Teacher Performance Testing - PACT

There is a New York Times article today about Resistance to Outsourcing Teacher Licensing.  Move to Outsource Teacher Licensing Process Draws Protest

... Student teachers at the University of Massachusetts are protesting a new national licensure procedure being developed by the education ...

May 6, 2012 - By MICHAEL WINERIP - Education - Article - Print Headline: "Move to Outsource Teacher Licensing Process Draws Protest"

A group of faculty and students at UMASS Amherst are resisting the assessment system developed and used in California, known as PACT. In the article Prof. Raymond Pecheone of Stanford and others claim there is no organized resistance to this testing.

To the contrary.  A group of faculty and students in the CSU have consistently resisted this testing as invalid and not reliable.  Here is a record of some of this resistance.

https://sites.google.com/site/assessingpact/

Duane Campbell.  Democracy and Education Institute. 

Faces of Hunger- State Capitol

faces of hunger

photographs of hunger in alameda county

by david bacon

california state capitol

hallway in front of the governor's office

sacramento, ca

starting may 8, 2012

reception 10am, may 8, in the governor's council room

Plutocracy, Paralysis, and the Great Depression

“Specifically, money buys power, and the increasing wealth of a tiny minority has effectively bought the allegiance of one of our two major political parties , in the process destroying any prospect for cooperation.

And the takeover of half our political spectrum by the 0.01 percent is, I’d argue, also responsible for the degradation of our economic discourse, which has made any sensible discussion of what we should be doing impossible.

All the evidence points, however, points to a simple lack of demand, which could be and should be cured very quickly through a combination of fiscal and monetary stimulus.

No, the real structural problem is in the political system, which has been warped and paralyzed by the power of a small, wealthy minority.  And the key to economic recovery lies in finding a way to get past that minority’s malign influence. “  Paul Krugman. May 4,2012.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/opinion/krugman-plutocracy-paralysis-perplexity.html?_r=1

Here come more cuts

      California fell almost $2 billion below estimates in personal income taxes paid in April.  The Legislative Analyst Office says that the state is some $3.5 billion behind the state forecasts for this year which are the basis for the current budget.    Thus, the legislature will again face cuts.  More cuts to schools, more cuts to social services, health care,  child support, police and fire protection.

            This approach to economics is called austerity.  It doesn’t work.  Austerity is being tried in Greece, Italy, Spain, Great Britain, and Ireland, among others.  It does not work.  Austerity makes the economy worse – and thus further reductions of tax receipts and further cuts.

The economic crisis of 2007 to the present made matters worse.  The state took in some $30 billion less in taxes and thus had less to send to the schools.  School budgets have been cut by some $10 billion.  K-12 education receives about 40% of the California budget.  Thus any decline in the state budget leads directly to cuts in school services.

            The question for the corporate agenda, promoted by  the Chamber of Commerce among others  is can the economy prosper with a poorly educated work force.  California grew and prospered from 1970- 1994 based upon a well educated work force.  Then, in the 1994-2008 period over $10 billion of tax cuts were passed – making the current crisis much worse. This week we learned that Apple, and other corporations, are avoiding over $10 billion in taxes by moving one small office to Nevada.   California suffers from a decade of  corporate tax cuts and public disinvestment.  Today,  instead of following the education  approach,  conservative anti tax forces have imposed an Mississippi approach on California.

California public schools are in crisis- and they are getting worse. This is a direct result of massive budget cuts imposed by the legislature and the governor in the last four years.  Total per pupil expenditure is down by over $1,000 per student. The result- massive class size increases.  Students are in often classes too large for learning.  Supplementary services such as tutoring and art classes have been eliminated.  Over 14,000 teachers have been dismissed, and thousands more face lay offs this fall. This is not the fault of teachers. 

Faculty Union at CSU authorizes state wide strike

Faculty Union in California votes to authorize a strike. Would be the first system wide strike in state history.

California State University faculty voted to  approved a measure to give their union leaders the power to authorize a strike next fall that could delay the beginning of school for thousands of students across the 23-campus university system.  The CSU is the 23 campus system of California.  The University of California does not have a faculty union with collective bargaining recognition although some of its staff and employees belong to unions.

