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 – February 27, 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

Republicans in the legislature are working against public education. News about charters, vouchers, and Ron DeSantis -- a full menu of horrible updates.

ICPE UPDATE

2023 Legislative Update – The Sucker Punch

ICPE, the Indiana Coalition for Public Education, provides an update on the damage that the Republicans in the Indiana legislature are proposing for the state's public education systems.

From the Indiana Coalition for Public Education

2023 Legislative Update We’re well into the 2023 legislative session, and some of us are asking:

• Do our legislators understand that public schools* are essential infrastructure in communities across Indiana—rural, urban, and suburban?
• If so, why do they keep moving bills that would defund public schools?
• Why do they want to send more public funds to private and privately managed environments, with little or no public oversight?
• Who is the supermajority working for?

Damaging bills this session fall into two broad categories. The first has to do with money. Adequate funding is necessary to maintain a vibrant and well-resourced school system, so attacks on school funding are also attacks on the quality of our public schools.

ARE CHARTERS PUBLIC SCHOOLS?

This Potential SCOTUS Case Could Change the Course of US Charter Schools

Charters like to brag that they're "just public schools" until they run up against requirements that public schools must follow...then they become "private corporations."

Can school officials force girls to wear skirts or dresses?

From Jacobin

Can public school officials, acting under state authority, forbid girls from wearing pants? Bonnie Peltier didn’t think so.

In 2015 Peltier, the mother of a Leland, North Carolina kindergartener, complained about a rule at her daughter’s charter school compelling girls to wear skirts or dresses. Baker Mitchell, owner of the private, for-profit company that manages the school, responded by explaining that the policy was designed to preserve “chivalry” — which he later characterized as a code of conduct wherein women are “regarded as a fragile vessel that men are supposed to take care of.”

The following year, three future “fragile vessels” — Peltier’s daughter, a fourth grader, and an eighth grader — became plaintiffs in an ACLU lawsuit alleging that Charter Day School (CDS) had violated the US Constitution by imposing a rule that made it harder for girls to stay warm, feel comfortable, and play freely. An extensive legal battle followed, with a federal court ultimately deciding that CDS had indeed run afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits gender-based discrimination, by making the girls wear skirts.

DEMS SUPPORT FOR CHARTERS WANING

Hakeem Jeffries Will Downplay His Support for Charters Now That He Is Party Leader

Are Democrats really supporters of authentic public schools or is it just because Republicans are pro-privatization?

From Diane Ravitch

For a time, during the Obama years, Obama and his Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sold charters as a “progressive” idea that would nurture innovation. After thirty years, the charter claims dimmed. Too many scandals, too little innovation. Too many charter chains making profits or paying outlandish salaries. Too many charters that opened and closed within three years. Too many charters that believed harsh discipline was “innovative.”

The charter lobby considered Hakeem Jeffries one of its best friends, but that was before Trump chose Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. She was an outspoken friend of School choice, including charter schools. In recent years, red states have embraced charters and vouchers in their frenzy to privatize public schools and transfer public funding to private organizations.

Now, it’s clear to most Democrats that Republicans own the issue of charters and vouchers, not Democrats.

VOUCHERS ARE NOT ABOUT CHOICE

Peter Greene: Vouchers, “Choice,” and the End of Public Schools

School choice: where the school gets to choose the students.

From Diane Ravitch

Vouchers are not about choice. Just look at Florida, which has worked to disrupt, defund and dismantle public schools for years, while simultaneously shutting down and limiting what choices schools are allowed to offer. Look at every state’s voucher law; they all enshrine a private “education provider’s” right to deny and discriminate as they wish, thereby denying choice to any students they wish to deny choice to. One of the biggest limiters of school choice is not the public system, but the private system’s unwillingness to open their doors to all these students who, we hear, are just thirsting for choices.

We know what a free market education system looks like–it looks like the US post-secondary education system. Occasional attempts at free-to-all schools are beaten down by racist and classist arguments, along with charges of socialist indoctrination. You get as much choice as you can afford, the private schools only accept (and keep) the students they want, and those who aspire to certain levels of schooling have to sink themselves in debt to get it. Meanwhile, state’s slowly but surely withdraw financial support from the few “public” universities left.

