In Case You Missed It – October 9, 2023

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"There is a well-resourced and coordinated effort among far-right institutions to undermine public education—whether that is through misappropriating funds like the legislature did in Mississippi to divert funds to private schools, or to pass burdensome censorship agenda laws that have led to shortages and burdens on teachers." -- Skye Perryman, founder and CEO of Democracy Forward

STANDING UP FOR EDUCATION AGAINST THE FAR-RIGHT

People Power Vs. the Far Right Education Movement

Last week was "Banned Book Week." Just because the week is over doesn't mean that books won't continue to be attacked by closed minds.

From The Progressive

Although book bans are wildly unpopular with American voters, right-wing pressure groups like Moms for Liberty have succeeded in convincing Republican lawmakers to remove titles due to their portrayals of gender diversity or racism. Now that almost all schools have reopened for the new school year, followers of education policy and politics, as well as free speech advocates, are watching closely to see if there will be efforts to pass more of these laws.

Last school year, at least seven states passed ambiguously-worded laws that criminalized school teachers and librarians for exposing students to books that have been deemed as too “obscene.” Governors in two of these states vetoed the new laws, but “[a]nother dozen states considered more than twenty similar bills this year, half of which are likely to come up again in 2024,” according to The Washington Post.

An especially extreme book banning was, the Post reported, “an Arkansas measure that says school and public librarians, as well as teachers, can be imprisoned for up to six years or fined $10,000 if they distribute obscene or harmful texts.” The law was meant to go into effect on August 1, but in July, a federal judge blocked it because it imposed a threat to First Amendment rights. The lawsuit that led to the judge’s ruling came from a broad coalition of authors, educators, and publishers that were represented in part by the progressive legal group Democracy Forward.

EDTECH SURVEILLANCE IN SCHOOLS

Digital Dystopia: The Danger in Buying What the EDTech Surveillance Industry is Selling

Who's watching your child?

From ACLU

Digital Dystopia: The Danger in Buying What the EdTech Surveillance Industry is Selling, an ACLU research report, examines the EdTech Surveillance (educational technologies used for surveillance) industry in U.S. K-12 schools. Using in-depth investigation into industry products, an incident audit, student focus groups, and national polling, this report scrutinizes industry claims, assesses the efficacy of the products, and explores the impacts EdTech Surveillance has on students and schools. The report concludes by offering concrete actions school districts, elected officials, and community members can take to ensure decisions about using surveillance products are consistent and well-informed. This includes model legislation and decision-making tools, which will often result in the rejection of student surveillance technologies.

FORT WAYNE LOCAL NEWS

Yet another Superintendent of the Year award reflects well on Allen County

EACS Superintendent, Marilyn Hissong is one of Indiana Superintendents of the Year.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Allen County’s public schools have been blessed with talented leaders over the years. East Allen County Schools’ Marilyn Hissong is the latest local schools chief to be recognized as among Indiana’s best.

At a joint conference of the Indiana Association of Public Schools Superintendents and the Indiana School Boards Association Sept. 25, Hissong was one of seven top school administrators announced as the 2024 Superintendents of the Year for their geographic districts.

A graduate of East Allen schools, Hissong started her career at the district as a teacher and volleyball coach before moving into administrative roles, according to an EACS news release. After Ken Folks retired in 2017, she was promoted to superintendent from assistant superintendent of elementary education.

“As of July 1, 2023, I had the extreme privilege and honor of completing my 30th year in education, all which has been with East Allen County Schools,” she said in a statement.

She will represent the state in the national Superintendent of the Year competition.

44 to give input on diversity issues at Southwest Allen County Schools

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Representatives from the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, or FAIR, will facilitate the discussions along with others for secondary students, administrators and Parent Teacher Club presidents.

“The participants are representative of our district and will likely bring differing viewpoints, beliefs and experiences to the sessions,” Fleming said in a statement.

The school board recently approved a $10,000 listening session agreement with FAIR in response to demonstrations and discussions that disrupted classes at Homestead last academic year.

That February day, minority students told The Journal Gazette the viral images of a classmate in blackface were the last straw in repeated mistreatment they’ve endured.

SACS is a predominantly white district. Last academic year, students of color represented 25% of enrollment, with Black and Hispanic students each accounting for 7%, according to state enrollment data. Homestead’s demographics were similar.

Southwest Allen County Schools ready to give in-depth look to 25 advocates

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Twenty-five people, mostly parents, will begin their in-depth look at Southwest Allen County Schools operations in October.

The group is the first class of SACS Education Advocates, a new monthly program that attracted 61 applicants – a response that pleased Superintendent Park Ginder.

“We hope that applications grow and that new leaders emerge from this process, so I am hopeful that we will continue to host this program and help educate our community concerning all facets of what it entails to run a school district and individual schools,” he said by email this week.

Several central Indiana districts inspired the program, which should provide insight about what it takes to serve more than 7,500 students, Ginder has said.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – September 18, 2023

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Our country’s inaction and failure to address child poverty is both harmful and tragic. Making matters worse, it is a policy choice by our nation’s policymakers.

"The biggest problem is that one-third of our nation’s children fail to qualify for the full Child Tax Credit because their parents make too little.

"Let me repeat…our tax code punishes children because their parents make too little.

