Events: Next Week's Yale Summit

There's lots that's familiar about this year's Yale Education Leadership Conference, including the location (New Haven), the visit to Amistad (Thursday morning), and some of the panel topics and panelists.

But there are also some new/newish elements -- a panel on the parent trigger, a segment on building diverse coalitions, and how other non-education sectors have changed. Providence Mayor Angel Taveras or Louisiana State Superintendent John White are doing the Friday morning keynote. See full agenda panel lineups here.    @YaleELC and use #ELC2013

Afternoon Video: Pi Visualization Mural

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I came across this interesting-sounding high school math / mural project over the weekend, at roughly the same time as I first learned about Fibonacci numbers, which are apparently being used by management consultants to boost productivity in ways I don't quite understand (yet).  A visualization of pi for high school math students (Flowing Data).

Report: Mayoral Control Helps Districts (Mostly)

A new report out from a Washington DC think tank closely associated with the Democratic Party takes a look at the history of “mayoral control” of big-city school systems in which City Hall runs a district rather than an independently elected Board of Education.

According to the report, written by a pair of academics from Brown University and the University of Minnesota (and funded by the Broad Foundation), mayoral control doesn’t work everywhere but is associated with rising test scores and “can be a catalyst for reform.”

A recent oped in the Washington Post suggests that mayoral control limits community engagement and has proven itself not to be the silver bullet that had been hoped.

Voter turnout in the recent LA school board elections was roughly 14 percent, and the two candidates won election outright did so with roughly 15,000 and 30,000 votes.  Image via CAP. Cross-posted from LA School Report.

Philanthropy: Wealthy Liberals Ignore/Abandon Reform Critics

This new Ken Stern article in the Atlantic points out that the very rich don't actually give that much to charity, proportionately, and that they don't give that much to things like K-12 education when they do (Why the Rich Don't Give to Charity). 

Stern tries to unpack why the wealthy are so relatively stingy, but my main interest is wondering why whatever money is available from wealthy individuals doesn't go to K-12 education or to agencies that provide services to the poor:  

"Of the 50 largest individual gifts to public charities in 2012, 34 went to educational institutions, the vast majority of them colleges and universities," writes Stern, "Not a single one of them went to a social-service organization or to a charity that principally serves the poor and the dispossessed." 

Ouch.  That isn't very good.

A secondary question -- not addressed in the Atlantic article but on my mind -- has to do with the notable absence of wealthy donors who choose to fund programs supported by reform critics.  There are rich liberals all around -- fatcat Democrats and do-gooders who do their best to limit fracking and get Elizabeth Warren elected. But those who are giving to education -- Broad, Zuckerberg, Jobs -- aren't giving to reform critics, at least not so far as I know.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my impression that wealthy liberals have in recent years either ignored or abandoned the approaches and efforts espoused by reform critics. That wealthy liberals would do so -- fund reform efforts rather than the approaches espoused by reform critics -- is either very sad, or it tells you something about the level of frustration and impatience with the ideas and programs reform critics espouse. 

Thompson: Secrecy, Not Privatization, Marred Broad Grad's Oklahoma City Tenure

Alexander' recent Scholastic Administrator Profile of Eli Broad makes a strong case that Eli Broad does not seek to privatize public schools.  Those of us who despise Broad's policies are on firmer ground when explaining how the harm he has caused is due to his self-proclaimed "art of being unreasonable." 

Russo cites the education blogger (and critic) Tom Hoffman who says the Gates Foundation is “feckless and trendy” on school reform, as compared with the “focused malice” of the Broad Foundation. I agree, but, who cares whether Broad's damage is the result of his impatience or anger?

According to Russo, Broad has been willing to make adjustments in his metrics, and two districts asked his foundation to do diagnostic audits of their systems.  I welcome any diagnostic metrics and I would also offer a suggestion. 

Oklahoma City's Broadie ordered audits of seven aspects of our school system, but he kept them private.  Because he did not use public funds, the audits were not even subject to Freedom of Information requests.  I have always wondered if our very talented and sincere Broad graduate would not of have produced a six-month disaster before resigning if those audits had prompted an open policy discussion. So, I wonder if Eli Broad would support diagnostic and transparent audits. -JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.

Listen: Newark Officials Discuss School Improvement, Local Control

A forum last night featuring Newark's Cory Booker, superintendent Cami Anderson, and others seemed pretty interesting from the recap discussion I heard on WNYC earlier today:

 

Or, if you want to hear the entire thing as it happened, live, click here: 

 

Show page comments are here.

Update: Reformers Reflect On Los Angeles

This is a post I wrote yesterday for LA School Report in which insiders defend -- and critique -- the Coalition-funded campaign on behalf of three LAUSD school board members:

Insiders who spoke with LA School Report over the past few days generally rejected criticisms aimed by some outside observers at the Coalition for School Reform-funded campaign to elect a slate of reform-minded candidates to the LAUSD School Board.

“Because Kate [Anderson] lost, every single thing [the Coalition] did looks wrong,” said one insider who — like most of those contacted for this story — declined to talk on the record.

In particular, insiders denounced the notion that the campaign consultants hired by the Coalition were incompetent or conflicted by their work for other clients including labor groups.

“The way consultants get clients is by winning,” said another insider.  “Pulling punches for the possibility of future client work makes no sense.”

However, the insiders – a half-dozen campaign and school reform veterans familiar with the Coalition and its consultants — generally agreed that there were specific strategic decisions and actions that SCN Strategies, the consulting firm hired to do most of the Coalition-funded work, might have wished it had decided differently – and might have affected the outcome of the District 4 race, which Zimmer won with 52 percent of the votes.

One insider described SCN as “good people who didn’t run a great campaign.“

Read the full post here: A Good - But Not Great - Campaign.  Of particular interest nationally is the discussion of how LA reformers failed to respond to the "outside money" attack and will continue to hear it until they come up with a better response.

