Clear Cutting of Our Schools - and Sacramento

by Editorial Board. Rethinking Schools

No single policy reflects the bankruptcy of current education reform politics more than the mass closings of public schools. From Chicago to Washington, D.C., to New Orleans, Detroit, and Philadelphia, these mass closings lay waste to communities, negatively impact children's lives, and help to dismantle not just public education but also the broader public sector, weakening organized labor and opening up the public space to commercial penetration and profit.

Ed. Note:  And Sacramento- See event below. 

City by city, any number of excuses have been employed to justify these attacks. Private foundations, including Broad, Dell, and Walton, wield their enormous wealth and influence. Broad's School Closure Guide has made its rounds through the education reform movement with cities like Chicago lifting its recommendations almost wholesale. Along with budget cuts, testing, and charters, school closings are part of the corporate reform playbook assaulting our schools.

Once school closings start, they simply do not stop. New York City has closed more than 140 public schools since 2002. Chicago capped almost a decade of closing more than 100 schools with its 49-school closure this year. After closing 23 schools, Washington, D.C., is closing 15 more. Pittsburgh has had four rounds of school closures in the past decade, amounting to a total decrease of 41 percent.

Building the Next Left

California continues to underfund its schools

Valuable new report from California Budget Project.

Rising to the Challenge: Why Greater Investment in K-12 Education Matters for California's Students

A new CBP School Finance Facts compares California student demographics, education spending, and school staffing to that in the rest of the US, and finds that the state's investment in K-12 schools lags the nation even as California faces unique challenges in educating its 6.2 million public school students.Rising to the Challenge: Why Greater Investment in K-12 Education Matters for California's Students shows that:

• California invests less in K-12 education than other states, despite having greater financial resources. California's per capita income ($47,115) was higher than for the rest of the US ($43,905) in 2012-13. This same year, the rest of the nation invested 4.04 percent of total personal income in K-12 education, a level more than one-fourth (27 percent) higher than the 3.18 percent in California.

• California's 1.3 million English learners (ELs) nearly equal the combined number of ELs in the next four most populous states -- Texas, New York, Florida, and Illinois -- even though these four states together have roughly twice as many students as California.

The Charter School Mistake

The Charter School Mistake

Diane Ravitch

Date of Source: 

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles has more charter schools than any other school district in the nation, and it's a very bad idea.
Billionaires like privately managed schools. Parents are lured with glittering promises of getting their kids a sure ticket to college. Politicians want to appear to be champions of "school reform" with charters.
But charters will not end the poverty at the root of low academic performance or transform our nation's schools into a high-performing system. The world's top-performing systems - Finland and Korea, for example - do not have charter schools. They have strong public school programs with well-prepared, experienced teachers and administrators. Charters and that other faux reform, vouchers, transform schooling into a consumer good, in which choice is the highest value.

Test Obsession is Killing Education

by Jeff Bryant.

Scores on the SAT – “the nation’s most widely used” college entrance exam – made news headlines recently, and the averages are either a “call to action,” a sign of progress, or “meaningless.”

Confused? You should be. Because reports of testing data, whether they’re the SAT, the ACT, the NAEP, or some other alphabet car wreck, rarely reveal the grand aha moment claimed and are more so indicators of just how far off base the nation has gone in understanding what matters most for school children.

[Ed. note; In California this includes the test for teachers known as PACT]

National Debate Is Out Of Whack

At every corner and level, the national debate about education policy is dangerously mired in squabbling about what “the data” reveal about the quality of American schooling, while in the meantime, teachers go begging for the very pencils students need to fill out the oh-so-critically-important tests.

Jose Montoya, activist, poet, artist, teacher, ally, friend

Jose Montoya, Sacramento poet, activist and  artist. RIP. –  Ally, Friend, Teacher.

 Jose Montoya, artist and activist, died Wed. Sept. 25, 2013 in Sacramento, California. Jose was a teacher, a poet,  and a community activist important to the Chicano movement as it developed in the 1960s and 70’s.  He was a poet Laureate of Sacramento and a co founder of  the Royal Chicano Air force- an artist collective who helped to define Chicano art and commit their art to political involvements.