"Unless harming children is your goal, this policy makes no sense. If the Child Tax Credit were to no longer discriminate against low-income children, there would be 3–4 million fewer children in this country living in poverty. Child poverty could be cut in half." -- Executive Director of First Focus Campaign for Children, Bruce Lesley in The Child Tax Credit: Boosting the Lives and Well-Being of Our Children

CRITICAL THINKING IS CRITICAL

Frank Breslin: Critical Thinking Is the Most Important Lesson in High School

"Knowing a great deal is not the same as being smart; intelligence is not information alone but also judgment, the manner in which information is collected and used." - Carl Sagan

From Diane Ravitch

The following warning should be affixed atop every computer in America’s schools: Proceed at your own risk. Don’t accept as true what you’re about to read. Some of it is fact; some of it is opinion masquerading as fact; and the rest is liberal, conservative, or mainstream propaganda. Make sure you know which is which before choosing to believe it.

Students are exposed to so many different viewpoints on- and offline and so prone to accepting whatever they read, that they run the very real risk of being brainwashed. If it’s on a computer screen, it becomes Holy Writ, sacrosanct, immutable, beyond question or doubt.

Teachers continually caution students against taking what they read at face value, since some of these sites may be propaganda mills or recruiting grounds for the naïve and unwary.

TEACHERS ARE TIRED OF BEING SACRIFICIAL OFFERINGS

If You Don’t Want Teachers to be Saviors, Don’t Put Them on a Cross

Why is there a continuing exodus of teachers from the classroom?

From Gadfly on the Wall Blog

...teachers salaries are not commensurate with other professionals. They are paid 20% less than other college-educated workers with similar experience, and a 2020 survey found that 67% of teachers have or had a second job to make ends meet.

You want more teachers of color to enter the profession? Then stop making privilege a prerequisite to apply!

This is why so many teachers are leaving the profession. They don’t want to be sacrificial offerings anymore.

The entire country is in the midst of a national educator walk out. Teachers are refusing to stay in the classroom due to poor salary, poor working conditions, heavy expectations and lack of tools or respect.

After decades of neglect only made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic, we’re missing almost a million teachers.

Nationwide, we only have about 3.2 million teachers left!

Finding replacements has been difficult. Across the country, an average of one educator is hired for every two jobs available.

CONTEMPT FOR PROFESSIONAL EDUCATORS

Congress Threatens to Increase Already Alarming Child Poverty by Allowing Essential Programs to Expire

As Republicans dismantle social and economic safety nets, children fall into poverty. Schools will be expected to pick up the pieces...and will be blamed when they fail to do the impossible.

From Jan Resseger's Blog

In a misguided column last week, the Thomas Fordham Institute’s Michael Petrilli blamed schoolteachers for lagging test scores since the COVID 19 disruption. Petrilli demands that Congress pass another No Child Left Behind Act to hold teachers and schools accountable. Diane Ravitch responded: “NCLB and Race to the Top were cut from the same cloth: Contempt for professional educators, indifference to the well-established fact that test scores are highly correlated with family income, and a deep but misguided belief that punishing educators and closing schools were cures for low test scores.”

It seems worth exploring that Petrilli fails to consider the ongoing turmoil in the lives of our nation’s most vulnerable children. What about the mental health issues for children and adolescents during and since COVID? And now that COVID seems to have waned, what are the continuing economic stressors for millions of our nation’s poorest parents? Here is the September 5, 2023 assessment by Olivier Knox who pulls together the Washington Post‘s Daily 202: “The biggest political story of the moment isn’t House Republicans flirting with impeaching President Biden for TBD reasons. It’s the expiration of a wave of federal programs passed in response to the pandemic to make life easier for millions of Americans. Millions—possibly tens of millions—are losing Medicaid coverage…. Billions in COVID-era federal funding to keep child-care centers open expire at the end of September, leaving states to scramble.” And WIC, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and children up to age 5 faces “another looming benefits deadline that could affect millions of Americans.” Knox reports that all of these supports for our society’s poorest families are threatened by “hard-right” House Republicans: “(T)he federal government responded to the pandemic with trillions in federal aid for states and for millions of Americans. It now seems poised to watch over the dismantling of that emergency lattice, piece by piece.”

CHARTERS CAN'T BE CALLED PUBLIC

Charter Schools Can’t Claim to Be Public Anymore

When schools take public funds they should follow the same rules as real public schools.

By The Network for Public Education's Carol Burris in The Progressive

When an Oklahoma state school board approved what would become the nation’s first taxpayer-funded religious charter school, opponents of the proposal called it “deeply un-American” and “a flagrant violation of long-standing constitutional law.” An Oklahoma parents group and a handful of state and national civil organizations filed a pair of lawsuits to block the new school. Creating a taxpayer-funded religious school “turns on its head the concept that charter schools were supposed to be public schools,” American Federation of Teacher president Randi Weingarten argued.

Indeed, they were supposed to be public schools. But anyone who has been watching the devolution of charter schools could see this coming from a mile away.

Charter schools, which were originally proposed to be district-run, innovative public schools, have since morphed into national charter school chains, Christian nationalist schools, and facades for for-profit corporations.

From charter schools in churches with websites displaying crosses to “faith-friendly” charters, the charter industry has been flirting with religiosity for years. Under former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the federal Charter School Programs were given the green light to award grants to religious organizations that own or operate charter schools.

POVERTY AND RACE

Important New Publication Explores How Inadequate School Funding is Intertwined with Race and Segregation

Despite the preference of some politicians, racial issues are part of the American culture. Instead of pretending they don't exist, we should learn from our mistakes.