A powerful 95% of the  faculty voters agreed that the CSU’s instructional faculty, should initiate rolling walkouts if the CSU administration continues to demand concessions.

Equally as impressive was the turnout, with 70% of CFA members voting to send an unmistakable message to Chancellor Charles B. Reed – state austerity is killing higher education in California.

Lillian Taiz, president of the California Faculty Association, said, “Today, the faculty has spoken loud and clear – we have had enough of the way in which they are being treated by the CSU administration.”

How Apple avoids California taxes and bankrupts California schools

How Apple sidesteps Billions in Taxes

By CHARLES DUHIGG and DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI. NYTimes.

RENO, Nev. — Apple, the world’s most profitable technology company, doesn’t design iPhones here. It doesn’t run AppleCare customer service from this city. And it doesn’t manufacture MacBooks or iPads anywhere nearby.

Yet, with a handful of employees in a small office here in Reno, Apple has done something central to its corporate strategy: it has avoided millions of dollars in taxes in California and 20 other states.

Apple’s headquarters are in Cupertino, Calif. By putting an office in Reno, just 200 miles away, to collect and invest the company’s profits, Apple sidesteps state income taxes on some of those gains.

California’s corporate tax rate is 8.84 percent. Nevada’s? Zero.

Setting up an office in Reno is just one of many legal methods Apple uses to reduce its worldwide tax bill by billions of dollars each year. As it has in Nevada, Apple has created subsidiaries in low-tax places like Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the British Virgin Islands — some little more than a letterbox or an anonymous office — that help cut the taxes it pays around the world.

Almost every major corporation tries to minimize its taxes, of course. For Apple, the savings are especially alluring because the company’s profits are so high. Wall Street analysts predict Apple could earn up to $45.6 billion in its current fiscal year — which would be a record for any American business.

Apple serves as a window on how technology giants have taken advantage of tax codes written for an industrial age and ill suited to today’s digital economy. Some profits at companies like Apple, Google, Amazon, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft derive not from physical goods but from royalties on intellectual property, like the patents on software that makes devices work. Other times, the products themselves are digital, like downloaded songs. It is much easier for businesses with royalties and digital products to move profits to low-tax countries than it is, say, for grocery stores or automakers. A downloaded application, unlike a car, can be sold from anywhere.

Read the entire article. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/business/apples-tax-strategy-aims-at-low-tax-states-and-nations.html?_r=1&hp&pagewanted=all

Dolores Huerta to receive Medal of Freedom

Farm worker movement hails Dolores Huerta’s 
‘Lifetime of self-sacrifice and deep dedication’

 
United Farm Workers President Arturo S. Rodriguez and Cesar Chavez Foundation President Paul F. Chavez issued the following joint statement from the farm worker movement’s Keene, Calif. headquarters on the announcement that President Obama will present Dolores Huerta with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
 
Cesar Chavez once described Dolores Huerta as “completely fearless, both mentally and physically.”
 
Over six decades, Dolores Huerta put the nonviolent fight for civil and labor rights ahead of her personal interests, and sometimes before her personal safety. Like all the farm worker strikers and boycotters, she accepted a life of voluntary poverty for many decades. Her dynamic and inspiring leadership through the most difficult and turbulent times in the farm worker movement’s history established her not only as a leader of farm workers but as a role model for women and men across this nation and beyond.
 
We congratulate Dolores on receiving the nation’s highest civilian honor. No one is more deserving after a lifetime of self-sacrifice and deep dedication to defending the poorest and most abused people in our country.
Dolores Huerta is an Honorary Chair of DSA. 

