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Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice
What will the future of L.A. Unified look like? Two very different visions are battling it out
Howard Blume and Anna Phillips, Los Angeles Times
Beneath the mudslinging and big money that dominated this week’s school board elections, a serious battle is being waged over competing visions of local education: one sees progress and the need for stability; another sees failure and prescribes radical change. Candidates supported by teachers unions’ financial muscle have positioned themselves as defenders of traditional schooling. Backers of charter schools, which are mostly nonunion, spent even more money to put forward an opposing group of candidates.
Federal budget knife could slash into K-12 programs
Andrew Ujifusa, Education Week
President Donald Trump’s push to drastically reduce domestic spending as a way to boost defense spending could have a significant impact on programs at the U.S. Department of Education, where the biggest streams of funding go toward low-income students and those with special needs. But its precise effect on overall federal K-12 aid remains unclear, as do the prospects for Trump’s budget plan in Congress. Early last week, Trump announced a proposal to increase defense-related spending by $54 billion in fiscal 2018, which begins in October, and to cut nondefense discretionary spending by a corresponding figure. That amounts to a 10 percent across-the-board cut for domestic agencies like the Education Department. The Trump administration is expected to release more details about its spending priorities later this month, but it’s not certain how the cuts in discretionary spending would affect each agency.
Senate overturns Obama-era regulations on teacher preparation
Emma Brown, The Washington Post
The Senate voted 59 to 40 Wednesday to overturn Obama administration regulations meant to ensure that new K-12 public school teachers are ready for the nation’s classrooms. The House has already approved the measure, and the White House has indicated that President Trump intends to sign it. “This regulation actually makes the assumption that bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., are competent to micromanage teacher training programs in America,” Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “That’s absurd.” The regulations, which stemmed from the Higher Education Act, require each state to issue annual ratings for teacher-prep programs within their borders. Poor-performing programs would lose eligibility for some federal student aid. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) argued that the regulations would help prospective teachers make informed choices about which training programs to pursue. “It helps make sure students can make informed decisions about the quality and preparedness of their education,” Murray said.
Language, Culture, and Power
Dream Act application numbers surpass last year’s after successful campaign to overcome fears
Larry Gordon, EdSource
A campaign to allay undocumented students’ anxieties produced a last-minute rush of applications for California Dream Act college grants and brought the total to slightly higher than last year’s, officials said Friday. For months, the numbers of applications had been badly lagging for the state-funded financial aid that low-income undocumented students can use for public and private colleges and universities in California. Administrators had attributed the decline to students’ and families’ fears that information on the application might be turned over to federal immigration authorities and used by the Trump administration to deport young people or their relatives.
Why American universities need immigrants
Jonathan R. Cole, The Atlantic
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” To these familiar words engraved on a plaque on the Statue of Liberty that express the compassion and tolerance of American society at its best, one might add: “Give us your inquisitive and creative minds, who aspire to truth and knowledge, Who we will weave into the fabric of our great universities.” Opening America’s arms to immigrant populations and political refugees affirms it national ideals and compassion. That tolerance has also been instrumental in the ascent of the country’s university system to international preeminence. But while America is often spoken of as a “nation of immigrants,” it has not always welcomed immigrant groups with open arms or accepted them as “true” citizens during perceived perilous times. A prime example of the capacity for intolerance (and later admission of the shame of these actions) occurred 75 years ago when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which led to the internment of up to 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese origin after the outbreak of World War II. Their incarceration was based on fear, xenophobia, and racial prejudice. The order was upheld, of course, in the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous Korematsu v. United States decision in 1944—a decision that has not to this day been overturned. Looking back, most people would concede that the order was a gross mistake—a stain on the integrity of American democracy.
‘We are angry’: Families of transgender children meet with Betsy DeVos
Moriah Balingit, The Washington Post
With tears in their eyes, Vanessa and JR Ford recounted to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos the story of their transgender daughter Ellie, sharing the drawings where Ellie depicted herself as a stick figure in a little dress and telling her about Ellie’s fourth birthday, where she declared “I am a girl in my brain and my heart.” In the Department of Education conference room, Ellie sat nearby sketching characters from Sonic the Hedgehog and munching on apple sauce. She had just met the secretary, the Fords later recalled, giving DeVos her classic fake-out handshake in which she ran her tiny fingers up the woman’s arm, squealing “squirrel!” The Fords, who live in the District and send Ellie to a charter school, joined other families of transgender children at a Wednesday meeting hoping to persuade DeVos to do more to protect transgender students, whom they say have been imperiled by the Trump administration’s move to roll back Obama-era protections two weeks ago.
Whole Children and Strong Communities
Survey: Many college students need a lot more than academic support to succeed
Mikhail Zinshteyn, EdSource
Graduates of one of the best known charter school networks in the nation experience significant financial and other hurdles while in college, including difficulties getting work-study jobs and internships related to their career aspirations, according to a recent survey. Conducted by the KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) charter school organization in 2016, the survey attempted to get a sense of the challenges facing college-going alumni of KIPP’s 200 schools in 20 states plus Washington D.C. Twenty-five of those schools are in California. KIPP surveyed its approximately 10,000 alumni currently in colleges throughout the United States and received responses from 2,969 of them.
