Live Long and Prosper...

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM DAY

January 16 was Religious Freedom Day.

In 1993 President George H. W. Bush declared January 16 to be Religious Freedom Day. On January 16, 1786, the Virginia House of Delegates, under the leadership of James Madison, passed Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. In 1992, on that date, Virginia Governor L. Douglas Wilder signed the first proclamation to that effect for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The Virginia Statute was the first document to prohibit a state-sponsored church in the new United States. The statute declared “that Almighty God hath created the mind free” and that “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

It went on to state that “no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry...or otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief.”

The Virginia Statute gave birth to the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom.

Meanwhile, 234 years later...

PUBLIC SCHOOL PRAYER GUIDELINES

Trump Administration Marks Religious Freedom Day By Mocking That Principle

...we find that the current administration, likely at the behest of its evangelical base, is doing all it can to blur the separation between church and state first expressed in the Virginia Statute.

Prayer in public schools has been a hot topic for decades, and the courts have consistently held that students may pray or express themselves religiously as long as the prayers or expressions do not interfere with the instructional process and aren't coercive. As Jefferson wrote,

...it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

The administration, however, suggests that non-interference is too much to ask and encourages "student-led" prayer as often as possible. It's true that some public schools may have overly restricted students' religious expression, which is the reason the administration gives for updating the rules. However, instead of dealing with those specific issues, the administration has instead chosen to loosen restrictions for all.

The school prayer guidelines look fairly innocuous on the surface, but when you go a little deeper, you see that they promote prayer at every turn and imply that certain types of supposedly “student-led” prayer can be woven into school-sponsored events, a dubious proposition to say the least.

More alarmingly, the guidelines require states to collect and investigate reports of alleged violations of the right to engage in religious activities from public school students and staff. States must forward all of these to federal officials – even the ones that have no merit. Trump’s increasingly theocratic Justice Department will undoubtedly use these stories to harass public schools that are upholding the separation of church and state all over the nation.

MONTANA VOUCHERS

On The Supreme Court’s Docket: Forcing Taxpayers To Pay For Religious Education And Discrimination

In a few days (Jan 22) the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) will rule on a Montana voucher plan which the state courts have found to be unconstitutional based on the state Constitution. The new makeup of the SCOTUS, with two newly appointed right-wing justices, will likely result in a finding in favor of vouchers, but perhaps I might just be feeling cynical.

Indiana is, of course, the home of one of the nation's most expansive voucher programs. Our state supreme court, unlike Montana's, doesn't care if our tax money is given to religious groups that discriminate.

It’s clear what Big Sky lawmakers were up to: They wanted to subsidize private religious education, even though Montana’s Constitution contains a provision explicitly protecting residents from being forced to support “direct or indirect” tax aid for religious purposes.

The Montana Supreme Court correctly struck down the plan, calling it a clear violation of the state constitution. More than 90 percent of private school vouchers in Montana funded private religious schools, and 70 percent of all private schools in the state teach a religious curriculum.

The U.S. Supreme Court now will hear the case, which is troubling. The high court’s decision could set a dangerous precedent, eroding church-state separation not just in Montana, but in three-quarters of U.S. states. Voucher proponents have made it crystal clear that they want to pave the way for private school voucher schemes across the country by gutting the religious freedom provisions that exist in the constitutions of at least 37 states.

Not only do private school voucher programs force taxpayers to fund religious education, but they also force taxpayers to fund discrimination. Private religious schools have free rein to discriminate against children and families if they don’t share the school’s religious beliefs, if a student or parent is LGBTQ, if the child has a disability, or if they don’t follow a school’s religious tenets such as accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior or having premarital sex.

WISCONSIN VOUCHERS

Homeowners Fed Up Paying for Two School Systems

Just like Indiana, Wisconsin's voucher plan takes money away from everyone to pay for religious school vouchers, even in districts that have no voucher accepting schools. The money for vouchers comes out of the "school money" pot first, and then the rest is distributed around to the state's public school districts. The parents in this particular district are fed up...

“There are more and more people across the state talking about this issue,” Hambuch-Boyle said. “More people are becoming aware that their tax money is supporting private education at the expense of public school students, and they’re not happy about it.”

The first voucher program was instituted in Milwaukee in 1990. It grew to include the Racine school district in 2011 and was expanded across the state two years later. There is also a voucher program for special needs students.