The Movement 2.0- Organize

Worried About School Funding, Most Favor Tax Increase—For the Rich | California Progress Report

Worried About School Funding, Most Favor Tax Increase—For the Rich | California Progress Report

Joseph Stiglitz via The European Magazine: “Austerity and a New Recession” (Breaking Update)

Joseph Stiglitz via The European Magazine: “Austerity and a New Recession” (Breaking Update)

The Federal Reserve Turns Left | Common Dreams

The Federal Reserve Turns Left | Common Dreams

SOS: Save our Schools

by Deborah Meier,
Dear Diane,
HELP!!! SOS!!! "Reformed" schools are literally becoming reform schools for the poor. It's a sign of "the future" as some people envision it. Although, of course, these are not the schools for the reformers' kids.
Mitt Romney "declared that this century must be an American century," and President Barack Obama insists that "anyone who tells you that America is in decline ... doesn't know what they are talking about." Well, it's hard to argue with Romney since his "must" is a preference, not a prediction. But I do worry about Obama's statement because it contains truth, and it covers up a potential falsehood. (See "America's Place in the New World," by Charles A. Kupchan in The New York Times.)
But why should we care if we're first? (See last week's letter!) If the first is a nation we respect, being second is just fine. What we care about is the health and welfare of our nation's people and their future prospects both economically and politically, not our place in somebody's ranking system. We might also like a president who hopes for the best for other nations' people, too. And, while American business may not be in decline, it has the advantage of transferring its own future health and welfare to almost any nation it chooses. The American people have a harder time following suit. Indeed, global business has no country. Our inventiveness won't help if we off-shore the production of the inventions "made in America"—to nations that operate with 19th century sweat-shop wages and working conditions.

Lets Talk Taxes

by Duane E. Campbell

California, like most states, needs additional revenue to fund schools and to invest in the future.  Our  public schools are in crisis - and they are getting worse. Their decline  is a direct result of massive budget cuts imposed by the legislature and the governor in the last four years.  Total expenditure is down by over $1,000 per student. The result is  massive class size increases.  Students are often in classes too large for quality learning.  Supplementary services such as tutoring and art have been eliminated.  Over 14,000 teachers have  already been dismissed  and thousands more face lay offs .

California schools are now 47th in the nation in per pupil expenditure and 49th in class size.  Our low achievement scores on national tests reflect this severe underfunding.

Of course the economic crisis of 2007 to the present caused by bankers and  their  lobbyists  made matters worse.  The state took in some $30 billion less in taxes due to the collapse  and thus had less to send to the schools.  School budgets have been cut by some $10 billion. 

The question for the anti tax advocates  and the Chamber of Commerce,  and ultimately for California voters this fall, is can the economy prosper with a poorly educated work force. California grew and prospered from 1970- 1994 based upon a well educated work force.   The wealth that funds our current highways, parks, universities, community colleges   and jobs is based upon  past public investments.  Then, in the period between 1994-2008 over $10 billion in corporate tax cuts  were passed  making the current  economic crisis much worse. 

Dr. Manning Marable receives a Pulitizer Prize

Manning Marable.  Co founder of the Anti Racism Commission , of anti racism work within DSA , and a distinguished scholar and activist was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for 2012  for his final book, Malcom X, A Life of Reinvention.  Manning was a mentor for me.  He co-authored the third chapter in my book for the first edition, Choosing Democracy: a practical guide to multicultural education. (1996)

See his obituary here: http://antiracismdsa.blogspot.com/2011/09/manning-marable-1950-2011.html

Community Organizing as School Reform

National Growth of Community Organizing: Essential to School Transformation  Published on April 3, 2012

Author:  Keith Catone with Mark R. Warren

The recent "A Match on Dry Grass" conference at Harvard Graduate School of Education underscores that community organizing has become a powerful force for education change, and nurturing its growth is key to achieving equity for underserved youth living in high poverty.

The persistent failure of public schooling in low-income communities is one of our nation’s most pressing civil rights and social justice issues. Many school reformers recognize that poverty, racism, and a lack of power held by these communities undermine children's education and development, but too few policy - and decision-makers seem to know what to do about it.

Community organizing represents a fresh and promising approach to school reform as part of a broader agenda to build power for low-income communities and to address the profound social inequalities that affect the education of children. In AISR’s work in New York City and elsewhere, we have seen the power of communities, parents, and youth to transform their schools when they engage with educators and researchers to demand change and develop informed decisions. An emerging national field of education organizing reflects the growing visibility and power of this movement.