RESEARCHERS: VOUCHERS ARE A SWINDLE

Researchers: Vouchers Swindle Taxpayers, Students, and Families

At one point Indiana Republicans told us that public schools were failing and that students needed vouchers to go to "better quality" private schools. It turns out that vouchers damage public schools and don't deliver a better product. Instead, we should fully fund public education...

As of this writing, the Republican supermajority in the Indiana General Assembly is set ready to increase money spent on religious and private education

From Diane Ravitch

School vouchers are a taxpayer swindle that fails to raise achievement while eroding public schools and the principle of equal protection under the law outlined in the U.S. Constitution. If more states adopt school voucher systems, most parents will find their top choice — a neighborhood public school — largely defunded and unable to recruit and retain high-quality teachers due to a transfer of funds into unregulated private schools.

Americans from all backgrounds have fought to gain access to public schools, including freed slaves, immigrants and people with disabilities. These struggles have led to a free universal public education system that propels each child into our democracy, communities and economy. Public schools also serve as community hubs where neighborhoods gather to vote, watch sports, participate in townhalls, among many other public events.

Vouchers jeopardize all of this because they transfer money from public schools to individual parents through grants, savings accounts or scholarships to pay private school tuition. It is a system where self-interest replaces the common good, culminating in separate education systems for children living on the same street in the same community.

What does academic testing really measure?

FLORIDA STILL FIGHTING COLLEGE BOARD

Florida: State Officials Consider “Classical, Christian” Test as Replacement for the SAT

Not that we love the SAT...

From Diane Ravitch

Governor DeSantis is unhappy with the College Board because it had the nerve to disagree with him. He said he might find an alternative for the Board’s products, the SAT and AP courses. The Miami Herald says that the state is in discussions with a new test vendor whose was designed for Christian schools and home schools...

Will there be another test for students who are not Christian?

FWCS ASKS FOR FUNDING FOR SAFETY, SECURITY

Fort Wayne Community Schools to ask voters to fund safety, security initiatives

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Fort Wayne Community Schools plans to ask voters to support a safety and security referendum as early as this fall, Superintendent Mark Daniel announced at a Wednesday news conference.

It is too early to quantify the additional property tax dollars FWCS will seek to collect over eight years through a possible November referendum, or ballot measure, Daniel said. He stressed the value of investing in safety measures, such as increasing the number of student resource officers and installing devices that can alert officials to an open door.

“If you don’t pay it up front now,” Daniel said, “you’re going to pay forever.”

The superintendent recognized that making schools safer can’t be entirely achieved with money, however. Other aspects – including mentors, mental health counseling and discipline practices – also contribute, he 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 3, 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

Surprise...charter schools are wasting public money and NPE Executive Director, Carol Burris, discusses. Peter Greene sees a danger to public education in Justice Alito's opinion in the 2014 Hobby Lobby decision.

We also report on two local school systems.

CHARTER SCHOOL PROBLEMS

Audit of charter school program finds big problems

The Office of Inspector General (OIG), an independent watchdog of the U.S. Department of Education, found that for 2013-16 grants only 51% of the schools promised by Charter School Programs (CSP) recipients opened or expanded. Read NPE Executive Director Carol Burris's piece in the Washington Post Answer Sheet.

From the Answer Sheet

The U.S. Education Department’s Office of Inspector General has released a new audit of the federal Charter School Programs that found some alarming results about how charter school networks have used millions of dollars in funding. Among other things, the audit found that charter school networks and for-profit charter management organizations did not open anywhere near the number of charters they promised to open with federal funding. This piece looks at the new audit and what it tells us.

...Charter schools are publicly funded but privately managed. The federal charter program, which began in 1994 with the aim of expanding high-quality charters, had bipartisan support for years, but many Democrats have pulled back from the movement, citing the fiscal impact on school districts and repeated scandals in the sector. The Biden administration is making some changes to the program in an effort to stop waste and fraud and provide more transparency to the operation of charters.

This piece was written by Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education and a former award-winning principal in New York. She has been chronicling the charter school movement and the standardized-test-based accountability movement on this blog for years. The Network for Public Education is an alliance of organizations that advocates for the improvement of public education and sees charter schools as part of a movement to privatize public education.

