AM News: Nearly Half Of States Changing Certification

More Teaching and Less Testing NYT: New York and up to 25 other states are moving toward changing the way they grant licenses to teachers, de-emphasizing tests and written essays in favor of a more demanding approach that requires aspiring teachers to prove themselves through lesson plans, homework assignments and videotaped instruction sessions.

Biden: Romney Doesn't Think Education 'Is Worth The Investment' AP: Vice President Joe Biden, in a speech Sunday to the nation's second largest teachers unions, said Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney doesn't treat public education as a priority and distrusts the hardworking teachers who struggle to create opportunity for the nation's young people.

Ohio Probes Its Schools in Alleged Data Fudging WSJ: The Ohio Auditor of State has launched a statewide probe into allegations that several school districts fudged student data in an effort to improve the districts' academic standing.

Is a charter school chain called Rocketship ready to soar across America? WashingtonPost: Cities across the country, including in the District and New York, are clamoring for Rocketship to set up shop. The Obama administration has invested $2 million to speed its growth.

Tennessee Directs Nashville to Back Charter School WSJ: The Tennessee State Board of Education has cleared the way for a charter school backed by neighborhood parents to open in middle-class West Nashville.

Adelanto school parents seek charter operator Los Angeles Times: Adelanto parents' first choice was a partnership with the district that would retain most employees and services but give parents control to hire a principal with more power over curriculum, budgets and staffing decisions. 

 

 

Comments

[Bruce]

The actions in Tennessee appear encouraging. There are plenty of middle class parents who want better opportunities for their children, and I'm glad to see that at least one state board sympathizes with them, since local school districts can't be counted on to act in their constituents' interests when they conflict with their own.

The whole step of having charters approved by local education agencies probably ought to be skipped; we ought to apply directly to state agencies that lack a vested interest in protecting a local monopoly. Sweden and England have good policies in this regard, better than those we've been using in America.

[CarolineSF]

The idea that local school board members oppose charters because of a "vested interest in protecting a local monopoly" is one of those PR falsehoods created by the "reform" sector's PR machinery. It has inexplicably taken hold, even though it's obviously out of touch with reality. Think it through for a few seconds.

Say you're a local board of education member and a promising charter proposal is presented to you. You recognize its promise and support it. The charter opens and is a great success. The entire district benefits.

If you're the school board member who supported it, you get to take credit for it.

If you're a decent human being who cares about the best interests of kids and education, hurray. You have made a decision that benefits kids and education, PLUS you get to take credit.

If you're a crass self-promoter who couldn't give a crap about the best interests of kids and education but only about your personal self-aggrandizement, you STILL win, because you can take credit for the successful charter that you helped bring to your community. That boosts your campaign for higher office, or your bid for a cushy position or fellowship in the bounteously funded ed "reform" sector.

There's no downside to supporting this successful charter, no matter what.

Unfortunately, the successful charter that benefits the entire school district is a figment of my imagination.

In reality, local school board members tend to oppose charters because they know that charters harm the other schools in the district, draining away funds and often skimming off the more motivated and compliant students -- those with motivated and supportive families. Also, charters are overall less successful than public school, and they provide fertile new pickin's for looters and con artists.

Here in Northern California, we've seen recent situations where parent communities opposed charters.

-- In Santa Cruz, a small group of parents attempted to start a Montessori charter that was opposed by the parents in other district schools because of the obvious fact that it would drain scarce resources from their schools. (The lead organizer didn't live in the Santa Cruz district and barely attempted to conceal her contempt for the high Latino population in the school her child would be attending in her actual district.) I believe that effort has been dropped.

-- In Los Altos Hills, a small, high-income Silicon Valley suburb, an existing charter school is attempting to expand, which has caused explosive controversy and division among parents in the community. The charter has won a court battle for a site that may force a non-charter school to close. High legal expenses and a fractured community are collateral harm to the district and its children.

-- In tiny Lagunitas, in rural west Marin County, there was a move to turn an existing district school into a charter. (This is already an innovative school with three separate programs -- one Waldorf-inspired, one Montessori and one "open," about which I don't have further information.) The proposal created controversy and division in the school, and eventually was dropped. Parents who opposed the charter made this great video urging those who had signed the charter petition* to rescind their names.**

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ssspVf6v_k

Do the anti-charter parents in these communities also have a "vested interest in protecting a monopoly," or are they concerned about the best interests of children and education in their communities?

I dispute the falsehood from the charter sector PR machinery claiming that school board members oppose charters to protect their own interests (or out of jealousy, as is often stated). I urge you to take the high road and stop repeating it, @Bruce.

*Not a parent trigger, but a long-existing process for charterizing a school.

**These parents were allowed to "take their name off," unlike the parents in the current parent trigger case, but that's another story. Perhaps the mostly white parents in Lagunitas are allowed that choice and the mostly Latino parents in Adelanto aren't.

[Bruce]

Caroline, your comment makes a reasonable presentation of the viewpoints of anti-charter parents and of many school board members, but neglects an important, third set of actors. First, with respect to your question about the anti-charter parents, I don't think they see a difference between the two alternatives you propose: many are concerned about the community's best interests, and many of them don't want charter schools under any circumstances, so they protect existing status quo monopolies, consciously or otherwise. But if you will read more carefully, you will see I (not some speculatively identified "charter sector PR machinery"; I wrote the words, from direct and very personal experience, and was repeating nothing and no one) referred to "local education agencies", which are by no means equivalent to school board members. The significant actors your comment ignores are district staff members, whose jobs are reduced when charter schools are opened and succeed in drawing students away from the traditional local monopoly.

[CarolineSF]

Fair enough that I wasn't thinking about district staffers. The usual line (promoted by all kinds of reform-pushing editorial writers, for example) is that it's school board members, with their supposedly self-serving votes against charters. That SO flies in the face of reality, for the reasons I've outlined -- plus the fact that all the wealth and power is behind the charters. Wouldn't a self-serving elected official want to kiss up to the wealth and power, not do something that might pit him or her against them plus get him or her blasted by the charter-loving MSM?

But is it really the case that an increase in charters correlates with reduced district staffing? That isn't something you ever hear discussed. Is there data? Here in San Francisco, I've seen the same staffers recommend in favor of some charter applications and against others, which would lead me to believe that they're applying case-by-case judgment -- and SFUSD is not viewed as a particularly charter-friendly district. Is there data indicating that many district staffers recommend wholesale against all charter applications? This is new to me; I've never heard it discussed in any context before; and (naturally) I'm skeptical.

[Bruce]

Elected officials are generally like all other human beings, in my experience -- they come in all stripes. Charters, as you well know, draw students away from existing schools, and districts that used formula-based staffing therefore have to reduce staff (often by attrition) as they lose students. If you compared LAUSD's numbers for total number of students, total district employment (paying particular attention to the out-of-classroom employment), and students in district-authorized charter schools in the last ten years, I'm confident you'd find startling correlations. But districts also come in all shapes and sizes, so I doubt you'll find useful data on percentages of district staffers recommending in favour of or against charter petitions -- such recommendations are usually kept confidential.

[Sarah]

I think it’s great that teaching certification is no longer going to be granted everywhere based on writing or testing ability, but teaching ability. In fact, I’m kind of appalled this wasn’t already the case.

[Sarah]

And to be fair on Biden’s part, I haven’t seen either candidate make the commitment to education that really suggests either man is taking education seriously as a necessity for the future.