 See https://sites.google.com/site/chicanodigital/home/table-of-contents/royal-chicano-air-force

The son of farmworker champion Cesar Chavez, Paul F. Chavez, and United Farm Workers President Arturo S. Rodriguez said in a joint statement, “We will always cherish Jose for how he inspired us as well as so many others through his art. But we will also remember him for the countless times when he walked picket lines, helped organize UFW events and fed the farmworkers during every major strike, boycott and political campaign. He was truly a servant of the farmworker movement and we will always be in his debt.”

  See: https://sites.google.com/site/chicanodigital/home/the-farmworker-movement-in-sacramento-1972-1976

Montoya influenced thousands of students and teachers during his 27 years as a professor of art at California State University Sacramento, as well his earlier years as a teacher in Wheatland.  He was a sought after speaker on issues related to using art  in teaching.

Will California Choose Prisons Over Schools—Again? | The Nation

Will California Choose Prisons Over Schools—Again? | The Nation

Reign of Error- Ravitch 2

Definitely go out and buy Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to Americas Public Schools by Diane Ravitch, which just been launched with proper publicity. She is a phenomenal woman—sending out a half-dozen e-mails a day, two books in the last decade, and traveling to speak throughout the USA. And…while she’s younger than me, she’s old enough to have rested on her laurels. Maybe it helps to change your mind, because my exhaustion comes (in part) from feeling it’s all been said before (including by me).

Reign of Error lays out step by step the relentless thirty year drive to either centralize the education of the young—on one hand—or divest it entirely into privatized hands on the other. Finally, the two sides have joined forces on a strategy that simultaneously does both. While this coalition has many old roots, in its current form it began with the fanfare around the publication of A Nation at Risk (1983). Ravitch was, at that time, a supporter of this bold statement that more or less accused America’s teachers and school boards of a plot to undermine American health and welfare of the international scene. We were, said the signers, at risk of becoming a second rate nation if we didn’t take this crisis seriously. I asked my colleague on the NBPTS, AFT leader Al Shanker, why he had signed on. He said it was a good strategy because only in a crisis is the nation willing to put the money into schooling needed to make it really first-rate. He said—as I recall (paraphrased), ‘It’s true our schools are not as bad as the report suggests, but we are entering a new period and they either have to change dramatically or what the report accuses them of will become true. We need a smarter citizenry.’

The trouble is that crying “wolf” has never been a great way to make sensible policy. Sometimes there is no choice (like Pearl Harbor). But the continuous claims that our public education system is destroying our nation has almost entirely led to bad policy.

Tim Wise- Anti Racism scholar to speak at Sac Stat...

SACRAMENTO PROGRESSIVE ALLIANCE: Tim Wise- Anti Racism scholar to speak at Sac Stat...: Tim Wise Lecture- Sep. 19- CSUS-University Union: Sacramento State’s University Union UNIQUE Programs, Associated Students, Inc. and th...

Reign of Error _ Ravitch

An Evening with Diane Ravitch, educational blogger and author

Memorial Auditorium
1515 J Street, Sacamento, CA  95814

Friday, Sept. 27, 2013
6:30-8:30 pm.
Tickets are $5.

For additional information, contact Sacramento City Teachers Association – 916 452-4591.

About Diane:

My website is dianeravitch.com.

I am a historian of education and Research Professor of Education at New York University.

Education Spring - rebellions

by Jeff Bryant, 

Earlier this year, spontaneous rebellions against top-down mandates and budget cuts inflicted on public schools erupted around the nation.

In a months-long Education Spring, students, parents, teachers and community activists staged boisterous rallies, street demonstrations, school walkouts, test boycotts, and other actions to protest government austerity and top-down “accountability” mandates that damage community schools and diminish students’ opportunities to learn.

The protests spanned the nation and generated national media attention, resulting in a policy impasse in Washington D.C. and many state capitals, as government leaders and politicians scrambled to pause the rollouts of new heavy-handed school punishments.

Prominent pundits began to openly question the intention of a self-defined “reform” movement that has reigned for years but failed to produce any direct benefits to school children. And prominent educators, economists, parent advocates, labor and religious leaders, and community organizers called for a new policy agenda focused on ensuring students have the opportunities and resources they need to learn as much as they can.

Showdown In California

In California, a confrontation between the state’s schools chief Tom Torlakson and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is emblematic of growing resentment toward the education reform movement’s overreliance on testing.