ALITO'S TIME BOMB

Alito's Time Bomb And Education

Curmudgucation blogger Peter Greene explains how a horrible court decision could adversely affect our public schools and our civil rights.

From Curmudgucation

...suppose their religious belief is offended by students from the Wrong Background or whose parents aren't properly married, or a whole laundry list of reasons to discriminate against students. [Justice] Kennedy was worried about decisions forcing the government to create new programs, but when it comes to education, the government program is already in place--public schools.

So Alito's time bomb could be used for any sort of "sincerely held" religious-based discrimination that charters or voucher-collecting schools care to impose. "Well, they can always just go to public school," becomes a free pass for any sort of discrimination, bigotry and repression they care to indulge in, and public schools become a dumping ground, resources stripped for choice programs. Not that this isn't already happening (see here and here), but Koppelman's argument suggests one more legal protection for this twisting of the promise of public education.

People of faith ought to oppose this sort of reasoning. When "sincerely held" religious belief becomes a free pass for all manner of misbehavior, it's only a matter of time before religion becomes overrun with scam artists and grifters who find it convenient to suddenly develop "sincerely held" beliefs. Same as it ever was.

WINDOW UPGRADES IN FWCS

FWCS approves window upgrade

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Fort Wayne Community Schools' facility director didn't want to estimate how many windows $1.5 million is buying at three buildings.

"I have no idea," Darren Hess told the school board as it considered the latest spending request supported by the district's $156 million allocation of federal emergency relief. "I'm not going to garner a guess."

The board on Monday unanimously awarded the window replacement contract to Schenkel Construction Inc., the lowest of two bidders.

NACS AND HUNTERTOWN REACH AGREEMENT

Huntertown, NACS cooperate on annexation

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Board members of Northwest Allen County Schools on Monday agreed to allow Huntertown to annex district property surrounding Carroll Middle and Eel River Elementary schools.

There were no acrimonious comments from board members. No wrathful speeches to report. The vote was unanimous...

**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 – September 19, 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

This week we read about an update on the SCOTUS ruling in Bremerton (the praying football coach), "permissionless education", lower taxes in FWCS, ranking states on school "reform", and forgiving charter school loans (favored by the same folks who are against forgiving student loans).

COACH GOES ON THE MARTYR CIRCUIT

Praying Coach Is Too Busy For His Old Job

He didn't pray quietly. He made a big deal about it.

He wasn't fired, he just didn't reapply.

SCOTUS said the school system had to rehire him. They offered. His response? Crickets. He was too busy playing the martyr circuit.

He and SCOTUS wasted public school dollars on a case that should not have been decided the way it was. Meanwhile, permanent damage has been done to the Wall of Separation.

From Curmudgucation

You remember the case of Joseph Kennedy, the Washington state football coach who wanted to hold public prayers on the fifty yard line even though his school district said, "Don't." You remember that the case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where the court decided in the coach's favor in a decision that required a willful ignoring of the actual facts of the case...

In the end, SCOTUS ordered the district to reinstate Kennedy as coach even though they had never fired him in the first place--he'd simply failed to reapply for the job and subsequently played victim; it didn't matter, as Kennedy's lawyer kept saying he was fired, and Justice Alito also said he was fired. But SCOTUS said he had to be re-employed, his lawyer threatened to spank the school district if they didn't, and Kennedy said he'd be back the instant they sent word.

He was sent reinstatement paperwork at the beginning of August. But now the fall football season has come and--twist!-- Kennedy is nowhere near Bremerton...

Read the full Seattle Times piece if you need to raise your blood pressure a bit.

So given the choice between doing the job he sued over, or making the circuit as a celebrity martyr, Kennedy has chosen the latter. If there was ever the slightest shred that there was a real matter of principle at the heart of this case, it should evaporate. Just one more excuse to batter the wall between church and state.

PERMISSIONLESS EDUCATION

Why Permissionless Education

"Permissionless is about being unaccountable, about not having to answer to anybody. Which is just one more variation on the old Koch-far right search for a government-free Land of Do As You Please."

