Jefferson County Public Schools needs to increase security personnel and surveillance capabilities in their schools.
My children attend [High School Name Redacted] High School. On September 26 my daughter’s purse was stolen at school, along with her car. No thanks to the school or the police, we located the car, and were able to retrieve it with a spare set of keys. Her purse turned up at school minus the wallet and keys. A week later her license and student ID turned up at school – still no wallet or keys. Continue reading “@JCPSKY High Schools Need Increased Security”→
With the release of Kentucky schools’ test scores, parents, district leaders and legislators are cautioned to keep in mind that our schools (and our kids) are more than a test score. The notion that this single metric, which has been shown to correlate more closely with income (or wealth) than it does a student’s intelligence or potential, or a school’s ability to provide a quality education, is harmful to students, teachers and schools. This unhealthy overemphasis on state test scores:
results in a “test-and-punish” mentality that devalues students and demoralizes teachers for factors beyond their control, instead of supporting and acknowledging the hurdles and accomplishments of those serving our highest-needs populations,
promotes a competitive vs. collaborative environment that pits schools against each other, instead of encouraging nurturing learning environments that reward the sharing of best practices and resources,
forces legislators and administrators to place pressure on teachers to focus on short-term, adult-centered concerns instead of permitting highly skilled educators to use their training to teach the lessons that are truly in the best interests of students,
creates unnecessary anxiety, health and self-esteem problems for students, while simultaneously snuffing out their love of learning,
squeezes out meaningful subjects and activities, such as art, music, and extracurriculars, as well as time for lunch and play,
results in disproportionate emphasis on remediation for our high-poverty, high needs (GAP) populations as compared to mainstream populations, which comes at the expense of enrichment, interventions and meaningful instruction for high-needs students who might benefit from it the most,
contributes to excessive teacher turnover in persistently low-achieving schools or schools with higher needs populations,
increases incidence of behavior and discipline problems, and
leads to age-inappropriate activities and content, including teaching our children to properly fill in bubble tests as early as kindergarten!
Worst of all, persistently low test scores have been linked to closing neighborhood schools that serve our most vulnerable students, while opening the door to privatizers and swindlers who are more interested in getting their hands on our tax dollars than they are in improving student outcomes.
“High-stakes test scores are the blood diamonds of public education,” says Gay Adelmann, co-founder of Dear JCPS and founder of Save Our Schools KY. “Well-meaning adults who buy into the hype that these test scores measure the success of a school, or the ability or potential of a child, unwittingly perpetuate the war on public education.”
With the passage of ESSA, local school systems have the opportunity to design a broader, more student-centered accountability system, such as a “dashboard” approach. Kentucky Commissioner of Education Stephen Pruitt said during a town hall meeting in April, “If we don’t come out with an accountability system focused on students, then we’ve failed. It can’t be about adults chasing points. The system needs to promote what’s best for students.” The new federal act requires the system to be in place by the 2017-18 school year, too late to mitigate the detrimental effects of this year’s test results.
If we think of the student as our customer, and teaching is the main thing, Who, then, is the most important person in the district?
Teachers!
And this should be doubly true for our persistently low achieving schools serving our most at risk students? Right?
Yet, our priority school lost another science teacher this week. A school that already has the highest teacher turnover in the district. A school that also has some of the lowest test scores.
Is the correlation of high turnover and low test scores a coincidence? No. Relationships matter. Momentum and institutional knowledge matter. Promises and goals matter. Like Christy Rogers said, “I’ve been with you for the past 3 years. I know you, I know your momma.” Teachers who stay know where students struggle. And they can help students achieve their futures.
Why did we lose this teacher? Did she quit? Was she fired? Did she move to teach in another school or district? NO. She was one of the good ones, in a key content area in a struggling school, you know, the main thing. You still with me?
To show her how much we appreciate her as a teacher WE PROMOTED HER out of the classroom.
Why are we rewarding the best teachers with “promotions” to leave their teaching positions? Seems counter intuitive. Paying them more to do less of something they are actually good at. Teaching. What we need the most of. Teachers. We are a school system. Our primary function is TEACHING. Those should be our highest paid jobs in the district, not the admin jobs.
And while I’m on the subject. The state audit revealed that our district is top heavy in high level district level admin jobs and so far, our district leaders have attempted to freeze teacher and staff salaries, eliminated numerous essential mid-level district staff, but as far as I know they have not touched the top heavy positions that the audit identified. In fact, by my calculations, they have added to those numbers. WHEN can we expect to see high level positions identified in the audit addressed?
Let’s remember to make the main thing the main thing. Let’s treat teachers like the mvps they are. Let’s reward them by paying them well to stay IN THAT ROLE. Let’s provide them the tools they need to be successful IN THAT ROLE, such as smaller class sizes and supports and interventions when their students struggle. Let’s create an environment that fosters collaboration over competition. Let’s give teachers voice and autonomy. Especially in priority schools. Let’s recognize them for the hurdles they’ve overcome, not demoralize them for the test score that didn’t move because of factors beyond their control.
If we make the main thing the main thing by putting teachers at the heart of what we do, then as a district we can get back to building relationships and reducing teacher turnover (which also generates costs savings, despite what was factored into the budget).
When talking about actual salaries vs cost to onboard new teachers. Does not take into account cost to relationships. Cost to momentum of programs. Cost to student learning successes. Cost to achieving vision 2020.