“My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” -- Carl Shurz, US Senator (MO), 1871

From Jan Resseger's Blog

What happens when we get so used to a long injustice that we can’t see it anymore? In a fine new collection of articles, University of North Carolina law professor, Osamudia James explains how blind we have all become to the role of racial segregation for producing and sustaining educational inequality: “Inequality in the American school system is increasingly framed as a function of class… K-12 schools as well as institutions of higher education embrace ‘race-neutral’ policies that consider socioeconomic status rather than racial or ethnic identity. Racial segregation, if acknowledged, is no longer understood as the product of intentional policies that trap and isolate students of color and their families in underserved communities and school districts. Rather, racial concentration and isolation are (seen as) products of ‘individual choices.’… (S)chool finance disparities are presented as simply the unfortunate outcome of the more limited resources of communities of color.”

The spring-summer 2023 edition of Poverty & Race, a publication of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council forces us to look at racial segregation itself as a primary cause of the unequal funding of public education...

WHERE ARE ALL THOSE UNSATISFACTORY SCHOOLS

Poll shows partisan split on schools

Three-fourths of America's parents are satisfied with their local schools, yet nationally the public has a much lower confidence in American education. Where are all the unsatisfactory schools if most of the local ones are satisfactory?

From School Matters

Parents’ faith in their children’s schools remains high but the public’s confidence in American K-12 education is at a record low, according to polling by the Gallup organization? Why would that be?

Relentless attacks on public schools are certainly part of it. As Peter Greene writes in Forbes, “There was a time when supporting public schools was as politically innocuous as babies and apple pie.” Now, criticism is common, loud and extreme, and “accusations that teachers are pedophiles and groomers and porn peddlers are not unusual,” he writes.

In the recent Gallup poll, 76% of parents said they were very or somewhat satisfied with the school attended by their oldest child. But, among all respondents, only 36% were satisfied with the nation’s schools, tying the all-time low. That’s a huge gap: 40 percentage points.

FORT WAYNE LOCAL SCHOOL NEWS

Fort Wayne Community Schools eyes tax rate decrease in 2024

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Fort Wayne Community Schools expects its tax rate to decrease by 1.8% next year under a $365 million budget presented Monday.

The expected rate – 87.15 cents per $100 in assessed value – is associated with the levies for the operations fund, debt service fund and existing referendum debt, Chief Financial Officer Kathy Friend said.

It excludes the Nov. 7 referendum, which FWCS is budgeting for separately. A successful ballot measure would let FWCS assess a tax levy for eight years to support safety and well-being initiatives.

The maximum 10-cent rate would generate about $12 million annually, but the district wouldn’t collect that full amount in 2024. It’s instead budgeting a $7.2 million spending plan with a 6-cent tax rate.

State honors three northeast Indiana school districts, one teacher

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Three northeast Indiana school districts and one Fort Wayne teacher were collectively awarded nearly $450,000 through a recent statewide recognition program.

The Indiana Department of Education honored Bluffton-Harrison Metropolitan School District, East Allen County Schools, Fort Wayne Community Schools and FWCS teacher Brandon Porter during a black-tie event in Indianapolis, the agency said in a news release.

Katie Jenner, Indiana secretary of education, compared the Educational Excellence Awards Gala to red-carpet events used to celebrate movie stars and professional athletes.

She said the teachers who celebrated Friday have positively affected hundreds of students throughout the years and are community leaders.

“Their incredible impact deserves to be celebrated at the grandest level we can,” Jenner said in a statement. “Bringing them together for an awards night to roll out the red carpet and provide surprise monetary awards is one small way we can spotlight the massive impact they continue to make on our state.”

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – July 10, 2023

Here are links to the last two week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"The best choice is your local public school. It welcomes everyone. It unifies community. It is the glue of democracy." -- Diane Ravitch

July 1 was Diane Ravitch's 85th birthday.

THE SUPREME COURT -- AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

U.S. Supreme Court Bans Affirmative Action in College Admissions. Will It Matter?

From Diane Ravitch

In a decision handed down today, the United States Supreme Court banned the use of race-based affirmative action in college admissions. The six conservative justices voted for the decision, the three moderate-liberal justices voted against it.

The media coverage stresses the likelihood that entrants to elite universities will become more Asian and more white, because of reliance on standardized tests, where those two groups typically have higher scores.

But we do not yet know how much it matters to eliminate official policies of affirmative action.

THE SUPREME COURT -- CHARTER SCHOOLS

Supreme Court Declines to Rule on Whether Charter Schools Are Public or Private

From Diane Ravitch

Matt Barnum, writing in Chalkbeat, reports that the U.S. Supreme Court declined today to rule on whether charter schools are public or private.

The case at hand was a charter school in North Carolina that required girls to wear certain types of clothing. If the school were deemed “public,” its rule would be considered discriminatory. If it were deemed “private,” the school could write its own rules about student dress.

So the question remains open, and the Court of Appeals ruling that the school could not discriminate remains in place.

THE ANTI-PUBLIC SCHOOL RIGHT WING

Politico: Republicans Flock to “Moms for Liberty” Event

From Diane Ravitch

Politico reported on the rising significance of “Moms for Liberty” among leading Republicans. “Moms” are known for their advocacy of censorship, book banning, and hatred for public schools.

BATTLE OF THE MOMS — Moms for Liberty is having a busy month...

How extremists ‘won by losing’

From School Matters

The John Birch Society was “the original Moms for Liberty,” as the headline on a recent episode of “Have You Heard” podcast puts it. Like the contemporary extremist group, it specialized in far-right rhetoric, conspiracy theories and bullying tactics. It appealed to a small but passionate group of true believers.