People's History On The Economy

Occupy the Universities

Giroux.

But there is more. It is also crucial not to allow casino capitalism to transform higher education into another extension of the corporate and warfare state. If higher education loses its civic purpose and becomes simply an adjunct of corporate and military power, there will be practically no spaces left for dissent, dialogue, civic courage, and a spirit of thoughtfulness and critical engagement. This is all the more reason to occupy colleges and use them as a launching pad to both educate and to expand the very meaning of the public sphere. Knowledge is about more than the truth; it is also a weapon of change. The language of a radical politics needs more than hope and outrage; it needs institutional spaces to produce ideas, values, and social relations capable of fighting off those ideological and material forces of casino capitalism that are intent in sabotaging any viable notion of human interaction, community, solidarity, friendship, and justice.

http://www.truth-out.org/occupy-colleges-now-students-new-public-intellectuals/1321891418

100,000 Strong (The 99% Spring)

Hired Guns on Astroturf...- Not school reform

Dissent Magazine - Spring 2012 Issue - Hired Guns on Astrotur...
If you want to change government policy, change the politicians who make it. The implications of this truism have now taken hold in the market-modeled “education reform movement.” As a result, the private funders and nonprofit groups that run the movement have overhauled their strategy. They’ve gone political as never before—like the National Rifle Association or Big Pharma or (ed reformers emphasize) the teachers’ unions. 

Devolution of a Movement

For the last decade or so, this generation of ed reformers has been setting up programs to show the power of competition and market-style accountability to transform inner-city public schools: establishing nonprofit and for-profit charter schools, hiring business executives to run school districts, and calculating a teacher’s worth based on student test scores. Along the way, the reformers recognized the value of public promotion and persuasion (called “advocacy”) for their agenda, and they started pouring more money into media outlets, friendly think tanks, and the work of well-disposed researchers. By 2010 critics of the movement saw “reform-think” dominating national discourse about education, but key reform players judged the pace of change too slow.



Read the detailed analysis of Michelle Rhee and other "reformers" who are making millions off of "school reform." 

Tucson - Mexican American Studies

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Flunking the Test | American Journalism Review

Flunking the Test  | American Journalism Review
How the media covers school issues.

Pink Slime Economics- Krugman

Paul Krugman, The big bad event of last week was, of course, the Supreme Court hearing on health reform. In the course of that hearing it became clear that several of the justices, and possibly a majority, are political creatures pure and simple, willing to embrace any argument, no matter how absurd, that serves the interests of Team Republican.

But we should not allow events in the court to completely overshadow another, almost equally disturbing spectacle. For on Thursday Republicans in the House of Representatives passed what was surely the most fraudulent budget in American history.

And when I say fraudulent, I mean just that. The trouble with the budget devised by Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, isn’t just its almost inconceivably cruel priorities, the way it slashes taxes for corporations and the rich while drastically cutting food and medical aid to the needy. Even aside from all that, the Ryan budget purports to reduce the deficit — but the alleged deficit reduction depends on the completely unsupported assertion that trillions of dollars in revenue can be found by closing tax loopholes.

Banning Ethnic Studies in Arizona

Critical Race Theory and Arizona.

In recent weeks, the state of Arizona has intensified its attack in its schools on an entire branch of study — critical race theory. Books and literature that, in the state’s view, meet that definition have been said to violate a provision in the state’s law that prohibits lessons “promoting racial resentment.” Officials are currently bringing to bear all their influence in the public school curriculum, going so far as to enter classrooms to confiscate books and other materials and to oversee what can be taught.  After decades of debate over whether we might be able to curtail ever so slightly the proliferation of violent pornography, the censors have managed a quick and thorough coup over educational materials in ethnic studies.

I have been teaching critical race theory for almost 20 years. The phrase signifies quite a sophisticated concept for this crowd to wield, coined as it was by a consortium of theorists across several disciplines to signify the new cutting edge scholarship about race. Why not simply call it “scholarship about race,” you might ask? Because, as the censors might be surprised to find, these theorists want to leave open the question of what race is — if there is such a thing — rather than assuming it as a natural object of inquiry.