Teachers, parents struggle to comfort children of color fearful of targeted raids
Melissa Hung, NPR
In early December, Joann Lee and her family were crossing the street in front of The Los Angeles County Museum of Art. A white van was stopped at the light. Out of nowhere, Lee says, the driver of the van, a white woman, said to Lee’s 7-year-old daughter, “You are the most disgusting girl in the whole world. Your family killed my family so you could enjoy a day at the museum.” Lee was shocked. Her daughter Terin was confused. “It wasn’t overtly racist, but there were overtones. … We were clearly a large group of Asians crossing the street,” Lee said. Bystanders chastised the woman and unsuccessfully tried to snap a photo of her license plate. Meanwhile, Lee wasn’t sure what to tell her daughter.
L.A. Unified sues city housing authority over cost of lead, arsenic cleanup at Watts high school
Sonali Kohli, Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Unified School District has spent more than $1 million in the last three years cleaning lead and arsenic from the soil at David Starr Jordan High School in Watts.
Now the school district is suing the city’s housing authority to get those costs covered. The district says that the contamination seeped into the soil from a neighboring parcel of land that the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles bought in 2008 to develop. The school district says the school’s arsenic and lead levels are currently safe but that the housing authority needs to take responsibility for the work that’s already been done as well as for any future work. “This is an environmental cleanup cost recovery action,” said L.A. Unified general counsel Dave Holmquist. “We have not been able to get the housing authority to step up and do what their responsibility is.”
Access, Assessment, and Advancement
New California commission looks for long-range plan to meet child care needs
Louis Freedberg, EdSource
Opening the first meeting of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Early Childhood Education, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, said that the primary reason he ran for office was to be able to address child care needs. Rendon, who convened the commission, worked in early education for years before coming to Sacramento. He said he established the bipartisan commission, made up of 18 lawmakers, advocates and practitioners, “to have a forum outside the budget process to discuss our early childhood education system and how to improve it.” Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, D-Bell Gardens, a commission co-chair, noted that despite a state investment of just over a half billion dollars, at least 300,000 eligible children in California do not have access to state subsidized child care.
What the numbers really tell us about America’s public schools
Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post; David C. Berliner, Regents’ Professor of Education Emeritus at Arizona State University
For many years I have been writing about the lies told about the poor performance of our students and the failure of our schools and teachers. Journalists and politicians are often our nations’ most irritating commentators about the state of American education because they have access to the same facts that I have. They all can easily learn that the international tests (e. g. PISA, TIMSS, PIRLS), the national tests (e. g. NAEP), the college entrance tests (e. g. SAT, ACT), and each of the individual state tests follow an identical pattern. It is this: As income increases per family from our poorest families (under the 25th percentile in wealth), to working class (26th-50th percentile in family wealth), to middle class (51st to 75th percentile in family wealth), to wealthy (the highest quartile in family wealth), mean scores go up quite substantially.
Working class students answer: Is college worth it?
Michael Martin, NPR
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: If you are a high school senior who’s headed to college or the parent of one, you’re probably just recovering from the whirlwind of getting those applications ready. Now, you’re probably biting your nails over where you’ll end up this September. But in the middle of all this, did you ever ask yourself why are you going to college to begin with? I’m headed to Madison, Wis., this week to ask that question. It’s the latest in NPR’s live event series we call Going There. Our subject this time is Who Needs College? Now, Wisconsin is home to one of the largest public higher education systems in the country. But even in Wisconsin where a public university system is as old as the state itself, some are now asking is it worth it? Does the cost equal the benefit for the student or the taxpayer?
Inequality, Poverty, Segregation
Suspending students costs billions in economic losses, new study finds
Francisco Vara-Orta, Education Week
A growing cadre of public policy researchers and lawmakers agree that school discipline rates remain high for black and Hispanic students, and those with disabilities, but a new study from the University of California takes it a step further by connecting suspension rates to major economic impacts. Researchers found that suspensions lead to lower graduation rates, which in turn leads to lower tax revenue and higher taxpayer costs for criminal justice and social services. The researchers followed a single cohort of California 10th grade students through high school for three years and found that those who were suspended had only a 60 percent graduation rate—compared to an 83 percent graduation rate for students who were not suspended. The result: An economic loss of $2.7 billion over the lifetime of that single cohort of dropouts who left school because they were suspended, researchers found.
Can a court decision help close the achievement gap?
Emily Richmond, The Atlantic
When policymakers and advocates refer to education as “a civil-rights issue,” fiscal equity is often framed as a piece of that equation. And in a landmark ruling, the Kansas Supreme Court has ordered the state to address significant shortfalls in how its public schools are funded, citing low academic achievement by black, Hispanic, and low-income students as among the deciding factors. As The Wichita Eagle explains, the suit was filed by four school districts but the ruling applies to all of Kansas’s public schools: “The districts claimed the state had failed in its constitutional duty to provide ‘suitable’ funding for public education on two counts: Ensuring adequate state funding overall, and equitably distributing it among districts.” African American and Latino students, as well as children and youths from low-income families, have been particularly hard hit, according to the unanimous court ruling, which pointed to dismal test scores and graduation rates as evidence of the impact of insufficient funding.
