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Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice
Here are eight ‘Schools of Opportunity’ that do extraordinary things for students
Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post; Kevin Welner, National Education Policy Center
Teens in Seaside, California work together to build a complex robot. A diverse group of young people with and without special educational needs learn through their interest in agriculture on the last working farm in Chicago’s city limits. Youth born in more than 30 different countries study together and support one another in challenging and engaging courses in Lincoln, Nebraska. These vibrant learning opportunities are not fictional — they, and similarly exciting lessons, are happening in the eight public high schools recognized today as “Schools of Opportunity” by the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. For the past several years, the National Education Policy Center has recognized select public high schools as Schools of Opportunity. These schools are using research-based approaches as they strive to close all the opportunity gaps within their reach. They create supportive cultures and maintain high expectations while engaging all students in deep, meaningful learning. They embrace their diversity and build on the strengths of their students. They’re remarkable schools—ones that we should hold up and emulate. Yet they also would reject the idea that they or any other school can or should be asked to perform miracles. There are no miracle schools. In this way, our Schools of Opportunity highlight two core problems that we all, as a society, must wrestle with and solve.
Despite promises, Trump administration has had little impact on public education in California
Louis Freedberg, EdSource
A year into his presidency, neither Donald Trump nor his secretary of education Betsy DeVos has inflicted anything like the damage on K-12 education that many public school advocates feared based on his campaign pledges and public pronouncements. The threat of a major expansion of school “choice” programs from the billionaire duo — in the form of government subsidies for private school tuition — has failed to materialize. When he ran for president, Trump promised to “pursue” within his first 100 days what he called the School Choice and Education Opportunity Act. In Trump’s pre-election vision, the legislation would “redirect education dollars to give parents the right to send their kid to the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school of their choice.” It would also “end the Common Core and bring education supervision to local communities, and expand vocational and technical education, and make two- and four-year college more affordable.” No such act has materialized so far. Nor has his pledge to target $20 billion in federal funds on school “choice” programs for low-income children. Even though DeVos last week cryptically declared that “at the U.S. Department of Education, Common Core is dead,” the new standards in English language arts and math are still being implemented in California and dozens of other states.
Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor pushes for civics requirement in schools in Seattle visit
Claudia Rowe, The Seattle Times
If schools chief Chris Reykdal gets his way, civics education will become a required course for all Washington students. And he received a big boost toward that end from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was in Seattle Tuesday talking with teachers, law professors and fellow judges about the importance of teaching kids how, and why, to engage with government. Though she stopped short of making any overtly political statement, Sotomayor spoke with deep feeling about the likelihood that immigrant children who had fled other countries might be reluctant to either trust or participate in the political process. No one is born knowing how to be a citizen, Sotomayor said, walking the floor of the Westin Hotel’s grand ballroom and looking directly into the eyes of her listeners. “You have to be taught what that means.” Her remarks came at the end of a day spent generating renewed interest in civics education and continuing the efforts of retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who unveiled her iCivics initiative in 2009.
Language, Culture, and Power
Parent changemaker: Fighting for teacher home visits
Education Week
At first, single dad Paul Lumpkin was worried when his daughter’s kindergarten teacher asked to visit them at home. Now he advocates for parent-teacher home visits across the country.
Helix students protest police officer throwing teen to ground during Friday arrest
Lyndsay Winkley, The San Diego Union-Tribune
Hundreds of high school students marched out of their classes and joined community members in front of Helix Charter High School on Monday to protest the actions of a La Mesa police officer who threw a female student to the ground last week. More than a half-dozen speakers called the officer’s response to the girl a clear example of excessive force and demanded he be removed from his position as a school resource officer. “This protest, it isn’t about race, it isn’t about gender, it’s about a police officer using excessive force on a teenage student,” said Destiny Tuinei, a senior at the school.
