NAACP calls for a moratorium on charter schools but the devil is in the (state) details

Julian Vasquez was one of the first, if not the first, to report that the NAACP called for a moratorium on charter schools. Please read his post as well as the copy of the resolution itself that he posted.

Here are my thoughts:

This is a big deal. In many cases, or at least some, civil rights groups and those representing black and Latino communities were not initially, necessarily against charters. Even if they had reservations, many saw them as an alternative to the traditional public schools TPSs) where many black and Latino have been not been served well by traditional public schools. It is easy for those of us who have been well served by traditional public schools to oppose charter schools, but it's not been a no-brainer for those who haven't been and who can blame them. That the national NAACP has essentially put their foot down on this means something.

However . . .

1. (And their resolution acknowledges this if you examine the language) charter laws are made state-by-state.  Certainly, federal policy, such as RTTT (Race to the Top) can influence the proliferation of charter schools with funding incentives (or lack thereof) and other types of support. But it's at the state level where charters are born and made and it's state laws that determine their regulation, their proliferation, and their governance structures. Every state is different. So while this will have influence at the national level, we'll have to see what individual NAACP chapters do, what each individual's state charter laws and climate is, and what state legislatures do.

2. I could be wrong but the language seems to indicate a moratorium on "privately managed charters" and perhaps even just "for-profit" charter schools. With some exceptions (and remember, this changes depending on the state), all charter schools are privately managed, meaning their governing boards or entities are privately chosen or appointed. There is no public process. (In Virginia, charter schools are permitted but they must be approved by local school bards and then they are still subject to, although not as strictly as TPSs, their governance, they are still under democratic control--we have very sound charter school laws here.) So yes, saying no more "privately managed" charter schools is kind of like saying no more charter schools. But, the distinction between "for-profit" and "non-profit" charter schools is much blurrier. For one, they can still be financed the same. Second, non-profits can still have dealings that foster profiteering and that involve corrupting profit-motives. Third, the governance of non-profits charter schools can still be private and non-democratic, which is the real issue. The funding and profit-making generally come out of the governance. To learn more about this (or maybe see what I got wrong here :) I highly recommend you read Baker and Miron's (2015) report about this.

I have had another little charter school-themed post in the works for a while which I hope to have up sometime in the next week. Stay tuned . . .

For what it's worth, my take on Tim Kaine

As her "contact in Virginia," Diane Ravitch asked me several days ago to write a piece on her blog about Tim Kaine and Anne Holton. I agreed.

I know he didn't give the greatest speech at the convention last night. He had too much makeup on. People on twitter made all kinds of youth-pastor-dad-jokes-substitute-teacher-who-tries-to-teach-you-something jokes about him. I laughed. (But then I felt guilty about it after.) Maybe it will be in the future, but a convention like that is not his best venue. But I think that's a good thing. It means he is not slick.  You don't walk away feeling fired up but without really knowing what you're fired up about. They certainly don't always get it right, but he and his wife are in public service and politics to actually help people and make our society a better place. What a novelty.

Anyway, I hope you will read what I wrote and I hope those skeptics out there will give him a chance:

I had never heard a politician speak so earnestly and so frankly. He told his story. What stood out the most was his emphasis on local politics. He didn’t seem to see local political work as grunt work you have to do to get to next level; he saw it as the most important type of work you can do, serving the public and serving your community. 

Please read the whole thing.

Of course a woman can be president

On this blog, I rarely stray from education-related topics. (I also rarely post these days, but hey, I'm trying to change that).

I get it that Hillary Clinton made history tonight by being the first woman to capture the nomination for president from one of the two major parties. I get that it will encourage other women to run. I get that it's a big deal. I have never been a Hillary hater or even disliker. In fact, I have always kind of liked her.

But I found that little video bit at the end of tonight's (Tuesday, July 26th) convention program to be, well, kind of patronizing. Because you know what? I don't need Hillary to tell my little girl (who, for the record, was not up by then) that she can be president for her to believe it. I teach her that just as my mom taught me that. It's as if we and our daughters and our mothers need to hear that to feel worthy of it. What my mother and so many other women have accomplished, was that not enough for us to know? It was certainly enough for me.