Increased spending for voucher schools means less funding available for the state’s 421 public school districts. Every one of those districts is impacted to some extent because voucher school dollars come from the same state budget fund that pays public schools. Voucher disbursements are made first, before public school disbursements occur.

OHIO VOUCHERS

Two articles from Ohio...one with an interesting voucher twist...an Ohio district is forced to put a tax levy on the ballot in order to pay for increased funding to vouchers!

Ohio’s Budget Bill Multiplies School Vouchers, Leaves Local School Districts in Crisis

I wonder whether legislators have any real understanding of the collateral damage for particular communities from policies enacted without debate. Maybe, because our community has worked for fifty years to be a stable, racially and economically diverse community with emphasis on fair housing enforcement and integrated schools, legislators just write us off as another failed urban school district. After all, Ohio’s education policy emphasizes state takeover and privatization instead of equitable school funding. The state punishes instead of helping all but its most affluent, outer ring, exurban, “A”-rated school districts, where property values are high enough that state funding is not a worry.

What this year’s EdChoice voucher expansion means for the Cleveland Heights-University Heights school district where the members of my book discussion group all live is that—just to pay for the new vouchers—our school district has been forced to put a property tax levy on the March 17 primary election ballot. Ohio’s school finance expert, Howard Fleeter explains that in our school district, EdChoice voucher use has grown by 478 percent in a single year. Fleeter continues: “Cleveland Heights isn’t losing any students…. They are just losing money.’” “If this doesn’t get unwound, I think it is significant enough in terms of the impact on the money schools get to undermine any new funding formula.”

Education leaders battle over school voucher growth

Washington Local Schools Superintendent Kadee Anstadt said the measures used to designate schools as EdChoice eligible are fundamentally flawed. To illustrate this point, Ms. Anstadt pointed to a school in a neighboring district: Toledo Public Schools’ Chase STEM Academy. Chase is considered one of the most improved schools in the area in recent years, yet it’s still on the EdChoice list.

“So really improvement doesn’t matter so much,” she said. “The list is just ongoing. It’s almost a mathematical formula to include as many people as possible.”

TENNESSEE VOUCHERS

AP Exclusive: State Voucher Violations Leave Details Unknown

Tennessee vouchers are put on a debit card that parents can spend at the school of their "choice." Apparently, the state didn't stop to think that some parents might use the money for something else...

Some Tennessee parents were accused of misspending thousands of dollars in school voucher funds while using state-issued debit cards over the past school year, a review by The Associated Press has found, and state officials say they do not know what many of those purchases were for.

The Tennessee voucher program is currently modest in scale but is set to expand under Republican leadership over the next year. The state gives families of children with certain disabilities the option of removing their students from public school and then provides a state-issued debit card loaded with tax dollars to help cover their children's private school needs.

Privatizer's dictionary: "choice"

Parents can decide to enroll their children in a private school at the public's expense. The school, in turn, gets to "choose" whether or not to accept the child.

WHY HAVE VOUCHERS, ANYWAY?

No, private schools aren’t better at educating kids than public schools. Why this new study matters.

Private schools aren't better than public schools...as this article reporting on research published in 2018 reveals. Indiana's voucher program was begun -- supposedly -- to help students "escape" from "failing" schools. Now, after Mike Pence spent his four years as Governor expanding the voucher program, that doesn't matter. Nearly everyone who wants one can get a voucher for a religious school because... "choice." The tax money diverted from public schools doesn't go to religious schools because they're better, but just because parents want to avoid the public schools for one reason or another.

It's interesting that state legislatures don't provide vouchers to private country clubs, for example, for people who want to avoid public parks...or vouchers to book stores for people who don't want to use the public library. Only private schools get vouchers...the vast majority of them, religious schools.

Despite evidence showing otherwise, it remains conventional wisdom in many parts of the education world that private schools do a better job of educating students, with superior standardized test scores and outcomes. It is one of the claims that some supporters of school choice make in arguing that the public should pay for private school education.

The only problem? It isn’t true, a new study confirms.

University of Virginia researchers who looked at data from more than 1,000 students found that all of the advantages supposedly conferred by private education evaporate when socio-demographic characteristics are factored in. There was also no evidence found to suggest that low-income children or children enrolled in urban schools benefit more from private school enrollment.