Shortsighted to only look at spreadsheets and not classroom dynamics. Without asking why these increased incidents are occurring. Without seeking teacher input, you are missing some very important nuances. If we preemptively and proactively spend money on tools and supports teachers and students need to be successful up front, we won’t have to spend even more money on things like metal detectors and other punitive measures.
UPDATE:
I received a call from my school board member, Steph Horne, explaining that the board does not set policy regarding these types of activities, and that principals are informed and the gatekeeper for what happens on their campuses. Although this event has been taking place for years, she said that I brought up a good point that principals or other staff may interpret the governor’s recent “overstep” as superseding the existing policy and state law, and agreed that it would be a good idea if building staff were reminded of the existing policy so that they are empowered to enforce that policy, should the need arise. Policy states that the event is to take place during non-school hours and that it was to be student led. Nowhere in the communications I saw did it state that this was policy, and if it had, it would not have evoked the response it did from many of our members in our private group of 1,500 parents, teachers and community members.
Ms. Horne sent an email to Dr. Hargens asking that a reminder be sent to building staff. I consider that to be an appropriate and timely response, as requested in my original letter. Thank you Ms. Horne!
(This message has been revised based on feedback from community.)
In response to this message from our Governor, and concerns raised by Dear JCPS members in our private group (made up of over 1500 parents, teachers and community members), I sent the following message to our board members:
http://www.kentuckyfamily.org/?page_id=980
Dear JCPS,
I am confident that our board is aware that any adult-led prayer activity should be prohibited from taking place on any JCPS campus during school hours. In case the activity centered around a single religion isn’t non-inclusive enough, attached is a snapshot from the organization’s brochure, which further exacerbates misconceptions about other faiths, behaviors and lifestyles:
Prior to the Sept. 27 board meeting, Dear JCPS would like to know what steps the district intends to take to publicly and proactively disavow such an egregious overstep of the Governor’s authority. We are looking forward to your reply.
Thank you,
Gay
Gay Adelmann
Co-Founder, Dear JCPS
Founder, Save Our Schools KY
Charter Member, Network for Public Education
260-633-0463
Wittingly or not, we are being sold a bill of goods.
Willingly or not, some of our board members and district administrators are complicit.
The plays from this playbook are already being executed with precision.
This is happening, not just here but across the nation.
We undermine the success of public education at every turn and then wonder why we’re failing.
#NowAreYouStartingToGetIt?
The playbook has already been written. And it’s game time!
You’d better be doing your homework. Because this is “no pass, no play.”
Charters are coming. It’s 4th down. Seconds on the clock. There are no timeouts left. We are going to need a hail mary.
We need you to suit up and get in the game!
Stop kowtowing to these tactics. They may seem like the logical or quick-fix solutions. But there are motives behind them. Get back to student-centered decisions. I know, you’d like a copy of this playbook. Don’t take my word for it.
Do your own research.
Follow the money. Question the motives. Examine the investment portfolios.
Don’t be confused by others who may be wearing the same color jersey. Not everyone is on the same team.
Public education is the football. Your job, as our board members, is to protect it at all costs.
WATCH: this is the 3-minute presentation that I gave to the board of education on Sept 13, 2016, regarding the Playbook.
Bring in school choice, charters, vouchers, privatizers to “save the day!”
Replace teachers with non-certified staff
The lobbying power behind this movement is astounding because so are the profits to be made. Profitable for corporations, not children of course. Michelle Rhee through her (Rosemary’s) baby StudentsFirst, “pledged to spend more than $1 billion to bring for-profit schools, including virtual education, to the entire country by electing reform-friendly candidates and hiring top-notch state lobbyists.”
Those of us who have been in education for more than a few decades alreadyknow how to maximize the strengths of “great teachers!” It’s called: resources, reduced class size, having more teaching assistants per classroom, and NOT demanding endless batteries of high stakes testing, test preparation, and data keeping of those tests all of which waste meaningful instructional time.
On May 12, Louisiana Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards signed Act 91 into law, making privately-owned charter schools a permanent feature of public education in the state.
New Orleans has been in the national spotlight for the privatization of education since 2005, when the hurricane-devastated city initiated the first all-charter district in the United States. The mechanism utilized to destroy the public schools was the state-run Recovery School District (RSD) formed in 2003 by Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Blanco folded the public school system into the state-controlled RSD. This playbook was developed nationally by the Broad Foundation and was largely implemented in Louisiana by Paul Pastorek, now a co-executive director of the Foundation’s education work. Pastorek is presently working with Michigan Republican Governor Rick Snyder in similar efforts to charterize the Detroit Public Schools.
In the media, both local and nationally, Act 91 is being trumpeted as a successful return of RSD schools to “local control.” In the sense of local democratic control or public education, it is nothing of the sort. Across the US, “local control” of schools has become a code word for bringing unions and local businessmen on board the national privatization program and providing them a lucrative niche in the billion-dollar education industry.
The new law means that 54 New Orleans charter schools will gradually move back to the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB), with similar provisions affecting 9 charters in Baton Rouge and 1 in Caddo Parish. Not only will they remain as charter schools, their operators have been handed control over almost every aspect of education indefinitely by state law. This control includes “school programing, curriculum, instruction, materials and texts, yearly school calendars and daily schedules, hiring and firing of personnel, employee performance management and evaluation, terms and conditions of employment, teacher or administrator certification, salaries and benefits, retirement, collective bargaining, budgeting, purchasing, procurement, and contracting for services other than capital repairs and facilities construction.”