Reckhow: "You Can't Bring Reform To A Community"

The feature article in the newest issue of One Day (the Teach for America alumni magazine) struck a chord for me.

It tells the story of George Washington Carver High School in New Orleans--a historically black high school and anchor of the black community in NOLA's Ninth Ward. The school was reopened after Katrina, but it has been restructured and currently houses 2 charter operators.  

The article shows reformers who bear little resemblance to Michelle Rhee in their style and approach to politics, and includes voices of community members who fought the charters in Carver.

The article still advances some bold claims about academic progress in NOLA and details Teach for America's substantial presence. But once you get past those few paragraphs, it's not typical "One Day" material, and it's an interesting read.

Update: Growing Criticism Of LA Reform Campaign

The Republican National Campaign isn't the only outfit trying to figure out what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening in the future.  

Somewhat reluctantly, reformers are trying to understand the outcome of the March 5 primary day election for the LAUSD School Board, which included a win for incumbent Monica Garcia but a frustrating loss for challenge Kate Anderson.

According to many observers, absentee ballots played a big part in giving UTLA-endorsed candidate Steve Zimmer a massive lead even before primary day votes were cast -- and before the Coalition-funded campaign got into gear  (How Steve Zimmer *Really* Won).  

But there were other issues.  Challenger Kate Anderson and her allies declined to attack Zimmer for his videotaped 2009 remarks in support of UTLA (The Zimmer Attack Ad That Never Was) or to make him explain his position on the removal of teachers accused of sexual abuse, which is a hot-button issue in LA.  

Most recently, a rival campaign consultant sent a letter to former Mayor Richard Riordan slamming the Coalition-funded campaign for over-relying on mailed flyers and running a static cable TV ad campaign (Coalition Campaign was “Half-Hearted and Incompetent”). 

More to come.  All via LA School Report.  Image via RNC.

Audio: On "This Policy Stuff," "Power Responds To Power"

Didn't go to Denver last weekend for #LEEnow?  Me, neither.  But you can get a taste of some of the things that were discussed in this panel on "Politics, policy, and advocacy"  from the Cal Charters seminar from San Diego last week, featuring LEE VP for Educational Equity Brian Johnson as well as classroom teachers like Daniela Kim and Joshua Thomas.  Recorded at the 20th Annual California Charter Schools Conference, March 13, 2013 in San Diego.  

Update: Vatican-Endorsed School Reform

Several of yesterday's news stories about the new Pope for the Catholic church made mention of the fact that the new Pope is a Jesuit. (The Jesuits are special order of Catholics known for their steely gaze and firm handshake, as well as their relatively rigorous brand of parochial education.)

But few if any noted that the Jesuits play a small but fascinating role in recent school reform history, via the Cristo Rey Network of schools, which is a 25-school model of education featuring a mix of Jesuit academics and work-study experiences that nominally help drive down tuition costs.  

Yes, that's right.  The new Pope comes with his own school reform model. I only know this because I wrote about the Chicago school for City Limits roughly a decade ago, and because Marvin Hoffman wrote about it again in 2008 for the Chicago Tribune.

Other reasons to want to know about this model? The Cristo Rey network has been supported for many years by the Gates Foundation.   And it's spreading.  See list of development sites here.  Image via Vatican.

Reform: Why EdTech Gives Me The Willies

My concerns about edtech aren't so much that someone might make money -- that's already happening in education and everywhere else, and has been for years. It's a big endeavor, this public education thing, and many of us -- including teachers -- are making all or part of a living off it. So some folks are getting rich?  Secondary concern.

Even the personal politics of some of those positioned to take advantage of ed tech -- who include not only the so-called "bad guys" like Gates and Murdoch but also (don't forget!) supposed relatively "good guys" like Amazon and Apple and the College Board -- doesn't bother me a ton.  Everyone's got a view, and generally thinks he or she is right. You're no different; you just don't agree with them.   

What really bothers me -- gives me the willies, actually -- is that the current reform movement (leaders, funders, organizations) may already be turning its relatively small but essential energies away from the success and tough lessons of the last 5-10 years (which include the limits of charter school expansion, value-added, and ending LIFO) towards the new, sexy edtech stuff like MOOCs, tablets, blended learning, big data, and augmented learning -- thereby passing by (again) the really deep and transformative problems facing education (teacher preparation and support, for example, or early literacy) that need everyone's undivided attention.

New ideas and approaches are great, but often don't end up being as transformative as they sound in the early stages and can distract folks from deeper, tougher, more critical endeavors.  If you're going to do edtech, for example, why not do universal access? Image CCFlickr

 

Funders: You Don't Know Broad

Check out this new Scholastic Administrator profile of philanthropist Eli Broad (Impatient Philanthropist) in which you will learn that Broad says he doesn't want to privatize public education and read some of the ways that Broad's approach differs from the Gates Foundation on several key issues (the parent trigger, Michelle Rhee, and TFA, among other things).  

Hate philanthropist reformers on sight?  It won't make any difference to you.  Curious about how they differ and what makes them tick?  You might be interested.  

Other articles worth clicking from Administrator (which sponsors this blog) include The Homeschool Twist: Districts experiment with partial homeschooling for gifted students. Kentucky: The First Domino?  Early Common Core results show a steep drop. Is your state next?  Interview With Terry Grier: A plainspoken leader takes Houston ISD in innovative directions—and holds all parties accountable, Sell Your Schools: Figuring out your schools’ return on investment can be a big selling point when it comes to board and public buy-in.