Mismatches in Race to the Top Limit Educational Improvement: Lack of Time, Resources, and Tools to Address Opportunity Gaps Puts Lofty State Goals Out of Reach | Economic Policy Institute

Mismatches in Race to the Top Limit Educational Improvement: Lack of Time, Resources, and Tools to Address Opportunity Gaps Puts Lofty State Goals Out of Reach | Economic Policy Institute

Diane Ravitch: School privatization is a hoax, “reformers” aim to destroy public schools

Diane Ravitch: School privatization is a hoax, “reformers” aim to destroy public schools
Excerpt

They assert that the best way to save education is to hand it over to private management and let the market sort out the winners and the losers. They wish to substitute private choices for the public’s responsibility to provide good schools for all children. They lack any understanding of the crucial role of public schools in a democracy.

The central premise of this movement is that our public schools are in decline. But this is not true. The public schools are working very well for most students. Contrary to popular myth, the scores on the no-stakes federal tests— the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) — are at an all-time high for students who are white, black, Hispanic, and Asian. Graduation rates are also at an all-time high.

More young people than ever are entering college. Even more would go to college if the costs were not so high.

Of course some schools and districts have very low test scores and low graduation rates, and this has always been true. Most of these schools and districts have two features in common: poverty and high concentrations of racial minorities. The combination of these two factors is associated with low test scores. Children whose parents are poor and have low educational attainment tend to have lower test scores.

Children who are poor receive less medical attention and less nutrition and experience more stress, disruption, and crises in their lives. These factors have an ongoing and profound effect on academic performance.

That is why poor children need even more stability, more support, smaller class sizes, and more attention from their teachers and others in their schools, but often receive far less, due to underfunding.

Unfortunately, many people are unwilling to address the root causes of poor school outcomes, because doing so is either too politically difficult or too costly.

Changes in state school assessments

AB 484 Now Goes to Governor's Desk for Signature

SACRAMENTO—Legislation that would move California assessments into an era of critical thinking and deeper learning has now received state Senate and Assembly approval and is headed to Governor Brown's desk, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson said.

Torlakson sponsored Assembly Bill 484, which passed the California state Assembly on concurrence vote today after Senate passage Tuesday. Authored by Assemblymember Susan Bonilla, D-Concord, and coauthored by Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, it marks a major step forward in the state's transition to the Common Core State Standards. The legislation suspends most Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) assessments and authorizes new Common Core-aligned assessments known as the Measurement of Academic Performance and Progress (MAPP).

"California's shift to the Common Core is about helping students meet the challenges of a changing world, and AB 484 recognizes that updating the way we teach students also means updating the way we test them," Torlakson said. "Lawmakers see that our students must graduate with more than knowledge, but with the ability to apply that knowledge to work collaboratively and solve problems."

Note: There is a problem with California adopting Common Core until the state amends the History Social Science Framework. We need some critical thinking here.  See California must change its history books before adopting Common Core.  Below. 

All Schools Need Assistance - Viewpoint

Every Sacramento school should be a ‘priority’ school

Special to The Bee   PUBLISHED THURSDAY, SEP. 12, 2013

As a teacher in Sacramento City Schools for the past 18 years and a parent of two children in the district, I join Marcus Breton in celebrating Father Keith B. Kenny’s rise in test scores (“A school that cares triumphs,” Sept. 4). The teachers and students worked very hard and deserve to be lauded for their efforts. However, in trying to establish a cause for the rise in scores, Breton left out many important details and did not paint a complete picture.

To assert that the gains were made because of “a break in teacher seniority” as he states in his column, is an oversimplification at best and is not supported by the facts. The school that made the biggest API gains in the district was not, in fact, one of Superintendent Jonathan Raymond’s “priority” schools. It was Maple Elementary, whose students were also all eligible for free and reduced lunch. Maple was one of the seven non-priority schools closed by the district last June.

California must change its history books before adopting Common Core.