The kids in LAUSD who most need dual language instruction aren’t enrolling yet
Kyle Stokes, KPCC
Los Angeles Unified school officials often tout the district’s “dual language immersion” programs as a huge success story. In dual language programs, students spend at least half – if not most – of their day learning in a languages ranging from Spanish, Mandarin or even Armenian. Each dual language classroom features a mix of native English speakers with students who speak the “target language” proficiently. By next year, school district officials will have tripled the number of dual language programs offered since 2012. The expansion is driven by research suggesting there could be a huge upside for English learners: dual language instruction has the potential to help this needy population deepen their native language abilities while — all at the same time — becoming proficient in English and growing other academic skills. But in a presentation to the school board on Tuesday, L.A. Unified officials said they were concerned that of the 150,000 English learners in the district, only 6 percent have enrolled in a dual language program so far.
Whole Children and Strong Communities
Laptops and phones in the classroom: Yea, nay or a third way?
Anya Kamenetz, NPR
“If something on their desk or in their pocket dings, rings or vibrates — they will lose focus.” “Students are doing so much in class, distraction and disruption isn’t really something I worry about.” How should teachers — both K-12 and college — deal with the use of computers and phones by students in class? On the one hand, those sleek little supercomputers promise to connect us to all human knowledge. On the other hand, they are also scientifically designed by some of the world’s top geniuses to feel as compelling as oxygen. So where does that leave teachers? Should you ban these devices in the classroom? Let students go whole hog? Or is there a happy medium? This seemingly simple topic ends up being what one professor and pedagogy expert calls “a Rorschach test for so much that’s going on in education.”
Formerly incarcerated fathers write and perform play about the justice system
Carla Javier, KPCC
A group of formerly incarcerated fathers are bringing their experiences to the stage with a show they wrote called “A Man Like Me.” At a recent rehearsal in Atwater Village, one of the actors asked why they had to sit so close together for a scene set in jail. “We’d be talking and people would always try to come up and hang on the end of the bed,” 54-year-old Derrick Hill told him, remembering his own experiences behind bars. That’s the point of the play: to help people who have been incarcerated transition from inside of prison to outside and share their experiences. The collaboration received a Re-Entry Through the Arts Grant from the California Arts Council.
They used to be afraid of police. Now, students ask: ‘Are they coming?’
Debbie Truong, The Washington Post
Students hesitated when Renee Gorman shared the idea of inviting police officers to Hutchison Elementary School in Herndon, Va., for a new school club two years ago. “They’re bad,” the kids said of police, Gorman recalled. “They’re mean,” others would say. The response, school officials said, reflected fears in the community around Hutchison, a school with newcomers from El Salvador and Honduras who arrive in Fairfax County seeking safety. About 70 percent of the school’s students are English learners. Gorman, a school counselor, has worked with children whose parents were deported and who regard police warily. “It’s very hard to break down that vision that law enforcement didn’t cause this,” she said. “But we’ve been able to do that.” The remedy, she said, has been Project Hope, an after-school club intended to diminish fears and build relationships between schoolchildren and officers from the Herndon and Fairfax police departments.
Access, Assessment, and Advancement
The promise of performance assessments: Innovations in high school learning and higher education admissions
Roneeta Guha, Tony Wagner, Linda Darling-Hammond, Terri Taylor, and Diane Curtis, Learning Policy Institute
As states, districts, and schools are expanding instruction to include the competencies associated with college, career, and civic readiness, they are also developing ways to measure mastery of these deeper learning and higher-order thinking skills. These measures include performance assessments, such as portfolios, capstone projects, and senior defenses, alongside classroom performance. Meanwhile, more than 900 colleges have made standardized tests optional in their admissions processes and are looking for more effective ways to recognize an array of student accomplishments. As a result of these converging trends, a growing number of colleges are seeking more ways to include these broader portfolios of student work in their admission processes. This report looks at how these assessments, which focus on the kind of learning students will need to be successful in our innovation economy, are being used to inform college admission, placement, and advising decisions, as well as how they’re being used to leverage deeper forms of learning at all levels. The report describes a number of highly effective k-12 performance assessment systems in the United States and abroad and includes an appendix on current state policies supporting performance assessment. The report also discusses how college curricula and assessments are changing to foster deeper learning, and describes innovative college admission systems using these assessments.