Cesar Chavez from The Fight in the Fields

Celebrate Cesar Chavez Day - 50 th Anniversary

  Cesar Chavez Day is a state holiday in California – one of eight states to recognize the  date, and one of the few holidays  in the nation  dedicated  to a labor leader.   Sacramento and dozens of cities, counties and labor federations will celebrate the life of Cesar Chavez on March 31, 2012,

On March 26, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis honored Cesar Chavez and the UFW founders by dedicating the auditorium at the Department of Labor in Chavez’s name.

Mexican labor leader Jose Humberto Montes de Oca of the SME, electrical workers union will lead the Sacramento  march on March 31.   Montes do Oca and the SME  in Mexico are fighting for survival against a repressive government.  In central Mexico 44,000 Electrical Power Workers (SME) were fired to  privatize the industry and destroy the union.

This year, 2012 is the 50^th. anniversary of the founding of the U.F.W.  The Cesar Chavez celebrations focus on  the struggle for union rights and justice in the fields of California.  Along with Dolores Huerta, Philip Vera Cruz, and others, César created the United Farm Workers  (UFW) the first successful union of farm workers in  U.S. history.  There had been more than ten prior attempts to build a farm workers union.

            Each of the prior attempts to organize farm worker unions were destroyed by racism and corporate power. Chávez chose to build a union that incorporated the strategies of social movements and community organizing  and allied itself  with the churches, students,  and organized labor.  The successful creation of the UFW changed the nature of labor organizing  in the Southwest  and contributed significantly to the birth of Latino politics in the U.S.

Dreams Are For Everyone

How the anti tax argument is framed

Well. The Sacramento Bee certainly found a conservative voice for the attack on the proposed tax measures  to be faced by voters in fall 2012.  Lets look at the distractions Ben Boychuk  throws up and the issues he chose to not discuss in his piece in the Sacramento Bee for March 22,2012.

First,   in arguing that “Progressives are deluding themselves”   he describes  Governor Brown and SEIU as moderates, then he labels the California Federation of Teachers as  “ far left”.  The reason for this name calling approach to argumentation?  To criticize the compromise tax proposals worked out by Governor Brown, the various unions and the California Federation of Teachers  last week.

 Boychuk    goes on to make the argument that the very wealthy should not be taxed more  and to claim that those who argue for more taxes are “ far left”.  This is a ploy.

If you are standing as far right as the Boychuk’s employer the  Manhattan Institute then almost everyone appears to be on the far left. See the conservative Manhattan Institute web page at  www.city-journal.org   Under the label “make the rich pay” Boychuk  accurately  calculates  how much the wealthy currently pay, but he does tell you that the wealth pay less as a percentage of the income on taxes than do all the rest of us- the 90%. 

A report of the California Budget Project notes that “measured as a share of family income”, California’s lowest-income families pay the most in taxes. The bottom fifth of the state’s families, with an average income of $12,600, spent 11.1 percent of their income on state and local taxes.  In comparison, the wealthiest 1 percent, with an average income of $2.3 million, spent 7.8 percent of their income on state and local taxes.”

Why Are Teachers So Upset? - Bridging Differences - Education Week

Why Are Teachers So Upset? - Bridging Differences - Education Week
Diane Ravitch

Romney Attacks Teacher Unions

Mitt Romney has pledged to push back against teachers unions as president.

The former Massachusetts governor said on "Fox News Sunday," "But the role I see that ought to remain in the president's agenda with regards to education is to push back against the federal teachers unions." He continued, "Those federal teachers unions have too much power, in some cases, they overwhelm the states, they overwhelm the local school districts. We have got to put the kids first and put these teachers unions behind."

Romney said he would not "necessarily" eliminate the Department of Education, but said that it may combined with agencies and that its "reach" into the states has to be "pulled back."

Romney also criticized teachers unions in the context of the No Child Left Behind Act. "I support the principle of having states test their kids ... I did support No Child Left Behind and do support continuing to test our kids," he said. "I want to know which school districts are succeeding and which ones are failing and where they are failing. I want there to be action taken to get the teacher unions out and to get the kids once again receiving the education they need."