From Curmudgucation

"Permissionless" is a bit of a buzzword in some corners of the choicer community these days.

Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform tosses it around a bit, particularly when she's working on the STOP award, a prize that Pennsylvania gazillionaire Jeff Yass funds and promotes. The P in STOP stands for permissionless.

Meanwhile, the Stand Together Trust, which used to be the Charles Koch Institute, likes "permissionless" a lot. Their substack, previously "Learning Everywhere," is now called "Permissionless Education" and the Stand Together folks even plan to do a whole session at the 30th annual SPN meeting entitled "Expanding the Permissionless Education Market: Lessons from Everyday Entrepreneurs." Because nothing says "everyday entrepreneurs" like Koch money and the State Policy Network, that great collection of big-time right-wing thinky tanks.

LOWER TAXES FOR FWCS

FWCS touts its falling tax rate

Some tax relief for the FWCS district.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

A Fort Wayne Community Schools board member wanted to make sure Monday that those watching the 2023 budget presentation understood the $345 million spending plan is expected to come with a 3% decrease in the overall tax rate.

Steve Corona, who also sits on the Fort Wayne Redevelopment Commission, tied the school district's declining tax rate to the investment that businesses are making in the city.

"I know from time to time there's questions about the city of Fort Wayne providing tax increment financing to induce businesses to expand or relocate here," Corona said. "We can see the downtown changing, but this is proof that the value of our community is rising, and as a result our tax rate is going down."

FLORIDA #1 IN DAMAGING PUBLIC SCHOOLS (INDIANA IS #4)

Florida ranked No. 1 for "education freedom" — by right-wing group that wants to privatize it all

A New Heritage Foundation "report card" celebrates how well you underfund public schools and how well you dismantle public schools. The "report card" ranks states according to school vouchers, deregulation, and conservative parent activism. Sadly, though not surprisingly, Indiana is right up near the top at #4.

The Network for Public Education, on the other hand, puts Indiana at #48 out of 51, and Florida at #50.

From Salon

"The fact that the Heritage Foundation ranks Arizona second in the country, when our schools are funded nearly last in the nation, only underscores the depraved lens with which they view the world," said Beth Lewis, director of the advocacy group Save Our Schools Arizona, which is currently leading a citizen ballot referendum against the state's new universal ESA law. "Heritage boasting about realizing Milton Friedman's dream reveals the agenda — to abolish public schools and put every child on a voucher in segregated schools."

"This is a report that celebrates states not funding their students," agreed Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, the state's largest union. Noting that Florida in fact ranks 45th in the nation in average per-student funding, Spar continued, "In their report, it seems like the states that fund their students at a higher level have a worse ranking than those who invest less in their children."

This amounts, Spar continued, to "the Heritage Foundation celebrating the rankings of how well you underfund public schools, how well you dismantle public schools. I don't think we should celebrate the fact that we're shortchanging kids."

"With this report," added [Carol] Burris [Executive Director of the Network for Public Education], "the Heritage Foundation puts its values front and forward — that schooling should be a free-for-all marketplace where states spend the least possible on educating the future generation of Americans, with no regulations to preserve quality." It's no accident, Burris added, that Heritage's top two states, Florida and Arizona, were ranked as the worst on the Network for Public Education's own report card this year.

"These two states now have such a critical teacher shortage, due to their anti-public school agenda, that you do not even need a college degree to teach," said Burris. "Parents who are looking for the best states in which to educate their children should take this report card and turn it on its head."

SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT FORGIVE LOANS?

Charter Schools Collected $1 Billion in PPP Loans That Were Forgiven

How dare the government forgive student loans...oh, wait.

From Diane Ravitch

Since President Biden announced a program to forgive $10,000-20,000 in student loan debt, new attention has been paid to the Trump administration’s Paycheck Protection Program. PPP doled out billions of dollars to businesses of all kinds, many of which didn’t need the money but took it anyway. Free money.

Among those that collected significant sums were religious schools, private schools (some of which had multi-million dollar endowments), and charter schools.

Regular public schools had a separate stream of money to help them survive COVID-19, but they were not allowed to apply for PPP money, which was only for private businesses and nonprofit.