Five hurdles that keep school systems from improving
Andrew Ujifusa, Education Week
Among states that received the lowest grades in the latest Quality Counts report, the Education Week Research Center identified several common challenges. These include relatively high rates of children and parents living in poverty, limited opportunities for early learning, and struggles with producing strong academic outcomes. These states also have (and provide) limited resources and funding to their K-12 systems. Here are some snapshots of how low-performing states are dealing with these challenges—or the hurdles they continue to face. In some cases, the proposed solutions to these problems, like new revenue for schools, come from state capitals. In other areas, such as preschool and parent education, school districts and local communities have tried to tackle them.
UC students speak out against proposed tuition increase
Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times
University of California students urged regents Wednesday to reject a proposed tuition increase, saying it would hurt those already struggling to afford the high costs of housing, textbooks and food. Regents meeting at UC San Francisco are scheduled to vote later in the day on the proposal to increase tuition and student services fees for state students by 2.7%. That would be an extra $342 for state students, which would bring their total bill to $12,972 for the coming academic year. Non-resident students would pay an additional $978 in supplemental tuition, and $28,992 overall. UC officials say increased financial aid would cover the higher costs for more than half of UC’s 180,000 California undergraduates. About two dozen students stood up at the regents meeting, holding signs saying “FUND OUR FUTURE” and “UC U suck.” Sarah Abdeshahian, a UC Berkeley student majoring in political science and economics, criticized regents for increasing tuition by more than 300% in the last 15 years. Yet, she said, the 10-campus UC system was founded 150 years ago on the “revolutionary idea that college should be available for all.” “The UC is not accessible,” she said. “A vote for this tuition hike is a vote for exclusion, privatization of our public institution and further basic needs insecurity.”
Inequality, Poverty, Segregation
California lags behind most states in providing timely services to infants and toddlers
Ashley Hopkinson, EdSource
California lags behind most states in providing timely services to infants and toddlers with disabilities or developmental delays, and as a result, those children often wait weeks or months before receiving services. That was one of the findings in a new report published by the Legislative Analyst’s Office. The report, titled, “Evaluating California’s System for Serving Infants and Toddlers With Special Needs,” assesses how California serves more than 40,000 children under the age of 3 with a disability or a significant developmental delay, such as not speaking or walking as expected. It compares the state’s two agencies responsible for providing services to infants and toddlers with special needs — regional centers and the K-12 school system, which administers those services through school districts and county offices of education. Regional centers are operated by the California Department of Developmental Services. The report recommends that the state provide services only through regional centers, which serve 82 percent of the state’s infants and toddlers with special needs. “We identified what we thought were important weaknesses in the system. One of those weaknesses is a disjointed system,” said Ryan Anderson, a spokesman for the Legislative Analyst’s Office. The LAO states in the report that if one agency is responsible for all children with special needs, it would reduce delays and ensure equity.
How talented kids from low-income families become America’s ‘Lost Einsteins’
Alexander Bell, John Van Reenen, Raj Chetty, Xavie Jaravel, The Conversation
Innovation is widely viewed as the engine of economic growth. To maximize innovation and growth, all of our brightest youth should have the opportunity to become inventors. But a study we recently conducted, jointly with Neviana Petkova of the U.S. Treasury, paints a very different picture. We found that a child’s potential for future innovation seems to have as much to do with the circumstances of his or her family background as it does with his or her talent. We concluded that there are many “Lost Einsteins” in America – children who had the ability to innovate, but whose socioeconomic class or gender greatly reduced their ability to tap into the social networks and resources necessary to become inventors. Our analysis sheds light on how increasing these young people’s exposure to innovators may be an important way to reduce these disparities and increase the number of inventors.