School boards will retain the right to determine when new schools will be opened or closed. However, the new law stipulates that charters will be given the right to petition to become a local education agency (LEA) should they want to assume these rights as well.
In charge of this “transition” is a 13-member board, eight members of which are CEOs of charter school companies. The board also includes the superintendents of both the RSD and the OPSB. The function of the board is to assure that the ability of the charters to profit off of public education is not impeded in the transition.
The OPSB, itself fully committed to the charterization of public schools in New Orleans, praised the bill. Speaking for those cashing-in with charter operations and other edubusinesses, OPSB superintendent Henderson Lewis Jr. (a founder of an Algiers district charter school) told the media, “The legislation that has passed is an incredible opportunity for all of us in New Orleans to build an excellent school system. The legislation puts all responsibility for our schools into the hands of the local community, while preserving the accountability and autonomy that have led to such great success over the past several years,”
John White, the state superintendent of schools and longtime charter advocate, told the New York Times “The mission was to recover the schools, not to maintain a group of white bureaucrats not from New Orleans”, using identity politics as a cover for his support for the institutionalization of charter schools and the profiteering of local businessmen. White is another significant national figure in the efforts to open public education to the for-profit business sector; he entered public education through Teach for America, and led charter school expansion in New York City under the notorious privatizer Joel Klein.
From the beginning of this assault on public education, the unions, led by the United Teachers of New Orleans (UTNO), have blocked the resistance of teachers. After Katrina, OPSB fired 7,500 teachers and pushed out another 1,200. The UTNO confined itself to filing a lawsuit which took a decade to pass through the courts before finally being rejected. Subsequently it has sought, with some limited success, to unionize the charters, effectively endorsing the privatization of education in exchange for the expansion of its dues paying membership.
While the RSD is the only completely charterized school district in the country, the Orleans Parish School District is not far behind. Fourteen of the twenty schools it operates are privatized, making it the nation’s second most charterized district.
Overall there are only 82 schools left in New Orleans, down 35 percent since Hurricane Katrina. Originally schools were to be automatically returned to local control after no longer being deemed to be “failing.” The law was changed in 2010 to allow schools to choose for themselves if they wanted to remain in the recovery district or not. This created a situation where every year the notoriously dysfunctional OPSB competed with the RSD for the right to administer the charters.
Louisiana has played a major role in pioneering the system which has been utilized around the country to privatize education. While figures like Pastorek of Broad played a significant role, the systematic assault has been implemented in a bipartisan way by both Democrats and Republicans.
The political playbook is now clear. There are national cuts to Title I and other school funding sources (by George W. Bush and now under Barack Obama). Then, business and financial interests in the state legislatures de-fund the schools. High stakes testing is used to categorize a segment of schools as “failing” which are hived off into state-run districts. Schools are given letter grades. A OneApp is used to market charter schools on an equal basis with traditional public schools to parents. Unions are brought on board. This process has been blessed not only by the Broad Foundation and the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council, but by the Obama administration’s Race to the Top.
This is precisely what happened to New Orleans and is developing around the US. Democrats and Republican political operatives, on behalf of business interests, are deliberately impoverishing public school systems.
In 2014 RSD trimmed its staff by 85 percent, from 562 to 94. Its budget was also steadily reduced, to $20 million by 2014. This essentially left the operations of the schools entirely in the hands of the charter industry. Of the total OPSB budget for the 2014-2015 school year, $345 million, $138 million went directly to the RSD schools, $92 million went to the districts own charters and an additional $30 million went to paying debt service.
The passage of Act 91 is part of an overall austerity drive in Louisiana and comes amidst the largest budget crisis in state history. Public services across the board have been cut or face cuts in the near future. In March the state legislature met in an emergency session to attempt to address the budget crisis. The lawmakers were scarcely able to arrive at a temporary agreement, which included a sales tax hike. When they reconvene later this year, public universities, hospitals, and even the state public defender’s office face steep cuts. The states’ coffers have been depleted in recent years by a combination of declining oil revenues and a series of tax cuts and corporate tax breaks passed by the previous administration of Republican Governor Bobby Jindal.
New Orleans remains the center of the drive for the privatization of education, with a new state law making charter schools permanent under the guise of “local control.”
WSWS.ORG|BY MATTHEW TAYLOR
A page from the Iowa Playbook:
Imagine that you are a policymaker who is generally anti-government, anti-union, and pro-privatization. Public schools conflict with all of those, don’t they?
So you’ve got a challenge. Citizens and communities generally like and strongly support their schools. Somehow you have to create a narrative over time that erodes citizens’ support for public schools and counters their incredible historical legacies of college and career preparation, citizenship development, cultural socialization, economic opportunity creation, and facilitation of intergenerational income mobility.