Charter schools were allowed to double dip. Betsy DeVos was Secretary of Education, after all. So charter schools qualified for public school funding and for PPP.

Carol Burris wrote a brief summary...

**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 – July 11, 2022

Here are links to articles from the last two weeks^† 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.

Can just anyone be a teacher?

THIS WEEK

Can anyone be a teacher? How about a superintendent? Do you need any experience?

There's good news about the Federal Charter Schools Program and bad news about vouchers.

FWCS workers get a raise, and fewer high school graduates are going to college.

ANYONE CAN BE AN EDUCATOR

Nothing new here...just the usual assumption that anyone who has been to school can be a teacher. After all, how hard could it be? Just tell kids what they need to learn and they learn it right? Also, a twist on this...the Philadelphia School Board thinks anyone can be a superintendent. No experience is necessary.

Anyone can teach

Idaho Lowers Standards for New Teachers: Anyone Can Teach!

From Diane Ravitch

The Idaho legislature overwhelmingly approved a bill to drop requirements for new teachers, leaving it to districts to write their own standards.

In Idaho, anyone can teach so long as they have a BA degree, pass a criminal background check, and don’t have an infectious disease.

In short, teaching in Idaho is no longer a profession. The charter industry considers this a victory.

Anyone can be a superintendent

Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial Wonders Why New Supe Needs $450,000 Handholding

From Diane Ravitch

The Philadelphia School Board hired an inexperienced school superintendent, then signed a contract to pay $450,000 to a firm to train the new superintendent. Former Nashville school board member Amy Frogge wrote an open letter to the Philadelphia school board, warning about the track record and failures of the consultant they hired.

The Philadelphia Inquirer published this editorial.

PRIVATIZATION: CHARTERS

Federal Charter Schools program

Carol Burris Explains the Changes to the Federal Charter Schools Program

Charter schools now need to be more transparent and accountable.

Full Disclosure: NEIFPE is a member of NPE's Grassroots Education Network.

From Diane Ravitch

The charter lobby, overflowing with cash, bought ads on major television programs to fight the Department’s effort to regulate the federal funding of charters, especially the proposed exclusion of for-profit charter operators. The Network for Public Education did not have millions or even hundreds of thousands to lobby on behalf of public schools. It did not buy any TV or radio time. NPE is funded by the 350,000 friends who contribute small amounts of money to fight privatization. Contrary to the claims of the charter lobby, NPE is not funded by the teachers’ unions. It is funded by parents, teachers, principals, and other citizens who don’t want to lose their public schools.

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, has worked tirelessly to persuade the U.S. Department of Education and members of Congress to require accountability and set rules for the federal Charter Schools Program. She wrote numerous reports, based on government data, to demonstrate the need for oversight. The program receives $440 million a year with no scrutiny, and its waste, fraud, and abuse are legion. Unlike the charter lobby, NPE has a small staff. Carol is the only full-time employee. Her hard work paid off. Despite the millions of dollars spent by the charter lobby to keep the federal dollars flowing without accountability, transparency or oversight, the Department ignored them.

Carol Burris explained the new regulations in a post on Valerie Strauss’s blog “The Answer Sheet” at The Washington Post.

PRIVATIZATION: VOUCHERS

The cost of Vouchers

Indiana voucher cost nears quarter billion dollars

Indiana gave voucher schools, nearly all of which are religious schools, almost a quarter billion dollars last school year.

Meanwhile, Article 1, Section 6 of the State Constitution reads, "No money shall be drawn from the treasury, for the benefit of any religious or theological institution."

You might ask, "How can they do that?" Simple, get the State Supreme Court to declare it constitutional.

From School Matters

Indiana awarded $241.4 million in the 2021-22 school year to pay tuition and fees for students to attend private schools. That’s 44% more than the state spent on vouchers the previous year.

The increase, detailed in a Department of Education report, isn’t surprising. The Indiana General Assembly in 2021 vastly expanded the voucher program, opening it to families near the top of the state’s income scale and making the vouchers significantly more generous.

Nearly all the 330 private schools that received voucher funding are religious schools.Some discriminate against students, families and employees because of their religion, disability status, sexual orientation or gender identity. Indiana is bankrolling bigotry.