The results confirm what earlier research found but are especially important amid a movement to privatize public education — encouraged by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — based in part on the faulty assumption that public schools are inferior to private ones.

Privatizer's dictionary: "failing school"

A school is considered "failing" when a large percentage of its students score too low, according to an arbitrarily determined cut-score, on a standardized test. This low "achievement" can be caused by poverty, hunger, joblessness, illness, violence and other outside influences that have a deleterious effect on student achievement over which schools have no control. To call a school which finds itself in such a situation "failing" is to abrogate the responsibility of government. To be sure, school leaders have the responsibility to keep order, hire qualified staff, and provide an appropriate curriculum, and in that sense, perhaps a school can be failing. However, if the outside environment in which students spend the bulk of their time is working in opposition to learning, then there's not much that schools can do without adequate resources.

HEALTHIER KIDS NEED PLAY, PLAY, AND MORE PLAY

FreshEd with Will Brehm: Let the Children Play (Pasi Sahlberg and William Doyle)

Earlier this year I reviewed a book by Pasi Sahlberg and William Doyle titled Let the Children Play. On December 2, the authors were interviewed by Will Brehm on his excellent podcast, FreshEd.

The authors' emphasis during their interview, and the emphasis in their book, is that play is much more important than most Americans realize, and most American children, especially children who live in poverty, don't have enough time in their day to play. Some excerpts from the podcast...

DOYLE: Play is a fundamental engine of learning for children and if you don't believe us, think of what the American Academy of Pediatrics said recently, "The lifelong success of children is based on their ability to be creative and to apply the lessons learned from playing."

SAHLBERG: Things have gotten worse in the lives of children in terms of their access and opportunities to play, and certainly in school.

DOYLE: In the case of New York City, the poorer the school, which means, you know, the more African American and largely Latinx the school is, the more the children are subject to a hideous practice called recess punishment, or recess detention, where recess is literally used as a carrot or an incentive, or behavior modification tool...kids being punished for late homework or...goofing around, and then they have their recess taken away...[but] the research says, the more you let children play, the better they do on standardized tests, and the better they behave in class.

A three-point plan for healthier kids: play, play and more play

On his blog, Salberg reiterated the importance of play.

Quite simply, smartphones and digital media have taken over the time that children used to have for reading and playing outdoors. And all of the benefits of that play time gained cumulatively over the years in a child’s life have been lost as a result.

Research has shown that these benefits include social, interpersonal and resilience skills, as well as creativity and problem-solving that are often mentioned by employers as the most wanted outcomes of school education...

...I suggest a three-point plan.

One, every school must have a minimum of one hour for free play time each day – separate from time to eat.

Two, at home, every child should have outdoor play time of at least one hour every day.

And three, at a policy level, government and education leaders need to ensure the curriculum is structured so there is enough time for free play during school days.

DEVELOPMENTALLY INAPPROPRIATE EDUCATION

It’s Wrong to Force Four and Five Year Olds to Read! Focus on Speaking and Listening Instead!

Play is important, so what do we do here in the US? We're so test-obsessed that we continue to teach in developmentally inappropriate ways. Nancy Bailey on reading too soon...

With No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and Common Core State Standards, some adults have been led to believe that four- and five-year-old children should read by the end of kindergarten. Preschoolers are pushed to be ready for formal reading instruction by the time they enter kindergarten.

This is a dangerous idea rooted in corporate school reform. Children who struggle to read might inaccurately believe they have a problem, or reading could become a chore they hate.

Pushing children to focus on reading means they miss listening and speaking skills, precursors to reading. These skills are developed through play, which leads to interest in words and a reason to want to read.

Some children might learn to read in kindergarten, and others might show up to kindergarten already reading, but many children are not ready to read when they are four or five years old. And just because a child knows how to read in kindergarten, doesn’t mean they won’t have other difficulties with speech and listening.

THE COMMON GOOD

Normally all the items I post on my blog Medleys are articles you can access on the internet. I have one, however, that I want to review and, unless you're a member of Kappa Delta Pi, an International Honor Society in Education, you won't be able to read it. Still, it's worth discussing.

[For those with access, the article below appeared in two consecutive issues of the Kappa Delta Pi Record...Vol 55, no. 3, and no. 4.]