There’s a double gender gap in higher education — and here’s why
Caroline Simon, USA Today College
Think about your professors and college administrators. Chances are very good that the women among them are making less money than their male colleagues. The question is: Why? There are a lot of reasons why women aren’t paid equally to men, but when Jackie Bichsel finished her report on the pay gap in higher education administration, she arrived at the conclusion that inequality boils down to one main problem. “It seems like there are a lot of people who want to explain the pay gap with reasons other than discrimination,” she said. “But the end result is, it’s discriminatory.”
Public Schools and Private $
School vouchers are not a proven strategy for improving student achievement
Martin Carnoy, Economic Policy Institute
Betsy DeVos, the new U.S. secretary of education, is a strong proponent of allowing public education dollars to go to private schools through vouchers, which enable parents to use public school money to enroll their children in private schools, including religious ones. Vouchers are advanced under the rubric of “school choice”—the theory that giving parents more choices regarding where to educate their children creates competition and thus improves low-performing schools. (Charter schools, though technically funded and regulated similarly to public schools, are another key private school component of the choice argument and another top policy priority for DeVos.) DeVos’s nomination and confirmation have heightened the debate over using privatization, versus other school improvement strategies, to enhance educational outcomes for students and their schools. This report seeks to inform that debate by summarizing the evidence base on vouchers. Studies of voucher programs in several U.S. cities, the states of Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, and in Chile and India, find limited improvements at best in student achievement and school district performance from even large-scale programs. In the few cases in which test scores increased, other factors, namely increased public accountability, not private school competition, seem to be more likely drivers. And high rates of attrition from private schools among voucher users in several studies raises concerns. The second largest and longest-standing U.S. voucher program, in Milwaukee, offers no solid evidence of student gains in either private or public schools.
Trump frames ‘school choice’ agenda as civil rights initiative
Louis Freedberg, EdSource
Against the backdrop of a series of ongoing controversies and embarrassing missteps concerning civil rights and race, President Donald Trump, backed by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, is framing his push for greater “school choice” as a civil rights initiative, intended to help the nation’s most disadvantaged children. In his speech to a joint session of Congress last week, Trump said “education is the civil rights agenda of our time,” reprising the exact words of President Barack Obama in 2011 and President George W. Bush in 2002. He repeated that phrase when he and DeVos visited a private Catholic school in Florida last Friday – the first school he has visited since becoming president. This time he made the connection even more explicit by quoting Martin Luther King, Jr.
Teacher: What school ‘choice’ looks like from my classroom
Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post; Sarah Yost, Oldham County Middle School
After having taught and served in leadership roles for the past 12 years in three public schools, I’ve seen my share of tough kids. There have been heartbreaking cases, like that of DeAnthony, whose mother was in prison for killing one of his friends in a drunk-driving accident. She often wrote him from prison to say that he was the only thing that kept her from killing herself. He worked through his anger in the classroom, sometimes throwing chairs, refusing to work, disrupting, and sometimes targeting students and teachers. Later he would apologize, ashamed, and recommit himself to his work with zeal and concentration. He wanted to be an entrepreneur. He wasn’t the only student who had something to be angry about. Angela and her six younger siblings were taken from their drug-addicted mother and sent to live with a grandmother who resented having to care for them. Another student, John, hadn’t gone to school until he was 7, when the neighbors called Child Protective Services and he was put in foster care. At 14, he could barely read and struggled to write coherent sentences. Still another student, Adrienne, was obese and sallow, as she subsisted only on fast-food leftovers her mother brought home from her minimum-wage job and on government-subsidized school breakfasts and lunches. On weekends, holidays and snow days, many students like Adrienne went hungry.
Other News of Note
The violent fight for higher education
Jon Marcus, The Atlantic
From one side of the highest levels of the University of Witwatersrand administration building stretch the lush green neighborhoods of this city’s wealthy, mostly white, professional class. From the other: the distant, ugly brown piles of toxic waste left by more than a century of gold-mining, around which huddle townships crowded with poor and less well-educated blacks. It’s a stark and symbolic contrast. And one of the best views of it is from the vestibule outside the 11th-floor office of the university’s chief executive, where uniformed security guards are posted. The guards are a dramatic reminder of how violent protests have become over who gets to go to college in South Africa and the escalating cost of that education. And while the underlying issues of price and access based on wealth and race almost exactly mirror those in the United States and other places, nowhere else in the world has the right to a higher education moved so passionately and quickly to the forefront of the political stage.
Teaching about WWII Internment Camps? New interactive tool available
California State Library
The California State Library has recently released an interactive tool (some might call it an educational game) that leads individuals through various scenarios faced by Japanese-American citizens and resident aliens of Japanese descent during World War II. This tool may be utilized by social science and history instructors to encourage discussion and critical thinking about the subject. All scenarios have a basis in real events and are cited with links.
Just News from Center X is produced weekly by Leah Bueso, Anthony Berryman, Beth Happel, and John Rogers. Generous support from the Stuart Foundation allows Center X to provide this service free to the general public.