Here are some things that you and your like-minded colleagues might try to do:
underfund schools so that they can’t keep up with operational costs, will struggle to meet educational mandates, and will have to reduce personnel (bonus: fewer union members!)
maintain claims about ‘fiscal accountability’ and future revenue concerns, even when they require ignoring strong revenue generation and projections
reduce existing revenue streams in order to bolster claims of fiscal hardship (bonus: less government!)
employ bait-and-switch funding mechanisms that supplant rather than supplement and/or disappear at the last minute
ignore legal requirements to timely establish school funding levels that would allow districts to adequately plan and budget
implement new, supplemental ‘bread and circuses’ initiatives (say, STEM or financial literacy) that distract the general public from the year-to-year erosion of base school funding
give as little policy attention as possible to the known educational needs of students who live in poverty or don’t speak English as their primary language (and thus struggle academically), even as those student and family populations increase markedly within the state
deflect the blame for your underfunding of schools by alleging schools’ inefficiency and superintendents’ mismanagement
frequently change state standards and assessments and/or make them more difficult so that educators and students struggle to keep up and have less chance of hitting the moving targets
use selective data (say, NAEP scores) to manufacture educational crises that feed your rhetoric of public school failure
create school grading and ranking schemes that shame struggling schools, demoralize the educators within them, and alarm parents
implement teacher evaluation schemes that are guaranteed to be unfair, demoralize educators, and confuse the public
pitch tax credits and private/religious school vouchers or ’scholarships’ (‘money that will follow students in their backpacks’) to the general public as natural recourses to the failures of public schools
write legislation that expands public school alternatives such as charters or homeschooling, particularly ones that can siphon funds away from public schools
create double-standard school and educator ‘accountability’ provisions that apply to public schools but not non-public alternatives
accept policy proposals, money, and political influence from seemingly anyone other than actual educators
affiliate with anti-public-school organizations (say, ALEC) that will feed you ‘model’ legislation proposals,
connect you with successful players and tactics from other states, and provide ongoing encouragement to stay the course
hold yearly education summits at which educators can only listen passively to carefully-vetted speakers who feed your desired agendas
publicly dismiss, disparage, intimidate, or try to silence educators, parents, researchers, and others who speak out against your policies
and so on, year-after-year, all under the guises of ’transparency’ and ‘accountability’ and ‘global competitiveness.’ Heck, you might even co-opt the journalists that used to ask tough questions about your educational policymaking (by, say, hiring them).
Here in Iowa? Checkmarks on all fronts, I believe (and we’re not as bad as many other states). There’s an evolving playbook out there, folks, and we’re seeing it being implemented in every state.
More of this to come in the years ahead… Do you care? If so, what will you do about it?
Imagine that you are a policymaker who is generally anti-government, anti-union, and pro-privatization. Public schools conflict with all of those, …
DANGEROUSLYIRRELEVANT.ORG
A Page from the Playbook From North Carolina:
Actions Against Teachers
1. Teacher Pay — A recent WRAL report and documentary highlighted that in North Carolina, teacher pay has dropped 13 percent in the past 15 years when adjusted for inflation. That is astounding when one considers that we are supposedly rebounding from the Great Recession. Yes, this 15-year period started with Democrats in power, but it has been exacerbated by GOP control. Salary schedules were frozen and then revamped to isolate raises to increments of five+ years. As surrounding states have continued to increase pay for teachers, North Carolina has stagnated into the bottom tier in regards to teacher pay.
2. Removal of due-process rights — One of the first items that the GOP-controlled General Assembly attempted to pass was the removal of due-process right for all teachers. The courts decided that it would be a breach of contract for veteran teachers who had already obtained career status — but that did not cover newer teachers who will not have the chance to gain career status and receive due process rights.
What gets lost in the conversation with the public is that due-process rights are a protective measure for students and schools. Teachers need to know that they can speak up against harsh conditions or bad policies without repercussions. Teachers who are not protected by due-process will not be as willing to speak out because of fear.
3. Graduate Degree Pay Bumps Removed — Because advanced degree pay is abolished, many potential teachers will never enter the field because that is the only way to receive a sizable salary increase to help raise a family or afford to stay in the profession. It also cripples graduate programs in the state university system because obtaining a graduate degree for new teachers would place not only more debt on teachers, but there is no monetary reward to actually getting it.
4. The Top 25 percent were to receive bonus — One measure that was eventually taken off the table was that each district was to choose 25 percent of its teachers to be eligible to receive a bonus if they were willing to give up their career status which is commonly known as tenure. Simply put, it was hush money to keep veteran teachers from speaking out when schools and students needed it. To remove “tenure” is to remove the ability for a teacher to fight wrongful termination. In a Right-To-Work state, due process rights are the only protection against wrongful termination when teachers advocate for schools, like the teacher who is writing this very piece.
5. Standard 6 — In North Carolina, we have a teacher evaluation system that has an unproven record of accurately measuring a teacher’s effectiveness. The amorphous Standard 6 for many teachers includes a “value-added measure” called Assessment of Student Work.
I teach multiple sections of AP English Language and Composition and am subject to the Assessment of Student Work (ASW). I go through a process in which I submit student samples that must prove whether those students are showing ample growth. In June of 2015, I uploaded my documents in the state’s system and had to wait until November to get results. The less than specific comments from the unknown assessor(s) were contradictory at best. They included:
Alignment
Al 1 The evidence does not align to the chosen objective.
Al 4 All of the Timelapse Artifacts in this Evidence Collection align to the chosen objectives.
Growth
Gr 1 Student growth is apparent in all Timelapse Artifacts.
Gr 2 Student growth is apparent between two points in time.
Gr 3 Student growth is not apparent between two points in time.
Gr 4 Student growth samples show achievement but not growth.
Gr 9 Evidence is clear/easily accessible
Gr 10 Evidence is not clear/not easily accessible
Narrative Context
NC 1 Narrative Context addresses all of the key questions and supports understanding of the evidence.
NC 4 Narrative Context does not address one or more of the key questions.
These comments did not correspond to any specific part of my submission. In fact, I am more confused about the process than ever before. It took over five months for someone who may not have one-fifth of my experience in the classroom to communicate this to me. If this is supposed to supply me with the tools to help guide my future teaching, then I would have to say that this would be highly insufficient, maybe even “unbest.”