I suppose it's also hard to think of Hillary's nomination as such an achievement when it is so past due. Then again, I also come from, on both sides, a line of very strong, independent women, most of whom worked. Of course a woman could be president. Though, of course, knowing that is quite different from its actually happening.

Anyway, I am glad a woman, and a presidential one, too, finally got nominated.

It's all still the same reformy bubble

I followed the whole "social justice warrior" conversation that took place about a month ago from afar. I pretty much gave up being active in the national ed reform/ed reform skeptic community when I became more active locally. And then I kind of gave up social media activity and writing for pleasure--especially blogging, and tweeting--for my PhD program (as a compromise, I maintain a facebook page called "All Things Education"--you can "like" it without being my facebook friend). But, back to the topic at hand, I couldn't resist jumping into the fray on this one, even if the fray even if everyone else has already moved on.

I read (and cringed at) Robert's Robert Pondiscio's  piece, The Left's drive to push conservatives out of education reform piece the day it came out. When he was with the Core Knowledge Foundation, Robert was one of my favorite education thinkers and writers. We chatted online quite a bit and he even invited me to guest post at the Core Knowledge blog. We agreed especially about the importance of content knowledge, especially in literacy and the mis-guidedness of excessive teaching of "reading skills" at the expense of teaching literature, writing, the humanities, sciences, the arts, PE, math, foreign languages. I still read some of his work with great interest and will share it and recommend it accordingly. But this piece was really alienating and just utterly clueless.

Although there is much to rebut in the piece, I will only point out the problem with using the free market as a means to "take people out of poverty."
a) The free market, essentially where there's a profit motive, should never be used in the following service sectors (and no, I am not including the vending of clocks and what not to schools and to say that I am is just silly): education, military, healthcare, criminal justice, and social services.

b) The free market is dominated by the already powerful: white males and is designed to keep  (poor choice of words there) currently functions in a way that keeps those folks on top. The free market is not a neutral tool, it's not an equitable tool, and it's not a magical tool that you just sit back and let work its magic. It doesn't replace the hard, painstaking work that is obligated in democracy.

I am heartened that The New Schools Teachers Project Teach Plus for America Democrats for Education Reform 50CAN Stand for Children Students First Venture Project Fund are talking about and including voices from Black Lives Matters.

But when it comes down to it, I still fail to see much difference between conservative and centrist (really, centrist is a better term--most of these people aren't true liberals. If they were, they wouldn't be so cavalier about dismantling public democratic institutions) ed reformers. It's all still one bubble. I mean, I guess maybe vouchers separates them but not always. Okay, gay marriage, for sure. But that's about it.

So the centrist reformers are ready to listen and include more of those voices, but ultimately, that doesn't really matter. What matters is: power and on whose terms acts of education reform are committed.

In our society, people who aren't white males, and to a lesser extent white females, and an even lesser extent queer white folks, don't have power. Black people and Native Americans have the least power of all.

So the real questions for these ed reformers become:
1. What are you going to give up? What are you going to relinquish? (And I don't mean the reformy "edu-visionary" version of relinquish as in give up your power and kid to the free market and shut up kind of relinquishment. I mean actually giving up power because you have a unhealthily disproportionate amount of it.)

2. On whose terms are you going to enact and implement education reform policies? Will this be an actual democratic process? Or will you just seek the "buy in" of those folks and wear the titles of their movements as bumper stickers as you drive off and leave them in the dust.