    California  is  at an important tipping point.  I and my graduate students  participated in the 2009  efforts to revise the History/Social Science  curriculum frameworks and frankly the issue of Mexican American history was marginalized.  It will require  some effort to change this.  It is important to intervene soon.  Once the national common core standards begin adopting History/ Social Science, the new standards  will  most likely integrate the existing state  standards- which ignore Mexican American/Latino history.  The inadequate 1986 History/ Social Science Framework  will become the national standards and will continue for another decade.  New York is currently revising their civic standards to prepare for inclusion in the common core. To this date we have been unable to interest legislators in responding to this problem.  See more here https://sites.google.com/site/chicanodigital/home/why-california-students-do-not-know-chicano-history

    Students need to see themselves in the curriculum in order to believe they have a stake in the society. Textbooks for  California schools are selected by the State Board of Education based upon recommendations of their Curriculum Committees and the state frameworks and standards.   The current Framework reflects the historiography of the 1950’s. It was written in 1986 by senior scholars, they in turn were educated in the early 1970’s or before. It is substantially out of date. 

Walking the Labyrinth of the Corporate-Owned-Common Core

Michelle Rhee : front person for elite attacks on public schools

Excerpts from;  The Activist Handbook. Second edition.  2013. Reprinted with permission.

Randy Shaw

Michelle Rhee, chancellor for Washington, D.C., schools from 2007-2010, is the front person for elite attacks on teacher unions and public schools. Local school superintendents rarely become national figures, but Rhee appeared on the cover of Time magazine holding a broom to signify plans to sweep away teacher tenure. ..

By 2012 Rhee toured the nation promoting charter schools and vouchers, assessing teachers based on their students’ test scores, and most important condemning the evils of teacher unions.  Rhee made more than 150 public appearances in 2011-2012, reportedly getting as much as $50,000 per speech plus “first-class expenses.” It’s a pretty good deal for an educational “reformer” whose reputation is based on her controversial tenure as D.C. Chancellor.  Rhee closed schools, fired over half of the teachers, and tried to eliminate tenure….

Prominent educator Diane Ravitch has explained the Rhee phenomenon:

“This formula which will be a tragedy for our nation and for an entire generation of children, is now immensely popular in the states and the Congress.  Most governors endorse it.  The big foundations endorse it. “

Spared schools in Chicago see few financial benefits from closing 50 schools

Mathew Blake

In pushing through the closures of 50 neighborhood Chicago schools this summer over the vociferous objections of the teachers union and community groups, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his handpicked school board argued that the shutdowns would make up for budget shortages and direct more resources to other neighborhood schools.

But a week into the school year, the remaining schools appear to be receiving no immediate financial benefits from the closings.

The school year started on Monday for all 403,000 Chicago Public Schools students. Media coverage has largely focused on the “safe passage” routes that the district drew up to help the 12,500 students affected by the closings walk to their new schools. The closings prompted widespread concern that displaced students would have to cross gang lines to arrive at their new classrooms, exposing them to violence. But after five school days, there have been no reported violent incidents involving students traveling to their new schools.

In Charter School Fantasy World, Teacher Experience Irrelevant | California Progress Report

In Charter School Fantasy World, Teacher Experience Irrelevant | California Progress Report

For Labor Day - Thank a Teacher

by Lois Weiner

Teacher unions offer our best shot at revitalizing the labor movement.

Who would have thought that teachers, who often don’t consider themselves workers, would provide the most widespread, most sustained global resistance to capitalism’s anti-labor assault? From Chicago to Mexico to the UK, teachers unions are engaging in militant, head-to-head battles with ruling elites who are remaking education as a market and taking ideological control of what is taught. Why are teachers unions so prominently in the news? Why are they being attacked? And what should we be expecting from them this Labor Day?

Union density and span is one reason. Public school teachers comprise the largest segment of public sector workers, and over half of all unionized public employees in the US are teachers. In 2010, governments employed 3.2 million public school teachers, about 70% in unions, either the National Education Association (NEA) or the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). No other occupation in the US can claim this union density and this national presence – not the building trades, not auto, not steel, not health care, not federal workers either.

Labor Wrestles With Its Future

By Harold Myerson

Celebrate Labor Day. 

Since the emergence of capitalism, workers seeking higher pay and safer workplaces have banded together in guilds and unions to pressure their employers for a better deal. That has been the approach of the American labor movement for the past 200 years.

That approach, however, has begun to change. It’s not because unions think collective bargaining is a bad idea but because workers can’t form unions any more — not in the private sector, not at this time. There are some exceptions: Organizing continues at airlines, for instance, which are governed by different organizing rules than most industries. But employer opposition to organizing has become pervasive in the larger economy, and the penalties for employers who violate workers’ rights as they attempt to unionize are so meager that such violations have become routine. For this and a multitude of other reasons, the share of unionized workers in the private sector dropped from roughly one-third in the mid-20th century to a scant 6.6 percent last year. In consequence, the share of the nation’s economy constituted by wages has sunk to its lowest level since World War II, and U.S. median household income continues to decline.