6. Push for Merit Pay — The bottom line is that merit pay destroys collaboration and promotes competition. That is antithetical to the premise of public education. Not only does it force teachers to work against each other, it fosters an atmosphere of exclusivity and disrespect. What could be more detrimental to our students?
Those legislators who push for merit pay do not see effective public schools as collaborative communities, but as buildings full of contractors who are determined to outperform others for the sake of money. And when teachers are forced to focus on the results of test scores, teaching ceases from being a dynamic relationship between student and teacher, but becomes a transaction driven by a carrot on an extended stick.
7. “Average” Raises — In the long session of 2014, the state General Assembly raised salaries for teachers in certain experience brackets that allowed them to say that an “average” salary for teachers was increased by over 7 percent. They called it a “historic raise.” However, if you divided the amount of money used in these “historic” raises by the number of teachers who “received” them, it would probably amount to about $270 per teacher.
That historic raise was funded in part by eliminating teachers’ longevity pay. Similar to an annual bonus, this is something that all state employees in North Carolina — except, now, for teachers — gain as a reward for continued service. The budget rolled that money into teachers’ salaries and labeled it as a raise. That’s like me stealing money out of your wallet and then presenting it to you as a gift.
8. Health Insurance and Benefits — Simply put, health benefits are requiring more out-of-pocket expenditures, higher deductibles, and fewer benefits. There is also talk of pushing legislation that will take away retirement health benefits for those who enter the profession now.
9. Attacks on Teacher Advocacy Groups (NCAE) — Seen as a union and therefore must be destroyed, the North Carolina Association of Educators has been incredibly instrumental in bringing unconstitutional legislation to light and carrying out legal battles to help public schools. In the last few years, the automatic deduction of paychecks to pay dues to NCAE was disallowed by the General Assembly, creating a logistical hurdle for people and the NCAE to properly transfer funds for membership.
10. Revolving Door of Standardized Tests — Like other states, we have too many. In my years as a North Carolina teacher (1997-1999, 2005-2015), I have endured the Standard Course of Study, the NC ABC’s, AYP’s, and Common Core. Each initiative has been replaced by a supposedly better curricular path that allegedly makes all previous curriculum standards inferior and obsolete. And with each of these initiatives comes new tests that are graded differently than previous ones and are “converted” into data points to rank student achievement and teacher effectiveness. Such a revolving door makes the ability to measure data historically absolutely ridiculous.
Actions Against Schools
11. Less Money Spent per Pupil — The argument that Gov. McCrory and the GOP-led General Assembly have made repeatedly is that they are spending more on public education now than ever before. And they are correct. We do spend more total money now than before the recession hit. But that is a simplified and spun claim because North Carolina has had a tremendous population increase and the need to educate more students. N.C. Policy Watch says per-pupil spending has declined 14.5 percent since fiscal year 2008:
12. Remove Caps on Class Sizes — There is a suggested formula in allotting teachers to schools based on the number of students per class, but that cap was removed. House Bill 112 allowed the state to remove class size requirements while still allowing monies from the state to be allocated based on the suggested formula.
Some districts have taken to move away from the 6/7 period day to block scheduling. Take my own district for example, the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools. When I started 10 years ago, I taught five classes with a cap of 30 students. With the block system in place, I now teach six classes in a school year with no cap. The math is simple: more students per teacher.
13. Amorphous Terms — North Carolina uses a lot of amorphous terms like “student test scores”, “student achievement”, and “graduation rates”, all of which are among the most nebulous terms in public education today.
When speaking of “test scores,” we need to agree about which test scores we are referring to and if they have relevance to the actual curriculum. Since the early 2000’s we have endured No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top initiatives that have flooded our public schools with mandatory testing that never really precisely showed how “students achieved.” It almost boggles the mind to see how much instructional time is lost just administering local tests to see how students may perform on state tests that may be declared invalid with new education initiatives. Even as I write, many states are debating on how they may or may not leave behind the Common Core Standards and replace them with their own. Know what that means? Yep. More tests.
“Graduation rate” might be one of the most constantly redefined terms in public schools. Does it mean how many students graduate in four years? Five years? At least finish a GED program or a diploma in a community college? Actually, it depends on whom you ask and when you ask. But with the N.C. State Board of Education’s decision to go to a 10-point grading scale in all high schools instead of the seven-point scale used in many districts, the odds of students passing courses dramatically increased because the bar to pass was set lower.
14. Jeb Bush School Grading System — In this scheme, schools are given grades, largely on test scores. This letter grading system used by the state literally shows how poverty in our state affects student achievement. What the state proved with this grading system is that it is ignoring the very students who need the most help — not just in the classroom, but with basic needs such as early childhood programs and health-care accessibility. These performance grades also show that schools with smaller class sizes and more individualized instruction are more successful, a fact that lawmakers willfully ignore when it comes to funding our schools to avoid overcrowding.
15. Cutting Teacher Assistants — Sen. Tom Apodaca said when this legislation was introduced, “We always believe that having a classroom teacher in a classroom is the most important thing we can do. Reducing class sizes, we feel, will give us better results for the students.” The irony in this statement is glaring. Fewer teacher assistants for early grades especially limit what can be accomplished when teachers are facing more cuts in resources and more students in each classroom.