We will never have the kind of schools we would like to have, nor the test scores we want, unless we do something about --

by David C Berliner, Regents' Professor Emeritus in the Mary Lou Fulton College of Education at Arizona State University.

In 2009, David C. Berliner reported on out of school factors and achievement in K-12 education. The report, Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success, discussed seven out-of-school factors related to childhood poverty, which have an impact on student achievement. I refer to that report often in these pages...mostly because it's generally ignored by policymakers.

Berliner's report and other research have indicated that out of school factors have a stronger impact on student achievement than either curriculum or school personnel. In the current article, Berliner maintains that out-of-school factors are six times more powerful in determining school achievement than is the strongest in-school factor, personnel.

Essentially, Berliner is saying that we, as a society, need to accept the responsibility for all our children, not just the ones who are related to us. Time to lose the selfish "I, me, mine," attitude and recognize that fully funded education and reduction of child poverty is necessary for the common good. Our nation benefits when everyone has what they need.

...Our nation has an almost mindless commitment to high-stakes testing, even when everyone in research knows that outside-of-school factors play six times more of a role in determining classroom and school test scores than do the personnel in our public schools. Nevertheless, if we want our public schools to be the best they can be and their test scores to be higher than they are, then we need to do something about making our states better places to live in, to work in, and in which to raise children. Each school district needs to look beyond its own district and worry about opportunities for all our children. The extra taxes needed to improve the education of youth, as I proposed here, are trivial against the benefits of a higher quality of life for us all.

...We will never have the kind of schools we would like to have, nor the test scores we want, unless we do something about housing patterns in America's communities.

...about access to high-quality early childhood education.

...about our students' summer school experiences.

...about absenteeism in our schools.

...about pay for qualified educational staff – teachers, bus drivers, counselors, librarians, nurses, social workers, and so forth.

TEACHERS' PAY GAP -- GENDER PAY GAP

What if More Teachers were Male? The Misogynistic Roots of the War on Public Education.

I have long maintained that public school teachers, and by extension, public schools, are disrespected by state legislatures and the general public because teaching is still seen as "women's work." That's why there's a salary gap of nearly 20% for professionals who teach...similar to the pay gap for women who, in the US earn 79 cents for every dollar earned by men. Those same policymakers would never use the phrase "women's work" nor would they admit that gender has anything to do with the lack of respect given to teachers and schools. There is, however, a suspiciously consistent relationship between the gender makeup of the profession, and the way the male-dominated society treats public schools.

Would teachers make more...would schools be better funded, if the profession was dominated by men?

If men made up the majority of the profession, would legislators still go out of their way to push teachers around? Of course, I have no way to prove this, but I’m guessing no. We love to think that America has come a long way towards living up to our creed of equality for all. We have mostly gotten it right on paper. But in reality, any minority group, including women (though they are a minority in status only), will tell you that we still fall woefully short in practice.

There is a good old boys network in the halls of our state legislature. I believe they feel empowered by their machismo to push more and more ridiculous hurdles in front of teachers because they view the teaching profession as soft and feminine–one might even use the word submissive (quite biblical of them, no?).

VOUCHERS HURT OHIO KIDS...SO THEY EXPANDED THE PROGRAM

Ohio Expands Its Failed Voucher Program, and Most School Districts Will Lose Funding

What do you do when the research shows that a privatization program hurts children? If you're an Ohio legislator, you expand the program.

...the students eligible to leave with a voucher do better if they stay in public school; the students who use the voucher, who come from more advantaged backgrounds, do worse in school.

This is the only statewide evaluation of the Ohio EdChoice Program, and not what one would call a ringing endorsement since those who use the voucher do worse in school than those who stay in public school and don’t use the voucher.

Such research did not impress the Ohio legislature. Under the prodding of State Senator Matt Huffman (R.-Lima), the state has expanded the voucher program, so that students in two-thirds of the districts across the state are now eligible to get state funding to attend a religious school.

The Ohio House of Representatives has passed a bill that would prevent public school students from being penalized for their religious beliefs in science (and, I presume any other) class. In other words, a student in a geology class could assert that the Earth was 6,000 years old...a student taking astronomy could claim that the stars are simply luminous elements that move above the flat surface of the Earth above the sun, the moon, and the planets...and not be penalized on their research papers or tests.


