[Ohiogift] Public Education NewsBlast - June 18, 2013

[Art Snyder]

                June 18, 2013 - In This Issue:
       Old unions, new realities
  Brown's overhaul: Far enough?
  How complete is charter autonomy?
  Gates's altered stance
  The Core of the matter
  A messy transition to Common Cor
  When a diploma no longer signals competence
  Math failure in Montgomery County
  BRIEFLY NOTED CALIFORNIA
  BRIEFLY NOTED
  GRANTS AND FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
                                            
Old unions, new realities

For decades, teacher unions have used political power and bargaining to exert control over school systems, but now Democrats are embracing policies that challenge this, and Republicans have successfully weakened labor laws in former bastions of union strength, writes Sarah Butrymowicz in The Hechinger Report. On top of this, a new generation of teachers questions the old way of doing things, generating dissent within the ranks. Whereas negotiations and political fights between teacher unions and management once centered on benefits and school funding, unions are battling to bargain for benefits at all, and warding off reform efforts that could undermine union power. Approval ratings for unions have been at their lowest point in history for the past four years, and conservatives predict teacher unions will soon go the way of their private-sector counterparts: present, but weak and small. Butrymowicz thinks teacher unions will survive, but not without making concessions and carefully juggling the demands of members and opponents alike. Both the NEA and AFT are attempting to transform themselves into organizations that once again direct the conversation on public education. The AFT is focusing on state and local issues, spending less time and money in Washington, D.C., and the NEA is investing millions of dollars on its own education reforms, such as turning around schools and providing professional development to members. More

 
Brown's overhaul: Far enough?

Gov. Jerry Brown has orchestrated what's being called a major overhaul of how California funds K-12 education, report Sharon Noguchi and Mike Rosenberg of The Oakland Tribune. The new formula will untangle four decades of mandates that created more than 60 pots of money for programs like school lunches and libraries. Starting this fall, most of California's roughly 1,000 districts will receive a larger base grant to spend as they see fit, supplemented by money for hard-to-educate students. Districts where more than 55 percent of students are poor, English learners, or foster kids will receive additional money, and revenue will grow more quickly in districts with high poverty levels, such as Oakland Unified, Richmond, and San Jose. Critics point out that with funding growing slowly, schools can't immediately restore the librarians, counselors, music, and arts programs cut over the years. Even by 2020-21, when full funding kicks in, California will lag the national average in education spending. Other remnants of California's old funding system won't change. Tax-rich districts like Palo Alto, Mountain View-Los Altos, San Mateo, and others will retain the property taxes that boost their schools' funding beyond the level the state would otherwise fund.??More. Related


How complete is charter autonomy?

A civil war is brewing within the education reform movement over evaluations for teachers at charter schools, writes Dylan Scott in Governing Magazine. Since charters are granted broad flexibility from regulatory requirements in exchange for accountability, new state teacher evaluation policies, by mandating teacher evaluations that meet certain parameters, could infringe on charters' historical freedom in personnel matters. Charter schools are supposed to have complete authority within their walls -- authority to hire, fire, and otherwise evaluate teachers as they see fit without outside requirements -- in exchange for being held accountable for their students' success. A top-down teacher evaluation mandate violates the terms of that deal. In a few states, the issue has been resolved peacefully -- Pennsylvania, for example, exempts charter schools from its new teacher evaluation program -- but the debate has been very contentious in other states, like New York. The newly unveiled U.S. Senate bill to replace NCLB contains language on teacher evaluations similar to that of the Obama administration's NCLB waiver program, which means more states could move to state-mandated teacher evaluations. How the debate shakes out will have long-lasting consequences for both charters and teacher evaluations, Scott writes.??More


Gates's altered stance

Though widely viewed as a critic of teachers and their unions, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has begun reaching out to both in new ways, writes Linda Shaw in The Seattle Times. It is putting less emphasis on test-score metrics, and it strongly supports the notion that a fair evaluation of teachers requires multiple measures. About five years ago, Gates thought the best way to improve teachers was to "get rid of 10-20-30 percent of the bottom and just keep doing that," said Jeanne Harmon of the Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession. Now the message is one of supporting teachers so they can improve. But the foundation also is known for searching out and backing people who can help advance its efforts, raising questions about whether all its teacher-courting is simply a way to gain more clout. Anthony Cody, a former California teacher and blogger for Education Week, sees Gates's softer stances as an effort to mitigate "a tremendous backlash to his unfortunate ideas." He'll believe the foundation is changing, he said, when Gates apologizes for setting in motion some of the very policies the foundation is now criticizing. He'll believe the foundation is listening to teachers when there's evidence it is working with a wide range of teachers, not just those involved in Gates-funded projects.?More