Are you going to listen to actual teachers, parents, and students who don't agree with the policies you push?  To the black teachers who got fired en masse in New Orleans and DC? How about to the parents living in poverty who don't want their schools closed? To the students who don't want to go to schools that are run like prisons ? You gonna have those folks at your conferences? Running your organizations? Helping to make policies? You gonna refer those people to journalists instead of talking to them yourself? Are you going to power share? Are you going to step down from your positions of power? Or are you gonna wait until you're all done? Or will you stay in your bubble and just have representatives from powerless groups who are with The New Schools Teachers Project Teach Plus for America Democrats for Education Reform 50CAN Stand for Children Students First Venture Project Fund? Will you continue to buy journalism or will you let journalists do their jobs? Will you continue to buy educational research that supports your policies or will let the educational researchers do their work?

I know many of you are nice people who mean well, but when you actually become of a part of the communities you like to have so much say over and when you actually step down and aside so those folks can step in and have control over their own communities and schools, when you give up your power and embrace true democracy, then that will be true change.

Charter schools in Virginia whether we want them or not

Charter schools may soon be coming to Virginia communities whether those communities want them or not. This is not about whether or not to have charter schools or whether or not charter schools work. This is about power and democracy.

In Virginia, what's known as the "charter school bill," HB 3 in the Virginia House of Delegates and SB 588 in the Virginia Senate, establishes a resolution (HJ 1 and SJ R6) that will trigger a referendum on a constitutional amendment giving the Virginia State Board of Education ( a 9-member body appointed by the Governor) the power to go over the heads of local school boards and establish charter schools in local communities.  This resolution will likely be heard in the Virginia House of Delegates today (Monday, February 1st, 2016) or tomorrow, so you must contact your Delegate ASAP.

This resolution and accompanying legislation is before the General Assembly for the second year in a row. (I wrote about this last year here and before that I wrote about the concept, when it was the Opportunity Educational Institution, here.) Last year, it passed both chambers and, hence, if it passes this year—and as of this writing the House Privileges and Election Committee has sent it on to the House floor on a 10-9 vote—it will go onto the ballot this November. (Or maybe not this November if the Virginia GOP doesn't think it will pass then, but I digress.) 

“Work” is not the right way of looking at this, in any case. Like any model, some charter schools are successful and some aren’t. Some charter schools are true institutions of education, created by parents and educators, while some are real estate scams, developed by hucksters and charlatans. But given that all students are not served as they should be in public schools, I agree that conversations about the merits and disadvantages of charter schools are worth having.

But it is a conversation worth having among parents, citizens, educators, and educational leaders in the communities where charter schools are potentially to be located. Setting up schools in local communities is not a state matter. While many of its members are knowledgeable and passionate about K-12 education in Virginia and the Virginia State Board of Education may do a good job with the work they are tasked with, this is not their job.

Virginia currently has a rigorous, democratic process to establish charter schools, a process with built-in oversight, checks and balances, and accountability. Charter school proposals go before the locally, democratically elected (and in some cases, locally appointed) school boards where the charter schools are to be established. Charter schools in Virginia are overseen by these school boards and the schools are hence accountable to the public like all other public schools. Some local communities in Virginia have decided to set up charter schools. Groups in other communities have tried to set up charter schools but have not made a strong enough case to other members of their communities or to their school boards.

A school board failing to act on a matter or acting in a way that we citizens don’t agree with is not sufficient reason to put the Commonwealth through the referendum process, to amend the constitution, or to do so in a way that will disenfranchise citizens of local communities. Shall we threaten to amend the Constitution of Virginia every time our school boards do something we don’t agree with? Is that reasonable? Because I have got, like, ten amendments (don't tell my school board I said that). No, that’s not reasonable and it trivializes the amendment process.

I don’t always agree with my school board, but it is my school board, answerable to me and the members of the public it serves. Let's keep it that way. Please contact your state Senator and Delegate and tell them to VOTE NO on HB3/SB588.

From Duncan to King

Most regular readers of the blog know that for the most part I have not been a fan of the policies of (recently) former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, even if I think his intentions were good. Too much emphasis on testing, too much arbitrariness, too punitive, too much over-reach, too little thought given to the impacts of privatization, and too little respect for democratic processes.