So...I have some questions...

WOULD A TEACHER HAVE TO ACCEPT ALL RELIGIOUS BELIEFS?

Ohio Snowflakes Seek Safe Space from Science

If one student claims that both male and female humans were created after all the other creatures (Genesis 1:1 through 2:3) and another one claims that male humans were created before plants and animals, and female human beings were created after (Genesis 2:4-2:25) would they both be entitled to a correct grade?

How about a student who claimed that the Universe (and the Earth) was created by the god Ptah, who brought things into existence just by imagining them? Or that the Earth was created by the god Atum, who had sex with his [sic] own feminine energy and brought forth other gods...who then had sex and gave birth to the air, water, humans and everything else?

The Ohio House on Wednesday passed the “Student Religious Liberties Act.” Under the law, students can’t be penalized if their work is scientifically wrong as long as the reasoning is because of their religious beliefs.

Instead, students are graded on substance and relevance.

Every Republican in the House supported the bill. It now moves to the Republican-controlled Senate.

WHAT IS THE POINT OF HAVING ANY SCIENTIFIC CURRICULUM?

Ohio Considers Law Allowing Wrong Answers on Science if Based on Religion

Do we accept answers from students who variously claim that the Universe/Earth is 41,000 years old, 24 trillion years old, or 6,000 years old? If so, what's the point of having any scientific curriculum dealing with the age of the Earth?

The potential for problems is virtually limitless. People believe all sorts of falsehoods based on their religious beliefs — that the earth is flat and is the center of the universe, for example. To sacrifice the truth on the altar of religion is a betrayal of the school’s duty to educate.

SHOULD STUDENTS BE ALLOWED TO IGNORE WHAT THEY DON'T BELIEVE?

Ohio lawmakers clear bill critics say could expand religion in public schools

The following bullets explain parts of the proposed law.

HB 164, known as the Ohio Student Religious Liberties Act of 2019:

• Requires public schools to give students the same access to facilities if they want to meet for religious expression as they’d give secular groups.

• Removes a provision that allows school districts to limit religious expression to lunch periods or other non-instructional times.

• Allows students to engage in religious expression before, during and after school hours to the same extent as a student in secular activities or expression.

• Prohibits schools from restricting a student from engaging in religious expression in completion of homework, artwork and other assignments.

Bullet #1: The federal equal access law already provides for allowing religious groups to meet if secular groups are given the same rights.

Bullets #2, 3, and 4: Students are already allowed to express their own religious beliefs in school based on the First Amendment. This does not mean, however, that students can disrupt the learning process to express their religious beliefs. Additionally, the First Amendment gives students the right to express their religious beliefs in their work, while still being graded based on the requirements of the assignment.

In other words, this is a law looking for a reason. Students are guaranteed by Federal Law and the Constitution the right to express their beliefs and to believe what they want. This does not mean, however, that they should ignore accepted science if they don't believe it.

So, if this bill passes the Senate, teachers will not be able to mark religious beliefs incorrect if they differ from current scientific facts?

On the other hand, Daniels said that if a student submitted biology homework saying the earth is 10,000 years old, as some creationists believe, the teacher cannot dock points.

“Under HB 164, the answer is ‘no,’ as this legislation clearly states the instructor 'shall not penalize or reward a student based on the religious content of a student’s work,” he said.

There is no need for this. A student who is assigned a paper on the structure of the Solar System does not give up their right to believe in a flat Earth, or a Geocentric universe, or that the Earth was created on the back of a giant turtle, simply by writing that science accepts the Earth revolves around the Sun, which revolves around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. There is no educationally sound reason to insist that students not be held accountable for scientific facts as are currently accepted. Why even teach science (which is, I suspect, one of the reasons for this bill in the first place -- an anti-science attitude)?


WHICH RELIGIONS ARE THE RIGHT ONES?

There is a reason that the founders fought to keep Church and State separate. Once we allow religion to interfere with the public school curriculum we would have to deal with questions like

• "whose religion is accepted as accurate for tests?"

• "who decides which religions are allowed as sources of content?"

• "which religions are to be defined as cults or unacceptable? In other words, which religions are not really religions?"

Keeping religion out of public school doesn't deny students the right to their own beliefs...it guarantees it.