But there’s one big difference. The Birch Society, in its heyday of the late 1950s and ‘60s, was almost universally considered a fringe group. The news media marginalized it. Popular entertainers mocked it. Republicans, even many conservative Republicans, kept their distance.

Today, by contrast, Republican officeholders and candidates trip over themselves to appeal to Moms for Liberty and similar groups, like Indiana-based Purple for Parents. Indiana legislators fell in line with their agenda of attacking so-called critical race theory, diversity education, and LGBTQ+ youth. Lawmakers banned state funding for Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute based on disproven right-wing claims.

INDIANA -- NEW LAWS

Indiana: More Laws to Stifle Freedom of Thought and Democracy

From Diane Ravitch

These are some of the new Indiana laws that will take effect on Saturday. [Indiana is run by the GOP and they have NO respect for public schools or teachers.] Gary is a poverty area and they cannot vote for their school board members. 87% of Hoosier children attend public schools and they are continuously underfunded.

Book bans — Every public school board and charter school governing body is required to establish a procedure for the parent of any student, or any person residing in the school district, to request the removal of library materials deemed “obscene” or “harmful to minors.” School districts must also post a list of the complete holdings of its school libraries on each school’s website and provide a printed copy of the library catalogue to any individual upon request. (HEA 1447)

Charter schools...

Gary schools...

INDIANA -- EDUCATION DASHBOARD

New Indiana education dashboard data sheds light on student performance, teacher retention

From Indiana Capital Chronicle

An updated education data dashboard released this month by the Fairbanks Foundation shows declining teacher retention across Indiana, as well as increases to student suspensions and expulsions, among other trends. For the first time, the Community Data Snapshot additionally displays academic outcomes and workforce readiness information for Marion County on a school-by-school basis. Users can then sort that data by race, ethnicity and family economic status and other characteristics. The updated dashboard allows users to explore data by school corporation and compare metrics across school types, including by each district, public charter, Innovation Network, and private school — a feature not available through other online dashboards.

THE READING WARS

Rcharvet: How I Taught My Students to Love Reading

From Diane Ravitch

Rcharvet, a retired teacher and regular commenter here, explains how the pedagogy of the Common Core taught his students to dislike reading. They were supposed to read excerpts of books, not a complete book. They were expected to analyze the meaning of words and sentences instead of following the narrative of the story. Mr. Charvet became a subversive. He explains here.

...When I taught reading, I would read out loud so kids would HEAR the characters voices (yes I did the voices as well). For struggling readers they typically move through a sentence like they are walking on glass. But, we worked together.

One book that we started was “The Pig Man.” It started out slow (geez I was slow) but started liking the book to the point kids were saying, “Can we read The Pig Man and find out what happened?” They felt the words. They connected to the characters. We could ask questions like, “If you were Tommy what would you do in this case? What should the Pig Man do about the broken statue?” Then because I was making a connection to the book and trying to follow the curriculum I was deemed “moving too slow” and the department head said, “Just collect all the books and move on.”

What did I know?

Tom Ultican: “The Right to Read” is Horse Manure

Ultican shows the graphs of NAEP scores over the past thirty years: reading scores have been unchanged for 30 years. The rhetoric about “the crisis in reading” is a hoax.

From Diane Ravitch

In this illuminating post, Ultican analyzes a documentary called “The Right to Read,” which he compares to the propaganda film “Waiting for Superman.” Behind the film, he writes, is the whole apparatus of the corporate reform movement, armed with derogatory claims about public schools and a simplistic cure for literacy.

He begins:

The new 80-minute video “The Right to Read”was created in the spirit of “Waiting for Superman.” It uses false data interpretations to make phony claims about a non-existent reading crisis. Oakland’s NAACP 2nd Vice President Kareem Weaver narrates the film. Weaver is a full throated advocate for the Science of Reading (SoR) and has many connections with oligarch financed education agendas...

...One of the first media interviews about “The Right to Read” appeared on KTVX channel 4 in Salt Lake City. Ben Heuston from the Waterford Institute answered questions about the new film and the supposed “reading crisis” in American public schools. Heuston who has a PhD in psychology from Brigham Young University claimed that two-thirds of primary grade students in America read below grade level. That is a lie. He is conflating proficiency in reading on the National Assessment of Education Performance (NAEP) with grade level and should know better.

MICHIGAN SUPPORTS PUBLIC EDUCATION

Michigan Passes Historic Increases for Education

From Diane Ravitch

It’s amazing to see what a state education budget can look like when you have pro-education legislators in charge–and teachers chairing the House and Senate Education Committees and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on PreK-12.

The budget includes:

•universal school meals

•foundation allowance increase of 5% — the largest in state history

•fully funded special education programs

•expanded Pre-K programs

•student teacher stipends for K-12

...Budgets are about more than dollars—they are moral documents; and in Michigan we are showing that we value our children, our families, and our future...

NAEP TESTING

John Thompson: The Misinterpretation of NAEP Data

From Diane Ravitch

John Thompson writes here about the negative consequences of shallow reporting on NAEP data. Reporters are sensitive to whether scores are up or down, but tend to ignore contextual factors that may play a role in student performance.

He writes:

Despite the problems with education metrics, the decline in the nation’s 2022 math and reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test is worrisome – if we look at the big picture.

As Diane Ravitch explained, the decline in scores during the pandemic was a “duh” moment. Rather than publishing panicky headlines, these predictable drops in scores should be seen in the broader context of the decade of declines which followed the implementation of rushed and simplistic corporate school reforms. And, as we should have done previously, we must acknowledge what reformers should have previously understood – meaningful increases in learning require inter-connected, holistic team efforts, as opposed to metric-driven instructional shortcuts.