Thompson: Partial Takeover Of LAUSD Only Beginning For Bloomberg

The outcome of last Tuesday’s Los Angeles School Board election might have seemed anticlimactic, writes Education Tweak in Bloomberg Acquires Partial Stake in LAUSD,  but the education journal of farce explains that the partial takeover is a part of a longterm strategy:

"Bloomberg’s spokesperson, Ollie Garkey, insists that further acquisitions in this and other districts will take place over the next several years.” Bloomberg still intends to “'liquidate unproductive assets in the LAUSD and we expect new investors to join our team.'” 

The spokesperson says  that Bloomberg has produced better results in the high-risk election market than Karl Rove, but he has a more transformative goal. “As is, the system is unworkable and unacceptable. The entire investment community must now work together to design a more reliable election process.” Garkey asks, “How fair is it when the high bidder is denied the purchase?-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.

 

Media: "This American Life" Vs. Oprah Winfrey

Some of the people who've seen Blackboard Wars -- the Oprah Winfrey Network reality series about the effort to fix a New Orleans high school -- are objecting to the depiction of the kids, teachers, and school.

One blog post against the show calls it “Cops” meets “Dangerous Minds,” describing the show as promoting a tired trope about urban teen violence and exploiting poor kids "for ratings and national school reform cred."

To be sure, the decision to invite cameras into John Mac was a controversial one -- not only in the school community -- where 90 percent of kids but only half the teachers signed release forms -- but also within Future Is Now Schools, the nonprofit charged with making things better there. I've written extensively about FIN founder Steve Barr and am no stranger to his strengths and weaknesses as a school reform leader.

But I have to ask, how is Blackboard Wars really all that different underneath it all from This American Life's recent depiction of life at Garfield Harper High School in Chicago, which generated widespread admiration and (so far as I know) very little backlash locally or otherwise?  

Quotes: Moving Past The Union-Reformer Stalemate

The moneyed coalitions can't make the union go away. Try as it might, the union can't exclude civic elites. -- Claremont University professor Charles Taylor Kerchner in the LA Times.

Alt Cert: TFA "Interns" Allowed To Keep Teaching ELLs (For Now)

Yesterday afternoon, the California Teaching Commission -- headed by Stanford University education professor Linda Darling-Hammond -- decided to tighten down on alt cert requirements for roughly 2,200 teachers working with ELL kids -- rather than immediately disqualifying the teachers (officially known as "interns".) 

But it was a close call, and TFA and other alternative certification providers aren't out of the woods just yet.  Read all about it: Interns lose status as authorized English learner instructors, Stricter state controls placed on teaching interns, Higher standards coming for state’s intern teachers.

One of those who testified against allowing alternative certification candidates to teach ELLs was a TFA alumna Rigel Massaro (pictured, courtesy EdSource Today).  

This is just the latest in a decade-long skirmish between alternative certification critics such as LDH and TFA over the eligibility of its members to work with disadvantaged children.  In California and nationally, TFA members are deemed to be "highly qualified" according to a controversial Bush-era regulation that's been repeatedly challenged in court and in Congress. 

The TFA loophole was last extended by Congress in 2012, with the requirement for a report on the distribution of alternative certification teachers within a year. Read all about it here:  How TFA Almost Got Left Out Of NCLB.  

Thompson: Building A *Better* Better Reform Taxonomy

Eric Horowitz’s In Search of a Better Education Taxonomy is a rough draft for better terms for discussing education policy.

Horowitz  identifies himself with a complicated formula that boils down to a fair summary of the beliefs of many members of the faith-based movement known as school "reform." His post reads like something a teacher might expect in a blog entitled, “Peer Reviewed by My Neurons." After apologizing in advance for mischaracterizing anybody’s position, Horowitz misstates that of Diane Ravitch.

But, even so, his post is constructive. Let me take you through his taxonomy, and then share with you my own.

Advocacy: Ravitch Creates New, Ravitch-Centered Group

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.  That seems to be the main message behind the creation of a new education advocacy group that is hoping to push its agenda to parents, the public -- and elected officials.  

The Network for Public Education (NfPE?) -- not to be confused with the recently shuttered Public Education Network -- is being created to do what StudentsFirst, DFER, Stand, and 50CAN have been trying to do (organizing as a 501c4 rather than a traditional nonprofit, endorsing candidates, and maybe even creating a PAC).

Only it's an anti-reform kind of group, and for now at least it will rely on social media rather than big funders.  And it's going to be run by Diane Ravitch (plus Anthony Cody, Leonie Haimsen, and the other usual suspects).

According to EdWeek (Diane Ravitch Launches New Education Advocacy Counterforce), Ravitch will be the main spokesperson for the group, and hopes that it serves as some sort of umbrella organization for the other groups -- Save Our Schools (the annual march and yellow icons in peoples' Twitter avatars), Parents Across America, and Broader Bolder.

I wonder how the other anti-reform groups feel about this new entrant, and about relying ever more heavily on Ravitch. Mixed feelings, I would imagine.  I wonder how they'll coordinate and cooperate -- an issue the reform advocacy groups have struggled with.  I wonder what it does to reform critics' purity of message to be doing some of the things that they've long criticized. 

But the sturdy band of reform critics are already very good at social media, and have broken into mainstream media coverage of education as well (a mind meld with some beat reporters if there ever was one).  If a sympathetic funder -- Ford, for example, or one of the unions -- they'd have some resources to expand (if also some credibility and hypocrisy issues to deal with). 

Barnum: Can We Talk About How Expensive TFA Has Become?

This is a guest commentary from Matt Barnum, at TFA 2010 alumnus who's now at the University of Chicago Law School:

Those of us engaged in the education policy debate have heard, many times over, all the arguments for and against Teach For America.

That’s why I was not surprised when much of the response to a recent TFA critique I wrote for the Washington Post “Answer Sheet” blog fell along traditional lines.

A few reform critics posted it gleefully on Twitter; the reform community, on the other hand, by and large ignored it – another day, another critique of TFA. Yawn.