The Core of the matter

Speaking on the NPR show On Point, Catherine Gewerz of Education Week said that what lies between the Common Core State Standards and assessments based on them is curriculum, "and that's where some of the heat is being generated... In other words, how do you turn standards into day-to-day instruction? That's going to vary a lot." One strain of criticism, she said, is that teachers and schools have had too little time with these very complicated standards to be evaluated. Andrew Rotherham of Bellwether Education added that most people would be surprised at the low quality of a lot of Common Core curricula. "A lot of stuff that's off-the-shelf from commercial vendors is very bland; it's not really enriching, the kind of things we want kids to read." Material in even the leading states is not up to the challenge, he says, and he expects this will frustrate teachers. Political scientist Andrew Hacker fears the Common Core assessments will essentially be one national test that will exacerbate student failure rates (Rotherham points out that different states are in different consortia or are going their own way with assessments), and prefers Texas's system of different kinds of high school diplomas for different kinds of curricula.?More

     
A messy transition to Common Core

With Common Core assessments less than two years away, states and districts are worried about the accountability systems that hinge on those tests, report Michele McNeil and Catherine Gewertz in Education Week. A number of policy groups are urging more flexibility in how states evaluate teachers, label schools, and enforce other high-stakes consequences during a likely messy transition. Sandy Kress, who worked on accountability issues in Texas for decades, points out that most states have reworked their standards and tests in recent years, but have done so with years of planning. "The questions are, what would a transitional accountability system look like? Are there pathways that could allow us to compare apples to apples in the old and new tests? Can we get the test-makers of the old tests and new tests to sit down and talk about that?" State superintendents are calling on the U.S. Department of Education to give leeway on accountability, testing, and teacher evaluations in the next two years -- on top of the flexibility that 37 states and the District of Columbia have in the form of waivers from NCLB. They also want a delay in use of test scores for teacher evaluations, something that could pose a problem, since this practice is stipulated in many states' NCLB waivers as well as the winning plans of the 12 Race to the Top states.??More


When a diploma no longer signals competence

A new report from the Center for Public Education finds that until states and districts re-examine their graduation policies, a high school diploma will not necessarily signify college- and career-readiness as envisioned by the Common Core. The authors compared state high school graduation requirements in math for alignment with the standards, defining alignment as including math in each year of high school, with substantial content typically taught in Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II classes. Their analysis found that graduation requirements in only 11 Common Core states meet this definition; requirements in 13 are partially aligned. Twenty-two states have adopted the Common Core but lack graduation requirements that match standards expectations. Even states whose graduation requirements reflect the Common Core have work to do to ensure that their high school course sequence and content is truly aligned to the standards, in the view of the authors. Because the standards describe outcomes, states and districts must outline classes and curricula that best deliver the content and practices the standards define. Traditional course pathways? -- Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, and further mathematical coursework -- may neglect critical Common Core content or mathematical practices if the courses are not re-examined and aligned to the new demands, and teachers given preparation. More


Math failure in Montgomery County
In an open letter to the students and parents of Montgomery County, Maryland and the Montgomery County Department of Education, teachers in the math department at Poolesville High School explain what they see as the systemic reasons behind widespread exam failures in their content area by students (letter reprinted by Valerie Strauss in The Washington Post). The failures proceed from policies in place for many years having a cumulative effect, they write. Students have been accelerated through the math curriculum as teachers and principals have been pressured to meet unrealistic targets, with the result that students have gaps in understanding. As many students as possible have been placed in honors math classes, so higher-performing students lack sufficient challenges, and those not in honors find themselves in classes with no peer role models and a culture of failure. The ubiquitous use of calculators in the early grades has resulted in students who lack number sense and basic skills, and thus cannot make the leap to algebra. And Algebra I de-emphasizes algebraic manipulation, leaving students unprepared for Algebra II and beyond.?The teachers also recommend that students be required to pass a final exam to receive credit for a course, and teachers be allowed to assign grades that truly reflect mastery of content.?More