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – June 26, 2023

UPDATE: †NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted every week except holiday weekends or as otherwise noted. Our next scheduled post will be July 10.

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“When it comes to things like this, banning tends to be a reactionary power move rather than something that’s well thought out,” Stone explained. “I think that talking about race in general—even using the word ‘race’—causes discomfort for a lot of people. As we gain traction in Hollywood, the publishing industry and every other area, I think there’s an overall discomfort with facing up to the fact that racism is still a thing that we need to be talking about. But I don’t think it’s possible to talk about it without people being uncomfortable.” -- Nic Stone, author of the frequently banned book, Dear Martin

LET'S READ ABOUT VOUCHERS

Josh Cowen: To a Reformer Who Supports Vouchers

This article is one of several in response to Chad Aldeman's column providing reasons to accept vouchers.

From Diane Ravitch

Josh Cowen is a Professor if Education Policy at Michigan State University who spent nearly two decades involved in studying the effects of vouchers. In this post, published here for the first time, he responds to a school choice advocate, Chad Aldeman, who recently made his case for his views.

Josh Cowen writes:

Can’t we all just get along?

That’s the question underlying a new column by education reform specialist Chad Aldeman.

Although he avoids saying so directly, he’s talking about the latest rush to expand school vouchers in state legislatures during the current lawmaking cycle. It’s mostly happening in red states, and supporters have broader names including the all-encompassing “school choice,” which Aldeman uses, to the more jingoist “education freedom.”

It’s worth reading and considering. I’ve done so in part because, as Peter Greene has pointed out, Aldeman is among the more serious thinkers on education reform issues and because he hints at questions I get myself a lot from journalists covering reform: what would it take to get me to support voucher programs today?

Database: How much money private schools get in Indiana's voucher program

Indiana's updated and expanded voucher law provides vouchers for families with an income of more than $200,000.

From WFYI

Indiana’s taxpayer-funded private school voucher program was launched 12 years ago. In the 2022-23 academic year, more students than ever used the program to help cover or pay the tuition at private or religious schools.

The program provides up to 90 percent of the amount that a voucher student’s public school corporation of legal settlement would receive if the student enrolled in a public school district. Those public funds are used to cover tuition and fees, or go toward the cost of attending a private school. Last school year, the average actual grant amount was $5,854.

To qualify for Indiana's Choice Scholarship, students were required to meet one of eight eligibility tracks and income eligibility. In 2021 lawmakers increased the income eligibility to $154,000 for a family of four — that’s 300 percent of federal free or reduced-price lunch eligibility.

An update to the law that goes into effect July 1 removes all eligibility tracks and increases the income eligibility up to $220,000 for a family of four.

Support for school choice undercuts Hoosiers' natural conservatism

Former Journal Gazette editorial page editor, Karen Francisco comments on the unwillingness of Hoosiers to accept change...unless it involves public education.

From Karen Francisco in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

...there’s one area where Hoosiers show no reluctance toward change. Their acceptance of so-called school choice has been downright radical. Since the state’s charter school law was adopted in 2001, Indiana has unquestioningly supported an endless stream of costly education alternatives, including a near-universal voucher program that cost more than $311 million this past academic year and virtual charter schools that collected $154 million for thousands of students who earned no credits.

In keeping with its unquestioning support for education disruption, Indiana was at the cutting edge of a troubling new development in public education: the rise of right-wing charter schools. A report I co-authored for the Network for Public Education reveals the spread of public charter schools targeting parents likely to be attracted by the “anti-woke” rhetoric of the far right.

We identified 273 currently open charter schools that offer a “classical” curriculum or market themselves to white, conservative families. Another 66 schools are set to open this fall or next. Many are part of chains that we feature in the report. For-profit management corporations run 29% of these charters, a percentage nearly twice as high as the charter sector as a whole. They are spreading most rapidly in suburban and rural communities, including my new state, Colorado.

USE OF LANGUAGE

Orwellian Language and the Moral Perversion of American Politics

Citizens of Indiana -- and the rest of the country -- would benefit from a class in recognizing propaganda.

From Jan Resseger

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion” was, I think, originally a phrase used to describe training programs for staff in all sorts of agencies and institutions to help medical personnel, police, teachers, workers in jails and prisons, staff at nonprofits, librarians, and others be aware of their own racial, ethnic, or religious biases. Such programs are commonly described as anti-racism training. But, of course, by banning “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” state legislatures don’t define precisely what is being banned. Maybe politicians want to ban this sort of training for people who work with the public. Maybe the new laws also mean that states’ higher education institutions cannot explicitly look for new staff who would make their faculties more diverse. Or, as in Ohio’s proposed Senate Bill 83, a law may also mean that faculty members are prohibited from leading class discussions which might make some students feel guilty or uncomfortable about their biases. Notice that the phrase is imprecise enough that it can be used by politicians who want to pass laws that impose their own political biases.

We ought to take some time linguistically to reflect on the meaning of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” as Orwellian language. When our lawmakers ban “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” are they endorsing separation and segregation, inequality, and exclusion? Or are politicians simply employing the phrase to fan the fears of voters who are uncomfortable in our multicultural society?

We need to demand that our politicians be precise in their choice of words. When they try to ban “diversity, equity and inclusion,” what is it about our society that our politicians are rejecting, what kind of bigotry are they appealing to in an effort to get elected, and what sort of barriers are they trying to impose?