This is understandable insofar as some of my points were old arguments restated and previously rejected by reformers. But I would challenge reformers to seriously consider the cost-effectiveness arguments against TFA.

Why?

Because when thinking about the cost-effectiveness of TFA, I rarely hear discussions about the, uh, costs.

Media: How Everyone's Spinning LAUSD

Still trying to figure out what really happened in LA -- or how to spin it to your own advantage?

Some of the best and worst reporting and commentary since yesterday is rounded up in this post I wrote over at LA School Report ( Tea Leaves, Wishful Thinking, & Self-Justifications).

As you’ll see, the roundup items include questions about the ineffectiveness of the attacks on Zimmer, a couple of stories that wonder why the Coalition took Zimmer on in the first place, and some attempts to connect the LAUSD race to education elections in other places.

There are also an awful lot of quotes from USC’s Dan Schnur -- brother of Jon -- and an LA Times headline that comes to a much stronger conclusion about the outcome than anyone else except perhaps Diane Ravitch.

Campaign 2013: Education's Insider Problem

This recent oped by former LAUSD Board members Yolie Flores and Marlene Canter has me thinking about whether education has an outsider problem or, really, an insider problem.  

I'll leave the outsider argument to others, who have been repeating it ad neauseam -- and to reformers who've been falling into it over and over again (ie, disclosing a $250,000 campaign donation from Rupert Murdoch within 24 hours of primary day).

Let's focus for a moment on education's insider problem, in which public schools are invisible or inscrutable to anyone but those inside the system.

According to Flores and Canter -- good Democrats, both of them -- teachers, stakeholders, and community members used to working with them don't like it when their schools, systems, and the like are meddled with by anyone else. Their calls for democracy and local control are really just code for "go away."

Nowhere is this better illustrated than union leadership elections and school board elections, where the turnout is typically very low and thousands or even hundreds of votes make determine the outcome. According to Terry Moe, turnout for local school board elections is typically less than 10 percent.  In places as big as LAUSD, that means that control over the school board can be won by board members who receive fewer than 20,000 votes -- in some cases fewer than 10,000.

Of course, reformers stand like deer in the headlights when accused of being outsiders, make weak apologies (most of them) about campaign donations or mutter something about it being a broken political system that needs to be fixed.  But there's nothing particularly special about "insider" status, nor particularly awful about being an outsider -- especially when all it means is that you're doing or saying something that insiders don't like. 

For futher reading:  Terry Moe 2006 The Union Label on the Ballot Box  Image via Education Next.

Morning Video: Celebrity Endorsements for School Board Candidates

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Celebrity endorsements are nothing new, but the LAUSD School Board race (primary day is today) may be the first time that local school board candidates are getting them.  So far, challenger Kate Anderson has Eva Longoria, and incumbent Steve Zimmer has John Lithgow, and incumbent Monica Garcia has singer John Legend.

Media: Reuters Story On Data Sharing May Overstate Problem

Over the weekend, Reuters' Stephanie Simon wrote a piece about inBloom, the new Gates-funded data-sharing intiative, that raises concerns about student privacy: K-12 student database jazzes tech startups, spooks parents. According to Simon, the $100M initiative is poised to be tremendously influential -- and controversial -- because of the possiblity that student data including Social Security numbers would be gathered from states and shared among educators.

However, there are some questions about Reuters story.  For example, inBloom says Social Security numbers are not included in its data store and that the use of the data will be done at the direction of school districts.  [Via Twitter, Simon says "inBloom rep told me some social sec #s included; now says no; I'll verify w schools, correct if needed."]

I'm no edtech fanboy, and generally enjoy and appreciate Simon's education coverage.  (There's a quote at the end of her story about edtech hype that is awesome.)  But this piece, like her last one on charter school shenanigans, seems somewhat alarmist and goes out past the edges of the data shared in the story.

Are there problems with state databases being being hacked and releasing sensitive student data? Tell us about them.  How do these issues compare to data security problems in general?  How many states include Social Security data in their student records, and how does this compare with other public agency databases, which have their own Social Security problems? Once again, some context and comparative data would be more helpful than isolated data points suggestively linked together to convey fear.  

LAUSD: John Deasy Vs. Mike Bloomberg

The NYT's Jenny Medina weighs in with a new story about the LAUSD school board race, whose primary day is tomorrow. And, while much of the material is familiar, the story reminds us that LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy has been less much divisive a personality than, say, Joel Klein in NYC or Michelle Rhee in DC.  

Indeed, though they oppose Deasy at nearly every turn -- threatening to block a proposal to make student achievement 30 percent of teacher evaluations is the last example -- the teachers union and many of its endorsed candidates have been very careful not to try and run against him.

Running against NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is much easier -- and in fact has become the union's main talking point.  Medina reports that Bloomberg has only given to an unspecified handful of local school board races in the past, and that StudentsFirst has only given to two (West Sacramento and Burbank).

However, the most useful part of the NYT story is that it reminds us that this year's race is part of a long-running series of conflicts between reform-minded mayors and UTLA going back at least to 2006-2007, when Villaraigosa tried to gain direct control of the school system.

For more on the history of this conflict, look at the $7 million showdown between the Mayor and UTLA in 2007, the last time the school board was up for grabs (and direct contributions were unlimited). For more about the rise in outside spending nationally, read about the DC mayoral primary in which AFT spent $1 million to get rid of Michelle Rhee (and was smart enough not to brag about it ahead of time).

Want the really nitty-gritty stuff?  Read about an uncomfortable encounter between former allies Steve Zimmer and Joan Sullivan (Mayor Villaraigosa's education deputy). And check out the nasty and largely deceptive mailers that are being sent out (including the one pictured here). You can follow all the latest via @laschoolreport.  

