Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice
Unanimous Supreme Court expands scope of special education rights
Mark Walsh, Education Week
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a major decision expanding the scope of students’ special education rights, ruling unanimously that schools must do more than provide a “merely more than de minimis” education program to a student with a disability. In Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District, the high court rejected the “merely more than de minimis” standard set by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, in Denver. That language was also used in an opinion in another special education case by Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court.
Trump budget would result in loss of hundreds of millions in education dollars to California
Louis Freedberg, EdSource
Even as his proposed 2017-18 budget calls for increasing funding for “school choice” programs, President Donald Trump is proposing to cut programs that would result in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal support to California for early learning programs, K-12 schools, teacher preparation and retention, and college student aid. If Congress were to agree to this proposal, the cuts would come as part of deep budget reductions Trump is seeking in numerous federal departments and agencies, while massively increasing spending on defense and homeland security. All states would feel the proposed cuts. But because of its size, California receives the largest amount in federal support and therefore would experience the most cuts, affecting the largest number of students.
What education programs could still be vulnerable in Trump’s budget?
Andrew Ujifusa, Education Week
President Donald Trump’s budget plan for education has singled out several programs to be slimmed down or eliminated. But all we know right know is based on a mere two pages in a 62-page “skinny” federal budget the administration released last week. It doesn’t necessarily detail all or even most of the cuts and additions Trump’s team wants to make. Once the administration releases a more-detailed budget proposal for Congress to consider—and it might be several weeks before this is released—we’ll know a lot more about what Trump wants to do for public school spending. In the interim, we talked with two veteran education staffers in Washington: Tom Corwin of the Penn Hill Group, a lobbying firm, and Michele McLaughlin, the president of the Knowledge Alliance, a research and advocacy group. They discussed which programs might be particularly vulnerable to proposed cuts, elimination, or some kind of lack of love from Trump. Here’s a few programs they mentioned.
Two-decade old legal battle over special education oversight nears resolution, brings major changes
Jane Meredith Adams, EdSource
The California Department of Education said last week that it will comply with a federal court order to improve significantly its system for monitoring special education, after years of legal maneuvering to block the changes. The department said it would end its legal challenges and follow a “corrective action plan” for special education monitoring issued in 2014 by the U.S. District Court of Northern California in San Francisco. On March 9, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a mandate upholding its December decision that the state must comply with the district court order to follow the corrective action plan. The department had sought a rehearing, after losing its appeal to overturn the order. Legal recourse would be an appeal to the high court, which the department said it had rejected.
Language, Culture, and Power
It is up to states to ensure English learner and immigrant students receive a quality education
Julie Sugarman, EdSource
Betsy DeVos was narrowly confirmed as U.S. Secretary of Education despite widespread concerns ranging from her lack of experience in public education to worries about her beliefs regarding vouchers and charter schools, religious education, and accountability for the education of traditionally underserved children. Her selection and President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement–focused executive orders have left many parents and educators wondering how the new administration’s policies will affect students from immigrant families and the schools that serve them. The simple answer: It depends on the actions of state and local policymakers where those students live.
Teaching language with culture in California
Deepa Fernandes, NPR
Elementary school teacher Ron Morris of Riverside, California goes a step beyond to understand his students’ backgrounds. It’s one way Morris incorporates the culture of his students in the classroom.
What federal support for arts education looks like in California
Priska Neely, KPCC
On Friday afternoons, adults learning English at a school in Wilmington — a neighborhood near the Los Angeles Harbor — switch from vocabulary and grammar to Taiko, Japanese drumming. “It is really unusual, but it is very interesting how it motivates you to continue growing your vocabulary,” said Carmen, who’s been a student in the Taiko class for three years. She came to the United States from Guatemala five years ago and makes time for the ESL classes in between working as a housekeeper. “Taiko pulls me to continue coming to school,” she added. “When you’re playing music, you think about listening and following and constantly pushing yourself to grow,” said Kris Bergstrom, an instructor with the Los Angeles Taiko Institute, “and that’s the same thing you’re doing when you’re learning language.” The Taiko program for adult ESL students was developed by the Grand Vision Foundation, a San Pedro-based nonprofit, and is supported by a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Whole Children and Strong Communities
Fifty education groups tell Congress: Reject the GOP health care bill
Alyson Klein, Education Week
Some fifty education groups are urging lawmakers to vote against the American Health Care Act, better known as the GOP alternative to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare to the haters. The reason? The bill, which is being pushed by both President Donald Trump and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., the speaker of the House, would make changes to the way that Medicaid is funded. It would base state allocations in part on how many people they have from a particular population. Proponents say this will help states be more creative with their Medicaid dollars, but the education groups argue that it will lead to significant cuts, to the tune of $880 billion over time.
Do healthy lunches improve student test scores?