THE POLITICIZATION OF READING INSTRUCTION

Nancy Bailey: Why Do Corporate Reformers Love “The Science of Reading”?

...continues...

From Diane Ravitch

Many of the same individuals who favor charter schools, private schools, and online instruction, including corporate reformers, use the so-called Science of Reading (SoR) to make public school teachers look like they’ve failed at teaching reading.

Politicians and corporations have had a past and current influence on reading instruction to privatize public schools with online programs. This has been going on for years, so why aren’t reading scores soaring? The SoR involves primarily online programs, but it’s often unclear whether they work.

NEWLY PASSED LAWS IN INDIANA

Indiana education officials roll out school guidance on newly passed laws

The Indiana Capital Chronicle provides a summary of new laws impacting education.

From the Indiana Capital Chronicle

A GOP-led effort will require schools to use “science of reading” curricula approved by IDOE by the 2024-25 academic year. HEA 1558 codifies a statewide definition of the science of reading.

The phonics-based literacy approach incorporates phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Education experts say it gives students the skills to “decode” any word they don’t recognize.

The legislation also requires collegiate educator preparation programs to embed the science of reading into their curriculum and prepare future educators to receive a literacy endorsement.

...As part of Gov. Eric Holcomb’s 2023 legislative agenda, the General Assembly allocated $160 million to eliminate textbook and curricular fees for Hoosier kids.

The state’s next biennial budget prohibits Indiana schools from charging students for curricular materials.

Even so, some school officials say Indiana’s new budget does not provide enough funding to cover all textbook and curriculum costs. And while the next spending plan stops schools from billing students for curricular materials, it does not address other fees. For now, IDOE officials are telling schools to direct questions regarding the ability to charge other fees to the school corporation’s legal counsel.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is important, and one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – March 13, 2023

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

THIS WEEK

State legislatures around the nation are working hard to defund and damage public education through book banning, charters, and vouchers.

LEGISLATURES TAKE AIM AT PUBLIC EDUCATION

Targeting teachers, school libraries exercise in legislative overreach

This op-ed penned by Michael Shaffer ought to anger you. Legislatures around the country, including the Indiana General Assembly, are jumping on the book-banning bandwagon in support of a minority of loud extremists who use threats, intimidation, and fear to force schools to bend to their will.

Not content with diverting billions of tax dollars to fund private and religious schools, the mob of book banners and their cronies in Republican-gerrymandered state legislatures want to limit the rights of (what is likely) the majority of parents who want their children to have access to accurate accounts of history and literature reflective of reality.

What constitutes "inappropriate?" The book banners want to decide for you.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

...SB 12 (authored by Jim Tomes, R-Wadesville, to protect the “little tykes” and passed by the brain trust in the Senate) states, any teacher or school librarian who willingly subjects students – who include significantly more than “little tykes” – to material harmful to minors can be found guilty of a Level 6 felony and subject to 2 1/2 years in prison.

We would all agree with this, wouldn’t we? After all, who would want anything to happen to our school-age children that is harmful to them?

But wait, there’s more. It starts with a very carefully chosen word that has my blood boiling.

“Inappropriate.” Any parent or guardian can file a complaint against any book that a school has in its library or teacher has in their book collection that is inappropriate. Let that sink in.

Inappropriate? Not pornographic?

Just to be clear, we are not talking about taking Playboy or Hustler magazine off the shelves of your local high school library periodical sections. The bill specifically uses the word “inappropriate” and applies to any public school K-12 classroom or library in Indiana.

I am not in favor of putting pornographic materials in the hands of kids. But that is not what this bill is talking about.

This bill comes straight from the hands of Purple for Parents and Moms for Liberty (a branch of the American Legislative Exchange Council), which have self-appointed their organizations as the guardians of purity and appropriateness for our children, all the while spewing hate speech and falsities as quickly as they can hurl invectives in their auctioneer-paced rampages.

It is only fair to point out that SB 12 only applies to traditional public schools and charter schools; voucher schools are not affected at all.

Apparently, the only Indiana teachers and librarians completely safe from felony prosecution are those who teach in voucher schools, as long as they practice the right religion...

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: Whose Black History Will Be Taught?

The "war of northern aggression." That's what they called the Civil War.

Pretending that the Civil War and the Reconstruction amendments solved the problem of racism in the United States and neglecting to teach our children about our true history is educational malpractice.

From Diane Ravitch

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. reviews the long debate about how to teach Black history in an article in the New York Times. The debate began as rationales by sympathizers of the Confederacy, who changed the Civil War into “The War Between the States.” In a visit to Charleston, South Carolina, not long ago, I heard the war described in a historic home as “The War of Northern Aggression.”

Dr. Gates writes:

Lurking behind the concerns of Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, over the content of a proposed high school course in African American studies, is a long and complex series of debates about the role of slavery and race in American classrooms.

Miami Herald: “Parental Rights” Is the Battle Cry of Extremists

Which parents get to choose the books to deny to everyone? Do the extremists speak for all parents? Not likely.

From Diane Ravitch

Their narrative goes that to be “pro-parent” you must not want your children exposed to topics like “critical race theory,” or you only support a whitewashed version of this country’s history of racism. Being pro-kid means you don’t want them to learn that there are men who date men, women who date women and people who don’t identify with the gender assigned to them at birth. It means you want school libraries sanitized from content that might offend your sensibilities.

It means that there’s one way to look at America and education and anyone with a different opinion be damned, called names like leftist, communist, anti-American.