What school-funding debates ignore
Jack Schneider, The Atlantic
Supporters of urban education frequently make the case that city schools are underfunded. Hampered by reliance on local property taxes, they contend, urban schools lack the resources they need to ensure their students succeed. In most states, though, spending on education in rich and poor neighborhoods is relatively equal. And in states including Minnesota, New Jersey, and Ohio, city schools regularly outspend their suburban counterparts. Even in those cases, however, achievement disparities between suburban and urban schools persist. Those who advocate against increased funding for urban schools are quick to point to this fact as evidence that more money won’t make a difference. How can this be? How can advocates allege that urban schools need more money when disparities in student achievement do not appear to be the obvious result of disparities in spending? The idea that equal inputs will produce equal outcomes presumes a degree of similarity across families and neighborhoods. Yet generations of inequality have constrained opportunities for people in marginalized communities, often most forcefully through racially isolated neighborhoods with vastly uneven access to mainstream social, political, and economic life. Given this context, producing equal educational outcomes would seemingly require more than equal funding. It would require addressing the specific historical injustices that affect student learning—paying down what the scholar Gloria Ladson-Billings has called the “education debt.”
Public Schools and Private $
How voucher advocates created a blue-state loophole to Trump’s tax law
Kevin Welner, National Education Policy Center
In this policy memo, Kevin Welner explains how voucher advocates inadvertently paved the way for Democrats’ plan to skirt a punitive element of the tax law passed by Congress in December 2018. Republican voucher advocates developed, spread, and defended the legality of a system of dollar-for-dollar tax credits for donations to private voucher-granting organizations as a way to evade prohibitions in state constitutions against spending public state money on religious schools.
LA’s choice: In charter wars, board members say they will seek bridge builder as next schools chief
George White, EdSource
As the Los Angeles Unified school board gears up to select a successor to Superintendent Michelle King, one of the major issues it will have to consider are the candidates’ views and positions on charter schools. Charter schools have been a major source of tension and conflict in the district, brought on in part by the presence of 224 independently run charter schools in the district, more than any other district in the nation. Another 54 are charter schools run by the district. Last spring, candidates supported by funds from wealthy charter school advocates won a majority on the seven-person board for the first time. Now, following King’s announcement this month that she will retire by June 30 for medical reasons, the new board will have an unexpected opportunity to make the most important decision any board can make — hiring a superintendent who will shape the direction of education policies in the district, possibly for years to come.
Public school supporters say NC school choice programs need more accountability
Keung Hui, The News & Observer
As school choice supporters celebrate their success in North Carolina, supporters of traditional public schools say state leaders should demand more information about how taxpayer money is being used in charter schools and private schools. Increasing transparency and accountability for school choice programs was one of the top 10 education issues for 2018 on a list released Wednesday by the Public School Forum of North Carolina, a nonpartisan advocate for better schools and more public funding for education. With the state planning to spend $1 billion over a 10-year period on vouchers for children to attend private schools, forum leaders say those schools should be held to the same standards as public schools.“Private school voucher opponents recognize those programs are not likely going to go away even if they believe strongly that they take away much needed resources from our public schools that educate the vast majority of students,” said Keith Poston, president and executive director of the forum. “We believe all of these school choice programs need oversight and accountability.”
Other News of Note
School shooting in Kentucky was nation’s 11th of year. It was Jan. 23.
Alan Blinder and Daniel Victor, The New York Times
On Tuesday, it was a high school in small-town Kentucky. On Monday, a school cafeteria outside Dallas and a charter school parking lot in New Orleans. And before that, a school bus in Iowa, a college campus in Southern California, a high school in Seattle. Gunfire ringing out in American schools used to be rare, and shocking. Now it seems to happen all the time. The scene in Benton, Ky., on Tuesday was the worst so far in 2018: Two 15-year-old students were killed and 18 more people were injured. But it was one of at least 11 shootings on school property recorded since Jan. 1, and roughly the 50th of the academic year. Researchers and gun control advocates say that since 2013, they have logged school shootings at a rate of about one a week. “We have absolutely become numb to these kinds of shootings, and I think that will continue,” said Katherine W. Schweit, a former senior F.B.I. official and the co-author of a study of 160 active shooting incidents in the United States.