Unions face an existential problem: If they can’t represent more than a sliver of American workers on the job, what is their mission? Are there other ways they can advance workers’ interests even if those workers aren’t their members?

(Editors note; See also post on labor and the immigration struggles on www.antiracismdsa.blogspot.com)

Gov. Brown endorses Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Several community groups question SB 744

Enrique Moreno

The California Latino Legislative Caucus held informational hearings on current efforts on immigration reform on Aug.27,2013, in Sacramento, California.  Speakers from community groups, labor unions, growers, and Dreamers, among others, presented the major issues and many of the problems with SB 744, the current federal proposal.  Enrique Moreno of Border Angeles described terror on the border. There were clear divisions among the groups about the current bill for its many repressive characteristics.  Mike Garcia of SEIU the Service Employees International  was  one of the more active advocates  for the bill saw the passage of the amended S744  as a major victory for working people. Conservative Republican forces in the U.S. Senate amended the bill to achieve a massive   $46  Billion  expansion of border control and  enforcement.  Moreno testified that this would only lead to more deaths on the border.

California Governor Brown joined the hearing for a short while and clearly endorsed efforts at comprehensive reform and promised to work with the legislators to assist with related state issues.

You can view the entire hearing with its many excellent and well informed speakers here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3dGzqkNhqQ&feature=player_detailpage

It is well done and well informed.

Senator who proposes arming teachers- shoots teacher with rubber bullet

OOPS: Senator Who Advocates Arming Teachers Accidentally Shoots Teacher with Rubber Bullet.  by Igor Volsky.

A state senator who is advocating for arming teachers in the aftermath of the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, accidentally shot a teacher with a rubber bullet during a training course, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.

Arkansas Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson (R) recently participated in “active shooter” training and mistakenly shot a teacher who was confronting a so-called bad guy. The experience gave Hutchinson “some pause” but failed to shake his confidence in the plan.
“The ideal would be to have a trained resource officer in every school,” Hutchinson told the paper. “The state and school districts can’t afford that.”
In July, Arkansas’ Clarksville School District announced that it would “train and arm 20 staff members who would act as security guards to defend against a gunman” and “applied for a license from the Arkansas Board of Private Investigators and Private Security Agencies to act as a private company with authority to hire private security officers.” Following a legal squabble, however, a state board is scheduled to decide next month if staff members can in fact act as security guards.
Since the Newtown shooting, schools around the country have moved to encourage or require teachers (and sometimes students) to carry firearms.

Low Wage Workers hold one day strike

Bill Barclay

In 1962 I graduated from Raleigh, NC’s, high school for white kids. (African-Americans attended a different high school, although this was eight years after Brown v. Board of Education.) Two years later I dropped out of college and found a job at the Char-Grill, one of Raleigh’s earliest fast food restaurants.   I was paid $60 for a 48-hour week, the then federal minimum wage level. After four months I was promoted to “night manager” at the princely sum of $70/week ($525 in today's dollars).  I was a “front line supervisor” as they are called in official employment statistics. And for all intents and purposes my career ladder was at an end.  I could have stayed at the Char-Grill another ten years and still remained a shift manager, perhaps moving to the day shift but no further.

I had not thought much about this experience for some time, but the rolling one-day strikes by low-wage workers, with fast food workers in the lead, brought back a lot of memories. Yes, some things have changed since I worked at the Char-Grill. White males were the only employees at the Grill, while today the “food preparation and serving” occupation is almost 2/3 female and over 30 percent African-American and Latino. 

Ravitch- Little evidence to support Common Core boosters

Writing at The Huffington Post, education historian Diane Ravitch questioned what reform measures like the Common Core can really accomplish given the circumstances on the ground:

Across the nation, our schools are suffering from budget cuts.

Because of budget cuts, there are larger class sizes and fewer guidance counselors, social workers, teachers’ assistants, and librarians.

Because of budget cuts, many schools have less time and resources for the arts, physical education, foreign languages, and other subjects crucial for a real education.