Students can believe what they want, despite what they are taught, but schools, or the adults in them, cannot decide which beliefs are acceptable and which are not. Public schools have a responsibility to teach secular science as we know it. Parents who don't want their children exposed to reality should home school them, or send them to a religious school -- at their own expense -- which presents the religious beliefs they agree with.

The Ohio Senate would be wise to reject this bill.

Some random numbers to ponder during the Thanksgiving Recess...

TWO DOWN...AND MORE TO COME

Here's why two Indiana school systems went broke. And others are in danger.

The Indiana Constitution states in Section 1, of Article 8, Education, that

...it should be the duty of the General Assembly to...provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall without charge, and equally open to all.

And in Section 3, that

The principal of the Common School fund shall remain a perpetual fund, which may be increased, but shall never be diminished; and the income thereof shall be inviolably appropriated to the support of Common Schools, and to no other purpose whatever.

Let's keep those two sections of the Constitution in mind when we look at how the state has allowed...indeed, encouraged...the financial collapse of two of our public education systems.

In the rush to overhaul education, state lawmakers abandoned decades of commitment to the traditional public school system, pushing forward even as districts started closing schools, cutting programs and losing teachers.

They developed a system that encourages free-market competition with other public schools, charter schools and private ones — creating a sink-or-swim mentality that already has helped push Gary and Muncie schools into such a deep financial crisis that the state was forced to take them over.

They may not be the last.

And lest you think that it's not a state sponsored problem, there's this...

Breaking: Indiana didn’t set aside enough money for schools. Senate leader says a fix is ‘top priority.’

Don't worry, though. There was plenty of money for charter schools and vouchers...

State education officials are expecting a shortfall in school funding this year that could be as high as $9 million because state and local officials underestimated Indiana’s student enrollment.

STARK DIFFERENCES

Charters and Consequences: An Investigative Series by the Network for Public Education

Diverting money to charter schools has an impact on public education. The Network for Public Education has a report focusing on charters and how they hurt real, public schools.

The data show clear, dramatic differences between the charters and the local, neighborhood schools. The neighborhood public schools have greater proportions of students who are poor, and who need special education services. Digging deeper you will  find stark differences in the handicapping conditions of students who attend charter and public schools, with public school special education students having far greater needs.

FIVE ADMISSIONS

5 times Republicans admitted they work for rich donors

Here's why the latest Republican tax scheme favors the wealthy. Reason number three, from Lindsey Graham of South Carolina – deliver the tax breaks for the wealthy or lose political donor cash.

3. Lindsey Graham says the party’s coffers are dependent on tax plan passing.
In addition to cautioning last month that Republicans will lose seats in the House and Senate if the GOP tax reform bill doesn’t pass, Senator Graham issued a more dire warning on Thursday.

"The party fractures, most incumbents in 2018 will get a severe primary challenge, a lot of them will probably lose, the base will fracture, the financial contributions will stop,” Graham said, “other than that it'll be fine."

Graham has also suggested that Trump is a goner if this tax thing doesn’t happen, because the Dems will—politically speaking—take him out by attempting “to impeach him pretty quick.”

"[I]t would be just one constant investigation after another,” Graham groused, without a trace of irony. “So it's important that we pass tax reform in a meaningful way. If we don't, that's probably the end of the Republican Party as we know it."

16% CANCELLED PROGRAMS

Illinois’ teacher shortage and pension theft.

The war against public education is nationwide. Here, we read about the state-sponsored teacher shortage in Illinois and how 16% of the state's schools had to cancel programs. Guess who benefits from the programs lost?

According to a 2015-16 school year survey by the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools, 75 percent of districts surveyed had fewer qualified candidates than in previous years, especially in rural districts and those in central and northwest Illinois.

Furthermore, 16 percent of schools canceled programs or classes because of the lack of teachers — mostly special education, language arts, math and science classes.

$170 MILLION

Tech billionaires sank $170 million into a new kind of school — now classrooms are shrinking and some parents say their kids are 'guinea pigs'

Education is not a business, and shouldn't be run like a business. Public schools are a public good, which should be supported by everyone, for the benefit of everyone. When the profit motive gets injected in public education, then things start to fall apart.

Here's an idea...maybe educators, people who understand public education, ought to make the decisions impacting schools.