It’s as if only groups like Moms for Liberty represent what parents want. The group seems more preoccupied with banning books than concerned that too many kids in our schools cannot read at grade level. The leader of its Miami chapter once called the protests after the death of George Floyd at the hands of police “race wars” and repeated QAnon conspiracy theories on Instagram, Politico reported.

To be a parent, under this definition, means to be a conservative in the most extreme sense of the word...

The Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers on Oklahoma’s State Superintendent: “I Alone Will Indoctrinate Your Children”

"Beware the zealot who is going to save you from something that may or may not exist and intends to burn down your house to do it."

From Diane Ravitch

Dr. Meyers writes:

Oklahoma’s new state schools superintendent is about to take a desperate situation and make it awful.

His plans for stamping out “wokeness,” critical race theory, and boys using the girl’s bathrooms sounds nothing like a plan to advance education, and more like a platform to become Ron DeSantis Jr. The irony of this culture war approach to education is transparently hypocritical. Walters claims to be all “for academics and against indoctrination,” while making it clear that he alone will decide who gets hired, who gets raises and what gets taught in our schools. That is the very definition of indoctrination.

Beware the zealot who is going to save you from something that may or may not exist and intends to burn down your house to do it. Beware the fearmonger who incites the masses to muzzle free and open discourse about dangerous ideas so that he can make duplicate zealots for even worse ideas. Beware the evangelist who rails against other people’s sins while lining his pocket from two jobs at taxpayers’ expense while vowing to cut wasteful government spending. Ryan Walters makes more than the governor.

FUNDING VOUCHERS, NOT TEXTBOOKS

Indiana House budget covers textbook fees at schools' expense

For years, parents of Indiana public school teachers have had to pay for their textbooks despite the Indiana Constitutional guarantee of "a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all."

The Indiana General Assembly now wants to put the burden of textbook fees on the local school systems, while increasing state money for private and religious schools.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The House plan enables lawmakers to claim a win for parents no longer facing textbook fees while touting increases in school funding. But a disproportionate part of the new money goes to expanding the voucher school program.

The Senate could provide true relief for the students attending public schools in our state by using some of the money carved out to grow the voucher system to cover the tab for books and other needed curriculum materials. The money is there. It’s just a question of priorities.

CHARTERS DRAIN REAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Charter schools win in proposed Indiana budget amid public advocacy campaign

As expected from the anti-public schools Republicans in the Indiana General Assembly, "[p]roperty tax losses could be in the cards for some traditional public schools"

From Indiana Capital Chronicle

Charter schools in Indiana could see big gains under the current draft of the next two-year state budget. But the deal could cause long-term losses for traditional public schools, some of which stand to lose millions of dollars needed for teacher raises and other non-classroom expenses.

A new funding stream carved into the House Republican budget would mandate the amount of funds every public school district and charter school receives for operations, which are collected through local property taxes.

Charter schools would still be unable to tap into local tax revenues, but instead would get $1,400 per student from state funds in 2024, and $1,500 in 2025, according to the draft budget. A current state grant offers charter schools $1,250 per student each school year...

...That would mean cuts to local operations funds at some schools — especially in districts with a large tax base such as Indianapolis. It’s still not clear how exactly individual school districts could be impacted, however. A fiscal impact statement says schools statewide could lose $87 million in 2025 and $177 million in 2026.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is important, and one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – February 13, 2023

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

THIS WEEK

Join us on March 1, 2023, at the Allen County Public Library for an update on public education and potential legislation being proposed regarding funding, vouchers, and the 2023 legislation may affect public education. Presentations will be by Dr. Jennifer McCormick, former Indiana State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer, President of the Indiana Coalition for Public Education (ICPE).

CULTURE WAR POLITICS SPURS EXPANSION OF VOUCHERS

The Far Right Has Used Culture War Politics to Open the Gate to a Vast Expansion of School Vouchers

The attack on public education is not new. The far right has been doing its best to privatize public education for a long time. The so-called "culture wars" are just the latest attempt to damage public education in America.

The current calls for education "reform" through curriculum cleansing and book banning are not uprisings of grassroots parent groups. There is big money behind the quest to do away with public schools.

[Note: emphasis added]

From Jan Resseger

In Merchants of Deception: Parent Props and their Funders, a new report just out from the Network for Public Education, Massachusetts political scientist, Maurice Cunningham explores what appeared a couple of years ago to be the spontaneous emergence of angry parents’ groups protesting teaching about racism, sex and gender.

“In truth,” he begins, “political interests use crises to turn politics and policy their way. This has happened during the COVID pandemic as right-wing ‘parent’ groups came out of nowhere to protest health measures such as masking and vaccine requirements in schools, then moved on to Critical Race Theory, then LGBT issues, book banning, and an endless stream of other ginned up culture war issues. In truth the Right has been massing its forces for years to undermine public education, but the sudden proliferation of ‘parents’ and ‘moms’ groups has signaled a new and more virulent turn… Conservative groups have exploded since 2021 and include operations like Parents Defending Education (PDE) and Moms for Liberty (M4L). They draw on white backlash politics and resentment.”

PUBLIC EDUCATION UPDATE

March 1, 2023, event announced

Please join us and the Indiana Coalition for Public Education at the event with the state's finest public education advocates -- Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer and Jennifer McCormick -- supporters of public education in Indiana!

PARTY-SUPPORTED SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS?