As more money is allocated to testing and accountability, less money is available for the essential programs and services that all schools should provide.

Our priorities are confused.

Charter networks push 2-4 years and out for teachers- that is a career.

 Motoko Rich.  NYTimes.

Studies have shown that on average, teacher turnover diminishes student achievement. Advocates who argue that teaching should become more like medicine or law say that while programs like Teach for America fill a need in the short term, educational leaders should be focused on improving training and working environments so that teachers will invest in long careers.

“To become a master plumber you have to work for five years,” said Ronald Thorpe, president of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, a nonprofit group that certifies accomplished teachers. “Shouldn’t we have some kind of analog to that with the people we are entrusting our children to?”

Teachers’ unions and others in the traditional education establishment argue that charter schools are driving teachers away with longer hours and school years, as well as higher workplace demands. (At YES Prep, for example, all teachers are assigned a cellphone to answer any student call for homework assistance until 9 p.m.)

Support Firefighters in California

     This is a good time to thank all of those public workers – the Firefighters ( men and women) and their support crews who are fighting the fires in the California mountains. And, we should thank the public who fund the fire fighting efforts through their tax dollars. Currently the cost is $44 million. This is how government works.

Unfortunately a minority living in the mountains tend to be anti government and anti tax.  Well- someone needs to promote a democratic society in opposition to the political project of the Tea Party and Right Wing Congressmen and elected officials like Mc Clintock.
Update: Sacramento Bee

On Sunday, President Barack Obama called Gov. Jerry Brown and committed federal resources to help the state, according to a statement form the White House.

Following that telephone call, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced today it had authorized federal funds to help fund the firefight. The agency said it would reimburse the state for as much as 75 percent of eligible costs, including expenses for field camps, materials and supplies and mobilization and demobilization efforts.

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/08/californias-firefighting-costs-hit-44-million.html#MTRecentEntries#storylink=cpy

  

Social and Emotional Learning Summit

Dr. Duncan-Andrade to speak at Social and Emotional Learning summit Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade, an associate professor at San Francisco State University who has lectured around the world about the elements of effective teaching in schools serving poor and working class children, is the keynote speaker for the Social Emotional Learning Summit at C.K. McClatchy High School on August 27, 2013.

Duncan-Andrade specializes in working with school staffs to help them develop classroom practices and school cultures that foster self-confidence, esteem and academic success among all students  For more info visit: .http://www.scusd.edu/sites/main/files/file-attachments/mcclatchy_network_sel_summit_flyer.pdf

Join the March on Washington

“You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of the slums. . . . There must be a better distribution of wealth . . . and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., speech to the SCLC staff, Frogmore, S.C., November 14, 1966

    Democratic socialists Bayard Rustin, Walter Reuther and A. Philip Randolph

helped organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom 50 years ago.

They knew that ending legal segregation and winning political rights for African Americans were essential, but not sufficient, to ensure justice and freedom for all. Without access to good education, to health care and above all to decent jobs that paid living wages, the vote was not enough.

     Today, as the recent Supreme Court decision has emboldened racists and reactionaries in many state governments to roll back the electoral influence of African Americans and Latinos, we are marching again to defend the gains in voting rights of the last 50 years. These rights are essential to overturn Stand Your Ground laws and to end the mass incarceration of young people of color and the detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants.

Why We March - Trayvon Martin

 In response to the Ginger Rutland’s article regarding the national call for “Justice For Trayvon Martin” vigil-- a few concerned community members did submit the following Op-Ed to the Bee. While the Sacramento Bee chose not to publish our Op-Ed letter we submitted July 29, 2013. Here’s our Op-Ed letter:

Why We March: Another View

On Saturday, July 20, 2013, hundreds of people met at the Robert Matsui Federal Court House in downtown Sacramento to protest the Zimmerman verdict. The participants reflected the diversity of the region; they were ethnically and culturally varied, young and old, and passionate about the issue bringing them together. They were also determined to keep the protest peaceful, and they succeeded.

Yet Ginger Rutland’s article of Tuesday, July 23, 2013, called for the public to stop protesting the Zimmerman verdict and channel that energy into mentoring a child. Yes, we should indeed continue mentoring and supporting our young people, and yes, we should acknowledge the myriad number of grassroots organizations and individuals in our region dedicated to working with youth. But end protests? Not yet.