Taxes and the Decline of Public Schools in California

California Progress Report

Public Education is too much about score manipulation

Paul Karrer,
Ten years of No Child Left Behind have left an educational wasteland, a privatized public school system, a further gap between the haves and the have-nots. A demoralized teaching force. And a new rule in the land. Students can't fail, only teachers can.

Yet our president uttered the words, "We can't tolerate teaching to the test anymore."

But all educators can do is teach to the test. They have to. Just ask your children what they do at school all day — test prep.

How can it be that soon, nearly 90 percent of California schools will be considered failing? Answer — they aren't. But the measure for failure is so flawed, even the neo-cons who once touted it now turn their backs on NCLB.

In Monterey County, we have one of the highest murder rates in California. We have an obscene level of child poverty. Unemployment is off the charts. Livable-wage jobs are decreasing. An economic recovery might be on the horizon, but it will be a jobless recovery. Deficits and the fear of underfunded budgets throw terror into educational boards, which then increase class sizes, reduce class offerings and impose furlough days.

Yet teachers are expected to overcome these "challenges" and pretend they have no impact on test outcomes.

Many states are forcing furlough days on teachers. Furlough days are school closure days, but the all-important state testing still takes place with fewer actual learning days. The demands are the same: an impossible requirement of 100 percent proficiency. Schools labor under the eyes of state and federal watch groups while parasitic consultants herd teachers like sheep dogs.

The Real Irish American Story Not Taught in Schools | Common Dreams

The Real Irish American Story Not Taught in Schools | Common Dreams

Schools and Taxes - Welcome to Mississippi

            California public schools are in crisis- and they are getting worse. This is a direct result of massive budget cuts imposed by the legislature and the governor in the last four years.  Total per pupil expenditure is down by over $1,000 per student. The result- massive class size increases.  Your students are in often classes too large for learning.  Supplementary services such as tutoring and art classes have been eliminated.  Over 14,000 teachers have been dismissed, and thousands more face lay offs this fall.

            California schools are now 47^th. in the nation in per pupil expenditure and 49^th in class size.  Our low achievement scores on national tests reflect this severe underfunding.

            Of course the economic crisis of 2007 to the present made matters worse.  The state took in some $30 billion less in taxes and thus had less to send to the schools.  School budgets have been cut by some $10 billion.  K-12 education receives about 40% of the California budget.  Thus any decline in the state budget leads directly to cuts in school services.

            The question for the corporate agenda, such as the Chamber of Commerce is can the economy prosper with a poorly educated work force.  California grew and prospered from 1970- 1994 based upon a well educated work force.  Then, in the 1994-2008 period over $10 billion of tax cuts were passed – making the current crisis much worse.  California suffers from a decade of disinvestment.  Today,  instead of following the education  approach,  conservative anti tax forces have imposed an Mississippi approach on California.

No Funds Left Behind

No Funds Left Behind
Schools budget slashed and private foundations increasingly control decision making.

The Irish Famine in history textbooks

by Bill Bigelow 

 So go ahead: Have a Guinness, wear a bit of green, and put on the Chieftains. But let's honor the Irish with our curiosity. Let's make sure that our schools show some respect, by studying the social forces that starved and uprooted over a million Irish -- and that are starving and uprooting people today.

"Wear green on St. Patrick's Day or get pinched." That pretty much sums up the Irish American "curriculum" that I learned when I was in school. Yes, I recall a nod to the so-called Potato Famine, but it was mentioned only in passing.

Sadly, today's high school textbooks continue to largely ignore the famine, despite the fact that it was responsible for unimaginable suffering and the deaths of more than a million Irish peasants, and that it triggered the greatest wave of Irish immigration in U.S. history. Nor do textbooks make any attempt to help students link famines past and present.

