, respecting, and defending the voiceless is the fire that has burned within me for as long as I can remember. Pushing back against injustice is what gives me a reason to get up each morning.

NEIFPE Co-Founder, Phyllis Bush

MOTHERS FOR LIBERTY MISLEAD

M4L Continues to Post Misleading Information

M4L continues the misinterpretation and misuse of test scores that has done so much damage to public education.

From Accountabaloney blog

Lately, the Moms for Liberty crew has been deflecting from criticism by highlighting the so-called failures of public schools, claiming we are failing to teach students to read. Specifically, they are misusing scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to claim that America’s students cannot do math or reading on grade level.

NAEP “Proficiency” is NOT a measurement of on-grade level performance, but something much higher. This is made clear on NAEP’s own website which states:

“Students performing at or above the Proficient level on NAEP assessments demonstrate solid academic performance and competency over challenging subject matter. It should be noted that the NAEP Proficient achievement level does not represent grade level proficiency as determined by other assessment standards (e.g., state or district assessments).” NAEP “Proficiency” is a bar set well above “grade level.”
https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/

If you need more convincing, Tom Loveless, PhD wrote a great piece in Brookings in 2016, entitled The NAEP Proficiency Myth, where he said, “Confounding NAEP proficient with grade-level is uninformed.“

“It is an unreasonable expectation, one that ill serves America’s students, parents, and teachers–and the effort to improve America’s schools.“

FORT WAYNE LOCAL NEWS

7 area marching bands to vie for state championships Saturday

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Marching bands from across the state, including perennial power Homestead and six others from the Fort Wayne area, will take the field Saturday at Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium for a chance at one of four state titles.

Joining Homestead in the Class A finals of the state’s largest schools is Carroll. North Side competes in Class B; Concordia Lutheran, Angola and Garrett face off in Class C; and Adams Central rounds out the northeast Indiana contingent in small-school Class D. Each division has 10 competing bands.

All of the Fort Wayne-area schools but Garrett competed in last year’s state finals.

Homestead was the highest-placing area band last year, coming in sixth in Class A. Saturday will mark its 35th straight appearance in the state finals.

Fort Wayne Community Schools eyes student recruitment strategies

The Indiana Constitution demands that the legislature provide "a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all." The public schools are that system. Since 2011, the Indiana General Assembly has diverted billions in tax dollars to private schools and charter schools, shortchanging the vast majority of the state's students who attend the constitutionally mandated public schools.

Local school systems now have to spend precious dollars -- which should be used for instruction -- to remind the public that there is only one group of schools in the state that accepts every child...the public schools.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Fort Wayne Community Schools – which saw enrollment decrease by less than 1% this fall – is developing strategies to boost student recruitment.

Attracting and retaining students are areas of focus for the nearly 30,000-student district because families have more options regarding their children’s education, said Krista Stockman, the district’s communication and marketing director.

“Public schools are no longer in the same position as decades ago when students just enrolled in their neighborhood schools,” she said Wednesday. “Parents have many choices, and it is incumbent upon us to make sure parents know about and understand their options. If we don’t actively share our story with parents, they might get misinformation or not be aware of programs offered for free at FWCS.”

Fort Wayne Community Schools board OKs pay hikes

Our teachers deserve it.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The Fort Wayne Community Schools board ratified a two-year teachers contract Monday that increases the salary schedule by 3% and 1% this year and next.

Depending on how educators progress on the salary schedule – which considers performance and education levels – individual pay will increase between 5.8% and 9.9% over the two years.

Teachers aren’t the only district employees getting a raise. After unanimously approving the collective bargaining agreement with the Fort Wayne Education Association, the board voted twice more to boost pay for most other workers.

“We want to reward our teachers and our other staff,” Superintendent Mark Daniel said after the meeting.

The agreement with teachers increases the position’s starting salary to $46,627, from $43,998. That had been the lowest starting teacher pay in Allen County.

A SAMPLING OF EDUCATION HUMOR

Cartoons of Teachers, Parents, and Students Dealing with School

From Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

From time to time, I run across cartoons on teachers bemoaning that time when they make out report cards on their students’ academic progress. Also there are cartoons showing parents trying hard to do their best with their sons and daughters but either advertently or inadvertently putting pressure on their children to do even better in school than they currently are. And cartoons about students reactions to the pressure of getting good grades. Here is a sampling. Enjoy!

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – October 23, 2023

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 Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"It seemed like good news for charter schools when a study released this summer declared that they get better student outcomes than do traditional public schools — at least from 2015 to 2019, the years for which researchers said they crunched the numbers. The Wall Street Journal editorial board hailed the results as showing “huge learning gains over union schools” (with “union schools” used as a pejorative reference to public schools in traditional school districts). Education Week’s headline declared: “Charter Schools Now Outperform Traditional Public Schools, Sweeping Study Finds.”