We should all care about what is happening to Philadelphia schools- because it could happen here.

Jeff Bryant

Philadelphia, the place where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Constitution was written, and the site of the oldest residential street in the United States, has become the site where the nation’s drift away from its founding ideals is most acutely obvious.

A recent op-ed in The Philadelphia Inquirer described the situation of the city’s public schools as a “slow train wreck.” The district faced “a $304 million hole in the amount of money that’s needed to open safe schools.” A “rescue package” offered by the state was woefully inadequate. Recently, the city borrowed $50 million just to open the schools on time. And a big showdown between teachers and school administrators is expected later this month.

“This should be a big national story,” the op-ed writer concluded, “arguably as big as what happened in Detroit. At the end of the day, Detroit’s bankruptcy was something that happened on a piece of paper. What’s happening here is real kids and real schools.”

Chicago Teacher Organizing Lessons Go National | Labor Notes

Chicago Teacher Organizing Lessons Go National | Labor Notes

New Data Shows School 'Reformers' Are Getting it Wrong | Perspectives, What Matters Today | BillMoyers.com

New Data Shows School 'Reformers' Are Getting it Wrong | Perspectives, What Matters Today | BillMoyers.com

David Sirota.

Meanwhile, despite the fact that many “reformers’” policies have spectacularly failed, prompted massive scandals and/or offered no actual proof of success, an elite media that typically amplifies — rather than challenges — power and money loyally casts “reformers’” systematic pillaging of public education as laudable courage (the most recent example of this is Time magazine’s cover cheering on wildly unpopular Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel after he cited budget austerity to justify the largest mass school closing in American history — all while he is also proposing to spend $100 million of taxpayer dollars on a new private sports stadium).

In other words, elite media organizations (which, in many cases, have their own vested financial interest in education “reform”) go out of their way to portray the anti-public-education movement as heroic rather than what it really is: just another get-rich-quick scheme shrouded in the veneer of altruism.

That gets to the news that exposes “reformers’” schemes — and all the illusions that surround them. According to a new U.S. Department of Education study, “about one in five public schools was considered high poverty in 2011… up from about one in eight in 2000.” This followed an earlier study from the department finding that “many high-poverty schools receive less than their fair share of state and local funding… leav(ing) students in high-poverty schools with fewer resources than schools attended by their wealthier peers.”

Those data sets powerfully raise the question that “reformers” are so desperate to avoid: Are we really expected to believe that it’s just a coincidence that the public education and poverty crises are happening at the same time? Put another way: Are we really expected to believe that everything other than poverty is what’s causing problems in failing public schools?

Stand Up for Students

Will you join youth who are standing up for civil rights? On August 14, youth from different parts of California will lead a rally in Sacramento to ask Governor Jerry Brown to meet with young people to understand why it is critical that he stand with them to fix our inequitable school discipline laws and sign legislation that will help enforce the civil rights of all students in all communities across California.

School suspensions aren’t equal. Did you know that in California: 

·         Some schools suspend 40% of students.

·         Black students are 4 times more likely to be suspended for “willful defiance” than white students.

·         Students with disabilities are 2 times more likely to be suspended for “willful defiance” than students without disabilities.

·         LGBT students are 1.4 times more likely to be suspended than their straight peers.

Whether you are a student of color, an LGBT student, a student with disabilities, a parent or a member of a school community, school discipline is an important civil rights issue.  The harm is real and long-lasting; students who are suspended are far more likely to be pushed out of school and into our juvenile justice system.

California test scores dip -- results of budget cuts

State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Releases 2013 STAR Results

Statewide scores slip slightly amid budget cuts, transition to Common Core

SACRAMENTO—Scores on the annual Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) assessments slipped by a fraction of a percentage point this year as schools dealt with ongoing budget reductions and the transition to the Common Core State Standards, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced today.

Students managed to hold on to the vast majority of gains posted over the last 11 years, with a majority of students statewide continuing to achieve at the proficient or advanced level in mathematics and English-language arts. Only one student in three achieved proficiency in 2003, the year that the STAR tests became fully aligned to the former state content standards.

"As you would expect for a school system in transition, results varied from grade to grade, subject to subject, and school to school, but the big picture is one of remarkable resilience despite the challenges," Torlakson said. "While we all want to see California's progress continue, these results show that in the midst of change and uncertainty, teachers and schools kept their focus on students and learning. That's a testament to the depth of their commitment to their students and the future of our state."