But he has used his bully pulpit to speak up about some issues that matter, and it is my hope that he will be one of those officials who turns out to do better things out of office than s/he did while in office. The content of his final speech in office, as reported in the Washington Post, leads me to believe he will do some work towards reducing gun violence. I hope so.

Arne Duncan used his last speech as U.S. Education Secretary to draw attention to violence that claims the lives of thousands of children each year, saying that the “greatest frustration” of his seven-year tenure has been Washington’s failure to pass gun control legislation. 

Fighting off tears, Duncan said that 16,000 young people were killed during his first six years in office. “We have to get guns out of the wrong people’s hands. We have to make sure our babies are safe,” said Duncan, who plans to step down on Thursday. 

He went on to draw connections between street violence and high school dropout rates in America’s poorest communities, saying that both are the result of hopelessness that children feel when they grow up believing that they have a better chance of dying young than going to college or getting a job.

Meanwhile, the record of his successor, Acting Education Secretary John King, while serving as New York State's Education Commissioner gives me. . . pause:

King was just as embattled, if not more, in New York as education commissioner for some of the same reasons as Duncan — and there were numerous calls for his resignation as well. By the time he resigned, he had lost the confidence of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) (although King was appointed by the New York State Regents). 

King led a series of school reforms that included a new teacher evaluation system using student standardized test scores that critics say is nonsensical  (for example, art teachers are evaluated by student math test scores) and the implementation of the Common Core standards, and aligned Pearson-designed standardized tests. King’s oversight of all of this was considered such a disaster that Cuomo last year wrote in a letter to top state education officials that “Common Core’s implementation in New York has been flawed and mismanaged from the start.”

But just as some public officials do very different things once out of office, they sometimes take a different tack once they change positions, and show evidence of, you know, growth. In addition, King has spoken about the importance of school integration as an education reform lever, which is hopeful:

At a recent National Coalition on School Diversity conference, King emphasized the importance of integrated, racially diverse schools, according to Chalkbeat New York.  

“Schools that are integrated better reflect our values as a country,” King said.  

Under Duncan, the Education Department did not take action to desegregate the nation's increasingly racially segregated schools. But King told Chalkbeat that integration “has a long history and substantial evidence” of success.

Even so, I am not a resident of New York State and do not begrudge the skepticism among those who are King detractors.

Yes, please, to more recess

We are lucky that the elementary schools that my children attend still have a full half an hour of lunch and a full half an hour of recess each day. Other kids are not so lucky--recess is becoming a luxury. Though my middle schoolers don't get any recess. Do any middle schoolers get recess any more? So two things of note here:

1) Recess is really important and even half an hour is not enough, especially not for younger children.

2) Secondary students also need some form of recess.

In North Texas, a handful of schools are experimenting with more (not less) recess. Their students go out four times per day, for 15 minutes each, and the results have been very promising so far:

First grade teachers Donna McBride and Cathy Wells say they’ve seen a transformation in their kids. 

They’re less distracted, they make more eye contact, and they tattle less. 

Wells has noticed another difference: She spends less time sharpening pencils. 

“You know why I was sharpening them?” Wells says. “Because they were grinding on them, they were breaking them, they were chewing on them. They’re not doing that now. They’re actually using their pencils for the way that they were designed – to write things!”

I want to say that I've never understood withholding recess, either as a consequence for poor choices or as a way to increase achievement. But it's possible I didn't fully understand that until I had children of my own and then spent two years teaching preschool. As far as I can tell, taking away recess will result in more poor choices being made and in lower achievement and productivity. To me, withholding recess is tantamount to withholding sleep--everyone needs a certain amount of it. And recess is a tremendous opportunity for social learning.

One of my children's teachers (in addition to recess) actually used to take her class outside to walk or run laps when they started to get too wacky. She got it, and she had the autonomy to make that decision. Not all teachers have that, either. I remember dreading the days when my kids and students couldn't go outside or didn't have a suitable place for indoor recess.

Secondary students also need breaks and "recess." This school in Vermont has what they term "MHS unplugged" every day (h/t Joanne Jacobs who got it from edutopia):