Actions That Deceive The Public
16. Opportunity Grants — These provide public funding for private school tuition. Opportunity Grant legislation is like the trophy in the case for the GOP establishment in Raleigh. It is a symbol of “their” commitment to school choice for low-income families — but that claim is nothing but a red-herring.
Simply put, it is a voucher system that actually leaves low-income families without many choices because most private schools which have good track records have too-high tuition rates and do not bus students. Furthermore, the number of private schools receiving monies from the Opportunity Grants who identify themselves as religiously affiliated is well over 80 percent, according to the N.C. State Educational Assistance Authority. Those religious schools are not tested the way public schools are and do not have the oversight that public schools have. Furthermore, it allows tax dollars to go to entities that already receive monetary benefits because they are tax-free churches.
17. Charter Schools — Charter school growth in North Carolina has been aided by the fact that many of the legislators who have created a favorable environment for charter benefit somehow, someway from them. Many charters abuse the lack of oversight and financial cloudiness and simply do not benefit students.
Especially in rural areas, uncontrolled charter school growth has been detrimental to local public schools. When small school districts lose numbers of students to charter schools, they also lose the ability to petition for adequate funds in the system that North Carolina uses to finance schools. The financial impact can be overwhelming; in Haywood County, Central Elementary School was closed because of enrollment loss to a charter school that is now on a list to be recommended for closing.
18. Virtual Schools — There are two virtual academies in North Carolina. Both are run by for-profit entities based out of state. While this approach may work for some students who need such avenues, the withdrawal rates of students in privately run virtual schools in North Carolina are staggering according to the Department of Public Instruction.
19. Achievement School Districts (ASD) — These districts are created to take the lowest-performing schools in a state and removing local control. Teach For America alum Rep. Rob Bryan has crafted a piece of legislation that has been rammed through the General Assembly which will create ASD’s in North Carolina. Most egregious is that it was crafted secretly. Rather than having a public debate about how to best help our “failing” schools with our own proven resources, Rep. Bryan chose to surreptitiously strategize and plan a takeover of schools. ASD’s have not worked in Tennessee. They will not work in North Carolina except for those who make money from them.
20. Reduction of Teacher Candidates in Colleges — At last report, teaching candidate percentages in undergraduate programs in the University of North Carolina system has fallen by more than 30 percent in the last five years. This is just an indication of the damage done to secure a future generation of teachers here in North Carolina.
21. Elimination of Teaching Fellows Program — Once regarded as a model to recruit the best and brightest to become teachers and stay in North Carolina was abolished because of “cost.”
Overall, this has been North Carolina’s playbook. And those in power in Raleigh have used it effectively. However, there are some outcomes that do bode well for public school advocates for now and the future.
Teachers are beginning to “stay and fight” rather than find other employment.
NCAE has been able to win many decisions in the court system.
North Carolina is in the middle of a huge election year and teachers as well as public school advocates will surely vote.
The national spotlight placed on North Carolina in response to the voter-ID laws and HB2 are only adding pressure to officials to reconsider what they have done.
Veteran teachers who still have due-process rights are using them to advocate for schools.
I only hope that the game changes so that a playbook for returning our public schools back to the public will be implemented.
The billionaire-backed privatization movement is stealthily advancing an undemocratic agenda, cloaked in deceptive rhetoric, that the public is not aware of and does not understand.
Something unprecedented is happening to American public education. A powerful, well-funded, well-organized movement is seeking to privatize significant numbers of public schools and destroy the teaching profession. This movement is not a conspiracy; it operates in the open. But its goals are masked by deceptive rhetoric. It calls itself a “reform” movement, but its true goal is privatization.
This movement has had strange bedfellows. Some of its funders and promoters on the far right of the political spectrum are motivated by ideological contempt for the public sector; others earnestly believe they are providing better choices for poor children “trapped in failing schools.” Still others believe that elected local school boards are incompetent and should be replaced by private management, or that the private sector is inherently more innovative and effective than the public sector. And some are motivated by greed, while others are motivated by religious conviction. These strange bedfellows have included the US Department of Education (during the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama); major foundations and think tanks, both conservative and centrist; billionaires committed to free-market solutions—and certain they know what is best because they are so rich; entrepreneurs hoping to make money from school privatization or by selling technology to replace teachers; the far-right American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which has drafted model legislation to promote corporate interests and to expand the privatization of almost all government services, including education; and numerous governors and legislators (mostly but not exclusively Republicans) who want schools to operate in a free-market system of school choice.
The privatization movement pretends that it is bravely fighting “the status quo,” but having captured policymakers at both the federal and state levels, as well as think tanks, the nation’s wealthiest foundations, a coterie of billionaires, and major editorial boards, this movement is the status quo. It is stealthily advancing an undemocratic agenda, cloaked in deceptive rhetoric, that the public is not aware of and does not understand.
This combination of money and political power has been potent in advancing school vouchers, which were once considered a cranky right wing extremist idea, but have recently been enacted in a score of states. Vouchers are seldom now called vouchers, because voters have consistently rejected them: in 2007, vouchers were defeated by a margin of 62-38 in the red state of Utah, and Florida turned them down in 2012 by 58-42. Thus, the promoters of vouchers enact them through the legislature without holding a referendum and try to hide their purpose by calling them “opportunity scholarships,” “tax credits,” or “education savings accounts.” Whatever the name, the result is the same: these programs transfer public money to private and religious schools, even when the state constitution (for example, in Nevada and Indiana) specifically prohibits it.