SCOTUS ruling in Carson v. Makin: Maine religious schools get public funds

A Way Around

If a state funds private schools it MUST also fund private religious schools.

From Sheila Kennedy

What is surprising is how little the 6-to-3 decision in the Maine case, Carson v. Makin, will matter practically. And the reason offers a glimpse of hope for those who worry about a future dominated by the court’s conservative supermajority — including the many Americans troubled by the court’s decision in the gun case, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.

Let’s start with the Carson case. Anticipating this week’s decision, Maine lawmakers enacted a crucial amendment to the state’s anti-discrimination law last year in order to counteract the expected ruling. The revised law forbids discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, and it applies to every private school that chooses to accept public funds, without regard to religious affiliation.

The impact was immediate: The two religious schools at issue in the Carson case, Bangor Christian Schools and Temple Academy, said that they would decline state funds if, as Maine’s new law requires, accepting such funds would require them to change how they operate or alter their “admissions standards” to admit L.G.B.T.Q. students.

FWCS WORKER WAGE HIKES

FWCS board approves bus driver, custodian wage hikes

Pay hikes for FWCS bus drivers and custodians.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Fort Wayne Community Schools’ board voted unanimously to ratify a four-year collective bargaining agreement between FWCS and Teamsters Local 414 representing bus drivers.

Drivers’ wages will increase by 4% this year, consistent with teachers’ compensation. And the parties agreed to shorten the length of time needed for a driver to advance on the wage scale.

The board also unanimously approved an amendment to the three-year contract with Sodexo Services of Indiana. The agreement increases hourly rates for custodial staff for the upcoming school year.

CONTINUED DECLINE OF LOCAL HS GRADS GOING TO COLLEGE

Allen County mirrors statewide decline in high school grads going to college

Fewer Indiana high school graduates are going to college these days...

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

After years of incremental declines, the latest Indiana College Readiness Report found the college-going rate of the first high school class affected by the coronavirus pandemic fell to 53% – a 10% drop from the previous year.

The Indiana Commission for Higher Education released the findings this month. The rates reflect students enrolled in various programs, including those for certificates.

Virtual-only classes and COVID-19 protocols, such as vaccine and mask requirements, factored into students’ plans, local school officials said. At least one area superintendent predicts a rebound in college-going rates for this year, but he isn’t as optimistic for 2021 because it was even more affected by the pandemic.

“We had students making decisions based on school expectations,” said Park Ginder, Southwest Allen County Schools superintendent. “Here, you had to have a shot. Here, you had to have a shot and a mask. And we knew of kids who chose to stay home and work, maybe begin a career or pursue travel, in some cases. Not a lot, but in a few. We used to call that a gap year, but I might call it a COVID year.”

**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 every week except holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – June 20, 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.

Juneteenth, 2022.

From the Indiana State Museum.

The Emancipation Proclamation freed all enslaved people in the states and areas still active in the Confederacy as of Jan. 1, 1863.

While slaveholders tried to suppress word of emancipation, news moved quickly through the grapevine. This miniature copy of the preliminary version of the Emancipation Proclamation, part of the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection, was intended to help Union soldiers spread the word.

Even before the Proclamation, people freed themselves by reaching Union lines or territory, but many had to endure until Union troops arrived and backed the Proclamation with force.

#Juneteenth commemorates one of the last areas to be freed — Galveston, Texas — on June 19, 1865.

THIS WEEK

Articles of local interest cover topics, what parents want, usage of emergency relief funds, and new administrators.

We also report on a case before the Supreme Court and the New York Times praising a company's education plans that are no longer supported.


LOCAL EDUCATION NEWS

Most parents are happy with how their schools are operating ... They need to speak up about that

Local educator Phil Downs, wrote this oped for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. Dr. Downs, who taught in FWCS, served as a building level administrator in NACS, and a central office administrator in SACS, is currently the Director of Education Graduate Programs and Accreditation at Trine University.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

On Jan. 6, The Hechinger Report, an education news site, ran a story from the Nevada Independent by Neal Morten and Jackie Valley. The story, entitled “Who wants to lead America’s school districts? Anyone? Anyone?” detailed the rise in superintendent retirements from the typical 15% to 25% in 2021, as well as the difficulty in finding candidates to take their places.