"But the study, it turned out, doesn’t show that at all. The headlines were wrong. For one thing, a close look at the results revealed only tiny improvements in charter schools. That, plus concerns critics have raised about the validity of the methodology and definitions used in the study, render moot the claims of besting traditional public schools." -- The Answer Sheet blogger, Valerie Strauss in Why what looked like good news for charter schools actually wasn’t

CHARTERS, VOUCHERS, AND PRIVATIZATION

Valerie Strauss: The Latest “Good News” about Charter Schools is a Hoax

From Diane Ravitch

Education Week’s headline declared: “Charter Schools Now Outperform Traditional Public Schools, Sweeping Study Finds.”

But the study, it turned out, doesn’t show that at all. The headlines were wrong. For one thing, a close look at the results revealed only tiny improvements in charter schools. That, plus concerns critics have raised about the validity of the methodology and definitions used in the study, render moot the claims of besting traditional public schools.

The “not what they seem” theme of the study results reflect the uncertain position in which charter schools find themselves these days. The vanguard of the “school choice” movement when the first charter opened in 1992 in Minneapolis, these schools have been eclipsed in the national debate about “school choice” by programs that use public money for private and religious schools, including vouchers, tax credit programs and education savings accounts.

Texas: State Commissioner Cracked Down on Houston While Ignoring Low-Performing Charter Schools

From Diane Ravitch

Since taking office more than seven years ago, Morath has repeatedly given charters permission to expand, allowing them to serve thousands more students, even when they haven’t met academic performance requirements. On at least 17 occasions, Morath has waived expansion requirements for charter networks that had too many failing campuses to qualify, according to a ProPublica and Texas Tribune analysis of state records. The state’s top education official also has approved five other waivers in cases where the charter had a combination of failing schools and campuses that were not rated because they either only served high-risk populations or had students too young to be tested.

Oklahoma: Founders of Epic Charter Schools Charged with More Crimes

From Diane Ravitch

Founders of Epic Charter Schools are facing new charges of money laundering and presenting false claims to the state, bringing the total number of charges to 15.

Epic co-founders David Chaney and Ben Harris and Chief Financial Officer Josh Brock, were arrested and charged with a list of felonies in June 2022. Charges included racketeering, embezzlement of state funds, and obtaining money by false pretense.

The amount of diverted money so far totals $30 million. Republicans complain about public schools, but no district superintendent or principal has ever been accused of massive crimes like those of EPIC. Let it be noted that virtual charter schools have been the source of the biggest financial crimes.

National Education Policy Center: What Does Research Say About Vouchers?

From Diane Ravitch

The National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado invited scholar Chris Lubienski of Indiana University to review a recent publication of EdChoice (the new name of the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation), which summarizes what voucher advocates believe about the efficacy of vouchers. The publication is titled “The 123s of School Choice: What the Research Says About Private School Choice Programs, 2023 Edition.”

Not surprisingly, EdChoice concludes that vouchers are effective. Lubienski, however, is critical of the studies they include and those they exclude. In short, EdChoice engages in cherry-picking to bolster its cause.

STUDENTS STEP IN WHERE ADULTS HAVE FAILED THEM

Band Director Quits and Other Evidence of Pandemic Aftermath

From Teacher in a Strange Land

Perhaps you’re thinking that the national shortage of teachers is limited to certain sub-specialties, or geographic regions, that no responsible school leader would leave a group of six-year-olds to “teach themselves.” If so, you ought to take a look at the percentages of students, especially in charter schools, with unqualified substitutes. There are uncertified subs everywhere, in all subjects, k-12, and unfilled jobs in prestigious private and suburban schools, two months after the start of the school year.

The loyal-to-band kids in West Virginia do not surprise me. Band students, in my thoroughly biased opinion, are THE BEST, and these kids appear to be like band kids everywhere—self-starters, and leaders. Good kids. There are, of course, good kids in all grades and disciplines, in every school, those who can be trusted to carry on when the chips are down.

But here’s the thing that doesn’t get mentioned in this feel-good story: the band kids in WV learned how to do the things they have done—writing rules, running rehearsals, playing tunes—from a teacher. By all indications, a pretty good teacher, someone who instilled a spirit of cooperation that led students to try to balance out the band sound by switching instruments.

FORT WAYNE LOCAL NEWS

Northwest Allen County Schools reveals details of proposed teachers' contract

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Northwest Allen County Schools teachers could see their salaries increase up to 9.5% under a tentative collective bargaining agreement set for ratification this month, Superintendent Wayne Barker said Wednesday.

He shared highlights of the proposed 2023-24 contract during a special public meeting that last about 10 minutes at Carroll High School.

“We’ve made a significant, positive step in the right direction for what we want to do for our teaching staff,” Barker said afterward, noting NACS has about 520 teachers. “We want them to know they’re valued. We want them to know they’re appreciated.”

The superintendent cited the district’s increasing enrollment as the reason why the contract applies for one year and not two – the duration of the previous agreement. It’s to the teachers’ benefit, he said. Schools receive state funding per pupil.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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