This same movement—unfortunately bipartisan—has encouraged the growth of privately managed charter schools, which are marketed as superior to public schools (although they usually are not). Charter schools are a less controversial form of privatization than vouchers because they do not involve church-state issues. And yet charter schools eliminate democratic control of schools because they are privately man aged and in some cases controlled by out-of-state corporate chains sometimes nonprofit, sometimes for-profit. In many states, the charter schools get no better results in terms of student test scores than the lowest-performing traditional public schools, and sometimes they are even worse than the lowest-performing public schools. Charter schools are supposed to be innovative, but their most effective innovations to date consist of choosing their students carefully, excluding or removing students who might get low test scores, and enforcing boot-camp discipline on those who remain.
This well-funded campaign to shift public dollars to charters and vouchers has had a damaging effect on public schools. The money for choice schools is taken away from the schools that enroll a majority of students, reducing their budgets and causing them to lose teachers, services, and programs. Some school districts, like Philadelphia, teeter on the verge of bankruptcy, having cut their services to students (for example, closing libraries and reducing the number of school nurses) and increased class sizes because of budget cuts and the drain on their resources caused by charters. The greater good of the overwhelming majority of students is sacrificed to satisfy the privatizers’ ideological commitment to “choice.”
The campaign for privatization is sustained by billionaires and mega-millionaires who fund charters, vouchers, and school choice advocacy groups and contribute large sums of money to candidates and elected officials who support school choice. The same people and groups who support privatization have fought legal battles to end tenure for teachers and eliminate collective bargaining, which deprives teachers of academic freedom and any voice in the conditions of their workplace. The privatizers hope to establish a free market for schooling where people think of themselves as consumers, not as citizens who have an obligation to educate all the children in their community. They believe that teachers should serve as at-will employees, constantly fearful of losing their jobs. Competition, they believe, will improve the schools, although there is no evidence that this belief is true even after twenty-five years of experience with charters and vouchers. In Michigan, for example, the state encourages schools and districts to compete for funding by attracting students; as a result, every district spends $100,000 or more to market its wares and poach students from neighboring districts. Millions are spent to lure students, with no evidence that it produces better education.
Turning public education into a free-market system of choice is a terrible idea. No high-performing nation in the world has done this.
In a democratic society, all citizens are responsible for paying taxes to educate the next generation, even those who have no children. Public education is a public service available to all. When education becomes a consumer marketplace, every family is on its own in choosing a school. Moreover, the general community feels no sense of civic responsibility for private choices. When it comes time to approve a bond issue, why should the public support a system of private choices? In other words: Why should people who have no children, or whose children are no longer in school, pay for private choices? Those who demand “school choice” give little thought to these consequences of their advocacy; they do not fret about their role in the likely destruction of a democratic institution.
The purpose of American education is to prepare our children for the duties of citizenship in a democracy. The federal and state policies of the recent past have aimed to turn education into a competition for higher test scores, despite the fact that testing always favors the advantaged over the disadvantaged. The creation of competing publicly funded sectors—one public, the other nonpublic—has not improved education. Instead, it has divided communities. And it has created a booming and politically powerful “education industry,” where the big prize is profits, not educated citizens.
On Friday, we posted this open letter from Brennan Long’s father who is seeking the truth about what happened to his son on Nov. 11, 2014. His open letter generated this response from a Binet staffer. Tonight, Dear JCPS received the following follow up letter in response to the information presented in response and on the Facebook posts.
Please note: Dear JCPS does not take a position on these letters and responses. Our intention is purely to provide an avenue for all sides and concerns to be heard.
Dear JCPS Community,
Our intentions are clear: We will pursue the Truth about what happened to Brennan and we will work endlessly to ensure this never happens to another child – ever. We are not out for Blood or Money – we are pursuing the truth.
Brennan is NOT violent.
Brennan’s Teacher of Record’s own words:
“Comparatively to other students at our school, he (Brennan) is a pretty easy student for the most part…he is typically not aggressive toward you or towards his peers, really, his worst behavior is when he bites himself and we only saw that two or three times”
Source: Seth Stillman, Binet School Teacher of Record, LMPD Police Interview, November 25, 2014.
Fact: Brennan is not violent. The narrative that is being presented is merely an attempt to justify the actions of Binet Staff to restrain Brennan. Brennan should have never been restrained. None of his behaviors that day warranted any type of a restraint. Furthermore, Brennan’s Behavioral Intervention Plan or BIP, that was fully adopted by Binet, identified every reported behavior and what positive behavioral supports should be used to re-direct the behavior. It was not followed.
Sadly, Brennan does know what it feels like (physically and mentally) to suffer from Near-Fatal Child Abuse from the hands of a Binet Staffer. The violent behavior that resulted in Brennan’s near-fatal spiral fractures to BOTH of his femurs is what should be in question. Not a disabled teenager who was biting his arm while sitting in a chair.
We are not from West Virginia nor have we lived there. I am from KENTUCKY – born and raised here. My wife is from INDIANA. We have lived in three other states and have NEVER sued or filed any type of law suit against those school districts.
We did file a due process complaint against JCPS in 2015.
Fact:
Brennan does NOT have any form of bone disease now and he did NOT when he was injured on 11/11/2014. Brennan does not take any medication that causes “bone density issues”. At least three medical doctors, including his orthopedic surgeon, assert that Brennan does not have any bone disease.
The only issues that Brennan has with his bones now are the fact that he has titanium rods in the center of each of his femurs that are held in place by set screws at each end of each femur. Brennan’s femurs were reamed out with a cordless drill to make the cavity large enough to insert the rods. Brennan will have to live with this medical hardware inside of his femurs for the rest of his life.