Many in education were hoping that emerging from the pandemic would be a chance to return to the business of helping families educate and raise their children. Many hoped there would be a raised awareness of the economic value public schools provide to their communities. And many hoped for an acknowledgment of the historic efforts teachers made trying to maintain some sense of continuity for children.

Instead, the article shows that headlines of school shootings, politicized social issues and, especially, public scenes of bad behavior at board meetings were what was waiting and are causing many to rethink a career in education.

I see this concern in my students. As demoralizing as these stories have been, we need to note there is some hope buried below the headlines.

FWCS seeks not to waste federal emergency relief funds

FWCS plans how to use its emergency relief funding.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Fort Wayne Community Schools didn’t rush the budgeting process for its $158 million allocation of federal emergency relief.

The Indiana Department of Education released estimates for the last round of funding last spring, but FWCS was still developing spending plans as of six months ago, said Kathy Friend, FWCS chief financial officer. Shaped by the district’s top leaders and facilities personnel, the budget includes strategies to close educational gaps and upgrade buildings to better serve FWCS should another disease outbreak happen.

Friend said FWCS intends to spend every penny.

“We have a deliberate plan on how that’s going to get done,” she said.

Indiana’s COVID-19 relief school spending dashboard now offers more insight on how districts are using federal dollars meant to help schools prevent, prepare for and respond to the disease. The online resource has included spending categories – instruction, support services, operations and facilities – since late May.

NACS promotes principal to assistant superintendent

NACS, which named a new superintendent recently, promotes middle school principal, Bill Toler, to Assistant Superintendent.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The school board on Monday unanimously promoted Bill Toler from Maple Creek Middle School principal to assistant superintendent effective July 1. Board member Steve Bartkus was absent.

“Glad to have you, Bill,” board President Ron Felger said.

Toler replaces Gloria Shamanoff, who is retiring June 30 after 22 years in the role.

Toler is the second key administrator the board has hired this month. Last week, the five members approved Wayne Barker as superintendent. He will also start July 1.

MAINE PROVIDES VOUCHERS INSTEAD OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS

SCOTUS Takes on Vouchers

America's public schools are doing well, but what happens when a district isn't supported well enough by the state to provide public education for citizens? The US Supreme Court will rule on a plan in Maine where public money is sent to private schools in areas where public schools aren't available.

From Live Long and Prosper

The late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone spoke to the concept of the common good when he said...

That all citizens will be given an equal start through a sound education is one of the most basic, promised rights of our democracy. Our chronic refusal as a nation to guarantee that right for all children, including poor children, is a national disgrace. It is rooted in a kind of moral blindness, or at least a failure of moral imagination, that we do not see that meeting the most basic needs of so many of our children condemns them to lives and futures of frustration, chronic underachievement, poverty, crime and violence. It is a failure which threatens our future as a nation of citizens called to a common purpose, allied with one another in a common enterprise, tied to one another by a common bond. -- 3/31/2000

The primary mission of public schools is not to teach individual students what their parents want them to learn. It’s to prepare the next generation for the task of running our society. It's for the benefit of all of us...the common good.

A CHILD IS MORE THAN A TEST SCORE

A Puff Piece in the “New York Times” for a Failed Education Program

From Diane Ravitch

An economics and business writer at the New York Times named Peter Coy wrote an article titled “This Company Knows How to Increase Test Scores.” The article celebrates a study of a for-profit company called Bridge International Academies (renamed NewGlobe) that operates a large number of schools in Africa. Coy says the study by various American economists finds that the NewGlobe schools produce remarkable test score gains. What he doesn’t say is even more important. Civil society groups from across Africa and elsewhere urged the World Bank to stop investing in for-profit schools. The World Bank announced three months ago that it would no longer invest in the company praised in this article.

Coy begins:

Some of the world’s most successful educational techniques are being applied today in Kenya, Uganda, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda and India, in schools serving poor children that are run or advised by NewGlobe Schools, a company founded by Americans with headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. These techniques deserve to be applied more widely, including in wealthy nations such as the United States.

**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 every week except holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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