Partisan school board bill advances

Should school board members announce their party affiliation? Do we really need to add more political influence to public education? We think not.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Indiana Republicans forged ahead Wednesday with a proposal that would upend the current nonpartisan school board elections across the state despite opponents arguing the change would further inject politics into local schools.

The Indiana House elections committee voted 6-4 along party lines to endorse a bill that would establish a system allowing each of the state's nearly 300 school districts to determine whether to require candidates to declare a political party.

THE COLLEGE BOARD LIED

The College Board Lied about Black Studies AP Course. It Had Frequent Exchanges with Florida Officials

The College Board folded under pressure from the far right led by Florida Governor DeSantis.

From Diane Ravitch

Governor Ron DeSantis and his Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. denounced the new AP African American Studies course in January. They listed specific objections to the syllabus. When the College Board released its final draft on February 1, everything that Florida opposed had been deleted.

The College Board insisted that it did not bow to political pressure because the revisions were made before Florida officials denounced the original.

The New York Times reported that the College Board and Florida officials were in frequent contact between September and February 1. The first attack on the AP course was written by Stanley Kurtz and published in the National Review on September 12. Kurtz warned that the AP course was “NeoMarxist” and takes “leftist indoctrination to a whole new level.”

About the same time, the College Board and Florida officials began negotiations.

SOUTHWEST ALLEN COUNTY SCHOOLS

SACS board moving, plans to show meetings online

The Southwest Allen County Schools school board finally goes online.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The Southwest Allen County Schools board is preparing for a move - and their remote-viewing debut.

Beginning March 7, the five elected officials will no longer conduct business in the district administration building along Homestead Road. They will instead meet in a conference room at a nearby facility that houses transportation staff, Superintendent Park Ginder said Tuesday.

SACS plans to offer an option to watch meetings online - either through livestreaming or a recording - once the necessary equipment is in place, Ginder said.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is important, and one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – October 10, 2022

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

THIS WEEK

Indiana names the Teacher of the Year and we feature posts discussing the failure and danger of standardized testing.

INDIANA TEACHER OF THE YEAR

Bluffton teacher named Indiana’s Teacher of the Year

Tara Cocanower, a Bluffton High School history teacher has been named Indiana Teacher of the Year for 2023.

From WANE dot com

The Indiana Department of Education announced the honor on Wednesday.

“For many educators, becoming a teacher is a calling to serve others and make a positive impact on the world, one student at a time, and Mrs. Tara Cocanower is the embodiment of someone who was truly meant to be a teacher,” said Dr. Katie Jenner, Indiana Secretary of Education. “When you see the way she connects with her students, it is clear to those around her that in addition to maximizing student learning, she is positively impacting lives and preparing her students to do the same. By believing in her students and being a trusted mentor, she is empowering the next generation of leaders and, as she calls them, world changers.”

STILL CRAZY -- OVER TESTING -- AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

The United States has weaponized standardized tests for decades. We have overused and misused them to punish students for being poor, to punish teachers for working with hard to teach students, and to separate the haves from the have-nots.

Privatizers have used tests to claim that public schools are failing, when the failure is our society's inability to conquer racism and poverty.

Bloggers Nancy Bailey and Steven Singer wrote about standardized tests on their respective blogs this week, and our readers were interested.

Dear Dr. Cardona: Punitive Student Assessment is Meant to Privatize Public Schools!

Nancy Bailey's open letter to the U.S. Secretary of Education...

From Nancy Bailey's Education Website

High-stakes standardized tests have been punitive for years casting teachers as failing, closing public schools, opening charters, and pushing vouchers.

Tests, done right, can be a professional tool for teachers to understand students better. But corporate reformers stole that process years ago to make teachers look bad to close schools.

High-stakes standardized tests have unrealistically raised expectations even for the youngest learners. See Is Kindergarten the New First Grade? Children bear the pressure of high-stakes standardized testing, which can last a lifetime.

Public schools have been scrutinized, while charters and private schools are given free rein. See The New York Times’s recent report, In Hasidic Enclaves, Failing Private Schools Flush With Public Money, where gender-segregated schools funded with $1 billion from the government agreed to subject students to standardized tests, with dismal results.

And if test results were to ensure [public] schools would receive the resources they need, why are teachers resorting to charity, begging for materials, and using Donors Choose?

When Good Students Get Bad Standardized Test Scores

Gadfly on the Wall blogger Steven Singer posted twice about standardized tests. Why on Earth are we still using these ineffective and damaging so-called assessments?

From Gadfly on the Wall Blog

Ameer is a good student.

He takes notes in class, does all his homework and participates in discussions.

He writes insightful essays and demonstrates a mastery of spelling and grammar.

He reads aloud with fluency and inflection. He asks deep questions about the literature and aces nearly all of his classroom reading comprehension tests.

However, when it is standardized test time, things are very different.

He still arrives early, takes his time with the questions and reviews his work when he’s done – but the results are not the same.

His grades are A’s. His test scores are Below Basic.

How is that?

How can a student demonstrate mastery of a subject in class but fail to do the same on a standardized test?

And which assessment should I, his teacher, take seriously?

After all, they can’t BOTH be correct.

The Racist Origins of Standardized Testing Still Matter

From Gadfly on the Wall Blog

Would you walk across a bridge that was designed to break?

Of course you wouldn’t.

But what if someone told you the bridge had been fixed?

Would you trust it – especially if people were still falling off of it all the time?

That’s the situation we’re in with standardized testing.

The tests were explicitly created more than a century ago to fail minorities and the poor.

And today, after countless revisions and new editions, they still do exactly the same thing.

Yet we’re exhorted to keep using them.

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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