...some parents are bailing out of the school because they say AltSchool put its ambitions as a tech company above its responsibility to teach their children...

"We kind of came to the conclusion that, really, AltSchool as a school was kind of a front for what Max really wants to do, which is develop software that he's selling," a parent of a former AltSchool student told Business Insider.

FUDGING ATTENDANCE

Weekly Privatization Report 11-20-2017

Privatization of public education means profit. Profit means that the bottom line is money...not children.

Republican Gov. John Kasich’s Department of Education used Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow’s own attendance records to settle a dispute over student attendance at the charter operator. “When the Ohio Department of Education audited ECOT’s attendance for a second school year last summer, the embattled online charter’s verified attendance went up more than 80 percent, and the amount it was forced to repay was $19.2 million, down from $60 million the previous year.” The Columbus Dispatch reports “less than 24 percent of ECOT students spent enough time logged onto classes or participated in enough offline work that they received a full 920 hours of instruction, equal to a year of school.”

$100,000 FOR HOMELESS...OR FOR DEER?

Saving human lives is more important than killing deer

Here's a story about a city which didn't have enough money – $100,000 – to keep funding a homeless shelter, yet found more than that in order to kill deer damaging lawns.

America's priorities are backwards...to say the least.

After losing $100,000 in funding last year, Ann Arbor’s Delonis Center homeless shelter was forced to close a floor full of beds that were badly needed. Meanwhile, the city is spending more than that to shoot local deer.

800,000 MORE STUDENTS AND FEWER PUBLIC SCHOOL EMPLOYEES

Subtract Teachers, Add Pupils: Math of Today’s Jammed Schools

More on the war against public education. 250,000 fewer teachers and support personnel are now responsible for 800,000 additional children. Simple math...for a simple nation.

Across the country, public schools employ about 250,000 fewer people than before the recession, according to figures from the Labor Department. Enrollment in public schools, meanwhile, has increased by more than 800,000 students. To maintain prerecession staffing ratios, public school employment should have actually grown by about 132,000 jobs in the past four years, in addition to replacing those that were lost...

8 WAYS TO SPOT FAKE NEWS

From Climate Denial Crock of the Week

Survival tips for the attack on democracy. Worth circulating.

Dave Johnson has an accurate description of the privatization of America...

The conservative/Wall Street/1-percent/Republican anti-government strategy is to set government up to fail (usually by starving it of funding). Then they point to the resulting "crisis" they created and say that it proves that government doesn't work and that we should therefore "privatize" it -- in other words, rig the system against the majority by handing our common wealth over to a few wealthy people to harvest for personal profit.

When applied to public education, it's a simple three step recipe.

1. Create a crisis for public schools by cutting funding.
2. Declare public schools "failures" because they couldn't do more with less.
3. Use "failure" as the reason to increase funding for privatization.

That is exactly what's happening to American public education. School crises have been manufactured and blame has been placed on the victims for its "failures." Privatizers swoop in and declare that everything is better privatized.

So, here in Indiana, more money is being directed towards charter and private/parochial schools. Schools in high poverty districts get less while low poverty districts get more.

The problem is not unique to Indiana.



SKIMMING THE TOP

I refuse to call charter schools, "public schools." They are private schools run with public funds. Charter schools can manipulate their population so only well motivated and higher achieving students remain. This is, according to Michael Petrilli, a feature of charter schools, not a problem.

True public schools serve the public...not shareholders. True public schools aren't interested in profit. True public schools accept every child in their district and don't council children out when the "school is not the right fit."

Separating fact from fiction in 21 claims about charter schools

There are a number of actions charter schools take to help ensure that they can end up with a more homogeneous set of higher-performing students. In some cases charter schools use admission tests to determine “academic interest.” In other cases, charter schools such as KIPP use “admission” or “placement” tests to make decisions on student grade levels assignments. Rather than be held back one to three grade levels, struggling students often simply return to the district school so they can stay with their peer group.

Many of the so-called “no excuses” charter schools use grade repetition as a means of weeding out weaker students. (Empirical research shows that the most prominent predictor of a student dropping out of school is requiring them to repeat one or more grade levels). Harsh or push-out school discipline practices can also drive away more difficult students or drive them out once enrolled.