Melinda D. Anderson, The Atlantic
For more than a decade, standardized-test scores have been the dominant metric for measuring what public-school students know and are able to do. No Child Left Behind, the sweeping federal education law enacted in 2002, ushered in a new era of student testing and school compliance. And in the years that followed—to meet targets and avoid sanctions—education leaders at the local and state levels have sought a variety of ways to boost students’ performance on tests, including extending the school day and giving bonus pay to teachers based on students’ test scores. Even less conventional methods, such as banning cell phones and offering yoga-like exercises, emerged as school administrators pursued the holy grail of high standardized-test scores. But according to a new study, there’s one option that may have been overlooked: the ubiquitous school lunch. As detailed in a recent paper, economists set out to determine whether healthier school lunches affect student achievement as measured by test scores. The intense policy interest in improving the nutritional content of public-school meals—in addition to vendors’ efforts to market their school meals as good for the body and the mind—sparked the researchers’ curiosity and led to an unexpected discovery: Students at schools that contract with a healthier school-lunch vendor perform somewhat better on state tests—and this option appears highly cost-effective compared to policy interventions that typically are more expensive, like class-size reduction.
The consequences of forcing young kids to sit too long in class
Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post; Angela Hanscom, Pediatric Occupational Therapist
It originated on my blog here as what appeared to be a simple plea for people to wake up to the dark realities of restricting children from two things: movement and outdoor play. It got picked up and posted here and here and elsewhere, and it keeps going viral even today, nearly three years later. Why does this message resonate with the hearts of so many? It is a great indicator that there are many truths behind this article — ones that we need to start paying attention to. And they remain the same truths today: In order for children to learn, they must be able to pay attention. In order to pay attention, we must let them move!
Access, Assessment, and Advancement
The unnoticed threat to public schools
Michael Dannenberg, Democracy Journal
While the eyes of public education advocates remain transfixed on Secretary Betsy DeVos and President Trump’s private school voucher and “skinny budget” aspirations, they are missing the far graver threat to public schools—tax reform. Most mainstream media publications report that the federal role in financing local public schools is small, targeted, and progressive. They stipulate that the federal government is responsible for less than 10 percent of all education spending, supplied mainly through the Title I program for low-income children and IDEA special education program. They report that, while federal funding for education could be more targeted, it’s nonetheless relatively progressive in that more of it goes to schools and school districts with a larger number of children from low-income families. But these reports are wrong, and you can bet Republican budget experts and political operatives know it. They know that federal financial support for public education is significant, general in nature, and disproportionately favors “blue” states. Under dark cover, they’re going to go after sizable amounts of federal support for public schools with a vengeance, using filibuster-proof vehicles of budget reconciliation and tax reform.
Trump administration’s delay of rule to regulate career-training programs sparks protest
Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, The Washington Post
To obtain an associate degree in medical assisting at McCann School of Business & Technology in Pennsylvania, students can expect to pay $30,860 for a program that runs a little over a year. Nearly all students borrow to cover the costs and wind up with more than $26,000 in debt, but only 7 percent of them graduate on time. Of those who complete the program, barely half find work and typically earn around $20,300. Because of the high investment and low returns of this program, the Education Department in January said it failed accountability standards under the gainful-employment rule, and risked losing federal student aid funding. But now that the Trump administration has given schools like McCann more time to appeal their reviews, advocacy groups worry that career-training programs with poor outcomes will endure to the detriment of students.
CSU to overhaul remedial education, replace no-credit with credit-bearing classes
Larry Gordon, EdSource
The California State University system plans to overhaul its remedial education system by 2018, scrapping no-credit courses in English and math and replacing them with credit classes that include extra tutoring and built-in study sessions. Too many students are placed by testing or high school grades into noncredit classes that aim to prepare them for college-level work. But that strategy often backfires by making them feel unwelcome on campus and that they are wasting time and tuition money, officials told a Long Beach meeting of the CSU trustees Tuesday. A switch to specially-designed credit courses will create a sense of progress toward graduation, reduce attrition and expose students right away to a higher level of academic work, administrators behind the plan explained.
Inequality, Poverty, Segregation
Why are we criminalizing black students?
Tyrone C. Howard, Education Week
A recent special report in Education Week revealed serious concerns about the prevalence of school resource officers at elementary and secondary schools across the nation (“Policing America’s Schools: An Education Week Analysis,” Jan. 25, 2017). On the surface, the presence of law-enforcement personnel would seem to be a good step in helping to create and sustain safe learning environments for students and school personnel. However, a deeper look at the presence of SROs on school campuses raises serious concerns that reflect a pattern of racial inequities about who is policed, who is profiled, and who is punished. Consider the fact that black students are most likely to be punished despite often being one of the smallest populations in many school districts across the country. Data shown in Education Week reveal that black males are three times more likely to be arrested at schools than their white male peers. Black girls do not fare much better: They are arrested 1.5 times more than their white male peers. It is not the sheer number of arrests that is so disturbing, but the disproportionality: Of the schools that referred students to law enforcement, 17 percent of their enrollments were black, yet 26 percent of all students referred to law enforcement were black. Across a majority of states, no other group has such a high arrest-to-enrollment ratio.
