Last week in this space I connected the dots between bullying and the suicides and attempted suicides by children and adolescents, pointing out the close correlation between them. This week, I want to surface an equally grim reality: school shootings are also closely correlated with bullying.

Fortunately, there are a number of simple steps that we can take to reduce bullying and, by extension, suicides, suicide attempts, and school shootings.

Let’s cut to the chase: Girls who are bullied beyond their breaking point are most likely to try to kill themselves, not others.  All too often they succeed. 

By contrast, boys who reach the breaking point are far more likely to try to kill others.  All too often, they are successful.

Girls rarely use guns.  Boys usually do.  And guns almost always function they way they are supposed to, meaning that people die.  And, sadly, guns are readily available in modern America.  (About 70% of school shooters got their weapons at home or from relatives, according to ABC News.)

“The modern era of school shootings” (an awful phrase) began on April 20, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado, when two white male teenagers who had been bullied excessively shot up their high school, Columbine High, killing 13 people and wounding at least 20 others before they turned their guns on themselves.  The ensuing 19+ years have seen close to 300 school shootings  including Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut and Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, two that you no doubt remember.  By the way, at least 65 of the shooters Continue reading: Bullying, Suicide, and Murder | The Merrow Report

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos on Tuesday ripped teachers unions across the country, saying they have a “stranglehold” over many federal and state officials and are resistant to “changes that need to happen.”

“The teachers union has a stranglehold on many of the politicians in this country, both at the federal level and at the state-level, and they are very resistant to the kind of changes that need to happen,” DeVos said in an appearance on Fox Business Network. “They are very protective of what they know, and there are protective, really protective of adult jobs and not really focused on what is right for individual students.”

DeVos has regularly clashed with national and state teachers unions over her comments criticizing the nation’s public education system and her platform to expand school choice, particularly by increasing the number of privately run charter schools, vouchers and similar programs that use public money for private education.

“One of the most fundamental things again is focusing on individual children and knowing that all students are different, they learn differently. I have four children, they were all very different, very different learners. We have to allow for more kinds of schools, more kinds of educational experiences, and to do that we need to empower more families to make those decisions on behalf of their students,” DeVos said before targeting the teachers unions for “protecting the status quo.”

“We have a lot of forces that are protecting what is and what is known, a lot of forces protecting the status quo. We need to combat those, break them, and again empower and allow parents to make decisions on behalf of their individual children because they know their children best,” she added.

Before being nominated to Trump’s Cabinet, DeVos was a prominent advocate for school choice in Michigan.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, slammed DeVos over her latest comments Tuesday.

“Betsy DeVos is showing her true colors. We are fighting for the safe and welcoming public schools that kids deserve, healthcare protections so people aren’t one pre-existing condition away from bankruptcy, affordable college without life-burdening student debt, and decent wages. Since she is against all of that, Betsy is attacking the unions that create a voice for teachers to advocate on these issues. As secretary of education, it is her sworn duty to help kids and their communities reach their full potential. Comments like these do the opposite, and she knows it," Weingarten said Continue reading: DeVos: Teachers union has a ‘stranglehold’ on many federal, state politicians | TheHill

While the serial outrages of the Trump administration continue to make headlines, the more mundane activities of his cabinet officials and their underlings often fly under the radar.

Take U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, for instance, whose nomination drew a history-making opposition and set off an avalanche of ridicule in social media and late-night comedy, but who now operates largely out of public view, behind a security screen that is projected to cost the taxpayers nearly $8 million over the next year.

What’s largely been overlooked behind all the lurid headlines and endless insults are all the ways in which officials like DeVos are quietly at work continuing to use our tax money to advance a deeply troubling agenda.

Now that Congress is poised to turn from Red to Blue, DeVos’s activities – such as rolling back regulation of for-profit colleges, stalling the forgiveness of student loans and rewriting rules for the treatment of campus sexual assault – are getting increased scrutiny from House Democrats.

In a recent low-profile appearance, DeVos and her high-priced security detail paid a friendly visit to Koch Industries in Wichita, Kansas without telling local officials, the media, or any other public outlet. The purpose of her stopover was to meet with a select group of representatives of Youth Entrepreneurs, a Wichita-based non-profit group founded by Charles and Liz Koch.

Youth Entrepreneurs, according to an investigative report by the Huffington Post, provides high school curriculum designed to inculcate students in the blessings of unfettered capitalism and libertarian ideology. Among the teachings included in the program’s lesson plans and classroom materials are that “the minimum wage hurts workers and slows economic growth. Low taxes and less regulation allow people to prosper. Public assistance harms the poor. Government, in short, is the enemy of liberty.

“Charles Koch had a hands-on role in the design of the high school curriculum,” the reporter reveals, based on leaked emails from a Google group left open to the public. “The goal … was to turn young people into ‘liberty-advancing agents’ before they went to college, where they Continue reading: How Betsy DeVos Does the Koch Brothers’ Bidding | OurFuture.org by People's Action

Personalized Learning is a hot new brand in education, the Great New Thing that is going to revitalize education and elevate students to new levels of awesome. And yet, what is being pitched in many school districts is not personalized learning at all.

When we hear the words "personalized learning," we imagine an educational plan crafted to the individual student. Pat really loves dinosaurs, so the teacher creates a reading unit based on books about dinosaurs combined with a writing unit involving research about dinosaurs. If Pat is weak on particular styles of charts and graphs, Pat may get an extra unit that works on organizing information about dinosaurs visually. Meanwhile, Chris needs remedial work on reading, so Chris gets some lower-reading level high-interest materials about rodeos and horses, because that's what Chris loves. On the other side of the hall, Sam wants to be a concert pianist, so Sam's educational program approaches history from the perspective of the history of music, and Sam actually spends less time daily on science so that there's more time for music-related studies.