BRIEFLY NOTED CALIFORNIA
Core strengthening
The proposed state budget for California allocates $1.25 billion in one-time money to help schools implement the Common Core State Standards; the funding, to be distributed over two years, works out to about $200 per student.
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'A Cadillac for a Chevy'
Plans in California to replace the state's existing science curriculum standards with a new national set would be a step down, according to new analysis from the Fordham Institute.
BRIEFLY NOTED?
The glacier moves onward
On a completely predictable party-line vote, the Senate Education Committee approved a bill to reauthorize the long-stalled renewal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
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Have a nice summer
Administrators and teachers in New York City have just three months to adapt before the expectations of a new teacher-evaluation system kick in.
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Supply/demand
A wealthy district in Colorado is launching a radical experiment that sets a different pay scale for each category of educator, ensuring that even the best third-grade teacher would never earn as much as a veteran high school math teacher.
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Poor showing
Among Oregon's high school class of 2011, just 61 percent enrolled in a college or community college anywhere in the country by fall 2012, according to the National Student Clearinghouse.
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Hard times, indeed
Philadelphia Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. has announced that 676 teachers, 283 counselors, 127 assistant principals, and 1,202 noontime aides will lose their jobs July 1 because of the district's financial crisis.
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Enlightenment
The Kentucky Board of Education approved new academic standards for science education in public schools, including updates on evolution and climate change that have drawn the ire of some conservatives.
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Squeezed
Texas excused 1,480 elementary campuses -- a third of the state's elementary schools -- from the 22-pupil class size limit in kindergarten through fourth grade, with the vast majority getting a waiver because of "financial hardship."
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Further muscular moves in Chicago
Even with nearly 50 schools shutting down at the end of this month, Chicago education officials have been barreling ahead with plans to groom a large crop of high-performing principals they say represents the most ambitious effort the city has undertaken to upgrade its school leadership ranks.
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Vouchsafed
The Arizona Senate has reversed course and approved an expansion of a school voucher program that allows students to use public funds to attend a private school.
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As Jersey goes...
Plans are underway in Virginia for the opening of a new state-run district aimed at taking over and turning around academic performance in some of the state's lowest-performing schools -- the fourth in a growing number of such entities across the nation.

GRANTS AND FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
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Dow Jones Fund: National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year
The National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year program identifies outstanding high school journalism teachers who have done exemplary work in the?previous academic year.?Maximum award: laptop computer, travel and lodging expenses to national conference, a per diem for substitute teacher fees, and a quarterly column for the Fund's newspaper, Adviser Update; the winner also attends a seminar at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Fla., and a senior student at the winning teacher's school will receive a $1,000 scholarship to study?journalism based on their performance in a writing contest held at their school. Eligibility: high school teachers with at least three years' experience. Deadline: July 8, 2013.
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NAIS: Challenge 20/20 Program
National Association of Independent Schools Challenge 20/20 Program provides an opportunity for schools to develop globally based, experiential curricula and to build educational partnerships with schools around the world. Challenge 20/20 students form authentic bonds with students from across the globe and learn first-hand about cross-cultural communication; together, teams tackle real problems. Maximum award: participation in the program. Eligibility: elementary and secondary schools, public or private, located anywhere in the world. Deadline: August 16, 2013.
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Dollar General: Beyond Words Library Disaster Relief
Dollar General, in collaboration with the American Library Association (ALA), the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) and the National Education Association (NEA), is sponsoring a school library disaster relief fund for public school libraries in the states served by Dollar General. The fund will provide grants to public schools whose school library program has been affected by a disaster. Grants are to replace or supplement books, media and/or library equipment in the school library setting. Maximum award: up to $15,000 to replace or supplement books, media and/or library equipment. Eligibility: public school libraries Pre K-12 located within 20 miles of a Dollar General store, distribution center or corporate office that have lost their building or incurred substantial damage or hardship due to a natural disaster (tornado, earthquake, hurricane, flood, avalanche, mudslide), fire or an act recognized by the federal government as terrorism; or have absorbed a significant number (more than 10% enrollment) of displaced/evacuee students. Deadline: none.
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QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
"You have the adults pushing kids into this court system that could ultimately lead to them being locked up for very, very minor behavior. " -- Michael Harris of the National Center for Youth Law, which is one of several nonprofit law centers that have filed a complaint against truancy courts in Dallas County, Texas in which students, some as young as 12, were prosecuted as adults and not given legal counsel.


 

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