Quotes: "Nobody Knows What They're Doing."

The big schemes of the kind that make for dramatic television shows, with lots of moving parts and an exciting denouement, in which the scheme's architect sets it in motion and then sits back as each piece falls neatly into place... That almost never happens. -- Paul Waldman (Nobody Knows What They're Doing)

Campaigns: The "Other" $1 Million Contribution

In some ways, things are radically different than they once were: Mayoral control has replaced independently elected school boards in big-city districts such as Boston, New Orleans, New York City, and Washington DC. -- in large part, some would say, because of problems associated with school board campaigns and elections. Recent changes in campaign finance and disclosure laws allow for the creation of independent campaign committees and unlimited contributions that would previously have been impossible.

In other ways, things are operating pretty much as they always have:  More than a decade ago, the California Teachers Association contributed $300,000 in cash to help elect a San Diego School Board that was more sympathetic to teachers' views than to those of Alan Bersin, the hard-charging superintendent at the time.

Then, just three years ago, the AFT poured $1 million into an effort to unseat a local official the union didn’t like — Washington, DC Mayor Adrien Fenty and his appointed schools chief, Michelle Rhee — and replace him with a challenger the union preferred.

What's the difference between $1 million from the AFT to defeat Adrien Fenty and $1 million from Mike Bloomberg to defeat Steve Zimmer?  Not much, if you ask me -- though Weingarten was way too much of a pro to brag about the union’s contribution ahead of time (or take credit for the win afterwards). If the contributions backfire in LA (as they may), Mayor Villaraigosa and Mike Bloomberg will wish they'd done the same.

Image via DCEduBlog

Media: What's Really "New" About The LAUSD School Board Race?

I'm happy to see more media outlets paying attention to what's going on in Los Angeles -- it's a good story! -- and so it was nice to see this new Hechinger Report story (Local school districts are new target of education reformers).  

Written by Sarah Garland, the story has some interesting quotes and observations (including the strange path that school reform advocacy has followed starting from state and national efforts rather than from the ground up).  The possibility of a voter backlash against the reform advocacy fundraising is a good point and a real possibility (despite the reality that most of the funding is local).

Knowing that other outlets will likely (hopefully) follow up with coverage of the LAUSD story, however, I have to take issue with three of the story's main narrative points:  

* Outside funding coming into local races isn't really new unless you ignore labor unions.  State and national teacher unions have been helping out local affiliates -- giving and loaning each other funds to help out with political races and ballot initiatives -- for decades.   

*State and national reform advocates have been getting involved in local races for the last two or three election cycles. The Hechinger story acknowledges this further down in the piece but overplays the "newness" angle here, too.

* Campaign-focused reform advocacy at the local level isn't really all that new, either.  There aren't that many big city school systems with elected boards anymore, but in LA reform allies have been recruiting school board candidates and gathering up resources to make the races competitive going back roughly a decade. 

What's really new (or at least newish) is reformers out-raising and out-spending the other side  in a local race -- no longer just trying to level the playing field -- which has previously only happened once to my knowledge, last year in New orleans.  

What's also new is that reformers there are trying to emulate the vaunted union ground game with improved field operations (hiring an Obama field operative, etc).  

What's possibly new is that the AFT isn't riding to the rescue with a big infusion of cash -- either because it doesn't think LAUSD is that important, or winnable, or because it lacks the resources.  In 2010, the AFT reportedly gave the DC teachers $1 million to help defeat Adrien Fenty.  Three years later, all UTLA gets is a visit from Weingarten and a $75,000 check.  

Previous posts: What's *Really* Happening In LA; Reformers Try To Match Union "Ground Game"

Update: What's *Really* Happening In LA

For what may be the first time ever -- or perhaps just the most obvious example so far -- pro-charter, pro-accountability backers in Los Angeles are not just leveling the playing field with the teachers union in terms of funding candidates and campaigns but tilting it in their favor. 

Overall spending is already at $3.4 million (see here). There are some places where the spending is close to even -- such as in the race between former reform candidate Steve Zimmer, who's now being supported by the union, and newcomer Kate Anderson. But the majority of it going out from the reform side in the form of mailers and TV ads. 

Whether the money advantage turns into primary day wins is another question, however. There are two key issues to keep in mind, I argue in this new post over at LA School Report (Air War Vs. Boots On the Ground).

The first is that -- just like happens online -- the union and its allies have an enormous advantage when it comes to motivated campaign volunteers to help persuade neighbors and get out the vote.  

The second is that not all of the union's spending seems to be reported and accounted for. As good as the disclosure requirements are in LA, it's a self-reported system and there have been a handful of times where UTLA-PACE, the independent expenditure committee that funds the campaigns, hasn't reported things that seem like campaign activity, or has transferred funding between different IE accounts in ways that are hard to explain and may not match up as they should.

 

Books: New Book About New Orleans Schools Out Today

Today's the day that Sarah Carr's new book, Hope Against Hope: Three Schools, One City, and the Struggle to Educate America's Children.  Check it out.  Buy it.  

Or you can start out with this Atlantic.com excerpt:  The Arcane Rules That Keep Low-Income Kids Out of College. "The labyrinth surrounding scholarships and admissions doesn't account for the messy realities of poor families' lives."

Carr is a longtime journalist who's covered New Orleans schools during a particularly tumultuous time.  She was also a Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship, and writes for the Hechinger Report at Columbia. 

Carr, Sarah Garland, Warren Simmons, and others are appearing at a panel at Teachers College on March 16th.  Register here.

 

Media: Education News Network Hires Managing Editor*

News from the world of nonprofit education media is that Education News Network - -the new entity created by EdNews Colorado and Gothamschools a little while back -- has found and hired a new ME, Maura Walz, a former GothamSchools writer who's most recently been at Georgia Public Broadcasting’s Southern Education Desk, to serve as ME for EdNews Colorado.  