That, or something like it, would be personalized learning.

But what many school districts are actually talking about is personalized pacing. Chris, Pat and Sam all complete exactly the same reading materials, they study the exact same units in math, and they study history out of exactly the same textbook. The only difference is the speed with which they move through the materials. Chris is weak in reading, so Chris takes three tries to successfully complete the Unit 2 test, while Pat and Sam continue to Unit 3. Pat has trouble with volume problems in math class, so while Chris and Sam move ahead, Pat gets some supplemental materials (aka extra practice) with volume problems. There is nothing personal about their learning program except the speed with which they move through it.

This is not a new idea in education. If you're of a Certain Age, you may remember Continue reading: CURMUDGUCATION: When Is Personalized Learning Not Personalized Learning

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Help save public education by giving to NPE

Giving Tuesday is November 27. This holiday season please remember to give a gift to save public education by donating to NPE.

Right now your tax deductible gift can have twice the impact. Thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor who deeply believes in the importance of public education, every donation made between today and December 15 will be matched, up to a total of $10,000.

Give your tax deductible gift here and our donor will match it.

You can also choose to make that donation in honor of a family member, friend or teacher, and they will receive an email from us, notifying them of your gift.

Your donation to the Network for Public Education supports our advocacy work. Donations fund our reports​, toolkits, investigations​, grassroots group work, email alerts​ and more. Each year we host, with NPE Action, an annual conference​ that we heavily subsidize. We provide scholarships to bring activists with financial need to the conference so that they can work and learn together to fight against privatization and for the improvement of public schools.

We have big plans for 2018 as the battle to privatize our public school system pushes forward in nearly every state house. We will create model legislation to clamp down on charter abuses, lobby with the new Congress, and expand and mobilize our Grassroots network. We are making great progress. But to continue the fight, we need your help. Give generously here and know that your donation will be generously matched. You donation is tax deductible and you will receive either an email or letter receipt. 

If you prefer to send a check, please send it to our new address:

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Thank you for all you do.

It doesn’t matter how much trouble Mark Zuckerberg might appear to be in with Facebook, he and his wife still find time to mess with education and give elitist advice to teachers.

Their latest initiative is to claim teachers need to learn brain science. They’re donating $1 million to Neuroteach Global, an online PD platform created by the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning, calling themselves a mind, brain, and education research center.

Some teachers will get financial support to learn about brain science, while others will pay for it on their own, or likely through their school districts.

It’s also about transforming education to technology.

The group is based out of St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland. The sponsors of the program include Teach for America. They’re hoping to sell this program to schools and universities across the country. How ironic that a group like TFA with minimal instruction and understanding about teaching, is a part of promoting brain science to teachers.

Real teachers from reputable university education programs have always taken child Continue reading: What’s Behind the Chan Zuckerberg (CZI) Push for “Brain Science?”

Groups of teachers founding charters, taking over failing schools, or simply creating different ones is a smart idea. It is worthwhile and needs much support to spread since teachers can design, implement, and administer such schools as well as if not better than policymakers hiring  principals and high-paid consultants. After all, one doesn’t have to know too much history of U.S. public schools to remember that teachers ran their own schools when rural one-room schoolhouses prevailed a century and a half ago and before principals (remember the first ones were called principal-teachers). Nonetheless, there are some facts that cannot be ignored.

First, some teacher-run schools will fly and some will crash.

Second, as these teacher-run schools get established, they will be a small (but nonetheless, important )contribution to the necessary mix of schools needed to improve urban districts. Even though :Os Angeles, Detroit, and other districts have authorized teacher-run schools there are still less than 100 across the nation (of about 100,000 public schools). This is where the mouse and hippo enters the picture.

New schools including charters come from policymakers who decide that such schools can alter what usually occurs in traditional schools. Politicians and policymakers create most schools. The hippo. And teacher-run schools, the mouse, will always be small in comparison but, as in the Mike Twohy story, can be both a friend and a guide to “good” schooling.

Such teacher-led schools will mobilize many teachers (Teach for America graduates, deeply committed novices and a chunk of mid-career professionals) and parents to form democratic cooperatives (mostly charters) and run schools Continue reading: Teacher-Led Schools: The Mouse and Hippo | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Update: this David vs. Goliath story with national implications was reported also on Fast Company, Business Insider,  EdSurge, and NY Magazine. The Washington Post also published the letter the students subsequently sent to Mark Zuckerberg.

On November 5, about 100 students at the Secondary School of Journalism in Brooklyn walked out of their schools to protest the Summit online program.  This digital instruction program, funded by Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Bill Gates, forces students to spend hours staring at computers, left at sea with little human interaction or help from their teachers, all in the name of “personalized learning.”

As one of the students, Mitchel Storman, said to Sue Edelman who reported on the protest in the NY Post, “I have seen lots of students playing games instead of working….Students can easily cheat on quizzes since they can just copy and paste the question into Google.”

Senior Akila Robinson said she couldn’t even log onto Summit for nearly two months, while other classmates can’t or won’t use it. “The whole day, all we do is sit there.”  A teacher said, “It’s a lot of reading on the computer, and that’s not good for the eyes. Kids complain. Some kids refuse to do it.”

The online program, which originated in the Summit chain of charter schools in California, and was further developed and expanded with millions of dollars from the Gates Foundation, Facebook and now the Chan Zuckerberg LLC, has now been inserted in more than Continue reading: Brooklyn students fight against the Summit online platform and the Zuckerberg-Gates corporate machine | Parent Coalition for Student Privacy

By Debbie Truong

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