Suspension rates for African-American students escalate in middle school
Jane Meredith Adams, EdSource
Middle school administrators suspend the highest percentage of African-American students in California among K-12 schools, with middle school representing a discipline turning point for African-American students, according to a report on race and discipline in California schools released Wednesday. “Middle school appears to be the chronological dividing line for when African-American suspension rates escalate,” according to the report from the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. The findings are the latest to suggest that what happens in middle school is crucial in trying to decipher the persistent over-representation of African-American students among students who are suspended. A study published in February by researchers at the University of Texas and Stanford University examined the “trust gap” in middle school, when African-American students perceive that discipline is meted out differently to students who are black and become disinterested in following rules they see as unfair. And a 2016 study by researchers at UC Berkeley found that a brief online intervention for teachers at five California middle schools halved the rate of suspensions by encouraging teachers to reflect on how they would like to interact with students.
L.A. Unified diverts funding for neediest students, report charges
John Fensterwald, EdSource
Los Angeles Unified has steered additional money to high schools with large concentrations of disadvantaged students over the past three years, but failed to do so for elementary schools, a report released Monday concluded. For those schools, the district ignored the requirement of the Local Control Funding Formula to direct extra resources and establish effective programs in schools with low-income students, foster youths, homeless students and English learners, which the law defines as high-needs students. The report was produced by the United Way of Los Angeles and the Committee for Los Angeles Student Success, a coalition of nonprofit groups. Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at University of California Berkeley, directed the research. The report examined how the district spent $372 million in extra dollars – called supplemental and concentration funding under the formula ¬– that the funding law said should be targeted for high-needs students.
Public Schools and Private $
Charter schools in line to get extra help despite Trump plan to slash education funding
Mikhail Zinshteyn, EdSource
Charter schools in California and elsewhere stand to be a major beneficiary of President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for the coming year, even though he wants to slash $9.2 billion from many other federal education programs. Trump called for $1.4 billion in new funding for a “school choice” program that includes an increase of $250 million to subsidize tuition for private schools and $168 million for expanding charter schools. An additional $1 billion is for a program that would allow students to attend a public school of their choice, which could include charter schools. Trump has provided no details for any of these programs.
Do private school vouchers promote segregation?
Aria Bendix, The Atlantic
With school-choice booster Betsy DeVos at the helm of the Department of Education, private-school vouchers are getting new life and plenty of renewed attention. Last Thursday, the Trump administration cemented vouchers’ official return by releasing its “America First” budget, which allocates $20 billion in annual funds, or about a third of the new education budget, to school-choice programs, including private-school vouchers. DeVos has championed vouchers throughout her career, and she indicated they will remain her priority as education secretary. “Vouchers in the K-12 arena sometimes fall short but still provide meaningful support to enable students to attend the institution of their choice,” she said at her confirmation hearing. One of the areas in which vouchers often fall short, of course, is in their ability to integrate private schools along racial, religious, and socioeconomic lines. But DeVos argues that integration and voucher programs go hand in hand. At her hearing, she told Senator Patty Murray: “I do not support programs that would lead to increased segregation. Empirical evidence finds school-choice programs lead to more integrated schools than their public-school counterparts.”
Key Democratic senator outlines a case against school vouchers
Emma Brown, The Washington Post
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, a key Democratic leader on education policy, made her case against private-school vouchers in a 20-page memo to her Senate colleagues Wednesday, arguing that “school choice” sounds good in theory but falls short in practice. President Trump has promised to pour billions of dollars into expanding choice initiatives, including taxpayer-funded vouchers for private and religious schools. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is a longtime advocate for such efforts, arguing that they provide poor children with life-changing opportunities. But voucher programs too often fail to hold private schools accountable for their students’ performance, fail to serve children in rural areas, and fail to protect the rights of students with disabilities and other vulnerable young people, wrote Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
Other News of Note
How Chicago became the first city to make reparations to victims of police violence
Yana Kunichoff and Sarah Macaraeg, YES! Magazine
Somewhere between his 12th and 13th hour inside a Chicago Police Department interrogation room, Lindsey Smith decided to confess to a murder he didn’t commit. Multiple officers had pistol-whipped, stomped on, and beaten him, again and again. Convinced he would not otherwise live through the ordeal, Smith signed a false confession for the attempted murder of a 12-year-old White boy. At 17, Smith too was a boy. But with one major difference: He was Black.