Walz replaces Nancy Mitchell, the EdNews CO editor who left in December.  Other personnell changes include the departure of Rachel Cromidas from GothamSchools, who's been replaced by Emma Sokoloff-Rubin.  "We hope to add another reporter here in Colorado some time this year, depending on how the fundraising goes," says ENN Publisher Alan Gottlieb.

As part of creating ENN, GothamSchools and EdNewsCO have both left their original nonprofit homes  -- the OpenPlans Society and the Public Education and Business Coalition (PEBC) -- and are in the approval process for securing a new 501c(3) designation. "ENN will operate under the fiscal sponsorship of the Colorado Nonprofit Development Center while it waits for the Internal Revenue Service to finalize its 501(c)(3) status," according to a news release going out today.

Previous posts about the merger here, and here. No word yet on where ENN aims to set up shop next.

*Corrections: Walz is going to be ME for EdNews, not ENN overall, and it's OpenPlans not Open Society who was GothamSchools' original fiscal agent.

Quotes: "The Union May Not Like It, But They Should Get Used To It"

Mike Bloomberg is proud to help level the playing field on behalf of children and their families. The union may not like it, but they should get used to it because he is just getting started. -- Bloomberg spokesman in LA Times Steve Lopez column (that's critical of Bloomberg's involvement)

Los Angeles: Reformers Try To Match Union "Ground Game"

This is a story by LA School Report contributor Hillel Aron:

The Coalition for School Reform has been running TV ads and hitting voters with a blizzard of glossy flyers.  

But — having closely lost 2011′s big-money campaign between Bennett Kayser and Luis Sanchez — the reform-oriented campaign committee is also taking its field organization very seriously.

Field organizing — also sometimes called a campaign “ground game” — is the mundane but essential process of finding, creating, and then motivating supporters to vote for a candidate on election day.

“These campaigns are, in many instances, won and lost in the field,” said Sean Clegg, the Coalition’s political consultant. “And the Coalition for School Reform has put together a state-of-the-art field program that is really zeroing in on our voters with pinpoint accuracy.”

To run its 2013 field campaign, the Coalition has hired a firm called 50+1 Strategies, headed by former Obama campaign operative Adissu Demissie, who’s bringing some high-tech tools and techniques to the familiar process of walking streets, knocking on doors, and making phone calls.

“We’re really running a very data-driven, metrics-based, technologically advanced field campaign,” said Demissie, who ran Barack Obama’s 2008 “get-out-the-vote” campaign in Ohio. ”We’re trying to talk to the right people in the right way.”

Read the rest of the story here.

Reckhow: Philanthropy Critique Can Obscure Key Differences

Since Diane Ravitch popularized the phrase “Billionaire Boys’ Club,” the chorus of skepticism and outright disapproval of education philanthropy has been growing.  

Much of the criticism is aimed at coordination and shared agenda priorities among major education philanthropists and federal officials on issues such as Common Core and school choice.

Liberals and conservatives have converged on some of these issues, creating strange bedfellows, such as Michelle Malkin and Susan Ohanian.

Skepticism of education philanthropy is also emerging from unexpected sources. Recent commentary on education philanthropy in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (arguably a more “philanthropy friendly” venue) by Stanley N. Katz concludes with the following:

“I find the brazenness, arrogance, and disregard for public decision making of current philanthropic attempts to influence federal policy just as dangerous to democracy as the critics of the original foundations contended so vociferously 100 years ago.”

And yet...

New: ProPublica Vs. Sitegeist

Check out ProPublica's new, improved Opportunity Gap tool, which lets you find out different schools' achievement gaps and other things.  The new version includes info on a school's Advanced Placement exam passing rates and sports participation, and can be viewed via Foursquare. Want something more mobile (if not necessarily more granular)?  Try the Sunlight Foundation's Sitegeist, which will tell you the demographics of the neighborhood you're in.  Then come back and tell me which is better, or if there's something else that's best of all.  

 

Afternoon Video: "High Quality Charter Schools Are Great"

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First off:  Who let pro-charter, pro-voucher Derrell Bradford on MSNBC's Up With Chris?  Plus: Amusing comment from host Chris at the 3:15 mark ("I feel like the deal with charter schools is, 'Yeah, high-quality charter schools are great.' You know what I mean?  Yeah, awesome!  When they're high quality!") Via DFER

Campaign 2013:: Two-Week Countdown In Los Angeles

Two weeks to go before primary election day, and the teachers union and the reform coalition in LA have already spent $2.2M on flyers, mailers, and TV ads -- and already raised more than double that.  

AFT head Ranid Weingarten slammed NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg for putting $1M into the race -- but state and AFT are considering contribuing to the UTLA campaign fund themselves.

The LA Times editorial page endorsed two out of three reform candidates -- but in such harsh terms that the pull quotes will be worth more to their opposition than the endorsements themselves.  

Celebrity endorsements are all the rage -- Eva Longoria is backing one reform challenger (and might be dating LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa).

Superintendent John Deasy issued a teacher evaluation guidance on Friday telling principals to make student achievement 30 percent of the teacher evaluation -- a reasonable figure given what's being done in other states and districts -- but the district neglected to tell the teachers union ahead of time, and the underlying union-district agreement lacked any specific percentage.  

Last but not least, it's not all campaign battles and conflict in LA.  The school board recently approved 12 new "pilot" schools -- an in-district alternative to autonomous charters and parent triggers.  It's union's least favorite of the three autonomy models that have been negotiated, but appears to be popular among teachers.

All this and more at LA School Report. 