On November 11, 2014, Brennan Long, an autistic teenager who was a student at the Binet School, suffered near-fatal injuries while being restrained while seated in a chair, by Sherman Williams, an instructional assistant. Brennan suffered comminuted and twisting spiral fractures to both of his femurs. Brennan spent 8 days in PICU and another 25 days in the hospital. He nearly died. Witness accounts of those who were reported to have been in the room at the time of the restraint describe the restraint as a textbook cradle restraint.
The Longs were never told that Binet School used restraints and had no idea what SCM or Safe Crisis Management was at the time of Brennan’s injuries. To this day, none of the reported witnesses have provided any truthful explanation as to how Brennan’s broken femurs occurred. The teachers and teaching assistants are all still employed by JCPS and most still work at the Binet School.
Brennan’s parents continue to be asked why no one has been held accountable for Brennan’s injuries. Their answer is both simple and tragic; no one pursued the truth. They believe, as most do, that Truth enables Accountability. Brian & Kim Long are committed to pursuing the truth about what happened to Brennan and they will do everything they can to ensure this type of injury never happens to another child – ever. Over the last two months, some courageous teachers, administrators, former employees and parents have come forward to share information and details regarding Brennan’s injuries and the Binet School in general. We are asking that our Dear JCPS community to do the same – please come forward, and help the Longs find the truth about what happened to their son as well as help our JCPS school system become safer and better for our children, especially those with special needs. You can make a difference!
All responses will be held in strictest confidence.
First, you took away the bonus you promised me for being a National Board Certified Teacher. I had to fight to get that money back.
Next, you took away my step increase, which was agreed upon in our binding contract. I had to fight to get that money back.
Now, you are refusing to pay me my extra service pay on the dates promised (half in December and half in May). I guess I’ll have to fight to get that money in December, since I counted on it for Christmas shopping. To my knowledge, no reason has been given for this change. December is 3 months away. You really aren’t going to have my money by then?
I’m starting to notice a trend. I keep doing my part by teaching students but you don’t feel it’s necessary to do your part by paying me what you promised, when you promised (the fact that you also aren’t supporting me in other ways is a topic for a different letter).
Do you feel this is a healthy working relationship? Are there other respected businesses and organizations that treat their employees like this but have amazing success? I hear the words you say about how important teachers are and how much we are valued but your actions are saying a very different thing. In a few years, when you have a serious teacher shortage, please don’t act surprised.
I’m a former Lunch Office Assistant. My first placement was the elementary school where my daughter was a student.
A big chunk of my day was spent in the cafeteria, monitoring the lunchroom, I helped younger students open milk cartons and ketchup packets, I cleaned tables and swept floors, and did my best to kept the cafeteria on schedule. During the mornings and early afternoons I prepared materials for 4th and 5th grade teachers, and assisted the office with various tasks. The copy room had three outdated copiers that jammed daily. Repairs were a constant issue. If all 3 were down, some copies could be made in the office where the newest copier lived.
It wasn’t a fancy job, but it gave our family some additional income. I enjoyed seeing my daughter and her peers every day. I enjoyed the creativity demonstrated by our teachers. I really loved preparing the materials they’d use to teach students various subjects. It was also a very workable schedule and allowed me to pick up my middle schooler at 2:30. (The middle school was closer to us than our resides school by nearly 5 miles but transportation wasn’t provided….another frustrated email entirely). I made $11 per hour and worked roughly 18.5 hours per week.
One day about 2-3 months prior to the end of the ’14-15 school year the principal informed me that the school chose not to fund my position. He said there were other things the school needed. He explained this, along with the overstaff process while I was in the cafeteria cleaning tables after the lunch period. While the plant operator swept floors and nutrition service workers closed up the kitchen and all were in ear shot. I was humiliated.
A few weeks later the office installed a Mack daddy bad-ass copier. I was thrilled because I assumed the office’s old copier could scoot on down to the hall to the copy room and be the New Copier. Except it didn’t. The copy room didn’t have the electrical support for that copier. Who knows where that one ended up? Certainly not in the copy room where a reliable machine could benefit teachers, who would need it more than ever because the person whose job it was to make copies and prepare their materials was overstaffed. It could have helped the instructional assistants who, in addition to their normal duties, were now tasked with cafeteria duty to cover for the newly-eliminated LOA.
Dr. Hargens and the Board’s short-sighted management culture of poor-planning and deferred maintenance is trickling down to every role and copy closet in the district .
Those little part time jobs like mine used to be available at district schools were largely staffed by parents. Parents who are involved. Who might get to work a few minutes early to put in some time in the PTA office or stay a few minutes late to volunteer at an event. Those piddly 18 hours I worked saved 6 dedicated teachers about 2 hours each per week. Those extra dollars every month made our family just a little more financially secure.
But hey! That school figured out a way to save elevens of dollars a week.
Brennan’s parents continue to be asked why no one has been held accountable for Brennan’s injuries. Their answer is both simple and tragic; no one pursued the truth. They believe, as most do, that Truth enables Accountability. Brian & Kim Long are committed to pursuing the truth about what happened to Brennan and they will do everything they can to ensure this type of injury never happens to another child – ever. Over the last two months, some courageous teachers, administrators, former employees and parents have come forward to share information and details regarding Brennan’s injuries and the Binet School in general. We are asking that our Dear JCPS community to do the same – please 