Yet there is no shortage of material that can bring these dramatic events to life in the classroom. In my own high school social studies classes, I begin with Sinead O'Connor's haunting rendition of "Skibbereen," which includes the verse:

Why Are Many of Our Children’s Teachers Still Students Themselves? | California Progress Report

Why Are Many of Our Children’s Teachers Still Students Themselves? | California Progress Report

Office of Civil Rights report

Civil Rights Data Collection Minority students across the country face harsher discipline, have less access to rigorous coursework, and are more often taught by lower-paid and less-experienced teachers, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). A national survey of more than 72,000 schools serving 85 percent of the nation’s students illuminates gaping discrepancies among student groups related to college and career readiness, discipline, school finance, student retention, and teacher quality. The key findings include the following: Black students, particularly boys, are far more likely to be suspended or expelled from school than their peers. Black students represent 18 percent of the students in the survey sample, but constitute 35 percent of the students suspended once, 46 percent of those suspended multiple times, and 39 percent of those expelled. Sixty-five percent of high-minority high schools offer Algebra II, compared to 82 percent of high schools with the lowest black and Hispanic enrollment. Similarly, only 29 percent of high-minority high schools offer Calculus, compared to 55 percent of low-minority schools. Although black and Hispanic students make up 44 percent of the student population in districts offering gifted and talented programs, they represent only 26 percent of the students enrolled in those programs. Black students represent 16 percent of middle school students, but 42 percent of students in those grades who are held back a year. Teachers in high-minority schools are paid on average $2,251 less per year than their colleagues teaching in low-minority schools in the same district.

Urban school reform

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has produced a remarkable document describing a vision for schooling that is truly equitable and high-quality.  The plan addresses, head-on, the historic inequality in education and refuses to compromise on quality. 

The Chicago Teachers Union argues for proven educational reforms to dramatically improve education of more than 400,000 students in a district of 675 schools. These reforms are desperately needed and can head Chicago towards the world-class educational system its students deserve.

The following are essential:

1.     Recognize That Class Size Matters. Drastically reduce class size. We currently have one of the largest class sizes in the state. This greatly inhibits the ability of our students to learn and thrive.

2.     Educate The Whole Child. Invest to ensure that all schools have recess and physical education equipment, healthy food offerings, and classes in art, theater, dance, and music in every school. Offer world languages and a variety of subject choices. Provide every school with a library and assign the commensurate number of librarians to staff them.

3.     Create More Robust Wrap-around Services. The Chicago Public Schools system (CPS) is far behind recommended staffing levels suggested by national professional associations. The number of school counselors, nurses, social workers, and psychologists must increase dramatically to serve Chicago’s population of low-income students. Additionally, students who cannot afford transportation costs need free fares.

School Reform Again: From Pillar Back to Post | California Progress Report

School Reform Again: From Pillar Back to Post | California Progress Report

Could it be because two decades of reform-driven emphasis on rote learning of the “basics” in math and reading have driven out not only what E.D. Hirsh called cultural literacy but any preparation for the problem solving, the analytical skills, the critical thinking and the creativity that advanced skills require? Have we reformed ourselves into marginal incompetence?
Peter Schragg. 

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Teachers Survey: Job Satisfaction, Security Take A Dive

Teachers Survey: Job Satisfaction, Security Take A Dive

We Want Our Money Back

We Want Our Money Back

No Public Education, No Democracy !

Brave New World

by SIMONE HARRIS

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/28/no-public-education-no-democracy/

I teach English at Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa, California.  I love my school, my amazing colleagues, and the kids who enter my classroom each year.  But I hate what is happening to public education.

From the national to the local level, our public schools are under attack, and that means our students are under attack.  This attack takes more than one form.  The cuts to vital education services are horrifying enough, but they’re only half the picture.  The other half is the violation of our public trust by private interests.

It’s not a pretty sight, but we must look squarely at the vultures of privatization that prey on the damage to our schools, from New York to New Orleans to Wisconsin to California.  Diane Ravitch, former Assistant Secretary of Education in the first Bush administration, refers to the three big education funders, Bill Gates, Eli Broad and the Walton Family, as the Billionaire Boys Club in her excellent book The Death and Life of the Great American School System.  Ravitch has come a long way since her days of working under Bush Sr.  I’ve even heard people refer to her as the Noam Chomsky of education, a sure sign of how far to the right our political culture has drifted.