Media: Charter Advocates Denounce Reuters Reporting*

Late last week, Reuters' Stephanie Simon came out with a big story documenting a now-familiar set of complaints about charter schools: burdensome applications, parent volunteer requirements and pushouts.  Some of the examples -- a 23 page application, kids left out of the lottery -- are pretty vivid.

However, NAPCS head Nina Rees took the somewhat unusual step of putting out a weekend response that, essentially, questions Simon's focus on a handful of schools rather than the overall charter environment. Rees notes that there are over 600,000 students on charter waiting lists,  that charters enroll higher percentages of low-income and minority students than traditional public schools. "Perhaps unwittingly, the Reuters article underscores the popularity of charter schools and why more are needed."

Via email, CER's Jeanne Allen added that Simon's story ignored that charter applications are comparable to district school waiting lists and other paperwork procedures that districts require and ommitted the fact that most charter schools feed kids even if they don't apply for the federal funding.

 

Neither Rees nor Allen dispute the specific examples Simon cites.  Rees' contention that charters education a more disadvantaged population than district schools doesn't comport with my reading of the data on urban charters.

However, it's also worth noting that Simon makes an extremely broad-sounding claim - "across the United States, charters aggressively screen student applicants, assessing their academic records, parental support, disciplinary history, motivation, special needs and even their citizenship, sometimes in violation of state and federal law" -- without quantifying the extent of the problem.  The suggestion is being made that the problems are widespread, but at least on the screening practices there are no data.

*UPDATE:  NACSA's Greg Richmond, who represents charter authorizers, emailed that the examples in the Reuters story were troubling. "This story cited examples of authorizers that were ignorant of charter school actions, ignorant of the law, or both." He called for state legislators to improve charter authorization requirements.

 

TV: What's New, What's Familiar In "Blackboard Wars"

So I had the chance to watch the first two episodes of "Blackboard Wars," the new Oprah Winfrey Network reality series that premiers tomorrow night (a month earlier than originally scheduled), and I have to say that I liked it.  Not because it's necessarily accurate, or even particularly new or original (Locke High School, anyone?) but because it's a good reminder of the day to day struggles, the retail work, of making a broken school better.  This is messy, one-kid-at-a-time work done by teachers, counselors, and administrators, and so many of the real setbacks and successes have nothing to do with learning geometry or American history. 

Stone: Mistake To Try & Dismiss New Teacher Leader Groups

This is a guest commentary from Evan Stone, co-founder of Educators for Excellence (E4E), in response to a recent post from John Thompson about an Education Next article, Taking Back Teaching:

What Richard Colvin’s piece. “Taking Back Teaching” made clear is that all across the country teachers want to be more involved in the policy decisions that affect their classrooms and career.  That was the impetus for us starting Educators 4 Excellence nearly three years ago—a group of like minded teachers got together to advocate for the changes we believe will help elevate our profession and improve outcomes for our students. Since then, more than 8,000 teachers across the country have signed on to our Declaration of Principles and Beliefs. At the same time, we recognize that we don’t represent the viewpoints of all teachers – that was never our intention— but rather we are a movement of teachers who have agreed on a common stating point, a direction and a set of norms for debate.   

Our declaration is a broad set of ideas that ground our work in three key areas: elevating the profession, focusing on student achievement, and recruiting, retaining, and supporting effective teachers.  These are not radical ideas and they should not be controversial.   

E4E's membership is diverse. Over a quarter of our members have more than ten years of experience. We are pushing for a system that empowers teachers and schools to have the flexibility and the resources necessary to give their students what they need.  We have fought for teacher-led schools in Los Angeles, leadership pathways in New York City and more revenue in both California and New York.  We believe in local collective bargaining and see the union as critical to improving education.    

E4E is not alone in this work.  There are a number of organizations working to give teachers a more prominent voice - some that agree with our declaration and others that do not. This is a good thing. We need more of these conversations, more teacher leaders, and, above all, a more thoughtful debate about how we can give teachers the respect they deserve and help them do a better job serving their students. 

LAUSD Update: Outside Money, Side-Switching Candidates, & More

The LAUSD school board race hasn't gotten really nasty (yet) and it may not be the most expensive local school board race in the nation (yet), but things are getting really interesting with less than three weeks until the school board election date:

New Yorkers like Mike Bloomberg and Joel Klein have contributed to an independent expenditure committee organized by LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.  (So has Jamie Lynton, the publisher of LA School Report, the education site I edit).  

Just like the Presidential campaign, the outside groups have more funding and flexibility than the campaigns. UTLA has asked for help from its state and national chapters, though so far no funding has been announced.  

DFER California head Gloria Romero is urging support for the reform-minded school board president.  StudentsFirst and DFER national haven't responded yet about whether they're going to endorse or fund candidates, as they did a bit of in 2012.

Meantime, Diane Ravitch has endorsed one of the candidates -- an incumbent named Steve Zimmer who ran last time as a reform candidate but went over to the other side (or realized that being in the middle isn't fun) and is now being endorsed and funded by UTLA, the local teachers union.  AFT head Randi Weingarten flew out to LA to do an appearance with him last Friday.   

Oh, and the parent trigger.  The mayor, superintendent, and even the fractious school board all support it -- voting unanimously in favor of the revamp of 24th Street Elementary School on Tuesday.

Read all about it here. Follow @laschoolreport.  Add it to your RSS feed here. Image via CCFlckr.

Quotes: "The Most Important Voice In Education Reform Today"

Mayor Bloomberg is the most important voice in education reform today... [His $1 million] gift will help us support candidates who stand for greater accountability and more choices for parents and students.  -- LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa

Afternoon Video: Rhee, Henderson, & Others Pass Time Until SOTU

Starting today at 1:00, current and former heads of DC public schools, as well as RI chief Deborah Gist and others are scheduled to be at the AEI #cagebusting event, which will "look at the rules, regulations, statutes, and contracts that inhibit their ability to improve schools and systems."  The livestream link is here in case the embed isn't working.