The Trouble with Belief

Where charters succeed (or do at least as well as their public counterparts) it is because they believe only in certain students who meet certain qualifications and behave in certain ways and produce certain results. [emphasis added]

Peter Greene's article about belief includes an accurate articulation of what a public school ought to be...

There are very few charters out there using a sales pitch of, "We believe that all students can succeed and we will accept any and all students and keep them till the bitter end, no matter what, because we will find a way to help them succeed." [emphasis added]

[It must be stated that Greene is correct when he states, "There are very few charters..." This means that there are some charters which do a good job and place students before profits. You know who you are.]



ACCOUNTABILITY FOR ALL?

Why Don’t We Have Real Data on Charter Schools?

Public education systems are run by publicly elected school boards (or ought to be). They hold public meetings, are required to have annual audits, and are accountable to the voters in their district.

The problem here is that charter schools are frequently not accountable. Indeed, they are stunningly opaque, more black boxes than transparent laboratories for education. According to a 2013 study by the Center for Research on Educational Outcomes at Stanford University, only 29 percent of charter schools outperformed public schools with similar students in math, while 31 percent performed worse. Most charter schools, in fact, obtained results that were no better than traditional public schools. So what was that 29 percent doing right? And what went so wrong with the failing 31 percent? There are a few reasons why it’s nearly impossible to find out.

PRIVATIZATION IN THE MIDWEST

Ohio

Recipe for privatization of public education:

1. Create a crisis for public schools by cutting funding.
2. Declare public schools "failures" because they couldn't do more with less.
3. Use "failure" as the reason to increase funding for privatization.

Kasich budget plan increases funding to all charter schools

About half of traditional public schools would see funding cuts over the next two years under Kasich’s education funding plan, though it spends $459 million more. The non-partisan Legislative Service Commission calculated that charter-school funding will rise 5.4 percent over two years, with no schools facing a cut.

Wisconsin

Recipe for privatization of public education:

1. Create a crisis for public schools by cutting funding.
2. Declare public schools "failures" because they couldn't do more with less.
3. Use "failure" as the reason to increase funding for privatization.

Ed Hughes: Scott Walker’s plan for charter schools outdoes ALEC in privatizing education

These new, private charter school authorizers “would have no disclosure obligations, would not be subject to the open records law, and would not be bound by conflict of interest restrictions,” he wrote. And they could pay their officers whatever they choose to.

Funding for the new charter schools — $8,075 per student — would come right off the top of the state’s appropriation for general state aid to the state’s school districts. Hughes said.

So, Walker’s “unprecedented scheme” to establish new charter schools all over the state would tap the funding of local public schools to fund private schools approved by private organizations with little accountability.

Indiana

An important step in the privatization of public education (and other public services) is to buy legislators who will then be beholden to their donors.

Charter Schools USA, H4QED, and the Indiana State Board of Ed

Red Apple Development, the real estate branch of CS USA, has also given big money: $17,000 since 2012. This year they contributed $5,000 to the Hoosiers for Quality Education PAC, which funds David Long, Brian Bosma, and a whole slew of Republicans now attacking Glenda Ritz and teachers.

In total, Jeb Bush friend Jon Hage’s CS USA and Red Development have dropped $40,000 into Indiana campaign funds since 2012.

Chicago

Recipe for privatization of public education:

1. Create a crisis for public schools by cutting funding.
2. Declare public schools "failures" because they couldn't do more with less.
3. Use "failure" as the reason to increase funding for privatization.

The School Closure Playbook

This video explores how Chicago’s education “reformers” manufactured a budget crisis through a combination of creative accounting, secretive tax schemes, and media cooperation. It then looks at the dramatic consequences of school closures, the corruption endemic to privatization, and the community organizing that developed to regain control of schools and fight for public education.

The narrow pursuit of test results has sidelined education issues of enduring importance such as poverty, equity in school funding, school segregation, health and physical education, science, the arts, access to early childhood education, class size, and curriculum development. We have witnessed the erosion of teachers’ professional autonomy, a narrowing of curriculum, and classrooms saturated with “test score-raising” instructional practices that betray our understandings of child development and our commitment to educating for artistry and critical thinking. And so now we are faced with “a crisis of pedagogy”–teaching in a system that no longer resembles the democratic ideals or tolerates the critical thinking and critical decision-making that we hope to impart on the students we teach.