But we were talking about vultures.  These corporations are poised to supply the artificial heart of learning to a wounded public school system they fully intend to finish off.  But they won’t succeed. No they won’t because our communities are going to fight for our beloved schools, we teachers are going to fight for our students, and our students are going to demand the education they deserve!

6000 students march on California Capitol

More than 6,000 students from Central and Northern California marched on the California Capitol today to demand full funding of education,  student debt relief and Tax the Millionaires to pay for it. The impressive demonstration was organized primarily by student associations of the community colleges, the CSU and U.C. campuses in the northern half of the state.

Key legislative leaders addressed the crowd and offered legislation to fund public education- which they can not pass do the constitutional requirement of a 2/3 vote to raise taxes.

There have been many promises of an occupation of the capitol, and the police presence was immense.

The first rally of the day was to end at 12:30.  Occupy folks have set up a site on the North Side of the Capitol where they held  a general assembly and non violence training.  The occupy supporters numbered about 100.   

Yet a third event today was the  5:30 PM rally organized by labor.   About 400 trade unionists showed up and supported the students and workers.  See photos.

The several unions supporting and funding the Tax the Millionaires signature gathering used an effective strategy which we used in March of 2010 while gathering signatures for the California Democracy Act.   They printed several hundred well done posters saying Tax the Millionaires.  They went to the student assembly points where thousands were arriving without signs and gave the posters away free.  In the march at least one of every six marchers was carrying a Tax the Millionaires sign – an impressive showing.  Tax the Millionaires is supported by the California Federation of Teaches (AFT), the California Nurses (CNA) and most recently Moveon.  In addition to tabling, some 60 signature gatherers traveled through the crowd to collect signatures of voters. 

  UC Davis YDS members at the rally.

March 5- Education Rally in Sacramento

On March 5th, to top off a week of action around student debt, tens of thousands of students and allies will march on the capitals of California and New York, demanding relief from the shackles imposed by being thousands upon thousands of dollars in debt. Can you join students in Sacramento or Albany to show solidarity for higher education and demand relief for those struggling with student debt?

Higher education has historically been a vital component of the American Dream, and yet, for more and more Americans, going to college is out of reach.Student debt has officially topped credit card debt in the US, and total loans outstanding will hit $1 trillion for the first time in history during the next few months.² This year, campuses in states around the country will face even more cuts -- in Pennsylvania, for example, the Governor has proposed 20% more in cuts to public universities. In California, the cost of attending a University of California has nearly tripled in the last decade.³

He’s looked at life from both sides now – or has he? Arne Duncan claims the high ground, but school clinics still face needless obstacles | Economic Policy Institute

Arne Duncan claims the high ground, but school clinics still face needless obstacles | Economic Policy Institute

Occupy Education: Teachers, Students Fight School Closings, Privatization, Layoffs, Rankings | NationofChange

Occupy Education: Teachers, Students Fight School Closings, Privatization, Layoffs, Rankings | NationofChange

School closings in Chicago and New York. Evaluation of teachers.

Stop Starving Public Universities and Shrinking the Middle Class | California Progress Report

Stop Starving Public Universities and Shrinking the Middle Class | California Progress Report

Sacramento Student Demonstrations Today

Join Us on March 1 Day of Action

CSU –Sacramento. Rally at Noon

U.C. Davis.  Teach In.

To Demand that the California Government:

Fully fund public education, which is a public good and is the cornerstone of a democratic society, a vibrant economy, and the social and intellectual development of every individual.

Fully fund social services, which to a large part provide a crucial safety net for the most vulnerable members of society and therefore serve as a measure of society's moral standard.

Thousands of U.S. college students will walk out of class Thursday in a coordinated day of protest against what may be another year of significant higher-education budget cuts by state legislatures.

Young Democratic Socialists  at UC Davis   mobilized to participate in protests during National Student Debt Week, Feb.27- March 2, across the country.   Cornel West joined in the effortAction. http://vimeo.com/37209329