 

Campaign 2013: All Eyes On LAUSD

Reform advocates in LA and from around the country have already contributed $1.5M to an independent expenditure committee in support of three LAUSD School Board candidates (two challengers, one incumbent).  

The so-called Coalition for School Reform has also launched the first TV ad campaign that's been aired for school board candidates in LA since 2007.  

But UTLA, the teachers union, is far from giving up.  UTLA-PACE has already raised roughly $667,000, and begun sending out flyers and communicating with members about the imporatance of the election.  The union has also put out requests for additional resources from state and national teachers unions, which are forthcoming (amounts TBD).  

On Friday, AFT President Randi Weingarten appeared at a school in LA with one of the union-backed canddiates, Steve Zimmer.  Weingarten announced a $150,000 grant to UTLA to help teachers develop better school improvement plans -- an alternative to radical means like the "parent trigger." The grant comes from AFT's Innovation Fund, which is -- yes! -- backed by the Gates Foundation.

Thompson: Why Some Teachers Embrace "Astroturf" Organizations

Richard Colvin's "Taking Back Teaching" in Education Next quotes policy analyst Julia Koppich, who says, “the new generation of teachers aren’t collectivists, they’re pretty much individualists. They don’t understand unions. And the unions don’t understand them.” I am not sure that the misunderstanding between unions and teachers who have been on the job long enough to find the restrooms is that deep.  But, Koppich's point is well-taken.

Colvin also cites Brad Jupp, a former union leader and an adviser to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan who says that teachers who join groups like E4E  want "personal efficacy."  Similarly Evan Stone, the E4E co-founder explains of his own experience, “Inside our classrooms we had so much autonomy and control, and outside we had no control or influence in the school, the district, or beyond.”

The solution, of course, would be for young teachers to work with veterans to restore the professional autonomy of all teachers, so that we can better influence schools and districts. All educators who value their own individuality should help other teachers who have been turned into "widgets" by high-stakes testing. But, E4E demands the opposite.  Instead, that "astroturf" organization drew "a line in the sand" requiring their members to support its positions on issues ranging from value-added evaluations to school choice and merit pay. 

So, which is it? Are its co-founders, Stone and Syndey Morris "tired of being treated as subjects of change, instead of as partners in transforming the education system.” Or, do they want to exercise their own personal efficacy by helping the billionaires seeking to micromanage teachers? Do Stone and Morris have a problem with turning teachers into cogs in a Model T assembly line or do they just want to be inside the Henry Ford-style cadre who run the operation?-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via. 

Reformers: Make Bold Mistakes, Admit Them, Move On

The best thing I read about the Netflix series House of Cards over the past few days was actually a long feature in GQ about Netflix founder Reed Hastings, who is not only deeply interested in education reform (as well as quite critical of its accomplishments so far) but also a great model of someone who's not afraid to make mistakes, admit them, and move on.  

For Netflix, the most recent (and public) example of this kind of process was Hasting's incredibly unwise decision to divide the DVD and streaming video parts of the Netflix operation, which everyone hated and was quickly undone. Sure, the fiasco took some of the gild off the Netflix lily, but the public approach to its mistake allowed Netflix to recover before too much damage was done and -- this is key -- retain the majority of its credibility.

This kind of speedy response to mistakes  is something that we see all too rarely in education reform these days, with the possible exceptions of KIPP (on college graduation rates) and the Gates Foundation (on small schools and EDIN08, for example).  Most of the time we have the Harlem Children's Zones and TFAs and and Rocketships, which are all presented as having been near perfect from the start, needing only a few small adjustments or re-launches.  

Then -- only after months of questions and defensiveness -- when it comes out that the model has been changed quite substantially, or that some of the initial claims were overblown, skepticism and suspicion sets in even among those inclined to believe.  Claims of success and linear progress may work for funders don't work as well for everyone else, and increasingly reform programs are operating in a world in which the public is watching closely.   Denying mistakes, and spending months hiding or defending them, doesn't seem like a winning strategy in the long run. 

Reckhow: Gates Shifts Strategy & Schools Get Smaller Share

This is a guest post from Michigan State University political scientist Sarah Reckhow, whose new book Follow the Money came out in December:

From a bird’s eye view, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a behemoth in education philanthropy, with considerably more resources than its peers and a highly targeted agenda that magnetically attracts attention from media and politicians.  

But the decade from 2000 to 2010 was a time of enormous growth and evolution for the Gates Foundation. Warren Buffett’s pledge of more than $30 billion substantially increased the Gates Foundation’s resources, and grant-making more than doubled from 2005 to 2009. Even more marked are the Foundation's dramatically shifted priorities, as illustrated by this chart. 

Read on for some preliminary figures and observations about the Gates Foundation's evolution, as well as some challenges and questions about the strategies the foundation is embracing.

Morning Video: Jon Stewart Interviews Michelle Rhee

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Afternoon Video: Bill Gates Does The "Colbert Report"

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In case you missed it (like I did) last week, here's Bill Gates talking with Stephen Colbert about philanthropy and Steve Jobs.  PS:  Rhee is on Colbert (or is it Jon Stewart?) tonight, according to JFR.

Thompson: Russo's Wrong On "Reform Critics"

Alexander Russo acknowledges that contemporary school “reformers’” hubris, their misuse of data, and their distance from the classroom are “pretty familiar now.”   

But his Friday blog post (Sure, The Reform Brand Is Tarnished. But So Is The Other Side's) concludes that “The reform ‘brand’ has become tarnished, sure, but so has the reputation and credibility of all too many reform opponents.  And right now, those of us in the vast middle sort of hate you all -- both sides --  in roughly equal measure.”  

Russo's entitled to his opinion, but he's not being entirely fair or accurate.