Torlakson also noted that schools across the state continued to deal with the effects of years of budget cuts and financial uncertainties throughout the 2012-13 school year. Led by Governor Brown, voter approval of Proposition 30 in 2012 averted $6 billion in further cuts to education budgets.

House of Cards Episode 2 - "Rheesons to Investigate"

See essay below: Essay on Michelle Rhee which no major paper will publish.  John Merrow.

House of Cards Episode 1 - "Broad's Academy of Power"

In this, episode 1 of the Badass Teacher’s House of Card Series, Eli Broad’s ideals and his intentions for the Public School System in America are exposed. Don’t believe the rhetoric and propaganda, instead do YOUR homework and follow the money trail.

Who is Eli Broad?
http://www.defendpubliceducation.net/
http://www.broadeducation.org/about/c…

Is Broad a Public School Bully in his own back yard?
http://articles.philly.com/2013-04-30…

Building on Robust Social Skills: The Cultural Assets of Young Mexican American Children | Edutopia

Building on Robust Social Skills: The Cultural Assets of Young Mexican American Children | Edutopia

Parents Protest over school closures - school "reform"

http://www.thenation.com/article/175532/are-street-protests-next-fight-over-education-reform#axzz2b9Kf7lwT

Amy Dean, The Nation

"As it stands now, if nothing changes, the schools are going to have to open without any adults in the large spaces where kids gather," predicted Philadelphia public schools parent Michael Mullins in late June….

As the showdown in Philadelphia indicates, the ongoing battle over education "reform" and school funding--topics often discussed in think tanks, political campaigns or Waiting for "Superman"-style media productions--is moving into the streets. 

Chicago and Seattle, too, have seen vigorous protests against austerity, privatization, high-stakes testing and union-busting. Such demonstrations together represent a forceful challenge to the corporate-financed push for "education reform" undertaken by the likes of Michelle Rhee, the former schools chancellor of Washington, DC. But these movements are more than mere isolated acts of resistance; in their demands, the outlines of a coherent policy agenda can be discerned--one that looks honestly at what it will take to bring quality education to America's least privileged communities.

One thing this movement has already accomplished is exposing how the education "reform" movement provides cover to Republicans and neoliberal Democrats who are starving the public school system. In championing privately run charter schools, the (self-described) reformers paint traditional schools as failures that should be defunded--even if those traditional schools outperform charters. By bashing teachers unions, figures like Rhee have helped politicians scapegoat the unions for fiscal woes, even as many of those lawmakers advocate cutting taxes. And by claiming that those who cite poverty's impact on student achievement are merely making excuses for sub-par teaching, the "reform" camp has played down the devastating effects of ruthless budget cutting.

Essay on Michelle Rhee which no major newspaper will accept.

by John Merrow:
Michelle Rhee lobbies across the country for greater test-based accountability and changes in teacher tenure rules.  She often appears on television and in newspapers, commenting on a great range of education issues.  Easily America’s best-known education activist, she is always introduced as the former Chancellor of the public schools in Washington, DC, the woman who took on a corrupt and failing system and shook it up. The rest of the story is rarely mentioned.

The op-ed below has been rejected[1] by four newspapers, three of them national publications. One editor’s rejection note said that Michelle Rhee was not a national story.

---

CAVEAT EMPTOR: MICHELLE RHEE’S EDUCATION REFORM CAMPAIGN

Today, too many of America’s children are not getting the quality education they need and deserve. StudentsFirst is helping to change that with common sense reforms that help make sure all students have great schools and great teachers.(StudentsFirst press release, emphasis added)

Michelle Rhee created StudentsFirst after leaving her post as Chancellor of Washington, DC’s Public Schools in the fall of 2010. She announced her intentions on “Oprah” that December: to fix America’s schools by enrolling one million members and raising one billion dollars.[2]

Easily America’s most visible education activist, she has been crisscrossing the country lobbying for change and donating money to candidates whose policies she supports. StudentsFirst claims to have helped pass 110 ‘student-centered policies’ in 18 states.

Amid grading controversy, Florida education chief Tony Bennett resigns - Florida - MiamiHerald.com

Amid grading controversy, Florida education chief Tony Bennett resigns - Florida - MiamiHerald.com